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ES News Email Enter your email address Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid You already have an account. Please log in or register with your social account A Tory activist today claimed he was pelted with a stone during a visit to a traveller camp set up on the site of a new school in north London. Nick Grierson alleged he was set upon in a “threatening” attack while his accomplice took photographs of the site in West Hampstead. Mr Grierson, who stood unsuccessfully for a place on Camden council in 2014, explained he had been visiting with another former Conservative candidate, Rahoul Bhansali, who stood in Streatham in the 2010 general election, when the pair were allegedly targeted. Camden Council confirmed it had launched legal action to evict the travellers from the site in Liddell Road, where a new nursery and infants’ school building is under construction, after they moved in on Thursday. Speaking to the Standard, 54-year-old Mr Grierson said the incident happened when he visited the site, which is on an industrial park, on Saturday morning. “I’m still a Tory activist, and I went round with Rahoul [Mr Bhansali] advising residents about this,” he said. “There were a bunch of people looking like they were having a meeting by the gate. Then they saw us and didn’t much like the look of us and invited us to go elsewhere, very aggressively.” He went on: “When my colleague tried to take a photo, it got ugly. There were two of us and 10 to 15 of them, so we moved off very, very quickly and they threw a stone about the size of my fist, which missed us and hit a car. “They didn’t have the faintest idea who we were – we had just looked through the gates.” Mr Grierson, who has lived in West Hampstead for 26 years, added: “We’re not saying ‘they’re from a particular community which we are anti’ – they’re squatters who are doing what they’re doing. This was just nasty and unpleasant. “It was threatening behaviour, and it’s completely out of keeping with the area.” Camden council said it hopes to receive an order allowing the squatters to be evicted by Thursday this week. Angela Mason, the borough's cabinet member for children, said: "Liddell Road construction site has been occupied without the Council’s consent. “The council is currently building a much needed new nursery and infants’ school building for the Kingsgate Primary school at the site – so we need the land handed back as soon as possible so that these works can continue without further disruption. “The council is now taking legal action to remove those occupying the site as soon as possible.” |
Some dynamite and a plastic bottle. That’s all it takes for a fisherman to kill hundreds of fish and transform thriving coral reefs into rubble in a matter of seconds. Around the world, fishermen are using explosives, often with dynamite, to maximize their catch. Called blast fishing or dynamite fishing, the practice goes on in nations from Lebanon and Malaysia to the Philippines, while some countries—Kenya and Mozambique, for instance—have managed to stamp it out. In Africa, Tanzania is the only country where blast fishing still occurs on a large scale—and it’s happening at unprecedented rates. “I would say probably for the last five years it’s at least as bad or worse than it’s ever been,” said Jason Rubens, a marine conservationist with World Wildlife Fund’s Tanzania branch. In December, Wildlife Watch wrote about blast fishing after researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society released a report documenting the extent of the illegal practice in the Indian Ocean off Tanzania. The researchers counted more than 300 explosions in 30 days, from the Kenya-Tanzania border down to Mozambique. That’s at least 10 blasts a day. Now new video footage for National Geographic by reporters Sophie Tremblay and Willy Lowry captures some of the blasts in real time. In the film, in broad daylight just off the coast of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s biggest city, fishermen toss overboard bombs that blast skyward huge plumes of water. “It was just so brazen,” Lowry says, noting that the video shows only a fraction of the blasts he and Tremblay witnessed. Why do they do it? As one dynamite fisherman in the video puts it: “The easiest way for people to earn something is from fishing with dynamite.” Making a bomb is cheaper and vastly more productive than sticking with traditional fishing methods such as basket traps and hook and line. Dynamite is also easier to find nowadays. A boom in mining and construction in Tanzania has made it less challenging for people to get their hands on explosives. But the practice has disastrous consequences. Off the coast of Dar es Salaam, fishermen aim for lucrative tuna, Tremblay says. But the blasts destroy not only their targets but entire coral reefs, which support fish, crabs, and other species and play a crucial role in controlling carbon dioxide levels in the ocean. “It’s the three-dimensional structure that really provides a lot of habitat and space for fish eggs and larvae and juveniles to hide from predators and as a feeding habitat,” Rubens explains. “Blasting literally physically destroys the three-dimensional structure of the reef.” Aside from the environmental impact, dynamite fishing threatens the livelihood of legitimate fishermen, as well as the economy as a whole. If people are too afraid to swim in the sea because of incidents like this, that’s a problem for Tanzania, where tourism constitutes 17 percent of the gross domestic product. Check out the film to learn more about the dangerous fishing tactic and see blast fishermen in action. |
Venture campaign The campaign mode is our latest addition to Venture, this campaign will take you and your army to many worlds with each world having its own style. You start this campaign on your ship, which is in orbit of a certain planet. This planet is held captive and you are on a mission to liberate this planet. There are many planets held captive in this universe, you quest is to liberate all of them. In your ship you are able to design your army to do so, build your assets piece by piece until they are ready for battle. At first you are limited to certain pieces to build your assets with, after liberating a planet you will gain acces to more pieces ranging from wheels to missiles. Each planet is different they range from being in the middle ages to being far ahead of your time, this will require a different aproach for each planet. Each planet has multiple missions to be finished to being able to liberate it, ranging from defending a civilization to destroy en enemy base. Venture information All information is in alpha state and may be changed in a later state. Follow us on Twitter: Follow Us Watch us on IndieDB: Watch Us Follow us on Youtube: Follow Us Gameplay video: Planet explorer: Asset creator: AI turrets - Set your creation to be controlled by the AI and attack incomming enemies: Defend the villagers from incoming enemies: Latest weapon piece: The Gatling Gun Thank you for reading! |
The revelation 5 years ago that Sony BMG was planting a secret rootkit onto its music customers' Windows PCs in the name of anti-piracy is seen now as one of the all-time significant events in IT security history. "Sony rootkit was one of the seminal moments in malware history," says Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at Helsinki, Finland-based security company F-Secure. "Not only did it bring rootkits into public knowledge, it also gave a good lesson to media companies on how not to do their DRM [digital rights management] solutions." Also see: 10 more of the worst moments in network security history For those of you who are fuzzy on the details, Sony BMG secretly included Extended Copy Protection (XCP) and MediaMax CD-3 software on millions of music CDs from artists such as Celine Dion, Neal Diamond and Santana in the mid-2000s that was designed to keep music owners from making too many copies of the music. The software, which proved undetectable by anti-virus and anti-spyware programs, was in the form of a rootkit that opened the door for other malware to infiltrate computers unseen as well. Once the rootkit was exposed by security researcher Mark Russinovich on Oct. 31, 2005, all hell broke loose, with Sony BMG botching its initial response ("Most people don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?" went the infamous quote from Thomas Hesse, then president of Sony BMG's Global Digital Business.) and later recalling products, issuing and re-issuing software removal tools, and settling lawsuits with a number of states, the Federal Trade Commission and Electronic Frontier Foundation. Rootkits have since become common among modern malware, with one security company this past summer even demonstrating how a rootkit might one day plague the Google Android smartphone operating system. The sophisticated Stuxnet worm identified this year as a threat to Windows PCs and industrial systems also uses a rootkit. F-Secure's Hypponen recalls that it took just nine days for a variant of the Breplibot malware to exploit the Sony BMG rootkit. F-Secure became aware of the Sony BMG rootkit even before Russinovich exposed it, but had kept quiet about it while trying to convince Sony BMG to do something about the rootkit first. "Unfortunately, they only acted after the Breplibot trojans were already out," he says (noting that a key figure of virus writing gang "m00p" that was behind Breplibot pled guilty in court last month.) Following the Sony BMG rootkit's exposure, security experts came down hard not just on the music company but also on security vendors whose products failed to sniff out the threat. Bruce Schneier, for example, wrote a column for Wired.com in November, 2005 in which he took Symantec and McAfee to task. "[M]uch worse than not detecting it before Russinovich's discovery was the deafening silence that followed. When a new piece of malware is found, security companies fall over themselves to clean our computers and inoculate our networks. Not in this case," Schneier wrote. Schneier also at the time chided Microsoft for not reacting more swiftly. However, the following year Microsoft did make one interesting statement: It acquired Winternals Software, the company co-founded in 1996 by Sony BMG rootkit sleuth Russinovich, now a Microsoft technical fellow whose biography on the software vendor's website highlights that "his discovery of a rootkit on popular Sony audio CDs led to industry reforms in the area of computer privacy." It's no secret where to find Bob Brown on Twitter: www.twitter.com/alphadoggs |
Related Content Your Garbage Is Polluting Even The Deep, Remote Reaches of the Ocean The Great Lakes represent one-fifth of the entire world’s fresh surface water. Thirty percent of the Canadian population lives in the Great Lakes basin, as do 10 percent of Americans. And yet, for whatever reason, no one wondered how the Great Lakes were doing when it comes to plastic contamination. As it turns out, they’re not doing so great. For the past decade or so, the public imagination has been swept up by the tale of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a sprawling region in the central North Pacific ocean littered with plastic debris—mostly small pellets of highly eroded material that became trapped in a vast rotating ocean circulation known as the North Pacific Gyre. An as-of-yet unpublished study by researchers from the State University of New York – Fredonia, led by chemist Sherri Mason, found that three of the five Great Lakes—Erie, Huron and Superior—had plastic contamination that, in the worst cases, outpaces those of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The Toronto Star: Two of the 21 samples they collected contained 600,000 plastic pieces per square kilometre — nearly twice as much as the highest plastic count ever recorded in the infamous Great Pacific Garbage Patch. “Those are very high counts,” Mason said. The team’s least-polluted sample contained 600 pieces per square kilometre. The plastic particles were typically smaller than those found in the Pacific, being less than 5 millimeters wide in general. This means that, though there may be more plastic pieces in some cases, the total mass of plastic is smaller. But still, that may not be a good thing. The Windsor Star: Small plastic particles are particularly problematic because small animals and fish can eat them, potentially affecting the entire food chain as bigger animals eat those animals. EcoWatch.org: “You don’t find microplastic in the ocean like we did in the lakes,” Mason said. “Somewhere in between there it disappears, and we want to know where it’s going.” Mason and her colleagues think that the microplastics could be washing up on beaches, or that it may be entering the food chain if consumed by microorganisms or fish. “There’s this uncertainty right now, so one of the next things we have to do is get out on a boat and look at the food chain to see if the plastic shows up,” Mason said. Since the study has not yet been published, the specific details of the findings aren’t locked in yet. And follow-up research certainly needs to be done to figure out where the plastic came from and what effect, if any, it is having on the Great Lakes ecosystem. But the main result, that there are huge concentrations of teeny plastic pellets floating in the Great lakes, probably isn’t going anywhere. Neither, for that matter, are the plastic pellets. More from Smithsonian.com: High Levels of Plastic and Debris Found in Waters off of Antarctica Synthetic Bacteria Could Turn Ocean Garbage into One Big Island Face to Face With a Garbage Patch at Sea |
Namibia beat Russia in Windhoek to gain over two rating points, while Uganda and Madagascar both climb the World Rugby Rankings after going through the Africa Cup Division 1B campaign unbeaten. Phil Davies’ tenure as head coach of Namibia began on a winning note after the Welwitschias defeated Russia 39-19 in the first of a two-test series in Windhoek on Saturday. Namibia produced their best performance in over a year in Davies' first match in charge with a comprehensive victory over a side ranked three places higher in the World Rugby Rankings going into the match. The margin of victory would have been greater had France-based fly-half Theuns Kotze not missed five kicks at goal as Namibia built on their slender 13-12 half-time lead to pull away from the tiring Russians in the second half. Speedster Russel van Wyk grabbed two tries in a man of the match performance while scrum-half Eugene Jantjies raced away for one of the best tries seen in many a year at the Hage Geingob Stadium. VIEW THE FULL RANKINGS >> The gap between the nations in the World Rugby Rankings has now closed to just two places after Russia lost 2.09 points to fall one place to 20th with Spain the beneficiaries. Namibia remain in 22nd place despite that gain but now are only just over two rating points behind fellow Rugby World Cup 2015 qualifiers Uruguay above them. Namibia captain Jacques Burger, playing in his first test on home soil since 2009, was ecstatic with the win. “I am massively proud of the team; a victory in any test match is great. We defended until the end, stuck to our structures and came away with a win.” New head coach Davies was equally satisfied with the team’s performance in front of a crowd of 3,000. “It was a good performance and good first step on the rung of the ladder towards the World Cup but we know there is still a lot of hard work to do.” Namibia and Russia face each other again at the same venue on Saturday. Uganda win promotion Uganda will compete in Africa’s elite division next season after winning promotion to Division 1A of the Africa Cup. Michael Wokorach scored a hat-trick as the Rugby Cranes followed up earlier wins against Mauritius (35-11) and Ivory Coast (40-11) with a comprehensive, nine-try 59-10 victory against Botswana to claim the Division 1B title. Uganda will replace Tunisia in Division 1A and can now look forward to fixtures against Namibia, Zimbabwe and Kenya in 2016. "We would like to thank everyone for supporting us," said Cranes captain Brian Odongo. "We are back where we belong." Uganda’s climb up the rankings continues apace with a two-place gain taking them to 48th, although they are still seven places below Madagascar, who now occupy 41st position after they too went through the Division 1B campaign unbeaten thanks to a final day 33-24 win over Mauritius. Botswana’s performances over the course of the tournament led to them improving their rankings position by four places to 63rd. In the first game of the day in Kyadondo, Ivory Coast edged out Senegal 22-19. With two narrow defeats and only one win, Senegal suffer a 3.26 point reduction and a 10-place drop to 50th in the world. The Senegalese are now only a fifth of a rating point above Ivory Coast. Meanwhile, Samoa’s historic game against world champions New Zealand in Apia, which saw the All Blacks run out 25-16 winners, did not affect the rankings due to the eight places and 18.31 rating points separating the two nations. Africa Cup Division 1B final standings 1. Uganda - 15 pts 2. Madagascar - 14 3. Senegal - 7 4. Ivory Coast - 5 5. Botswana - 4 6. Mauritius - 0 Results Sun 5 July: Botswana 18-36 Madagascar, Uganda 40-11 Ivory Coast, Senegal 42-3 Mauritius Wed 8 July: Uganda 35-11 Mauritius, Senegal 21-26 Botswana, Madagascar 30-26 Ivory Coast Sat 11 July: Senegal 19-22 Ivory Coast, Madagascar 33-24 Mauritius, Uganda 59-10 Botswana |
