text stringlengths 0 100k |
|---|
Mission Statement Our Mission is to tell the world about the Good News of Salvation in Jesus Christ and the Truth about his Amazing Creation. We utilize simple scientific explanations targeted primarily at families and children. We love showing the handiwork of God who created them in His image. We believe the Darwinian explanation of the origins of man is not only wrong but dangerous. The Word of God is True! The Bible teaches clearly that God made the world in six days about 6000 years ago. Dr. Hovind taught Science and math in highschool for 15 years. Our goal is to use all the available scientific evidence to strengthen your faith in God's Word and to bring you to Christ if not saved. Ministry Prayer Partners Dinosaur Adventure Land Dinosaur Adventure Land 488 Pearl Lane, Repton, AL 36475 (855)-Big-Dino (244-3466) Hours of Operation DAL's Hands on Science Center and Nature Tours 9-5pm Monday thru Saturday & 2-5pm Sunday All other times by appointment only. Overnight camping by appointment. Its Free! Come visit to learn more about God's amazing creation. The Bookstore, Volunteering or 777Club - Call 855.BIG.DINO (244.3466) ext 1 or email Anna: shipping@drdino.com The Secretary - Call 855.BIG.DINO (244.3466) ext 2 or email Rhonda; secretary@drdino.com Dr. Kent Hovind - Call 855.BIG.DINO (244.3466) ext 3 or email using form below. IT and Production Department - Call 855.BIG.DINO (244.3466) ext 5 or email Steven; tech@drdino.com |
Prior to Sunday’s game against the Cubs, the Rockies have played 64 contests and have won 41 of them. The Rockies have the most wins in the National League, as well as the best winning percentage. Extrapolated over 162 games, their .641 winning percentage would translate to 104 wins. The #roadto100 has a different meaning now than it did before. The Rockies are unlikely to keep up this extraordinary pace, and the Dodgers and Diamondbacks are both annoyingly playing well. But the fact that the Rockies are in the most competitive division in the National League makes their current playoff odds that much more impressive. Let’s check in on those. FanGraphs is the most skeptical of the Rockies—they give the team an 83.9 percent chance to make the playoffs. The annoying Dodgers are still holding high. This graph allows us to pinpoint April 23 as the day the Rockies’ playoff odds surpassed those of the Giants. Five Thirty Eight’s model is a little more optimistic. They give the Rockies an 88 percent chance of making the playoffs. It’s a 17 point increase over the past week. That’s due to the fact that the Rockies haven’t lost in the last week. Both FanGraphs and Five Thirty Eight have the Rockies’ playoff odds somewhere in the 80s—they’re the relatively pessimistic ones. Baseball Prospectus gives the Rockies a 91.1 percent chance to make the playoffs. It’s the third highest among NL teams, after the Dodgers and the Nationals. Not bad, not bad. There’s also more to the story as well. Teams can have a good record over the course of a couple months based mostly on smoke and mirrors. The 2015 Twins were 11 games over .500 on June 4, but every indication suggested that they would fall back down to earth. In particular, their run differential and third order win percentage suggested they weren’t as good as their record indicated. They went 51-58 for the rest of the season and finished 12 games out of first place. The Rockies, so far, have a +72 run differential, which is second in the National League to the Dodgers’ 88. It’s just ahead of the Nationals and Diamondbacks, who both have a +71 run differential. Third order win percentage is more advanced and calculates what a team’s record should be based on what their run differential should be. FanGraphs estimates that the Rockies should be 36-28, a .568 win percentage. Baseball Prospectus is once again sees it a little differently, and a little better for the Rockies. They estimate that the Rockies’ win percentage should be about .604—about 39 wins. That’s second best in the NL after the Dodgers. The Rockies still have 98 regular season games to go. And right now, everything points to them playing a few more after those 98. |
Prime Minister Stephen Harper says a new RCMP affidavit confirms he's been "telling exactly the truth," as the Senate spending scandal reached further into his office Wednesday. The 81-page RCMP affidavit, released by an Ottawa court, details negotiations last February between Harper's former chief of staff, Nigel Wright, and Senator Mike Duffy, in an attempt to quell a rumbling scandal over Duffy's expenses. RCMP Cpl. Greg Horton said in the affidavit that he was investigating Wright and Duffy for bribery, fraud on the government and breach of trust. Opposition MPs seized on the new information in question period Wednesday, using the details as ammunition against a prime minister they say now has a dozen close officials linked by the RCMP to the scandal and its alleged coverup. Harper maintains he didn't know until May 15 of this year that Wright gave Duffy more than $90,000 to repay his questionable Senate expenses. "What the RCMP has confirmed in its documents today is that two individuals, Mr. Duffy and Mr. Wright, are under investigation for their actions in this matter," Harper said. "And they have also confirmed that this prime minister has been telling exactly the truth." 'He did not inform me' NDP Leader Tom Mulcair asked the prime minister if he wanted to change anything he's told the House since the story of the deal first broke on May 15. "Unfortunately for him, on May 14, Nigel Wright wrote that the PM did know that he, Wright, had, quote, personally assisted Mike Duffy. Is that true?" Mulcair said. Harper said the answer is in the court documents. "Mr. Speaker, let me be very clear," Harper began, before being interrupted by guffaws from the opposition benches. "Well, it's right in the documents, Mr. Speaker, about what Mr. Wright told the RCMP," Harper continued. "He said he told me that Senator Duffy had agreed to repay the money. He told [them] that he did not inform me of his personal decision to pay the money himself." Harper 'may have been aware' of legal fees Horton alleges PMO officials interfered with a Senate committee report based on an audit by Deloitte, and tried to stop the Deloitte audit once Duffy used Wright's money to repay his debt. Horton said he has "seen no evidence that the prime minister was involved in having Senator Duffy's legal bills paid," but that Harper "may have been aware that the Conservative Fund would pay the cost of Senator Duffy's legal fees." The Conservative Fund is the party's fundraising arm, which is run by Senator Irving Gerstein. Horton notes that the details of what Wright discussed with Harper are not contained in the emails, but goes on to say, "I am not aware of any evidence that the prime minister was involved in the repayment or reimbursement of money to Senator Duffy or his lawyer." Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau pointed to the crimes alleged in the affidavit. "Does the prime minister still believe that he bears no responsibility for the corruption in his own office?" he said. 'Good to go' Horton quotes from emails sent by Wright that suggest he spoke to Harper about Duffy. In one email quoted by Horton, Wright tells other PMO officials, "we are good to go from the PM." Mulcair asked Harper what "good to go" meant. "Good to go with Mr. Duffy repaying his own expenses," Harper said. "I was told that Mr. Duffy was going to repay the money himself. Something he announced on national television for everybody. "And let me tell you what the conclusion of the RCMP is on this. After months of interviews and review of documents, the investigator says, he is not aware of any evidence that the prime minister was involved in the repayment or reimbursement of any money to Mr. Duffy or his lawyer." |
This article was last updated on February 19th, 2019. Have you ever tried adding the embed code of a YouTube video to your HTML email? I did that couple of years ago and it turned out soon, that whoops it just wouldn't work. There are ways to make videos work in a couple of email clients, but there's still no solution that would work everywhere. The same goes for custom and Google fonts as well. These are not supported either in most email clients, so you always have to add numerous fallback options. Email design has its own limitations, unfortunately, and you either need to obey or experiment a lot if you want to push the envelope. This is the third article of the "Email Design Basics for Email Marketers" series. In this chapter, you're going to learn which "modern" techniques work in email design and which do not. My goal is to help you understand why email design still differs from traditional web design, and what elements you can dream into your next email design and what not. The series includes the following chapters: Although there are a variety of options to customize your content with HTML, these options don't always translate well into your emails. Support for various types of HTML content - such as embedded media, custom fonts, and flash - tend to vary among the different email clients. This can lead to differences in the way your content is displayed on your user's preferred devices - but it doesn't have to! In this article, we will explain the various types of HTML content that are best to avoid in your email campaigns, and what to use instead. Video in Email? Not really. In general, most of the major email clients will not support videos by default. Only a few clients, including Apple Mail, currently support HTML5 tags for embedded media. Unless most of your audience is using Apple Mail, using videos in your emails may not be the best option. Fortunately, using HTML5 allows you to set a fallback image if video is not supported by your user's email client. Video in email is a quite hot topic these days, since all email marketers realized that they can boost conversion with videos. Unfortunately, email clients are lagging behind in supporting our efforts for more exciting marketing emails. "...the email clients that support the HTML5 Video tag are limited, though it is possible and we used it for campaigns targeting mobile users on IOS devices in the past. The functionality stopped working in Safari on IOS 8 and we haven't checked again since. If you are going to try it please note it worked for us when it was a direct video source (//YOURDOMAIN/VIDEOS/VIDEO.mp4) and not like a Youtube link (Vimeo allows direct links too). You can always failover to an animated GIF as Edward mentions though some email clients will only display the first frame of the animation so to them it will be static. Good luck" If you really want to communicate your idea with video, try using a GIF. Another option is to place a play button over a static image to encourage your audience to click your link to watch a video. This allows you to track click through rates too. Solution - Use GIF While video is generally not supported in major email clients, using GIFs in emails are a lot more reliable. Animated GIFs are supported in nearly all desktop and mobile email clients. The exception to this is Outlook (2007+) and Windows Phone 7; in these clients, only the first frame of the GIF will be visible. Therefore, keep this in mind when designing the GIF to make the first frame enticing enough. We made a video tutorial on how to add a GIF to an email. You can check it out here. The following image shows which email clients support animated GIFs in emails. See how reliable they are among the different clients! Desktop Clients Lotus Notes (6, 7, 8.5) Outlook 2000-2003 Outlook 2007-2013 Outlook for Mac Apple Mail Windows 10 Mail Webmail Clients Gmail G Suite Yahoo! Mail AOL Outlook.com Comcast Orange.fr SFR.fr GMX.de Web.de T-Online.de Freenet.de Mail.ru Mobile Clients iOS Mail Android (Default) Android (Gmail) Android (Gmail IMAP) Blackberry Note: Several Outlook versions didn't support GIFs until the latest updates in 2019. Now GIFs are supported in Outlook 2010, Outlook 2013, Outlook 2016 and Office 365. In the following example, Boden makes use of a simple animation to capture their audience's attention. Source: Mail Bakery Or here's another example of a funky way of animating a very static video play button. Here are 30 more inspiring animated email design examples. Source: Vidyard If you even want to make it easier, just create a static image with a play button in the center. This one will also grab attention of people, although will be less effective than an animated GIF. You can find all sorts of different play icons on Pixabay.com for free. Font support in email To correctly display fonts on emails, the subscriber must have them installed on their computer. However, these can even differ from Mac users to Window users. Only web safe fonts, such as Verdana, Times New Roman, and Georgia, are recommended to use in emails because they have the highest compatibility. The fonts in the image below are all web safe fonts that are most likely installed on all Windows and Mac computers. Some email clients will support the tags, @font-face or @import , to allow you to use any font of your choice. The font will need to be hosted somewhere, such as Google fonts, or imported using the @import tag. Google fonts is a preferred method of using different fonts in emails because it is easy, quick to implement, and there are many fonts to choose from. However, this is only supported on Apple Mail, the native Android mail (not Gmail), iPhone, iPad, and Thunderbird. If you would like to use a specific font in your emails, another option is to display the text as an image. But keep in mind that some of your users will automatically have images disabled, so prepare for a second option in this case and provide alternative text. The first version of Chamaileon's email editor will only support web safe fonts that are installed on most computers already; this means all of your templates will be displayed consistently among different email clients. Don't worry, the support for Google fonts is on the list of improvements we might implement, based on your feedback and the associated business value. JavaScript is banned in email Javascript is a programming language that is mainly used to make websites interactive. Most email clients will automatically block any JavaScript that is found in emails because it can be seen as a security risk. For example, JavaScript can be used to hide destructive malware in emails. If spam filters fail to block it from reaching your primary inbox, it will only take a few clicks for the malware to run its' fatal course on your computer. Generally speaking, it is quite uncommon to send applications in JavaScript form through email because it can be seen as suspicious. Email clients will most likely consider it as a threat and automatically send it to the spam folder. For this reason, it is best to avoid JavaScript in all of your messages if you want to stay out of the spam folder. Flash won't work in email either Similar to JavaScript, Flash is typically reserved for browsers and can be suspicious when found in emails. It is blocked by most email clients because it can allow hackers to gain control of your computer because it is not secure. At any rate, Flash is typically blocked in most email providers and should not be used when designing emails. If you do want to display something with Flash to your audience, consider hosting it on your website and including a link to it in your emails. What about web forms in email? There are a variety of reasons to include a form in your emails, such as collecting feedback from your audience about a recent purchase or gauging their interest for an upcoming product or service. However, you might also notice that forms are more common in webpages than in emails and there's a reason why. Forms are a secure way to collect data from your audience. Yet even simple forms have trouble displaying correctly in your emails. Although the basic components of a form - like text fields and text input boxes - can be made with simple HTML, many forms require the use of JavaScript to securely submit the text. Therefore these emails will most likely be placed in the spam folder by many email clients - and if your audience can't find or complete it, you may be missing out on some valuable information. Despite the lack of support, some companies and email clients are still finding creative ways to add forms to emails. Mark Robbins and his team at Rebel Mail are the ones who can hack together exceptionally interactive emails for you. I'm not familiar with their price point, but since the prices are not public, I suspect their service might be quite expensive for small and medium businesses. Another traditional way for adding forms in emails is to try adding a link to the web form instead. Or, like in the example of a simple survey below, have separate links to correspond to each of the three options. Source: SitePoint Background Images As you might expect, email clients' support for the use of background images in email is variable too. Some email clients, particularly Outlook 2007+ and Hotmail, will automatically disable background images in your email campaigns. This is why it's important to treat the background image and text separately. This can be done by adding alternative text in addition to your background image, instead of overlaying the text directly into the image. All images should contain alternative text so your message will still get across to your audience. Be mindful of the chosen text color too, because if the background image is removed and your text is lightly colored, it will no longer be visible against a white background. But don't worry - customized, beautiful emails are possible without background images too. The following image is an example from Apple to publicize the new MacBook Pro. Even without the use of a background image, the newsletter is simple and aesthetically appealing. Source: Canva What should you do? With all of these constraints in the world of email marketing, it can seem rather challenging to get your message across to your audience. However, now that you know all about the limitations of HTML email design they should only be used to your advantage. Be wary of how you use HTML based content, like embedded media, custom fonts in your email design, and when in doubt test your emails. Also keep in mind that email width and size matters too both from a deliverability and user experience perspective. As you develop new ways to send content to your audience, keep this article in mind so you can display only the best content. Unfortunately not all free responsive email templates are created with these rules in mind. So always be careful and double check the email template you are planning to send. Have you enjoyed this article? If yes, I'm sure you'll enjoy future ones as well. Just subscribe to our newsletter below in the footer, and we'll keep you in the loop. |
I have said it before, and I will say it again. The internet is full of hilarious videos, historical videos, and racing crash compilations coming out the waa-zoo. While searching for an old tribute to Dan Wheldon, I ran upon a great little feature about Wheldon's days in Karts, and his decision to move on to the United States. There is something refreshing about seeing our favorite racing drivers suit up early in their career. There is always a genuine love for the sport twinkling in their eye, even at that young age. Unfortunately, we lost Wheldon at the season final of the 2011 season. But, as his love for racing was sown so deep, his son, Sebastian has already taken up post behind the wheel of a race vehicle. Maybe we are seeing the first interviews with tomorrow's Indy 500 winner? Danica Patrick flew onto the IndyCar scene after cutting her teeth in karting and various lower formula series in the UK. Her jump to IndyCar brought a ton of attention to the sport. Now, firmly seated in the NASCAR ranks, looking back and seeing her drive (and almost cocky determination) is refreshing. She may take a lot of unwarranted flack for her performance (or even more unfairly) her gender, but there is no doubt her drive to win. Lastly, but certianly not least, I went on a search for Helio Castroneves, before his big break in IndyCar. The Brazilian came up in a brilliant class of drivers, surrounded by the likes of Rubens Barrichello and Tony Kanaan, and while he saw a great amount of success in those early ranks, he was never and over-the-top standout...until he found the right team. First is a video of Castroneves' best finish early in his Champ Car (now IndyCar) career. 1999 to be exact, his second year in the series. It is a rather long video, and it is narrated in another language (Portugese....I think), but it shows the fan favorite Brazillian wheeling a Hogan Racing Lola/Mercedes around Gateway chasing down Michael Andretti. Sure, there is no interview...or real way to connect with the younger Castroneves...but there is something to be said about finishing second to Andretti in a car that had no place on the podium. Keep in mind that year he was only able to finish 7 of the 20 races in that car. Enough said. I will leave you all with this gem. The year was 1995, and it was a British Formula 3 race in the UK. This video is a simple highlights package from some sort of VHS tape from eyons ago...but there is something unique about it. Yes, Mr. Castroneves is present in the video...but is the other names being screamed out by the commentator that piques my interest. I won't ruin it all...but listen closely for names like Christian Horner, and Cristiano da Matta. Pretty neat stuff if you ask me! |
Support us AD-FREE Producing content you read on this website takes a lot of time, effort, and hard work. If you value what we do here, please consider subscribing today. SUBSCRIBE TODAY Geologist Yoon Seong-hyo from Pusan National University who has been monitoring Mount Baegdu, a massive stratovolcano located on the border of North Korea and China, said on Sunday, April 12, 2015 the volcano is on the verge of erupting. Mount Baegdu is relatively unknown volcano responsible for one of the largest known eruptions in history. This eruption took place about 940 CE (VEI 7) and is known as the "millennium eruption" that deposited rhyolitic and trachytic tephra as far away as northern Japan. Measurements of ash deposits in Japan indicate that this was one of the two largest known volcanic eruptions on Earth since that period. It was matched only by the Tambora eruption in Indonesia, in 1815 AD. This volcano is known as Tianchi or Changbaishan in China and Hakuto-san in Japan. Its Korean names are Baegdu and P'aektu-san. Mount Baegdu in the Changbai Mountains along the border of China and North Korea in Northeast Asia - April 2003. Image credit: NASA. Professor Yoon, who has been monitoring the volcano with an electronic distance measurement device (EDM), said the height of caldera has risen 1 cm since July 2014. "The mountain's height has risen about 10 cm between 2002 and 2005," Yoon added. "It then began to sink in 2009. The shift changed only recently, which is significant." (KoreaTimes) The temerature from the caldera's geyser had been around 70 °C, but recently rose to 83 °C. The helium concentration rate had also recently jumped from 6.5 times that of the normal atmosphere from 2002 - 2005 to seven times. "All these signs indicate the magma inside the mountain is moving upward," Yoon said and called for close monitoring. Lake Tianchi (Sky Lake) occupies the 5-km-wide, 850-m-deep summit caldera of Mount Baekdu. Image credit: Xiang Liu, 1983 (Changchun University). Geologic summary Massive Changbaishan stratovolcano, also known as Baitoushan and by the Korean names of Baegdu or P'aektu-san, is a relatively poorly known, but volcanologically significant volcano straddling the China/Korea border. A 5-km-wide, 850-m-deep summit caldera is filled by scenic Lake Tianchi (Sky Lake). A large Korean-speaking population resides near the volcano on both sides of the border. The 60-km-diameter dominantly trachytic and rhyolitic volcano was constructed over the Changbaishan (Laoheidingzi) shield volcano. Satellitic cinder cones are aligned along a NNE trend. One of the world's largest known Holocene explosive eruptions took place here about 1000 CE, depositing rhyolitic and trachytic tephra as far away as northern Japan and forming in part the present caldera. Minor historical eruptions have been recorded since the 15th century. (GVP) Featured image: Mount Baekdu in April 2003. Credit: NASA Register/become a supporter Your support is crucial for our survival. It makes this project fully self-sustainable and keeps us independent and focused on the content we love to create and share. Monthly subscription Subscription options Option 1 : $5.00 USD - monthly Option 2 : $10.00 USD - monthly Option 3 : $15.00 USD - monthly Option 4 : $25.00 USD - monthly Option 5 : $50.00 USD - monthly Option 6 : $100.00 USD - monthly Yearly subscription Subscription options Option 1 : $50.00 USD - yearly Option 1 : $100.00 USD - yearly |
