text stringlengths 0 100k |
|---|
ROBOTICS Star Kids Academy offers state of the art robotics classes for Elementary through Middle School students in the South Bay Area. We offer education in multiple Robotics hardware and software platforms to give children a well rounded experience in learning. Our philosophy is that children have a tremendous ability to learn when creativity, challenge, teamwork, and play are incorporated into the process. Our curriculum supports NGSS standards through STEM learning and is taught by instructors following ISTE teaching standards. RAISING CHILDREN FOR THE FUTURE Star Kids Academy is a 501c3 non profit organization dedicated to bringing social and global change through education. ROBOTICS PROGRAMMING DESIGN AND ENGINEERING Our Robotics Program uses the most up to date equipment and technology to educate children. We believe that a variety of robotics platforms is key for children to experience a rounded, valuable and sustainable educational experience. Our curriculum uses a variety of graphical programming softwares that teach fundamental concepts in programing that children can understand quickly and use for immediate results. Our summer programs focus on the design and engineering process. Children will get to design and engineer from a multitude of robotics platforms, concepts, and themes in our Summer Camp programs. REVIEWS "Soham indeed enjoyed a lot last year learning in your class. We sincerely appreciate your teachings and support to Soham last year. I will highly recommend your class to my other friends. Thanks, Sanjay (Parent)" "Our son, Daniel really enjoys his Jr Robotics at Meyerholz on Thursdays! I know he has learned a lot! -Lei (Parent) " "The Star Kids After School, is one of the most advanced robotics schools we have ever seen. Its exciting to see students get that kind of exposure to so many different platforms. Its very exciting. All the best, Will Huff Founder Robomodix, LLC" "Hi, My son Vincent loves your enrichment class at Nixon Elementary in Palo Alto. Please have him on your waiting list for the fall classes! Thanks, Roxana (Parent)" "Your class opened new horizons for my kid. My wife gained interest in robotics due to this class as well which landed her a new job as a robot handler! You guys do an awesome job, please keep robotics and coding available for kids. Thanks!! -Parent" "Loved the awesome exposure that my son got with robotics and programming. Hands on experience with different platforms was invaluable. Thanks for bringing this class to the library. A huge hit! -Parent" "My child really enjoyed Jr. Robotics. Would like to see this class come back again. Instructor was great and friendly. -Parent" "My two children greatly enjoyed the robotics class over the past two months. I as a parent have also enjoyed watching them experience coding, engineering, and robotics for the first time. We feel so lucky to have been able to attend such a wonderful program. -Parent" "This has been an awesome learning experience for my daughter. The teacher is very good with kids and encourages her. -Parent" "A great experience for my daughter that has helped her have a bit more patience. She is very enthusiastic about this program. -Parent" "Thank you for providing us the opportunity to avail of the scholarship and for enriching and broadening students' experiences. My children really enjoyed their first class with Mr. JD on Tuesday. -Parent" |
Israel’s GDP rose by an annualized 2.8% in the first quarter of 2013, up from 2.6% in the preceding quarter, the Central Bureau of Statistics reported Friday. The numbers, while not extraordinary, allayed fears that Israel could be headed for an economic slowdown. In addition, private consumption rose by an annualized 5.6% in the first quarter, after falling by half a percent in the preceding quarter. Private consumption per capita rose by 4% in the first quarter. Expenditure on durable goods per capita rose by an annualized 14% in the first quarter, including a 64% jump in expenditure on cars, after falling by 4% in the preceding quarter. Not everything was rosy, however. Business product growth slowed to an annualized 2% in the first quarter from 3.4% in the preceding quarter and 2.9% in the third quarter of 2012. The decline in investment in fixed assets worsened to an annualized 14.7% in the first quarter from 11% in the preceding quarter. |
From Tuesday December 6 ABC’s primary channel will be available in High Definition. New Year’s Eve fireworks will be the first major event in High Definition. Here’s all the details you will need, including retune info, thanks to ABC: Viewers with HD compatible TVs (with MPEG-4 functionality) will be able to experience ABC in spectacular HD, including this year’s New Year’s Eve fireworks. Viewers without an HD compatible television will still be able to continue to watch ABC in standard definition on channel 2 and 21. To accommodate the HD upgrade there is a minor change which will impact ABC News 24. ABC News 24 will change from HD to SD (whilst remaining on channel number 24). So viewers who previously couldn’t receive ABC News 24 (because they didn’t have an HD TV set) , will be able to watch ABC News 24 following this change in December. You may need to re-tune your TV sets to be able to receive ABC HD and ABC News 24. As part of this update we have changed ABC News 24 to a standard definition playout. This remains on channel 24, but because it converted from the old HD to SD, some viewers who previously couldn’t access it will now be able to do so. ABC stays on 2 and 21 and stays in standard definition format. ABC HD is new on 20 in the new HD (MPEG-4) format ABC2 stays on 22 and stays in standard definition format. ABC ME stays on 23 and stays in standard definition format. ABC News 24 stays on 24 and will now be in standard definition format. You may need to retune your TV to get ABC HD. All TVs are different. Your TV instruction manual will give you specific instructions on how to retune. Usually it’s as simple as the following process: Turn on your TV On the TV remote control, click on the MENU button On your TV screen look for the SET UP, CONFIGURATION or TUNING option and select it Then look for AUTO TUNE or RESCAN option and select it. Then wait for it to fully initiate The retune process should take about 4 – 5 minutes to scan for all available channels After the retune, you will find all ABC channels in the same place, but you should additionally find ABC HD when you go to channel 20. If channel 20 isn’t appearing or appears faulty (audio only), it means your TV isn’t HD MPEG-4 compatible. ABC News 24 is HD broadcast using MPEG-2, where the new ABC HD will be an upgrade to the HD and uses MPEG-4. If you can see ABC News 24 before the change, but can’t see ABC HD on channel 20 after retuning your television, this probably means that your TV is not MPEG-4 compatible. Most TV sets, set top boxes, PVRs and Freeview devices purchased from 2009 onwards will be compatible. Foxtel: At this stage ABC HD will be available for cable customers only. It will be on Foxtel channel number 202. Phone 1300 222 4388 for more help. Refer: ABC is changing to HD Related |
We’ve featured televangelist Jim Bakker on this site many times over the years, but younger readers may not be familiar with the scandal that led to his downfall a couple of decades ago. In 1989, Bakker was sentenced to prison on charges of mail fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy. He bilked his followers of millions of dollars, never delivered on his promises to them, and ended up in jail for five years (and that’s only because he was let out early). He’s still a con artist in many ways, trying to sell giant buckets of food to Christians who believe the End Times are coming… despite no evidence of the End Times ever coming. That’s why you won’t be surprised to learn Bakker has no remorse for what he did. He doesn’t accept blame for anything. In fact, he says, it’s the people who put him in jail who are the enemies. And on a recent episode of his show, the truly magnanimous Bakker said they’re the ones who needed to be forgiven. And the last thing I had to before I got out of prison, I had to forgive everybody! From my heart! Wow. That was the hard one. I prayed for ’em every single day. The judge, all the people who put me in prison, and there’d be days when I didn’t feel like praying for ’em, and I’d read their name to God… but He said, “What was that Scripture? What does it say? ‘Forgive from your heart’.” Forgiving the people who put you in jail is an incredible thing to do when you’re innocent. When you’re exonerated from death row after several decades because the DNA evidence proves you didn’t do whatever you were convicted of, forgiving your captors is a remarkable act. Bakker wasn’t innocent. And the people who fought for justice against him did nothing wrong. What Bakker did makes as much sense as stealing someone’s car, then telling the driver it’s okay because she didn’t know any better. Forget forgiveness. Bakker ought to be apologizing to all the Christians whose money he stole on false pretenses. Instead, he’s acting like a victim, as if the world owes him for the crimes he committed. (Thanks to Jay for the link) |
One theme that continues to hold true throughout the process of evaluating this wide receiver group: Day 2 will be loaded with potential longtime NFL players. You can argue that the top of this class isn’t filled with high-end No. 1 wideouts; it’s a fair point to raise, but there’s no getting around how many quality future contributors exist in this crop. Among that group is Western Kentucky’s Taywan Taylor. The compact 5-foot-11, 203-pound wideout enters the NFL coming off back-to-back 17-touchdown seasons, with 1,467 and 1,730 yards in each. He’s a proven big play threat, popping off over 17 yards per reception over the last two years. Taylor backed up his explosive ability by running a 4.5 in the 40-yard dash, and shining in the three-cone drill and broad jump. Taywan Taylor often goes undiscussed among the group of top-10 wide receivers in the 2017 NFL Draft, but his Reception Perception begs us to believe that he belongs up there. He’s an easy prospect to like. Alignment and target data Alabama, Vanderbilt, Louisiana Tech, Old Dominion, North Texas, Louisiana Tech Throughout this series, we’ve made it a point to note when a wide receiver played on one side of the field at an extraordinary rate. Taywan Taylor falls into this category. The Western Kentucky senior took a whopping 82.5 percent of the snaps logged in his Reception Perception sample on the right side of the field. Taylor did experiment some with playing inside, taking 14.6 percent of his snaps from the slot. Otherwise, he rarely played outside left (1.6 percent) or lined up in the backfield (1.3 percent). While mostly operating at right wideout, Taylor alternated between the flanker and split end positions, with 57.4 percent of his snaps coming behind the line of scrimmage and 42.6 percent on the line. While it’s nice to see Taylor have experience lining up at all three receiver positions, given what we know in a limited sample size of players who primarily played on one side of the field in college, it’s fair to have questions about his ability to translate right away as a rookie. The fact that he played at such a low-level of competition does not ease worries. However, it’s encouraging that Taylor was the clear engine of his team’s passing game. A true target hog when he was on the field, Taylor saw a pass go his way on 36 percent of his routes run over the sampled games. He didn’t waste opportunities in posting a 68.5 catch rate, as well. Success Rate vs. Coverage Taywan Taylor’s athletic ability is apparent when watching him and he helped underscore that with his performance at the NFL Scouting Combine. He tested in the 81st percentile for NFL athletes in SPARQ, per Three Sigma Athlete. Those players, especially smaller shifty ones, have something of an advantage when it comes to earning separation. Yet, strong understanding of timing will always be the biggest assist. Reception Perception shows that Taylor has plenty of both. With a 73.4 percent success rate vs. man coverage, Taylor falls along the 74th percentile among prospects charted over the last two seasons. Taylor’s score also proved the fifth-best among receivers in the 2017 draft. An easy and natural separator, Taylor is a chore to cover one on one. Plenty of agility integrated into his well-timed cuts make him a difficult task for opposing corners. Truth be told, he’s still something of a work in progress technique-wise, but shows just enough ability when mixed with his physical traits to win at the college level. Taylor only saw limited reps against press coverage, with 33 attempts overall. Yet, his success rate of 75.8 percent was a stellar result. It was the third-best in this class, trailing only Carlos Henderson and Isaiah Ford. Unlike his work against man and press coverage, Taylor came in under the Reception Perception average with a 75.7 percent success rate facing zones. While not a painfully poor score, falling in the 45th percentile, it’s possible that Taylor’s touch and go technique influenced his zone success rate. It’s hard to imagine Taylor not finding some role in the NFL and proving a successful long term asset. However, if he does indeed hone the craftsman portion of the game and his technical prowess does not wane drive-to-drive, there’s a path to a high-end starter ready for him to walk. Route Data We clearly see Taywan Taylor’s overall success rate vs. coverage scores paint the picture of a player who has a solid NFL future down the line. In breaking his scores down on a route-by-route basis, the full image of how he wins as a receiver comes into focus. The three routes that Taylor ran at an above average rate were the post, curl and out. The curl is of particular note, as it is often one of the key patterns to capitalizing in the short game for traditional deep threats. With the ability to earn cushion or additional space due to their vertical ability, speed receivers can assist their quarterback with the benefit of easy chunk throws with high usage on curl routes. In terms of the vertical game, it’s rather surprising to see Taylor check in with just 12.8 percent of his charted routes falling under the “nine” branch. Perhaps Western Kentucky was less inclined to use him on straight-line deep routes due to a lack of confidence their passers could hit those throws, because Taylor’s speed should be respected on such a route. Overall, Taylor’s route tree percentage chart is one of the more balanced in the class, with five branches checking within the two-year prospect average. Perhaps that catches some by surprise due to the level of conference he played in, but Taylor has experience executing a variety of route concepts. With that in mind, his success rate chart becomes that much more impressive. Again, speaking to the curl route, this particular concept came with his highest success rate vs. coverage score at 83.3 percent. Taylor certainly shows the ability to sell the vertical pattern before snapping back to face his signal caller. His performance on the curl, in addition to a strong 80.6 percent success rate on slant routes will unlock the short and intermediate sections of the field in addition to what he can offer in the deep portions. It does appear that Western Kentucky left something on the table when it comes to Taylor’s ability as a straight-line vertical threat. Despite running the nine-route at a below average clip, Taylor’s 73.1 percent success rate checks in above the 90th percentile. His NFL team will no doubt find him more useful as a vertical playmaker than even his collegiate squad, where he already averaged over 16 yards per reception in his time with the program. We did note that Taylor has some work to do as a technician and the routes in which he has some of his worst success rates exemplify that issue. The post, curl, and dig all check in below the two-year prospect average. The dig is a route that requires pristine footwork and consistency to earn separation when in one-on-one coverage. There’s work left to do for Taylor on that pattern. The diminutive receiver could also serve himself well by adding a repertoire of head fakes to his arsenal to leave cornerbacks hesitating at the breakpoint of the corners and posts. Should Taylor, in time, iron out some of the detail-level concerns, we may well have a complete receiver on out hands. His performance on the nuanced out route—not to be overlooked considering his route percentage was over the class average—gives hope that more technical acumen is within his range of outcomes. Ancillary Metrics While you’d expect a player of Taywan Taylor’s build and profile to be a dynamo after the catch but weak in traffic, the Senior wideout proves almost the opposite. Taylor was “in space” on 12.3 percent of his routes, which is above the two-year charted average. He broke a single tackle on just 40 percent of those plays, which is a below average rate. Taylor won’t consistently make the first defender miss and he went down on first contact on 48 percent of his attempts. However, he does have the ability to break long runs after the catch, as his multiple broken tackle rate of 12 percent is above the two-year prospect average. While he checks in as solid if unspectacular after the catch, Taylor is one of the top prospects in traffic. Despite being under 6-foot-0, Taylor’s 76.9 contested catch conversion rate falls along the 87th percentile among Reception Perception draft prospects. Weight and arm length can often be more important for receivers than height when winning the ball in the air, and Taylor checks in at the 54th and 68th percentile, respectively, for both, per Mockdraftable. Yet, while physical traits can be an asset in the contested catch game, mindset and mentality are often the trump cards for shorter receivers. Taylor has that aggressive approach in spaces and it’s one of the primary reasons he is a “small receiver who plays big.” Again, that’s not what we’d expect from a receiver of Taywan Taylor’s perceived archetpye, but that’s why studying how a player actually plays on film will forever be important. We must always be open to expecting the unexpected. Moving Forward Plenty of prospects offer intrigue on the second day of the draft. So much so that it feels as if Taywan Taylor just doesn’t get his proper due. Everything in his Reception Perception profile speaks to a wide receiver who will translate to the pro game, and have a long successful career as a rotational player, at worst. If he enjoyed a Torrey Smith-like career, no one should be surprised. Of course, we also see with a pristine success rate vs. man and press coverage, in conjunction with a stellar contested catch conversion rate, that perhaps there’s more of a star-studded path for Taylor to stroll down. Should he land with the proper team we could see a situation much like what unfolded with T.Y. Hilton a few years back come to pass. The former Florida international star went in the third-round of the NFL draft with little fanfare back in 2012. Through years of a symbiotic relationship developing alongside his excellent quarterback, Hilton eventually grew his talents into that of a top target on his offense. Naturally, this is an aggressive projection for the career of Taywan Taylor. Nevertheless, Reception Perception indicates through several of its key metrics that it is a destiny Taylor could certainly fulfill. If you’re interested in more Reception Perception analysis, make sure to visit our Reception Perception pages for college prospect evaluations and pre-order The Ultimate Draft Kit for access to 50 NFL players’ full data this summer. You can keep up with all of the work using the #ReceptionPerception hashtag on Twitter. |
If I was a Detroit Lions fan, I'd be screaming for referee blood about that.Picking up that flag on a FLAGRANT pass interference by Dallas in the fourth quarter was the worse call... or non-call... the NFL has seen since... well... since the non-call on the botched field goal attempt in the Giants/ 49ers playoff game ages ago.Shocking. Really shocking.The Lions could still have won the game. They did lots to blow it afterward, from penalties of their own (none as flagrant, none picked up) to blown coverages to a shanked punt and a fumble. But still... Detroit could well have locked up the victory on that drive, the play was textbook pass interference, the penalty needed to stand. The defender mugged the tight end.One for the books. |
Meet the Tigeca, also known as the Tiger Seal hybrid. This is the second animal hybrid request for the Livestream , which took me way to long to draw because of a lack of free time (and going on vacation). I livestreamed the first hours drawing this creature but soon learned that my pc can't handle high resolution drawing and livestreaming at the same time. So until I have a new pc I sadly won't be able to livestream my drawings any more. I will still take drawing requests though. The fact that I finished this drawing means there is room again for a new request. Keep your eyes on the livestream if you are interested in this! Request from the 29th of June Requested by: Moe_lesturr and Onecat Basic Information --- Behaviour: By nature the Tigeca are very curious animals and tend to use their claws to test out everything they find interesting. Therefore they are considered highly dangerous. Even though the Tigeca are curious animals they usually avoid other Tigeca. Only during the mating season the males become very territorial and will fight any other male for the right to mate. These fights often have devastating consequences for the losing party and can result in death. Female Tigeca are highly aggressive towards other animals when with cubs. The Tigeca are very adept swimmers and can hold their breath for up to 30 minutes. Besides being good swimmers they can run up to 65 km/h in short bursts. The cubs usually are very playful and gentle to one another. Habitat: Most Tigeca usually live in the lower parts of mountains and nearby rocky rivers. They prefer areas with trees over open areas. Tigeca live in areas where temperatures can change from -15 and 35 °C between winter and summer. Diet: Tigeca are carnivores. Because of their relatively small jaws Tigeca can have trouble hunting large animals and therefore usually hunt animals smaller than themselves. Tigeca are very opportunistic hunters though and will try to catch anything within their reach. They can be very patient and often use their underwater skills to wait for prey. If during mating season a male dies Tigeca are known to eat the deceased Tigeca. Tigeca also sometimes steal carcasses from other predators. Appearance and maintenance: During spring, summer and autumn the Tigeca have a greyish fur with black stripes and an almost white belly. During the winter the grey fur of the Tigeca will adept and get a snow white color. Tigeca keep their fur healthy and clean by licking it and swimming frequently. They keep their claws in a good condition by scratching trees and rocks. Both males and females can vary in total length from 250 to 340 cm and can weigh between 100 to 280 kg. The stripes of the Tigeca are unique for every individual. Cubs are born without stripes but within 4 months they will have a full set of stripes. Characteristic for the Tigeca is that their tail splits into two ends. Reproduction and lifespan: Tigeca usually mate between November and February and gestation takes about 104 days. A litter can range between 2 and 4 cubs. Cubs are born blind and weigh between 650 to 1350 g. They open their eyes after 7 to 11 days. The mother takes care of the cubs on her own and provides them with shelter in a den often found in rocky crevice or caves. If found alone male Tigeca may kill and eat the cubs. Because of the highly aggressive females, males and other predators never attempt this when the cubs are in her company. Thanks to this ferocity the mortality rate of Tigeca cubs is only 20% in the first year. Cubs are adept hunters at 11 months and are considered mature after 2 years. After their first year the mother rejects her cubs and the cubs live another year together before they become completely independent. The oldest ever known Tigeca was 28. |
What happens when self-driving cars gets into an accident? Alphabet’s self driving car division Waymo has been testing its fleet of robot cars in four states across the country — Washington, California, Arizona, and Texas — and it has started to work with local law enforcement agencies and first responders to figure out what to do after a collision and create new protocols. That includes what a fully driverless car should do when it hears a siren coming toward it — yes, Waymo driverless cars can hear — as well as how police officers, or first responders can access the cars in emergency situations. In a new 43-page report (pdf) that Waymo published Thursday, the company detailed some of its efforts to respond to (and avoid) collisions. Those efforts can be broken up into three parts: How the cars stop in unsafe working conditions; how the cars respond to sirens/emergency vehicles; and what happens after an accident. The fallback system All fully self-driving cars will have to be able to pull over safely in the event of a collision or a system failure. Put simply, if a car is completely driverless there won’t be a safety driver to take back manual control of the vehicle so the system will have to know when to stop and recalibrate. Sometimes, stopping won’t be necessary. If it’s a system failure, the back up sensors, computers, brakes and power sources will automatically kick in. The software in the car will be able to determine if a sensor or another part of the system is failing or if driving conditions become too difficult like during a snow storm. This is also the case during a collision. The car will automatically detect the accident and find a place to stop. Post-crash communications Once the car automatically detects a crash, it will send that information to Waymo’s remote operating centers. That team will then send specialists to the location as needed but will also communicate with local law enforcement. Since there isn’t a driver and the car is equipped with hardware and other technology, Waymo has been conducting on-site training with some of the local police departments in the cities where it’s testing cars. The company is teaching police and first responders how to recognize and then access a self-driving car. “We plan to continue conducting these on-site trainings, while expanding the scope of the training program as our vehicles become more capable and our operational design domain expands,” the report reads. Hearing sirens By working with the police department in Chandler, AZ, for example, Waymo has been able to train its cars to yield, pull over, or stop when it hears or sees sirens. This is obviously helpful in situations when these emergency vehicles are trying to quickly get to the scene of a crash. The car will hear the sirens and move out of the way. But it’s also important for when Waymo’s self-driving cars themselves get into an accident. Using audio data, the cars are able to detect what direction the emergency vehicles are coming from. This helps the cars respond efficiently and safely. “Our sensors collected samples at various speeds, distances, and angles—building up a library of sights and sounds that will help our vehicles respond safely to emergency vehicles on the road,” the report reads. |
Nigeria now reports 38 confirmed monkeypox cases The number of confirmed monkeypox cases in Nigeria has risen to 38 in eight states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) as of Nov. 2, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC). This is up from nine confirmed cases reported Oct. 27. Since the onset of the outbreak, a total of 116 suspected cases have been recorded from 20 States and the FCT; no death attributable to Monkeypox has been recorded so far. Of these, 38 laboratory confirmed cases from Akwa Ibom, Bayel sa, Delta, Edo, Ekiti, Enugu, Lagos, Rivers and FCT. All other suspected cases reported from other States are being investigated. Monkeypox is a zoonotic disease indigenous to Central Africa. In humans, the disease is similar to smallpox, though milder. According to the CDC, the symptoms of monkeypox are as follows: About 12 days after people are infected with the virus, they will get a fever, headache, muscle aches, and backache; their lymph nodes will swell; and they will feel tired. One to 3 days (or longer) after the fever starts, they will get a rash. This rash develops into raised bumps filled with fluid and often starts on the face and spreads, but it can start on other parts of the body too. The bumps go through several stages before they get crusty, scab over, and fall off. The illness usually lasts for 2 to 4 weeks. Rodents, such as rope squirrels, door mice and pouched rats, are the suspected reservoir hosts, with monkeys and humans as secondary, spill-over hosts. People at risk for monkeypox are those who get bitten by an infected animal or if you have contact with the animal’s rash, blood or body fluids. It can also be transmitted person to person through respiratory or direct contact and contact with contaminated bedding or clothing. There is no specific treatment for monkeypox. Related: |