Now that this season’s Training Camp is finished, Redskins Capital Connection is going to take an in-depth look at each unit on the team, analysing their strengths, weaknesses, projected starters and points of interest. In the lead up to the Week One game versus the Miami Dolphins, RCC will break down every single unit on the Redskins team. Receivers Unit Coach: Ike Hilliard Projected Starters: DeSean Jackson, Pierre Garcon, Andre Roberts Projected Backups: Ryan Grant, Jamison Crowder On the Bubble: Evan Spencer, Reggie Bell Key Additions With the departure of the veteran Santana Moss, as well as 4th year player Aldrick Robinson, the Redskins needed to bring in at least a couple of players to work behind DeSean Jackson and Pierre Garcon. If this was 2005 and not 2015, the Redskins likely would have splashed money around looking to overpay some of the free agent Wide Receivers that hit the market this offseason such as Torrey Smith or Andre Johnson. But that’s not how Scot McCloughan does business. At picks 105 (4th round) and 187 (6th round) respectively, the Redskins selected Jamison Crowder from Duke and Evan Spencer from Ohio State to join the roster. Neither player had been expected to come in and compete with the established veterans to push for a starting job, but both players would be given every opportunity to compete throughout Training Camp and the preseason to cement themselves as professional footballers worthy of a spot on the final 53 man roster. Among their various abilities and strengths, the size of both Crowder and Spencer is interesting; at 6’2, Evan Spencer is the tallest receiver on the Redskins roster at present by a full 2 inches, and yet at 5’8 Crowder is the smallest receiver by a full 2 inches. How this impacts their chances to make the roster and what they can offer the Redskins is yet to be seen in it’s entirety. Unit Weaknesses It is fair to say that the biggest weakness for the Wide Receivers has been the inconsistent Quarterback play in the past two years, but as this article is focusing purely on the receivers as a unit, we won’t be including that here. Although the trio of Jackson, Garcon and Roberts are all battle-tested veterans, the rest of the receivers on the roster are anything but. Crowder and Spencer are rookies, and 2nd year receiver Ryan Grant has a career total of 7 receptions, 5 of which came in the Week 2 Jacksonville game last year when Jackson hurt his shoulder and left the game. Therefore the issue of reliability and consistency is a huge question mark for this unit. Both Jackson and Garcon have missed some games due to injury in the last three years, and should one of them be hurt during the regular season this year the Redskins would quickly find themselves relying heavily on unproven young players. Then there’s the issue of variety. All of the top five Redskins receivers on our projected Week 1 roster (as above) are remarkably similar players in what they bring to the offense; they are all 6’0 or under and they all rely purely on their speed to either get behind a defense, or to turn short passes into big gains with yards after the catch. Only the 6’2 Evan Spencer has the height to provide a different type of target in the passing game -a true “go up and get it” endzone target. Yet there is every chance Spencer may not make the final roster should the Redskins decide to go with 5 receivers instead of 6. Even if Spencer does make the roster, he has shown in Training Camp that he is raw, and he has battled with drops and getting his timing on routes to be consistent. Unit Strengths Having a weapon of the caliber like DeSean Jackson completely opens up what you can do with an offensive playbook, given that you know any smart defense you face will rarely stack the box against you out of fear that Jackson will burn you deep like only he can. It also means that more often than not Pierre Garcon will be left matched up against the second best Cornerback from opposing teams, and this is something that can and should be used to the Redskins advantage as frequently as possible. When left in single coverage, Garcon has the ability to turn short catches in to huge gains, like this example from the Tennessee game last season. Both Jackson and Garcon are the type of receivers that would certainly give opposition Defensive Coordinators headaches in terms of trying to scheme against them. Both have excellent speed, both have great hands, and both have an uncanny ability to make tacklers miss in the open field. Furthermore, both also have the ability to run a wide variety of different routes, ranging from simple bubble screens and slants, to more complex routes like digs and corners. Neither receiver is afraid of crossing the middle and potentially taking a hit, either, and we have seen both of them put their bodies on the line to pull in catches in traffic, such as this Griffin to Jackson touchdown pass from last year. Although Andre Roberts had a few too many drops on catchable passes last season, he does bring a noticeable veteran presence and attitude to this unit. Like Jackson and Garcon, Roberts is also not afraid to run routes through traffic, and this versatility is a strength that Redskins Offensive Coordinator Sean McVay should seek to build around even further in 2015. Young Player to Watch Given that Roberts had a few drops last year and also didn’t set the world on fire with his work as a returner on both kickoffs and punts, there is an ever-growing contingent of Redskins fans who are lobbying for rookie Jamison Crowder to take Robert’s role as the starting slot receiver and returner. Therefore, most would think that Crowder would be our young player to watch. But he’s not. It’s Ryan Grant. In his second year with the team, Ryan Grant looks noticeably quicker and more confident this year, and he was carrying himself with a permanent “pissed off” demeanor throughout Training Camp that many members of the media contingent noticed at different times, as Grant was perhaps the only player to consistently refuse to do post-practice interviews. Whether this is some new approach to football, or whether there’s something else motivating Grant to be angry, the early indications are that it’s working. He has looked dramatically improved compared to his 2014 self, and Jay Gruden remarked on his progress on the last day of Training Camp, saying the following: “Ryan is a technician is what he is. If you draw a play up on a chalkboard he’ll do it exactly right. He’s very good at doing what he’s asked to do, he’s very defined in all his routes. He’s probably our best route runner, pure route runner. He gets in and out of breaks in a hurry. He’s got big strong hands. I have no trouble, no problem, any time, any place, anywhere lining up with Ryan in a key situation and having him be a focal point. Unfortunately for him, there are a couple of other really really good players in front of him.” Based on both the first preseason game as well as Training Camp, Ryan Grant looks likely to be the backup receiver working directly behind DeSean Jackson. This means the majority of his assignments when he is on the field will be working from the outside receiver position, and he’ll be matching up against some upper echelon quality defenders. If Grant can translate his impressive offseason work into results on the field, he’s certainly going to grow his number of career receptions significantly. Unit Grade B. One of the strongest receiving corps in the National Football League, but it’s being held back by it’s relatively one-dimensional personnel grouping, as well as the inconsistent Quarterback play like we touched on earlier. If Ryan Grant and the rookies can come in this year and be an impressive and reliable supporting cast to the starters Jackson and Garcon, and if the receivers can build and maintain rapport with the Quarterback, then there should be some fun times ahead of this unit. Comments comments Powered by Facebook Comments |
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Mass protests were held in cities across Poland on Monday against the citizens' bill Poland's parliament has voted overwhelmingly to reject a controversial citizens' bill for a near-total ban on abortion. The government said that protests against the bill had given ministers "food for thought". Poland already has among the tightest abortion laws in Europe, and the proposal sought to ban all abortions unless the mother's life was at risk. MPs voted to reject the bill by 352 votes to 58. The bill came from an anti-abortion citizens' initiative that gathered some 450,000 signatures. It was initially backed by the Catholic Church, but bishops then said they could not support one of the proposals, to jail women who had an abortion. Poland's tussle over abortion ban The proposals were not sponsored by Poland's ruling, socially conservative Law and Justice party (PiS) and MPs were given a free vote. However, many PiS MPs initially voted to back the bill when it went before parliament last month. Some 100,000 people, mostly women, protested against the proposals in cities across Poland on Monday and appeared to prompt the PiS to swing against the bill, although the party promotes Catholic values. Image copyright AP Image caption Supporters of an abortion ban in Poland have called the practice "butchery" Prime Minister Beata Szydlo distanced herself from a change to the law and Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Gowin moved to reassure women on Wednesday that a total ban would not get through. "Abortion will certainly not be banned when the woman is the victim of rape or if her life or her health is in danger," he insisted. Since Law and Justice came to power last year, it has been criticised by the EU for taking control of state media appointments and for reforms to Poland's constitutional court. What would have changed? Abortion is already largely banned in Poland. The only exceptions are a severe and irreversible damage to the foetus, a serious threat to the mother's health, or if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. The Stop Abortion campaign group wanted the ban extended to cases of rape and incest. The only exception would have been where the mother's life was in danger. Doctors already risk punishment if they carry out an illegal termination. But the tighter proposals would have made abortion punishable with an five-year prison term. A lesson in humility, by Adam Easton, BBC News, Warsaw In the end this was a bill that not even the Catholic Church could support. Just before the vote in parliament, Poland's bishops put out a statement saying that while they opposed abortion they did not support punishing women for having the procedure. Image copyright AFP Image caption The prime minister (R) distanced herself from the near-total ban earlier this week The proposed ban was not popular amongst most Poles, even though some members of the right-wing ruling party initially supported it. The scale of Monday's protests clearly gave Law and Justice food for thought, and the education and science minister Jaroslaw Gowin spoke about a lesson in humility. After the vote, Prime Minister Beata Szydlo said a pro-life education campaign would be prepared instead. It seems that a 23 year-old compromise, which only allows abortion in cases of rape or incest or when the health of the mother or foetus is seriously endangered, will remain in place. |
For the most part, the long-term unemployed look like the larger pool of unemployed Americans, both those newly out of work and those who've become discouraged by the job market, temporarily or permanently dropping out of the labor pool. But they look more like the population of employed Americans than do the newly unemployed. They are older than the newly unemployed. This chart (like those that follow) compares four populations: the long-term unemployed (people out of work 27 weeks or more), the newly unemployed (those unemployed for fewer weeks), those who've dropped out of the labor pool, and those with work. In this chart, the darker bars indicate older people. The make-up of the long-term unemployed looks somewhat more like the population of employed people than other unemployed groups. A full one-fifth of the population is between 46 and 55 years old. Half as many long-term jobless people are under the age of 26 as among the newly unemployed. Which is part of the reason that they're harder to employ: older workers tend to have higher salaries when they lose their jobs. Notice that the percentage of discouraged workers that is aged 56 to 65 (the darkest bar) is higher than for the long-term unemployed. Often, as North Carolina saw when it ended insurance for the long-term unemployed, older workers will leave the labor force. They are more likely to be African-American. While nearly two-thirds of the employed population is white, according to Mitchell, just under half of the population of the long-term unemployed are not. Particularly, the long term unemployed are about 50 percent more likely to be black than a member of the newly unemployed. They are slightly better educated. Compared to the newly unemployed group, the long-term unemployed are more likely to have a high school education — 64 percent of the long-term unemployed graduated from high school but not college, compared to 60 percent for the newly unemployed. What's stark about this chart, though, is how the populations of the unemployed compare to that of the employed. Ninety-one percent of the employed have at least a high school education. One of the reasons that older people might be more likely to drop out of the workforce is that that, as a Senate report noted last spring, "workers in this age group are less likely to pursue additional job training and education." A 55-year-old isn't as likely to go get the college degree that would open more doors. The long-term unemployed still constitute well over a third of the unemployed population in America. They're people who are less likely to be able to reenter the workforce — obviously — in part because they tend to be the sorts of workers that cost employers more money. But not, at this point, the United States government. This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire. |
Your parents do it. Your neighbor does it, too. Even you have probably been guilty of it. We’re talking, of course, about the time honored tradition of eating in the car. We’d like to think that even folks back in the year 1910 were cruising down the road in their Model Ts munching on a salami or whatever they ate back then. To further enable in-car eaters, the drive-thru was invented resulting in cars being infiltrated by wayward French fries dropped while driving. But no more! McDonald’s Japan has created a special “potato holder” that enables drivers to enjoy fries without having to precariously balance them between their knees or take both hands off the wheel. Starting April 24, patrons who purchase a value meal with a large order of fries will receive a free “potato holder.” The holder is red with the familiar golden arch logo and is made to fit in the cup holder of any car. The campaign, which will only take place in Japan (sorry overseas McDonald’s fans), is expected to last until the end of May. Now if only they added a built-in napkin dispenser so drivers won’t have to wipe their greasy potato fingers on the steering wheel. Source: Hamusoku Images: McD Holdings |
The pink ribbon has become a globally recognised symbol of the fight against breast cancer. And once again, October was deemed a month of awareness for a disease that claims the lives of tens of thousands of women worldwide each year. "I think women with breast cancer now feel much more welcome and comfortable, not just in doctor's offices, but talking openly with their families, with their friends and in their communities, that helps them to get the support that they need." - Dr Elaine Schattner, runs a cancer immunology research lab and a breast cancer survivor There is little doubt that many with cancer have found strength in the knowledge that they are not alone, as a result of such campaigns. An estimated $6bn is raised annually - yet survival rates for those diagnosed have not improved dramatically over the last 20 years. And some have questioned whether, rather than the race for a cure, it is those marketing pink-branded products from Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) to the National Football League (NFL) that are the main financial beneficiaries of awareness campaigns. The role of the Susan G. Komen foundation has come under particular scrutiny. The charity owns stock in pharmaceutical companies, and businesses like General Electric who make mammogram machines. Its sponsors include companies that produce products that have been linked to cancer. "I think that raising awareness was important and we have done that .... It used to be behind some of the male issues now it is [an] issue at the forefront. And perhaps we do need to start redirecting the money toward finding a cure, research and things which maybe hadn't been focused on in the past" - Kim Patton, Foundation Center Critics question whether, as a result, an organisation viewed by many as a pre-eminent authority on breast cancer, is in fact helping stifle much needed debate and research on pinpointing the causes of the disease and its most effective treatment. It is easy to wonder whether donors are getting a good return on their charitable investments. In the US, both state and federal government agencies provide money for research and there are roughly 1,400 IRS-recognised (Internal Revenue Service), tax-exempt charities devoted to breast cancer. An estimated $6bn is raised every year in the name of breast cancer but not all that money goes to research or even grants. For example, the NFL sells pink breast cancer awareness gear, and it says the proceeds go to the American Cancer Society. But, only five per cent of sales go to American Chemical Society (ACS), meaning that the NFL is keeping the vast majority of money from the sale of pink merchandise. And even though massive amounts of money have been raised, a cure remains elusive. Breast cancer remains the leading cancer killer among women ages 20 to 59. In 2012, 110 women died every day of breast cancer compared to the 119 daily breast cancer deaths in 1991. So what impact are breast cancer awareness campaigns having? To discuss this, Inside Story Americas, with presenter Shihab Rattansi, is joined by guests: Karuna Jaggar, executive director of Breast Cancer Action; Elaine Schattner, a doctor who ran a cancer immunology research lab and is a breast cancer survivor herself; and Kim Patton, who works for the Foundation Center, an organisation that trains charities and non-profit groups. "This grassroots movement of activists to really bring breast cancer out of the closet was very important in destigmatising the disease as well as bringing much needed resources to the disease. Unfortunately today that awareness is stopping us from actually moving in the directions that we need to move .... In the last 30 years, despite the billions ... that is raised in the name of and spent on breast cancer, we simply are not seeing a reduction in incidents nor are we seeing improvement in the mortality for women diagnosed with the disease .... Thirty years after the sort of push for more awareness and resources for breast cancer, we still can't explain more than half of our breast cancers .... We have a long way to go in understanding the disease and we have a long way to go in terms of stopping this epidemic." Karuna Jaggar, executive director of Breast Cancer Action Source: Al Jazeera |