This is a amazing comment and I stole it (thank you Captain Awkward) to share with you, my loyal readers.. It is long, but necessary. —– “Not surprisingly, I have a story? It’s pretty long, and I’m sorry. My husband, Doctor Glass, recently went on a weeklong workshop. The participants worked on teams, slept in a dormitory, shared meals and spent all day together. While there, Dr Glass acquired a strikingly beautiful female friend, who was absolutely luminous – like a fallen star or a revolutionary. She was also just about to enter university, making her very much younger than Dr Glass. They were on the same team, had much in common, and seemed to enjoy each other. However, there was a twenty-something dude on the course who, according to Dr Glass, “made things awkward.” Immediately, he tried to make the workshop all about his pantsfeelings for Luminous Girl. Although he was on a different team, he was constantly buzzing around Dr Glass and Luminous Girl, getting in their way (which was dangerous and distracting, as they were doing physical labor) and trying to get her to talk to him, work with him, come over and look at his work, etc. In return she tried to ignore him, laughed him off politely, repeatedly referenced her desire to do her work, physically moved away whenever he got close to her, and stuck like glue to Dr Glass; saying NO in all those thousand little pleasant ways that women are trained to do. Awkward Dude tried to impress her with physical activity, but Dr Glass cut him off because he was being distracting. Confused and annoyed, Awkward stepped up his Game, trying to impress her with his intellectual cred, and it went down like a lead zeppelin, with Luminous and Dr Glass resuming their own work and conversations. So Awkward started loudly asking wasn’t Dr Glass married?! At this, Awkward Dude attempted to kill Dr Glass with his laser-eyeballs at every turn, lurking and glaring and pining like a bad Snape impersonator. (Dr Glass wasn’t sure why he was suddenly the target of the resulting animosity, as he clearly had no romantic interest in Luminous, until I explained it to him: Dude had decided that the reason Luminous Girl was not sleeping with him was because she was the Possession of Another Male, and further, a Male who Already Had His Fair Share of Females; thus Dr Glass was the enemy for not shunning her and leaving a clear path for fellow males. “Oh,” said Dr Glass in sudden revelation, “That makes sense, I guess.”) But the guy persisted – it wasn’t that Luminous didn’t like him! It was that she was clearly in thrall of my husband. The solution was to get her alone! So whenever they sat down to a lecture, Luminous, practically dragging Dr Glass by the arm, would move like lightning to position herself between him and a safe wall – with her lovely admirer circling them and glaring, loudly asking Dr Glass about his Wife Back Home. Awkward Dude implied that Dr Glass was creepy and odd for always hanging out with a girl half his age. Awkward Dude was annoyed that the course director, an older woman who should presumably know better, had assigned dorm space based on teams, so that Dr Glass and Luminous bunked in adjacent rooms (while he, Awkward Dude, was in the wing with the married couples!) because it was inappropriate and wrong to place a married man next to a teenaged female. On a particularly cold day, Dr Glass noticed that Luminous did not have warm clothing, and lent her an extra hoodie. It happened to have his name on it; Awkward Dude practically ignited, to the point where even the other people on the course were laughing awkwardly at him and saying “Uh, she’s… allowed to wear clothes?” Luminous and Dr Glass both liked hiking, so one evening after dinner, they went out for a hike by themselves – not inviting the others in case Awkward Dude got wind of their plans. (“I mean, it sounds cruel, but I just hated him,” Dr Glass said.) It was after curfew when they walked back to their rooms,and the halls were completely dark; Dr Glass hung back to fill his water bottle. When he got to the rooms, at the end of the corridor, Luminous had been cornered by Awkward Dude. When Awkward spotted Dr Glass, he yelled at him about how inappropriate it was to go hiking alone with Luminous. Luminous seized the opportunity to flee to her room, locking the door. “I think it’s inappropriate to police her hiking,” Dr Glass said mildly and went to bed. The next day was the last day of the course, and Dr Glass had had enough. Awkward Dude was “trying it on” in front of the whole group, making everyone uncomfortable. He had dragged Luminous into yet another unwanted conversation and Dr Glass called him out, in front of everybody, a deadly blow to Awkward’s pride. Awkward Dude tried to appeal to the group – he was only trying to be friendly – but Dr Glass had him up against the ropes, metaphorically, he’d broken the floodgates, and everyone began to laugh at Awkward instead: the old married couples, the other young men, and Luminous. “I really feel bad about that, actually,” Dr Glass said. He hadn’t really wanted to humiliate the younger man in front of everybody, especially since his only crime had been really inept flirting. Was it really Dr Glass’s place to speak for Luminous? Perhaps he’d made a big deal out of nothing. But Dr Glass didn’t regret it. He just felt odd. He didn’t know why he’d been so savage over something so banal as Awkward’s favorite movie. He was pretty sure that he didn’t regard Luminous as a possession, or something to be protected. He’d just snapped. “OH MY GOD,” I replied, “WHY DIDN’T YOU DO MORE? WHAT A FUCKING CREEPER!” Well, Dr Glass wanted to assume good intentions on everyone’s part. They’d all lived together, after all, eaten together, worked together. Emotions had run high. It would have been pretty terrible for the Dude if he’d been ostracized right at the beginning, just because he wasn’t very good at talking to girls. After all, he was there for the workshop. They all were. “AAAAH,” I wound down, “But what Luminous? WHOSE WORKSHOP WAS RUINED BECAUSE SHE DIDN’T FEEL SAFE?! She couldn’t just relax and enjoy spending time with you/her other new friends/nature – she practically had to have a bathroom buddy! He didn’t even let her focus on the work she was PAYING MONEY to do! You did not cross a line! HE CROSSED THE FUCKING LINE!” Dr Glass totally agreed. But he still felt oddly uncomfortable about it all, as if there was something there to regret, like he was missing a piece of the puzzle. And then I asked The Question. And after I asked The Question, his face changed. He looked sick. “I didn’t think of that.” After The Question, he wished he’d been more explicit – gone to the course director. Been there more for Luminous. The good intentions that he wanted to assume, the passes he was willing to give the other man, evaporated, completely. They had evaporated for me, halfway through the story. When I tell this story to women, they spot The Question right away. The men don’t; they think that Dr Glass behaved like a gentleman, neither doing too much nor too little. They are feminist men, and good people. They have read “The Gift of Fear” and they talk about privilege and the patriarchy, and they don’t spot it. The Question is this: Why Was Awkward Dude Waiting For Her In The Dark? Earlier in the story we heard that his own room was far away from hers. It was dark, at the end of a dark hall. He was waiting there, after midnight, with the lights off. HE HAD BEEN WAITING FOR HER IN THE DARK AT THE END OF A DARK HALL AFTER CURFEW, HE KNEW SHE HAD GONE OUT AND HE WAS WAITING FOR HER TO COME BACK. He was angry when he realized that she wasn’t alone. And Luminous was afraid – bolting into her room. Locking the door. And the women go HOLY FUCK WHAT IS THAT as soon as they hear about the atmosphere, and the men just accept it as another anecdote of Awkward Dude’s awkwardness, you know? Because how rude/silly/inept to pester a woman about hiking with another man! While the women are going BAD INTENTIONS BAD INTENTIONS FUCK SHIT THAT WOULD NOT HAVE ENDED WELL. And then you point out The Question to the men, and wait a while, and they suddenly go OH. OH MY GOD. WHY WAS HE WAITING FOR HER IN THE DARK. THAT’S – THAT’S PRETTY FUCKING SKETCHY. Everything changes. Dude-sympathy is gone. They put on the Matrix-goggles and peer into the world that apparently only women see. Awkward cornered Luminous in the dark after curfew at the end of the hall when he thought she was alone and he had a lot of anger and when my husband showed up he read Luminous as afraid and she ran into her room and locked the door. That is the reality. The good intentions, they are not there. Perhaps Awkward would have said that they were, that we, in our paranoia, are seeing rape in every dark corner. Perhaps he was trying to apologize for his previous behavior, or lend her a book, or make sure that she got back safely from her hike… so he’d chosen to do so alone, in the dark, making her afraid. That was what had been bothering Dr Glass. He wasn’t wearing the Goggles of Feminine Intuition, but he picked up on the signals that something wasn’t right. Seeing the Question doesn’t make you paranoid – it means your instincts are working. If you live in the world of women, it isn’t your duty to educate everybody, to hand-hold and explain, to pass out Matrix-goggles. It’s Situation Normal: All Fucked Up. But perhaps you, Letter Writers, have good men, men who just need to wear the goggles. That’s not really what I think, but our society is fucked up. I’ll assume good intentions on their part. Maybe it will help.” Did you miss the question? Ever wonder why explaining rape culture to people is so triggering and difficult (and necessary)? Its because sometimes people just don’t see it or refuse to see it. If you did see the question, good on ya and keep up the good fight. |
With the complainant failing to show up at court to testify — and no immediate prospect of locating him — the Crown directed a stay in the case of a machete attack reported in the Cathedral area in the summer of 2015. Daniel Dennis James Larose, 21, arrived at Regina Court of Queen’s Bench on Wednesday for what was to be the start of his trial on an aggravated assault charge. Instead, the court learned the Crown had been unable to find the complainant, who was 25 at the time of the Aug. 9, 2015 incident. As a result, prosecutor Maura Landry stayed the charge, effectively ending court proceedings against Larose on this matter. Although the Crown has 12 months to bring a charge back to court, that step is rarely taken. Larose had initially also been facing charges of break, enter and commit theft, and a breach of probation, but those allegations were tossed out following a preliminary hearing in December. The charges had been laid following an incident in which Larose was accused of maiming the 25-year-old man during an alleged break and enter at a residence on the 2100 block of Athol Street. According to information previously released by the Regina Police Service, members were called to the residence shortly before 7 a.m. on the August date, where they found the man suffering from fractures and severe cuts described as non-life-threatening. Police said the investigation revealed a number of people showed up at the complainant’s home, with a resulting altercation moving onto the street where the complainant was struck with weapons. hpolischuk@postmedia.com twitter.com/LPHeatherP |
RESTON, VA, August 14, 2015 – Comscore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a global leader in digital media analytics, today released its monthly Comscore qSearch™ analysis of the U.S. desktop search marketplace. Google Sites led the explicit core search market in July with 64 percent of search queries conducted. U.S. Explicit Core Search Google Sites led the U.S. explicit core search market in July with 64 percent market share, followed by Microsoft Sites with 20.4 percent (up 0.1 percentage points) and Yahoo Sites with 12.7 percent. Ask Network accounted for 1.8 percent of explicit core searches (up 0.1 percentage points), followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.2 percent. Comscore Explicit Core Search Share Report* (Desktop Only) July 2015 vs. June 2015 Total U.S. – Desktop Home & Work Locations Source: Comscore qSearch Core Search Entity Explicit Core Search Share (%) Jun-15 Jul-15 Point Change Total Explicit Core Search 100.0% 100.0% N/A Google Sites 64.0% 64.0% 0.0 Microsoft Sites 20.3% 20.4% 0.1 Yahoo Sites 12.7% 12.7% 0.0 Ask Network 1.7% 1.8% 0.1 AOL, Inc. 1.2% 1.2% 0.0 *“Explicit Core Search” excludes contextually driven searches that do not reflect specific user intent to interact with the search results. 17.7 billion explicit core searches were conducted in July, with Google Sites ranking first with 11.3 billion (up 1 percent). Microsoft Sites ranked second with 3.6 billion searches (up 1 percent), followed by Yahoo Sites with 2.2 billion (up 1 percent), Ask Network with 313 million (up 4 percent) and AOL, Inc. with 206 million (up 2 percent). Comscore Explicit Core Search Query Report (Desktop Only) July 2015 vs. June 2015 Total U.S. – Desktop Home & Work Locations Source: Comscore qSearch Core Search Entity Explicit Core Search Queries (MM) Jun-15 Jul-15 Percent Change Total Explicit Core Search 17,465 17,654 1% Google Sites 11,184 11,293 1% Microsoft Sites 3,553 3,596 1% Yahoo Sites 2,225 2,246 1% Ask Network 301 313 4% AOL, Inc. 202 206 2% “Powered By” Reporting In July, 65.1 percent of searches carried organic search results from Google, while 31.0 percent of searches were powered by Bing. For more information: About Comscore Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Reston, Virginia, Comscore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global media measurement and analytics company that makes audiences and advertising more valuable. We help media buyers and sellers understand and make decisions based on how consumers use different media, such as TV, video, mobile, desktop and more. Through its products and partnerships, Comscore helps its more than 2,500 clients understand their audiences, know if their advertising is working, and access data where they want and need it. Please visit www.comscore.com to learn more. |
The 52 men and women meeting in a conference room at the Hotel Maritim in Berlin's Tiergarten district were determined to remain undisturbed. No one else was privy to the location and time of the meeting, in a deliberate attempt to prevent protestors and journalists from showing up at the scene. The only outsider present was Daniel Pipes, an American author, critic of Islam and advisor to former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who happened to be in the city. The Hotel Maritim is on Stauffenbergstrasse, near the Memorial to the German Resistance. It is an historic point of reference that the 52 attendees would likely have drawn encouragement from. Like would-be Hitler assassin Claus von Stauffenberg, after whom the street is named, they too hope to protect Germany against what they perceive to be pending disaster. The group drafted a set of bylaws and discussed a 77-page party platform, which includes such statements as: "We will do everything in our power to oppose the Islamization of our country." They gave their party a grand name, a name worth fighting for: "Die Freiheit" (Freedom). The 52 men and women chose as their party chairman an unprepossessing man with a short haircut and melancholy eyes, the 45-year-old manager of a company specializing in alarm systems and security technology and a member of the Berlin state parliament, René Stadtkewitz. A few weeks later, Stadtkewitz, a former member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right Christian Democrats (CDU), is sitting at the wheel of his BMW 5 Series. It is a cold November morning as the Berlin skyline gradually fades away in the rear-view mirror. At first, Stadtkewitz's most noticeable feature is his voice, the kind of warm, rich bass often found among radio announcers on classical music stations. But despite his appealing voice, the words coming out of his mouth lose their weight due to their strangeness. "If we don't get things right demographically, we'll have Algeria in Berlin before long. Islam has always been a religion of conquest," Stadtkewitz says in his throaty bass, the voice of a smoker who fills his lungs with cigarette smoke every two hours. It's about a 550-kilometer (344-mile) trip to Wetzlar in the western state of Hesse, but Stadtkewitz plans to return to Berlin that evening. His day will consist of more than 1,000 kilometers on the road, with political meetings and a press conference sandwiched in between the two legs of his trip. Stadtkewitz speeds down the autobahn. "There is a press conference, isn't there, Marc?" Stadtkewitz asks. The question is directed at the man sitting in the back. Marc Doll, 33, is a teacher who has been a vegetarian for the last 15 years. Doll, who has an honest face and keeps his hair parted neatly on the side, is the deputy party chairman. "Yes, René, as far as I know," says Doll. Stadtkewitz nods in satisfaction. The event in Wetzlar sounds promising. A few members of the local chapter of the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) intend to join the Freedom Party. Stadtkewitz doesn't know these people and has only communicated with them by e-mail and phone, but if FDP members are indeed defecting to his new party, it will be a coup that "will cause a lot of hype in Hesse, even in the media," says Stadtkewitz. 'Geert Wilders Is a Great Democrat and Liberal' It's the kind of hype that can't be bad for a new, virtually unknown party, particularly as its chairman, Stadtkewitz, is also virtually unknown: a former member of the CDU from Berlin who never made much of an impression as a politician, never held any significant positions and produced few headlines. Stadtkewitz is the classic second-tier politician. His only media exposure consists of a few stories in Berlin newspapers that have generally described Stadtkewitz as a right-wing populist. But what does that mean? "Well, what exactly is that supposed to be, a right-wing populist?" Stadtkewitz asks, scratching his head. Perhaps someone like Dutch politician Geert Wilders? "That's nonsense. Right-wing populist. Geert Wilders is a great democrat and liberal. I know him well." But Wilders says that the Koran should be banned, just as Hitler's "Mein Kampf" was banned. "Well, Wilders does exaggerate sometimes," says Stadtkewitz. "But you have to be able to bring things to a head sometimes. The internal rejection of Islam has long been a majority view in Germany. You can see it in the Sarrazin debate." For Stadtkewitz the debate that broke out after Thilo Sarrazin, the former member of the board of the German Central Bank, published a book claiming that Muslims would soon outnumber ethnic Germans and that they were dumbing down the country, went something like this: After reading Sarrazin's book, shortly after it was published, Stadtkewitz realized that he liked what he was reading. He felt validated and encouraged. By the time he had finished reading the book, it had already set off a heated debate in Germany, first about the book itself and eventually about the broader issue of integration. The vehemence of that debate surprised him at first, says Stadtkewitz. Another German Integration Debate The book is thick and full of numbers, not exactly the classic formula for a bestseller. Nevertheless, it seems to expose a hidden undercurrent of threat and loss in the German psyche. There have been similar debates in the past. Indeed, the German integration debate is a ritual that appears with the regularity of an outbreak of herpes. This time, however, the debate has been centered around a clear bogeyman: Muslims. Book buyers and not politicians are the people who dominate today's integration debate. The mere act of buying the book constitutes a statement in itself, an acknowledgment that Sarrazin is right. The fact that hundreds of thousands of people were buying the book encouraged Stadtkewitz in his belief that his fledgling party could be a success. He recognized that there was a certain mood in the country, and that all he had to do was to channel it into a political movement. Within a few weeks of its establishment, the Freedom Party had already received about 6,000 membership inquiries. Stadtkewitz and his team were overwhelmed and hardly able to respond to all of the inquiries. In a poll commissioned by the left-leaning newspaper Berliner Zeitung, 24 percent of Berlin residents stated that they could imagine voting for a "party directed against Islam." And a survey conducted by the Emnid opinion research firm concluded that 18 percent of Germans would vote for a Sarrazin party. A Sarrazin party doesn't even exist. But now there is one lead by René Stadtkewitz, a small business owner from Berlin's Karow district. |
Black holes come in two varieties: supermassive and stellar. The supermassive variety can have millions of times the mass of a star, while the stellar varieties are usually just a few times the mass of a single sun. Using the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, astronomers have turned up the most massive stellar mass black hole ever seen, weighing in at 15.7 times the mass of the Sun, lurking in a nearby galaxy. M33 is a relatively nearby galaxy, located only 3 million light years from Earth. This newly discovered black hole has been designated as M33 X-7. Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory and the Gemini telescope on Mauna Kea were able to precisely determine the black hole’s mass because it’s actually in a binary system. Its binary partner is unusual too; a star with 70 times the mass of the Sun. M33 X-7 orbits its companion star every 3.5 days, briefly passing behind it. This blocks the torrent of X-rays streaming from the environment around the black hole, so that astronomers were able to calculate its orbit. Once they could calculate the orbits of the two binary objects, it’s relatively straightforward to calculate their respective masses. The fate of the companion star will eventually match its partner. “This is a huge star that is partnered with a huge black hole,” said coauthor Jeffrey McClintock of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. “Eventually, the companion will also go supernova and then we’ll have a pair of black holes.” Although the black hole has less mass today, it must have started out with more. With more mass in the original star, it would have consumed its fuel more quickly, and detonated as a supernova earlier. Here’s a puzzle, though. Before the black hole formed, the two stars wouldn’t have been able to orbit so closely. In fact, they would have been orbiting inside each other. This means that they were once further apart, and the process of sharing their outer atmospheres brought their orbits closer together. Original Source: Chandra News Release |
Following tonight's 2-1 loss at Carolina, Nashville Predators head coach Barry Trotz let out some frustration over Carter Hutton's goaltending, basically pinning blame on him for the loss in quotes given to Josh Cooper of the Tennessean. Trotz on the Skinner game-winner: "You have to save those. That wasn’t much of a shot at all." — JoshuaCooper (@JoshuaCooper) January 6, 2014 Trotz on Hutton's performance: "That’s not good enough for this league. He wasn’t strong at all." — JoshuaCooper (@JoshuaCooper) January 6, 2014 While it is a bit odd to see a guy who lost 2-1 blame his goalie rather than his 25th-ranked offensive attack, the two goals that Hutton gave up tonight were both stinkers. What's remarkable about those quotes from Trotz tonight is that they are unusually harsh, something we see maybe once a season from the coach when things aren't going well (recall his "horrible" blast on Ekholm a couple seasons ago). In this case, however, it's also an indictment of David Poile's signing of Hutton on the first day of free agency last summer, a surprising move considering Hutton's inexperience and the risk surrounding Pekka Rinne's off-season hip surgery. It was obviously one of the biggest risks surrounding this team heading into the season, and it has turned out badly so far for the Preds. The team's 5-on-5 save percentage is 5th-worst in the NHL, taking away any margin for error considering their underwhelming offensive production. Will we see a move made on this front any time soon? Options could include putting Hutton through waivers and sending him to Milwaukee, in exchange for perhaps Scott Darling or Magnus Hellberg, but neither of those would be considered upgrades. In the meantime, the team can ride Marek Mazanec as their #1 starter, but he's had his ups and downs as well. Considering the fact that this team has dim (at best) playoff hopes, does it make sense to part with any assets to bring in help until Pekka Rinne recovers from his hip infection? There aren't any easy answers here, unfortunately. |
Rated 5 out of 5 by Kweaver from Perfect I was looking to get the dior air flash foundation but the drop down menu for the shades isn’t working properly, so I got this instead. I am very happy with it. I apply with a foundation brush and it sets perfectly and leaves me with a even looking complexion and vibrant look even after nights of little sleep. I’ve gotten multiple compliments when wearing it on how awake I look :) so that’s a good sign. I was a bit worried my usual 032 colour would be too dark when I first went to use it. But it blended seamlessly and worked out great. :) I am still going to get the air flash but will use this one daily and that one for special occasions. I would say this is a medium coverage but I haven’t tried layering to get more coverage as of yet. Very happy with it. But I have yet to try a dior foundation I didn’t like. |
Big hearts and large bank accounts aren’t always distributed to the same people. So for many of us, when tragedy strikes, although we’d like to help we may not always have the means. But that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s nothing we can do. A heartwarming story out of Dearborn, Michigan, shows how a woman’s resourcefulness allowed her to do something powerful for the victims of the water crisis in nearby Flint. Back in 2009, Diana Hussein joined Twitter and had no idea what to use for her handle. She looked at her computer desk for inspiration and saw a can of Diet Dr Pepper staring back at her. So she signed up under the handle @DietDrPepper. This January, the Dr Pepper Snapple Group reached out to Hussein to negotiate a deal for her to hand it over to the beverage giant. But all the company offered was a trade for some merchandise. Hussein had been very concerned for the residents of Flint and thought she could strike a deal that could help the crisis. “Maybe I could convince them to do some kind of monetary contribution to help Flint,” she told ABC News. “When I found out they owned and distributed [bottles of water], I thought that was a really great opportunity.” Brian Bell, Dr Pepper’s public relations manager, was impressed that Hussein wanted nothing for herself in the deal. “She wasn’t trying to come after a monetary value,” he told ABC News. “Diana was very straightforward. She was very open and honest with us.” In exchange for the @DietDrPepper handle, Dr Pepper Snapple Group agreed to send 41,000 bottles of water to help the people of Flint. Hussein now tweets under the handle @HeyaDiana. Hit her up and tell her she did something amazing. |