Photo: TEPCO Advertisement Over the past several weeks, workers at Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have started the first big task in the 40-year process of decommissioning the plant. On the top floor of reactor building 4, workers have begun removing the 1533 fuel assemblies from the spent fuel pool. The operation is expected to be completed by the end of 2014. During the crisis at the plant in March 2011, a tsunami knocked out power and triggered meltdowns in reactors 1, 2, and 3. Reactor 4 was shut down for maintenance and refueling at the time of the accident, which meant that all of its fuel rods were stored in the building's spent fuel pool. When an explosion rocked the reactor 4 building on March 15, experts worried that the blast had damaged the pool and that water was leaking out, leaving the nuclear fuel exposed to the air. Since the spent fuel pools aren't shielded by heavy concrete or steel structures, such exposure would release a great deal of radiation into the environment. While it was eventually determined that the reactor 4 pool did not lose water, experts continued to worry that the pool was no longer structurally sound. TEPCO, the utility that owns the Fukushima Daiichi plant, therefore reinforced the building, and made it a priority to empty that pool. The process, shown in the video below, involves first lowering a cask into the pool. Then the fuel assemblies are lifted one at a time and placed in the submerged cask. These transport casks, which contain shielding to block the nuclear fuel's radiation, are then lowered to a truck and brought to a common pool in a more secure and intact building. TEPCO has completed two rounds of this operation, bringing a total of 44 assemblies to the common pool. They have 68 more trips to go. |
Suspended AAP leader Kapil Mishra, who has leveled corruption charges against Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, said that he will expose another ‘big truth’ on Friday. The former Delhi water minister, in a tweet, said he will provide the “evidences” at the press conference. “Sabhi AAP vidhayak saathiyon se nivedan, aaj ki PC zarur dekhein (I request all AAP MLAs and friends to watch today’s Press Conference). I will be revealing a big truth at 11 am with evidences,” Mishra said in a tweet. सभी AAP विधायक साथियों से निवेदन, आज की PC जरूर देखें। I will be revealing a big truth at 11 am with evidences. — Kapil Mishra (@KapilMishraAAP) May 19, 2017 Mishra promised the “biggest ever expose” on CM Arvind Kejriwal at 11 am on Friday. He further went on to say that the expose will prove AAP’s “nexus with hawala operators.” In a tweet he said, “…kal subha 9 baje karunga AK ke sabse bade jhooth ka pardafaash (Will reveal biggest lie by Arvind Kejriwal tomorrow at 9 am).” Advertising Mishra, who ended his “indefinite hunger strike” against Kejriwal earlier this week, approached CBI on Tuesday to submit “evidence” of corruption against him. The axed AAP minister claimed that he has submitted “irrefutable proof” against Kejriwal and two AAP MLAs over their alleged links with several fake companies. “A person who came riding on the promise to fight the country’s corrupt political system, to fight elections using donations from small sources, stands exposed today. He has attempted to run the AAP using black money,” Mishra had said. AAP sacked Mishra over two weeks ago after he alleged that Kejriwal had taken money from Delhi health minister Satyendra Jain and also raised allegations that the Delhi CM interfered in water tanker scam investigations. Mishra, at a presser last week also raised allegations of “massive financial irregularities” at AAP and claimed the party had lied to the Election Commission, laundered money through shell companies and had concealed donations from public. Jain has in turn filed defamation charges against Mishra and BJP-SAD MLA Manjinder S Sirsa in Delhi’s Tiz Hazari Court. AAP has disregarded Mishra’s claims with Deputy CM Manish Sisodia calling them as “baseless”. The party has also alleged that Mishra is acting on instructions from opposition parties. |
David Hecker/Getty Images Engineering majors top the list of highest paying degrees. Students who study chemical engineering as undergraduates will, on average, make the most money of any college major over their lifetimes, earning more than $US2 million, according to a new study from The Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution. The report — titled “Major Decisions: What Graduates Earn Over Their Lifetimes” — tracks data from the Census Bureau to determine which college majors yield the largest financial rewards over a graduate’s lifetime. Unsurprisingly, engineering degrees topped the list, while education and arts majors were found closer to the bottom. However, as The Washington Post notes, “these rankings exclude people with graduate degrees, which leaves out doctors, lawyers, and professors,” which explains the potentially low ranking of majors that traditionally go on to law school or medical school. Overall though, the report reaffirms the importance and value of a college degree — according to the findings, a typical bachelor’s degree graduate will earn $US1.19 million over their lifetime, around twice what the typical high school graduate earns. Here’s The Hamilton Project’s chart of median lifetime earnings by college major, in millions of dollars: Read the full report on college major lifetime earnings at The Hamilton Project >> Business Insider Emails & Alerts Site highlights each day to your inbox. Email Address Join Follow Business Insider Australia on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. |
ADVERTISEMENT The Republican Party has over-learned the lessons of the outrageously damaging 2012 presidential nomination calendar, and today, it passed a raft of new rules designed to, as Zeke Miller writes, tighten control over the process. It's about money, he writes. When Mitt Romney became the all-but-certain GOP nominee, his fundraising was tapped out, having been used to destroy the likes of Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, and by rules he could not use general election money until he was officially nominated in August. That allowed the Democrats to pound Romney for several months, to define him as a corporatist, out-of-touch meanie, without the Romney campaign having the money to respond on television. By holding the convention in June, the Democrats won the power play. The financial imbalance, as difficult as it was, hurt Mitt Romney much less than the epigastric circus of the primary season itself. For months, every new debate produced a new front-runner. Occasionally, manifestly unqualified Republicans were held up as the possible nominee: Michelle Bachmann, the congresswoman from Minnesota, being among them, along with (alleged) serial sexual harasser Herman Cain, the pizza company mogul. The party's own effort to incorporate and harness the energy of the Tea Party movement created the noose that hung the nominee when he eventually had to face the rest of the electorate. The GOP looked crazy and unserious. And Romney had to pander to keep up. So the new process does several things: 1. It takes power away from state parties, many of which, including the all-important Iowa Republican Party, are controlled by Tea Party activists. It centralizes power in the Republican National Committee. States that want to jump ahead will face serious penalties. (Of course, the nominee could always move to restore the delegates taken away from the penalized states at the convention.) 2. It increases the threshold for earning delegates, which will help GOP candidates who can win in larger states, and will penalize those who hold to a small-state strategy. It also makes the larger states much more valuable than they currently are. 3. It shortens the period of time between contests, which means that candidates who unexpectedly win a state won't have as much time to bask in the free media that accompanies it. 4. It reduces the amount of money that serious candidates have to raise for the primaries, allowing them to focus more on general election fundraising. 5. It marginalizes movement conservatives in smaller states by effectively writing them out of the process. The end result is that the party has conspired to nominate the most electable conservative candidate and quickly. Challengers must prove themselves much earlier. Deep pockets and good field organizations will become more important relative to free media generated by tactical maneuvers and conservative radio hosts. |
Why do we never hear about acid rain anymore? Did it just go away? Back in the 1980s, when the Lantern herself was just a little penlight, acid rain was the environmental scourge of the day. Canada’s environmental minister proclaimed it an “insidious malaria of the biosphere“; it menaced the Transformers; it turned Kimberly’s hair bright green in an episode of Diff’rent Strokes. Toxic precipitation fell off the radar in 1990, when Congress passed an amendment to the Clean Air Act calling for major reductions in the types of emissions that lead to acid rain. Emissions have dropped significantly since then, but the problem is far from gone. Acid rain occurs when sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides—gases released by the burning of fossil fuel—form acidic compounds in the atmosphere.These fall back to earth in rain, snow, or sleet or as dry particles or gases. (At high altitudes and along coastlines, bits of acid suspended in clouds or fog pose an additional threat.) Back in acid rain’s heyday as a public menace, scientists focused on how it wrecked lakes and streams, making the water toxic to fish and other organisms and threatening sensitive tree populations like the red spruce in the Northeast mountains. In later years, they began to understand how acidification can also cause imbalances in soil chemistry, exacerbating problems for watersheds and plant life. To prevent all this, the Clean Air Act amendments required that power plants make significant cuts on sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides emissions, which they did by installing “scrubbers” in their smokestacks and switching to low-sulfur coal. Cap-and-trade programs—like the ones that we may soon institute for carbon—came online in 1995 for sulfur dioxide and 2003 for nitrogen oxides. Vehicles, which emit large amounts of nitrogen oxides, were also becoming cleaner thanks to the introduction of catalytic convertors in the mid-1970s. The results of these effortswere dramatic: According to the National Emissions Inventory, sulfur dioxide emissions from all sources fell from nearly 26 million tons in 1980 to 11.4 million tons in 2008. Nitrogen oxides decreased from 27 million tons to 16.3 million tons in the same time frame. Problem solved, right? Not so fast. Rain in the eastern United States is still relatively acidic. As you can see on this map from 2007, most rainwater in the region has a pH level between 4.3 and 4.8. (In the late 1970s and early 1980s, annual averages in the East were closer to 4.0.) According to Gary Lovett of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, the natural pH level for rainwater in the region would be around 5.2. That might not seem like a big difference, but remember that pH is a logarithmic scale, not a linear one, so something with a pH level of 4 is 10 times more acidic than something with a pH level of 5. In short, much of the rainwater in the East is between 2.5 and eight times more acidic than it should be. Meanwhile, surface waters are showing slow signs of recovery, but not in all areas. In the Adirondacks and Northern Appalachians, one-third of the bodies of water deemed acidic in the early 1990s can now be taken off that list, according to a 2004 EPA-funded report (PDF). There are now 70 percent fewer acidic lakes and streams in Wisconsin and Michigan than there were 1984. However, the report found no changes in New England or the Valley and Ridge and Blue Ridge provinces of Virginia, two other areas with a history of acid-rain damage. Decades of industrial pollution have also compromised the soil in some areas—which might under other circumstances buffer local trees, lakes, and streams from the harmful effects of acid rain. (Healthy soil provides alkaline components, primarily calcium, that neutralize the acid.) Interest in acid rain seems to be experiencing an uptick in the last few years. The EPA issued the Clean Air Interstate Rule in 2005, which set even lower emissions caps for power plants in the eastern United States. (The rule was tossed out by a federal appeals court last summer but has been temporarily reinstated until the EPA can draft a replacement.) The EPA is also currently reviewing its secondary air-quality standards for sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides—i.e., those that address “public welfare,” including ecological damage, as opposed the ones pertaining directly to human health. And in Congress, Sens. Tom Carper, D-Del., and Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., have teamed up to present a bill that would call for even further reductions of SO 2 and NOx—as well as mercury—from coal-fired power plants. A recent joint report (PDF) from the Nature Conservancy and the Cary Institute also stressed the importance of setting and implementing critical loads for SO 2 and NOx, as well as establishing more comprehensive, integrated air pollution monitoring systems. Still, efforts to reduce emissions of acid rain precursors in the United States don’t do much to solve the problem in countries on the other side of the globe. In 2005, China was the biggest emitter of sulfur dioxide in the world, sending up about 25.5 million tons. Beijing did recently announce that, by next year, the country would reduce SO 2 emissions by 10 percent from those 2005 levels. Two-and-a-half million tons is more than an acid raindrop in the bucket, so at least that’s a step in the right direction.* Is there an environmental quandary that’s been keeping you up at night? Send it to ask.the.lantern@gmail.com, and check this space every Tuesday. *Correction, Aug. 18, 2009: The original sentence read “two-and-a-half tons.” |
0 Not even the great Ian McKellen has as much nerd clout as Max von Sydow has at this point. Following the iconic Swedish actor and frequent Ingmar Bergman collaborator’s casting in J.J. Abrams‘s Star Wars: The Force Awakens, HBO announced today that von Sydow has been cast in Game of Thrones Season 6 in a major role that fans of George R.R. Martin‘s tomes will be very familiar with. What’s his character, you ask? None other than the Three-Eyed Raven, the mystical and powerful mentor to Bran Stark, who will return in a big way for the upcoming, insanely anticipated Season 6. No fair spilling the beans as to what the character will have in store for Bran and the whole of Westeros as the White Walkers continue their long march into the lands, but its fair enough to say that they picked the right stately yet effortlessly forceful presence to embody the Three-Eyed Raven. This, of course, follows the news that Ian McShane, of Deadwood and, more recently, Ray Donovan fame, has also been cast in a major role in Game of Thrones, though his character is far more mysterious and could possibly be a creation of the series rather than Martin. Some rumors have suggested that McShane may play the Mad King in flashbacks but these are baseless to say the least, as exciting as that prospect might be. Regardless, these two names add quite a lot of legitimacy to a series denoted largely by its rampant cursing, extensive and occasionally egregious violence, rape, and fire-breathing dragons that answer to an admittedly pretty intimidating white lady. a Rafflecopter giveaway |
Jeff Bridges as "The Giver" (The Weinstein Co.) ) -- Conservatives are praising “ The Giver ,” a film depicting a futuristic society that has eliminated both personal freedom and human emotion, as a warning against the temptations of utopianism. “It’s refreshing to see Hollywood produce a cautionary tale that demonstrates the danger and sadness inherent in relying on government to protect us from all unpleasantness,” former Sen. Jim DeMint, now president of the Heritage Foundation, told CNSNews.com. “’The Giver’ demonstrates how even well-intended government can wind up crushing individual freedoms, turning utopian dreams into dystopian reality. This is a well-made and thought-provoking film,” DeMint added. Produced by Walden Media, directed by Phillip Noyce, and starring Hollywood A-listers Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep, Katie Holmes and Taylor Swift, the film is based on Lois Lowry’s 1993 Newbery Award-winning novel of the same name. Syndicated columnist Cal Thomas described the film, which was released August 15, as “’Brave New World’ meets ‘The Matrix’ with a dash of ‘The Stepford Wives’ thrown in.” The movie depicts a rigidly repressive society that has attempted to eliminate all of the human distinctions that lead to conflict. Everyone dresses alike, and ubiquitous cameras observe every interaction. Children are not raised by their biological parents, but by family units assigned to them. Jobs are chosen by the elders. But when Jonas, the film’s main character played by Brenton Thwaites, is assigned to be “The Receiver” of the society’s institutional memory from “The Giver,” played by Jeff Bridges, he soon discovers that “they hadn’t eliminated murder, they had brought it home. They had just called it by a different name.” “I tried to make Jonas’s world seem familiar, comfortable, and safe, and I tried to seduce the reader. I seduced myself along the way,” Lowry said in her Newbery acceptance speech. “It did feel good, that world. I got rid of all the things I fear and dislike; all the violence, prejudice, poverty, and injustice, and I even threw in good manners as a way of life because I liked the idea of it.” Meryl Streep as an elder in "The Giver" (The Weinstein Co.) But Bruce Edward Walker, who blogs at the Acton Institute Power Blog, told CNSNews.com that he found the “monochromatic” world Lowry created in “The Giver” even more unsettling than the dystopia featured in the popular “Hunger Games”. “The insidious nature of ‘The Giver’s’ Potemkin village is far creepier because it forces all of the individuals to adhere to specific behavior. At least Katniss had the ability to exercise her free will when she was able to jump in and save her little sister.” The film “brilliantly depicts Jonas’ nominal father, who is so totally inured to this futuristic utopian society that he doesn’t even recognize natural law,” he added. “He’s the perfect government apparatchik.” The film "very subtly refers to religion” as the real answer to life’s vicissitudes, he added. “But the religion theme never clubs you over the head.” Instead, the film "slyly holds the faith card up its sleeve before sliding it across the viewers’ consciousness." Asked to explain the popularity of dystopian books and movies, Walker replied: “As government becomes more and more pervasive, people are turning to dystopian literature to deal with it. ” |
NHL Expansion Draft: The trade deadline has come and gone, and although it was relatively quiet, we saw plenty of movement that affects June’s Expansion Draft. We’ll explore the new landscape over the next few days in this five-part series looking at each division, and finish up with yet another 30-man Vegas Golden Knights roster projection. With the March 1st trade deadline come and gone, the focus now turns to the Stanley Cup Playoffs, an NHL expansion draft in June, and the NHL Entry Draft just days later. The next few months promise to be very exciting for hockey fans alike. Top teams will compete for a chance to raise Lord Stanley. Those who miss the playoffs will be looking forward to a top lottery pick in the draft. And the Vegas Golden Knights will officially join the league as the NHL’s 31st franchise. It’s been 17 years since the league last expanded back in 2000. It was still a very different NHL in that pre-lockout era. The rules were strict and prospect pools were not nearly as rich as they’re today. In turn, the Columbus Blue Jackets and Minnesota Wild were treated to a team of aging veterans and were essentially forced to build from the ground up themselves. The Vegas Golden Knights shouldn’t have that problem. The NHL is determined to give George McPhee and company a much more competitive club from day one. With the looser rules, a focus towards drafting/developing the last 15 years, and an overall deeper talent pool (no more 4th line enforcers), Las Vegas has a chance to a build a serious contender early on in their existence. As expected, the trade deadline offered a lot of movement that directly affects the NHL expansion draft. Over the next few days, we’re gonna to take a look at those changes in a five-part series featuring all four divisions. We’ll finish things off with a 30-man projected roster for the Vegas Golden Knights. Let’s start by looking at the Eastern Conference’s Metropolitan Division. |
The crew tasked with demolishing the Holy Family Church in the northern German town of Barmstedt arrived bright and early and began by removing the baptismal font. Next, a bulldozer moved in and knocked down the main church hall and the bell tower. In the space of a just a few hours, this house of worship to the Almighty was reduced to a pile of rubble. "Very painful," is how Rev. Stefan Langer describes the demolition of this church north of Hamburg. For years, Langer oversaw baptisms, weddings and services here, but now the former church grounds stand nearly empty. The congregation has put the plot of land up for sale, advertising the property as "developable land" in a "prime location," and asking a price of 310,000 ($416,000). "Upon this rock, I will build my church," Jesus said with confidence. He said nothing, though, about demolishing those churches. Two millennia later, churches are being forced to make dramatic cuts due to dire financial straits and declining membership. "Between 1990 and 2010 we closed 340 churches, and of those 46 were demolished," says Thomas Begrich, head of finances for the Evangelical Church of Germany (EKD), Germany's largest federation of Protestant churches. This, Begrich says, is only the beginning. "It may be necessary to give up an additional 1,000 buildings," he said. Churches are being demolished throughout Germany. Take, for example, the city of Frankfurt am Main. In the 1950s, when Konrad Adenauer was German chancellor, there were 430,000 Protestants living in the city. Today, that number is 110,000. These declining numbers have forced the Church's regional authorities to close every fourth house of worship. Art Centers to Dance Halls In Hamburg, meanwhile, a former Protestant church has ended up in the possession of the Muslim community for the first time, after a former church building in the Horn district of the city was sold in 2005 to a businessman who then sold the property to an Islamic center. Church members were indignant over the transaction, but the EKD had little choice. If a buyer can't be found and a building is left standing vacant, eventually the only other option is to allow the bulldozers to raze it. Things are no different for the Catholic Church. There are churches standing empty even in staunchly Catholic Bavaria, and one has even had to close in the famous pilgrimage site of Telgte, near Münster. The central German town of Börssum, in the state of Lower Saxony, offers a typical example -- the Church of Saint Bernward here is facing demolition. The church is named for Bishop Bernward of Hildesheim, who lived from around 960 to 1022 and built defensive towers and forts to protect his followers from attacks by Normans and other non-believers. Now, though, many of Börssum's own residents could fall into that category. The most recent figures show that only about 5 percent of church members in Börssum attend Sunday services. The laundry list of necessary repairs for the church buiding, meanwhile, has reached a total of 134,500. There are also many church buildings in Germany that have already been used for other purposes, from art classes to sports courses. There are churches that serve as event locations or offer storage space for companies. St. Maximin's Abbey in Trier now serves as a school gym, while the Sacred Heart Church in Katlenburg houses a school for dance and Pilates. 'It Makes Me Ill' When a local pastor announces that the time has come for a church to observe its very last supper, the declaration causes many a heavy heart among the congregation's members, who gather in the pews, contrite and often weeping, no one quite daring to strike up a hymn. Protestant congregations tend to take a simple approach: Collect the Bible, cross and other liturgical items, and the last one out shuts the door -- that's enough to close down and deconsecrate a church. For Catholics, on the other hand, every house of worship is a holy place and must be officially deconsecrated. Only a bishop or someone delegated by a bishop has the authority to conduct this ritual. With the air thick with incense, the bishop or delegate first reads out an official decree, then rolls up the altar cloth, empties the tabernacle where the host is stored and extinguishes the eternal light. Rev. Michael Kemper, who conducted one final Corpus Christi mass in his Duisburg church, says it still pains him to remember walking beneath the altar canopy in his pale choir robe, past rows of bitter souls. "The closing of these churches makes me ill," he said. That it is happening, though, is not much of a surprise. For 2,000 years, Christianity has lived and thrived on the fervor of its missionaries, but there are few people these days who want to hear that message. "Just 13 percent of children born today will be baptized as Protestants," says Thomas Höflich, a church superintendent in Hanover, in explaining the Church's tough downsizing decisions. A Little Piece of Home The situation for Catholic churches is particularly bad in the Ruhr region of western Germany and in northern Germany, places that saw an influx of refugees from the former German lands of Silesia and East Prussia after the Second World War. The church established small "branches" throughout these areas, so that there was always a confessional for parishioners within walking distance. But now these small houses of worship, often built in an unappealing modern style, are at very high risk of being demolished. In the Diocese of Hildesheim, one out of every two churches is on the endangered list, while in the Diocese of Essen, 83 churches are slated for demolition and another 13 have already been torn down. The situation is the worst in Wilhelmshaven, where six out of nine Catholic churches are slated to be destroyed. There are certainly people in Germany -- including historic preservation specialists, cultural groups, and city planners -- who are resistant to this destruction of churches. For many Germans, these places of Sunday worship are a familiar part of the urban backdrop. As theologian Margot Kässmann puts it, churches are "prayer-filled spaces" and each one that is torn down amounts to the loss of a little piece of home. But when church officials explain that there's little point in heating a church that has no thermal insulation and high-arched ceilings every Sunday for just 10 churchgoers, these critics of closing churches are also left at a loss for what to say. And so the demolition continues. In the eastern part of the country, more than 200 village churches are gradually crumbling. In the city of Wiesbaden, even a church that was listed for historic preservation was recently torn down. |
A man is facing murder and weapons charges in the shooting deaths of a Queens imam and his associate. Ray Villeda reports. (Published Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2016) A man has been arrested on murder and weapons charges in the shooting deaths of a Queens imam and his associate in broad daylight, police say. The suspect, 35-year-old Oscar Morel, was taken into custody late Sunday night as he approached a vehicle that police had connected to a hit-and-run earlier in the day. He appears to match the description of the suspected shooter, a senior police official said. Senior police officials said that officers boxed him in with patrol cars, but the suspect tried to flee and hit a police car. Officers then pulled out their weapons and ordered him to surrender. A gun and clothes similar to those worn by the suspected shooter were found at Morel's home in East New York Monday, police sources close to the investigation told NBC 4 New York. The Queens district attorney's office drew up the search warrant for the property search. The gun was found hidden in the apartment's wall, behind drywall and screws, the sources said. Ballistics tests will be done to see if it is the murder weapon. Morel has a past arrest for marijuana possession, sources said. Meanwhile, about 1,000 people packed streets Monday about six blocks from where the shooting took place for a service for Imam Maulama Akonjee and his associate, Thara Uddin. Some of those attending chanted "justice" periodically throughout the service. Akonjee, 55, and Uddin, 64, were walking home from the Al-Furqan Jame Masjid mosque at about 1:50 p.m on Saturday when they were shot and killed. Local political leaders, including Mayor de Blasio, addressed the crowd gathered for the service Monday. Emotions ran high. Some people shouted for justice as a man spoke at the podium. People cheered when de Blasio assured them whoever committed the crime will be brought to justice. Surveillance video obtained by NBC 4 New York shows the moment the two men were gunned down on an Ozone Park street. The video shows a lone gunman approach both men from behind and fire shots from a handgun. The suspect then sprints away from the scene as both victims fall to the ground. A sketch of the shooter released by police early Sunday shows a dark-haired, bearded man wearing glasses. Both victims were shot in the head at point-blank range, police said. The suspect was seen fleeing the scene southbound on 79 street with the gun still in his hand. Investigators hadn't established a motive for the shootings, said NYPD Deputy Inspector Hank Sautner during a news conference. The shooting has struck fear in an Ozone Park Muslim community. "We usually look left and right and to the front to be careful. But now we have to look in the back. How do you do that?" Kobir Chowdhury said. Akonjee's sister-in-law, Ifia Uddin, had seen the imam earlier on Saturday. She said that when her husband called her to tell her the news, she was shocked and didn't believe him. She said she's heartbroken. "I just want justice, that's it," Uddin said. "Everybody wants that." Akonjee’s son-in-law, Momin Ahmed, said the community is struggling to make sense of the killing of such a beloved man. "Everybody's not doing very good," Ahmed said. "He's the greatest guy. I've been married for 13 years. So since that, we've been talking every day. He calls me every few hours." The Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned the shootings. "The perpetrator of these senseless killings must be swiftly apprehended and face the full force of the law," said Afaf Nasher, the executive director of the organization's New York chapter. "We ask anyone with information about this attack to contact appropriate law enforcement authorities." The Bangladesh State Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mohammed Shahriar Alam, posted a message on Twitter calling the shooting a "cowardly act on peace-loving people." |