Call of Duty DLC has been tweaked over the past couple of games to now include other items such as Zombies chapters. And it appears that Infinite Warfare could change things a little again with something else being supplied for those wanting to play the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered title over the next year. While nothing has been officially confirmed, Raven Software did have some interesting things to say about how they will be supporting the game following launch later this year. Raven Software's director, David Pellas commented on the subject of new content: “We’re are not announcing any new content.” “The plans is not just to launch a great game in November, the six additional maps for everyone who bought it, we’ve been sitting on that announcement for a while now. “We have full intention of supporting this game for quite sometime. What form does that support come in? I think fans are going to be really excited about some of the things that we’ve got kicking around at Raven. |
With Atari turning 40 this year it’s only fit that they give their fans a birthday present. So they’re teaming up with Microsoft and the HTML5 experts at gskinner.com to bring eight of their best and most popular classic games to Internet browsers everywhere. As Atari working with Microsoft, the games will be optimized to work with Internet Explorer 10 but don’t worry, they’ll work just as well on any other browser. You will however be subject to adverts if you use any browser other than IE10. The eight games that will be available are: Asteroids, Combat, Centipede, Lunar Lander, Missile Command, Pong, Super Breakout and Yar’s Revenge but Atari want to have over 100 games in its library which will probably be released periodically over the next few months. Some games will include multi-player and some will utilize multi-touch technology, bringing a modern touch (geddit?) to these retro games and of course the look of the games are to be updated too, which means quite a lot of work is involved in this project. Playing on a joystick back in the day was great but now touchscreen is in and Atari is embracing this. Playing classic games such as breakout and pong on a tablet will be good fun and the progression from joystick to touch will not only feel natural, it will give gamers a whole new way to play these games. You can play them now at Atari Arcade and you can soon, on your Windows 8 tablet. There’s no offline version available sadly so at the moment, you can only play Asteroids when you’re online. |
The Nipple Party protesters got exactly what they wanted. They laughed with friends, cruised through Victoria Park checking out the food booths and listened to live music. Around a half dozen topless women — along with a handful of shirtless men — blended in with the thousands of people flooding the downtown park for the second day of TD Sunfest on Friday night. Organizers of the demonstration said they were taking a stand against the shame of going shirtless in public. “Why do we have to be sexualized? Why can’t we just be?” said event organizer Emily Monchamp, 19. Protester Ilana Walker, 21, said it felt liberating to walk through the crowded park bare chested. Television, movies and magazines show too many women with breast implants, leaving youngsters with a warped impression of breasts, she said. “Young women should grow up knowing what real boobs look like," Walker said. The demonstrators attracted a few gawkers along the way, though most people walked by without even noticing — or caring. Some parents, however, shielded their children’ eyes as the topless women approached. “I’m a married woman so I really think there’s only one place to take off your shirt,” said one mother, who declined to give her name. Two security guards watched the demonstration from a distance, but said they weren’t planning on breaking it up. Women have been legally allowed to go topless in Ontario thanks to a Guelph University student who removed her top on a hot day in 1991. Gwen Jacobs was arrested and the case wound its way through the courts until the student’s conviction was overturned in 1996. dale.carruthers@sunmedia.ca Twitter.com/DaleatLFPress |
Bali Nine member Myuran Sukumaran to be executed after decision is made on Andrew Chan clemency Updated Indonesia plans to start executing death row inmates this weekend, but so far the two Australians facing the death penalty in Bali will not be among them. Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan have both been on death row since 2006 for their parts in the so-called Bali Nine's attempt to traffic heroin to Australia. Both men applied for presidential pardons after exhausting all other avenues of appeal. Sukumaran has been denied a pardon, while Chan is still awaiting an answer. Indonesian president Joko Widodo has indicated he would not give clemency for drug cases. His attorney-general, HM Prasetyo, announced that six narcotics death row inmates would face a firing squad on Sunday but Sukumaran would not be among them. "His clemency has been rejected, now we are waiting on the decision on the clemency request made by another man, Andrew Chan," Mr Prasetyo said. He said because Sukumaran and Chan committed the crime together, they must be executed together, and the date of Sukumaran's execution depended on whether Chan received clemency. Indonesia is known for its tough approach to drug offenders and the new government has been keen to show it would be no exception. "[This is] because Indonesia has become the biggest market in south-east Asia," Mr Prasetyo said, adding that up to 50 Indonesians a day die from drugs. "Forty-five per cent of all drugs productions is for Indonesia. That's astonishing. "There are so many victims and most of them are young people, productive age. I'm very concerned about this." Mr Prasetyo said he had not had any requests from Australia for leniency in the case. "Indonesia will make no compromise with drugs syndicates and we will be consistent in our hard and firm stance," he said. Sorry, this video has expired Video: Professor Greg Craven says executions unacceptable (ABC News) The head of a campaign to save the lives of Sukumaran and Chan said they had genuinely reformed and should not be killed. The Mercy Campaign's spokesman, Australian Catholic University vice-chancellor Greg Craven, said the two men were worthy of clemency. "An interesting thing about these two men is they really have reformed," he said. "They engage in community activity, they engage in counselling activity, they try and perform charitable works. "If you have got people who have reformed, for whatever reason, what's the point in killing them?" Topics: prisons-and-punishment, drug-offences, law-crime-and-justice, indonesia, asia, australia First posted |
At least two American marines were killed in an attack on a Nato base in Afghanistan in the early hours of Saturday morning. Taliban attackers are believed to have breached the perimeter of Camp Bastion and damaged buildings, hangers and aircraft. The base is the same one where Prince Harry arrived a week ago to begin a four month tour flying Apache helicopters. There is no suggestion he was close to the fighting. A Ministry of Defence spokesman in London said: "We are aware of an incident that has taken place at Camp Bastion, which is currently being dealt with." A spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) in Afghanistan said: "I can confirm there was an attack involving small arms fire." A US official said the attack killed two marines and wounded several troops. A number of aircraft and buildings at the base were hit by insurgent fire. The official said: "The attack is long over and now UK and US forces are in the process of conducting an assessment to discover the extent of the damage and go through the camp to make sure everything is secure." The attack was aimed at Camp Leatherneck, the US sector of Camp Bastion which is the main American base in southern Afghanistan. Although Bastion is a British base, it is also home to American, Estonian, Danish and Afghan troops. It has two runways, a hospital and is the supply hub for southern Afghanistan handling thousands of flights of every month. The base is in desert several miles outside of Lashkar Gar, the capital of Helmand province. A Washington official said the attack involved a range of weapons, possibly including mortars, rockets or rocket-propelled grenades, as well as small arms. The base is often subject to mortar fire, but officials in Afghanistan said the damage was far more severe than normal. |
LOS ANGELES - First Lady Michelle Obama urged Hollywood on Monday to showcase the strength of US service families, as she used a trip to Tinsel Town to support those with loved ones on the frontline. Obama, also here to record a cameo appearance on hit TV show iCarly, appealed to writers, producers and actors to use their creative skills to depict the reality of life for families of those in war zones. "Be creative. Be funny. Be powerful," she told the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, the Directors Guild of America, the Producers Guild of America, Screen Actors Guild and the Writers Guild of America West. "They're strong. They don't complain. They don't ask for much," she added. "Move us. Move America to think differently about these families that serve America so graciously." Obama's schedule Monday also included recording an appearance on hit television comedy iCarly, to help promote Joining Forces, which aims to boost support for military families. "We are big fans of iCarly. This is an example of the way that we can integrate these story lines into shows, and it’s important for kids to hear themselves in the shows that they love," she said ahead of the taping. "I’ve been memorizing my lines -- I am terrified," she added, to laughter. "I can give a speech, I can talk to you all, but oh, I’m shaking, yes." The episode -- in which she appears as part of a web chat between the show's main character, Carly Shay, and her father serving overseas in the military -- is expected to air in January. Hollywood is more used to making films about the US military on the frontline: last month producers confirmed plans by Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow for a movie about the killing of Osama bin Laden. Obama also attended a 1,000-dollar a plate fundraiser Monday on her first day in California, where governor Jerry Brown was one of few gains for her husband's Democrats, routed by Republicans in November mid-term elections. |
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The National Archives -- a repository of important government documents, including the U.S. Constitution -- has lost a computer hard drive containing large volumes of Clinton administration records, including the names, phone numbers and Social Security numbers of White House staff members and visitors. The National Archives has lost a hard drive containing large volumes of Clinton administration records. Officials at the Archives say they don't know how many confidential records are on the hard drive. But congressional aides briefed on the matter say it contains "more than 100,000" Social Security numbers, including one belonging to a daughter of then-Vice President Al Gore. It also contains Secret Service and White House operating procedures, the staffers said they were told. The hard drive was last seen in the National Archive's complex in College Park, Maryland, sometime between October of last year and the first week of February. It was discovered missing in late March, prompting a thorough search for the small, 2.5 pound device, the Archives said. When it could not be located, the inspector general's office opened a criminal investigation. On Wednesday, the Archives announced a $50,000 reward for information leading to its return. The Archives said no national security information is on the hard drive, nor any original documents. But they said it does contain "personally identifiable information," and they take the loss "very seriously." U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-California, whose staff was briefed on the matter, said the House will hold a hearing Thursday on the incident. "If they [the National Archives' staff] can't handle a hard drive that may be sensitive properly, we need to ask the question, will they handle the most secret materials properly?" Issa said. The Archives Wednesday gave the following account of the disappearance: Last October, the hard drive was moved from a "secure" storage area to a workspace where it was being used for routine recopying to ensure preservation of the records. But work was halted last year because archivists "wanted to investigate using automated tools to generate inspection reports." Staffers were moved to other projects until an automated tool was found in mid-March -- that's when they found the hard drive was missing. The device is described as a two terabyte Western Digital MY BOOK external hard drive, measuring 6.5 x 2.1 x 5.4 inches. More than 110 4-millimeter tape cartridges were copied onto the hard drive. The records included records from the Clinton Administration Executive Office of the President. The archives said no original records have been lost, and the Archives has a backup hard drive that will enable them to determine what information is on the missing device. The inspector general said at least 100 people had access to the area where the hard drive was left unsecured, and that janitors, visitors and others also passed through the area. The Archives said it is reviewing the data on a copy of the missing hard drive and compiling a list of people whose personal information may be compromised. It will notify individuals of the potential breach and will provide them with a year of credit monitoring, the Archives said. "Because of the extremely large volume of data on the drive, we do not know yet the number of individuals whose privacy has been affected," the Archives said Wednesday. "As individuals are identified, they will be notified." The Archives also said it has taken steps to improve security, including both physical control of records and the treatment of personal information. All About National Archives and Records Administration • Bill Clinton • Al Gore |