The Green Party leader has told the News Letter his party members will meet on Saturday to discuss whether to join any electoral deal. Whilst Steven Agnew said the notion of pact – which could involve both Sinn Fein and the SDLP – is under consideration, he would not be drawn on whether or not he has a personal preference. This stance contrasts markedly with fellow non-aligned party Alliance, which had expressly rejected the idea of a pact almost as soon as the idea was mooted on Wednesday. “We’re pro-Remain, but we’re also in favour of giving the electorate a choice,” said Mr Agnew, referring to the fact that the SDLP is billing any potential pact as solely a deal among pro-EU parties. The SDLP – which raised the idea of the pact – has stressed that it will talk to “anyone”, and that it does not have just fellow nationalists in mind (although Sinn Fein would be both the biggest potential partner and arguably the most likely one too). The Green Party met the SDLP on Thursday to discuss the issue, and it will now come before an already-scheduled meeting of the Green Party executive on Saturday. Non-violence is one of the four core principles of the Green Party, and when asked about Sinn Fein’s associations with (and ongoing praise for) the violence of the Troubles, Mr Agnew said that “whether it be DUP sharing power with Sinn Fein or us discussing an electoral pact with Sinn Fein, they’re part of the political landscape and every party within the Assembly will deal with them one way or another”. He also said party members will have weigh up Sinn Fein’s abstentionist stance too, adding if an anti-Brexit pact “is about votes in the House of Commons, you obviously need to be there to take those votes”. WHAT DOES SDLP STAND TO GAIN? The Green Party could be important because the SDLP MP Alasdair McDonnell had only a 2.3% lead over the DUP in his South Belfast seat in the 2015 General Election. If the Green Party dropped out of the race and some of their share of the vote (amounting to 5.7%) transferred to the SDLP, it could give them the edge they need to hold it. However, if Sinn Fein (with 13.9% of the vote) dropped out of the race, it would be a far bigger boost to the SDLP. Nicholas Whyte, a visiting professor at the University of Ulster and an expert on election results, said that the only thing he can forsee the SDLP getting out of a pact with Sinn Fein is the retention of this sole seat. Meanwhile, Sinn Fein could win Fermanagh and South Tyrone, North Belfast, and perhaps even Upper Bann if the SDLP stood aside in those constituencies under a pact. “If I was the SDLP, I wouldn’t take it,” he said. “What does the SDLP get out of it? If you have a pact, the smaller party has to be gaining something. “All we’ve identified currently is the SDLP get to keep what they have – which is not the same as gaining.” |
The 2014 NFL regular season continued this week with 39 former Florida Gators spread out over 22 of the 32 teams in the league. Eleven teams had multiple Florida players on their rosters including Miami (four); Indianapolis and Philadelphia (three each); and Baltimore, Cincinnati, Denver, Kansas City, N.Y. Jets, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Tampa Bay (two each). Below are full game statistics for all 28 players (18 starters^) that saw action along with select status and injury updates on some Gators during the eighth week of the regular season. ^ Kickers and returners not counted as starters. PLAYERS OF THE WEEK CB JOE HADEN, Cleveland Browns: Started | nine tackles (eight solo, one for loss) [team-highs], two pass defenses, fumble recovery TE JORDAN REED, Washington: Seven receptions [team-high] for 40 yards (long: 16) » Two of Reed’s receptions came on Washington’s first drive in overtime, which ended with a game-winning field goal. PLAY OF THE WEEK Check out how the rest of the Gators in the NFL performed…after the break! BALTIMORE RAVENS S Matt Elam: Started | three tackles (two solo), pass defense S Will Hill: Two solo tackles BUFFALO BILLS LB Brandon Spikes: Started | two tackles (one solo) CHICAGO BEARS LB Jon Bostic: Inactive/injured (back) CINCINNATI BENGALS DE Carlos Dunlap: Started | three tackles (two solo), QB hit S Reggie Nelson: Started | six tackles (three solo) CLEVELAND BROWNS CB Joe Haden: Started | nine tackles (eight solo, one for loss) [team-highs], two pass defenses, fumble recovery DALLAS COWBOYS DE Jeremy Mincey: Started | four tackles (two solo, one for loss), sack, two QB hits DENVER BRONCOS WR Andre Caldwell: Started | two kick returns for 64 yards (long: 34); tackle LB Lerentee McCray: QB hit INDIANAPOLIS COLTS C Jonotthan Harrison*: Started CB Loucheiz Purifoy*: Solo tackle JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS S Josh Evans: Started | four solo tackles KANSAS CITY CHIEFS WR Frankie Hammond Jr.: Reception for nine yards DE Jaye Howard: Started | two tackles (one solo), 0.5 sack MIAMI DOLPHINS LB Jelani Jenkins: Started | six tackles (two solo), forced fumble C Mike Pouncey: Started at right guard K Caleb Sturgis: 2/2 on field goals (made: 43, 29); 3/3 on extra points MINNESOTA VIKINGS DT Sharrif Floyd: Started | eight tackles (seven solo, one for loss), sack, QB hit NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS DT Dominique Easley*: Started | three tackles, 0.5 sack, QB hit » Easley registered the first (half) sack of his NFL career. NEW ORLEANS SAINTS LB Ronald Powell*: Played as a reserve NEW YORK JETS WR Percy Harvin: Started | three receptions for 22 yards (targets: 9, long: 11); four carries for 28 yards (long: 9); six kick returns for 144 yards (long: 35); solo tackle » Harvin played in his first game with New York after being traded by Seattle. PHILADELPHIA EAGLES TE Trey Burton*: Solo tackle WR Riley Cooper: Started | five receptions for 88 yards (targets: 9, long: 50) DB Jaylen Watkins*: Inactive PITTSBURGH STEELERS OT Marcus Gilbert: Started C Maurkice Pouncey: Inactive/injured (concussion) SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS DT Ray McDonald: Bye Week ST. LOUIS RAMS CB Janoris Jenkins: Inactive/injured (knee) CB Marcus Roberson*: Started | four solo tackles » Roberson earned the first start of his NFL career in place of Jenkins. TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS WR Louis Murphy: Two receptions for 11 yards (long: 7) S Major Wright: Played as a reserve WASHINGTON TE Jordan Reed: Seven receptions [team-high] for 40 yards (long: 16) » Two of Reed’s receptions came on Washington’s first drive in overtime, which ended with a game-winning field goal. PRACTICE SQUAD WR Solomon Patton (Arizona), WR Deonte Thompson (Baltimore), DE Justin Trattou (Minnesota) » Patton was cut by Tampa Bay last week and picked up by Arizona. INJURED RESERVE (DESIGNATED TO RETURN) OT Xavier Nixon (Indianapolis, knee) INJURED RESERVE (SEASON) DE Jermaine Cunningham (N.Y. Jets, ACL), RB Mike Gillislee (Miami, hamstring) NOTABLE FREE AGENTS Veterans: S Ahmad Black, RB Jeff Demps, QB Rex Grossman, P Chas Henry, OL Maurice Hurt, WR David Nelson, RB Chris Rainey, OT Max Starks, QB Tim Tebow Rookies: OG Jon Halapio*, DT Damien Jacobs*, LB Darrin Kitchens*, OL Kyle Koehne* * Rookie |
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines) — Government officials continue preparing for "the big one." The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) is holding its third national simultaneous earthquake drill on September 28 in Brgy. San Francisco, Biñan, Laguna. This time, the NDRRMC will gauge the country's preparedness for a 7.2-magnitude tremor. NDRRMC Executive Director Ricardo Jalad on Monday said they chose Laguna as the national venue for the drill because they consider Region 4-A as a backup emergency operation center, aside from Region 3. Laguna is also affected by the West Valley Fault, which cuts across Marikina to Cavite. Read: How to earthquake-proof your home Officials said disaster scenarios like vehicular incidents and collapsed structures will be seen during the drill. The barangay and surrounding communities will demonstrate how they handle these types of situations. Jalad said there are contingency measures in place like using various platforms of communication and will test it next week. Those who will join the drill, which starts 9 a.m., are encouraged to use the hashtag "Pagyanig" when sharing photos or videos of their experience on social media. Read: Philippines among world's most disaster-prone countries |
Police could not find anyone wearing a Ku Klux Klan outfit on the Oberlin College campus Monday despite a witness' report, the Chronicle-Telegram says. A student told police they saw a person in a white hood and robe on the Ohio campus near the Afrikan Heritage House around 1:30 a.m. Monday, according to TPM. But campus security and Oberlin police couldn't find anyone fitting the description, and The New York Times reported that another student said they saw someone wrapped in a blanket around the same time in the same area. The college canceled classes Monday and held a teach-in and rallies in response to the possible sighting, as well as a rash of racist and homophobic vandalism on campus recently. Several instances of graffiti containing derogatory remarks toward Jewish, black and gay communities were reported on campus in February, according to the Oberlin Review. The Guardian has since reported that two people have been accused in the vandalism incidents. "My understanding is that the individuals are college students and they have been identified," Oberlin, Ohio, police Lt. Mike McCloskey told The Guardian. "They are no longer on campus. The college is dealing with it internally, and we have been working in co-operation with the college." An estimated 1,200 students attended the teach-in, march and convocation Monday, the Times reported. About 2,800 students attend Oberlin. Katrina Cortés, an Oberlin student and a fellow with the national progressive group People for the American Way Foundation, doesn't believe as many people would've come to the events had classes not been canceled. "Some students would not have had the time ... some students would probably not have known about last night's events without this kind of attention," Cortés told The Huffington Post. |
Welcome to The War of 1812! Sabres and Smoke: The War of 1812 is a 2-player, turn-based light strategy board game set during the War of 1812. From Trenton in the Michigan Territory, to Fort George and Queenston Heights in Upper Canada, to the shores of Baltimore, Maryland, players will be able to pit British and Canadian infantry, militia, artillery, Native Warriors and naval units against their American counterparts. Across 16 exciting, historically accurate scenarios, both players will determine the fate of North America, with a game that is simple to both set up and learn, yet provides an incredibly rich, entertaining gaming experience. The game is for ages 10 and up. What’s in the game . Everything you need to play is included. (Prototype shown.) Sabres and Smoke: The War of 1812 comes complete and ready to play – no need for expansion packs, extra figure sets, or additional maps to buy. The game includes 16 historically accurate scenarios - Brownstown, Trenton, Fort Detroit, Queenston Heights, Frenchtown, Ogdensburg, York, Fort George, Sackets Harbor, Stoney Creek, Beaver Dams, Chateauguay, Crysler’s Farm, Bladensburg, and Baltimore. Click to see a draft PDF of the rules, including the first scenario. Fighting units are assembled by combining individual pieces. For example, a regular infantry unit contains 4 infantry pieces and an officer. A Native Warriors unit contains 3 native warrior pieces. Artillery units are made of 3 cannon pieces and officer. By combining the attack and defence factors of all the pieces in a unit, players get a combat experience that is rich, varied, and reflective of real combat situations. You'll have to carefully decide which units to position against particular enemy units, what to do with damaged units, etc. Units have their own attack, defence, range and movement factors. Naval units and artillery add firepower to both sides. Examples from the deck of 52 battle cards. Players draw 1 battle card per turn, adding variability to the game play. 44 double-sided terrain hexes add depth and dimension to the battlefield. The game includes: - 3 fully-mounted game boards (2 land, 1 coastal). - 44 double-sided terrain hexes, illustrated to provide depth and dimension to the battlefield. - 250 military units, including Native Warriors British, Canadian and American infantry, militia, artillery, naval units, and specialized unit markers. - 100 card stands, allowing all units to ‘stand to’. No need to move stacks around the board. - 8 battle dice (4 red, 4 blue) with custom-printed icon stickers. - 32-page Rule/Scenario Book with all the information to set and play the game, quickly and easily. Book also includes 16 scenarios with full-colour set up maps. - 52 Battle Cards, to add richness and variability to the gameplay. Our philosophy is that we want gamers to get the WHOLE game, and not have to miss pieces/features because they couldn’t acquire a more expensive level. So we’ve kept it simpler and, we believe, fairer. PLEASE NOTE: All prices are listed in Canadian dollars ( $1 American is worth approximately $1.30 Canadian, meaning the $75 Cdn. list price for one game is approximately $57 U.S. at current exchange rates.) When we reach these funding levels, these goals will be unlocked and included in every game. Shipping for one game: To Canada and the U.S.A: $15.00 To Europe: $35.00 Worldwide: $45.00 |
During her Tuesday interview with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, former National Security Advisor Susan Rice for the first time admitted to unmasking “U.S. persons” included in intelligence reports. The intelligence community sometimes incidentally collects the communications of U.S. citizens in its surveillance of foreigners, but those names are redacted when they are reported to White House officials. Rice told Mitchell that at times it was necessary for her to ask the intelligence agencies for the names of those U.S. citizens to determine the potential threat to national security. WATCH: “When the intelligence community would respond to a request from a senior national security official for the identity of an American, that would come back only to the person who requested it,” she first said in response to a question from Mitchell. “It would brought back to them directly… To me or whoever might have requested it.” (VIDEO: Rice DENIES Ordering Intel Community To Produce ‘Spreadsheets’ Involving Trump) “This is important,” Rice continued. “The notion that which some people are trying to suggest that by asking for the identity of an American person, that is the same as leaking it is completely false.” “There’s no equivalence between unmasking and leaking. The effort to ask for the identify of an American citizen is necessary to understand an intelligence report in some circumstances.” “There is an established process to ask for senior national security officials to ask for the identity of U.S. persons in these reports.” Follow Datoc on Twitter and Facebook |
Advertisement Survivor holds prosthetic leg out to Tsarnaev supporters Marc Fucarile reacts to supporters outside Boston court Share Shares Copy Link Copy A Boston Marathon bombing survivor who lost a leg in the blast confronted a supporter of the alleged bomber outside the federal courthouse where Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is scheduled to appear.Click to watch News 9's coverage.As Marc Fucarile was entering the courthouse, he overheard Valerie Vanetta and Karin Friedemann speaking to the media about the case and their support of Tsarnaev.Fucarile stopped, lifted his prosthetic leg and asked the supporters, "That's trickery?" before he continued into the building.View: Raw video of the confrontationFucarile, of Stoneham, Massachusetts, lost his right leg and suffered multiple other injuries in the bombing.The women didn't have much to say about the words exchanged with Fucarile, but they continued holding signs in support of Tsarnaev before and after the hearing.They claim there there's false evidence in the case and want to see a fair trial."I think it's really important to realize the possibility of innocence," Friedemann said."We're here to raise awareness about things concerning the case that people may not be aware of," Vanetta said. After the hearing was over, Fucarile left the courthouse saying he's grateful to be alive."They're all welcome to their opinion. There are supporters for him and there are supporters for us," he said.Fucarile said he plans to attend as much of the trial as he can.Three people were killed and more than 260 were injured when two bombs exploded near the finish line of the marathon. Tsarnaev, who has pleaded not guilty, faces the possibility of the death penalty if he is convicted.Jury selection begins on Jan. 5, and the trial is expected to last several months. Seating a jury alone could take several weeks to a month.Earlier this month, Tsarnaev's lawyers argued anew that "emotionally charged" media coverage and the widespread impact of the attacks have made it impossible for him to get a fair trial in Massachusetts.More: Victims and survivors of Boston Marathon bombingU.S. District Judge George O'Toole Jr. rejected Tsarnaev's first request in September to move the trial, ruling that Tsarnaev's lawyers had failed to show that extensive pretrial media coverage of the bombings had prejudiced the jury pool to the point that an impartial jury could not be chosen in Boston. |
Tap to play GIF Tap to play GIF Justine Zwiebel / BuzzFeed My last visit back to Florida to visit my mother was years ago. In the morning I would wake up and find an empty coffee cup and a shining teaspoon waiting for me on a folded paper towel before the coffeemaker, its big glass belly filled with Folgers that had been sitting there for a while, getting gnarly and more caffeinated with the passage of time. Taking my cup out onto the lanai, I would join my mother in the haze of cigarette smoke that filled the room, its own atmosphere. Together we would get amped on coffee and nicotine — mine secondhand. Once properly lit, my mother and I would head out to the thrift stores that line the highway of her Podunk, nowhere town. In the Goodwill I would grab a shopping cart and work the long dress rack that lined the wall of the store. The cart would quickly become a mound of nautical stripes and shimmering metallics, drapey sequins and printed caftans. I’d next make a swipe at the skirts, the tops, and the workout clothes, in case a random pair of printed Danskin leggings from the ’80s were waiting for me. I’d swing by the shoes, eyes peeled for some fashionably ugly orthopedics or some Floridian sandals. Then I’d push my cart — now piled so high I could barely see over the top — to the dressing room, and spend the next hour trying everything on. After thrifting maybe we’d take a trip to the senior center, where the local elderly ply their crafts, shockingly artisanal-looking tote bags and quilts that I always threatened to haul back to San Francisco and sell for quadruple the price. Maybe we’d get an ice cream, soon we’d have dinner, maybe Chinese takeout, maybe a stiff, gray plank of Steak ‘Um pulled from the freezer and fried in a pan. Then we’d hit the bingo hall and play a night’s worth of games. It’s later at night when things would get weird for me. Or — did they get weird? Maybe they were normal. But it’s weird to have such a thing be normal, is it not? That in itself is weird. Either the situation is weird, or I’m weird for thinking the situation is normal, the situation being my mother’s husband, my stepfather, or, to be legally truthful, my father, since he adopted me in a court of law 30-odd years ago, as I entered my teens. This man, disabled with a rare and terrible spinal disease, who sits on the lanai, smoking menthols in a painkiller haze, is also the man who sexually abused me through those teen years. When we met he had a thick head of blond hair, an earring in one lobe (the not-gay lobe; this was the ’80s), a hand-poked tattoo on one knuckle in the shape of a cross. Since his illness struck he is either bloated and taut, or too thin, his skin hanging loosely on his bones. In his seat on the lanai he bundles himself in a bathrobe and tucks their dog, a skitterish, barky Maltese, into the folds. He smokes and watches television, or he sketches onto paper with the box of colored pencils I bought him. At night, when my mother left for her graveyard shift nursing job was when it would be just him and me, alone together. Normal and weird. It’s controversial to call what happened between my stepfather and me “sexual abuse”; at least in my family it has been. His crime was peeping. He took advantage of the gaping keyholes in doors of our aged New England home; he availed himself of the chips in the doorjambs that created a tiny space for an eye to peek through. He improved upon the house’s ramshackle nicks and dents, digging his own tunnels into the bathroom door, into the walls of my bedroom. How do I know this? Careful investigation. Before the investigation were the years of creeping suspicion, a hunch that something really terribly wrong was happening in my house, a hunch I fought. Sitting on the toilet in the cramped bathroom I would hear the creaking of floorboards right there. Flinging myself up from the bowl, I would find my stepfather on the other side of the door, fussing with the cable box on the nearby TV. But why? We had a remote control. Well, I’m sure there was a reason. All those other many times I heard the unmistakable noise of a weight just outside the bathroom door. It’s the cat, it’s the cat, it’s the cat, I’d tell myself as I lingered on the john, a copy of TV Guide on my lap. In my home we called the bathroom "the library" because people were prone to locking themselves in with a copy of the National Enquirer. It was hard to focus on reading with the creaking, with the war erupting in my teenaged brain: This is happening/No it’s not/It is/It’s not, it’s not, it’s not, and you’re a pervert for even imagining such a thing. I was about 16. I felt like a pervert. Sitting in my bedroom, where I liked to glob song lyrics from the goth bands I loved on the linoleum floor with black nail polish, where I liked to paint my mouth dark and lip-synch in the mirror to Siouxsie Sioux, I would be in my own world, filled with music, and then suddenly, chillingly, the thought that my stepfather might be watching me invaded my headspace and I would freeze. Sometimes I would do strange things. I would scrunch my face up like a monster, stick my tongue out like Kali. I would grab at my breasts grotesquely. It was partly like, You want a show, here you go! But it was more like, If you really thought he was out there, you wouldn’t be doing that, so therefore he is not out there. You are insane. I felt insane. Perhaps this is how people went mad. I shut out the light and jumped into bed, then realized I had to pee and jumped back out again, startling my stepfather on the other side of my bedroom door. He was fumbling toward the refrigerator, “Hungry,” he mumbled as he stuck his head into the cold light. The rest of the house was dark, pitch-black, every light off. Why walk across the house without turning any lights on? I walked quickly into the bathroom, shut and latched the door, and looked at the keyhole, stuffed with cotton, as I peed. It wasn’t until I was 21 that I began to take my intuition seriously and took to scrutinizing my house. Look at how the nicks in the bathroom door lined up so perfectly with the nicks on the jamb, creating a perfect peephole. Crouch down low and affix your eyeball, behold the toilet bowl, right there with its puffy pink plastic seat cover, the kind that warms your butt when you sit down on it. Notice how the nicks between two separate pieces of paneling on my bedroom wall came together in the perfect little hole, as if manufactured, which it was. If you walked into my back hallway and moved a strip of particleboard propped against the wall there, you would find a big, punched-in looking hole. The hole was covered with a strip of electrical tape, dull and dry from being peeled back so many times. When I peeled it back for the first time it fell to the dusty floor like a dead autumn leaf. When I put my eye to the hole, there was my bedroom, all laid out like a diorama, a doll’s house. There was my bed, the posters on my wall, my stacks of books and records. The writing on the floor, my mirrored armoire. All that was missing was me. For some nights after I slept in a nest on my floor, my blankets bundled by the door. The more evidence I found, the more I needed to catch him in the act. Anxiety kept me awake all night, dust bunnies caught in my nose. Eventually I moved back to my bed. The last thing my fragile psyche needed was the added psychedelic headfuck of sleep deprivation. Justine Zwiebel / BuzzFeed My stepfather confessed to what he had done one evening in the early fall. All it took was insistence, convincing him that he’d been caught, that no denial would work at this point. He stuck and resisted, then confessed. My mother was at bingo. I was on the verge of moving out, of moving in — far too quickly — with my moody first girlfriend. My stepfather’s tears froze my heart. How dare he cry, how dare he grovel and apologize, how dare he make himself small after looming so large over my interior all these years. How dare he make himself pitiful so that I might forgive him. He begged me not to tell my mother. The thought of not telling her, of not telling anyone, was repulsive enough to be physical. My body