*Note: While the following incident happened in 2012, it helps put the recent events in Ferguson in context, particularly for privileged white people who don’t have to deal with police abuse on a daily basis. Marcus Jeter was only cleared in February 2014, once the dashcam video surfaced. Sarah Wallace: “If this tape hadn’t surfaced?” Marcus: “I’d be in jail.” This video was only turned over by Bloomfield police after Jeter’s attorney filed a request for records; at the time prosecutors were insistent that Jeter do prison time. “The first plea was 5 years,” said Jeter. Sarah: “Your hands are up.” Jeter: “My hands are up.” Jeter: “As soon as they opened the door, one officer reached in an punched me in my face.” He adds, “As he’s trying to take off my seatbelt, I’m thinking something is going to go wrong…” Protect your wealth – Buy Gold and Silver Bullion with Goldbroker.com Something did go wrong. Very, very wrong, and if it wasn’t for a police dashcam, an innocent black man would’ve faced five years in jail for the crime of being beat up, threatened and wrongfully accused by police. Meanwhile, the New Jersey cops who actually engaged in barbaric wrongdoing would’ve remained free to harass other innocent members of the community. If the recent events in Ferguson (read my thoughts on the matter here) haven’t yet altered your perception of the how some members of the militarized police view themselves relative to the communities they are paid to “protect and serve,” then perhaps the following video will. As someone who reports on wrongdoing by those in power on a daily basis, it takes a lot to shock and disturb me. This video did just that. Although Marcus Jeter was able to be cleared of charges, it makes you wonder how many of the millions of Americans currently in prison are there under false charges? After all, police do make an arrest every two seconds in the so-called “land of the free.” In Liberty, Michael Krieger Donate bitcoins: Like this post?Donate bitcoins: 3J7D9dqSMo9HnxVeyHou7HJQGihamjYQMN Follow me on Twitter. |
The distillation of his spiritual legacy, it inspired a painting by Salvador Dalí. In the writings of St. John of the Cross, one of the greatest mystics in history, thousands of people have found a path for drawing closer to God. However, few are familiar with the image of Christ crucified that the saint drew after receiving a mystical revelation. It’s a small sketch (its original size is roughly 2.25 in. by 1.9 in.), which St. John of the Cross painted during his time in Avila, where, at the request of St. Teresa of Jesus, he was named the confessor of the Carmelite nuns of the monastery of the Incarnation from 1572 to 1577. Contemporary chronicles recount that St. John had a vision of Christ crucified, which he then represented in a drawing on a small piece of paper. The saint later gave the drawing to one of the nuns at the convent. The sketch, which is preserved at that same convent today in a simple reliquary of gilded wood, can be admired by visitors to the convent’s museum. It’s a work of genius that represents the image of Christ dead on the cross, at the moment when he had just surrendered his spirit. Despite the sketch’s small dimensions, one feels overwhelmed with emotion seeing the figure’s dislocated members, and the hands torn at the nail holes by the weight of the inert body that hangs forward from the cross. Aleteia Seeing Christ’s head fallen upon his chest, leaving his face barely visible, leaves a deep impression. His legs are bent and collapsing under the weight of the body they can no longer sustain. This powerful image is drawn from a vantage point above and to the right of the cross—a perspective that invites us to see Jesus on the Cross as seen through the eyes of God the Father, moved by the Son’s supreme act of self-giving in reparation for the sins of all men and women. This work of art helps us to understand the saint’s great book The Ascent of Mount Carmel, in which he describes the path of mystical union with God. In it, he puts words into God’s mouth, directed to those who are always seeking private revelations. The Father explains, “If I have already told you all things in my Word, my Son, and if I have no other word, what answer or revelation can I now make that would surpass this?” “Fasten your eyes on him alone because in him I have spoken and revealed all, and in him you will discover even more than you ask for and desire … If you desire me to answer with a word of comfort, behold my Son subject to me and to others out of love for me, and afflicted, and you will see how much he answers you.” (Ascent, chapter 22, 5-6) The mystical and artistic greatness of St. John of the Cross’s drawing captivated Salvador Dalí, who, in 1951, painted his world-renowned work “Christ of Saint John of the Cross.” This piece originally appeared in Aleteia’s Spanish edition. |
The launch of an English graphic counterpart to Captain America is not a hoax. But it's hard to take seriously But for being three weeks or so late, it almost reads like an April Fool: a digital comics company chooses St George's Day to unveil a new superhero – Englishman! But Mohawk Media – which positions itself as an "eco-friendly" comics company because it does only paper-free digital editions – seems to be deadly serious about its new character. Not a huge amount is known about the title character – what his powers are, for example, or whether he received them from a radioactive roast beef dinner – but a preview of the cover depicts our hero in Iron Man-style armour emblazoned with the cross of St George. Writer Chris Bunting, the man behind comics about A-Team actor Mr T and Action Man, says: "Expect plenty of famous English faces to appear in comic-book form for the first time – the cover preview reveals some of them. Plus, there are brand new, quintessentially English characters, including Greenbelt and Dry Stone Wall." Other figures on the cover include a Thor-like character, Guy Fawkes, a female hero who could possibly be the Easter Bunny, and what appears to be the Cerne Abbas chalk hill drawing giant come to life … though his famously priapic nature is hidden from view. Englishman, which is being released under the Eco Comics banner, will be drawn by Valentin Ramon. No release date has been announced on the Mohawk website, though there is no indication that it's a spoof on the back of England's patron saint day. Mohawk says the comic will be in a format "previously unseen" and the first issue will be available for free download. Bunting sets out the theory behind the comic: "I often feel quite envious of the patriotism that so many other countries display, but 'England' has almost become a forgotten, even a dirty, word. "To paraphrase the historian David Starkey, we should celebrate, and not be ashamed of, England. "To help address this, just as the US has its Captain America, I realised that England needed its own patriotic superhero: enter Englishman." While patriotic comic-book characters, led by Captain America, abound in the States, Britain has had a less comfortable relationship with flag-waving superheroes, perhaps because the national colours have so often been co-opted by right-wing organisations such as the National Front, the British National Party, and more recently the English Defence League. Marvel comics has perhaps had the most success with Captain Britain, created 36 years ago by classic X-Men scribe Chris Claremont to act as a Captain America cousin-german for British readers. Another successful hero from the Marvel stable is Union Jack, who has undergone several iterations beginning with his inception as the British representative in the second world war superteam The Invaders. Rival DC's main Brit-costumed characters have been Batman and Robin analogues Knight and Squire, members of the international "Batman Incorporated" line-up, but perhaps the most successful mainstream comics character to encapsulate British sensibilities is John Constantine, the wise-cracking, chain-smoking magician originally created by Alan Moore. But Englishman, fighting for truth and justice in a land where patriotism has become "a dirty word", puts me most strongly in mind – rightly or wrongly – of early Viz character Billy Britain, and his chest-swelling refrain: "I love this country!" |
Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. Dec. 8, 2017, 10:21 AM GMT / Updated Dec. 8, 2017, 3:34 PM GMT / Source: Reuters By Alastair Jamieson Thousands took part in angry anti-U.S. demonstrations around the Muslim world Friday over the Trump administration's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Palestinians clashed with Israeli security forces in the West Bank and around the Gaza border on the third consecutive “day of rage” over the decision, which sparked uproar among world leaders and upended decades of American policy. The Palestinian Health Ministry said a 30-year-old was killed and that more than 35 other people were wounded in skirmishes between Israeli forces and protesters along Gaza's border with Israel. It was the first death since the clashes started after President Donald Trump's speech on Wednesday. Demonstrations also took place across the Middle East and around the Muslim world, many of them outside U.S. diplomatic outposts. In the Jordanian capital of Amman, hundreds of protesters chanted "Jerusalem is Arab" and "America is the head of the snake." In the Pakistani city of Peshawar, more than 200 Islamists marched through the old city chanting anti-American slogans. U.S. flags and effigies of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were burned during a separate protest outside the Peshawar Press Club. Several thousand protesters gathered in front of the U.S. Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where another Trump effigy was set alight. Related: Trump's Jerusalem move undermines U.S. interests, analysts say In Indonesia, hundreds attended a rally outside the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta. Some waved Palestinian flags, while others shouted "Allahu Akbar" — or "God is greatest." Trump's announcement also put in motion a move of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv — a process that aides have said could take years. The decision shows the president is “part of the problem, not part of the solution,” Ahmad Tibi, an Arab lawmaker in Israel’s Knesset, said Friday as a crowd began to gather at the city’s Damascus Gate. “Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine and that is the way peace can prevail." Protesters burn an effigy of President Donald Trump in front of the U.S. Embassy in Kuala Lumpur. Fazry Ismail / EPA Since the 1979 Camp David Accords, previous presidents have refused to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel or move the U.S. Embassy. The U.S. approach has been that Jerusalem's status should be negotiated between the Israelis and Palestinians. The Palestinians have sought the city's eastern sector, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, as the capital of a future independent state. They fear Trump's declaration essentially imposes on them a disastrous solution for one of the core issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who was due to meet Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for talks in Paris on Friday, said the U.S. had excluded itself from the Middle East peace process. "Until now it could have had a mediation role in this conflict, but it has excluded itself a little. The reality is they are alone and isolated on this issue," he said. In Jerusalem, police were quick to disperse crowds — including journalists who gathered to report on the protests — and officers on horseback charged into demonstrators in the Old City. Micky Rosenfeld, spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, said border police, extra patrol units and undercover units would respond "to any major incidents or illegal protests." |
James Wait is running for Boulder City Council in the YEAR OF 2011 Here James will explain important issues regarding the City of Boulder Cutting taxes With this recent recession, the best thing not to do is to spend like Washington does. Recently with the current Boulder City Council, they want to join hands with Excel Energy and raise taxes on people's utilities. How can we as a city council raise taxes, we the people of Boulder are already tax with way too much, with EPA regulations regarding solar panels and with new energy. No I am not against solar panels and the environmental crowrd, I am against the stickler regulations with in the city of Boulder. I enjoy the environment as much as the enviromentalists, but people of Boulder have a right to choose if their want solar panels and wind energy. This new industry of energy, should not be required, let's get back to limited government and where people run the government, not the elites. James will work with and for the people of Boulder to make this promise happen, so that the people of Boulder, will have a choice of what their want kind of energy that want to use for their own home. IF WE WORK TOGETHER WE CAN MAKE THIS HAPPEN! Illegal Immigration There is a problem in this county and that is illegal Immigration, especially among the western states. The reason the western states have so much of a problem here is because many business people want cheap labor. However, that produces a span of people from many different countires. We need to cut down on cheap labor, and have an illegal immigration reform, especially in the City of Boulder. The reform that James Wait is talking about is crack down on the illegals, and by reading the colorado laws, lately we do have a similar law to Arizona, and that law has been here since 1986. If James gets elected, he will make sure that law is enforced. James is not against legal immigration, everyone has a right to come to our country and work hard, but there should come here legally. If people from other countries do that, then I have no problem with that. Those are only some of the issues James Wait stands for, he will post more in the future. Engery: James stands for clean energy, that includes solar,wind,hydrogen fuel cells. That is for the future, while we are working on this new "green energy" the city of Boulder still needs to use coal and fossil fuels. We are not going to have " green energy" come over night. The City of Boulder needs to stop requring new enegry, stop taxing people who use coal or fossil fues. We do not need this a bad economy. James will work with the gas,solar,wind,and coal companies to produce better enegry for the city of Boulder. Like he said before we can only do this if we work together. Education The field of education is very important to James, he has spent many years of his life in education. As a para-professional the last three years, he knows the inner workings of the public school system. To compete with other countries in the 21st centruy, our schools need to be changed. Speaking of different learning styles, not everyone learns by auditory learning. Teachers need to teach to the different learning styles with hands-on learners and visual learners. The three main ideas that James has is to keep the schools localized, have more options than public schools which includes charter schools, and to make the public schools privatized. Schools local: To keep schools local, parents and teachers need to work together and our federal government should stay out of all local schools. What does someone in Washington D.C know about how to run schools in Boulder? Both places are totally different, only the people here in Boulder know what truly the needs are. School Options: To have school options is very important, like in the field of business, to have competive schools will produce better quality teachers and students. This will help bring competition to Boulder schools and make them better. Privatized Schools: With the recent budget problems in many different school districts including Boulder. To privatized some public schools in Boulder, will help tremoundsly. There are people out there saying that low-income people can't afford tuition, but that is where school vochers come into play. Public schools should still be open to the public, but starting slowly we should start privatize schools. This help prevent another recession that we are in right now. IF WE JOIN HANDS TOGETHER THIS WILL BE A SUCCESS Health Care We as the people in the City of Boulder, do not need a government law forcing us to by health care insurance in 2014. Here is a list of what James Wait supports: Repeal of ObamaCare! Health insurance choices for small business, meaning health care pools to lower the costs. Need more preventative measures put into place so that a lot people won't end up with heart disease, and other life-altering issues. Meaning serving more healthy food at stores and fast-food places. Boulder does a great job at providing these sources, but people who are low-income can't afford that food. We need to lower the price of healthy foods. So that all people can eat for their health. Supports Health care organizations for small businesses. Small Business |
A video went viral in South Korea showing two western men harassing, insulting, and threatening a local woman. The video is only 78 seconds long, and it’s definitely one of the most disgusting, gruesome and horrified vidoes that I have seen. Due to its disgusting content, YouTube has taken it down [Editors Note: We tried to provide a link, but they keep getting taken down]. To compound the issue, comments and reactions to this video tend to focus on the victim, blaming her for getting herself into the situation for being in a club and getting involved with western men, indicating that she deserved to be treated like that because she is actively seeking white men. According to the Washington Post, a Jagei.com commenter said “She went crazy over white guys, lived at a club, and ran into trouble.” Another wrote, “After that, I think she’s going to go clubbing to meet white guys again.” As a woman grew up in Asia, sadly I am not surprised by how many Korean men, or Asian men, perceived issues like this. Women are often to blame for falling victims of sexual violence. It’s always her fault, either the way she dressed, the way she talked, the place she choosed to be in, the group of people she chooosed to be with. It’s all her fault. But is it really? As the Washington Post article points out, South Korea has one of the most largest gender gaps in the developed world, and a lot of young women are trained, educated and brainwashed to put marriage as their lifelong goal. Many women would quit their jobs when they get married and become fulltime housewives. Many young women’s purpose of going to college in South Korea is to have more leverage in choosing a better provider as her husband. However, more and more educated young women want to break out of the cycle, and having a western partner will be her way out of the gender inequality in her own country, where she is treated as a second class citizen. Gradually, having a western partner becomes a symbol of status among a lot of Asian women, which indicates they find wealth, freedom and respect. However, not every western man is a Prince Charming. Many Asian woman caught herself in one more layer of discrimination apart from her gender, her race. Not every western man respects her, and treats her as equal. With the natural advantage of a white man, many American men who are uneducated and unemployed in the U.S. find themselves unexpectedly popular in Asia, and have innocent Asian girls who fantasize them as Hollywood superstars falling for them. Jobs, women and money are so easy for these men for just being white and male in Asia. Not just in Asia, but countries with a big gender gap. My German friend told me how some Botswanian women begged to marry him when he was there so they could get out of the country. My former co-worker, a 50-year-old American white man, was a good example. When he was teaching English in Beijing, he slept with a lot of his young Chinese female students, the youngest being 18. When he walked on the street and spoke Mandarin, his funny accent would get him more attention from women. The friendship ended when he asked to sleep with me and offered to pay me after I said no. There is no doubt that Asian women need to understand that to empower themselves is through becoming independent, not by switching the provider. The core value of gender equality in the western world is the independence of women. Only women can liberate themselves from the mentality of being submissive, quiet, and controled. Also, we need to understand that being independent does not mean you are any less feminine. It will be unfair to say only Korean men pointfinger at women for their sexual violence. It’s something that men do in general. To maintain their control, the party in power will try to strip away the diginity and resources of the powerless, and press down their voices. The biggest fear of the powerful is to lose their power and control. Unfortunately, I have learned firsthand how powerless a woman can be when she encounters harrassment. I used to live with two men in the same house, both Chinese male students at USC. One of them was acting very creepy to me. He knocked on my door at midnight, offered me cookies and said he wanted to chat and get to know each other, while I had shown no indication that I wanted to be closer than what we were. I rejected the offer instantly. Later he popped up in the kitchen when I was washing dishes myself, and asked if I wanted to have sex with him out of nowhere. He didn’t leave after I refused again, and said it felt great to ask and he was very lonely. Fearful of what might happen if I didn’t speak up, I went to DPS after consulting with my professor and put a report on this person. The DPS officer, a man, appeared arrogant, disrespectful, and impatient, instantly rejected my request to file a report. I asked him how he would feel if it were his daughter, and his answer was “If it were my daughter, she would not live with two men in the first place.” After I insisted, he relunctantly drafted down what I said on a piece of blank paper that he picked up randomly, and yawned every two minutes throughout the process. This has to stop. Educating women is not enough. Women certainly need to learn how to speak up and protect themselves, and most importantly, learn that it is not her fault. But men also need to be educated how to respect women and treat them equally. The empowerment of women doesn’t benefit women only, but it also empowers men. Men has so much to gain from the interlectual contribution from his female partner at home and office. Gender equality is not a zero sum game. It’s win win. |
The Nintendo Switch was the top-selling console in the US during its launch month of March, according to data from the NPD Group reported on by Game Revolution. No specific unit sales were provided, however. The Nintendo Switch launched on March 3 and quickly became the fastest-selling Nintendo platform in history. Microsoft and Sony did not share March sales figures for the Xbox One and PS4 respectively, though Game Revolution reported that the PS4 outsold the Xbox One. The PS4 has now apparently topped the Xbox One in US sales for five straight months. Sony didn't have a statement available at press time, while Microsoft said in its own statement that the quarter ended March 2017 (January-March) was a big one for the company, with "record Xbox Live engagement with 1.1 billion multiplayer hours logged globally." This is up 14 percent year-over-year. The statement goes on to tease some of Microsoft's 2017 plans, which include Project Scorpio. "Looking ahead, we are excited to share more about our plans for Xbox One, including launching the world's most powerful console--Project Scorpio--alongside an amazing lineup of new Xbox One games. We are thrilled with the incredible response we have received to date for Project Scorpio, and look forward to sharing more about the Xbox One family of devices in the coming months," Xbox marketing boss Mike Nichols said. A week from today, the NPD Group will announce the top-selling games for March 2017. We'll report back with more details as they become available. |
This week the Kurdish Human Rights Advocacy Group (KHRAG) joined the international community in celebrating the 20th anniversary of the day on which the UN member states accepted to abide by the Vienna Declaration of Human Rights. As noted by the UN’s Assistant UN General Secretary for Human Rights, Ivan Simonovic, the 1993 declaration “moved the human rights to the forefront of the global agenda.” Kurdish human rights have received more visibility in recent decades. But except for the Kurds in northern Iraq, there is ample and undeniable evidence demonstrating that the great majority of Kurds in Turkey, Iran, and Syria continue to suffer from flagrant human rights violations. For as long as the UN has been in existence, the Kurdish people have been struggling for the legitimation and recognition of their most fundamental rights and freedoms under the despotic states that govern them. The Kurds have stood up against oppression, repression, economic deprivation, religious and ethnic persecution, forced assimilation, and ethnic and linguistic discrimination. Yet, the Kurdish reality persists and continues to be a moral dilemma for the UN and its agencies. Despite promises and some progress, the UN was has been slow to respond to the Kurdish predicament. Monstrous crimes against the Kurds did not receive due UN attention, despite well-documented reports by reputable human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. In Turkey, the gross violations of human rights by the Turkish government against the Kurds have not received the extensive attention they deserve. For as long as the UN has been in existence, the Kurdish people have been struggling for the legitimation and recognition of their most fundamental rights and freedoms under the despotic states that govern them. For as long as the UN has been in existence, the Kurdish people have been struggling for the legitimation and recognition of their most fundamental rights and freedoms under the despotic states that govern them. Contrary to the UN Charter of Human Rights, political and cultural expressions and associations are restricted or banned and Kurdish participation in political activities is criminalized and punished. Hundreds of Kurds, many of them children, are still in Turkish prisons. Many have been arrested with extrajudicial impunity under the so-called terrorism act. Despite the Turkish government’s lukewarm support for a fragile peace, genuine reforms are becoming increasingly elusive. In the case of Iraq, contrary to the Genocide Convention, the international community failed to put pressure on – let alone punish -- Iraqi governments to halt the Anfal genocide and the chemical carnage in Halabja under Saddam Hussein. To his day, Kurds are still trying to break through barriers of indifference and resistance to attain a degree of autonomy with mutual respect and reciprocity with their neighbors. In Iran, it took the threat of nuclear weapons for Iran’s human rights violations to come to the fore. The October 2013 report of the special rapporteur on Iran did not receive much publicity, although it provides chilling insight into ongoing human rights violations in Iran and the religious and ethnic persecution of Kurds. There is particular attention to the tragic plight of Kurdish border couriers (kulbaran), who in crossing the Iran–Iraq border risk their lives as they carry back and forth basic necessities for a small fee. According to the report, in the course of a few months, 70 Kurdish couriers were killed and 68 wounded by Iran’s security forces in 2012. The report also draws attention to an increasing number of Kurds, including children, killed by landmines left from the Iran-Iraq war. Last October, Human Rights Watch and other organizations reported the execution of several Kurdish prisoners. It might be helpful to remember that, with the full knowledge of the UN in Syria, Kurds were subjected to the most brutal forms of assimilation and denial of the most fundamental human rights. Under a system of apartheid, hundreds of thousands of Kurds had outrageously been denied even the right to Syrian citizenship. Over 200,000 Kurds are now refugees in Iraqi Kurdistan, not to mention the thousands that are displaced and trapped inside Syria. Al-Qaeda-affiliated groups, funded and emboldened by Gulf States and Turkey, continue to savagely attack, kidnap, and intimidate Kurds in Syria. Twenty years after the adoption of the Vienna Declaration, the UN promises have not materialized for the Kurds. The nearest the Kurds have come to realizing some rights is the establishment of the Kurdistan Regional Government in North Iraq, through which very little can be done to put pressure on neighboring states to stop human rights abuses of their Kurdish populations. The only way to address and redress the current predicament is to enforce the UN conventions because, after all, at the heart of the declaration lies the promise of fulfillment of human and democratic rights and values. The major impediment is the traditional pragmatic defence of the UN members, unless a tragedy occurs to which the UN ordinarily responds belatedly and not swiftly enough. As we celebrate the universal Declaration of Human Rights as a seminal document defining the individual and collective rights in the global landscape of international law, the UN would benefit from a more critical perspective about its own glaring contradictions and practices. Only then can it open new spaces, possibilities, and sensibilities for concerted international commitment to stop egregious violations of human rights, if it wants to move into the future with any hope for change. The author is the director of the Kurdish Human Rights Advocacy Group-Los Angeles |