As the Brexit vote sank in last Friday, I was invited on air by Today FM and found myself trapped between Sinn Féin MEP Matt Carthy and former Taoiseach John Bruton. “United Ireland now!” demanded Carthy, or words to that effect. “Let us end the waste of duplicated services.” “So you’d sack public sector workers?” asked Bruton. “No!” replied Carthy. “Not a one!” The topic then turned to a Border poll, which Bruton dismissed on the grounds that a nationalist victory, even if possible, would spark loyalist violence. Listening to this down the line, my first thought was: when will these southerners stop arguing? My next thought was that nationalism’s two great fears of a united Ireland – redundancies and rioting – are greatly overplayed by nationalists themselves. Sinn Féin has just arranged its own demonstration of why slashing duplication is a political non-event. A key part of Stormont’s Fresh Start agreement is a huge redundancy deal, initially aiming for a permanent 10 per cent reduction in employment across the public sector by targeting 20,000 staff, although 10,000 is now the official headline figure. When negotiations on this were revealed last year, Sinn Féin came under pressure from the media and left-wing opponents north and south. The party made as many equivocal noises as it could, at one point claiming it would not agree to any job reductions. Yet within a month of Fresh Start being signed last December, half the redundancy target had been met as civil servants rushed for the gilded exits. In the Stormont election this May, the redundancies were a discernible issue only in the two constituencies where People Before Profit successfully challenged Sinn Féin and it would be fanciful to suggest it was a critical issue even there. Regarding it as an obstacle to Irish unity seems bizarre. Northern Ireland is a small place with a high level of public employment. Privileged public sector Everybody knows the state payroll is far from replete with selfless Stakhanovites. Nobody is keen to die in a ditch for the most privileged part of the workforce, especially as the focus of any all-Ireland rationalisation would be on management and bureaucracy. If Sinn Féin really wants something to worry about, it should consider unfunded public sector pensions – a liability so horrendous that London and Edinburgh simply blanked it during preparations for the last Scottish independence bid. Ironically, EU rules mean a rump UK could not help a united Ireland with this cost even if it wanted to. However, that is all the more reason to ditch the North’s surplus paper-pushers as quickly as possible. Every day they linger builds up the pensions they think they have earned. Fear of loyalist violence in a united Ireland is understandable but inconsistent. A fundamental basis of nationalist ideology is that Britain is responsible for the organised manifestations of loyalism, from the strategic down to the detailed operational level. If the UK is about to break up, casually or even willingly, this can no longer apply. That leaves disorganised loyalism, which is certainly not to be disregarded. If removing one union flag from Belfast City Hall can convulse Northern Ireland for months, how much chaos would ensue from dismantling the union itself? This question, which is frequently heard, makes too neat an association between the flag and the union. Those protesting the flag’s removal from 2012 onwards complained first and foremost not about their place in the UK but about the erosion of their culture and identity. The rest of society, including many unionists, found this laughable – protesters seemed to have little knowledge of British culture beyond its basic symbols. Nevertheless, that is what exercised them, to an extent that suggests symbolism might ease a transition of sovereignty en route to a united Ireland. Cultural conflict Parade-related violence could be seen the same way. Rather than being a harbinger of worse to come in a constitutional conflict, it may be as bad as it gets in a cultural conflict. There has not been widespread public disorder over a specifically constitutional development in Northern Ireland since the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement – and that was far from spontaneous. Sinn Féin took down the flag from Belfast City Hall as an act of antagonism, openly indicating that it considered unionist insecurity to be fair game. There have since been numerous signs of the party moderating this view, although it is too much to hope that any organisation led by Gerry Adams will abandon troublemaking entirely. Unionism is disturbingly lacking in leadership for the momentous challenges ahead – Arlene Foster’s performance as First Minister has been graceless and arrogant so far. Despite campaigning for Brexit, she seems glibly unprepared for what it has unleashed. However, on nationalism’s two specific concerns about mass lay-offs and mass disturbances, calamity is not inevitable. |
I know Porsche 911 prices are off the chart these days, but I’m struggling to believe this 911S barn find is really worth $125,000! Price guides are showing top shelf examples fetching $260k or more, so maybe they aren’t as far off as I thought. I get that air cooled Porsches are in demand right now, but are they really worth this kind of money? I’ll let you guys debate that topic, but let’s take a closer look at this one. It isn’t running and needs work, but it’s surprisingly solid for having been parked for 20 years. It’s located in Australia, so be sure to take shipping into account when you make an offer! Hey, if your going to spend that kind of money on a project, the least they can do is throw in shipping. You can find it here on eBay in Kingswood, Australia. It doesn’t seem that long ago that I was looking at relatively low mileage ’70s 911s and thinking $10k was way too much to spend on a high performance Volkswagen. Don’t get me wrong, they are so much better than a Beetle, I just can’t help but think of the cheap little Bug every time I see an older 911. They really are superb cars to drive. One of the reasons this one is so valuable is that it’s an S, which means its 2.4 liter boxer 6 is good for 190 horsepower. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but was a decent amount of power a 2,200 pound car with the engine hanging out back. It’s definitely enough power to get yourself into trouble with, but that’s the thrill of driving a rear engine sports car. So what do you think is driving the values of these cars? Is it purely a market fad that will die off or is value being driven by rarity and how good of cars they are? I know we’ve talked a lot about the P-Car bubble before, but I’m curious to see why you guys think these have gone up so much in value recently and if you think prices will ever drop back down! |
Conservative theologian J.P. Moreland once wrote, “The contemporary Christian mind is starved, and as a result we have small, impoverished souls.” Indeed, Western Christianity, particularly in its evangelical Protestant expressions has often been accused of anti-intellectualism by the secular academy. Enter Alan Jacobs–both a Christian and distinguished professor of humanities at Baylor University–and his newest book, “How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds.” He argues that in a world of “alternative facts” and “truthiness,” most of us are not as good at thinking as we assume. But all is not lost, Jacobs says, because it is possible to reclaim our mental lives without sacrificing our inner lives. Here we discussed via email the common intellectual pitfalls of American Christians and how they can learn to better love God with their minds. RNS: What do you see is the core problem with many “thinkers?” AJ: It’s hard to name just one thing — there are so many problems! So much bad thinking! But if I were forced to name one universal one it would be a lack of awareness of our own motives and incentives. A failure to realize that there are forces at work on and in all of us to discourage thought or even prevent it altogether. RNS: What about American Christians, generally speaking? Are they good thinkers? AJ: Ummm … not so much. RNS: How can followers of Jesus become better critical thinkers? Give us one or two points that come to mind. AJ: Christians of all people ought to be attentive to our own shortcomings, and the ways our dispositions of mind and heart and spirit can get in the way of knowing what’s true. After all, we’e the people who are supposed to believe that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” and “the heart is deceitfully wicked above all things” and that sort of stuff. If we want to think better, then the first step should be to take those beliefs as seriously as many of us say we do, and to turn a ruthlessly skeptical eye on ourselves — before we turn it on our neighbors. There’s a line about specks in our neighbors’ eyes and logs in our own that applies here. There’s a lot more to say, obviously, but I think self-skepticism is the place to begin. RNS: Alan Wolfe once said that 20th century conservative evangelicalism ranks least among religious groups in terms of intellectual stature. What do you think? AJ: Certainly it’s true if by “stature” you mean “reputation among other groups.” If by “stature” you mean “actual intellectual achievement” then the situation is more complicated. But there’s no question that conservative evangelicalism — within which I include fundamentalism — has been an overwhelmingly activist movement that has had little time for scholarly, or more generally intellectual, reflection. (Souls must be saved!) There’s also no question that conservative evangelicals have rarely cared what anyone else thought about their intellectual standards, and that kind of not-caring is no way to build stature. These tendencies — activism and indifference to general public opinion — are not always bad. Indeed, at times they have served the evangelical movement well, by keeping it on mission. But an unconditional emphasis on activism can easily become anti-intellectual, which can restrain people from thinking about matters they really need to think about. After all, effective activism will be informed activism. Similarly, if you don’t care what anyone else thinks about you, you can easily find yourself locked in an echo-chamber. It can become what C. S. Lewis called an “Inner Ring,” a self-congratulating, self-justifying circle of people who are “in the right.” So overall, I think conservative evangelicals have paid a hefty price for being unreflective and self-enclosed — too hefty a price. RNS: The Bible says to love God with, among other things, our minds. Does this factor into what it means to be a thinker? AJ: For me, it sure does! I wrote this book for a general audience, hoping to reach many people who are not Christians as well as my fellow believers. But the fact that we Christians and are indeed commanded to love the Lord with all our minds ought to give us a powerful added incentive to think our best thoughts — if I may steal and change a Joel Osteen line. (But maybe if I’m stealing lines from Joel Osteen I’m not thinking my best thoughts now.) More seriously, St. Augustine gave us a great warning, many centuries ago, of the dangers Christians court when they fail to use their minds — especially in matters of what we now call science: Often, a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other parts of the world, about the motions and orbits of the stars and even their sizes and distances, … and this knowledge he holds with certainty from reason and experience. It is thus offensive and disgraceful for an unbeliever to hear a Christian talk nonsense about such things, claiming that what he is saying is based in Scripture. We should do all we can to avoid such an embarrassing situation, which people see as ignorance in the Christian and laugh to scorn. RNS: What are some myths about thinking that people of faith often hold? AJ: Continuing my pattern of insulting people across the spectrum, theological as well as political, I’ll mention two opposing ones. For many theologically conservative folk, thinking is often opposed to faith: if you’re thinking too much, asking too many questions, you’re not living in the kind of simple childlike faith that we all (according to this theory) are supposed to have. The liberal or progressive counterpart of that is when people congratulate themselves on having open minds and questioning spirits when they have never questioned for a moment the core principles of their own liberalism or progressivism, and would be horrified if anyone in their church did so. Consider this statement: “Only those who openly confess Jesus as Lord can be saved.” In some conservative Christian communities the truth of that statement is unquestionable; in some progressive Christian communities the falsehood of it is equally unquestionable. The moral of the story: you can rarely tell whether someone has done serious thinking simply by finding out what positions he or she holds. RNS: How does social media affect our ability to think well? AJ: A great many extremely smart people work diligently every day to make Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook et al. into reaction-stimulation engines powerful enough to jolt you into obsessive, ceaselessly repetitive reactions–like-retweet-repost-snark, like-retweet-repost-snark, like-retweet-repost-snark. Faster and faster and faster, sweating, laughing hysterically, shouting with outrage, screaming obscenities. Who has time to read posts or even tweets, much less inquire further to establish context or fact-check claims? Let’s not kid ourselves. The entire architecture of every social-media service militates relentlessly against thinking. The kind of eyeball-and-finger control those sites thrive on is wholly incompatible with thinking. RNS: You say that the terms “open-minded” and “close-minded” are nonsensical. Why? AJ: Have you noticed that people only praise others for being open-minded when those people are moving closer to the praiser’s preferred ideas? If a member of a community starts to express doubts about that community’s core beliefs, he or she won’t be celebrated as open-minded but rather condemned for being weak-willed, vacillating, cowardly, maybe even a traitor to the cause. So when people give a thumbs-up to open-mindedness, that’s typically not really what they mean. It’s more a case of “good for you, you’re becoming more like me.” RNS: But there is a difference between someone who is open to new possibilities and ideas (what we call “open-minded”) and someone who is not, yes? AJ: I would dissent from the question’s assumption that being “open to new possibilities and ideas” is the same as being generally open-minded. People open to the new are often not at all open to the old. They like the new because it’s new. They are, as the term of art has it, neophilic. Other people are neophobic, they fear and mistrust the new; but those people are often inclined to find value in ideas and practices from the past. They are more open-minded about old ideas than neophilics are. This is another one of those things that I’m not sure how to measure or evaluate, but for what it’s worth, I’m inclined to think that every mind is open in some directions and closed in others. Those directions just vary from person to person, and from time to time. You might hear someone claim to be open-minded because of, say, a willingness to listen seriously to the experiences of transgender people; but you’ll never hear that person claim to be open-minded because of a willingness to listen seriously to the arguments of those who want to confine the vote to men. It’s obviously not wrong to be skeptical about restricting the franchise to men! Even if we could be generally open-minded, which I deny, it wouldn’t be healthy to be open to any and all ideas. There is such a thing as a proper firmness of conviction — a proper reluctance to changing your mind about some things. But I suspect — I don’t know, but merely suspect — almost all of us will be sometimes too firm, sometimes not firm enough, depending on circumstances. RNS: You say it is impossible to “think for yourself.” What do you mean by that? AJ: Since I finished my book, another book came out that makes this point better and in far more detail than I could. In The Knowledge Illusion: Why We never Think Alone, Steven Slomanand Philip Fernbach explain, using several interesting experiments, that very few of us know as much as we think we do. Instead, we find ways to count the knowledge that people around us have as our own. We typically don’t know enough individually to form knowledgeable, nuanced views about new technologies and scientific developments. We simply have no choice but to adopt the positions of those we trust. Our attitudes and those of the people around us thus become mutually reinforcing. And the fact that we have a strong opinion makes us think that there must be a firm basis for our opinion, so we think we know a lot, more than in fact we do. So we are always thinking along with others. We are always dependent on what others think. We need to think with others. So what we must focus on is choosing the best others we can find to think with. If I have to trust other people, I need to practice due diligence to ensure, as best I can, that they’re trustworthy. CHECK OUT “HOW TO THINK: A SURVIVAL GUIDE FOR A WORLD AT ODDS” BY ALAN JACOBS |
In a team talk here the former United manager told Paul McGinley’s men to exploit their recent dominance in the event by turning Gleneagles into a Ryder Cup “fortress”. Rory McIlroy, a United fan, confessed to being in a “trance” as he listened. McIlroy said: “They were obviously favourites, and whenever he was managing they made Old Trafford a bit of a fortress. When teams went there, it was very hard to compete against United. He was just talking a bit about that. “We're slight favourites for a reason. We deserve to be. We've played well this year. It's not something that we should shy away from. It's something that we should embrace.” Ferguson’s influence was clear in those remarks. McIlroy called the speech “the highlight of the week so far” and said: “I was just sitting there and looking up at him, and I didn't take my eyes off him. I was sort of in this trance just listening to everything that he was saying and I'm sort of thinking, this is all the stuff that he's probably said to Manchester United teams over the years. “He told us a couple stories just of past experiences in some big games and big matches, and some of the players that he managed, and it was a great evening. It was a really cool thing to be a part of. “Look, not everyone in that room is a Manchester United fan, and they made that known. But very useful, because we got to ask some questions, just about different things and what he thought was the key element to being successful, and successful as a team. “Yeah, he's a very inspirational sort of man when he talks. He's got a lot of authority and the room just goes quiet and everyone listens. So as I said, it was a great experience for everyone, obviously, but especially for me being a big Manchester United fan.” Team talks have become major currency at Ryder Cups. Sergio Garcia recalled the inspirational effect of talking to Seve Ballesteros in a conference call at Celtic Manor. McIlroy said: “These things, they help. They are little details in the bigger picture, but it would be that half a per cent or that one per cent that helps us to get back that little trophy.” Garcia added: “I am a Real Madrid fan and probably not his biggest fan in the world, but when you have the possibility of listening to somebody who has been up there in sports, and even if it's not sports, it's always interesting to kind of pick his brain and see what things he's gone through and stuff. It was really, really interesting, and I'm actually glad that I got to know him a little bit better and listen to him a little bit.” Garcia said Ferguson emphasised: “Hard-working, confidence, belief, never giving up. You know, just keep fighting until the end. It doesn't matter if you're 2-down with three to go or 5-down with eight to go. So even if you lose, at least make it as tight as possible.” Stephen Gallacher, a debutant in the team this week, noticed: "Just how sort of confident a person he was. I kind of knew he was, anyway, but to hear him talking, you can see why the players respected him so much and how he got 13 titles. You can see his sort of passion for the game and how much he loves football and how much he loves the strategy and the game. He misses it a bit he said, but you know, an absolute legend in my eyes." - In pics: Introducing the Team USA Wags - Oliver Brown: When Tiger felt the force of Mickelson's barbs - Paul Hayward: Rory McIlroy rides into battle for immortality - James Corrigan: Who I would pick for Europe on day one - James Corrigan: The all-time Ryder Cup dream team - Jonathan Liew's brilliant alternative team guides |