roiled with it. It was as if he was asking me to be complicit in his violation of me, to join him in my own abuse. I’d had no reason to think my mother wouldn’t support me, and here he was, trying to deprive me of that support and love and care, the things I’d need to finally deal with this, to maybe heal from it. I couldn’t look at him any longer in his desperate, pleading state. I went into my bedroom and I slammed my door against him, and when he tried to talk to me through the painted wood I threw things at it — a jewelry box, books, boots, anything I could grab. I screamed at him until my throat was too raw to make a noise: “Get the fuck away from me! Do not fucking talk to me! I fucking hate you! Stop, stop, stop, stop!” Eventually he stopped, shut up, and slunk away to some other part of the house. Of course I would tell my mother. If my husband had been abusing my daughters I would want to know. Not for a second had it occurred to me to keep such thing a secret. My mother appeared to be stunned by the news. Then heartbroken. She probably stayed both stunned and heartbroken even as she swiftly moved into damage-control mode — minimizing what had happened, highlighting my stepfather’s regret, incessantly speaking on his behalf, pleading with me to dump my “toxic anger” and forgive, on the double. “You understand, this is sexual abuse,” I insisted to my mother, watching her blanch at the violence of the words. Was it sexual abuse? “He just liked to watch you reading books in your bed,” she claimed. “He was just in awe of you.” Nothing gross or creepy about that. Totally wholesome peeping-stalking. To be clear, the government agencies that police this sort of thing absolutely see this situation as sexual abuse. The police, child social services — these bodies list “peeping” quite high in their catalog of such things. My mother had to have known this, even as she attempted to invalidate what her husband had done. She’d pleaded with me not to report him, as he could get his nurse’s license revoked. She had to have known. But the reigning analysis in my home was, he never touched me. Never put a hand on me. That’s sexual abuse. “She doesn’t know what sexual abuse is,” our next-door neighbor bitterly informed my mother when she shared our family drama. Apparently, she did. Her own stepfather’s hands had been all over her body. And it’s true. He never touched me. My family crumbled into the gap between what I knew happened — sexual abuse, a strange, covert kind that messed with my mind for years, twisting my interior — and what they insisted happened, the poor judgment of a sad alcoholic who had since gotten sober and apologized, and why was I so punishing, so full of hate that I couldn’t forgive this kindly, trembling man who now wanted to die — literally die because I would not forgive him and go back to calling him "Dad." This information was delivered to me via my crying mother who also now wanted to die, because the family was shattered and the fault lay not in her husband’s actions, but in the refusal of her daughter to forgive, her insistence on naming this thing sexual abuse when no hand was ever put upon her. Sometimes I still look up the varying definitions of child sexual abuse, just to reassure myself I am not crazy, that this thing that has defined and impacted so much of my life and my person is real, that I am not delusional, longing for victimhood, all those things people say about women who cry (and cry and cry and cry) sexual abuse. I looked it up before writing this essay, just to make sure the world still thought peeping counted as abuse. It does. And in the time that has passed since my abuse in the ’80s, it has gotten so much worse. There are digital cameras and cell phones. You can snap a secret naked picture of your stepdaughter and not have to risk imprisonment when you bring the film in for development at your local Walgreens. I’m glad there was no such technology during the era of my abuse. After I did tell my mother, when we were in the deep, deep dregs of it, the era of “I want to die” and “This is killing him” and “My god, he is sorry, why do you have to be so cruel,” my mother would claim that she’d rather not have known. She’d rather have gone on living with her husband, their relationship unmarred by such a revelation. It remains hard for me to fathom. I never regretted telling my mother, even as every dream of care and support I’d held swiftly disintegrated. Even as it became clear that leaving her husband was not an option, not even a trial separation, not even booting him out for a week of couch-surfing. Even as I refused to speak to him, and so all conversations with my mother became her speaking on his behalf, letting me know how sorry he was, how miserable. Their unhappiness laid upon me heavily. I was never happy to hear that my stepfather wanted to die; I wasn’t vengeful except at the very beginning, when I felt that I had lost my mind a little. If this man, who had loved me so much, who had acted, on the surface, like such an excellent father, if he could do such a thing to me, then what else had people done? Were all people really two people — the person who was good to you, and the person who steadfastly betrayed you? My girlfriend at the time, and the small ring of friends we surrounded ourselves with, were also young and damaged, struggling with the aftereffects of toxic families and a larger, even more toxic world. It was the early ’90s, and my girlfriend was struggling with memories of her grandfather sexually abusing her; we inhaled The Courage to Heal workbook, and she convinced me that my birth father had probably sexually abused me as well, because my fantasy life was so violent and perverse. I shrugged; sure, he probably had! I mean, any terrible thing could happen, could it not? Brad had just found out he was HIV-positive while in the midst of separating from his strict Mormon family. Annie and Jessa’s best friend had been gunned down in a school shooting, and Jessa had been sexually assaulted at a party the other night so we all had to find and beat up the boy who’d grabbed her. We were a seething tribe of anger and hurt, a gang of Lost Girls. We would sit together at someone’s house and drink wine and share painful stories. I told them how, when I last visited my mom, I snuck into my stepfather’s dresser and ruined all his porn with QUEER NATION stickers. Inspired, Brad asked for his phone number and crank-called my stepfather, threatening to rape him and give him AIDS. We were barely out of our teens and we’d all been destroyed and wanted to take the whole, abusive world down with us. My mother took me to task for ruining my father’s pornography after finding some issues of the lesbian sex rag On Our Backs in my old bedroom. “If it’s OK for you then it’s OK for him,” she said tartly. Was my mother really talking to me about my sexual abuser’s porn collection? No — he wasn’t my sexual abuser, he was my stepfather — my father, actually, and if I could just get over my insanity and call him Dad again, everything would be great. It seemed rational to not want to have to ever again look at the person who turned a tender swath of your life into a psychosexual nightmare, let alone call him Dad, but my mother could not stop trying to get me to talk to him. And so I stopped talking to my mother as well. Justine Zwiebel / BuzzFeed It is very hard to not talk to your mother, or at least I found it so. During this time, when I was newly in San Francisco, 21 years old, very lost, and seriously adrift, I remember indulging in a strange fantasy as I walked the foreign streets of my new home: My mother was seeing a psychic, who peered into a crystal ball and told her what she saw: Your daughter is walking down a street lined with palm trees, her head is shaved — yes, shaved! She is smoking a cigarette, she’s wearing boots with holes in the soles, taped there with electrical tape. I wanted my mother to see me. I wanted her to see what had happened. I wanted a witness. I wrote down the story of what her husband did and I made copies of it and left it in random places on my trip across the country. Before I’d left, I’d called my grandfather against my mother’s protests, and told him what had happened. “Harumph,” he said. That’s it. Just sat there with it, smoking, until I changed the subject. Once in San Francisco, I began to write poetry, and the story turned up in the poems. When the poetry turned to memoir, the story was there. People read this stuff, or I read it to them at open mics and literary events. The bars were dark and full of people, full of beer; the heckling got louder the drunker the audience became. TMI was the order of the night, and as I brazenly shared the story of my family, women from the audience would find me later at the bar and share theirs as well. Fellow poets whose work I’d just enjoyed would slap me on the back with compassion. And I got a little bit of what I’d been looking for: an agreement, or assurance, that what had happened to me was sexual abuse. The sharing of stories of other women who’d experienced similar hurts. The validation and love I had tried so hard to wring from my mom came in droves from new friends and strangers. A simple “That’s fucked up.” A sincere “I’m sorry that happened to you.” It’s certainly not the same as getting it from your mom, but I got it. The more I told my story, the more I got it. And I got less and less crazy, little by little. I couldn’t not talk to my mom forever. After about six months of silence we took back up, long distance now. She felt so far away it spooked me sometimes. I was homesick, in spite of how sickening my home was. It didn’t take her long to resume her campaign on behalf of her still sorry, still miserable husband. I remember feeling confused. Would it hurt me to talk to him? I mean, the conversations with my mother were definitely hurting me; I would have to call in sick to work after a particularly bad one, my face red and swollen from crying; my tears, once turned on, hard to stop; my dehydration headache and full-body exhaustion. Would saying hi to her husband be worse than this? What did it even matter if I talked to him or not? I was trying to prove some point — the point that I should not have to talk to him, that such an expectation was sick and deranged. Guess what? My point was not being taken. Would I tough it out like a lone, ignored hunger-striker until I died? But then, if I talked to him, was I betraying not only myself but every woman ever abused, every person who talked to me in a hushed tone after a poetry reading, every woman who nabbed me on the street saying, “I read your book. Something like that happened to me, too…”? Would I become a terrible thing, a hypocrite, or a traitor? It didn’t matter. I was emotionally beaten and numbed out. I told my mother I would speak to her husband and the joy in her voice was indescribable. In our first phone conversation her husband tried to apologize, and I cut him right off. If he said, “I’m sorry” then I’d have to say, “It’s OK,” and it wasn’t OK. If he apologized I would have to forgive him, and I didn’t forgive him. That wasn’t what was happening. I wanted to stop feeling responsible for my mother’s suicidal dreaming, and his own. I cut off his apology and we talked instead about drums. He had played them in his youth, once at a party, backing up Billy Squier. He’d played them until his house caught fire and they melted and burned and then he never played them again. I was playing drums in two bands. I’d bought a busted, incomplete kit partially held together with duct tape and found that I had some sort of natural ability. I thought about all the dance classes I’d taken as a child, keeping time with the taps on my feet. It was like that, but with your whole body. I saved money and invested in a better, complete kit. I loved sitting behind it, like cozying up behind an animal, the drum set a living thing. How lost I could get in the beats, tranced out. That’s what we talked about. Then we got off the phone. It is true that no one should have to remain in contact with a person who sexually abused them. I believe that asking for that is, in a way, a perpetuation of that abuse. What happened in my family — not just the years of abuse but the horrible aftermath — continues to haunt me, much the way that my initial, teenaged intuition haunted me. Where I once thought, He’s watching me, I now think, How the fuck is it that I am talking to this man? Where I once thought, You pervert, why are you thinking about your stepfather like that, you are disgusting, I now think, God, poor him, he’s in such pain, he’ll die this way, and his whole life has been so miserable and hard, being beaten by his father, being a drug addict, never getting to realize his artistic talents… There is no place to land, because the situation never ended, and so real healing, the kind I dream about, can never take place. Instead, it’s this negotiation, flip-flopping between resenting both him and my mother, feeling anxious and trapped, and then berating myself for still giving a fuck after all these years. Mostly this drama happens quietly, on the inside. I’m so accustomed to it, a certain acceptance has set in. This will never be resolved. That is simply how it is. The first time I saw my stepfather again was a Thanksgiving visit years ago, when they still lived in Boston. I had told my mother firmly that a condition of my visit was that I would not call him Dad. She agreed, eager to have me home. But once there, I came upon my mother with her head down on the kitchen table. “What is it?” I asked, alarmed. Her husband was in the other room, awkwardly watching television with my girlfriend, Meerkat. (Another condition for my visit, was that Meerkat, a bicycle messenger with the intense little face of a meerkat, come along.) My mother lifted her head, her face ruddy with crying, her bangs wet with tears. “It just kills him that you won’t call him Dad.” “Meerkat!” I hollered, and pulled my girlfriend out of the house, into the November New England landscape, low clouds, a thin scrim of old snow crusting the curb. I was shaking with anxiety and rage. We looped around the block until my breathing evened out, till my own angry tears subsided, and then returned to the house. We plopped back in front of the television and pretended nothing happened. But something was happening inside me. By the end of the night I had a significant fever, and returned to San Francisco horribly sick. Eventually my mother let go of her need for me to call her husband Dad. Maybe he let go of it — I have no idea what their own communication around all of this is. My visits, never frequent, became calmer. They moved from New England to Florida, and seeing them in a new landscape was refreshing. My mother and I enjoyed our time together. But there were, and are, things. How she would send him to get me at the airport alone. The long drive from the bigger town with the airport to their nothing town with nothing much was awkward; my heart pounded. He lit cigarettes from the pop-out lighter in the dash; if it was during one of my smoking eras, I’d join in, both of us ashing out our windows as the wild Floridian jungle passed by in a green blur outside. The classic rock station was on so we wouldn’t have to talk, but when we did talk my own voice was higher than normal, cheerier than normal. EVERYTHING’S FINE. I was making it OK that I was trapped in the cab of a pickup with this man. I was making it OK with my high, cheery voice and my casual smile. I had to make it OK, because if it wasn’t OK then it wasn’t OK and then what the fuck was I doing visiting these people in bumfuck Florida, anyway? Anxiety hovered, somewhere in the back of my throat, behind my smile. I swallowed it down. Another thing my mom did happened during phone conversations. Afraid to ask me if I wanted to talk to her husband, she would simply say, “Hold on,” and suddenly his voice would be in my ear. It was always a shock, an anxious shock, this abrupt switch to being in the groove with my mom to gathering my wits to speak with my stepfather. It always left me rattled and pissed. It took me until this year, after some therapy, for me to finally ask my mother to stop doing that, to please ask me if I feel like talking to her husband before she passes the phone over. She agreed, and we got off the phone, and I cried in the street, bewildered at how shaky the request had made me. It’s become so normal, the ongoing trauma, that sometimes I’m shocked to have a feeling about it. That’s what happened that one time while visiting a few years ago. After a day of wandering around with my mother she went into work, her graveyard shift. I was to sleep in her and her husband’s bed. I protested — they had a little spare room with a little futon in it; couldn’t I have that? But that room was a mess, had become a sort of storage area, and the bed wasn’t made and couldn’t I just sleep in their bed? They didn’t even sleep in it anymore. They both slept on the couch, taking turns, each of them in bizarre sleep cycles, his due to chronic pain and hers due to work. So I went into their bedroom. Before I fell asleep I rang the boy I was dating to say good night. “How are you doing?” he innocently asked. And I fell apart. My tears confused me — I hadn’t realized until I was asked how close to the edge I was. Everything felt creepy and my chest was full of dread. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I said, and he said, “Really?” Because he knew. Why would I want to sleep in the bed of the man who sexually abused me, alone in his house with him, expected to conk out while knowing he was out in the other room, druggily smoking cigarettes? My boyfriend’s immediate understanding of the situation and how wrong it was filled my body with relief. Even now, so many years later, whenever anyone acknowledges that what happened, what continues to happen, is not right, my body splits with a relief so sharp I nearly cry. Justine Zwiebel / BuzzFeed |
There are some that might say Monday's municipal election in Calgary is a bit dull. Historians Kirsten Olson and Harry Sanders outline five elections that really captured the conversation in the city. Jan. 5, 1886: Cleaning up Calgary When Judge Jeremiah Travis arrived in Calgary in 1885 it was a town in economic — and some might say moral — decline. Prohibition was nominally in place, but bootleggers and prostitutes were generally left to go about their business. Mayor George Murdoch (a harnessmaker who also owned the Park Hotel) and town solicitor Henry Bleeker were suspected of being involved in a “whiskey ring.” The mayor had also been seen in a brothel, and he was alleged to have been running a protection racket with Police Chief John Ingram. To make matters worse, Coun. Simon John Clarke was charged with assault and resisting arrest in trying to prevent a search of his saloon (on the present site of the Municipal Building). Travis' Clerk of the Court, Hugh S. Cayley (who was also editor of the Calgary Herald), was found drunk in the street when he was supposed to be making up a jury list. Travis judged that the late addition of 73 names to the voters’ list by the mayor and one of his candidates was a sign of corruption. He disqualified Murdoch and three councillors and barred them from holding office for two years. But the nominations officer, a Murdoch supporter, left the names of Murdoch and two other barred candidates on the ballot and the 73 additions on the voters’ list. Murdoch and his colleagues won, but the magistrate overturned the result and installed Murdoch’s opponent as mayor — Royal Hotel owner James Reilly. Both Murdoch and Reilly claimed the mayoralty, and each aligned with his own set of councillors. Factions sprang up in support of both groups, but there were no victors. Judge Travis was not given another judicial appointment and, after 10 months without governance, Calgarians elected George Clift King as mayor in the second election of the year held Nov. 3, 1886. History recognizes Murdoch as mayor in 1886, but Reilly later held the post in 1891-92 and 1898-99. Murdoch later served as a councillor but never again became mayor. Calgary's first town council pictured in 1886 got off to a bumpy start. Mayor George Murdoch is seated at the left. Behind him, at the far left, stands Coun. Simon Jackson Hogg, the contractor who built the Town Hall. At $1,694, the project was nearly 70 per cent over budget. Besides Murdoch, the front row includes (from left to right): Charles Sparrow, treasurer; T.T.A. Boys, town clerk. Besides Hogg, the back row includes (from left to right): J. Campbell, assessor; Henry Bleeker, solicitor; Neville J. Lindsay, councillor; J.H. Millward, councillor; Simon John Clarke, councillor; J.S. Ingram, chief of police; J.S. Douglas, collector; I.S. Freeze, councillor. (Glenbow Archives NA-644-30) Dec. 10, 1917: Annie Gale wins big The 1917 election was significant for two reasons. It was the first election held under a new proportional representation scheme and the first to elect a woman to city council. Under the new system, Calgarians voted not for a ward alderman, but for aldermen elected from the city as a whole. Rather than marking an “X” to indicate their preference, voters were asked to mark the number “1” beside their first choice candidate, “2” beside the second choice, and so on until the voter had gone through every name on the ballot. Once a candidate was declared elected, any further first-choice ballots for that candidate were transferred to the second-choice candidate on the ballot. This led to confusion by voters and many spoiled ballots as well as all-night sessions of ballot counting. Ald. T.A.P. Frost referred to the new system as “contortional misrepresentation.” Thirteen candidates vied for nine aldermanic seats on the 1917 council. When the votes were finally counted, Annie Gale — the only woman candidate, had placed sixth. It made her the first woman municipal politician not just in Calgary but in the entire British Empire. It took almost 10 years for the second woman to be elected to Calgary city council when Edith Patterson was elected in 1926. Proportional representation was eliminated in 1960 when the ward system was re-established. Annie Gale was not only the first woman to become a municipal politician in Calgary but in the entire British Empire when she was elected in 1917. She is pictured here with her son Bill. (Glenbow Archives PA-1285-1) Dec. 15, 1920: Pressure gets to pals In stark contrast to the animosity that we see in elections today, the campaign for mayor of Calgary in 1920 started out as friendly and congenial. Sam Adams, a lawyer, was first elected as an alderman in 1914. He ran against another alderman, liveryman Ike Ruttle (whose barn stood on the present site of the Ship and Anchor Pub). The two friends agreed to spend only $100 each, $50 to advertise in the Herald and $50 for the Albertan. Adams didn’t have a car, but Ruttle did, so they travelled together to campaign meetings and took turns speaking first. They got along so well that Ruttle even said, “If you can’t vote for me, vote for Sam; he’s a good chap.” Similar to today, conflict makes a story better for reporters, and, unfortunately, Ruttle started to feel pressure and was unable to keep to the original agreement. Adams got word that Ruttle had increased his campaign budget and had placed advertisements between the films in one of the theatres. Adams countered with a $25 ad in the Market Examiner. Adams won the election handily after spending a grand total of $125 to an estimated $1,000 by Ruttle. A ballot form for the Dec. 15, 1920, mayoral election. The only candidates were aldermen Samuel H. Adams and Isaac Ruttle, who were good friends. The campaign began so civilly that Ruttle drove Adams, who had no car, to campaign events. Adams won 60 per cent of the approximately 10,000 votes cast and held office from 1921 to 1923. (City of Calgary Archives CR-93-083) Nov. 19, 1941: The non-election There is nothing new in a group of concerned Calgary citizens promoting a slate of candidates. In 1941, unlike today, the slate being promoted comprised the incumbents and not an opposition group. Both of the city’s political factions — the Calgary Labor Party and the Civic Government Taxpayers’ Association — supported the slate, agreeing to nominate only as many candidates as were needed to fill vacating positions on council and school boards. This was wartime, and all resources were being focused overseas. An election could cost as much as $5,500, and the general view was that the time and money could be better used on wartime efforts. An advertisement, placed in the Albertan by “interested Calgary Citizens” read, in part, “this is no time to distract our thoughts or efforts from the important duties this war has imposed on everyone." Only a “dark horse” would change these cost saving plans, as had happened a year earlier, when the Housewives’ League nominated their own candidate which “upset the apple-cart,” according to an editorial in the Oct. 10, 1941, Albertan. There were 17 seats to be filled on city council and both school boards. Seventeen nominees agreed to serve. Both political factions had as many candidates represented as they had had before the election, so it was felt that citizens were being fairly represented. No independent candidates stepped forward, and no other organizations presented any nominations. The entire slate of candidates was acclaimed and the election was cancelled, allowing everyone to then turn their thoughts to more pressing concerns. A group of concerned citizens argued an election, which could cost as much as $5,500, was not appropriate during wartime. On a side note, this year's election is expected to cost $2.5 million. (Albertan/Oct. 27, 1941) Oct. 15, 1980: Ralph Klein gets political In its early days, the 1980 mayoralty race seemed a replay of the 1977 contest, with two old foes as the only serious contenders — Mayor Ross Alger and former alderman Peter Petrasuk. Both had run in 1974 (when they were defeated by incumbent Rod Sykes) and 1977 (when Alger thumped Petrasuk by a 15,650-vote margin). Television reporter Ralph Klein made a late entry, but on Sept. 20 — less than a month before the poll — the Herald judged that the 37-year-old upstart “cannot be expected to knock either out of a first or second-place finish” and predicted “a boring re-match.” There were five other candidates, including Calgary Sun columnist Jack Tennant. Alger’s eventful term saw the construction of the LRT’s first leg, the bid for the XV Olympic Winter Games, planning for the Olympic coliseum and the acquisition of land where the Municipal Building, Olympic Plaza and Epcor Centre for the Performing Arts now stand. But Alger’s dream of building a civic centre was defeated by plebiscite. As a former Chartered Accountant, Alger took a great deal of interest in the administration and finances of City Hall and perhaps not enough on political issues. Even though he based most of his decisions on their cost-effectiveness, his support of a new $250-million civic centre was seen as an unnecessary expense and he was pegged as being too close to city administration. Klein, whose past political experience involved helping Petrasuk’s unsuccessful Liberal bid in the 1968 “Trudeaumania” election, promised to be a people’s mayor. “Politicians have become an arm of the bureaucracy,” the Herald quoted him as saying on Sept. 25, “and I’m going to reverse that.” The outcome on election night launched Klein’s spectacular political career (nine years as mayor, three as provincial environment minister and 14 as premier of Alberta). It also ended those of Alger and Petrasuk (a lawyer who later went to prison after pleading guilty to theft and breach of trust). Klein’s administration guided Calgary through the early-1980s recession and saw the city transformed by the time he entered provincial politics in 1989. But some of his signature accomplishments had roots in his predecessor’s single term: the LRT (“Little Ralphie’s Train”), the Saddledome and the 1988 Winter Olympics. Klein also governed from the Calgary Municipal Building, which was approved in the same 1980 vote that elected him, in partial fulfillment of Alger’s civic centre idea. |