Victor Moses has said he is becoming a better wing-back with every game and thanked coach Antonio Conte for believing he was good enough to play regularly at Chelsea. Monday's 3-0 win over Middlesbrough moved Chelsea to within three points of the Premier League title, and Conte's decision to switch to a 3-4-3 system in September has been integral to their success. Chelsea Chelsea Middlesbrough Middlesbrough 3 0 FT Game Details GameCast Lineups and Stats The tactical reshuffle brought Moses into the starting XI at right wing-back, and the 26-year-old's consistent performances have made him a key figure. "I have always believed in the ability that I have got," he said. "I have always known that I've got the ability to play in a big club like Chelsea. "I have proved that, and we have got a manager here that is willing to give everybody an opportunity. "It was at Hull [in October] that it all started. I really enjoyed it and I took everything in. I kept watching the video of myself after the Hull game, to make sure I was in the right place, and after that I took it in and kept on improving. "It's a big position. You need a lot of stamina to be able to play there, and it's a responsibility. I have been learning a lot defensively as well, the manager has been teaching me." Victor Moses has been a key part of Chelsea's success. Moses said the fact that he had played as a winger meant he could "understand what wingers are going to do before they try and go past me" and added: "The more games I play, the better I get." Conte has described Moses as the "great surprise" of Chelsea's season and said in November he found it "incredible" that previous managers had failed to identify the Nigeria international's potential to become a key contributor. "He didn't say to me: 'Do you fancy playing wing-back?' He just put me in there," Moses said. "And constantly he was talking to me in training to make sure I was improving in it, talking me through it. I took that in and I didn't look back." Liam is ESPN FC's Chelsea correspondent. Follow him on Twitter: @Liam_Twomey. |
Original Story happen here : Hashtalk S4 Burnout Power Supply Specifications: * Chip Operating Voltage: 0.72V * Chip Quantity per unit: 160 * Hash Rate: 2,000GH/s guaranteed * Power Efficiency: 0.69Watt/GH/s at the wall * Over clocking: About 10%, but not guaranteed * 3U Rack 432mm*442mm*133mm * PSU inside: 1400W, 80PLUS gold, C14 input socket. Power line not included. You may look for one line with no less than 16A in your local market * Temperature: 40-50 degree Celsius tested in the mining farm * Fan Speed: 3900RPM * Stable but a little bit noisy * Ethernet connection, Stand alone * Certificate Compliance: FCC/CE My Quick Power Calculation First the supply specs * PSU inside: 1400W, 80PLUS gold, C14 input socket. Power line not included. You may look for one line with no less than 16A in your local market How much power is needed? * Power Efficiency: 0.69Watt/GH/s at the wall 0.69W/GH/S * 2000 = 1380W of Juice at 0.72V. 1380W/1400W * 100 = 98.5% Load Overclocking without popping out the breaker or P/S don’t surprise me. 0.80V is 10% more juice in OC 1380W * 10% = 1518W Overload … This one must be understand carefully : Power line not included Have you a big enough AC plug cable ? You may look for one line with no less than 16A Cheap AC plug max amps around 10A Watts = Voltage * Amps Amps = Watts / Voltage You need : On 120V circuit, 1518W/120V = 12.65A. If your overload AC cables, overheating will happen also voltage drop. Breaker in Canada are rated 15A on 120V circuits. Startup current is huge on those machines too. Lot’s of capacitor and inductance to filter power line noises. Mean, need juice at startup or current- inrush can be 10-20% more for few milsec Think about it Going 220V could be safer, reduce by half amp in wiring Quality power supplies have universal input. Rated 120V-220V, 50-60Hz. Min 2000W Power supply recommended ! Now time to unplug the dryer I guess ; ) Here some pics of his power supply This guy manage to safe the day and put a plan B in action, changed power supply and miner up again. Lucky this time, at least the supply died like a heroes, protect circuits of damage when blowing up. Update : Bitmaintech answer and fix the problem quickly. Dear customers, We are sorry to inform you that we do find a critical defect of power supply in the first batch and the first part of batch 2 Antminer S4 shipment, and have issued an official announcement on bitcointalk community regarding power supply replacement for these miners. Please find details in the following link, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=796839.msg9207574#msg9207574 We assume you might have not came across the failure issues like other customers do as we have not yet received any info from you on the power supply problems. But we do suggest you nip it in the bud and keep an eye on your miners which seems to be running well. we decide to send you new replacement PSUs, which have been optized and improved from the previous ones and will avoid similar issues as stated in the above-mentioned link. Now please provide us with the Order Confirmation page from Bitmaintech.com of your B1 or first part of B2 S4 miners and confirm with us your full address, to which we will ship out new replacement PSUs. Please accept our sincere apology for the inconvenience. Tim Shao BITMAIN BESt Regards Reply Post on Bitcointalk.org Dear loyal customers, Today we have found out that the batch of power supplies shipped out in batch 1 and the first part of batch 2 Antminer S4s contain a critical defect. The customized power supply produced by AplusPower Co. Ltd is suffering from an unacceptably high failure rate and will be replaced with immediate effect. We take full responsibility for the problems caused and had not anticipated the unique loading conditions of a miner when selecting and testing the suitability of these power supplies. You can read more about the defect in the post below. We are now taking steps to ensure that customers are impacted as little as possible. The rest of batch 2 S4s will come with the improved power supply as standard. The following actions are being taken for miners already delivered: 1) If your PSU has already failed: • Submit a RMA request with some pictures and proof [ie with your username in the photo] of your PSU’s failure to info@bitmaintech.com. • We will then ship a new PSU out as soon as possible. • We will also issue compensation to the value of 10 days of mining profit calculated starting from shipping date 2) If your PSU has not failed and the miner is running normally: • We will ship a new PSU to you. • Please do not contact support yet, you will receive an email asking to confirm your shipping. Analysis of power supply failures within the first batch of Antminer S4s We are sorry for the inconvenience you may have experienced regarding power supply failures, or even sporadic events of smoke from our first batch of Antminer S4s. We immediately set out to investigate the reports of failed power supplies from customers, and have made immediate changes to improve the quality of future deliveries. What happened with these power supplies is not acceptable. The power supplies failed by two different mechanisms: 1) Failed TR1 or TR2 MOSFETs on the power factor correction (PFC) circuitry. After investigations, it was found that the unusual service conditions a miner puts on its power supply was the cause of the failure. The repeated abrupt, dynamic loading generated significant current through the PFC circuits, eventually leading to the failure of the TR1 or TR2 MOSFETs. The replacement power supplies have significantly upgraded PFC circuits in order to improve performance and prevent a recurrence of the problem. 2) Failed MOSFET on the output Synchronous rectifier circuit A MOSFET on the output Synchronous rectification circuit was also found to be failing, due to the repeated and sudden load changes during the miners’ operation. During normal operation, the output MOSFET is expected to carry a current of approximately 30A and operate at a surface temperature of around 80C. The failing MOSFET was found to be heating up significantly further than this, causing the carbonized black PCBs and smoking thermal pad. It is worth noting that although a failed output MOSFET at high temperatures may result in some smoke from the PCB and thermal pad, it will not start a fire. All internal components of the PSU meet the requirements of the UL94-V0 flame retardancy standard, which certifies that any ignition will self-extinguish within a maximum of 10 seconds. In response to this problem, the sample filter in the Synchronous rectifier circuits have been altered to erase the excessive current, and so the MOSFET will not fail again. In addition, several high temperature prevention circuits have been added which will better protect the power supply from overloading and excessive temperatures. Moving forwards We always perform significant dynamic testing on chosen power supplies, however in this case we failed to recognize the special conditions and specific loading characteristics the miner would place on the power supply. Our testing has been altered to replicate and include these loading characteristics on any power supplies introduced in the future. Once again, we are sorry. Latest S4 are running without issues, trusted and serious manufacturer. I purchase and received a pair of batch 11 S3+ miners end of october. Fast shipping and quality product. Running full OC and perform 1TH/s+ ( pair ) on Nicehash pool. S3+ are easier to manage power load. They only require 360W-400W each. |
It’s mid-February and I’m seated in a dark room at Hulu’s Santa Monica headquarters. Flanked by the company’s user experience research experts, we’re all peering through a one-way glass mirror into a brightly lit “living room” test lab. The subject is a 30-something volunteer who is getting an early look at Hulu’s new app and its live TV service. Both are launching today, May 3rd, to millions of US customers. The study volunteer has signed numerous non-disclosure agreements and will be paid for his time. Unbeknownst to this person, he’s swiping through what is Hulu’s biggest gamble ever since the company’s start. Hulu is no longer just that place you go for next-day TV show replays. Starting right now, Hulu is no longer just that place you go for next-day TV show replays. Starting right now, Hulu becomes its own live TV provider. You pay a monthly $39.99 bill, and for that money you get the “regular” Hulu service with over 3,500 TV and film titles, plus a live TV package of over 50 channels. There’s no cable box. Hulu’s live TV is available on Android, iOS, Apple TV, Chromecast, and Xbox One at launch, with support for Roku and Fire TV devices coming later this year. The company’s operating philosophy resembles those of competitors like Sling TV, PlayStation Vue, DirecTV Now, and YouTube TV. To Hulu, TV is meant to be mobile, TV should work around your lifestyle, and TV is supposed to be an app. Hulu has put a ton of work into building that app. Hopefully this guy doesn’t hate it. “Sometimes what can occur is we’re asking them to talk aloud and just give this running commentary, and sometimes people get quiet,” Jill Strawbridge, who leads Hulu’s UX research, says of the study I’m observing. “But from our perspective, where they get quiet is quite telling because it generally means they’re having to devote more attention to something.” This particular study subject seems mostly pleased with Hulu’s “first-run” experience, which is how the app formulates what shows and movies it should recommend to you. When you open the new Hulu, it’ll ask about your favorite genres, your must-have shows, and your preferred networks. Millions of people already subscribe to the current service, so in many cases the company will already have plenty of data to pull picks from. But you can also choose to start fresh. Up to six profiles can be set up on each account, and parents can enable kid profiles that automatically limit available content to family-friendly selections.. Nicole Kuhn, a user experience researcher at Hulu, observes a study volunteer navigating the new app design. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Helming this entire experience is Ben Smith, who came to Hulu from the Xbox One team and Microsoft’s own ineffective attempt to reinvent TV on a video game console. The “new Hulu experience” (a top-to-bottom overhaul of the entire app) and live TV represent another, even bigger chance at reshaping how consumers think about television. “You can’t talk about the next 10 years of TV and video experience without talking about live,” Smith tells me. “Live TV isn’t going away. So for us it’s how do we make it best for the viewers of 2017, for the viewers of 2020, and the viewers of 2025?” Hulu isn’t alone in wanting to solve that question. Cable and satellite providers are trying to reverse subscriber losses by evolving their services beyond just a huge bundle of channels with a DVR into something more. These days, Comcast’s X1 platform lets you speak commands to its voice remote just as you would to Siri or Google Assistant on your smartphone. Smith is answering to very different bosses this time around. Hulu’s parent companies are all media giants. ABC/Disney, 21st Century Fox, and Comcast each hold a 30 percent stake in the business; Time Warner owns 10 percent. Hulu will offer programming from all four in the live streaming package, so that covers CBS, NBC, Fox, TNT, TBS, and CNN. The company has also signed critical deals with Disney (including ABC and ESPN), Scripps (HGTV, Travel Channel, Food Network), and others. AMC is a glaring omission. Hulu TV users will have to get their Walking Dead and Better Call Saul elsewhere. Despite its being owned by different megacorps with their own respective interests, Smith says that all parties are behind the new Hulu direction. “At a pure technology level, all of the major networks are highly invested in building out this kind of next-generation TV experience for everyone.” Even if Comcast, the parent with the most to lose, weren’t a fan, FCC restrictions around its purchase of NBCUniversal prevent the company from influencing Hulu’s business decisions until 2018. Ben Smith, Hulu’s head of user experience. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Yet even with that support, the challenges that internet TV services like Sling TV, DirecTV Now, Vue, and Hulu face in maturing from nascent efforts into mainstream cable rivals are plentiful and daunting. People love what they’re used to, and all it takes to be dropped from a consumer’s consideration is failing to provide their favorite channel or show. Hulu is launching its live TV product without any Viacom networks, so it won’t offer Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, MTV, VH1, BET, CMT, and other channels. At least the company can say it’s not alone in dealing with this programming hole. DirecTV Now and Sling TV have Viacom as part of their channel listings; Vue and YouTube TV don’t. Smith says that Hulu and Viacom were friendly partners for years, but still puts the current state of things bluntly: “We just couldn’t find the right deal that worked for both of us.” Hulu TV essentials How many channels are included and how much does it cost? Over 50 channels. $39.99 monthly. You can pay an extra $19.99 each month for more DVR storage, the ability to fast forward through commercials, and “unlimited screens” on your home Wi-Fi. Okay sure. “Over 50.” But what are some good ones? A&E, ABC*, Cartoon Network, CBS*, CNBC, CNN, Disney Channel, E!, ESPN, Fox*, Fox News, FX, HGTV, History, MSNBC, National Geographic, NBC*, Syfy, TBS, TNT, USA * = only in certain areas Does it have sports? Several national sports networks are included, and Hulu also offers regional sports networks in “many” areas, such as YES in the New York region. Does it have Viacom channels? No. What devices does it work on? Android, Apple TV, Chromecast, iOS, Xbox One. Fire TV and Roku support will arrive by the end of this year. “Sooner than later.” How much DVR storage do I get? 50 hours in the base plan, or 200 hours with the Enhanced DVR add-on. Recordings are moved off on a first-in, first-out basis. Is ad-free Hulu still a thing with this? What if I have it? Yes, you can still pay $4 extra every month to remove ads from many of Hulu’s on-demand streams. A lot of your DVR’d content will play back without any commercials, but not all shows on Hulu allow ad-free viewing. Can I get HBO or Showtime for an extra fee? HBO no. Showtime yes ($8.99/month). Hulu shares something else in common with its relatively young competitors: it will only offer live feeds of the big four broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC) in select regions. Six at launch, to be more specific. That covers a lot of people in major cities, but leaves vast parts of the US with no way to watch The Voice or Modern Family or Empire or Designated Survivor live as they air. Instead, subscribers will get Hulu’s regular video-on-demand replays for those networks and live streams for everything else. “To a large extent, that’s not us. That’s the networks themselves,” explains Smith. “There is the technology integration piece, which we’ve found gets harder as you go from major markets from smaller markets.” Your random small-town NBC or CBS affiliate isn’t always well-equipped for this whole internet streaming thing, it turns out. Hulu executives visited one market “where literally there’s a guy pressing a button for commercial breaks.” That convoluted affiliate structure and uneven technology balance means it’ll be a very long time before Hulu or another over-the-top service can live stream all four broadcasters nationwide. Hulu and the big four have discussed offering a national feed in areas where affiliates aren’t participating, but Smith said there are no immediate plans to go that route. “What I told the network groups is I want to see what their channel offering is. Because if it’s just a bunch of crap, then it’ll be worse to have it — you know, paid programming all day long.” Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge And then there can be unforeseen crises, like when this year’s Golden Globes couldn’t be streamed with any of these apps. It was an embarrassing night for Sling TV, DirecTV Now, and Vue, and a frustration that zero cable viewers had to contend with. “It caught all of our attention,” says Smith of the Globes blackout and resulting social media backlash. “That agreement was signed eons ago before things like streaming were contemplated. So NBC had no grant-of-rights to air that in its original airing outside of NBC cable and satellite and their terrestrial OTA.” Translation: ancient, poorly conceived contracts were to blame. But the reason never really matters much to customers — only that they couldn’t watch what they wanted to. “Now, everyone has been looking for these,” Smith adds. “We were on the phone [the following] Monday morning with Fox going ‘Alright, we need you guys to go through every event you have, every network special you air…’ and they were like ‘We’ve already got people on it.” Hulu acknowledges that these random you’re not allowed to stream this moments might still occur on its own service. “I am sure we will see it at some point,” confesses Smith. But the company is poring over each agreement it signs to avoid ugly surprises. User interface mockups for Hulu’s TV service line the walls at the company’s headquarters. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge In the test lab, a Hulu employee is asking our subject a question about where he’d expect to find sports teams in the app. Sports is another primary focus for the live TV product. You can select your favorite teams to have the service automatically follow them across channels and record games to your cloud DVR. Hulu will offer regional sports networks (RSNs) in “many” markets; YES is available in the New York area, for instance. But by now, sports fans should know that watching games isn’t always straightforward. “We have learned a lot about blackout rules. ESPN has taught us a lot about blackout rules,” Smith jokes; in a later interview, he tells me it’s “more complicated than the SATs.” Hulu, he vows, is “going to help customers through it.” No one has dealt with that complexity more than Tian Lim, Hulu’s chief technology officer. “It’s crazy what the sports networks will make you do,” he tells me, venting about the precise latitude and longitude coordinates that dictate markets which are to be included in a blackout. “No one had a standard way of declaring blackouts.“ So Hulu encouraged standardization — both for its own benefit and to ease things for everyone else in the space. “One set of RSNs might use an API, another might send you a spreadsheet, another might send you an email.” Those seem like less-than-ideal ways of telling a company they’re not allowed to stream a professional sports game. And those declarations are sometimes tied to stadium ticket sales and can come minutes before game time. Lim says that his team (totaling around 200 developers) has put in a staggering amount of backend work alongside partners to bring order to things. This also applies to metadata for regular TV shows; depending on what kind of source feed Hulu is working with, figuring out the markers for when TV shows actually begin and end — fundamental to having a competent DVR — and pulling in accurate episode data isn’t always so simple. “There’s one two-parter Seinfeld episode that just throws off everybody. This whole metadata challenge has been crazy.” Tian Lim, Hulu’s chief technology officer. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge He’s also the person responsible for ensuring that Hulu doesn’t run into the same reliability issues and streaming interruptions that competitors like DirecTV Now He’s also the person responsible for ensuring that Hulu doesn’t run into the same reliability issues and streaming interruptions that competitors like DirecTV Now have at times encountered . Too many of those and you’re toast; the subscription gets cancelled, and your customer runs back to cable or their antenna or whatever they were using before. “If today you wanted to build your own digital MVPD, it would be relatively simple if you had no existing business,” he says. “But for us, to actually weave it into an existing subscriber base dramatically increased the complexity.” “Part of what we tried to do is try to up the overall maturity of the industry so that the next people who do this will have a better product and we’ll compete on better and better products,” Lim says. “Ultimately it’s the content that matters, and if the presentation of the content isn’t great, then everybody loses.” To avoid that shoddy presentation, Lim shows me a massive grid of the content delivery networks and servers and encoders and data centers that are Hulu TV’s backbone. The company now runs a 24/7 customer service operation, as well. “You just get sympathy for DirecTV Now, because I know what pains they have to go through,” he says. Smooth performance is vital. Changing channels on Hulu needs to feel just as fast as with a cable remote. “We can’t have the thing buffer for eight seconds to change the channel,” says Smith. “That was a lot of my experience on Sling [TV], was that four seconds, five seconds.” Without rapid loading times, Smith concedes “we won’t have a credible channel flipping experience.” At launch, he’s happy with how most are performing. Hulu’s developers at work on the iOS and Apple TV versions of the redesigned app in February. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Hulu opened the research labs within its headquarters in late 2015. The company often has multiple studies happening simultaneously to gather feedback outside its own bubble and see how participants react to changes in its various apps. There are overhead cameras, and the company has glasses capable of eye tracking to see if someone is looking around the screen hopelessly puzzled. “We think it’s awesome. Let’s get a reality check,” Strawbridge says of the motto that guides research. For the company’s big move into live TV, some members of the team went out to visit volunteers several states away. “We’re just gonna sit in their homes and watch them watch TV,” researcher Nicole Kuhn tells me. Developers and designers can be stubborn when a regular person suggests that a particular design choice might not be so awesome. “Invariably, the first reaction is ‘It’s them , not the product.” This change, however, is one that everyone at Hulu recognizes as monumental. The new Hulu experience, developed under the codename Bowie, is being rolled out to both live TV subscribers and users of the standard on-demand service. And it looks nothing like the version that existed only yesterday. Smith’s team went for what he describes as a low-density but highly visual design. There’s hi-res artwork for every show, with a gradient splash that changes color as you browse content. All of that color and a basis in “light,” Hulu’s UX designers say, was inspired by the art of James Turrell. The fonts are thin but legible. When looking at a show, you get a single sentence episode summary, a play button, and not much else. Ben Smith on Hulu’s streaming TV competition On Sling TV: “I think their “I think their rebranding to ‘a la carte TV’ was pretty smart. I think they’re taking advantage of the things that it’s strongest at.” On PlayStation Vue and whether Hulu TV will be on PS4: “They have a TV product they like. They’re not wildly enthused about ours. We’re actually having some good conversations with them about ultimately, observing what… Their customers are our customers, so observing what their customers wishes are will be better in the long run. We’ll see how that works out.” “It’ll be interesting for me to see what they end up doing with Vue, because I can tell you firsthand, it’s a lot of work to build these things. I’ll be interested to see if they still see that as a long-term competitive advantage for PlayStation, for Sony, and where they take it.” On DirecTV Now : “It’s a little more tricky to figure out what their real strategy is vis a vis AT&T right now. It’d be hard for me, if I was an analyst, to write that article.” On YouTube TV: “When I first used the YouTube service, it was clear to me that me and the product designers on my team care about a lot of the same things as the product designers at YouTube.” “I think for us it’s about all of the content you watch and tying that back in, where they emphasize live content in the 80 to 90 percent range. We’re a little more balanced with that.” While at Hulu’s offices, I’m given a chance to see some mockups that the team had produced but ultimately passed on. Some concepts borrow ideas from other streaming apps, and some are just strange. One mockup focuses on a social viewing experience, with multiple shows streaming simultaneously and real-time emoji reactions flowing by. Another is based on a grid of circles that’s basically the Apple Watch’s terrible apps screen applied to the TV. At a roundtable with the UX design team, one person said “Floating circle things didn’t represent the TV experience we were trying to create.” The core user interface that Hulu landed on breaks everything into five sections: Home, My Stuff, Browse, Search, and Account. Inside each are other tabs you can swipe between. The first thing you’ll see is the Lineup, which is basically your home portal. Recommendations are a mix of what’s airing live on TV right now and content from Hulu’s streaming vault. Next to the Lineup is “Keep Watching,” which I’d hope is self explanatory. Beside that is “My Channels,” which is as close as Hulu ever really comes to giving you a conventional guide. You can swipe through what’s on currently — channel by channel — and while watching content, you can pull up what Hulu calls the FlipTray to see what’s coming up next and what’s on elsewhere. Hulu avoided a grid of channels, something rivals still offer, purposefully. “We’re gonna abstract out the kind of archaic channel infrastructure of TV, because it doesn’t exist in the digital world,” Smith tells me. “But people do use those kinds of things for way-finding, so we’re just changing the relationship around.” Later he asks “How do people think of their local ABC station? Is it ABC? Is it channel 7? Is it call sign? That’s one that frankly has ended up being a little bit of a mixed bag.” He goes on, adding From my early experience, redundancy is another mixed bag issue that will confuse some; you’ll see Networks, TV Shows, and Movies in basically every part of the app, but they’ll show you different things in “My Stuff” than what you’ll find in “Browse.” It takes a bit of time for all of that to click. Hulu is doing a balancing act between its extensive on-demand catalog — the thing that customers have long turned to the company for — and live television programming. The live TV effort arrives not long after the debut of original series The Handmaid’s Tale , one of the company’s first true hits. To make all this content gel together, Hulu employs what Smith calls SmartStart. Some of Hulu’s initial concepts differ wildly from the redesign that’s being released today. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge S martStart will recommend where to begin with a given show based on the type of show that it is. If it's a primetime series you haven't streamed yet, Hulu will assume you'll want to start from the very beginning. But few people are going to suddenly dive into Keeping Up with the Kardashians or The Tonight Show from their original episodes, so that would be a fairly stupid recommendation. For those genres, Hulu recognizes that you'll probably want to watch something more recent, so it'll recommend either the latest episode or the beginning of the current season. Hulu also picks up on your daily viewing habits and gradually improves what appears in the Lineup based on time of day or even the device you’re watching from. You probably watch different things on mobile than you would at home. “It’s pretty responsive in terms of TV shows and movies to your taste,” Smith tells me. But the learning doesn't happen overnight. “On some of the things around what you watch at certain times of day, we’re a little bit more constrained to make sure that there really is a pattern of behavior and you didn’t just leave TV running or you just happened to watch Good Morning America one day.” If it works as promised, users can expect the service to establish “habitual behavior” after 30 days or so. The new Hulu experience. But even Smith acknowledges that some participants in Hulu’s early beta test haven’t immediately taken to the revamped experience. “Our viewers needed a little more help understanding the UI than we thought they would. Specifically on mobile devices, we’ve found that users are struggling a little bit to find everything. And Xbox users tend to do it better than Apple TV users. We think that might be something to do with the demographic and how well the native controls work into how you use the application.” (Is that an Apple TV remote burn?) Smith’s team already has a list of usability improvements to make over the coming weeks. One longer project on the to-do list is improving search, which Smith acknowledges as “the part of the product I’m least excited about.” None of the streaming TV services have particularly great or helpful search functions. Hulu hasn’t gotten on the voice search bandwagon, so what’s here just isn’t as useful as what current streaming boxes from Apple and Amazon can do. “We’ve focused on the scenarios I know that will matter on live TV,” Smith says, like easily finding a sport or primetime show, but he still refers to search as a place his users will visit “as last resort.” Hulu’s redesign was known internally under the codename Bowie. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge The $39.99-per-month TV subscription includes 50 hours of DVR storage, with Hulu automatically saving episodes of shows that you’ve added to My Stuff. There’s no such thing as “record only this episode” and you can’t just start recording a channel manually. Other internet TV services don’t do that, either. Saved shows will stay around indefinitely until you go over your allotted storage, says Smith. “It will save in perpetuity. You have 50 hours in the base package and 200 hours in the Enhanced DVR package, and they’ll roll off on a first-in, first-out basis.” What version of a show you’ll see when you hit play is... complicated. It depends on what Hulu decides is the “best asset” for your situation. If you pay an extra $4 monthly for ad-free Hulu, you’ll get that clean version for eligible shows. In other instances, the service will favor recordings as they originally aired on TV over on-demand. Another mockup shows a much different, more social Hulu vision with multitasking shows and emoji reactions. See, one very annoying obstacle in the $39.99 base package is that you can’t seek through or fast forward commercials when watching live TV or recorded content. You can pause, but rewind and fast forward are only available once your program is back on. When you get to the next commercial break, you’re stuck with only the pause button again. Hulu can’t distinguish between ads and content on all networks, so you’re not restricted everywhere, but most of the big channels fall under this rule. I predict that more than a few prospective customers will be turned off by it. If that’s you, Hulu is happy to sell you a $19.99 (monthly) “Enhanced Cloud DVR and Unlimited Screens” add-on, which ups your cloud recording time to 200 hours and does permit seeking through all content. With that factored in, the monthly subscription goes up to roughly $60. That’s a significant jump. Oddly, Hulu is also quietly offering a “Live TV Only” package with no on-demand content whatsoever for $38.99 — a savings of $1. The “unlimited screens” part of the premium add-on allows up to 20 simultaneous connections from your home IP address. One would hope that’d be adequate for all the displays in your house. If you somehow exceed it, the app will prompt you to call the company and explain whatever unusual situation you’ve got going on. Fair warning: you can’t use Hulu TV for all the tenants in your apartment building or for all the TVs in a sports bar; those would violate the company’s terms. When away from home, you’re given two “anywhere” concurrent streams with the base plan or three with the premium add-on. So this is what Hulu has to offer as it enters to compete against Sling TV, PlayStation Vue, YouTube, and to some extent big cable. It already has the benefit of stronger brand recognition than some of those — particularly Vue. Hulu’s pitch: you’ll get some (but not all) good channels, a decent serving of sports, a smart personalization engine, and an obsessed-over user experience. The batch of live TV channels you’re getting certainly aren’t unique to Hulu, and the company is facing some of the same early-days frustrations as its rivals. Those frustrations largely don’t exist for traditional cable customers. They get their Walking Dead and live, local CBS just fine. Still, Ben Smith still thinks all of these things together will be compelling for the large portion of US consumers still unaware that these internet TV services exist in the first place. “If you’re in our space, if you’re in the media space, you’ve been watching Sony and Sling and DirecTV and YouTube for awhile now,” he says. “But if I walk out to Costco, the vast majority of people, I think, are going to give me blank stares.” Hulu believes there’s “a lot of the category to define,” and after more than 18 months of design work, backend preparations, and all that research, it’s ready to redefine itself to get there. The effort could falter for any number of reasons, but ideally the people behind that glass mirror will keep guiding Hulu towards improving things. As Strawbridge told me, “That’s why research rocks.” |
The Rugby Football Union has entered the television contract dispute by stating it did not give permission to Premier Rugby to sell European rights. Premier Rugby, which represents England's top 12 clubs, is in conflict with European Rugby Cup (ERC). ERC, which oversees the Heineken Cup, believes Premier Rugby exceeded its powers by selling European rights to BT Vision for three years from 2014. Background The Heineken features clubs from the countries that play in the Six Nations: England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France and Italy The second-tier Challenge Cup has teams from the Six Nations countries, plus Romania and Spain The competitions are governed by European Rugby Cup (ERC), which has an agreement with the clubs running until 2014 English and French clubs have given two years' notice they intend to withdraw from the competitions when the agreement expires in 2014 They argue that clubs in the RaboDirect Pro12 league, which covers Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Italy, have an unfair advantage in Europe Their argument is that, because the Pro12 has no relegation, teams can rest players for league matches to keep them fresh for European games Premier Rugby also says it can boost revenue for all clubs with its new deal And an RFU statement has confirmed that it did not give approval for the deal. Premier Rugby announced a £152m, four-year agreement with BT Vision on Wednesday. The deal covers Premiership games from next season, but also includes a three-year arrangement for BT Vision to show live European matches involving leading English clubs. But ERC, which is also responsible for the Amlin Challenge Cup, claimed it was the only organisation that could negotiate TV rights and announced a four-year deal with BSkyB, running until 2018. There is, however, currently no agreement in place to continue the Heineken or Amlin Challenge Cups beyond 2014. Premier Rugby claimed it had been given authority to sell the rights as part of an eight-year agreement with the RFU signed in October 2007. But that version of events has been dismissed by the RFU, English rugby's governing body, which called for the Heineken Cup board to find a compromise when it meets in Dublin on Tuesday. "The RFU will continue to liaise with all stakeholders in order to help reach a conclusion which benefits all," said an RFU statement. The TV dispute BT: Premier Rugby says BT has exclusive rights to broadcast Premiership matches from next season, and European games involving Premiership sides in the UK from the 2014-15 season Premier Rugby says BT has exclusive rights to broadcast Premiership matches from next season, and European games involving Premiership sides in the UK from the 2014-15 season Sky: ERC says Sky has exclusive rights to broadcast European games in the UK from the 2014-15 season "While the RFU has not given consent to Premiership Rugby to grant European broadcasting rights, we believe it is important to work with them and with all parties involved to find common ground. "We anticipate that this process will begin at the ERC stakeholder meeting on Tuesday, September 18." English and French clubs announced during the summer that they planned to withdraw from the Heineken and Amlin Challenge Cups when the current agreement governing the competitions expires in 2014. But the planned move is seen as a negotiating tactic to push through changes to the way in which European rugby union's leading club cup competitions are run. |
On Sunday, three nuns from Nyack, N.Y., walked into Hi Tor Animal Care Center with one intention: to adopt a dog that no one else wanted. When the women met Remy, a 9-year-old pit bull who'd been at the shelter in Pomona, N.Y., since October, they knew she was the animal for them. "I wanted to bring a dog home that might get euthanized if we didn't take her," Sister Veronica Mendez told News 12. "And when I noticed the sign said '9 years,' I said, 'Virginia, we want this one, because nobody else is going to want her.'" West Artope, executive director at Hi Tor, told The Huffington Post that he was surprised that the nuns -- all over 70 years old -- weren't deterred by the thought of owning a pit bull. "Most people have a pretty bad understanding of pits," Artope told HuffPost. "But Remy was sensitive to the sisters, especially to Sister Virginia, who walks with a cane. She kept up with her and was so attentive." Remy now lives with the nuns at Sisters of Our Lady of Christian Doctrine. Artope told HuffPost that the sisters didn't have to pay for the adoption -- Pauline Jarney, a Hi Tor volunteer, and Roberta Bangs, a Hi Tor board member, were so moved by the nuns' actions that they covered the bill. |
Coronado, California (CNN) More than 2,200 miles away, President Donald Trump was under siege Thursday over his White House's constantly-changing rationale for firing the FBI director who was investigating his campaign. A few hundred feet away, protesters were marching on the beach, denouncing Trump and local Rep. Darrell Issa over GOP lawmakers' push to undercut Obamacare's protections for those with pre-existing conditions. But inside the Hotel Del Coronado, where 168 Republican National Committee members and their guests -- including first daughter-in-law Lara Trump and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke -- gathered for their spring meeting Thursday, Trump's troubles were met with a shrug. The first clips of Trump's interview with NBC's Lester Holt, in which he was grilled over his firing of James Comey, aired as RNC members were in a rules committee meeting Thursday. Hours later, though, RNC members said they weren't sweating the Comey controversy. "It's barely been mentioned in any of the meetings with any of the members," said Terry Lathan, the Alabama Republican Party chairwoman. "And every time it has been, it has been overwhelmingly, 'He needed to go,'" Lathan said. "It's been consistent. There's not been any hand-wringing." "I don't think that I've seen anything that's problematic yet for the President or the Vice President," said Kyle Hupfer, the chairman of the Indiana Republican Party -- a state where the GOP will attempt to knock off Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly in 2018. Tamara Scott, an RNC member from Iowa, said she takes Trump's word that he isn't under investigation -- citing the President's dubious claim about his conversations with Comey -- and said she sees the issue as ginned up by a hostile political press. "I'm concerned about good media and fair press," she said. Republicans aren't oblivious to Trump's struggles. One high-ranking GOP official conceded that some top Republicans begin each day fearing what new self-destructive sideshow Trump could create. Another, pointing to the anti-Trump furor in the progressive base and the huge turnout at town halls, said that "our guys are getting demolished" by an energized Democratic Party. Still, very few would openly criticize Trump's job performance beyond casting controversies like the Comey firing as an unhelpful distraction. "As someone who wants to win elections in California, I want every single day to be about making good on our promises, preferably. That being said, we don't always get that opportunity," said Ron Nehring, the former California Republican Party chairman. However, Nehring said Trump gets "tremendous benefit of the doubt" and "tremendous leeway" with Republican voters. And Nehring contended that controversies like Comey's firing don't resonate outside the beltway -- especially compared to issues such as health care that touch individual voters directly. "We've seen that disconnect, right? Every day that something unexpected comes out of the White House, we see people freaking out," he said. "And then outside of Washington, it doesn't really have that big of an impact, because most people don't make a living day-by-day on every single development in the three coequal branches of government." Despite the optimistic view, recent polling shows Trump is damaged. A Quinnipiac University survey found that 82% of Republicans support Trump's performance -- while 90% of Democrats and 63% of independents disapprove. That means Trump's base is largely behind him, but he's bled enough support that his approval rating is just 36%. Mark Brody, a North Carolina state representative, said Democrats are trying to "set the tone and the momentum" for the 2018 midterms, "and we are standing steadfast behind our President and saying, 'Keep up the good work." As for what Comey's firing, the health care battle, and more mean for the 2018 midterms, "we have to play these out," he said. "I don't think we're down the road far enough." "I don't see them being problematic" in the midterms, said Robin Armstrong, an RNC member from Texas. "The Comey issue is kind of a yawn," he said. "I don't think most people really care about it, to be honest with you. I think regular voters just don't care." |
The biggest shopping day on the planet raked in an eye-popping $25.4 billion. Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba (BABA) said Saturday that sales soared past $18 billion after just 13 hours of the retail blitz known as Singles Day, eclipsing the $17.8 billion it managed in the full 24 hours last year. Singles Day, a bonanza of online spending in China, has for years racked up more sales than Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined. Earlier in the day, Alibaba said eager shoppers had managed to spend $1 billion in just 2 minutes. As the clock struck midnight in Shanghai, the final sales tally rang in at $25,386,927,848, marking about a 40% increase over last year's record-setting sales total. Singles Day started out as an informal holiday in China celebrating single people on a day that epitomizes not being paired off: 11/11. Alibaba turned it into a festival of discount deals in 2009. Related: Black Friday 2017: When will the stores open? Alibaba has used the now-massive event to lure international companies onto its platforms. More than 40% of the brands taking part this year came from outside China, according to research firm eMarketer Retail. And while Singles Day still mostly targets Chinese consumers, it's also increasingly spreading to other countries, experts say. Local players in Southeast Asia like Lazada (an Alibaba subsidiary), Zalora and Shopee launched their own Singles Day promotions this year, said Xiaofeng Wang, an analyst with research firm Forrester. Related: It's not just Amazon: Chinese tech giants are selling groceries too The event is also evolving beyond its original conception as an online shopping spree. Alibaba and its main Chinese rival, JD.com, have both made significant investments in brick-and-mortar businesses. And they're using the popularity of Singles Day to drive shoppers to offline stores, too. Cosmetics giant L'Oreal (LRLCF), for example, set up an interactive mirror at its Shanghai store where shoppers could try on virtual makeup using augmented reality and then order products on a touch screen linked to an Alibaba platform. But beyond the blockbuster sales, Singles Day also creates an enormous amount of waste. Greenpeace said the manufacturing, packaging and shipping linked to the event produced 258,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions last year. It would take about 2.6 billion trees to absorb it all. The environmental activist group estimates this year's shopping blitz is on track to leave an even bigger carbon footprint. "More over-consumption means more CO2 emissions and waste," said Greenpeace campaigner Nie Li. |
We all love a good King Arthur story right? It’s not just my obsession with the legends and the mythology of the era that makes me see parallels everywhere, right? Well even if it is just me, I can’t help but love the darker side of the Arthurian tales. Movies like “King Arthur” and the upcoming “Legend of the Sword” films are attempting to make the stories gritty and hyper realistic but they will never fully succeed in doing so. The movies attempt to be both historical and fantasy and they fail to be either because King Arthur is a character and a theme beyond both of them. It may be impossible to portray the characters in the Arthurian legends in film or in books (though that will never stop me from trying) the way they deserve. So what is there to do? Well this is a music analysis site so it shouldn’t be a leap to guess that I think music is the best way to go. Drochtuarach, a project of out the land of Arthur himself, just released (literally two days before this review) a new album called Vespers of Prideful Scorn. Even if Arthurian themes and topics were not the goal of the album, I would say that they succeeded brilliantly. First though, of course, some stray thoughts on the artwork and such. One, the title of the album, and the titles of the songs for that matter, has such a strong black metal vibe I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a companion album out there that recreates all the songs in an atmospheric black metal tone. Two, the logo for the project might be simple but it’s elegant and efficient, much like the Middle English era that the music seems to emulate. Three, this is the first time I’ve had the pleasure of listening to Drochtuarach and while I don’t know exactly what the name means (both literally and figuratively) I intend to find out! The album proper has some great ritualistic, cathedrallike sounds. The music echoes, creating an enormous atmosphere. Even though the music has a very sharp gothic edge to it, there are some lighter elements to the album. Overall, yes, the album is very dark and dreary and melancholic, representing the reality of the time period. Again I don’t know if that’s what the artist was going for when he created the music but it’s what I, the listener, felt and saw. The Middle English period, the literature at least, was not nearly as dark and foreboding as the literature in the Old English period, works such as Beowulf, but it was not all cheery. The Arthurian legends really took root in this period, one theory I’ve heard is that it was a Norman invention to stir up anti-Anglo-Saxon sentiments amongst the native Britons but again that’s neither here nor there. My point in that massive digression was that the music in Vespers of Prideful Scorn were not as dark as an album covering the mood of the Old English period might have been but it’s not nearly as bright and hopeful as the Middle English period would have had the readers think. The music on Vespers of Prideful Scorn is an honest, realistic (possibly hyper realistic) look at the period. There was still war and death and disease and oppressive religious regimes that targeted people and kings that butchered other kings for no more reason than they wanted something the other had. It’s in this sort of atmosphere, one where nothing was really okay but everyone pretended that it was, that the attitude of Vespers of Prideful Scorn is born. The irreligious, misotheistic attitude that is plain to see in song titles like “Eyes Like Dying Stars See into My Witch Heart,” and “Mournful Souls Inside Broken Stones.” The antireligious themes play in a crazy contrast to my Arthurian interpretation of the album. I’ve never been happy with seeing Arthur as a religious character, despite all the literature trying to pigeonhole him into that archetype. While I never saw him as an antireligious figure before this album, I saw him as a warrior, as a violent fighter whose motivations never had anything to do with religion or faith. Vespers of Prideful Scorn uses a lot of black metal tropes and archetypes to twist the vision of Arthur that I had. He’s not evil but he is a more brutal, sinister figure than I’ve ever seen him. The album achieves this by creating vast, dark landscapes with shadowy towers and occultic effects against a minimalistic synth score. With folkish themes, the landscape is made real, sharp. The shadows normally made by dungeon synth are darker on this album, they have a sinister feel them. Vespers of Prideful Scorn is a damn brilliant album, carefully crafted and engineered. The beauty of the album lies in its bleak outlook. The world of the album is beautiful and vivid, yet behind everything is the possibility of something dark. Was the album about Arthur? Likely not but as the listener-protagonist here I felt an immediate link between them. Whatever you find in this album, be it Arthur or anything else, you find a grim yet beautiful world that is worth exploring. Listen and support the music! Drochtuarach’s Facebook Page Vespers of Prideful Scorn on Bandcamp Advertisements |
Over the past two centuries, the times of day, locations and methods of measuring temperature have all changed dramatically. For example, where once researchers lowered buckets over the side of ships to collect water for measuring, we now have a global network of automated buoys floating around the oceans measuring the water directly. This complicates matters for scientists putting together a long-term, consistent estimate of how global temperatures are changing. Scientists must adjust the raw data to take into account all the differences in how, when and where measurements were taken. These adjustments have long been a heated point of debate. Many climate sceptics like to argue that scientists “exaggerate” warming by lowering past temperatures and raising present ones. Christopher Booker, a climate sceptic writing in the Sunday Telegraph in 2015, called them “the greatest scientific scandal in history”. A new report from the rightwing US thinktank, the Cato Institute, even claims that adjustments account for “nearly all the warming” in the historical record. But analysis by Carbon Brief comparing raw global temperature records to the adjusted data finds that the truth is much more mundane: adjustments have relatively little impact on global temperatures, particularly over the past 50 years. In fact, over the full period when measurements are available, adjustments actually have the net effect of reducing the amount of long-term warming that the world has experienced. Raw data shows more global warming Land and ocean temperatures are adjusted separately to correct for changes to measurement methods over time. All the original temperature readings from both land-based weather stations and ocean-going ships and buoys are publically available and can be used to create a “raw” global temperature record. The figure below shows the global surface temperature record created from only raw temperature readings with no adjustments applied (blue line). The red line is the adjusted land and ocean temperature record produced using adjusted data from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), with the difference between the two in grey. Global mean adjusted and raw surface temperature. See note at the end for technical details on this analysis. Anomalies plotted with respect to a 1961-1990 baseline. Chart by Carbon Brief using Highcharts You can see that adjustments to the data have relatively little effect on global temperatures after 1950. The rate of warming between 1950 and 2016 in the adjusted data is just under 10% faster than the raw data, and only 4% faster since the start of the modern warming period in 1970. The adjustments that have a big impact on the surface temperature record all occur before 1950. Here, past temperatures are adjusted up – significantly reducing the warming over the past century. Over the full 1880-2016 period, the adjusted data actually warms more than 20% slower than the raw data. The large adjustments before 1950 are due almost entirely to changes in the way ships measured temperatures (more on that later). Adjustments to land temperatures So, looking at data adjustments more closely, why and how are land-based temperature measurements adjusted? A single weather station will likely see many changes over the decades that it is in use. Few stations remain in exactly the same place over very long periods, with most stations experiencing at least one move to a new location. Most stations have also changed the way they measure temperatures, transitioning from liquid-in-glass thermometers to electronic instruments. Stations have often changed the time of day they measure temperatures, and growing cities and urban areas can introduce artificial warming in some stations. Very local factors, such as trees growing over stations or poor station siting, can also cause problems. To correct for differences in a temperature record caused by these changes, known as inhomogeneities, scientists employ an approach known as statistical homogenization. They compare each station to all of its nearby neighbours and look for changes that are local to one station, but not found at any others in the area. Over long periods of time, climate changes are very rarely local, so localised changes not seen at surrounding stations are most likely due to something such as a station move or instrument change. For example, if one station is warming over the course of a decade, while all the surrounding stations are cooling, that station would be flagged as “inhomogenous” and its record would be corrected to bring it back in line with its neighbours. Disruptions of station records associated with station moves, time of