Last Thursday marked a significant milestone in San Antonio governance. San Antonio Mayor Ivy Taylor and City Council grappled with the relatively new issue of ridesharing in our city. While the concept has existed elsewhere in the country for years now, we began the conversation when Lyft and Uber arrived here nine months ago. It’s a relevant and critical aspect in our present society that we can all agree needs to be thoughtfully implemented moving forward. Regardless of which side of the issue you may agree with, the Council, Chief McManus, and the Public Safety Committee worked exhaustively to achieve a regulatory scheme for ridesharing companies up to this point. Despite the passage of regulations for Transportation Network Companies (TNCs), as they are categorized legally in the new ordinance, the code is more stringent than in any other city in the United States. As a consequence, we are in a very precarious situation whereby we could potentially alienate ridesharing companies altogether, or perhaps lead the way for other cities to follow suit. Whether Uber and Lyft decide to stay in San Antonio under the circumstances will dictate where we go from here. In the former scenario, we are faced with a governmental and public policy failure of disastrous proportions, considering our lack of public transit options and rampant DUI issues that face our city. In the latter scenario, we are testing the limits of free enterprise. As an owner of Do210, a website reaching many 21-35-year-olds, I support ridesharing, a service that enhances the lives of many of our readers. Ridesharing technology is one more innovative step toward building competition in a city that not only sorely lacks a comprehensive public transportation system, but fails to address serious DUI issues. Lack of public transit options, coupled with an effort to bring down the only source of competition to the taxi cab industry, has created a conundrum where, before now, it’s been as expensive, if not more, to take a taxi from Southtown to Stone Oak than to purchase an airline ticket to Houston or Dallas. This is not only unfortunate, but frankly, absurd. Left to its own devices, how can we expect the taxi companies to self-regulate without competition in a city that continues to endure a public transportation crisis? I’ve used ridesharing for almost five years as an attorney, band manager, and road manager in cities including New York, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. I’ve never encountered an issue. To the contrary, I’ve needed, at times, to travel through four cities over three days, relying heavily on rideshare options as the primary source of ground transportation for a crew of up to 10 people. The drivers and services themselves have been courteous, professional, and most importantly, punctual, in my experience. Ridesharing is affordable. Taxis are expensive. In the case of San Antonio, most citizens here cannot afford them. From a public policy standpoint, we are faced with a two-fold predicament. We live in a city that has one of the highest per capita DUI problems in the State of Texas, and San Antonio stands out in Texas with the highest rate of alcohol-related fatalities. Will enabling rideshare solve this problem? No, but it provides one more option or incentive for the inebriated concertgoer or bar-hopper to consider while weighing the risk of driving across the 400-plus square miles of our city. As long as there are no other options besides one business collective whose prices at times rival intrastate airfare, we can expect more of the same (DWI fatalities, wrong-way drivers, and otherwise decent citizens who become ensnared in this escalating law enforcement and public safety crisis). As we push forward to further attract Millennials to our dynamic city, we also must realize the burgeoning nightlife they expect, and the growing concert business that continues to develop here. People are going to go out, they’re going to eat, drink, and if they don’t have meaningful alternatives, they will drive. When ridesharing first arrived in San Antonio, I was elated. Without remuneration, I embraced the opportunity to spread awareness for the services offered through our own marketing efforts at Do210.com. This started with the grand opening of the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts. As a company, and again, without compensation, we elected to share the advertising space on the Tobin video wall with Uber. Why, you may ask? Well, between the 2,500 people inside the performance hall and theater, and more than 1,000 people on the plaza, many had been drinking. Uber offered free rides to and from the Tobin Center that evening. On the same day, District Attorney Susan Reed was in attendance and remarked about Uber on the video wall while telling me how much she loves Uber. “Whatever it takes to curb DUIs in San Antonio, right?” she said. At the time, this seemed particularly insightful to me coming from Bexar County’s top law enforcement official. To my knowledge, there were no taxi companies offering free rides that evening. As Graham Weston pointed out in his earlier piece on this subject, the Millennial generation wants urban living options and strongly desires better transportation options to get from point A to point B without relying on a personal vehicle. Many of these same Millennials we seek (as a city) to attract have already grown accustomed to using these rideshare features in the cities where they’ve grown up. It is and has been a big part of their everyday life. Young people want the same options they can find in other cities. By failing to provide a service that’s already been active in more than 250 cities, do we really want to set ourselves apart in this way as the city that progress forgot? Do we really want to set ourselves apart as the city in Texas with arguably the biggest DUI issue that offers no other viable public transportation options? Perhaps the bigger discussion with regard to ridesharing is the lack of focus on the greater message our leadership sends to a very vocal minority group, rewarding small special interest opposition to the detriment of our community. Lobbyists swarm the halls and property of City Hall to deride or inveigh against rideshare and other proposed ideas. Our leadership needs to take greater note of the overwhelming support for these common sense ideas. Remarkably, people from the cyber world composed the majority in attendance Thursday, albeit with little impact to the sitting members of The Council. In the 21st century, collectivism exists in the cyber realm more fervently than any group of people who have time to demonstrate in person. Widespread support for these ideas exists in our community, well beyond the physical lobbying tactics of one group. Leadership should remain mindful of the balance between regulation and free enterprise and know that negating competition through regulation zeroes out the benefit to the consumer public. These services must be affordable for them to be viable. They are all not one and the same. Not even the ridesharing companies themselves are the same from one to the next. For instance, Uber is a heavily capitalized company with global reach, whereas Lyft (often overshadowed by Uber) is a mere fraction of the size. I implore the Council to work with all ridesharing companies between now and the effective date of the law itself, which could likely have the effect of nullifying one or more transportation options: alternatives that could have the potential of saving an untold number of lives on a daily basis. There is more work that needs to be accomplished between now and then, and even after. We cannot lament DUI tragedies while effectively canceling efforts to mitigate those problems. We need to embrace all attempts to curb the DUI problem. If we lose Lyft or Uber, we have failed to address the public safety crisis of driving under the influence. Our citizens need as many options available to them as possible to prevent them from getting behind the wheel of an automobile while intoxicated. This is the true public safety concern, rather than isolated incidents in India or lawsuits in California and Portland that the taxi industry cites as reasons to dump rideshare. DUIs are an everyday problem in our city. It’s incumbent upon our leadership in the city to acknowledge this first while balancing the public safety concerns or rideshare that have had a minimal impact on society in the 250 other cities that have embraced it. I encourage all rideshare drivers to voluntarily submit to the 10-finger background checks immediately to dispel any question about passenger safety. I see no real barrier or reason for San Antonio rideshare drivers not to go through this process right now. This seems like a reasonable policy in light of some questions that have been raised in legal proceedings in other states and questions about the actual depth of Uber’s background checks. After submitting to the 10-finger background check, there should be no question about the identity and background of the driver of a vehicle. Will this cure all public safety concerns about taxi or rideshare drivers? It’s tough to say, because taxis themselves are not immune to public safety concerns regarding their drivers. Just last week a licensed taxi driver in Ohio was arrested for sexually assaulting a passenger. In some sense, we all assume an inherent risk by getting into the vehicle of a stranger, regardless of whether they are a taxi, Lyft, or Uber driver. That’s life. I challenge the leadership of our city to consider the lives we can save by striking the proper balance between regulation and free enterprise. In this instance, it is the benchmark by which we will not only address this issue, but many more to come. The stakes here could not be higher with the epidemic of DUIs in our city persisting on a daily basis. We cannot afford to let one or more of these companies leave our city. Let’s do our best to give all of them the opportunity to conduct business and provide jobs where none existed before. Related Stories: See all rideshare coverage here. San Antonio Imposes Strict Rideshare Rules Commentary: Why Regulating Uber and Lyft is Such a Big Deal Villarreal Backs Rideshare, Van de Putte Follows Suit Graham Weston: A City on the Rise Needs Rideshare New Rules Could Scare Off Rideshare Rideshare Rules Go to City Council |
When asked whether Republicans would pull together Friday, Congressman Matt Gaetz told the Associated Press: “I sure hope so, or we’ll have the opportunity to watch a unified Democratic caucus impeach Donald Trump in two years when we lose the majority.” But make no mistake, Trump is playing a dangerous game by forcing a vote on Friday. A defeat would mean he’d failed to deliver his first key piece of legislation and let a key campaign pledge slide. It would be seen as hugely embarrassing for the president. Late Thursday night Trump sent top administration officials to the Capitol to deliver his ultimatum, and a vote is now scheduled to take place Friday morning. Should it fail to pass, reports suggest the president will leave Obamacare in place and move on to other areas of legislation, including tax reform and infrastructure spending. A vote on the American Health Care Act — the first part of the Republicans’ plan to repeal and replace Obamacare — was due to take place Thursday , but after heated discussions between the administration and House Republicans, it became clear that the vote would not pass, and so it was postponed . Donald Trump issued an ultimatum to Republicans Thursday night: Vote for my health care bill, or else. The “or else” in this case would mean being “ stuck with Obamacare ,” but as many GOP representatives still struggle to come around to voting for a bill which has had very little public support , the president could be in for the most embarrassing defeat of his administration to date. Read more Donald Trump issued an ultimatum to Republicans Thursday night: Vote for my health care bill, or else. The “or else” in this case would mean being “stuck with Obamacare,” but as many GOP representatives still struggle to come around to voting for a bill which has had very little public support, the president could be in for the most embarrassing defeat of his administration to date. A vote on the American Health Care Act — the first part of the Republicans’ plan to repeal and replace Obamacare — was due to take place Thursday, but after heated discussions between the administration and House Republicans, it became clear that the vote would not pass, and so it was postponed. Late Thursday night Trump sent top administration officials to the Capitol to deliver his ultimatum, and a vote is now scheduled to take place Friday morning. Should it fail to pass, reports suggest the president will leave Obamacare in place and move on to other areas of legislation, including tax reform and infrastructure spending. But make no mistake, Trump is playing a dangerous game by forcing a vote on Friday. A defeat would mean he’d failed to deliver his first key piece of legislation and let a key campaign pledge slide. It would be seen as hugely embarrassing for the president. When asked whether Republicans would pull together Friday, Congressman Matt Gaetz told the Associated Press: “I sure hope so, or we’ll have the opportunity to watch a unified Democratic caucus impeach Donald Trump in two years when we lose the majority.” Here’s what you need to know: Trump on Thursday night made one major concession to try to persuade the influential group of Republicans known as the Freedom House Caucus. In a rule written overnight, the bill will now get rid of Obamacare’s “essential health benefit” requirements — coverage for basic medical care such as pregnancy and maternity care, mental health and addiction treatment, and lab tests — that were untouched in the original bill. “We have been promising the American people that we will repeal and replace this broken law because it’s collapsing and it’s failing families, and tomorrow we’re proceeding,” House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters on Thursday night. He ignored questions about whether the party had secured enough votes to pass the bill. Representative Chris Collins, a close Trump ally, said, “The president has said he wants a vote tomorrow, up or down.” The vote was specifically planned to take place Thursday as it marked the anniversary of when former President Barack Obama signed Obamacare — officially the Affordable Care Act — into law in 2010. Because of united Democratic opposition in the House, if more than 22 Republicans vote “no,” the bill won’t pass. As of Thursday evening, the New York Times reported, 33 were committed to voting “no” with 15 more listed as uncommitted or leaning that way. CNN puts the figures at 27 voting “no”, and another four leaning that way. The Washington Post had the “no” votes as high as 35. However, on Thursday night, White House sources speaking to Axios said they believe the vote is close, and getting Freedom House Caucus chairman Mark Meadows on board will give them the necessary momentum. The problem is that Meadows, as of Thursday night, was still a “no“ and in order to get him to come around, it would require the bill to go much further than it does in its current form. The Meadows plan would include getting rid of things most Republicans said they would never touch, such as the ban on annual and lifetime limits on health benefits. It’s no surprise that Trump is struggling to get enough Republicans onside. According to a Quinnipiac poll published Thursday, just 17 percent of respondents approve of the bill – a remarkably low figure. Adding to the perception that the new bill will make people worse off was a revised Congressional Budget Office score for the amended version of the legislation, which was issued late Thursday night. It stated that even with the amendments, it would still lead to 14 million fewer people having health insurance in 2018 than would be covered if Obamacare remained as law in its current form. That figure would rise to 24 million by 2026. The amended bill would cut federal spending by $150 billion, less than half the savings predicted for the original bill. According to the New York Times, Trump is battling with self-doubt as a result of the struggle to get the health care bill over the line. The president has reportedly told four people close to him that he regrets going along with Ryan’s plan to introduce a new health care bill before unveiling tax cuts that would be an easier sell to Republicans. |