Click to print (Opens in new window) Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) KUALA LUMPUR: Over RM70 billion investments in land public transport infrastructure projects have had significant catalytic effects on Malaysia’s economy, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak. “The investments in projects such as the Light Rapid Transit (LRT), Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) and High Speed Rail (HSR), has had wide-ranging catalytic effects on our economy. “It will bring much benefits to the society, both immediately and in the longer term,” he added. Najib, who is also Finance Minister, was speaking at the Land Public Transport Commission’s (SPAD) Five Year Report launching ceremony, Exhibition and Symposium at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre yesterday. He said over the past five years, Malaysia had taken significant strides and made good progress on the National Land Public Transport Master Plan, as reflected by the higher public transport mode share of 22 per cent in 2015 from 10 per cent in 2009. The government aimed to increase this share to 40 per cent by end-2020, he said. “For this to happen, our land public transport system and policies must be more commuter-centric and responsive to fundamental demographic changes. “More importantly, commuters must be convinced that public transport can serve their needs, and get them to their destinations reliably and comfortably,” he added. Among investments lodged by the government for land public transport are the RM40.85 million for GoKL free city bus service, as well as, the RM548 million for bus services initiative called the Interim Stage Bus Support Fund. The Prime Minister said the government had also invested RM20.6 million for the operationalisation of myBAS services by SPAD in Kangar since August 2015, in Seremban since January 2016 and in Ipoh since June 2016. Besides that, the government has also allocated RM760 million for the repairs, rehabilitation and upgrading works for the East Coast line from Gemas to Tumpat. Add to that, RM661 million has been invested in Bus Rapid Transit Sunway, a pilot project via public-private partnership, which started operations in June 2015. In March 2012, the government increased the capacity for KTM Komuter services by investing RM1.89 billion to add 38 units of six-car train set. This has contributed to the 45 per cent increase in KTM Komuter ridership from 96,798 daily in 2012 to 141,281 passengers daily at end-2015. The government has also lodged investments to upgrade KTM Komuter’s ageing infrastructure, with RM1.41 billion investment for the rehabilitation exercise of the 20 year-old Klang Valley Double Track, Najib added. — Bernama |
Last updated on: April 18, 2008 15:54 IST It was the mother of all non-events. On a day when the Olympic flame was on Indian soil, the key task was to celebrate the human spirit behind the Games. But, the human element was missing, thanks to the devil called fear. Fear of an attack on the Olympic flame by angry Tibetan refugees loomed large on Chinese minds. So the Indian government stage-managed the event in such a manner that the common man could neither see the torch nor cheer the torchbearers, which included the likes of athlete P T Usha, tennis ace Leander Paes and actor Saif Ali Khan. Coverage: Tibet Revolts Senseless security measures ensured that the event was devoid of laughter and cheer. The 300-odd crowd at India Gate was all carefully selected by Coca-Cola, Lenovo, Samsung and the Indian Olympic Association. The people who were sponsored to join in were not even smiling broadly. They felt awkward in the vast stretch of land around them where media-persons were exchanging stares with cops. Commander G Nandy Singh, winner of two Olympic gold medals (1948 and 1952) and the Dhyan Chand award, told rediff.com after the torch relay: "Everything was quite strange. We were running and securitymen were watching us. There was nobody else to watch us due to a three-rung security arrangement. It was not a good function where the general public was cut-off." Deep fear in the minds of the Chinese establishment took Indian security to a ridiculous level. India pledged to Beijing that it would provide the best possible security to the Olympic flame, which had come under attack from pro-Tibetan activists in London, Paris and San Francisco. Thus India tried to be 'holier-than-thou'. It tried to stop unarmed Tibetans, who have no terrorism record, with a massive show of police power. A senior Malayali scribe, who subscribes to Left ideology and is highly sympathetic to China, wondered why the Indian government agreed to arrange such a function in the first place. Obviously, the Tibetans were upset by democratic India's muscle power. Tenzin Tsundue, Tibetan poet and activist, told rediff.com: "We didn't do anything to the torch, but the torch has left with more dirt on it. The event proves that China is capable of using anybody and everybody. At the end of the day we know China can be as brutal as those in other countries." While echoing Tibetans' feelings, he said: "Thursday's security arrangement around the venue indicates China's desire to control the people's expectations for freedom. If you put India and China together you are talking about more than two billion people. Tibetans in India are just 1.20 lakh. We can only make protests." Naturally, the show of excessive security in New Delhi needs to be condemned. "We lost an opportunity to showcase the balance," said Kiran Bedi, who returned the invitation to join the torch relay when she came to know about the enhanced security arrangements. Thursday's relay justified her stance, she feels. She said, "Yes, we made it. Yes, in India, Tibetans or their sympathisers could not touch the torch. But, we have done it at a heavy cost. Each one of us paid a price." She says, "Indian police officers are well-trained in handling crowds. They face much bigger numbers than any Western police officers. Instead of such a show, we should have allowed children, sports lovers and other public to join in. Democracy is all about balancing. India lost the opportunity to show to the world that it allowed Tibetans to express their anger and at the same time allowed the spread of the Olympic spirit among its people. We have lost." When asked about the message India gave by providing a quiet and safe passage -- with help of excessive security measures -- to the Olympic flame, former ambassador M K Bhadrakumar said, "The government acted appropriately in providing fool-proof security for the Olympic torch -- in consonance with India's responsibility as a member of the international Olympic movement and keeping in view our obligations as a friendly neighbour of China. Security measures are never 'excessive' when threat perceptions are real, which seems to be the case here." Former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal disagreed with him. Sibal said, "On one hand, we have to bear in mind that the government of India had certain difficulties in carrying out the commitment to provide safety around the torch. At the same time, we can't go beyond our limits because we are a democratic country and cannot suppress the Tibetans' political right of expression. "India is not positioned in the same way on the issue of Tibet as other countries. China has a claim on Indian territory. On the issue of Tibet, China and India have a clash because Tibetans are in India and protesting against the control of Tibet. India can't deny giving legitimate room as much as possible to vent the Tibetans' anger." Talking about security, Sibal said India should not have positioned itself in such a way that it looked as if it was done under Chinese pressure. The former foreign secretary was also upset with the sportsmen who ran with the torch. He argues, "I would have wished that the torchbearers in India had made a point to the Chinese on behalf of India. They should have told the Chinese that Tibetans are an aggrieved people. By giving a quiet and safe passage, the larger Indian interest was not served." However, Sibal's arguments are debatable. Bhadrakumar disagreed, saying: "There is no need to front-load an already complex relationship. Besides, theatrics cannot substitute for diplomacy. Again, the West would not orchestrate this campaign beyond a point. Why should we want to be used as a doormat? "The temptation to score a transient point on a sunny Thursday afternoon on a Delhi street may seem irresistible, but our interests are best served by working consistently to improve relations with China for what is obviously a long haul. Like in our relationship with Pakistan, it is only in a climate of mutual trust and confidence that intractable differences can be addressed. I can't see any short cuts here," he added. The fundamental issue to note is that the Indian government's stand reflects the consistency. There is no basic change in India's Tibet policy. The government has taken a clear stand of not upsetting China in its weaker moment. There is no doubt that the Tibetans' protests is all about timing. China feels embarrassed every time there is a protest against the torch. The Tibetans' agenda is being served with their non-violent protests, which it seems will continue for some time. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has not changed India's ongoing policy of India over the issue of Tibet. Since the last five decades, India has not changed its basic stand, said a highly senior officer in the ministry of external affairs. In an informal conversation last week, the MEA official said: "Over and over and over again India has said that Tibet is an autonomous region of China. India's policy of 1959, 1962 and of subsequent years has not changed. The rest is just matter of details." Dr Singh termed the Dalai Lama as the greatest living Gandhian just when Beijing accused him of plotting riots in Tibet. At the same time, his government, behaving responsibly, assured China that it will give safe passage to the Olympic torch. "It is India's responsibility," assured Indian officials to the Chinese government. And India showed off clumsily that it can maintain law and order. As was visible, it did provide security in excess. India is sending the message, notwithstanding the overkill by security, that India's position is unique on the issue of Tibet. It has done more for Tibetans than any other country. Democratic India will not ban anti-China demonstrations, but neither is it likely to change its official position on Tibet in the near future nor its support to the 'one-China policy'. At the end of the day, one sees with awe a remarkable political achievement by the Tibetans -- the two great emerging powers were stopping them in their march towards the Olympic torch. It was a psychological victory for the Tibetans that they could scare the Chinese even if for a moment. The Olympic torch relay is being debated more for the show of strength than the spirit it represents. With regard to the complex issue of Tibet, Sino-India civilisational links run so deep that when the timeline and today's realities are given a closer look, such victories seem an illusion. |
Three more games were added to the Xbox One's backwards compatibility program today, bringing the total number of Xbox 360 titles in the catalog to more than 250. As announced by Microsoft Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb, today's additions include Bound by Flame, The Maw, and Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown. The Maw If you already own these titles on Xbox 360, they should show up automatically in your Xbox One game library. If not, you can buy them either on your console or by clicking the Xbox.com links below. Xbox One Backwards Compatibility New Additions for September 15: The Xbox One's backwards compatibility feature launched in November 2015 with the New Xbox One Experience update. Microsoft has added new titles on a regular basis since then--you can see all 250-plus games in the catalog here. Since backwards compatibility launched, the response has been "overwhelming," Microsoft recently said. Users have collectively spent 145 million hours playing Xbox 360 games on Xbox One. The new additions today come after Microsoft added eight titles to the program last week, including Bayonetta, de Blob 2, and Bejeweled 3. In other news about backwards compatibility, Square Enix and Amazon have teamed up to offer a deal where you can get a free backwards compatibility game. |
The Los Angeles Lakers announced the hiring of former Laker, four-time champion and former head and assistant coach, Kurt Rambis, to Mike D’Antoni’s coaching staff on Monday. In an exclusive interview with Lakers Nation, Rambis surprisingly revealed that his hiring can be attributed to D’Antoni’s pursuit. Rambis told this website that he was shocked when the current Lakers head coach asked him if he would be interested in joining his staff. “Quite frankly, I was a little bit shocked about that, and for [D’Antoni], he said it was a no-brainer, and I jumped on it right away. I said, ‘This would be great, I think it would work out well for both of us.'” Rambis continued by saying that, after their initial meeting, D’Antoni was convinced that after running it by Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak, it would be a “done deal.” Prior to meeting over lunch, Rambis couldn’t have imagined that D’Antoni would be asking him to join his coaching staff. “We rekindled our friendship. We’ve known each other for several years going back in coaching circles. It was kind of an interesting conversation, I just had no idea that that’s the direction it was going to go.” This past year, Rambis acted as an analyst for both Time Warner Cable and ESPN. Upon Mike D’Antoni’s hiring, Rambis went public to USA Today about being “stunned” that Phil Jackson didn’t get the job. Today, Kurt told this website that he still communicates with Phil on a regular basis, as he does with other coaches. As far as the criticisms he’s dished out over the past year, he clarified that they have been more directed at what the “players are doing out on the floor,” rather than Mike D’Antoni himself. Kurt Rambis joins a coaching staff of returning assistant Dan D’Antoni, just announced Johnny Davis, and recently hired Mark Madsen and Larry Lewis. —————————————————————————————————— Have you seen Part II of our exclusive interview? If not, check it out below and don’t forget to click here to subscribe to our YouTube Channel! |
Does bisexual male activity automatically mean a man is gay? — Future Cooper Note: This post was written when I was very unsure whether or not to come out as bisexual on Life on the Swingset. It was a difficult position to be in as I saw how poorly bisexual males were treated. I thought I could work the system from the inside by raising awareness. ♦◊♦ There is a huge double standard in the swinging lifestyle when it comes to acceptance of bisexual males. We all know this, it’s endemic. As swingers we seem perfectly happy that our women are bisexual. We encourage, and expect them to be, so often. Some more than others, but by and large, definitely bisexual. Now don’t jump down my throat here, I’m well aware that straight swinging females exist, and probably in a decent sized number, but wouldn’t we all agree that the vast majority of females in the lifestyle are bi? This fact isn’t really shocking, as even the mainstream vanilla world has embraced girl-on-girl action in the past ten to fifteen years. So when a lifestyle such as swinging presents itself as an option, affording them the opportunity to play with girls, well, there ya go. That’s where the bi girl inside comes out. Many of the swing couples I’ve met said that this was one of the prominent reasons they got into this lifestyle in the first place: so Mrs. could play with another woman. Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad free You raise the call for bisexual males, however, and tumbleweeds blow by. Invisible because it’s been made very clear in club and party rules and pricing that a man who wants to play with another man is an unwelcome addition to the scene. This doesn’t make sense. ♦◊♦ Let’s check out the Kinsey scale. Most of us have heard of it, but I’d wager few actually know it beyond the name. This is the Kinsey Scale. Back when Kinsey did his extensive sexuality research in the 1950s, he found that 11.6% of white males between the ages of 20 and 35 identified themselves as a 3, which as you can see sits right smack in the middle on the scale. This identification means roughly equal amounts of sexual contact with the same sex as sexual contact with the opposite sex for the period of time the study covered, with pretty much the same percentage for females. Interesting. ♦◊♦ There are a number of conclusions we can draw from this. First, that the results could be flawed because it was so bad to admit to any homosexual feelings back then, so gays could be sliding further towards 0 than they otherwise would. But even with a bit of a skew, roughly one in ten men and one in ten women identified themselves as bisexual during Kinsey’s research. And that was back when men were manly, right? Many of the swing couples I’ve met said that this was one of the prominent reasons they got into this lifestyle in the first place: so Mrs. could play with another woman. You raise the call for bisexual males, however, and tumbleweeds blow by. With society opening up a bit (‘cuz it has) and men being allowed to shrug off the shackles of the old school ideal of Man , it stands to reason that the number would be at least the same, but more likely higher. If the number of bisexuals isn’t increasing, surely the number of people who feel they can admit it must be. Now here’s where it gets more interesting to me. The statistic I choose to repeat, even though I’m sure it’s woefully inaccurate, is that 1 in 70 people are swingers. We’re going to do some fun math here, with actual statistics drawn from other websites without citing my sources. So, take or leave the accuracy, this is just food for thought. It’s also been a long time since I did any math with desired accuracy. If my figuring is wrong, well, I’m not claiming to be a scholar. Why the bias? Many think it’s because bi males still fall under the unfortunate stigma of homosexuality in the 80s, and the fact that it was quite common to see AIDS as a gay disease back then. Some assholes still think it is exclusively a gay disease, and they’re ignorant assholes. There are 309,699,000 people in the US as of this moment according to Google. 75% of them are over the age of 20, giving us 232,274,250 adults. By Kinsey’s numbers (numbers that are over 60 years old) there are 26,943,813 bisexuals out there. So, now if 1 in 70 people are swingers, that assumes 4,424,271 swingers in the US, with at least 442,427 of them being bisexuals. With the ratio of bisexual women being sky high in the lifestyle, wouldn’t it follow that that number seems quite low for bisexual or at least bi-curious males? Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad free Now, a characteristic I would give many swingers is their willingness to be open to new ideas sexually. Generally speaking, the people who’re going to cad around and just fuck, and that’s what it’s all about for them, just go ahead and commit adultery and leave the hassle of swinging out of it. So let’s say that half of the swingers, just over two and a quarter -million people, are this more enlightened and open-minded group that I speak of. Wouldn’t it follow that those would be more likely to allow for the possibility of a bisexual experience? To try it? ♦◊♦ I’ll try anything once, twice in case I did it wrong the first time. It’s a good motto, and it’s one espoused on many swinger profiles. On the very first swinger profile I listed myself as bi-curious because I figured, “Why on Earth would I want to limit myself when presented with the unlimited bounty of sexual possibility.” The Mr. of our first couple suggested I change my answer or suffer the desert of responses and the slings and arrows of the swinger community. So I did. Male: Straight. Why the bias? Many think it’s because bi males still fall under the unfortunate stigma of homosexuality in the 80s, and the fact that it was quite common to see AIDS as a gay disease back then. Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad free Some assholes still think it is exclusively a gay disease, and they’re ignorant assholes. Truth be told, anal sex is more likely to spread STIs than most other sexual activities. But, with a condom, that “more likely” is almost completely negated. ♦◊♦ Then is it just paranoia about STIs? Doubtful. I think it’s predominantly fear of what your peer group would say. It’s amusing to me the profiles that say “MY HUBBY AIN’T BI, SO WE DON’T WANT THAT!” The dialect is due to the fact that it is a direct quote, capitalized yelling and all. It seems so close to the general homophobia amongst men that say, “I just don’t like the idea of him looking at me.” On the very first swinger profile I listed myself as bi-curious because I figured, “Why on Earth would I want to limit myself…” The Mr. of our first couple suggested I change my answer or suffer the desert of responses and the slings and arrows of the swinger community. Despite many lifestyle nights not including any bisexual female activity (even when both females are bisexual) a not insignificant number assume that the moment there’s a bisexual male in the mix, it means he’s gonna want to put his d*ck in you. Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad free The proverbial “you.” You know, the homophobic male “you.” I’ve spoken to a LOT of bi male swingers, and all but one are listed as straight on their profile. When speaking to couples, they generally realize pretty quickly that I’m 100% open to any kink. Nothing fazes me. I may not understand or be interested, but it doesn’t matter to me if it’s your groove. Except those foolish non-exclusive bareback couples. Yeah, I’m talking to you! You’re part of the STI problem! All it takes is the realization that I am not going to judge them for their interest. So what this suggests is that there are a lot of bisexual males in the lifestyle who’d love to come out of the bisexual closet if only they could be guaranteed that they wouldn’t be judged. ♦◊♦ So I’ll leave you by trashing an idea that I’ve heard all around the lifestyle: the idea that bi male activity makes one gay. Does that mean your wives and girlfriends are gay now? Because from where I sit they’ve been eating a lot of p*ssy and still come back for the c*ck. Interesting. This essay originally appeared in the memoir My Life on the Swingset: Adventures in Swinging & Polyamory. — Photo credit: Flickr/vK8uqG |
A Mexican congressman apparently climbed a 30-foot fence along the US border to send President Trump a message: Physical barriers are useless for stopping immigrants. "I was able to scale it, climb it, and sit myself right here," Braulio Guerra, a congressman from the state of Querétaro, said in a video. "It would be simple for me to jump into the United States, which shows that it is unnecessary and totally absurd to build a wall." President Donald Trump's promise to build a wall along the US-Mexico border has been a hot topic in Mexico's political circles, where legislators and politicians have almost uniformly responded critically to the proposal. The Trump administration, however, is already moving ahead with its plans, and is expected to solicit proposals in the coming weeks for "the design and build of several prototype wall structures in the vicinity of the United States border with Mexico." Tump has said a solid wall would likely cost $12 billion, but Reuters has reported that the actual cost could be up to $21 billion. Before perching himself atop the US border fence along Tijuana's beach, Guerra spoke with immigration officials and recent deportees, whose numbers could swell under Trump mandates to crack down on nearly all undocumented immigrants in the US. |