observation changes, and even urbanisation tend to only affect one station in a region at a time, and can be easily picked up by neighbour comparisons. The figure below shows the net effect of all the adjustments to land stations to the global land temperature record. Adjustments increase the overall land temperature warming by 16% between 1880 and 2016. Most of this is concentrated in the earlier part of the temperature record. Since 1970, adjustments only increase warming by 3%. Adjustments to land temperatures do have larger effects in some particular regions – such as in the US and Africa – but these tend to average out when looking at the global land surface record. Global adjusted and raw land temperatures. Anomalies plotted with respect to a 1961-1990 baseline. Chart by Carbon Brief using Highcharts Scientists have gone to great lengths to test the methods they use to adjust land stations to ensure that they are accurately detecting and correcting problems without introducing spurious warming or cooling. This includes benchmarking studies – testing their approach on data with different types of errors added to it. They have also set up a climate reference network in the US of perfectly sited stations with high-accuracy sensors. Comparing the raw and adjusted stations to this reference network, scientists have shown that the adjustments significantly improve the accuracy of the data. While much has been made about adjustments to individual land stations that increase warming, these are often extreme cases cherry-picked to make a point. When adjustments to all stations are considered, just as many reduce warming as increase warming, as shown in the figure below from NOAA. Here, roughly half of all corrections reduce the temperature and half increase it. For example, one station in Darwin, Australia has been adjusted to show more warming to account for a station move and shelter change in the 1940s. Yet the adjustment of another station – this time a station in Tokyo, Japan – has reduced the warming it shows to correct for the urban heat island effect of an expanding city. Scientists have also worked to improve the number of land temperature records available to use by collecting and digitising old temperature records from around the world. New efforts such as the International Surface Temperature Initiative (ISTI) and the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project have worked to increase the number of historical land stations available by around 500%, compared to prior station collections, and provided better coverage of the Earth’s regions, as shown in the figure below. Adjustments to ocean temperatures Improvements to temperature measurements aren’t limited to the land – perhaps even more significant advances have come in how temperatures are measured in our oceans. The biggest adjustment by far is the switch from bucket-based measurements to engine intakes in ships in the 1930s and 1940s. This is the “only one that matters” globally, says Maynooth University researcher Dr Peter Thorne, who has worked with NOAA to develop their ocean temperature record. Prior to 1940, most ships measured temperatures by throwing a bucket overboard into the water, pulling it up onto the deck by rope, and sticking a thermometer in the bucket to measure the temperature of the water. The problem is that air temperatures are often much warmer or colder than ocean temperatures. As the bucket is slowly pulled up onto deck, the water will heat up or cool down. During the 1930s and 1940s, most ships switched to measuring temperatures through engine room intakes. Ships pull seawater in through the hull to cool the engine and the temperature of the water was taken as it came in. This resulted in temperature readings quite a bit different than when using buckets, since – despite the fact that engine rooms are warm – the water had little time to warm up or cool down before being measured. The raw and adjusted ocean temperature records are shown in the figure below, with the bucket adjustments quite prominent at around 0.3C. Global adjusted and raw sea surface temperatures. Anomalies plotted with respect to a 1961-1990 baseline. Chart by Carbon Brief using Highcharts The large pre-1940 bucket adjustments greatly reduce the long-term warming in the record, resulting in 36% less warming since 1880 than in the raw temperature data. In recent years, adjustments to ocean temperatures slightly increase the rate of warming by around 4%. Since 1990, the way that oceans temperatures are measured has changed once again. While about 90% of measurements came from ships 20 years ago, today almost 80% come from buoys floating in the ocean. These buoys are in direct contact with the water and end up reading temperatures slightly lower than measurements taken in engine room intakes. To correct for a cool bias introduced by adding cooler buoy data to warmer ship data, temperatures are adjusted slightly upwards for recent years. This fact proved quite controversial with the publication of a paper by Tom Karl and colleagues in 2015, but has since been validated by other studies. The net effect of these buoy-related adjustments, however, is relatively small. Records from many different groups It’s also worth noting that adjustments to temperature records are not decided by one single group of scientists. Rather, multiple different research teams have independently created their own land and ocean temperature records. While much of the underlying raw data is the same, each takes a somewhat different approach to adjustments and how to deal with areas of the earth with missing data. The resulting global temperature records from five different groups, along with the raw data, are shown in the figure below. Global mean surface temperatures from NASA Berkeley Earth , and Cowtan and Way . Anomalies plotted with respect to a 1961-1990 baseline. Chart by Carbon Brief using Highcharts NOAA and NASA share the same adjustment approach for land and oceans, though NASA applies an additional correction for urban heat islands that gives stations in cities less weight. The record jointly produced by the UK Met Office Hadley Centre and the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit has its own approach of relying mostly on national meteorological offices to adjust the data within their own countries. It also has its own separate ocean temperature record with its own adjustment approach. The temperature record by researchers Cowtan and Way simply use Hadley data with a different approach for areas with missing data, such as the polar regions. The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, which was founded as an independent non-governmental group to independently assess surface temperature records, has its own unique approach for adjusting land records. This detects problems at local stations and cuts the station record at the point where the problem is found. Everything after that point is considered to be a new station. For sea surface temperatures, Berkeley uses Hadley’s adjusted ocean record. Changing versions of temperature datasets Those sceptical of temperature adjustments have often tried to show their impact by comparing older and newer versions of the same temperature record. The problem with this approach is that it risks conflating changes in data availability, methodology and adjustments. However, even if different versions of prior records are compared, the changes over time between records are generally relatively small. The charts below show different versions of the NASA and Hadley/UEA datasets published over the past 30 years. 5-year running mean comparisons of past and current versions of the Hadley/UEA record (top) and NASA record (bottom). Anomalies plotted with respect to a 1961-1990 baseline. Chart by Carbon Brief using Highcharts Subsequent updates to datasets after the mid-1990s are actually quite small and mostly reflect factors such as increased station data availability in the Arctic and recent adjustments such as the ship-buoy transition corrections. It’s only when you compare them to global temperature estimates from the 1980s that larger differences emerge. This is because early 1980s estimates of global temperatures had much less data to work with. Scientists had yet to undertake the painstaking work of collecting and digitising much of the world’s temperature records from paper logbooks. In 1981, for example, NASA relied on only a few hundred land stations almost entirely in the Northern Hemisphere to estimate global temperatures. Their temperature record did not even use any sea surface temperature data until the 1990s. Today, scientists have collected records from more than 32,000 land stations and more than 1.2m observations of sea surface temperatures per year. Both the number of stations included and the methodology used by global surface temperature datasets have changed over time. Rather than compare different versions of existing datasets, it is much simpler to analyse all the raw temperature records available today and compare them to the adjusted data. This lets scientists isolate just the effect of the adjustments. Conclusion With almost 200 years of raw data to work with, adjustments are a necessary part of the methodology for scientists constructing long-term global temperature records. But most of these adjustments are small and they have relatively little impact on temperature records over the past few decades. The most significant account for the shift from buckets to ship intakes in ocean temperature records in the 1930s and 1940s, and these changes are well-understood by scientists. And, contrary to popular belief, adjustments actually reduce, rather than increase, the amount of warming experienced globally over the past century. Methodological footnote The global, land and ocean temperature records from raw and adjusted data shown in the article were constructed as follows: Land: Both raw and adjusted land temperature data was obtained from the Global Historical Climatological Network Monthly Version 4. Stations records were converted into anomalies with respect to a 1961-1990 baseline period. Stations with fewer than 10 years overlap with the baseline period were discarded. Stations were assigned to 5×5 latitude/longitude grid cells. Anomalies for each month were averaged within each grid cell. A global land temperature estimate was calculated by an area-weighted average of grid cells for each month. Ocean: Raw ocean temperature records from ships and buoys are available from ICOADS. For this analysis, an unadjusted gridded product provided by HadSST3 was used. Adjusted ocean temperature records were taken from the ERSSTv4 gridded product. Global: Global land/ocean temperatures were estimated by weighted combination of land and ocean temperature, with weights of 0.71 for ocean and 0.29 for land representing their relative portion of the Earth’s surface. Note: The author of this article was a member of the team that produced the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project. In addition, he is the lead author on the paper mentioned assessing the Karl et al 2015 buoy corrections and the paper on US climate reference network comparisons. |
Juan Thompson, former Intercept writer, arrested in connection with bomb threats Juan Thompson, who was fired from The Intercept last year for fabricating quotes, has been arrested on suspicion of making bomb threats against Jewish community centers. Thompson, who joined The Intercept at the end of 2014, stands accused of one count of cyberstalking in addition to making eight threats against Jewish community centers, according to NBC News. An anonymous threat emailed to a JCC in Manhattan earlier in February included Thompson’s own name. It said he ‘put two bombs in the office of the Jewish center today. He wants to create Jewish Newtown tomorrow,’ the complaint said. ‘Newtown’ apparently refers to the December 2012 massacre at a Connecticut school that claimed the lives of 26 people, including 20 children. The staff of The Intercept was “horrified” to hear about the charges, according to a statement from Editor-in-Chief Betsy Reed. “We were horrified to learn this morning that Juan Thompson, a former employee of The Intercept, has been arrested in connection with bomb threats against the ADL and multiple Jewish Community Centers in addition to cyberstalking,” the statement reads. “These actions are heinous and should be fully investigated and prosecuted. We have no information about the charges against Thompson other than what is included in the criminal complaint.” Among the most egregious of Thompson’s fabrications was a bogus claim that he spoke with Scott Roof, ostensibly Dylann Roof’s cousin but actually a fictional source. Last February, Reed published the results of an investigation that revealed “a pattern of deception” by Thomson, which included made-up quotes and fake email accounts used to impersonate people. An investigation into Thompson’s reporting turned up three instances in which quotes were attributed to people who said they had not been interviewed. In other instances, quotes were attributed to individuals we could not reach, who could not remember speaking with him, or whose identities could not be confirmed. Share this: Facebook Twitter WhatsApp LinkedIn Reddit Email Print |
The vegan diet A vegan diet contains only plants (such as vegetables, grains, nuts and fruits) and foods made from plants. Vegans do not eat foods that come from animals, including dairy products and eggs. Healthy eating as a vegan You should be able to get most of the nutrients you need from eating a varied and balanced vegan diet. For a healthy vegan diet: eat at least 5 portions of a variety of fruit and vegetables every day base meals on potatoes, bread, rice, pasta or other starchy carbohydrates (choose wholegrain where possible) have some dairy alternatives, such as soya drinks and yoghurts (choose lower fat and lower sugar options) eat some beans, pulses and other proteins choose unsaturated oils and spreads, and eat in small amounts drink plenty of fluids (the government recommends 6 to 8 cups or glasses a day) If you choose to include foods and drinks that are high in fat, salt or sugar, have them less often and in small amounts. See the Eatwell Guide for more information about a healthy diet. The Eatwell Guide applies to vegetarians, vegans, people of all ethnic origins and those who are a healthy weight for their height, as well as those who are overweight. The only group it's not suitable for is children under the age of 2, as they have different needs. Getting the right nutrients from a vegan diet With good planning and an understanding of what makes up a healthy, balanced vegan diet, you can get all the nutrients your body needs. If you do not plan your diet properly, you could miss out on essential nutrients, such as calcium, iron and vitamin B12. Vegans who are pregnant or breastfeeding During pregnancy and when breastfeeding, women who follow a vegan diet need to make sure they get enough vitamins and minerals for their child to develop healthily. See vegetarian and vegan mums-to-be for more information. If you're bringing up your baby or child on a vegan diet, you need to ensure they get a wide variety of foods to provide the energy and vitamins they need for growth. See vegetarian and vegan babies and children for more information. Vegan sources of calcium and vitamin D Calcium is needed for strong and healthy bones and teeth. Non-vegans get most of their calcium from dairy foods (milk, cheese and yoghurt), but vegans can get it from other foods. Good sources of calcium for vegans include: green, leafy vegetables – such as broccoli, cabbage and okra, but not spinach fortified unsweetened soya, rice and oat drinks calcium-set tofu sesame seeds and tahini pulses brown and white bread (in the UK, calcium is added to white and brown flour by law) dried fruit, such as raisins, prunes, figs and dried apricots A 30g portion of dried fruit counts as 1 of your 5 A Day, but should be eaten at mealtimes, not as a between-meal snack, to reduce the impact on teeth. The body needs vitamin D to regulate the amount of calcium and phosphate in the body. These nutrients help keep bones, teeth and muscles healthy. Good sources of vitamin D for vegans include: exposure to sunlight, particularly from late March/early April to the end of September – remember to cover up or protect your skin before it starts to turn red or burn (see vitamin D and sunlight) fortified fat spreads, breakfast cereals and unsweetened soya drinks (with vitamin D added) vitamin D supplements Read the label to ensure the vitamin D used in a product is not of animal origin. Vegan sources of iron Iron is essential for the production of red blood cells. A vegan diet can be high in iron, although iron from plant-based food is absorbed by the body less well than iron from meat. Good sources of iron for vegans are: pulses wholemeal bread and flour breakfast cereals fortified with iron dark green, leafy vegetables, such as watercress, broccoli and spring greens nuts dried fruits, such as apricots, prunes and figs Vegan sources of vitamin B12 The body needs vitamin B12 to maintain healthy blood and a healthy nervous system. It's only found naturally in foods from animal sources. Sources for vegans are therefore limited and a vitamin B12 supplement may be needed. Sources of vitamin B12 for vegans include: breakfast cereals fortified with B12 unsweetened soya drinks fortified with vitamin B12 yeast extract, such as Marmite, which is fortified with vitamin B12 |
There’s no denying it: the Charlotte Independence are red hot. They won again on Saturday night just as they have the last four games, defeating Saint Louis FC 5–1 to move back into third place in the USL Eastern Conference. Yes… that’s five green rectangles in a row. There’s another trend forming over the last month or so too: the Independence are scoring first and scoring early. They’ve scored first in seven of their last 8 games and have a record of 5–1–2 in those games. In all three games played at home since opening Matthews Sportsplex, they have scored before the 15th minute. Jorge Herrera started the party against Harrisburg City in the 13th, David Estrada struck first against the Rhinos in the 12th, and last night, Herrera scored the opener (and his first of three on the night) against Saint Louis in the 14th minute of play. That opening goal came from Enzo Martinez working hard to take the ball off the defender at the endline. He then faked a shot to clear the other defender before hitting a left-footed shot toward goalkeeper Devala Gorrick. Gorrick made a great save down low, but the ball popped right into the path of Jorge Herrera, who headed it into the back of the net. Gorrick would make several great saves on the night, so don’t let the scoreline fool you, he’s a good player. His defense… well… not so much. The next ten minutes or so saw Charlotte look to possess the ball and play a little keep away, but they weren’t as crisp with their passing and movement. We saw a lot of giveaways, but Saint Louis was very impatient in possession, often giving the ball right back or taking ill-advised shots from distance. I think the weight of going more than 400 minutes without scoring a goal might have gotten into the heads of some of their players (their last goal came on June 11th in a loss to Bethlehem Steel). Charlotte then took back control of the ball and made the lead two goals to nil after a long spell of possession. Austin Yearwood and Alex Martinez linked up down the left wing and got the ball to Enzo Martinez, who laid it off to Herrera, whose shot was saved again by Gorrick… but Jorge followed the rebound and put it away. Hat trick watch was on again! It felt like Saint Louis needed to pull a goal back before the half to have a chance of getting any kind of result out of the game, but they couldn’t even manage a shot before Enzo made it 3–0. Austin Yearwood launched the attack after he intercepted a pass near the Independence 18 and hit a pass to Herrera at the half-field line. Saint Louis was able to get back and stop the initial attack but could only clear it as far as Callum Ross, who passed to Alex Martinez, who found his brother in the right spot to hit it low and hard and into the net. It was 3–0 before the break, and the three points were essentially secured. Saint Louis came out of halftime and started to play better. They picked up their energy level and had more possession of the ball in the Independence half. This isn’t surprising for the Jacks; their opponents have been trailing a lot at halftime lately, and they’ve learned to weather the storm (both literally and metaphorically). The Jacks went close to making it 4–0 in the 53rd minute when Alex Martinez hit an inch perfect diagonal through ball about 40 yards to the feet of Herrera who tried to play in Enzo, but Gorrick came off his line just in the nick of time to collect it in the box. Saint Louis finally ended their goal-scoring drought in the 57th minute on a nice flick by Octavio Guzman on a ball crossed in from the right side. It looked like Yearwood may have gotten a touch to the ball, but it wasn’t enough to knock the cross off its path. Guzman did well hitting it off the bounce into the net. 3–1. The Jacks wouldn’t let that put a damper on the evening though. In the 60th minute, David Estrada played a great pass into the Saint Louis box to Callum Ross, who was then run over by the defender. The penalty set up Jorge Herrera to make some history, and he did not disappoint. It might be time to start talking about Jorge as the co-MVP of this team. He secured his hat trick, the first in Independence history, from the penalty spot. The Jacks were in complete control the rest of the way in this one. There were a couple of really good chances to score the 5th, Alex Martinez and David Estrada both saw shots go just wide and Saint Louis blocked a shot in the box from Enzo. The Martinez brothers came off together in the 77th minute; Lewis Hilton and David Spies replaced them. Alex came off due to a possible injury, it looked like he took a hard kick to the leg, hopefully he’s okay! The final goal of the game finally was scored by the Captain, Bilal Duckett, and it might have been the most attractive goal of the night. It came from the free kick that Alex won before being subbed off. Jorge Herrera (who else) put a beautiful ball into the box, and Bilal flew and flicked a header to the top corner and into the net. Absolutely gorgeous! There was a very ugly moment minutes later when Emir Alihodzic kicked Lewis Hilton after he knocked Hilton to the ground. I’m not sure what was going through his head, but he lost his cool. This game is life for young professional soccer players, and emotions run high on the field, just as they run high in the stands. I’m sure he’s not a dirty player, and I’m sure he regretted it after the game, but the Saint Louis midfielder was shown a straight red card in the 84th minute. All in all, this was a dominant performance from the Jacks, who are playing at the highest level possible right now with five straight wins. There isn’t a player on the team who isn’t in good form, and if they can continue this hot streak, even the Eastern Conference leading Charleston Battery should be on high alert. Seriously, Charlotte sports fans owe it to themselves to head down to Matthews and take in a game. This team is good. Man of the Match I might need to rename this section to “The Jorge Herrera Award.” This was an easy choice… with the hat trick, Jorge Herrera wins again! You can’t stop Jorge, you can only hope to contain him, and Saint Louis could not contain him either. The first hat trick in Charlotte Independence history is scored by the first player signed in Independence history. Fitting. Go get some sweet tea, Jorge. Hip Hip! |
Di Canio is in his first season at Swindon and as a manager Swindon boss Paolo di Canio has started mind games before Sunday's derby with Oxford by claiming United striker James Constable is a Robins fan. Constable was born and lives in Wiltshire but has said in the past that he was a Tottenham fan. And Di Canio told BBC Wiltshire: "He's a big Swindon fan through and through - the Oxford fans know it. "It would be good to bring him here but I don't think Oxford will let him go, especially with the rivalry." Constable, 26, has been Oxford's top scorer for the past three seasons and is wanted by Luton as well as Swindon. Robins manager Di Canio said: "He's an important player for them obviously. In the last few years he is the one who has scored the goals. DID YOU KNOW? Oxford have not won a game away to Swindon since 1973 - a run of 17 matches "He has pace, he is tall, he can score with both feet and his physical presence is massive." The last derby match between the two was an FA Cup clash in December 2002, which Oxford won 1-0. Their most recent league meeting was a 2-0 win for Swindon in March 2001, and the Robins had been in a higher division since then until their relegation this summer, with Oxford having meanwhile endured a four-year spell in non-league football before their return last season. U's boss Chris Wilder told BBC Oxford: "I was first asked about it after the Barnet game [the day Swindon were relegated] last year and it's come round. It's going to be a cracking atmosphere. "Hopefully it goes well and we go there trying to play football. We're not going to change the way we play - we like to pass and play, and we'll do that. "It's a big game for us. We have to make sure we're passionate about the game but we have to be controlled. "We'll do that because we've got experienced players who have played in big games. But there's no doubt about it, it's a biggie on Sunday." Someone is trying to stick it about that Constable is a Swindon fan. I don't see that. My Tottenham-supporting number nine will be all out to get the goals for Oxford on Sunday Oxford boss Chris Wilder And Di Canio is looking forward to his first Oxford game as Robins manager. He said: "It is a crucial game. When you are at the beginning of the season and you play a derby like this, we need to win for ourselves. It can give us confidence. "I don't need to encourage my players. Only a stupid person would not understand how lucky they are to face their rivals in front of the fans. "My players are very lucky as they have amazing fans behind them, and we're playing at the County Ground so it's sure to be our fortress. For us it will be our cup final." DID YOU KNOW? The last 10 Swindon v Oxford derbies have produced a winner, with the last draw in 1995 The game will be a new occasion for all 22 men who start on Sunday, but U's midfielder Paul McLaren believes the players understand the importance of the game. "We know what it means to the fans. I can't wait for it. These are the games you look forward to - full houses, the crowd on your back and cheering for you," he said. "The lads are really up for it, especially after the win over Shrewsbury on Tuesday - we can take that into the game." And Wilder concluded: "Someone is trying to stick it about that Constable is a Swindon fan. I don't see that. My Tottenham-supporting number nine will be all out to get the goals for Oxford on Sunday." |