The highly anticipated 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans were released on Thursday—and they’re proving controversial, with disagreement among industry and the nutrition community over whether red and processed meat should have been called out, and whether issues like sustainability should have been included. Months before the Guidelines came out, an independent group of experts—called the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, or DGAC—proposed non-binding recommendations for the Dietary Guidelines. Some experts took issue with how the final product differs. Here, top experts in the field of nutrition provide their thoughts on the new Guidelines: “The 2015 Dietary Guidelines build upon the 2010 Dietary Guidelines to provide information to shape policy, design food and nutrition programs, and to help Americans make healthy dietary choices. There are useful updates from the previous guidelines, such as a specific limit on sugar intake to <10% of calories. However, although the Guidelines are required and purported to be “based on the preponderance of current scientific and medical knowledge”, they did not include some of the recommendations of the Scientific Advisory Committee and therefore do not describe an optimal dietary pattern. For example, the World Health Organization recently classified processed meat as a carcinogen and red meat as a probable carcinogen, based on evidence that has been in existence for some time. Yet the Dietary Guidelines make no mention of this and state that processed meat can be accommodated in a diet if the diet is within limits for other nutrients. There is not a strong emphasis on managing weight, less so compared to the 2010 Dietary Guidelines despite the continued high prevalence of overweight and obesity in the U.S. There also could be more specific information on some topics. For example, the guidelines mention that coffee has not been associated with an increased risk of major chronic diseases. While this is true, they do not mention that coffee has been associated with decreased risk of some diseases including type 2 diabetes, liver disease, and Parkinson’s disease. Despite some of these shortcomings, it is important to recognize that for most people, following the Dietary Guidelines will improve their nutritional status and health. —Dr. Donald Hensrud, a physician at Mayo Clinic and editor of the Mayo Clinic Diet TIME Health Newsletter Get the latest health and science news, plus: burning questions and expert tips. View Sample Sign Up Now “The science on the link between cancer and diet is extensive. By omitting specific diet recommendations, such as eating less red and processed meat, these guidelines miss a critical and significant opportunity to reduce suffering and death from cancer. For most Americans who do not use tobacco, the most important cancer risk factors that can be changed are body weight, diet and physical activity.” —Dr. Richard Wender, chief cancer control officer of the American Cancer Society (ACS). You can read the full ACS statement here. “The perfect should not be the enemy of the good. There’s still a lot wrong with the USDA’s new Dietary Guidelines (like continuing to harp on saturated fat, and grouping eggs with red meat). But they got two things right. They pulled out “added sugars” as a separate item (hopefully the FDA will follow with a similar label change). And they provided a limit for added sugars and sodium, the two consumables for which we have causation of disease. Now let’s see if the processed food industry listens.” —Dr. Robert Lustig, professor at the department of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco “With obesity and its associated health consequences—namely type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease—on the rise throughout our country, the AMA also is extremely pleased that the new recommendations call for significantly reducing the amount of added sugars and sugar sweetened beverages from the American diet. The AMA has been working hard over the last two years to prevent the incidence of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, both of which are linked to excessive sugar consumption, and we will continue to support efforts aimed at improving the health of the nation.” —Dr. Steven J. Stack, President, American Medical Association “The good news about the new Dietary Guidelines is their emphasis on the way people actually eat—foods, diets, and dietary patterns. That works well for encouraging people to eat more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. But the not-so-good news is that the Guidelines switch to nutrients—saturated fat, sugars, and sodium—as euphemisms for the foods that contain them. If they had carried out the food-based approach, they would have had to say eat less meat and cut down on sugary drinks and processed foods, but they don’t. How come? I’d guess politics. The result, alas, is unnecessary confusion about the messages they are trying to convey. —Marion Nestle, Paulette Goddard Professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University. Read her blog post reaction here. MORE: Ending The War On Fat “I want to start out by saying what a fan I am of the 2015 DGAC report—I think the DGAC did a fabulous job. My criticisms here pertain to the ways their work has been adulterated by politics as usual. Since the DGAC report is in the public domain, and since that represents the work of public health scientists before political abuse, I invite every citizen who wants to eat in accord with expert guidance to refer to the DGAC report, and ignore the Dietary Guidelines! That said: where the Guidelines are good, and there aren’t many places, it’s where they preserved key components of the DGAC report. They respected recommendations about key nutrient thresholds—limiting saturated fat, not limiting total fat, limiting added sugar—and they preserved the idea of healthy dietary patterns, and provided examples. But overall, there is a disgraceful replacement of specific guidance with the vaguest possible language. There is disgraceful backtracking on recommendations to eat less meat and more plants. There is disgraceful shoehorning in of advice to keep consuming “all food groups,” clearly a bow to industry and effective lobbying. There is overt hypocrisy by placing an emphasis on physical activity in dietary guidelines, yet declaring that the sustainability of diet is beyond the mandate of the report. This borders on surreal, since a direct aspect of diet was deemed beyond the mandate, but something having nothing to do with diet was not! This reeks of industry interest, displacing public interest. The document is not even internally consistent. It talks about foods being emphasized over nutrients, but recommendations about what not to eat (or what to limit) are entirely about nutrients, since clearly the conflicted agencies don’t want to advise against, for example, soda and salami. Any guidance to limit any particular foods is buried deep within passages. The report specifically recommends meat/poultry intake, yet offers a vegetarian pattern as an example of healthy eating. They even carve out space to make it “ok” to eat “processed meats and poultry” provided that nutrient thresholds are respected, belying their claimed focus on wholesome foods. The report is a virtuoso display of linguistic contortionism to remove from the Dietary Guidelines the actionable clarity of the DGAC report at every opportunity. Explicit advice in the DGAC about what to limit has been buried deep in internal chapters, and qualified to the point of being inscrutable. When all is said and done, these guidelines are effectively useless. —Dr. David Katz, founding director of Yale University’s Prevention Research Center and founder of the True Health Initiative “This is a loss for the American public and a win for big beef and big soda. The problem isn’t just that the public gets misleading, censored information, but that these Guidelines get translated into national food programs, such as the menus for our kids in schools, diets for pregnant women, and programs for low-income Americans. This then gets directly translated into unnecessary premature deaths, diabetes, and suffering…of course this goes on to mean greater health care costs for all. It is all connected.” —Walter Willett, Fredrick John Stare Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition Chair, Department of Nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health I thought the guidelines in general were really good. I think they are getting better every year that they come out. I like the fact that they included plant-based vegetarian diets as a healthy eating pattern. I like that they talk about limiting fat intake. They made it clear you should limit the amount of saturated fat you take in. They didn’t agree with all the misinformation coming out that it doesn’t matter how much fat you eat, and that saturated fat may not be bad for you after all, and I think they are right. The original draft talked about the environmental issues. They got so much pushback from members of Congress so they took that out. I thought that was unfortunate. —Dr. Dean Ornish, founder and president of the non-profit Preventive Medicine Research Institute (PMRI) “I like the approach for shifting unhealthy choices for healthier, more nutrient-dense options, but I feel this concept, though well intended, is too broad and needs to be defined further. For example, replace white bread with 100% whole-grain bread. I’m disappointed that, like the last set of guidelines, the recommendation for grains is to make at least half of them whole. We need Americans and the programs that these guidelines impact (schools, Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), etc.) to focus only on 100% whole grains. There is not nutrient density of value to white grains, and studies show that their impact on health is negative. Things need to be clearly defined—for example, what is a healthier beverage choice without sugar? Consumers may assume this means artificially sweetened. We should focus on whole foods all around, even in our drinks. What about coming out to recommend water as the drink of choice, along with coffee and teas? Oils are included in the guidelines, but not defined which ones are superior to others. [I think] 2,300 mg of sodium a day is still too high. I would have loved to see more plant-based recommendations.” —Kristin Kirkpatrick,Wellness Manager at the Cleveland Clinic Wellness Institute “With obesity and its associated health consequences—namely type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease—on the rise throughout our country, the AMA also is extremely pleased that the new recommendations call for significantly reducing the amount of added sugars and sugar sweetened beverages from the American diet. The AMA has been working hard over the last two years to prevent the incidence of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, both of which are linked to excessive sugar consumption, and we will continue to support efforts aimed at improving the health of the nation.” —Dr. Steven J. Stack, President, American Medical Association Contact us at editors@time.com. |
Saudi Arabia's national airline is allegedly planning to separate male and female passengers on its flights, in accordance to strict rules enforced by the Gulf kingdom. Gulf media report that Saudia will keep men and women segregated onboard, unless they are close relatives. The move follows a spate of complaints from male fliers unwilling to allow other males to sit next to their wives and other female family members. National carrrier Saudia will keep men and women segregated onboard, unless they are close relatives Complaints were also recently made when male passengers claimed a flight attendant was being too 'flirty'. 'There are solutions to this problem…we will soon enforce rules that will satisfy all passengers,' Saudia assistant manager for marketing Abdul Rahman Al Fahd, told Saudi daily, Ajel. It is thought that the airline will include instructions to flight booking staff at Gulf airports to keep these new rules in place. The carrier's policies are already in tune to the strict Islamic practices of Saudi Arabia: no alcoholic beverages or pork dishes are served onboard, a prayer of verse from the Quran is read before take off, and many international flights have a designated men's prayer area. In addition, Saudia does not employ Saudi women as cabin crew, opting to recruit women from other countries such as Pakistan, the Philippines, Albania and Bosnia instead. But moves are being made to employ females on the ground in November, the airline opened its fourth women's section staffed by entirely by females at its office in the Murooj district of Saudi capital, Riyadh. SAUDIA AIRLINE'S STRICT INFLIGHT RULES There are no alcoholic beverages or pork dishes are served on board. A prayer of verse from the Quran is read before take off, and many international flights have a designated men's prayer area. The airline does not employ Saudi women as cabin crew, opting to recruit women from other countries such as Pakistan, the Philippines, Albania and Bosnia instead. The national airline's policies are already in tune to the strict Islamic practices of Saudi Arabia. File picture The country is known for its gender segregation, with women requiring a male guardian approval to travel or work outside of the home. In public spaces such as restaurants, beaches, amusement parks or banks, women are required to enter and exit through special doors. Women who are seen socialising with a man who is not a relative can even be charged with committing adultery, fornication or prostitution. The majority of Gulf operated airlines abide by Islamic laws, but vary over strictness. For example United Emirates carrier, Etihad's new A380 aircraft includes a prayer area in Business class, but the new cabin crew uniform, launched last month, does not feature a veil. Chief Commercial Officer, Peter Baumgartner, told MailOnline Travel: ‘Modern Arabia is what is going on in Abu Dhabi, we are inspired by what’s going on in the rest of the world, but through the lens of the local DNA. MailOnline Travel has contacted Saudia for comment. |
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Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney holds a briefing on President Trump's FY2018 proposed budget on Tuesday. Reuters President Donald Trump is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for two anti-drug grant programs that the White House Office of Management and Budget called “duplicative” and worthy of elimination. After swift push-back from lawmakers and outside interest groups earlier this month, Trump sent Congress "the highest funding amounts ever requested" for the two programs, according to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. If Congress agrees, funding for the Drug-Free Communities grant program, which seeks to prevent youth drug use, would be $91.9 million in fiscal 2018. Grants for law enforcement task forces called High Intensity Drug-Trafficking Areas would be $246.5 million. Both figures are slightly lower than funding for fiscal 2017 – as Congress often increases funding, which may happen again this year with two Democratic senators last week introducing legislation to boost the allocation. A document justifying elimination of the grant programs was uploaded to a computer network this month by the Office of Management and Budget. The document, acquired by U.S. News and other outlets, called the programs “duplicative” of other federal efforts. The OMB document said funding cuts would "allow ONDCP to focus on identifying priorities and coordinating interagency efforts, particularly in policy development and implementation, in order to better address the top drug threats, including the opioid epidemic," suggesting total ONDCP funding be reduced about 95 percent, slashing staff more than a third alongside its two primary grant programs. Supporters of ONDCP and its two largest programs fought back when the OMB's plans surfaced, saying the timing was particularly bad, given the surge in abuse of opioids and related deaths. Staff cuts also were largely avoided in Trump's budget request, with an anticipated reduction from 74 to 65 employees. DFC grants are overseen by the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America, which attempts evidence-based approaches to prevent youth drug use, moving past ONDCP’s historical “this is your brain on drugs” messaging to focus more on subtle educational, prescription take-back and school intervention campaigns. The HIDTA tasks forces, meanwhile, have waded into controversial debates such as marijuana legalization, with the Rocky Mountain HIDTA issuing a disputed report claiming to have tracked an uptick in marijuana packages originating from Colorado. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service, which polices the mail system, said no such records existed. Skeptics of the programs found the initial OMB proposal promising. Elimination of HIDTAs historically was envisioned as part of a move to bolster a Justice Department division that handles generalized organized crime, not just drugs – something Bill Piper of the Drug Policy Alliance told U.S. News he would support. “In particular, the HIDTA and DFA programs are a waste of money,” Piper said. HIDTAs “contribute to mass incarceration” and “use taxpayer dollars to oppose legalization," he says, and the drug-free community grants generally go to groups that “focus on stigmatizing drug users,” a characterization disputed by Sue Thau, a public policy consultant representing Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America. It’s possible that internal politics had some role in plans to shrink the ONDCP, which has unique budgetary authority to craft the spending of other agencies, creating tension with OMB. Though ONDCP has been removed from the chopping block, it’s unclear whether it will regain its historical prominence. Trump has not appointed a permanent director – popularly called a “drug czar” – and the office’s visibility has been overshadowed by the recent announcement of Republican Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey to lead an opioid abuse task force. Trump’s anticipated drug czar nominee, Rep. Tom Marino, R-Pa., was abruptly dropped from consideration after reportedly being in the final stages of completing paperwork. Marino had seen scandals from his past resurface but said he took his name out of consideration due to his mother’s heart condition. Marino said he would remain in Congress. |