Democratic presidential nominee former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks during the LGBT for Hillary Gala at Cipriani Club on September 9, 2016, in New York City. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Hillary Clinton received mixed reactions Friday night over remarks made at a campaign event in New York City. At the LGBT for Hillary gala, the Democratic presidential nominee said that "you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables ... The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it." Clinton's comments reflected on the tone of Donald Trump's presidential campaign — one that has, at times, emboldened some of America's most extreme groups. "And he has lifted them up," Clinton said. "He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people — now have 11 million." "He tweets and retweets their offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric," she added, referring to the multiple times the real-estate mogul has engaged with alt-right racists online. The former US secretary of state dedicated an entire speech last month to calling out alt-right groups — a segment of conservative voters who hold unfavorable views toward minorities. As Clinton's comments gained traction online, campaign spokesman Nick Merrill tweeted "obviously not everyone supporting Trump is part of the alt right, but alt right leaders are with Trump. And their supporters appear to make up half his crowd when you observe the tone of his events." Mitt Romney. AP Photo/Richard Drew Clinton's "basket of deplorables" comment loosely resembled musings that 2012 GOP presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, made during a private meeting with donors in September of that year. At the time, Romney claimed that 47% of voters would choose Barack Obama "no matter what," because those are people who "are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims. ... These are people who pay no income tax," Romney said. The Trump campaign condemned Clinton's remarks late Friday night, claiming she "ripped off her mask and revealed her true contempt for everyday Americans." Clinton did add that not all of Trump's supporters are irredeemable. "That other basket of people," she said, "feel that the government has let them down — the economy has let them down ... those are people we have to understand and empathize with, as well." |
After visiting with poor seniors in East Harlem on Friday, Hillary Clinton jetted off to California where she is expected to haul in $15 million for her campaign and other Democrats at two fundraisers hosted by actor George Clooney. The first event was a dinner held Friday night at the San Francisco home of Shervin Peshavar, a venture capitalist and big-time Democratic donor. Clooney and his wife Amal are hosting the shindig, which Deadline reports will be attended by around 100 deep-pocketed donors. The event, which is being held in San Francisco’s swanky Nob Hill neighborhood, drew negative press last month when it was revealed that for the price of $353,400, top donors could attain the title of “event chair.” The contributions will be divvied up between Clinton’s campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and various state party committees. Clinton will travel to Studio City on Saturday to attend another Clooney fundraiser, this time at the actor’s home. Other Hollywood bigwigs — director Steven Spielberg and Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg — will attend. Billionaire Haim Saban, a longtime Clinton donor, will also attend the event. Top tickets for that dinner will run $100,000. All told, the two events are expected to draw $15 million, according to Deadline. The haul is the by far the biggest of the 2016 presidential cycle, and likely will surpass President Obama’s Hollywood fundraisers. The San Francisco affair was not without detractors Friday night. Bernie Sanders supporters protested outside of the event, carrying signs, chanting and banging pots and pans. “Can U spot me $353,400 I want 2B Democrat,” read one protester’s sign. Sanders flew to Vatican City on Friday where he gave a speech railing against income inequality. WATCH: Follow Chuck on Twitter |
The Netherlands was the target of a record number of cyber attacks last year, according to general intelligence service AIVD's annual report. Most of these attacks came from Russia and China. Government agencies were a popular target for these cyber-espionage attacks. Last week the military intelligence service MIVD already revealed that the Ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs face attacks on a weekly basis. In addition to the government, major Dutch companies also face regular cyber attacks. According to the AIVD, the attackers tend to focus on companies in the chemical and technology sectors, but companies in energy, water and health facilities are also popular targets. The intelligence service writes that the attacks on these sectors shows that the perpetrators are focused on "innovative-initiatives" in the Netherlands and know exactly where to find them. "This is illustrative of the structural digital espionage threat to which we are exposed and which undermines the Dutch knowledge economy." According to the AIVD, the Netherlands is "naive" when it comes to online security. One of the problems is that Dutch companies tend to focus on repelling attacks, instead of examining their own systems. This meas that attackers can be present in a company's systems for long periods without being noticed. The most popular forms of cyber attacks are "spear phishing" - n which an email containing malware is directed at a specific person - and "watering holes" - in which people are lured to websites that infect their computers with malware. Russia and China are not only dangerous to the Netherlands through cyber attacks, but also in person. According to the AIVD, both countries have physical spies hunting for political, technological and scientific information. Russia has spies in active in the Netherlands on a "permanent basis" and they are "extremely professional", according to the intelligence service. In 2014 the AIVD deported a Russian spy who was researching quantum physics and nano photonics at the Eindhoven University of Technology. China focuses primarily on economic intelligence, including following promising people in the financial world and sometimes trying to recruit them. According to the AIVD, Asian country also encourages Chinese companies to take over Dutch companies to expand China's influence in the Netherlands. The AIVD is also keeping an eye on cyber attacks committed by terrorist organization Islamic State. According to the service, ISIS' cyber attacks were "professionally executed" last year, especially compared to the "relatively simple" attacks from 2014. "There seems to be a central body that controls hacker groups" within the terrorist organization. |
Afghan national in UK court challenge over family’s right to join him in UK says video shows price colleagues paid for helping British An Afghan national challenging the government’s treatment of fellow interpreters who worked for the British army claims to have identified two former colleagues being beheaded in footage on the internet. Mohammad Rafi Hottak, 28, who was severely injured while working for British armed forces, is now living in Birmingham having fled his country in 2011 after receiving death threats. He said he was horrified to see images of two fellow allied translators with whom he lived in barracks in Kunar province being murdered by the Taliban. The men, who Rafi believes are his friends Yahyah and Achikzai, are shown struggling as they are held down and their heads attacked with a handheld knife. A caption in Pashto describes them as spies. Rafi, who is fighting for the right to allow his wife and three children to join him in Britain, believes the men were killed in 2006 by a Taliban commander. His lawyers, Leigh Day, revealed the footage to him last month. “Yahyah and Achikzai were specifically targeted because they were interpreters for the allies. It still breaks my heart to think of what happened to these good-hearted, courageous men,” Rafi said. A judicial review is expected to be heard next year on arguments on behalf of Rafi and two other Afghan interpreters that the British government’s scheme offered to locally employed staff by the British armed forces in Afghanistan is unlawful and inferior to the one offered to interpreters who worked with British forces in Iraq. The Liberal Democrat peer Lord Ashdown and the former chief of naval staff Lord West have called for ministers to fulfil a “debt of honour” and accept about 450 Afghan interpreters who helped British servicemen in Afghanistan. Following withdrawal from Iraq, local interpreters who had worked for the British for more than a year were offered a targeted assistance scheme, through which they could either accept a one-off package of financial assistance, exceptional indefinite leave to enter the UK or the opportunity to resettle in the UK. But the Afghan redundancy programme offers only the chance to relocate to Britain for interpreters who worked with British forces in Helmand province for a minimum of 12 months and were employed in December 2012. The offer is also inferior in other regards, the lawyers say. The hundreds who stopped work before the cut-off date but who also face death threats have to rely on a separate intimidation policy. Only one interpreter has been deemed to be at a sufficiently high risk to get a visa. When shown the footage of the Taliban murder, he says he immediately recognised his friends Yahyah and Achikzai, with whom he had lived for four months in Allied barracks in Kunar Province. His friends went on to join a US mission in Uruzgan, Rafi said, but were then captured and handed to the Taliban. “I cannot describe how I felt when I watched this video. I could not sleep properly, I had nightmares and I feel terrified for my family back in Afghanistan. “This video shows the extreme violence and brutality which interpreters can face because of their work for foreign forces. These men were deliberately targeted by the Taliban,” he said. Rafi, 28, was blown up in 2007 whilst on patrol with the British army and suffered severe injuries. He was finally given permission to stay in Britain in 2012 after initially having his initial application rejected. He fled Afghanistan in 2011 after receiving death threats. His wife and three children remain there and have not been given permission to enter the UK – he has not yet held his three-year-old son. The high court will hear arguments on behalf of Rafi and two other Afghan interpreters that the British government’s scheme offered to locally employed staff by the British armed forces in Afghanistan is unlawful. Lawyers for the Afghan interpreters claim that not extending the scheme offered to Iraqis is “unlawful and discriminatory” under the Equality Act 2010, and that they should be afforded the same benefits. The Afghan redundancy programme offers only the chance to relocate to Britain for interpreters who worked with British forces in Helmand province for a minimum of 12 months and were employed as of December 2012. The hundreds who stopped work before the cut-off date but who also face death threats have to rely on a separate intimidation policy. This has so far deemed only one interpreter at sufficiently high risk to get a visa. Rosa Curling, a solicitor from Leigh Day said: “It is patently clear to us that the arrangements put in place by the UK government for these brave men, who fought alongside UK forces in Afghanistan, are completely inadequate. They do very little to protect former interpreters from the threats and attacks they are facing from the Taliban.” A government spokesman said it was inappropriate to comment on the footage or the legal process. “We believe that our policies are honourable, fair and legally sound,” he said. “We fully recognise the contribution made by all locally employed civilians who worked with us in Afghanistan. “A separate intimidation policy exists to keep current and former locally employed civilians safe in Afghanistan through a range of measures based on individual circumstances, ranging from day-to-day security advice to relocation within country. For those we judge might be in the most extreme circumstances, where there is a significant and imminent threat that cannot be mitigated in-country, we consider relocation to the UK.” |
Well, that was very bad. I’ll try to make this brief, because this match was anything but. James O’Connor strayed from his usual starting XI for this match, partially out of necessity, and partially out of…I’m not real sure. Aodhan Quinn, who has been doing an awesome job starting in the pivot beside Juan Guzman during Louisville City’s recent win streak, was suspended this game for yellow card accumulation, so Magnus Rasmussen was pulled back to play his role, while Charlie Adams kinda sorta filled in for MAG RAM in the central attacking midfield role. Niall McCabe took Adams’s spot on the left. Kevin Cosette, the Bourbons’ recent signing at left back, started in place of Enrique Montano, who was available on the bench. In any event, it didn’t take long for Montreal to figure out that they had a huge pace advantage on their right side, and quickly exploited it to the tune of two almost identical goals in the first twenty minutes. Both scores came when Montreal sent a wide player toward Louisville City’s endline with the ball on the right and put in a low cross across the goal to a completely unmarked Alessandro Riggi, who Bryan Burke managed to lose twice in a row. Scotty Goodwin must’ve thought it was groundhog day. Goal #3 was a little different, but still the product of a defensive breakdown in the penalty area, this time by Conor Shanosky who got tripped up by the turf monster, leaving Jacque Llaman wide open for an easy score just about 90 seconds after City had already gone two down. Team Purple chased the game for about 70 more minutes and poured on the shots in the second half, but none of them went in thanks to a great performance by Maxim Crepeau. Despite taking 28 shots (TWENTY. EIGHT. SHOTS.), none of them went in. Les Bleus et Blancs et Noirs grabbed another goal on a counter attack late in the second half to rub some more salt in the wound, but the damage was already done by that point. The loss is just City’s second ever at home, and is the worst loss they’ve ever surrendered. To be blunt, it sucked, and I hope we don’t have to see another one like that again this season. Ugh. |
View the video Permanent markers aren’t so permanent after all. All that’s required to peel the ink from glass is the surface tension of water and a little patience, scientists report. When glass marked with permanent ink is slowly dipped in water, the writing lifts off the glass and floats intact atop the water. For the first time, scientists have now explained the physics behind the surprising phenomenon: The water’s surface tension breaks the seal between ink and glass, researchers report in a paper in press in Physical Review Letters. “I think it's amazing, the fact that they can actually peel off this layer of Sharpie with just water,” says mechanical engineer Emilie Dressaire of New York University. Researchers stumbled upon the phenomenon by accident, when labels kept peeling off glass microscope |
City clinch deadline day loan deal for Swansea City forward Rory Donnelly until the end of the season... Coventry City have signed striker Rory Donnelly on a loan deal from Premier League side Swansea City until the end of the season. The 21-year old joined the Swans in December 2011 from Northern Irish side Cliftonville after he scored 22 goals in 54 league and cup appearances. City manager Steven Pressley said he was delighted to secure the services of a striker he believes has a big future. The City boss said: "We believe Rory has fantastic potential and will add a lot of quality to our group. "We're delighted to bring him in on loan until the end of the season and it is a huge boost to the squad to get him in. "I believe our style of play will suit him. I have said that I wanted to bring in strikers throughout the window and after securing Nathan Delfouneso yesterday, this creates real competition up front." |
- Advertisement - For twelve issues of Infamous Iron Man, Doctor Doom has been parading around in an Iron Man suit trying to atone for his past evils. Some inhabitants of the 616 Universe have been buying into the new Doom. However, one entity that will not stand for a sudden change of heart is Mephisto. ***SPOILERS LIE AHEAD*** Infamous Iron Man #12 sees all things sorcery take center stage. Victor Von Doom and Stephen Strange find themselves engaged in battle with the Devil of Marvel Comics, Mephisto. - Advertisement - The first chunk of this issue is a freeze frame monologue by Mephisto, explaining his revenge plot against Doom. It’s a nice visual but overstays it’s welcome almost immediately through the unnecessary rambling Bendis wrote. I don’t believe for a second that Mephisto absorbs pop culture enough to make a Kill Bill Vol. 2 reference. It doesn’t get any better from there, jumping from scene to scene in what is ultimately a mess. This series seems to have come to an abrupt halt. Everything that was clicking so well went completely out the window without any payoff whatsoever. Even Victor’s sendoff to Ben Grimm felt insincere, quickly half-tying up a loose end. From Mephisto’s confusing revenge, through a quick Hydra island takeover, to an underwhelming pregnancy reveal. There are way too many moments in this issue that will make you say “what?” In the worst possible way. What happened? Infamous Iron Man was going so smoothly. It was one of the strongest Marvel titles available and the closest thing to Fantastic Four that we were getting. All of a sudden with issue twelve, Bendis seemingly threw in the towel as if he didn’t know Legacy was happening. Despite the messy script, Alex Maleev and Matt Hollingsworth still deliver top notch art. Maleev has drawn the hell out of this book, capturing the weird essence of this era for both Doom and Iron Man comics in spectacular fashion. With sorcery being the focus of this issue, there are massive layouts and spreads with beautifully colored action sequences. This is easily the weakest issue in what has been a dynamite series. The blame could easily be Marvel’s agenda and not Brian Michael Bendis, but it certainly doesn’t soil the reputation built by the rest of the series. Infamous Iron Man is still a comic book to be celebrated from this era of Marvel history. |
The World Economic Forum in Davos has been paying growing attention to new financial technologies, including Bitcoin and Blockchain for several years already. The WEF annual conference this year was mostly dedicated to the Fourth Industrial Revolution and FinTech. The World’s financial and banking giants again shared their attitude to digital currencies and Blockchain technology. Some of them did note that new distributed ledger solutions will change the financial industry soon, while others condemned Bitcoin to failure. MasterCard investments After the first day of the conference an interview with Garry Lyons, Chief Innovation Officer at MasterCard, to Business Insider caught everyone’s attention. He said that the company is “interested in seeing where blockchain technology goes” and the company is already investing in Digital Currency Group (DCG), the Bitcoin and Blockchain company. Garry Lyons continued: “It’s not just the industry that’s excited about blockchain — it’s the world, everyone. Even at Davos, every single tech panel I have gone to mentions blockchain and some people call it ‘the second coming.’ But while we think it’s very interesting, we don’t want to, and no one wants to, be blindsided by rushing into it [as the technology is still developing].” R3 Consortium followers Since the rise of Bitcoin at the end of 2014, the banking industry feels the pressure of losing power over the financial world and society for centuries. Now banks are trying to get on the train of the booming fintech market. No doubt, that representatives of the banks that participate in R3 consortium would use quite similar statements, while making bets on their research of distributed ledgers and not Bitcoin. Here are some of the statements: Willem Buiter, chief economist at Citi said: “We know that bitcoin itself is a complete failure and shows the number one law of programming and software: that anything that can be programmed can be hacked. So nothing is completely secure.” James Gorman, the chairman and CEO of Morgan Stanley stated: "It's not going to change everyone's life tomorrow." John Cryan, co-chief executive of Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank, also mentioned the interest in Blockchain, rather than Bitcoin: "Blockchain technology is interesting. Bitcoin, I don't think is." IMF is still concerned about virtual currencies During the conference the latest paper on virtual currencies was released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Christine Lagarde, the Managing Director of IMF, cited it at the WEF on Wednesday: “Virtual currencies (VCs) and especially their underlying technologies are a potentially important advance for the financial sector that could increase efficiency and financial inclusion, but can also serve as vehicles for money laundering, terrorism financing, and tax evasion.” Game changing plans Switzerland is the country with the most developed financial industry and most trusted banks in the world. The main conferences, like World Economic Forum also takes place exactly here in Davos. Possibly a new game changing innovation in the banking industry will come from Switzerland as well. The swiss news and information platform swissinfo.ch took an interview with Guido Rudolphi, who plans to create the world’s first Bitcoin bank in Switzerland. He expressed much more optimistic statements about the future of Bitcoin. He told us: “I am not for one second concerned for bitcoin. It is not doomed. This whole discussion reminds me of the time the internet started. We have had these discussions about bitcoin before, but they have never been filled with such drama.” - Guido Rudolphi He believes that while some investors now want this technology to go faster and to gain profit as soon as possible it is better from a “technology standpoint” that it is “growing slower whilst remaining secure”. Guido Rudolphi has also pointed out the possible future of companies that are looking forward to Blockchain without Bitcoin. “A few companies have jumped on the train. They want bitcoin technology without using bitcoin. My prediction is that they will fail.” Moreover, Richard Branson again expressed his interest in Bitcoin and Blockchain startups. This time Sir Richard Branson expressed his wish to invest in IT-specialists from Ukraine, a country with one of the fastest growing Blockchain industry in Eastern Europe: |
Is This the Most Unfortunate Anti-Gay Logo and Slogan In History? John Aravosis thinks so. I'm not so sure. Let's take a look at the Family Research Council's latest effort: At first glance it does seem rather unfortunate. But maybe what the FRC is trying to do here is enlist the closet cases in the fight against same-sex marriage. Maybe what this logo says is, "Out of the porn shop video booths and into the streets!" And maybe little kneeling blowjob guy is saying that he'll join the fight against gay marriage just as soon as finishes giving one last blowjob in the back of this porn shop. But FRC can't quite understand what little kneeling blowjob guy is saying because little kneeling blowjob guy's mouth is full... of cock... and the person whose cock little kneeling blowjob guy is sucking is the one who's saying "I'm in." Maybe it's that? Or maybe this is the most unfortunate anti-gay logo and slogan in history. On your knees? I'm in? Little kneeling blowjob man? If this isn't the work of a gay graphic designer I'll eat my laptop. |