Outcry Over Photo Showing The Face Of A Girl Allegedly Being Raped Enlarge this image toggle caption LensCulture/Courtesy of DuckRabbit LensCulture/Courtesy of DuckRabbit On April 28, the magazine LensCulture posted a photo of what appeared to be a man raping a girl who looks like a young teenager. The magazine — which has nearly a million Facebook followers — was using the photo to promote a competition in partnership with Magnum Photos, which cost $60 to enter 10 photos. "Don't miss out!" the post said, a few sentences above the photo. The caption said the girl is 16 and is being forced to have sexual interactions with a "client" in the red-light district of Kolkata, called Sonagachi. The girl is on her back, looking up at the camera, with a naked man on top of her. Her face is in full view. Her identity is not concealed. Based on the content of the photo and its caption, the photo violated UNICEF's ethical guidelines on reporting on children by showing her face, which makes her identifiable, according to human rights activists. The agency writes: "Always change the name and obscure the visual identity of any child who is identified as a victim of sexual abuse or exploitation." The photo infuriated human rights activists and photojournalists. "I've seen some moral bankruptcy in photojournalism, but this is the most extreme," says Benjamin Chesterton at Duckrabbit, a film production and training company, who first wrote about the photo. "This is a photo of a child sex slave being used to promote a for-profit competition by Magnum — the most prestigious photo agency in the world." The incident also brings attention to a broader issue in photojournalism, Chesterton says: How the Western media depicts — and often demeans — young women and girls in poor countries. "This is the elephant in the room: how we view the suffering of distant others," says human rights activist Robert Godden of Rights Exposure, which helps nonprofits and governments create effective and ethical campaigns. "What if this photo series was taken in the U.S. or the U.K. — would the girl have been presented this way?" He adds, "Another good question to ask is: If this was a family member of mine, would I want them portrayed like this?" Amid a barrage of protests from readers, photojournalists and human rights activists, LensCulture took down the photo hours after it was posted. "But at this point, the magazine said nothing," Chesterton says. "There was no statement, no acknowledgment of the absolute human rights abuse of that young woman, of that child." Two days after the image first went up, LensCulture issued an apology on Facebook for making a "serious mistake in judgment" in presenting the photo "out of context." But the magazine defended the photo and its photographer, Souvid Datta: We'd like to emphasize that we believe the work of the photographer was carried out with great ethical care and in close collaboration with the subject portrayed; by contrast, our own posting was hasty and presented the situation without proper context. Datta did not respond to NPR's email request for an interview. Within a few days of the controversy's start, the validity and ethics of some of Datta's other work came under fire. Datta has been a highly regarded photojournalist since starting his career in 2013. He has won several prestigious awards, including ones from Getty Images and Magnum Photos. And his work has appeared in The New York Times and National Geographic. On Thursday, Datta admitted to Time to doctoring images. The photo of the girl led to a closer look at Datta's other work, which led to accusations of plagiarism. He admitted to taking a portion of a photo from influential photographer Mary Ellen Mark and inserting it into his own work without attributing it to her. He also admitted to taking other people's photographs and submitting them in photo competitions. At that point, LensCulture changed its view. On Thursday, May 4, the magazine's CEO Kamran Mohsenin told NPR that they no longer believed the photo was "taken with great ethical care." "Clearly that picture, in particular, is not appropriate in any context," Kamran says. Shortly after LensCulture spoke with NPR, the magazine issued a new apology on Facebook: "We condemn the lack of ethical standards used to create the photograph in question, and we apologize for publishing the photograph (which should never be published anywhere)." Renowned photojournalist Donna Ferrato agrees that the photo is not appropriate in any context. "There's no editorial value at all to this image. It's sensational, and it's incredibly damaging to the victim," says Ferrato, who did groundbreaking work documenting domestic violence in the U.S. "When I first saw the photo used in the ad by LensCulture, I was really devastated," she says. "It disgusted me that there are two men in the room with this young girl. There's the 'client,' paying to have sex with her. And behind the client, stands the photographer, who has been paid, through grant money, to take photographs of the girl being used. "All this photo says is, 'We men are in power, and we can do anything we want. The photographer can do anything he wants,' " Ferrato adds. Last week, Datta, the photographer, posted a comment about the photo and the controversy to his Facebook page, which has been taken down. In the statement, he said he was "horrified" that the photo was used to promote a competition. And the girl in the photo "is now an adult and has given her consent to use her photo." Datta also defended the image of the girl: She asked me to photograph this interaction — fully aware of my intention to publish this story widely in an attempt to create constructive awareness ... Where some see the image and point to the anonymity of the client and apparently undignified exposure of an underage girl, I see the astounding resilience of a young woman who takes ownership of her reality — unlawful, deplorable and bleak though it is — and determines to be more than what her circumstances have forced upon her. I see a woman who wants to speak directly to viewers, saying if you actually want to understand my perspective "then look into my eyes and see what I feel." Human rights activist Godden doesn't agree with Datta's choice of showing the girl's face in the photo. He says that shocking photos such as this one aren't helping girls in Sonagachi, trapped as child sex slaves. "Protection of children is always top priority," Godden says. "If this photo was exposing a practice that was unknown or hidden, then you could possibly justify exposing a child's identity to document what's happening." Such an exception was made recently with child and adult slavery issues in the fishing industry in Southeast Asia and construction in the Middle East, Godden says. Another example is Nick Ut's iconic war photo, showing a 9-year-old girl, naked, running away from a napalm attack in Vietnam. Historians credit that photo with changing the public's opinion about the war. In the case of child slaves in Sonagachi, Godden says, the problem has been well known to activists and governmental officials for years. "Human rights activists have been working on this issue for decades," he says. "Awareness is not the problem, in my opinion. Now it's about technical support to these girls and countering corruption in those country. It's not about shocking photos." |
The Matt Moylan saga at Penrith is over, with the Panthers understood to have lodged paperwork to the NRL for approval of James Maloney’s three-year deal. NRL.com has been told the deal was finalised on Thursday but still needs to be rubberstamped by the governing body, including a third party arrangement, bringing to end almost two months of intense speculation over Moylan’s future at the club. As reported by The Sydney Morning Herald a month ago, the Panthers wanted to engage in a swap deal with Cronulla that would result in Moylan and Maloney trading places in the off-season. Cronulla are set to land Moylan on a four-year deal worth $3.6 million. The Panthers had been manoeuvring behind the scenes trying to get Maloney to the foot of the Blue Mountains before striking a deal worth close to $2.4 million over three years. Maloney, who left Kangaroos camp on the Thursday night – 24 hours before a World Cup meeting with France - to deal with an unrelated private matter, has been open to the idea of getting an improved deal for 2018. Maloney had one year to run on his deal with the Sharks, however Moylan had another four at Penrith. Panthers general manager Phil Gould had been trying to keep Moylan at the club, however it became painstakingly clear the skipper wanted out. Moylan is close friends with Andrew Fifita, Wade Graham and James Segeyaro, making the move to Cronulla more appealing. Maloney has a carefree approach and is known as a larrikin character, but he has a solid record of success at the Warriors, Roosters and Sharks. Penrith were desperate for an experienced playmaker to partner Nathan Cleary in the halves as he continues his development, especially after rookie five-eighth Tyrone May suffered an anterior cruciate ligament tear in the finals and is expected to miss the start of next season. An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated Penrith had lodged James Maloney's contract with the NRL when the Panthers had only submitted paperwork for the approval of third-party arrangements for the deal. Moses justifies the hype 10 NRL young guns of RLWC 2017 Campbell-Gillard eyes starting role Top 10 Round 1 talking points Top 10 road trips of 2018 |
A team led by Ohio State's Wolfgang Windl, Ph.D., used OSC's Oakley Cluster to calculate acoustic phonon movement within an indium-antimonide semiconductor under a magnetic field. Their findings show that phonon amplitude-dependent magnetic moments are induced on the atoms, which change how they vibrate and transport heat. Credit: OSU Phonons—the elemental particles that transmit both heat and sound—have magnetic properties, according to a landmark study supported by Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) services and recently published by a researcher group from The Ohio State University. In a recent issue of the journal Nature Materials, the researchers describe how a magnetic field, roughly the size of a medical MRI, reduced the amount of heat flowing through a semiconductor by 12 percent. Simulations performed at OSC then identified the reason for it—the magnetic field induces a diamagnetic response in vibrating atoms known as phonons, which changes how they transport heat. "This adds a new dimension to our understanding of acoustic waves," said Joseph Heremans, Ph.D., Ohio Eminent Scholar in Nanotechnology and a professor of mechanical engineering at Ohio State whose group performed the experiments. "We've shown that we can steer heat magnetically. With a strong enough magnetic field, we should be able to steer sound waves, too." People might be surprised enough to learn that heat and sound have anything to do with each other, much less that either can be controlled by magnets, Heremans acknowledged. But both are expressions of the same form of energy, quantum mechanically speaking. So any force that controls one should control the other. The nature of the effect of the magnetic field initially was not understood and subsequently was investigated through computer simulations performed on OSC's Oakley Cluster by Oscar Restrepo, Ph.D., a research associate, Nikolas Antolin, a doctoral student, and Wolfgang Windl, Ph.D., a professor, all of Ohio State's Department of Materials Science and Engineering. After painstakingly examining all possible magnetic responses that a non-magnetic material can have to an external field, they found that the effect is due to a diamagnetic response, which exists in all materials. This suggests then that the general effect should be present in any solid. A team led by Ohio State's Wolfgang Windl, Ph.D., used OSC's Oakley Cluster to calculate acoustic phonon movement within an indium-antimonide semiconductor under a magnetic field. The calculations explained experimental data and showed for the first time that elemental particles have magnetic properties. Credit: Ohio State The implication: in materials such as glass, stone, plastic—materials which are not conventionally magnetic—heat can be controlled magnetically, if you have a powerful enough magnet. This development may have future impacts on new energy production processes. But, there won't be any practical applications of this discovery any time soon: seven-tesla magnets like the one used in the study don't exist outside of hospitals and laboratories, and a semiconductor made of indium antimonide had to be chilled to -450 degrees Fahrenheit (-268 degrees Celsius)—very close to absolute zero—to make the atoms in the material slow down enough for the phonons' movements to be detectible. To simulate the experiment, Windl and his computation team employed a quantum mechanical modeling strategy known as density functional theory (DFT). The DFT strategy was used to determine how the electron distribution changed when atoms vibrated with or without magnetic field. The motion of the electrons around their atoms changed in the field, creating diamagnetic moments when phonons were present. These moments then reacted to the field and slowed the heat transport, similar to an eddy current brake in a train. The simulations were conducted on the Oakley Cluster, an HP/Intel Xeon system with more than 8,300 processor cores to provide researchers with a peak performance of 154 Teraflops—tech-speak for 154 trillion calculations per second. Since atoms can vibrate in many different ways, a large number of simulations were necessary, consuming approximately 1.5 million CPU hours even on a machine as powerful as Oakley. OSC engineers also helped the research team use OSC's high-throughput, parallel file system to handle the immense datasets generated by the DFT model. "OSC offered us phenomenal support; they supported our compilation and parallel threading issues, helped us troubleshoot hardware issues when they arose due to code demands, and moved us to the Lustre high-performance file system after we jammed their regular file system," said Antolin, who is the expert for high-demand computations in Windl's group. "Dr. Windl and his team are important OSC clients, and we're always pleased to support their research projects with our hardware, software and staff support services," said David Hudak, Ph.D., OSC's director of supercomputer services. "With the addition of the Ruby Cluster this past fall and another, much more powerful system upcoming this fall, OSC will continue to offer even larger, faster and more powerful services to support this type of discovery and innovation." Next, the group plans to test whether they can deflect sound waves sideways with magnetic fields. Explore further: Landmark study proves that magnets can control heat and sound More information: Phonon-induced diamagnetic force and its effect on the lattice thermal conductivity, Nature Materials 14, 601–606 (2015) DOI: 10.1038/nmat4247 |
L.L. Bean Executive Chairman Shawn Gorman was not pleased to see that his company had been included on the "Grab Your Wallet" boycott list because of board member Linda Bean's public support of Donald Trump. In a statement posted on the company's Facebook page, Gorman explained that Linda Bean is just one of more 50 members of the extended Bean family involved in running the company, and that the company is home to many people of diverse political viewpoints and does not want to endorse any candidate. Gorman called the boycott "misguided" and asked for Grab Your Wallet to please remove the company from the list. Grab Your Wallet, however, said that they will not remove the company from the boycott list until Linda Bean is ousted from the board. "Rather than devote their energies to crafting long, carefully constructed PR statements, we recommend L.L. Bean think long and hard about whether or not Linda Bean's continued presence on the board is worth losing the volume of consumers the company will continue to lose for as long as she retains formal ties to the company," Coulter said. This may be my Maine bias showing, but it seems rather counter-productive to order a boycott of a company that is committed to keeping jobs in the United States and still makes all of its boots in a factory in Maine. L.L. Bean produces quality products, and this boycott demand is dumb. |
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. AMY GOODMAN: We go to Greece, where Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is facing protests from members of his own Syriza party after accepting harsh austerity measures in exchange for a new international bailout. In order for the deal to move forward, the Greek Parliament must accept pension cuts and other reforms by Wednesday, 10 days after voters rejected similar reforms in a referendum. After European leaders pressed Greece to accept the austerity package, the hashtag #ThisIsACoup trended on social media. Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos accused Germany of staging a coup. DEFENSE MINISTER PANOS KAMMENOS: [translated] Yesterday, the country’s prime minister faced a coup, a coup by Germany, but also by other countries like the Netherlands, Finland and the Baltic states, a coup that reached the point that Greece’s prime minister was blackmailed with the collapse of the banks and a haircut on deposits. I want to be clear that this deal is beyond the agreement that political leaders made with the Greek president and that the Greek Parliament approved. However, this agreement, which also brought up new information, speaks of 50 billion euros’ worth of guarantees concerning public property. It speaks of changes to the law, including the confiscation of homes. It refers to a total collapse of constitutional values. We cannot agree to that. AMY GOODMAN: Speaking Monday, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said Greece was left with little choice but to accept the austerity measures. PRIME MINISTER ALEXIS TSIPRAS: [translated] We fought hard for six months, and until the end we battled to get an agreement, to get the country back on its feet. We were faced with a very difficult decision within hard dilemmas. We took the responsibility to decide, in order to avert the most extreme plans by conservative circles in the European Union. Today’s agreement keeps Greece in a state of financial stability. It gives the possibilities for a recovery. It will, however, be an agreement whose implementation will be difficult. The measures included are the ones passed in Parliament. They will unavoidably cause recessionary effects. I have the feeling, the confidence and the hope that the 35-billion-euro development package, which we managed, along with the debt restructuring and the secure financing for the next three years, will create the feeling among markets and investors that Greek exit is a thing of the past. AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about the implications of the agreement, we go to Athens, Greece, where we’re joined by Michalis Spourdalakis, professor of political science at Athens University. He’s also a founding member of Syriza. Welcome to Democracy Now! It looks like there is a split not only among the Greek people, Michalis Spourdalakis, but also in your own party itself. Talk about the deal and what it means. MICHALIS SPOURDALAKIS: Well, it’s only natural to expect these objections to the deal, because it’s a deal which imposes draconian measures to the Greek economy, and also, people, after the referendum, were hoping for a much better deal. Except it seems to me that the Europeans didn’t take into account the very loud, clear “no” vote, no-to-austerity vote, casted just 10 days ago from today. Therefore, everything that your report says, it’s true: The Greek prime minister and the country’s minister of finance were actually blackmailed by the eurozone people. They managed to convince some of them, but not all of them, so at the end of the day they got this deal, which is not only draconian—it will continue the recession in the country—but also will be inefficient. It’s a deal that, at the end of the day—or, I should say, quite soon—there are going to be more measures imposed, increases the debt of the country. And I don’t think we’re going to—we see the light at the end of the tunnel. But the prime minister had no choice, because the alternative was to exit. But exit would lead us to a more Hobbesian type of social development that this country has no experience or preparation, moral or technical, to confront. AMY GOODMAN: The term “Grexit,” right, the Greek exit. So, right now, this hashtag that’s trending, #ThisIsACoup, explain what’s going on. And will this lead to the fall of Syriza? MICHALIS SPOURDALAKIS: Well, I hope not. This is the first left-wing government in this country. This is the first democratic response to the austerity measures in Europe. So, this government should not—should not fall. It’s very superficial and very—at least unfair conclusion to claim that the prime minister or the government has betrayed the people. They were forced to do that. There are all sorts of other fields that the government can verify or reinstate its left-wing radical orientation, and this is the way the government should proceed. Pretty soon, the people are going to face—or the Greek government, rather, is going to be faced with more measures, and by then, probably, the balance of power are going to be different. As of the coup, OK, there many interpretations about this coup. I read someplace today that some 48 years ago the dictatorship was imposed in this country by the guns of the colonels, at the time, of the army. Today, the coup is imposed by the European bankers, who managed to close the Greek banks and have the entire Greek society hostage. So, to me, there was no—there was no alternative, not been prepared. But there is another coup, which has to do with the future of the European Union and the future—the perspective of developing European Union in a democratic way. There is a major, a major coup, because it seems to me that the European leaders undermined the fact or didn’t pay any attention to the fact that in Greece, that was the only country that there was a democratic response to austerity, while in every other—almost in every other European countries, probably with the exception of Spain and Ireland, the political rearrangement had—gave signs and gave room to the right-wing populist euroskepticism, and even neo-Nazism. And it seems to me that the European leadership, it’s more tolerant to these developments than the radical-left—however, democratic—response to austerity in Europe. And this is very disappointing. And this is another dimension of the coup. AMY GOODMAN: Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem defended the troika of European and International Monetary Fund lenders against accusations that they interfered in Greece’s domestic politics. JEROEN DIJSSELBLOEM: Perhaps I can also say something on this issue, because I’ve always felt that the troika has been heavily criticized on the fact that they sort of interfere with domestic politics and are very intrusive. But, of course, in the given situation, the crisis situation that we have, in case of a program, per definition, we always try and find the balance between supporting a country, but also talking about reasonable and effective conditionalities. There’s not much point in borrowing money to a country—or lending to a country, if at the same time the underlying problems are not dealt with. And I think that’s a fair balance, and we have to find that. So it’s not about taking over a country. It has to be a partnership and commitment on both sides to stand ready to further support the country—in this case, Greece—and for Greece to say, “We will do what it takes on our part to make sure that we don’t depend on European loans forever.” AMY GOODMAN: I would like to get your response, Michalis Spourdalakis, to the Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem’s response. MICHALIS SPOURDALAKIS: Yeah, OK. I think this agreement guarantees that the country is going to stay, at least for the time being, tied to further dependency to European loans. It’s impossible—listen, the country had about $340 billion debt. No one in his right mind, his or her right mind, thinks that this is a manageable debt. Now, there is another 83, if I’m not mistaken, billion euros added to this loan. So I don’t know how we’re going to pay that. You mentioned the 50 billion euros guarantees, or collateral. OK, listen, the breakdown of this is about 29 to 30 billion are going to go into repaying the old debt. About 17 billion, or 17 to 18 billion, are just the interest rates. There is another 20-some million who is going to—for support of the banking system. And the rest is going to be for development. In addition, these 50 billion euros are going to come from selling Greek property—Greek airports, peripheral airports, the three major ports in Greece and other valuable parts of the Greek infrastructure. This money, it’s impossible to raise. Even if you sell the entire country—well, of course, I’m exaggerating—you’re not going to get more than eight, maybe 10, billion euros. So, this is a deal which is not going to be efficient. It doesn’t deal with the actual fiscal problems of the country or the economic problems of the country. It’s a very vindictive, however, deal, which really wants to force the government to change its political orientation, or wants to bring—clearly, to bring the first radical left-wing government down. That’s why it should—this deal should be—no matter what the criticism is, this deal should be supported, because pretty soon there’s going to be a new round, and then probably we’ll be ready to respond to the pressures of the European Union and the Eurogroup in a more efficient and a more democratic and socially sensitive way than what this deal promises. AMY GOODMAN: Michalis Spourdalakis, I wanted to get your take on a letter that Robert Reich, the former labor secretary under President Clinton, has sent around. He says, “People seem to forget that the Greek debt crisis—which is becoming a European and even possibly a world economic crisis—grew out of a deal with Goldman Sachs, engineered by Goldman’s Lloyd Blankfein.” He said, “Several years ago, Blankfein and his Goldman team helped Greece hide the true extent of its debt—and in the process almost doubled it.” He said, “Undoubtedly, Greece suffers from years of corruption and tax avoidance by its wealthy. But Goldman Sachs isn’t exactly innocent. It padded its profits by catastrophically leveraging up the global economy with secret, off-balance-sheet debt deals.” And then he makes recommendations. He says that the U.S., you know, is a key player in the IMF, and President Obama should use that weight, that people should “[j]oin with allies across Europe to show solidarity with the Greek people and stand up to global austerity.” Can you respond to the issue of Goldman Sachs and hedge funds and their role in this? We actually only have a minute. MICHALIS SPOURDALAKIS: This is a—yeah, this is an old story. We all know the tricks and the corruption involved in the way that Greece met the requirements to enter the eurozone. And since you mention corruption, it’s quite interesting to respond about the issue like that. Corruption is the basis upon which the Greek economy, the Greek capitalism, flourishes and reproduces itself. And tackle corruption, tax evasion and the rest was the first reform that the Syriza government proposed to our—to Greece—to the country’s debtors back in the early February. And they didn’t really pay much attention to it. So, it seems to me that the bottom line of all this debate is that the country’s debtors wanted to humiliate Syriza, Tsipras, and, as I said already—twice, I think—the first democratic, left-wing response against austerity in the 21st century. That’s the bottom line. There is a lot of corruption in this country. This government has been committed to tackle the corruption. But the way that the proposals that are imposed and the deals are imposed by our debtors, they are not—I don’t predict that they are very efficient moving towards that way. So, we’ll be— AMY GOODMAN: Michalis— MICHALIS SPOURDALAKIS: We’ll come back on the issue again. AMY GOODMAN: I want to—I want to thank you for being with us, and I hope we come back to this conversation. Michalis Spourdalakis, professor of political science at Athens University, also a founding member of Syriza. This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we got to Madison, Wisconsin. Governor Walker makes 15. That’s 15 Republican presidential candidates. This is Democracy Now! We’ll be back in a minute. |
A different kind of candidate might soon see his name on the recall ballot challenging Gov. Scott Walker in the Republican primary next month. His motto? "Arthur Kohl-Riggs: Less of a joke than Scott Walker." Kohl-Riggs, 23, says he hopes to run not just as an alternative to the controversial governor in question, but as a second option for those, like him, who do not feel "energized" by Walker's democratic challengers. "I want to provide an outlet for people who don't necessarily want to vote for any of the current candidates," he says. "I want to make a statement about bringing Wisconsin back to its proud Republican heritage." A visible figure in the Madison protest movement last spring, founder of the popular "Shit Scott Walker Is Doing To My State" Facebook page, and regular videographer of Capitol protests and press conferences, Kohl-Riggs says his campaign for a place on the primary ballot serves two chief purposes. The first, he says, is practical. "By guaranteeing there is a Republican challenger to Scott Walker in the primary, I create incentive for Walker supporters to actually vote in the Republican primary as opposed to trying to disingenuously influence the democratic primary," he explains. Beyond that, Kohl-Riggs compares his role to that of presidential candidate Ron Paul, saying he hopes to introduce new conversations to the recall campaign. "I want to bring honesty and humor to the campaign process and to make people want to pay attention," Kohl-Riggs says. "The truth, the honesty, is a really powerful way to connect with people because, more often than not, they're used to being lied to." During last spring's Capitol occupation, Kohl-Riggs stayed overnight in the rotunda for weeks, sleeping outside the two nights he was locked out. "It was definitely the most powerful experience I've ever had in my life," he says. "It definitely helped solidify my commitment to seeing Scott Walker out of office." Thirteen months later, Kohl-Riggs is just as committed to ousting the governor, but less enthused about the pool of Democratic candidates emerging to challenge Walker. He doesn't feel most voters are "energized" about Democrats Tom Barrett, Kathleen Falk, Doug La Follette, and Kathleen Vinehout. He hopes to hit on traditional conservative themes of "honest, limited government" rather than "radical and extreme policies" that "don't hold any resemblance to the party [Walker] supposedly represents." Still early in the campaign, Kohl-Riggs has already received his share of criticism. "There were some concerns about how we'll be perceived by Democrats, and 'Is this gonna hurt more than it would help?'" he concedes. But Kohl-Riggs maintains his campaign aligns with the overall recall goal of educating the electorate about the governor's "failed policies" and simply represents "a different way to focus recall energy." Kohl-Riggs explains his reasons for running in this video. Currently, Kohl-Riggs' major focus is actually getting on the ballot and he needs to collect 2,000 signatures by April 10, a task he calls "daunting." He says he has personally collected over 300 signatures and supporters around the state are circulating petitions for more. The recall primary is on Tuesday, May 8. More information about Kohl-Riggs' campaign is available at iartwi.com or the "Art for Gov" Facebook page. |