Substantial changes to the Florida House version of medical marijuana rules bring it closer to the Senate bill — and closer to becoming law. Bill sponsor state Rep. Ray Rodrigues, R-Estero, said the changes were made in negotiations with the Senate and that “95 percent” of the bill represented negotiated positions. “There’s a dueling path we have to walk here,” Rodrigues said. “We have to make it legal and available to Florida residents but we have to do it within the guidelines of the federal government.” The House heavily edited its plan, allowing for edibles and vaping, as the Senate plan does. It also removed a rule requiring patients to have a 90-day relationship with their doctor before that doctor can recommend marijuana. Rodrigues said that the final House version will ensure access while making sure that medical marijuana in Florida doesn’t become recreational marijuana in all but name. “What we have would be one of the strictest qualifying standards in the entire country,” he said. Among the new changes to the bill: Chronic pain is now only covered if it results from a “qualifying medical condition.” Previously, the language had been “debilitating medical condition,” which could have been a back door to allowing access to medical marijuana for people with medical conditions not covered by the constitutional amendment. Noneuphoric forms of marijuana can now be used in public. Public use of full-strength medical marijuana remains a misdemeanor. Pregnant patients can now get noneuphoric, low-THC marijuana. Previously, they were banned from using marijuana at all. The exam would-be caregivers are required to take is now for informational purposes only. One can fail the exam and still become a caregiver. The number of medical marijuana growing licenses will increase by ten before July of next year. (There are currently seven licensed growers.) Then, four new licenses will be available for every 100,000 patients. Several requirements to be a grower, such as having a nursery with 400,000 plants, have been removed. Now, one need only be in business in Florida for five years. People who obtain licenses to grow and distribute medical marijuana will no longer be allowed to contract out the cultivation and dispensing of the plant. The main sticking point between the House and the Senate versions of the bill is the Senate’s cap on three dispensaries per growing license. The House version has no limit on the amount of retail shops a grower can open. “We’ve encouraged access by not capping dispensaries,” Rodrigues said. Backers of the medical marijuana constitutional amendment still prefer the Senate version. If the House version passes, “prices will be high, quality will be low, and choices will be few. Patients will be driven to the black market,” said Ben Pollara, who managed the campaign to get the constitutional amendment passed. The House passed the bill 105-9, with the few no votes representing some of the most liberal and most conservative voices in the body. “Leaving this system in place leaves us with a handful of marijuana cartels that benefit no one but their shareholders,” said state Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, D-Orlando. He also found fault with the bill’s ban on smoking. State Rep. Julio Gonzalez, R-Venice, rejected the notion that there was any medical use for marijuana. “Some of us may believe medical marijuana exists, but in fact you will find no scientific evidence,” he said. The Senate has not yet voted on its medical marijuana legislation, but its bill has cleared all its committees and awaits only a floor vote. The legislative session is supposed to end Friday, but could go longer as budget negotiators have not yet completed their work and produced a state budget, the one required action of the legislative session. The two chambers will have to agree on a single version before passing it on to the governor to be signed into law. dsweeney@SunSentinel.com, 954-356-4605 or Twitter @Daniel_Sweeney Get Dan Sweeney’s daily political newsletter, the Power Lunch, here. |
Despite the dominating win over Virginia Tech, Miami opens as an underdog at home again according to BetOnline. The Canes ended up being favored before kickoff last night, but the Hokies were a 2.5-point favorite most of the week. I expect this line to close near pickem later in the week. Notre Dame is #3 in the Playoff rankings and is 8-1 on the year, with the only loss coming by a point to Georgia in early September. Unlike Virginia Tech, Notre Dame has an impressive road win - a 38-18 blowout at Michigan State. Notre Dame’s star RB Josh Adams left the game early during yesterday’s win over Wake Forest - his status will be carefully watched this week. Brian Kelly said today he expects Adams to be ready for Saturday night. EDIT: Notre Dame opened as a 1.5 point favorite. Betting came quickly, and within a minute, the line moved to the listed -4 (as of publishing of this article) Just over a minute after opening, Notre Dame moved from -1.5 to -4 at Miami. — Sports Insights (@SportsInsights) November 5, 2017 Miami is 8-0 and has a defense playing as well as any in the country. The Canes went 4-0 in October, winning the four games by a combined 18 points. Yesterday, Miami finally stepped up and took full control of a game, beating Virginia Tech by 18. Miami thrived on being disrespected last week and the players and coaches came ready to prove a point against Virginia Tech. That same effort are more will be needed against a Notre Dame team that I think is significantly better than the Hokies, at least on offense. Both teams have won games by forcing turnovers this season - ND is +12 in turnover margin and Miami is +11. ND is averaging 325 yards rushing per game, but just 170 yards passing per game Teams are 9-13 kicking field goals against Notre Dame, while Miami is one of just five teams in the country that hasn’t benefitted from a missed field goal. Miami’s opponents are an insane 17-17. ND leads the nation with 36 rushing plays of 20+ yards Miami’s defense is 4th nationally in interceptions per game, 13 in 8 games. Miami’s defense leads the nation in tackles for loss per game and is 5th in sacks per game The Canes have one big advantage against the Irish - an electric crowd at Hard Rock Stadium. The atmosphere in the stadium during the win over Virginia Tech was incredible. As Miami fans, we’ve waited years to feel that kind of joy, relief, and excitement. It was clearly the best home game since Miami moved to Hard Rock Stadium in 2008. This Saturday night against Notre Dame has a chance to be even better. Go Canes. |
Motives and emotions can penetrate even the most clinical, technical arenas. The root cause of Volkswagen's diesel imbroglio—while digitally embedded in code deep within at least 11 million engine control computers—lies in a far more human pursuit: pride. The pride driving remarkable engineering at the Volkswagen Auto Group stretches deep and long. Its most direct link to VW's diesel emissions scandal came in the form of the hyper-efficient "1-Liter" concept car, first shown in 2002 by then-Chairman of the Board and legendary engineer Ferdinand Piech. The 1 Liter's grand purpose was as a technical showcase for the VW's engineering and design. The goal was to deliver staggering fuel efficiency—in this case, 100km from just 1 liter of fuel (282.5 mpg). It required the impossible, and achieving the impossible would make techies, industrial engineers, critics, and even the competition swoon. Volkswagen believed that calling attention to its own inventiveness with a forward-looking, green, and practical car of astounding efficiency told a compelling story about its technical capabilities, commitment to the environment, and never-ending stretch goals. But it also served another purpose: to brag with subtlety. VW would engineer and show off a car no one else could. We can do this. We will do this. Only VW. Poetically, the 1 Liter concept was carried out in exactly the same manner as the "clean diesel" campaign of smoke and mirrors, with deeply embedded pride and braggadocio, but somehow outwardly subtle. VW had reason for the pride. Piech is undoubtedly the best engineering mind and product planner in the industry, perhaps ever. He's not just a technical mind, but a political and financial one. He outflanked competitors in 1997 and 1998 to poach Bentley, Bugatti, and Lamborghini for his own VW Group. Piech's résumé is filled with world-beaters and engineering marvels: the Porsche 917 race car, Audi's Quattro all-wheel-drive system and the FIA Rally car that introduced the Quattro name, the 1983 super-aerodynamic Audi 100 (5000 in America) that pioneered flush side glass, the 1000hp Bugatti Veyron, and even dual-clutch transmissions. There have been failures—the ill-conceived VW Phaeton luxury sedan—but he's justifiably a very proud man. Other very proud men came after him, and those men always stood in the dark, unstable shadow of Piech's accomplishments. To be an engineer at any German auto company—but especially one presided over by Piech—means days and nights living in fear and flop sweat along with the pressure to invent ways of getting from A to Z without even touching B through Y. Impossible? Have it on my desk by 5pm. In the late 1990s, the big challenge and big opportunity facing many European—but primarily German—car makers involved diesel engines. Most advanced nations that signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 agreed to reduce CO 2 emissions by eight percent over the following 15 years. German car manufacturers lobbied the European Commission with a diesel agenda. Their argument went that adopting a higher share of diesels would lower overall carbon emissions, since diesels inherently produced less CO 2 than gasoline engines. Plus, everybody had just agreed that carbon in the form of CO 2 was redlining the environmental Geiger counter. Meanwhile, American and Japanese manufacturers looked to electric and hybrid development. The European car market quickly turned diesel. Starting with a 10 percent market share in the mid-1990s, diesels grew to 31 percent by 2000 and more than 55 percent by 2012. In addition, diesel fuel was cheaper and registration costs were lower than gasoline-powered cars. A comfortable, king-size bed was made for the diesel movement, and it resplendently held court in Germany. However, one of the most significant markets sat about 6,000 miles to the west. On its own, California is the single-largest auto market in the US, and while that may make it seem like the proverbial pot of gold, it's also the most stringently regulated, pollution-wise. California sets the tone and tenor for all of Emissionsville. But in the late 1990s and early 2000s, diesels still emitted nitrogen oxides (NOx) too prodigiously to pass the state's strictest standards. If a manufacturer could crack that market with high-value, high-tech diesels, it would go a long way to reaching gigantic global sales goals—and VW had some truly gigantic ones. And if it could do it without downstream exhaust after-treatment like urea injection, it would cause a landslide of adulation for genius engineering. Pride. California is also chock full of buyers who embrace great fuel economy and treasure a clean environment. A "clean diesel" that returned astounding economy would make those legions of customers embrace the little marvel of VW engineering. As with all prior accomplishments at VW, the impossible was expected. Only this time, it truly was impossible. The high-compression nature of the diesel cycle, which lacks spark plugs, combined with diesel fuel itself, makes it naturally high in NOx. Even spark-ignition gasoline engines with lofty compression have issues with NOx emissions, a result of cylinder pressure and very high combustion temperatures. In addition, diesel fuel contains much longer chains of hydrocarbons than gasoline, along with some other compounds that react in unpredictable ways. Regardless, the promise of diesel technology grew very compelling. Combine an energy-dense fuel with a combustion process that's naturally more efficient than that of a gasoline engine, and much better fuel economy becomes the grand reward. In addition, as American fuel companies were required to sell low-sulfur diesel fuel starting in 2006—akin to the brew long sold in Europe—it paved a far smoother road for diesels to roll out in the US market than ever before. However, without exhaust after-treatment like urea injection or a somewhat troublesome NOx filter or trap, the NOx issue simply cannot be resolved. VW fitted NOx traps in its first generation of "clean diesels," but it's now excruciatingly clear that these traps were merely pieces of sophisticated luggage, except when being tested by emissions equipment. Subsequently, when VWs later did employ urea injection, the cheating software that bypassed emissions equipment stayed in place. I have no doubt that if VW could have pulled off California emissions certification honestly, it would have, but the march of pride was unstoppable. All the engineering idolatry, the customer goodwill, the sales success, and the media attention would now be exactly as it was before the news broke on Friday, September 18, 2015. But the impossible was expected. Instead, for customers, shareholders, employees, Wolfsburg, the state of Lower Saxony, Germany, and VW, it wasn't simply September 18th. It was Black Friday. You can follow Jim Resnick on Twitter. |
We don’t know what kind of game Blizzard’s Project Titan will be, or when it will come into existence beyond a tentative 2016 release date. But one thing we do know about the next big project from the makers of World of Warcraft is that it probably won’t involve a subscription. “We’re in the process of selecting a new direction for the project and re-envisioning what we want the game to be,” Blizzard president Mike Morhaime said in an earnings call this week, according to Develop. Blizzard had previously announced that it was pushing reset on the mystery game, which was expected to be MMO-like in nature. “While we can’t talk about the details yet, it is unlikely to be a subscription-based MMO RPG.” Assuming Blizzard stays true to Morhaime’s words and doesn’t go for subscriptions, it would be an interesting sign of the times. World of Warcraft has been a cash cow for Blizzard by virtue of its $15 per month subscription, on top of the price of the game and its many expansion packs. Unfortunately for Blizzard, the gaming world is no longer kind to subscription-based games, including World of Warcraft, which just lost another 600,000 players. Instead of charging for subscriptions, publishers are taking inspiration from free-to-play games, charging an up-front cost and offering additional in-game items for purchase. (Guild Wars 2 is a wonderfully-executed example.) You no longer need to be tethered to subscription to scratch that loot/raid/quest itch, and games that have tried to go the subscription route, such as Star Wars: The Old Republic and The Secret World, have been forced to change course. Subscription-based games can survive–Eve Online, after all, is 10 years old and still hosting gigantic space battles–but launching any new game with a mandatory subscription is a risky bet, let alone one that will take at least six years to develop. That may explain why Destiny, Activision Blizzard’s other upcoming massive multiplayer megafranchise, will not require a subscription. |
An RAF gunner who shot a comrade through the stomach while demonstrating a “party trick” with his pistol has been jailed for three years. Senior Aircraftman Liam Gadsby was in the back of a Mastiff armoured lorry in Afghanistan when he fired the Glock pistol at Senior Aircraftman Jay Johnson. Gadsby had previously boasted to colleagues that he could pull the trigger on a loaded pistol without a bullet being fired. A court martial heard SAC Johnson was left with serious injuries, but was initially reluctant to report the accident for fear it would open the RAF to mockery from the Army. Gadsby, of the RAF Regiment, was jailed for three years and dismissed from Her Majesty's service after being found guilty of malicious wounding by an RAF panel at Colchester Military Court. Judge Robert Hill said: “In a service context it is fairly elementary to understand the reason you do not play around with firearms and point them at people. "That, on its own, is an example of recklessness but in this case it is far more serious. "There is plainly a military imperative to spell out in the clearest terms that servicemen who play around with firearms will be punished. Gadsby, 23, was on his second tour of Afghanistan when he shot 24-year-old SAC Johnson at Camp Bastion on December 4, 2013. The shooting took place at Camp Bastion in Helmand province The hearing was told Gadsby had previously learned he could pull back the top slide of the Glock pistol a short distance and engage the trigger, without a round entering the chamber. The trick, which he had earlier shown off to "surprised and shocked" colleagues, saw him then pull the trigger without firing. Lt Col Will Peters, prosecuting, said: "The prosecution case is Senior Aircraftman Gadsby got out of the driver's seat where he was in the front of the vehicle and got into the back and his purpose in so doing was to discuss and ultimately demonstrate his party trick which was performed on his Glock pistol. "The trick was performed with his loaded Glock pistol and involved him pulling back the cocked slide of a loaded weapon so that the trigger came forward but no round enters the chamber." He told the court Gadsby had declared: “Do you want to see my party trick?” Lt Col Peters said: "Johnson then saw the defendant cock the pistol by pulling back the slide and the pistol was pointed at him. "Johnson told him not to point the weapon at him, at which point the defendant laughed. "Johnson told him not to pull the trigger, but he did, shooting Johnson in his abdomen." Lt Col Peters said Gadsby's actions were more serious than a negligent discharge. SAC Johnson said Gadsby had initially pointed the pistol at his head, despite his complaints. Gadsby had said: “I have done it loads of times mate, stop being a p***y”. SAC Johnson said: “He then lowered his aim from my head onto my torso. At the time I just carried on saying 'can you stop pointing at me'. "He just laughed, he lowered his aim to my stomach and said 'look, there is nothing in it'. "He then shot me through my stomach and out of my back. "Once I had been shot, he dropped the pistol and I said 'oh my God, you have shot me'. "He said 'Oh my God, what have I done? He then got dragged off round the corner and I never saw him again." SAC Johnson was treated in hospital in Afghanistan before being transferred back to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham and then on to Headley Court rehabilitation centre in Surrey. He is still undergoing treatment, has to wear a colostomy bag and has a 13-inch scar running from his chest down to his stomach. He faces more surgery and has been warned his injuries mean he may have to leave the RAF. The hearing heard that at first he was reluctant to report the shooting. He said: "I did not want the RAF Regiment to look like t****, which is what it would it would do, because The Army would love to hear we shot one of our own lads." Gadsby had on an earlier occasion been told off by a senior officer as he was about to demonstrate his trick. Dingle Clark, mitigating, said: “There is nothing he would want to do more than rewind the clock back and undo what was done. "He has had to live knowing he has caused these injuries to a fellow airman he worked alongside and liked.” Gadsby admitted on a previous occasion he had carried out the 'trick' while pointing a Glock at his own head. He had earlier admitted a lesser charge of negligence, but was found guilty after a three-day hearing. An RAF spokesman said: "Firstly our thoughts remain with the injured RAF serviceman who remains under medical care. "With regard to the court martial, the RAF takes weapons safety very seriously and can confirm that SAC Gadsby has been sentenced to three years' imprisonment and discharge from the RAF.” |
Weekday mornings at P.L. Robertson Public School in Milton, Ont., are unlike anything most of us remember from school. For starters, there are the valets—a team of seven early childhood educators kitted out in orange reflector vests, opening car doors and holding backpacks to ensure a phalanx of minivans dropping off little people rolls apace. Then there are the “pens”: a network of fenced yards where kindergartners, who arrive in a seemingly endless flow, can play safely while they await the morning bell. “We use the word ‘pens’ lovingly,” says principal Wendy Spence. “But we might as well call them what they are.” By 8:40 a.m., the kids begin filing indoors, and the enormity of Spence’s responsibility becomes clear. P.L. Roberston might be named for an icon of Milton’s industrial past (the man who invented the Robertson screwdriver), but it rests in a sea of brand-spanking new, cheek-by-jowl residential developments whose demographics skew heavily toward the young. Fully 403 of the school’s students are in kindergarten, representing nearly 40 per cent of a student body that, nominally at least, goes up to Grade 8. Four- and five-year-olds have all but taken over the place, decking the walls with their artwork and forcing older students into rows of portables while the Halton District School Board scrambles to build classrooms at neighbouring schools. The munchkin invasion is a direct result of Milton’s status as a last frontier within commuting distance of Toronto: a young, middle-class family can still afford a home here—provided both parents have jobs. But P.L. Roberston is also a microcosm of a vast experiment in early-childhood education that school authorities across the country are keenly watching. By the fall of 2014, every family in Ontario will have access to state-funded, full-day kindergarten, sending some 250,000 kids into school for at least six hours per day. Other provinces offer all-day kindergarten to five-year-olds, but B.C. and Ontario are the first to try it at the both junior and senior levels. That means children as young as 3 now find themselves trundling off to school five days a week, staying until supper time if their parents take up the offer of fee-based child care available in about 60 per cent of schools. The initiative arises in part from economic forces. Government is under increasing pressure to provide child care and education to dual-income families. But it is also born of egalitarian urges. Universal early learning, proponents say, can close the achievement gap between children from immigrant and low-income families and their more advantaged peers, providing payoffs to society many years down the road. Spence, who will take a board-level job next year overseeing the rest of Halton’s rollout, says it is already yielding benefits: “It’s putting the kids going into Grade 1 on an even playing field,” says the veteran principal. “Having the children here every day is a hugely important piece.” But the costs are breathtaking. With two years left in the five-year rollout plan, Ontario has already committed $2.5 billion to hire teachers and build classroom space for the incoming wave of youngsters. Less than half of the 3,600 schools slated to offer all-day kindergarten have launched their programs, and when fully implemented, the initiative will cost an estimated $1.5 billion per year. That’s nearly 13 per cent of Ontario’s projected 2013 budget deficit, and enough to raise questions of whether the sacrifice will pay off. Does full-day kindergarten work? Do the benefits last? And given the wealth of evidence suggesting Canadian students (especially those from Ontario) already stack up well against their international peers, did we need it in the first place? There is no truer believer in full-day kindergarten than Charles Pascal. In 2009, the academic and former deputy minister of education issued what would become the blueprint for Ontario’s program—a more audacious vision than the all-day kindergarten on offer in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Quebec. Pascal’s oft-cited report, “With Our Best Future in Mind,” recommended a seamless network of child-care, early learning and parental support programs centred in the province’s public schools—a “holistic, comprehensive, integrated approach, ” as he put it, that would unite everything from prenatal care to nutritional education in a “one-stop shopping” model for parents. Full-day kindergarten was the cornerstone of his vision: children would learn in a “play-based” curriculum under the supervision of teams—one fully certified teacher and one instructor with a degree in early childhood education (an ECE, in education parlance). At 3 p.m., the kids would enter before-and-after school care operated by school boards and overseen by ECEs, for which parents would pay a fee. Pascal pegged the annual operating costs at $990 million—an estimate that would prove wildly low. But he had political buy-in. Then-premier Dalton McGuinty, he recalls, had been struck by a study suggesting nearly a third of the province’s Grade 1 pupils were defined as “vulnerable” on an index of educational development indicators, meaning they struggled with literacy, numbers or behaviour. “Most of those kids don’t catch up,” says Pascal. “Think about the social and economic costs of them not keeping up with their peers.” So in the teeth of a fiscal crunch wrought by the 2008 financial meltdown, the province forged on and began launching the kindergarten component of Pascal’s plan in 2010, starting at schools in low-income neighbourhoods. The result fell short of the original vision. Today, only a tiny fraction of full-day kindergarten schools offer board-run after-hours care (most work with third-party providers), and many students attend school in rooms designed for older students. But Pascal says they can already point to results: provincial statistics to be released soon will show a dramatic decline in the percentage of vulnerable children in Grade 1, he says (he had not been cleared to disclose exact figures), while a 700-student study by the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, based at the University of Toronto, found that full-day kids scored measurably higher in vocabulary, reading and numeracy than their half-day counterparts. Janette Pelletier, the academic leading the latter study, concludes all-day instruction boosts the learning rate of children. “School’s doing a great job for all kids,” she says. “But when they get more of a good thing, it seems to work even better.” But a more crucial test awaits. Next year, the first cohort of students to receive full-day kindergarten will take the Grade 3 standardized tests administered by the province’s Education Quality and Accountability Office, and the results will go a long way to answer a question that has long nagged proponents of all-day kindergarten: do the effects on academic performance last? Evidence to date suggests not. Even as Pascal was researching his report in 2007, an economist named Philip DeCicca was publishing a study of U.S. data examining the gains full-day kindergarten students made vis-à-vis their half-day counterparts. Full-day instruction did put students ahead in math and reading tests, he found. But by the middle of Grade 1, the gap between their scores on math and reading tests began closing. Alarmingly, the regression was especially pronounced among minority kids—the very students full-day kindergarten was supposed to help. “There was a short-term positive effect,” says DeCicca, who holds a Canada research chair in public economics at McMaster University in Hamilton. “But by the end of the first year, it was essentially gone.” DeCicca’s findings reflected those of other adverse results that seem to have been lost amid the excitement over full-day kindergarten. In 2010, the final report of the massive Head Start program in the U.S.—an initiative launched in 1965 to provide preschooling, health care and nutrition services for low-income children—also concluded that the academic benefits of extra schooling consistently wore off by the end of Grade 1: “No significant impacts were found,” it said, “for math skills, pre-writing, children’s promotion or teacher report of children’s school accomplishments.” The report seemed to validate the long-standing belief among many academics that what happens at home with a child is just as, if not more, important than extra time spent in school. Another study, led by Stanford University academics and published in 2007, looked into the effects of public child-care centres, where many U.S. children receive early childhood education; it found that kids who entered a centre’s care before kindergarten behaved worse when they reached school age than those who spent the period with parents. The authors didn’t speculate as to why, but suggested the issue warrants further investigation. DeCicca was not consulted for the Pascal report—a conspicuous omission, considering that few, if any, Canadian-based academics at the time had studied the outcomes of full-day kindergarten in depth. Now, as B.C., Ontario and possibly Alberta invest in the model, he’s keen to share his concerns. Why, he asks, are governments so keen on a universal program rather than targeted schemes for disadvantaged families? What are they really selling? “It goes to the question of whether full-day kindergarten is about education or about some kind of subsidized daycare,” he says. “I mean that seriously. Quality daycare is expensive. But full-day kindergarten is really expensive.” The costs are hitting home. In B.C., teachers’ unions have complained that the province is squeezing other parts of the education system to fund full-day kindergarten, pushing up class sizes, cutting back on supplies. In March, Alberta Premier Alison Redford put her $200-million promise to introduce all-day kindergarten on indefinite hold while she tries to balance that province’s budget. Even Ontario’s program remains surprisingly controversial despite tireless promotion by the provincial government. Two years ago, in the face of a ballooning deficit, McGuinty commissioned former bank economist Don Drummond to identify cost-cutting opportunities. To the government’s dismay, Drummond drew a big, red circle around full-day kindergarten. McGuinty refused to halt it, and his successor, Kathleen Wynne, has restated her commitment to the program. But the opposition Progressive Conservatives have promised to stop the roll-out until the province is back in the black. “It’s not, is it a good program or a bad program?” said Leader Tim Hudak. “It’s, what can you afford?” The better question might be, is this the program you need? It’s not, after all, as if Canadian students were falling behind the world—concerns about at-risk children notwithstanding. On triannual standardized tests overseen by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Canadian 15-year-olds score below only China, Korea and Finland in reading, math and sciences. Alberta, B.C. and Ontario scored highest among Canadian provinces in 2009, the latest year for which results are available. None of those provinces offered full-day kindergarten when the test writers were in primary school. Nor is everyone comfortable with putting children in institutional care for so much of their young lives. Gordon Neufeld, a Vancouver-based developmental psychologist, believes long hours in school and daycare upsets the development of children, resulting in behavioural problems down the line. “They begin forming attachments at their level, with their peers instead of with their parents,” says Neufeld, co-author of Hold On to Your Kids, a book that urges parents to spend as much time as possible with their children during the kids’ early years. “This pulls them out of the orbit of their parents, and truncates their development.” Peter van de Geyn, a sales and marketing director in Vaughan, Ont., says his four-year-old daughter Addy comes home “exhausted” from her all-day classes, which start at 8:40 a.m., and wonders how much she can be learning when she’s so tired. “It just seems too much,” he says. Yet few in the education sector seem fazed. Liz Sandals, Ontario’s newly appointed education minister, says the Liberals will be happy to defend the program on the election trail, noting that, before its introduction, province-wide elementary enrolment was declining due to Ontario’s stagnant birthrate. Most of the school and board officials interviewed by Maclean’s extolled the program—no surprise, perhaps, given the thousands of teacher, ECE and administrative positions the program has created. As for the cost concerns, Pascal dismisses them as “short-termism” driven by conservative ideology. “I understand there’s a world view out there that if women stayed home that the kids would be raised perfectly and there would be more jobs for the boys,” he says. “But the participation of women in the Canadian workforce is No. 1 among the OECD countries. That’s important to remember.” As for questions about the longevity of full-day kindergarten’s benefits, he believes Ontario’s program will be vindicated because it is better, more holistic, than those examined in previous studies. “The question is, what’s the quality [of the program]? How active are these kids? Are they getting the nutrition base? Are they getting rest periods when they need them? What’s the quality of the pedagogy? It’s a no-brainer, when you control for quality, that the effects are going to last.” Of course, by the time we find out, full-day kindergarten could be a well-entrenched norm. None of the six provinces and territories that offer some level of all-day kindergarten have curtailed their programs; Nova Scotia recently announced plans to expand early childhood education and health programs. While full-day kindergarten is technically optional, none of the schools contacted for this story had parents who picked up their children after a half-day. Certainly the parents around P.L. Robertson are voting with their feet. Next year, the school will add two more kindergarten classes, bringing its total to 16. Only 60 of the students, or 15 per cent, make use of a municipally run before- and after-school care program, which suggests most are attending school even though they have a family member at home who could be taking care of them. Principal Spence admits she “didn’t know what to tell parents when this first started, because I had no idea what it would look like.” Now she has her answer: with each passing day, full-day kindergarten looks bigger, more costly—and for better or worse, a lot harder to stop. |
Recent strikes at Walmart and fast food restaurants in New York City have opened new horizons for unions in the United States. The two campaigns are navigating mostly uncharted waters by steering clear of the National Labor Relations Board election procedure and striking without a demand for recognition. As the headlines fade, many of us are wondering—what’s next? Going public with a dramatic action is one thing. Building a durable organization of workers in the notoriously inhospitable low-wage service sector is another. But a small, spunky union in New Zealand offers an example of what a lasting union in fast food can look like. The independent union Unite (no relation to UNITE HERE) launched its “Super Size My Pay” campaign in 2005. Now with more than 4,000 members at KFC, Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Burger King, and Wendy’s, it has become one of the most successful fast food organizing efforts in the world. From 0 to 2,000 in Six Months Unite developed an organizing model that took advantage of two features of New Zealand labor law: As in Europe, employers are legally required to negotiate with a union that represents even just a handful of its workers. And in 2003 a Labour Party government passed a law requiring employers to allow union organizers access to non-union shops to meet with workers. Unite’s strategy? Go into fast food restaurants, call workers off the shop floor one by one for short meetings, and make a membership pitch. After trying out this approach successfully at a local movie chain, Unite launched a campaign in Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city. The first target was Restaurant Brands, which operates KFC, Pizza Hut, and Starbucks in New Zealand; later the campaign expanded to McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Burger King. Organizers talked to workers about a few basic demands: increasing the minimum wage from NZ $9.50 per hour to $12 (US $7.60 to $10), the abolition of “youth rates” (a legally permitted pay grade 20 percent below the minimum wage), and “secure” hours. “We had guaranteed union access, so we would get people rotated out to come and see us, and we would talk to them about joining the union,” said former Unite organizer Simon Oosterman. “I’d say that, naturally, about 20 percent of the workers join, even if there’s a bit of negativity in the workforce.” The campaign built momentum rapidly. Over a period of six months, a team of fewer than 10 organizers signed up more than 2,000 workers—1,000 workers at Restaurant Brands, and another 1,000 at McDonald’s and Burger King. This was a vocal minority of 25 percent at Restaurant Brands and a smaller proportion at McDonald’s and Burger King. Despite the massive influx of members, though, only a small number of workers were involved in meetings outside the shops to plan out the next steps of the campaign. Most decisions were made by Unite officers and organizers. Quickie Strikes With this base of support, Unite opened the campaign’s second phase: quickie strikes to pressure Restaurant Brands to sign a collective agreement granting the demands of Super Size My Pay. Under New Zealand law, a collective agreement establishes wages and working conditions only for those workers who are union members. Most employers then extend the gains to non-members, in an effort to undermine the union. The first target was Starbucks. After a period of planning with the workers, Unite organizers went from café to café in a union bus on one day in November 2005, calling baristas out on strike and converging on the most high-profile, pro-union Starbucks in Auckland. Around 30 Starbucks workers from a dozen shops participated. This kicked off a wave of similar strikes in the other chains over the next few months. Hundreds of workers took part in short strike actions. Phone zaps—hundreds of union supporters jamming the phone lines of a company with calls—shut down Pizza Hut’s call center, knocking out the chain’s delivery orders. “We threw everything at these companies and I wondered if we had anything left to throw,” Unite officer Mike Treen said. “And then came the high school students’ strike.” Radical Youth Best-Selling Book Secrets of a successful organizer A step-by-step guide to building power on the job. Buy Now. » Since young people made up both the primary workforce and a large consumer base for the fast food chains, Unite formed a coalition with a grassroots activist group called Radical Youth to campaign against the hated youth rates. Radical Youth organized more than 1,000 Auckland students from a dozen high schools to walk out in support of the union’s demands, taking union-provided buses to Queen Street, Auckland’s main shopping boulevard. Dozens of young people sat down in intersections, blocking traffic, while others swarmed fast food restaurants up and down the street, chanting “NO YOUTH RATES!” It’s impossible to say exactly which straw broke the camel’s back, but within days of the action, Restaurant Brands offered to sign a collective agreement. The agreement granted pay increases to nearly NZ $12 an hour over two years, increased pay for those making the youth rate to 90 percent of the minimum wage, as a step toward phasing it out, and stabilized workers’ schedules. The offer went a long way toward meeting Unite’s demands, and union officers decided to accept it. According to some Unite organizers, only a few rank-and-filers were consulted, and only via text message, but the agreement was signed. Keeping the Union Going Since 2005, more than 30,000 workers have been members of Unite—due largely to high turnover rates in fast food and the other precarious sectors Unite has expanded into. Many ex-members go on to join other unions at their next jobs. By organizing the mostly young fast food workforce, Unite has created a gateway to the labor movement for an entire generation of workers. Just as important, Unite has worked to extend its victories beyond the walls of unionized shops and turned its demands against individual employers into a society-wide campaign for better pay for all workers. Over seven months in 2009-10, Unite activists gathered more than 200,000 signatures to support a national referendum on a NZ $15/hour minimum wage. They fell short of the 300,000 necessary, but succeeded in pushing all the opposition parties to endorse the demand. The national dialogue generated by Super Size My Pay forced the Labour Party and other opposition forces to either put up or shut up about fighting for workers. In 2008, the Labour government finally voted to abolish youth rates. The current right-wing government, however, plans to sign sub-minimum youth rates back into law April 1. If this happens, Unite members will be protected by their contracts. But maintaining the union in the shops is an uphill battle. Unite’s corps of nine paid organizers makes the rounds to shops every week, pulling workers off the floor to make a membership pitch in much the same way they did at the start of the campaign. Membership hovers around an average of 30 percent across the chains, with some shops stronger than others. Rank-and-file involvement is low, with most of the union’s work done by staff. Unite has had difficulty maintaining a network of delegates (stewards) active in the shops. To increase membership and involvement, Unite has tried a number of schemes—Facebook groups, neighborhood-based delegate councils, awarding a $10 prize for each member a delegate signs up, giving members coupon books, and most recently, a holiday gift card and a trip to an amusement park—but the problem of low union density in the chains remains. Lessons for the U.S. Criticisms aside, Unite’s accomplishments are impressive—a nearly 50 percent increase in wages in the chains since 2005, abolition of youth rates at the chains, shifting the national political dialogue on low-wage work, and perhaps most important, making unions relevant to a new generation of workers. We can’t simply copy and paste Super Size My Pay into a North American context. Employers are much more aggressively anti-union in the U.S., and our legal framework for collective bargaining is much weaker. And Labor Notes readers will agree that rank-and-filers must sit in the driver’s seats of their unions. However, we could build on elements of Unite’s model, extending organizing from the shop to the community, as Unite did by bringing students into their coalition, and by adopting society-wide demands for all workers, not just those covered by a contract. And, like the high schoolers who stormed Queen Street, unions must be willing to take disruptive actions that put real economic pressure on employers and cause political crises for elites. Erik Forman has been active in the Industrial Workers of the World since 2005, working and organizing at Starbucks and Jimmy John’s. He is currently compiling a report on union strategies for organizing the food service and retail sectors as a Practitioner Fellow at the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University, to be released this spring. Follow him at twitter.com/_erikforman. |
SWNS / Facebook A young British solider managed to survive warzones in Afghanistan, only to be killed in his home town. Dave Curnow, 20, died from injuries he sustained during a serious assault in the early hours of Sunday morning. The incident happened outside a nightclub in Redruth, Cornwall, and a member of the public found him unconscious on the ground, The Mirror reports. SWNS / Facebook Detective Chief Inspector Mike West, deputy head of major crime at Devon and Cornwall Police, said: “The victim was taken to Royal Cornwall Hospital Treliske and was immediately transferred to Derriford Hospital in Plymouth due to his injuries. Earlier this afternoon we received the tragic news the victim has died as a result of his injuries.” Two people have now been charged with his murder, Liam Laing, 21, and Connor Hammond, also 21, were remanded in custody and are due to appear at Truro Magistrates’ Court today. DCI West said the two suspects are not believed to have known the young soldier. SWNS / Facebook People have been paying tribute to Dave on Twitter: So sad to hear the news about Dave. Things like this shouldn't happen anywhere, let alone Cornwall. Thinking of his friends and family..RIP. — Charlotte (@Charlotte_Rule) September 21, 2015 Truly heartbroken, rest in peace @DaveCurnow thank you for being you and for your amazing service for our country. You really are a hero ?? — Keyenia Hawthorne (@keyenia212) September 21, 2015 |
The "hit products" at this week's Consumer Electronics Show will be 80 iPad knock-offs that no one wants to buy because they aren't iPads. And that's fitting. Because last year's "hit product" was another product that no one wanted to buy: 3D TV. Last year, when 3D TV was all the rage, we told you it was dead on arrival. And OH the screams. What fuddy-duddies we were. Not seeing the immense joy of having to wear those stupid glasses and get a headache watching shows that were no better in 3D than they are in 2D. Well, now 3D TV makers are slashing prices on the sets because no one wants them. Just as the makers of the 80 iPad knock-offs will soon be slashing prices on them because no one wants them. (Which brings us back to the question we asked last year at this time: Why does anyone even go to CES?) In case you're curious, here are the 10 Reasons 3D TV is Dead On Arrival, which produced so many screams when we published it last year. Top 10 Reasons 3D TV Will Bomb: 1. No one wants to wear those stupid glasses 2. Those stupid glasses cost $75 a pop 3. Those stupid glasses are different for every TV manufacturer: There's no common standard 4. To throw a 3D Super Bowl party, you'll need 20 pairs of those stupid glasses, which will cost you as much as an amazing 50-inch high def 2D TV. 5. Those stupid glasses are battery powered--yet another gadget whose batteries you have to worry about 6. Those stupid glasses give you a headache 7. There's nothing to watch in 3D 8. 3D just isn't that great: Bad TV will still be bad in 3D 9. You just bought a brand new awesome $1,500 high-def TV 10. 3D doesn't come in high-def because your cable connection can't handle high-def 3D yet Sure, some gamers and porn aficionados will shell out for some sets. But unless/until 3D is as simple as switching to another channel (no stupid glasses), 3D for the mainstream will be D. O. A. See Also: 3D TV Is Dead On Arrival What People Really Think Of 3D TV |
Campus free speech showdowns have recently received an overwhelming amount of media exposure. This is not because First Amendment conflicts have not occurred in other venues, but rather because the media understands that the college campus is the ultimate battleground of ideas, and free speech is the foundation of any ideological battle. The Free Speech Movement first took root on campuses like UC Berkeley in the 1960s, driven by young people who were battling their campus administrators. Decades later, free speech on campus is yet again threatened by campus administrators who are passively squelching the free speech rights of conservatives. It’s easy to blame the so-called “antifa” students and other protestors who have forced the cancellation of conservative speakers like Milo Yiannopoulos and Ann Coulter, but the buck has to stop somewhere. College presidents have the resources to protect free speech — when they want to protect it. The problem is they don’t. When conservative Milo Yiannopoulos came to speak at Cal Poly on January 31, its president, Jeffrey Armstrong, verbally affirmed his disapproval of the speaker, yet he also made no bones about the campus’s responsibility to protect free speech, and even brought in more than 100 officers from seven law enforcement agencies (including a SWAT team) to back up his words. The event happened without a hitch. Less than 48 hours later, when Yiannopoulos came to UC Berkeley, the university’s leadership failed to protect its own students by permitting violent students to start fires, smash windows and assault peers and police officers alike. Less than three months later, Berkeley’s leadership again failed to provide the security necessary for conservative firebrand Ann Coulter to speak on campus. Conservative columnist and author Ben Shapiro was likewise forced to cancel his appearance at DePaul University. While a small minority of college officials (like Armstrong) stand up for free speech, most cannot be trusted to do what’s right, which is why student leaders are so critical to the survival of the Free Speech Movement. They are the ones hosting events like those mentioned above and bringing a diversity of thought to the campus experience. Over time, the baby boomer generation crushed a movement that they themselves started, and millennials are its only hope for a comeback. Young America’s Foundation is currently leading the charge by educating and activating students so that they can take the fight back to their campuses. YAF teaches students how to navigate through the red tape and ensure that their event is both successful and secure. The impact of their speaking events has captivated major mainstream media outlets, including The New York Times, which highlighted YAF’s work in a May 21 article entitled “The Conservative Force Behind Speeches Roiling College Campuses.” Conservative students are constantly dealing with protestors who truly believe they have the right to close down speaking events if they find the speaker’s ideas offensive, and university officials who willingly comply. These student leaders are outnumbered and sometimes outmaneuvered, but their message is often magnified by the media attention they receive when they face opposition. Their fight serves to remind all Americans of the liberal intolerance on college campuses, but also of the fragility of free speech in places that lack any sort of real tolerance. If free speech dies on college campuses, where will it die next? It has already died in Hollywood, and is practically on life support in other places. America is counting on millennials to fight for this basic right and carry the torch that older generations have extinguished. Latest Videos |
"It's going to be a real special moment for me and my family." His grandfather Lou, who played 127 games in the NHL, worked as a scout for the New York Rangers and his uncle Ryan spent time as an assistant general manager for the New York Islanders. While every player's NHL debut is memorable, his family's ties to the city of New York add to this evening's affair. "I'm definitely pretty excited. A little nerves but I think that once I actually get on the ice, those will subside and I'll realize it's just hockey - just another hockey game and just try to get into the feel of the game." "It's pretty cool. I'm really excited about this," Jankowski said. "I've just got to go out there and play a smart, simple game and just help the team win. NEW YORK, NY -- It has been a long journey for Mark Jankowski but tonight, over four years after hearing his name called 21st overall at the 2012 NHL Draft, he will make his NHL debut when the Calgary Flames take on the New York Islanders. Summoned from the Stockton Heat on Friday, Jankowski has taken in two games and practiced once with the team - experiences he feels has him prepared for tonight's milestone skate. "It was good for me, getting that practice in Philly, just getting to be on the ice with everyone and get acclimated to the situation." Len and Rosemary Jankowski, Mark's parents, have journey across the northeastern United States since he was recalled, hoping to see their eldest son make his NHL debut. They have taken in games in Boston and Philadelphia and have been able to visit with Jankowski over the past few days - something he is very appreciative for. "I really hoped they would be able to see [my debut]," he said. "All the sacrifices they've made - the 6:00 AM practices, everything growing up - always supporting me when I needed it. It's really big for me that they're in attendance." Jankowski comes into the fold after a great start to his first professional season. In 13 games with the Stockton Heat, he has three goals and 12 points and has averaged 0.92 points-per-game. Being able to produce right off the hop in the AHL and earning plenty of minutes under Stockton bench boss Ryan Huska has bolstered his confidence heading into tonight's match-up. "I had a pretty good start to the season down in Stockton and I know in my mind that I can play at this level. I just have to use that and bring that out and show it." "I just want to play a smart, simple game," he added. "Try to use my big body to try and protect pucks down low and be a smart 200-foot player. Be good in the d-zone and be hard on pucks in the o-zone, taking pucks to the net and be a presence around the net all night." Head coach Glen Gulutzan relayed one message to Jankowski this morning in the team's meetings: provide a spark. The team is coming off of a disappointing 5-3 loss in Philadelphia last night and are pushing to cap off this six-game road trip on the right note. "Any young guy that comes up, he's got to play with some energy. That's what you hope when you put a guy in the lineup because you're taking somebody out that's played probably most of the year ... sometimes it's all warm and fuzzy and we want this to be a big thing - and your first NHL game is a big thing - but he's got to come in and provide energy." |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.