wolfgang streeck MARKETS AND PEOPLES Democratic Capitalism and European Integration Hopes that the resolutions of European heads of state would stabilize the financial markets and solve the Eurozone debt crisis, once and for all, have risen with each new summit over the past two years, only to be dashed again once the fine print comes to light. Would investors really join in on the ‘voluntary haircut’? Was the bazooka, after all, not more of a water pistol? No one could say with any degree of certainty what should be done to repair the crashed global financial system. Some demand strict austerity, others growth; everybody knows that both are necessary, but cannot be had at the same time. The technocrats’ rescue packages alternate between the horns of ever-new dilemmas; ingenious patent remedies are offered by the score, but have an ever-shorter life span. If, the British veto notwithstanding, European leaders were able to sleep free of nightmares after December 2011’s summit agreement on a 26-nation treaty, and the ecb’s long-term loans of half a trillion euros to the banks at 1 per cent, soon after it was back to business as usual. One thing is for sure: ‘the markets’ will calm down when they calm down; but they remain silent about when that will be and what they will next demand. Will they attack France? If need be, of course. They will only be satisfied once they are guaranteed to get their money back, through national austerity packages, international deposit-protection agreements or, ideally, both. A few months ago I argued in these pages that post-war ‘democratic capitalism’ involved a fundamental contradiction between the interests of capital markets and those of voters; a tension that had been successively displaced by an unsustainable process of ‘borrowing from the future’, decade by decade: from the inflation of the 1970s, through the public debt of the 1980s, to the private debt of the 1990s and early 2000s, finally exploding in the financial crisis of 2008. Since then, the dialectic of democracy and capitalism has been unfolding at breathtaking speed. Only a few months ago, reports of jokes in Brussels’s corridors regarding the desirability of a military putsch after Papandreou’s suggestion of a referendum were followed by the replacement of first the Greek and then the Italian government. Accompanied by collective sighs of relief, power was passed to highly regarded economist-technocrats, who, it is now hoped, will finally enforce the logic of ‘the markets’. Such confidence is, at face value, not unwarranted. Mario Monti, Italy’s new Prime Minister, was the eu Commissioner for Competition who broke up the German state banking system (whereupon it attempted a fruitless restructuring exercise, through the purchase of American junk bonds). When his Brussels tenure came to an end Monti earned his living as an advisor to, amongst others, Goldman Sachs, the greatest junk-bond producer of them all. Lukas Papademos, now Prime Minister of Greece, was president of the Greek Central Bank when the country secured, through falsified statistics, its access to the monetary union and thus to unlimited credit at German rates of interest. Help with the creative accounting of the Greek national balance sheet was provided by the European division of none other than Goldman Sachs—to be headed shortly thereafter by Mario Draghi, who is now of course President of the European Central Bank. The three of them should get along well. Continental imbalances Meanwhile, it is now quite clear that the democratic states of the capitalist world have not one sovereign, but two: their people, below, and the international ‘markets’ above. Globalization, financialization and European integration have weakened the former and strengthened the latter. The balance of power is now rapidly shifting towards the top. Formerly, leaders were required who understood and spoke the language of the people; today it is the language of money that they have to master. ‘People whisperers’ are succeeded by ‘capital whisperers’ who, it is hoped, know the secret tricks needed to ensure that investors receive their money back with compound interest. Since investor confidence is more important now than voter confidence, the ongoing takeover of power by the confidants of capital is seen by centre left and right alike not as a problem, but as the solution. In northern Europe, exotic anecdotal accounts of Greece and Italy’s endemic clientelism make it easier to retreat into platitudes about how democracy cannot entail the right to live beyond one’s means or not repay one’s debts, all the more so when it involves ‘our’ money. Things are not so simple, though. It is not ‘our’ money but that of the banks which is at stake, and not solidarity with the Greeks but with ‘the markets’. As we know, the latter had virtually thrust their money at the former, in anticipation of being paid back, if not by them, then by other Eurozone states, if necessary by means of the ‘too big to fail’ blackmail of 2008. Governments have not contradicted these expectations, even though the giant surveillance apparatuses of the large nation-states and international organizations cannot have failed to notice how countries like Greece saturated themselves with cheap credit after their accession to the Eurozone. Indeed it seems in retrospect that this outcome—shoring up the money supply of the southern states with private credit, to substitute for the dwindling subsidies from strained eu regional and structural funds, in an era of worldwide budget consolidation—was one of the chief reasons for letting the Mediterranean latecomers to democratic capitalism join the European Monetary Union. That way, not only did banks make profitable, seemingly secure deals, but the export industries of the northern states could profit from the steadily renewed purchasing power of their southern customers, without having to fear that countries such as Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece would protect themselves from the higher productivity of the northern economies through periodic currency devaluations. The feigned astonishment of the North’s political elites at their Mediterranean neighbours’ use of loans and subsidies for fuelling speculation and corruption—rather than ‘honest’ Anglo-Saxon growth—must count as one of the most brazen feats of political pr-history. Anyone halfway informed knew about the impossibly large Greek olive harvests subsidized twice by the eu: first for their production and then for their equally virtual transformation into machine oil—just as the intimate connections in post-war Italy between Christian Democracy and the mafia, with a figure such as Giulio Andreotti acting as the nerve centre of a powerful network connecting state apparatus, political parties, armed forces, organized crime, and intelligence services were anything but a state secret. As far as Greece is concerned, European politicians were well aware of the outstanding historical bills that had accrued since the end of the military dictatorship: a distribution of wealth reminiscent of Latin America; a practically tax-exempt upper class; and a democratic state that had no choice but to borrow the resources that its rich citizens had stashed abroad from ‘the markets’ or other states, so that the ‘old money’ could peacefully remain ‘old money’, and the new money could be used to buy the support of a growing middle class with its increasingly northern-oriented consumption norms. That no one took exception to this at the time may be due to the fact that the sole alternative, after the end of military rule in 1974, would have been a radical remodelling of Greek society, perhaps along the lines of Emilia–Romagna, then under Eurocommunist rule. However, no one in northern Europe nor the us was prepared to risk this, any more than in Portugal after the Carnation Revolution, in Spain after Franco, and least of all in 1970s Italy, where the Communist Party under Enrico Berlinguer abstained from participating in the government so as not to provoke a military coup like in Chile. And so the eu admitted anything resembling a post-fascist democracy, in the hope that economic growth would eliminate the archaic social and class structures which had been responsible for both military dictatorships and stalled capitalist modernization. Convergence, Italian-style? As for organized Europe, today torn between the North and the South, we may have to brace ourselves for another round of integration. This may seem astonishing, given the commonly diagnosed deterioration of a ‘European consciousness’. But the new drive will once more operate through the proven neo-functionalist model, without the participation— and possibly even against the will—of the populace. Neo-functionalist integration relies on a ‘spill-over’ from already integrated fields into other, functionally associated areas, set off by causal connections which present themselves politically as factual constraints (Sachzwänge) that merely require ratification. This was how Jean Monnet envisaged the European integration process, and how a whole generation of political scientists wrote it on the blackboards. By the 1990s, however, this mechanism appeared to be exhausted. As integration advanced into core areas of the nation-states and their social orders it became commensurately ‘politicized’ and ground to a halt. New steps towards integration became more difficult and could only be achieved, if at all, through the European Court of Justice. A spectre was haunting Brussels’s Europe: would the disempowerment of the nation-states henceforth have to depend upon the ‘European consciousness’ of its peoples—or even upon the mobilization of a democratic European consciousness? The Eurozone crisis has resolved this question by once again sundering the integration process from the will of the people. Monetary union, initially conceived as a technocratic exercise—therefore excluding the fundamental questions of national sovereignty and democracy that political union would entail—is now rapidly transforming the eu into a federal entity, in which the sovereignty and thereby democracy of the nation-states, above all in the Mediterranean, exists only on paper. Integration now ‘spills over’ from monetary to fiscal policy. The Sachzwänge of the international markets—actually the historically unprecedented empowerment of the profit and security needs of financial-asset owners—is forging an integration that has never been willed by political-democratic means and is today probably wanted less than ever. The legal forms within which this takes place are secondary: whatever happens, the European Central Bank will buy endless quantities of bonds that private investors no longer want; and Frankfurt, Brussels, Berlin, maybe also Paris, will ‘clamp down’ (Angela Merkel) on the households of debtor nations for decades, with or without treaty change. Unlike the farce over the 2005 ‘Constitutional Treaty’, there will be no referenda this time. The North will pay for the South so that the South can pay the banks and the North does not have to. The power of European institutions immune to democratic pressure, especially the ecb, is reaching heights previously unimaginable, backed and buttressed by a directorate of two hegemonic nation-states—which would long since have become a directorate of one, if the new supreme power were not obliged for historical reasons to obscure the true circumstances as much as possible. True, the ‘ever-closer union’ this entails will be anything but an idyll; it will have come to pass in the style of a shotgun wedding, necessitated by an unplanned pregnancy and enforced by parental authority—not usually a recipe for happiness. The ‘transfer union’ currently emerging may best be compared to unified Italy, whose rich northern regions have subsidized the backward south throughout the post-war period, without much effect. What began as a way of completing national unity quickly turned into a system of institutionalized corruption. The aid money of the Cassa del Mezzogiorno flowed not to dynamic local entrepreneurs— who barely existed and in any case lacked any breathing space—but to the entrenched post-feudal upper class, which in return delivered the votes of the rural population it controlled to Christian Democracy; whereupon the national government abstained from any attempt to disturb their domain. And so, true to the ways of The Leopard, things could stay the same. Nationalism—and European regional funds—have helped to make the burden of the South bearable for the Italian state, and hence to keep it together. Since the 1990s, however, with capitalist development of the South still remote and money from Brussels having to be shared with Eastern Europe, a growing fraction of the northern Italian electorate has become increasingly secessionist. For a while, as in Greece, the cheap credit instantly available after entry into the monetary union helped the central government to sedate the Mezzogiorno without having to tax the North. But these loans are no longer available. No one today expects an economic upswing in southern Italy, whether of its own making or through some eu magic. The malaise under Berlusconi was due not only to his peculiar use of his spare time, but also to the fact that no one could answer the question of how Italy should safeguard its national unity in face of the gaping inequalities between a rich North and a stagnant South, which seem insurmountable without deep social upheaval. If Lombardy has not succeeded in generating the capitalist modernization of the Mezzogiorno over the course of half a century, what hope is there that northern Europe’s transfer payments to the Mediterranean will ever be anything more than a levy on northern tax-payers for the higher productivity of their countries’ corporations? Greeks and Finns do not have a joint memory of a shared national revolution; nor is there any prospect of regional development subsidies being paid for by a third party. Why then should northern Europeans be more patient with southern Europe than northern Italians with southern Italy? An often overlooked yet ominous parallel exists since the introduction of the euro, which in Europe, as in Italy, has blocked the possibility of devaluation for the economically weak regions of the South. The result could be the same: permanent backwardness, insurmountable dependency on transfer payments, and growing disenchantment amongst both recipients and providers of economic assistance. Northern Europe allowing Greece to remain in the currency union appears like something of a Trojan Horse—this time the Greeks not bearing gifts but receiving them. The Greek state and parts of the Greek bourgeoisie still seem to prefer a bird in the hand—in the form of occasional European subsidies—to two in the bush: self-determined economic and social development after a return to a national currency. The nexus of interests at stake is extremely complex and cannot be disentangled here in detail. But it is worth noting that ig Metall, the German trade union, bluntly justifies its support for ‘international solidarity’ with Greece in terms of securing German exports to the Mediterranean on a long-term basis. Since ‘solidarity’ could not be a ‘one-way street’, however, Greece’s fiscal and social policies would have to be placed under supervision, not least to make the price the North has to pay for the cohesion of the Union more palatable to a general public that is itself suffering from intensified austerity policies. Monetary union thus ‘spills over’ into a form of political union, at the cost of democracy in the South—where the budget-making power of parliaments is transferred to the supervisory apparatus of the eu and the imf—as well as in the North, where the people and their parliamentary representatives can read almost daily in the newspapers which bailout fund has once again been leveraged overnight in what way. Meanwhile, governments and public opinion in northern Europe impress upon the debtor nations their self-righteous utopia of a market-conforming life, notwithstanding that they themselves have become addicted to what Ralf Dahrendorf dubbed Pumpkapitalismus—capitalism on tick—based on cheap money provided by financial markets running amok. It might be more productive to ask how the social contract of democratic capitalism should be rewritten, in order to dispense with the increasingly dangerous habit of conflict-pacification through advance payments. How should we imagine a capitalism which is not dependent, for the sake of social cohesion, on a bloated credit system that promises to underwrite unlimited consumption standards of which everybody knows by now that they are not generalizable? A credit system, for that matter, whose promises seem increasingly irredeemable and that ever fewer creditors believe in. These questions have been addressed in various ways by conservatives, like Meinhard Miegel, or progressives such as Amartya Sen and Jean-Paul Fitoussi. But we know—or ought to—that a break with the self-destructive mass consumerism that currently has the world in its grip will only be possible if greater sacrifices can be extracted from those who have profited most from the recent transformations of the capitalist economy, as opposed to those who have seen their life chances decline during decades of liberalization and globalization. A democratic departure from the life-threatening sedation provided by cheap-money capitalism would require new solutions to the problems which the latter has only worsened. Consumer credit as compensation for stagnating wages and a growing gap between top and bottom could become superfluous if all earned a decent wage. Better living and working conditions for the great majority would alleviate the need for yet more consumer toys to compensate for status anxiety, competitive pressure and increasing insecurity. This will not be possible without a revitalized trade-union movement that would help to end the ever more destructive exploitation of the human capacity to work and nurture families. At the same time, debt financing of public expenditure would have to be replaced by more effective taxation of the incomes and assets of liberalization’s winners. States should no longer have to carry out the tasks mandated by their citizens for society as a whole with borrowed money, which then has to be repaid with interest to the lenders, who in turn bequeath what has remained their wealth to their children. Only if the trend towards deepening social division—the signature of capitalism in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries—were reversed would it be conceivable that modern society could free itself from the compulsion to assure domestic peace through the unchecked production of toxic assets to engineer synthetic growth. This theme is anything but new. What should worry us is not the fact that it suddenly occurred—or recurred—but that its democratic solution appears so impossible today that we shy away even from naming it, so as not to seem stuck in the past. ‘Just as ancient peoples had above all need of a common faith to live by, we have need of justice’, Emile Durkheim wrote in his seminal work on the division of labour. Since the end of the post-war era, it is all water under the bridge, much of which has flowed down the Hudson River, past the southern tip of Manhattan from where the world is governed these days. Trade unions are disappearing, capital listens only to presidents of central banks, not to political parties; and the money of the rich is everywhere and nowhere, gone in an instant when strapped tax-states reach for it. We can only wonder what form of opiate of the people the profiteers of late capitalism will come up with, once the credit doping of the globalization era stops working and a stable dictatorship of the ‘money people’ has yet to be established. Or may we hope they will have run out of ideas? Translated by Tessa Hauswedell |
0 SHARES Facebook Twitter Google Whatsapp Pinterest Print Mail Flipboard In an insane abuse of power, the news editor for LEO Weekly, Joe Sonka, had the police called on him, and was threatened with arrest because Mitch McConnell was afraid that he would ask questions at a press conference. According to the Courier-Journal: The campaign called on the Louisville Metro Police to make sure that Sonka, who has been critical of McConnell in the past, from entering the conference room at the Hilton Garden Inn, on Crittenden Drive, where the event was held. … Sonka said he was originally told that he couldn’t attend because there was limited space in the room. In fact, there were numerous empty chairs in the room. Moments before the event, Jesse Benton, McConnell’s campaign manager, said that Sonka had been barred because other reporters had objected to Sonka asking questions. Benton refused to say who that reporter was. This wasn’t the first time McConnell’s staff tried to keep Sonka out of an event. On February 14, before a campaign appearance at a Louisville business, Sonka was asked to leave but was allowed to return by the businesses’ owner. “I think they were afraid I was going to ask him a question that he was going to have difficulty with,” Sonka said in an interview. Benton “said I could come in if I didn’t ask any questions, then when I told him I’d like to, he said he’d get the police to put me under arrest.” Freedom of the press? Not so much in Mitch McConnell’s Kentucky. McConnell can’t run on his record, so he is forced to try to strong arm the press in order to prevent voters from finding out the truth about their senator. Mitch McConnell is so desperate to keep his Senate seat that he called the police on a reporter because he was afraid that the journalist was going to ask him a question that he could not answer. McConnell has spent over $10 million on ads that have gotten him absolutely nowhere. He is tied or trailing his Democratic opponent in every single poll of the state. His approval is lower than President Obama’s. The last thing that all strongmen try to do before they fall is silence the media. Mitch McConnell is now trying to silence the media. Mitch McConnell has ruled over Kentucky politics for decades, but it appears that his reign might finally be coming to an end. If you’re ready to read more from the unbossed and unbought Politicus team, sign up for our newsletter here! Email address: Leave this field empty if you're human: |
Triathlete Won't Let Fat Get in the Way of Fit Health: Dave Alexander is technically obese but in excellent condition. The combination is not as rare as some people assume, studies show. "I am fat," he says. "I was born a big boy, and I'm always going to be big. But I'm healthy." Those are pretty remarkable numbers. But Alexander has a few more: He's 55 years old, 5 feet, 8 inches tall and 260 pounds. * Swam 9.6 miles, cycled 448 miles, ran 104.8 miles in a recent super-triathlon in eastern Hungary. His time, he says with perfect recall, was 85 hours, 46 minutes, 38 seconds. Alexander's silver hair is thinning. His bright blue eyes are going bad. His barrel stomach is getting bigger. Other triathletes often mistake him for a race organizer. "I'm a great bar bet," he says with a laugh. "I don't look like I can walk across the street, let alone run a triathlon." Alexander attributes his great shape--corroborated by his doctor and others--to plain doggedness. He sometimes completes two triathlons in a week. He sleeps about 4 1/2 hours a night so he can put in long hours of training and work at the oil company he co-owns. Experts say he's just what the world needs: Someone who doesn't let weight get in the way of physical fitness. A surprising number of people are both fit and obese, says Steven Blair, a scientist at the Cooper Institute of Aerobics Research in Dallas and senior editor of the 1996 Surgeon General's Report on Physical Activity and Health. Blair recently conducted a study of obese men at the institute and found that 45% had no more than one of the major risk factors for an early death--smoking, poor eating habits, sedentary lifestyle, history of heart disease. These men, despite their obesity, had no increased mortality rate. "Most people see an obese person walking down the street and they think, 'This guy's a time bomb.' It's not necessarily so," Blair says. Dave Alexander is an extreme illustration. Although technically extremely obese, his body performs at the highest levels. Obesity is usually measured by the Body Mass Index, which is calculated by dividing weight in kilograms by height in meters squared. A person--man or woman--with a BMI of 25 or higher is considered overweight; obesity occurs at BMI 30 and higher. Alexander's BMI is 40. "Here's a guy that when you see his build and body, you say, 'How can he do this?' " says Andy Dzurinko, director of Arizona's Council on Health and Physical Fitness. "But he not only does it, he does it consistently. Inside that body mass, he's incredibly fit." "Dave is one in a million," says Dr. Craig M. Phelps, Alexander's doctor for 15 years. "And I say that statistically. I haven't known of anyone his size who can do the swimming, the running, the cycling at the ultra-distances Dave competes at." Alexander, interviewed in his office, surrounded by the antique maps he collects, is wary of being called a role model. He knows his training schedule (in a week he'll usually swim 5 miles, run 30 and cycle 200) could kill another 260-pound, 55-year-old man. |
The Daily Dose often mentions “becoming a nothingness.” That sounds very Buddhist. Is there a distinction? How does Buddhist nothingness differ from Jewish nothingness? Hey Reader: Buddhism comes in many shapes and flavors, each with its own teachers who have their own ways of expressing things. And the Jewish smorgasbord of ideologies isn’t any less varied. So rather than chasing a thousand wild geese and catching none of them, let me present you with one idea that I think will be of use to you in your own life. In Chabad thought, we often discuss bittul bim’tziut. I can’t translate that, but I’m foolish enough to try: It means an entity of nothingness. This paradoxical state of somethingness/nothingness is presented as an ultimate goal. And not just for your own ego, but for the entire world in which you live. Somehow, the very earth we touch must become acutely aware of its absolute nothingness while remaining a complete something. And you and I are given the responsibility to accomplish that. To explain that, I need to tell you a core teaching of the master of Kabbalah, Rabbi Isaac Luria. He described the World of Tohu, a realm that preceded our world, and was really much higher. But it was incapable of fulfilling its purpose, and shattered from its own intensity. The problem with Tohu was that everything was absolute. Everything felt itself and its meaning in an absolute sense, exclusive of anything else. The fragments of Tohu fell to our world, and our egos are one of its most exquisite artifacts. But then, the very physicality of this world is also an artifact of Tohu: the phenomenon that no two things can occupy the same space. Our souls are here to reassemble those Tohu fragments into a world of Tikkun. Tikkun means “repair.” The World of Tikkun is one in which opposites coincide and balance one another in perfect harmony. Rabbi Shalom Dovber was the fifth rebbe of Lubavitch. He had an amazing way of relating Kabbalistic teachings to common psychological issues. Here is how he did that with Tohu and bitul bim’tziut: A Tohu person, he wrote, is one who has yet to repair his ego. As such, he either feels he absolutely exists, or he feels he does not exist at all. He’s either all there is, or totally absent and meaningless. And there can’t be any compromise between the two extremes. A Tikkun person, on the other hand, is one who has repaired and harmonized everything in his life. And that includes the very opposites of being and not-being. After all, a person is here to get something done—to learn, to pray, to change the world. Which means being a something. How much can you change the world if you feel you’re not really here? That itself is the key to blending these opposites—that idea of purpose: When a person feels “I am not here just because I am here. I emerge out of my Creator’s desire for my purpose”—then he has harmonized both being and not-being into a single melody. When he taxes every power of his mind to understand an idea in Torah, he says, “I am granted a mind, because my Creator desires understanding.” When he prays to G‑d for his needs with all his heart, he says, “I exist out of my Creator’s desire to give love and be loved”—for that is the meaning of prayer. When he goes out of his way to help another, or exerts every fiber of his body to do a mitzvah, he says, “I exist because my Creator desires kindness and beauty.” And then he feels, “I haven’t attained even an iota of what I could have achieved in any of the above, but my Creator still has the love to sustain my existence!” So that the nothingness fuels his passion to become a something even more. In each thing, he both is and is not at once. After all, the ultimate paradox is G‑d, the Creator. He doesn’t just create stuff out of other stuff. He generates the very concept of being—and of not-being. If so, He contains the capacity for both, yet is neither. It comes out that by us fulfilling this harmonization of opposites, we fulfill our purpose: to be an exquisite expression of that ultimate paradox of the Creator, who stands beyond being and not-being, for He creates both. Further Reading: Be Something Sources: See Hemshech 5672, p. 562; Bachodesh Hashlishi, 5729. |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.