THE AFL has blocked a left-field trade proposal involving Essendon ruckman Paddy Ryder's move to Port Adelaide as a free agent, leaving the Bombers and Power to restart negotiations. The two clubs approached the AFL to investigate whether Ryder would become a free agent if he and Essendon mutually voided his existing contract, which runs until the end of 2016. Under this scenario, Essendon would receive a free agency compensation pick based on Ryder's age (26) and the length and value of the contract offered by Port. Port Adelaide would then trade its first-round selection (No.17) to the Bombers in exchange for two later picks. AFL.com.au understands the AFL would not allow the deal to proceed if a second, separate deal for a combination of picks or players was required to satisfy both Port Adelaide and Essendon. If Ryder was to reach the Power via free agency, that move could not be supplemented by any separate trade between the two clubs. The plan to simply make Ryder a free agent, however, is yet to be publicly ruled out by the League. It was expected the Bombers would receive a compensation pick at the end of the first round (No.21 overall) if Ryder left as a free agent. Rival clubs, which would then move down one position in the draft order after Essendon's pick No.20, have complained to the League about that prospect. The two clubs have been unable to negotiate a regular trade sending Ryder to Alberton, with the Bombers not satisfied with Port Adelaide's offer of pick No.17. Ryder could yet seek to activate a breach-of-contract clause and become a delisted free agent, and it appears this is influencing Port Adelaide's view of a fair trade. There was a precedent for the proposed Ryder free agency ploy last year, when St Kilda and Nick Dal Santo agreed to void the final year of the midfielder's contract, which had been triggered when he passed a medical test. The Saints received a second-round compensation pick (No.25) for Dal Santo. |
In Canada, the University of British Columbia in Vancouver hired me for a piano professorship in 2003, and in 2008 I earned tenure. After moving, I was able to marry the Japanese woman who’d been my longtime partner at a wedding before 125 family and friends. I see signs of progress in the United States; some American insurers have recently begun to cover transgender surgery. There is less need for an exotic flight to a dangerous operating room abroad. We have emerged in numbers at last, and are no longer invisible, discardable or silent. We clamor for our civil rights and are gaining respect and understanding. My generation has done its reading, listening, learning. Times are changing. In the recent election, for the first time voters in three states approved the right to gay marriage. In 2003 I hadn’t played as a soloist with an American orchestra in nearly five years. But when I crossed the border to Canada, I found plenty of orchestras and recital presenters who were happy to book me. The success of my performing career in Canada has helped me rebuild a reputation back home. I’ve played twice now with the San Francisco Symphony, and also with the orchestras of Buffalo, Dayton, Seattle and others. I am confident I will once again play with the elite groups in Cleveland, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and New York, earning the same good reviews that David Buechner once did. A new generation of conductors, composers, chamber players and music executives has come of age, and they don’t ignore my agent’s calls as their older colleagues once did. My first concert appearance of 2013 was with a colleague who had not been in contact with me for 15 years. But last year he surprised my agent with a kind call, and we healed our friendships — personal and professional — on the concert stage. He enjoyed working with a pianist who was not hiding herself under layers of psychological turmoil and inappropriate clothing. I was happy to see him, and to celebrate his own growth. I miss the New York City of my youth — egg creams and bagels, snow in Inwood Hill Park, strolls over the George Washington Bridge and up the Grand Concourse. Now I could live there with my spouse as a married couple. So I tried to purchase a co-op pied-à-terre in the Bronx this past summer. The head of the co-op board was all smiles and thrilled that I offered to play piano for the building’s Christmas party. Two days and I assume one Google search later, I was turned down by that board with no reason given — nor required by New York law. My holidays, therefore, were not spent on the East Coast of America; instead, I accepted concert engagements in Asia, in places that have been less judgmental about my gender. One of my stops was in Thailand, for a recital and master class at Mahidol University, outside of Bangkok. The university's guesthouse was far more inviting than a hospital gurney. Instead of submitting myself to a surgeon’s hands, I did my own operating, on a nine-foot Steinway. And in the master class, a young Thai girl played a nocturne of Francis Poulenc for me, with a rapturous tone. As I helped her mold her hands into the keyboard, I thought back to the time I walked the nearby streets, so frightened I had searched for hope in the form of a baby elephant. Now I was paying back good fortune by giving the best of my heart and hands to a young musician. At the Bangkok airport, before boarding my outbound flight, I purchased a souvenir — a little stuffed elephant. He’s sitting on my piano rack now, to remind me of where I once was — and where I am now. I pat his head from time to time, to spread some good luck to my fellow Americans who have evolved, and, I am hopeful, will continue to evolve. Booming: Living Through the Middle Ages offers news and commentary about baby boomers, anchored by Michael Winerip. You can follow Booming via RSS here or visit nytimes.com/booming. You can reach us by e-mail at booming@nytimes.com. |
Dubai: Rolf Buchholz, the world’s most pierced man, has been barred from coming into Dubai and was turned back at the airport before his planned appearance at a night club. Authorities have given no reason for refusing entry to the 53-year-old German, who sports 453 piercings plus two horns on his forehead. Buccholz was scheduled to appear at the Cirque Le Soir nightclub at the Fairmont Hotel on Shaikh Zayed Road as part of its Freaks and Beats night on Friday. “Cirque le Soir Dubai always strives to bring unique entertainment and concepts to the UAE, however we will always act in line with the laws that govern this nation,” Jad Lahoud, executive director of Pragma Lifestyle, which operates the club, told tabloid!. “We will always be on the look out for new acts and performers that will bring something new to the nightlife scene, whilst ensuring they are inline with the rules and regulations. It was a shame that Rolf couldn't join us this time.” “Guinness World Record winner Rolf Buccholz did not make it out of the airport. Maybe he did not pack right,” the club tweeted on Friday. Buccholz, an IT worker, took to Twitter to address the confusion. “Back in Germany. My luggage is in Dubai,” he tweeted on Saturday. |
Twitter sued the U.S. government on Tuesday, seeking the ability to release a full report on government surveillance requests. The company, in a lawsuit against the Justice Department and the FBI filed in federal court in northern California, claimed the government has been violating its free-speech rights by restricting it from releasing the full version of a report prepared earlier this year. "Twitter's ability to respond to government statements about national security surveillance activities and to discuss the actual surveillance of Twitter users is being unconstitutionally restricted by statutes that prohibit and even criminalize a service provider's isclosure of the number of national security letters ("NSLs") and court orders issued pursuant to FISA that it has received, if any," the 19-page lawsuit claimed. Read MoreGoogle offers new encryption tool aimed at NSA This story is developing. Please check back for further updates. |
(Please sign our open letter to President Obama asking him to come out in support of full marriage equality.) A victory for equality today. Judge Walker ruled that Proposition 8 violates the due process and equal protections clauses of Fourteenth amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Judge Walker stated that strict scrutiny should be applied when sexual orientation is implicated, but that Prop. 8 failed on the rational basis test (the lowest standard of review, which is the same standard used by Judge Trauro to declare DOMA unconstitutional.) More details as they unfold. We know one thing for sure: We’re heading to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court. UPDATE: Here’s Judge Walker’s conclusion: Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional. The Judge did not issue a stay, as requested by the anti-gay forces. In the remedies, Judge Walker enjoined enforcement of Prop. 8: REMEDIES Plaintiffs have demonstrated by overwhelming evidence that Proposition 8 violates their due process and equal protection rights and that they will continue to suffer these constitutional violations until state officials cease enforcement of Proposition 8. California is able to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, as it has already issued 18,000 marriage licenses to same-sex couples and has not suffered any demonstrated harm as a result, see FF 64-66; moreover, California officials have chosen not to defend Proposition 8 in these proceedings. Because Proposition 8 is unconstitutional under both the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses, the court orders entry of judgment permanently enjoining its enforcement; prohibiting the official defendants from applying or enforcing Proposition 8 and directing the official defendants that all persons under their control or supervision shall not apply or enforce Proposition 8. The clerk is DIRECTED to enter judgment without bond in favor of plaintiffs and plaintiff-intervenors and against defendants and defendant-intervenors pursuant to FRCP 58. The decision has been posted at Scribd.com FF_&_CL_FINAL http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf |
A Coca-Cola factory in Yemen has been reduced to rubble after being targeted by Saudi-led air strikes Tuesday in the county`s capital Sanaa. The factory was left obliterated after the strike took place at about 20:00, with the building burning to the ground after a massive explosion. Three were injured in the attack. “The jet launched three missiles. One hit the generator; one hit the warehouse and one hit the workshop. My colleague was injured. He is also a guard. They took a civilian company that supports over 2,000 families as a target and enemy,” said Nazaila Alide, a guard at the factory.[ALSO READ: Boiled Coca-Cola challenge: What happens if you boil & drink Coca-Cola?] It`s the first time civilian facilities have been targeted by airstrikes after both sides agreed on a two-week-long ceasefire for humanitarian aid on December 15. On March 26, a Saudi-led coalition started airstrikes on Houthi targets in Sanaa and other cities, saying the multinational action was to protect President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi`s legitimacy and force the Houthis to retreat from the cities it seized since September 2014. More than 6,000 people, half of them civilians, have been killed in Yemen since March. |
Planet Nomads [ Steam GOG ], the utterly gorgeous sandbox survival game has a fresh update out that adds in plenty of extremely useful features.I should note, that the game is Early Access and it's very rough around the edges, but it is one of the most promising sandbox survival games I've played for some time now.Check out the trailer for this update:For those of you who get sick with a low field of view, rejoice! There's now a FOV slider in the game for both first and third person modes. I always like to crank mine up somewhat, so I'm especially happy about this.You can now customize your controls, which should be in any game really. Forcing people to use a specific layout is never a good thing, especially with different types of keyboards around.They've added basic gamepad support, but it currently doesn't work in menus and inventory. Hopefully they will continue to improve it.There's plenty more, so check out the release notes |
If you are like us, you tend to do your 3D printing with plastic or maybe–if you are lucky enough to have access to an expensive printer–metal. [Adam Feinberg] and his team at Carnegie Mellon print with flesh. Well, sort of. Printing biomaterials is a burgeoning research area. However, printing material that is like soft tissue has been challenging. In a recent paper, [Feinberg] and company outline a method called FRESH. FRESH uses a modified MakerBot or Printrbot Jr. printer to deposit hydrogel into a gelatin slurry support bath. The gelatin holds the shape of the object until printing is complete, at which point it can be removed with heat. If you don’t want to wade through the jargon in the actual paper, the journal Science has a good overview (and see their video below). The gelatin is mixed with calcium chloride and gelled for 12 hours at low temperature. It was then turned into a slurry using an off-the-shelf consumer-grade blender. A centrifuge was used to remove most of the soluble gelatin. Printing inks were made with materials like collagen and fibrin. The FRESH process actually uses liquid ink that gels in the gelatin. The printer uses an open source syringe extruder found on the NIH 3D print exchange (they never say exactly which one, though and we had trouble matching it from the pictures). In true hacker fashion, the printer prints its own syringe extruder using the stock one from ABS and PLA plastic. Then you simply replace the standard extruder with the newly printed one (reusing the stock stepper motor). The paper describes printing items including a model of a 5-day-old embryonic chick heart, an artery, and a miniature human brain model. Another team of researchers in Florida have a similar system, as well. We’ve talked about bioprinting before and even mentioned how to make your own inkjet-based bioprinter. The FRESH method looks like it is in reach of the hacker’s 3D printing workshop. We cringe to think what you will print when you can finally print body parts. |
As Hillary Rodham Clinton moves steadily toward what Democrats now see as an inevitable campaign for president in 2016, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is readying a dissent from the left. Sanders has been traveling the country to explore the possibility of running his own campaign in 2016. He has been to neighboring New Hampshire and to South Carolina and is thinking about a western trip. On Saturday night, he was scheduled to give the keynote address at the Clinton County, Iowa, Democratic fundraising dinner. He won’t commit yet to running and will be written off by many if he decides to do so. Sanders says he doesn’t know whether Clinton will run or not but, like everyone, can see the direction of things this spring. He already has plenty of questions about whether the former senator and secretary of state is what he believes the times demand. “If she does run, will she be as strong as the times require in taking on the billionaire class that has so much power? I’m not sure that she will be,” Sanders said during an interview in his Senate office. “Will she be as strong as needs be to address the crisis of climate change? I am not sure that she will be. Will she be as strong as needs be to take on the power of Wall Street? I’m not sure she will be.” It has been widely assumed that if Clinton runs, someone who speaks for the party’s restive progressive wing could mount some kind of challenge — symbolic, gadfly or otherwise — to force a more robust discussion about economic issues and the power of Wall Street and corporate interests. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is a popular choice among many on the left to lead that effort, but she has so far demurred. Sanders is not so reticent. View Graphic Election Lab: See our current forecast for every congressional race in 2014 He appears slightly uneasy presenting himself purely as the anti-Hillary. “I like Hillary and have known her for many years,” he said somewhat defensively after he was reminded that he recently told Jay Newton-Small of Time magazine that he would be a better president. “What I do know about Hillary Clinton is that she has been a very strong advocate of women’s rights,” he continued. “I respect that. She and I have worked together on some issues regarding children. She’s been a strong advocate of children. I have a lot of respect for Hillary Clinton.” But it’s clear his respect has limits when it comes to the core issues that long have animated his politics. “These are extraordinary times, which require a boldness and an aggressiveness that I’m not sure her past history suggests is there,” Sanders said. “I am not sure that she has been — ” He paused and caught himself. “Well, that’s all. I’m going to leave it at that.” Sanders is the longest-serving independent member of Congress in history. He was elected to the House in 1990 and to the Senate in 2006. Before going to Washington, he was the socialist mayor of Burlington. He still calls himself a socialist. Asked if he regards President Obama, who has been called a socialist by critics on the right, as a true progressive, he said, “No, he is a moderate Democrat.” Sanders was born in New York in September 1941 and still carries the Brooklyn accent of his youth. The opening lines of his first Senate ad in 2006 sum up his political philosophy: “My father came to this country from Poland at age 17. Worked every day of his life. Ever since I was a little kid, I just don’t like to see ordinary people, people without a lot of wealth, put down and pushed around.” In the Senate, his record of effectiveness is considered mixed. He is a fixture on prime-time MSNBC and has developed a substantial grass-roots following around the country on the left, aided by an eight-hour floor speech in 2010 in which he railed against the privileged interests. The nation’s No. 1 problem, he said, is the “collapse of the middle class and income and wealth inequality.” He said the amount of wealth going to the top 1 percent is “obscene.” Close behind this economic imbalance on Sanders’s list of concerns is the threat of global climate change. Sanders advocates a traditional liberal platform to address income inequality: raising the minimum wage (and $10.10 an hour is, to him, a floor), a massive federal jobs program to rebuild the country’s infrastructure, more exacting corporate income taxation, a higher estate tax. He would take the proceeds of additional tax revenues and redistribute them to help working families pay for child care or college tuitions. To combat climate change, he favors a tax on carbon and programs to fund energy-efficiency measures and alternative sources of energy. The third big problem, Sanders said, is the “unprecedented way” some of the country’s wealthiest people — he always mentions the Koch brothers, David and Charles, and casino owner Sheldon Adelson — are using their wealth to pursue their political agendas. He rails against the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC for having spawned the era of super PACs. “I think it is obscene that billionaires — Democrat, Republican, independent, whatever — play a significant role in our political process,” he said. “That is not what democracy is about.” He would deny all of them an outsize voice by instituting public financing of campaigns. But Sanders said he believed that it is “a false equivalence” to compare the influence of billionaires on the right and left. “Some people say, well you’ve got several billionaires [on the left],” he said. “You’ve got [George] Soros, you’ve got Tom Steyer spending a lot of money. But the truth is it’s not equivalent. The Koch brothers will spend as much as it takes.” He sees those conservative billionaires as more effective. Asked which movement — the tea party, which he opposes, or Occupy Wall Street, which he supported — has been more potent politically, he said, “I don’t think there’s any question. The tea party has been very successful.” Sanders was quick to add that the tea party movement would not be so successful without funding from people like the Kochs. “I disagree with everything the Koch brothers stand for,” he said, “but I will sit here and tell you they have been extraordinarily successful.” Sanders said he will decide sometime later whether to launch a presidential campaign. Already he envisions constraints. He will not be a spoiler by running an independent candidacy that would drain votes from the Democratic nominee. “If I chose to run . . . and if my candidacy were to take off, I do not want to be in a position to elect some right-wing Republican,” he said. Some people believe Sanders has little to lose in such a campaign. Perhaps. When asked if he is concerned about the prospect of Clinton claiming the nomination without being challenged, he said, “It’s not just acclamation for Hillary, it’s that there are millions and millions of people out there — I see them every day — who are hurting, who are struggling. . . . Somebody has got to defend those people.” |
An EasyMile EZ10 shared autonomous vehicle is seen during a deployment demonstration at Bishop Ranch in San Ramon, California March 6, 2017. REUTERS/Stephen Lam SAN RAMON, Calif. (Reuters) - A pair of $250,000 autonomous buses began driving around an empty San Francisco Bay Area parking lot on Monday, preparing to move onto a local public road in California’s first pilot program for a self-driving vehicle without steering wheel or human operator. California and other states are weighing the opportunities of becoming a hub of testing a technology that is seen as the future of transportation and the risks from giving up active control of a large, potentially dangerous vehicle. In most tests of self-driving cars there is still a person seated at the steering wheel, ready to take over, although Alphabet Inc’s Waymo tested a car with no steering wheel or pedals in Austin, Texas, as early as 2015. The bus project in San Ramon, at the Bishop Ranch office park complex, involves two 12-passenger shuttle buses from French private company EasyMile. The project is backed by a combination of private companies and public transit and air quality authorities, with the intention of turning it into a permanent, expanded operation, said Habib Shamskhou, a program manager who strolled in front of a moving bus to show that the vehicle would notice him and react. It stopped. In a test for reporters, one bus cruised a block-long circuit so consistently that it created a dirt track on the tarmac. California legislators late last year passed a law to allow slow-speed testing of fully autonomous vehicles without steering wheels or pedals on public roads, with the Bishop Ranch test in mind. The shuttle buses will test for a few months in the parking lots before operators apply for Department of Motor Vehicles approval under the new law. The vehicles are expected to swing onto the local street late this year or early in 2018. |
Search Press Release Archive Press Release - May 8, 2012 Batman #1, CGC-Grade 9.2, Brings $850,000 In Private Treaty Sale At Heritage Auctions NEW YORK – A high-grade example of the sought-after comic book Batman #1 (1940) has been sold for $850,000 in a private transaction via HA.com's ComicMarket, Heritage Auctions has announced. The copy, certified Near Mint minus 9.2 with off-white pages, was sold on behalf of a private collector and purchased by an investor partnership. The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide lists Batman #1 as the 6th most valuable Comic Book in NM- condition. "It's amazing that three years ago, no comic book had ever sold for even half that amount," said Ed Jaster, Vice President of Heritage Auctions, which brokered the sale. "Heritage is holding a $4+ million comics and comic art auction in Dallas May 10-11. Many collectors and dealers will be watching to see how Golden Age comics perform there." |
It takes balls to offer advice to a new administration on how to clean up a mess you and your boss left sitting for eight years, so congrats to her on that. I wonder if she already has her “We can learn to live with Iranian nuclear ICBMs” op-ed written for 2024 or whenever that ends up happening. Not to be that guy who goes around telling Democrats “this is how you got Trump,” but this is how you got Trump: First, though we can never legitimize North Korea as a nuclear power, we know it is highly unlikely to relinquish its sizable arsenal because Mr. Kim deems the weapons essential to his regime’s survival. The North can now reportedly reach United States territory with its ICBMs. The challenge is to ensure that it would never try. By most assessments, Mr. Kim is vicious and impetuous, but not irrational. Thus, while we quietly continue to refine our military options, we can rely on traditional deterrence by making crystal clear that any use of nuclear weapons against the United States or its allies would result in annihilation of North Korea. Defense Secretary James Mattis struck this tone on Wednesday. The same red line must apply to any proof that North Korea has transferred nuclear weapons to another state or nonstate actor. Second, to avoid blundering into a costly war, the United States needs to immediately halt the reckless rhetoric. John Kelly, Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, must assert control over the White House, including his boss, and curb the Trump surrogates whipping up Cuban missile crisis fears. She and Obama approached the Iranian nuclear issue the same way. Their guiding principle there, as here, was that war is not merely a horrible choice but the worst possible choice. Forced to choose between leaving a viciously anti-American regime to its devices in developing nuclear ICBMs and a major war to try to to disarm them before America is within reach, Team O will opt for the former every time and hope for the best. There’s some logic to playing for time and regime change in Iran’s case since they’re not as far along as North Korea is on nukes and there’s a decent chance that whatever replaces the mullahs would be more friendly to the United States. Not so with North Korea. They already have nuclear-tipped missiles; now it’s a matter of extending their range. And if Kim Jong Un is deposed, there’s no reason to believe that what follows him will be better disposed to the U.S. There’s no “moderate” opposition. If anything, a junta that ousted Kim might need to be more overtly anti-American than he is in order to build legitimacy with the population. Two things strike me about her piece. One, true to the spirit of “the Resistance,” is the sense that she regards Kim and his inner circle as more stable than Trump and his advisors. Kim is “vicious and impetuous, but not irrational,” she argues; meanwhile, criticizing Trump, she notes that “[r]ational, steady American leadership can avoid a crisis and counter a growing North Korean threat.” One leader is “not irrational” while the other implicitly is. Also, Trump and his surrogates are guilty of “reckless” rhetoric but Kim’s rhetoric, in Rice’s words, is “belligerent and colorful.” We can live with North Korean nuclear weapons threatening the world, but Trump threatening the world? She seems more iffy on that. I’m also struck by how internally incoherent her advice is. She admits in the excerpt above that Kim’s not going to give up his nuclear arsenal. The regime’s prestige depends on it. If they turned around after decades of telling their people that nukes are the great equalizer between them and America and made a deal to give those nukes away, the Kim mystique might collapse. It’s foolish to expect him to give up his nuclear chips. So … what’s the point of this, then? Fourth, we must continue to raise the costs to North Korea of maintaining its nuclear programs. Ratcheting up sanctions, obtaining unfettered United Nations authority to interdict suspect cargo going in or out of the North, increasing Pyongyang’s political isolation and seeding information into the North that can increase regime fragility are all important elements of a pressure campaign. A pressure campaign to what end? If you’re convinced that nothing will pry the ICBMs out of Kim’s hands then a sanctions campaign aimed at “increasing regime fragility” seems like a terrible idea. One of the horrible implications of Rice’s “learn to live with it” approach is that once you commit yourself to that position the rational next step is to commit yourself to the regime’s stability. After all, the more “fragile” Kim feels, the more likely it is that he’ll do something desperate with his nukes — a mad first strike on American territory, a black-market sale of warheads, you name it. Accepting a North Korean nuclear capability logically requires investing in the regime itself, to make sure that its hold on its weapons is secure and that it has no incentive to use them. The lesson derived from that by other budding nuclear regimes, like Iran, would be disastrous. But thanks to Susan Rice and Obama, it’s probably already a lesson learned. Exit quotation from Barack Obama: “To be clear, the United States does not, and never will, accept North Korea as a nuclear state.” |
I sometimes wonder if Europeans actually realize what they have cooking in their E-Z bake demographic oven. It shouldn’t be much of a culinary enigma. The final product is widely available in the public domain. Any dizzy Swede can spend months viewing carefully curated monkeyshines on World Star before deciding that it all looks more fun than licking the sweat off a baboon’s nuts. And perhaps it is. But the point I’m trying to make is that Europeans can see their destination-–through the lens of America–well before arrival. I suppose videos like the one below must only add to the anticipation. In it a customary menagerie of BLM protestors raise onto their rear legs and shamble out onto a busy highway at night. You might imagine this wouldn’t be entirely advisable, as it relies not only upon the good faith and eyesight of your fellow global Americans, but also the notion that they’ve looked up from their tequila or sexting since the last exit. But none of this is ever afforded much consideration by either blacks or head-wound victims. And thus much group limbic response follows a very distinct THUMP that resulted in a decommissioned dindu. This commencing the first of approximately 700 OH MY GAWDs by the lib narrator. Probably oblivious, the driver proceeded on without even returning to pick up a spare. This breach of bowling decorum apparently enraged some of the jaywalking participants. As a result, their typical civic-mindedness gave way sufficiently to fire something approaching 30 rounds at the receding metal antagonist (or possibly at no one in particular). That this may have occasioned multiple deaths of completely unrelated parties was, naturally, no matter of reflection whatsoever. Though the fusillade did effectively scatter the accompanying troop like free chicken wings at Church’s. By this point the reporter succumbed comically to full swoon, though eventually composes herself enough to ask her colleagues “DID ANYONE GET HIT…BY BULLETS?” Observers had eight fingers crossed, though no casualty reports were forthcoming. The full video is conveniently embedded below. It’s all very much quaint Americana. I believe even available in Sweden. Advertisements |
[WARNING: Post contains spoilers for The Final Dossier.] From the very beginning of The Return, I was intrigued by the character of Ray Monroe, so I was excited when I heard there would be a Ray chapter in The Final Dossier. I went into it thinking I would get some answers about the man who (almost) got the drop on Mr. C. but after reading the Ray chapter, I was left wanting more. We know Ray was a paid FBI informant, but who was he before that? Where did he come from? And, perhaps more importantly, how much did he know about the extra-dimensional aspect of the work he was doing? We are led to believe early on that Ray is just another one of Mr. C’s employees—an average criminal who somehow got involved in DoppelCoop’s extensive network of bad guys. We don’t know what else Ray may have done for Mr. C, but in Part 2 we learn that Ray’s current (and most important) task is to acquire the coordinates from William Hastings’s secretary, Betty. Mr. C can deny it all he wants, but he NEEDS the coordinates, and he’s tasked Ray Monroe with getting them. It’s clear from the start that Mr. C doesn’t trust Ray. He’s a bit too cocky for Mr. C’s liking and he asks too many questions. Mr. C is also very suspicious of the fact that Betty will only deal with Ray. It’s not long before we get confirmation that Ray and Darya are planning to double-cross Mr. C, which comes as no surprise to the boss man. He had already killed Jack and was all set up to record Darya’s incriminating phone call; he just didn’t have all the pieces of the puzzle. He needed to know who was behind the plot to kill him. According to Ray’s phone call to Darya, made from a burner inside federal prison, the person who put the hit out on Mr. C is the long-lost Phillip Jeffries. Even though Ray had just referenced “Jeffries” on the phone, Darya tells Mr. C she doesn’t know who hired them—that only Ray knows and didn’t tell her. Perhaps she’s just playing dumb in a desperate attempt to save herself, but the fact that Ray mentioned Jeffries on the call is pretty solid evidence that she did know, and this isn’t lost on Mr. C. This begs the question of exactly how much Darya knew about Ray’s involvement with Jeffries. The fact that she was engaged in a sexual relationship with Mr. C is pretty solid evidence that Darya wasn’t an informant herself, but she definitely knew more than she let on. Darya’s reaction to the symbol on the playing card has always fascinated me. She knows Mr. C is about to kill her, but when he shows her the playing card she seems even more scared of it than she is of him. If Darya was truly in the dark about everything, why would a random symbol give her such a visceral reaction? I believe that Darya had some knowledge of the Lodge-related aspect of the whole thing and this information would have had to come from Ray. Darya’s story is cut short pretty quickly (and The Final Dossier doesn’t mention her) so we will likely never know the extent of her knowledge. But as The Return progresses we learn more about Ray (although, in true Twin Peaks fashion, this information presents more questions than it does answers). The central mystery, at least to me, is not whether Ray was working with the actual Jeffries—I believe he was, and Jeffries himself seems to confirm that when Mr. C goes to see him at The Dutchman’s in Part 15. When Mr. C asks Jeffries, “Why did you send Ray to kill me?” Jeffries responds, “What? I called Ray.” This doesn’t answer Mr. C’s question per se, but it does confirm that Jeffries knows who Ray is. The real mystery here isn’t if Jeffries was working with Ray but how they were working together. With Jeffries only really existing in some sort of ethereal state at The Dutchman’s—a place itself not of this world—how did he recruit and stay in contact with Ray? Ray claims that he only ever spoke to Jeffries on the phone. While I’m willing to concede that Ethereal Teapot Jeffries can make phone calls, I keep going back to Ray’s final words about The Dutchman’s: “It’s not a real place.” If he’d only even spoken to Jeffries on the phone, how would he have any conception of the true nature of The Dutchman’s? Let’s examine what The Final Dossier tells us about Ray Monroe: – Ray was a deep-cover informant recruited by “someone involved in [the Blue Rose] task force” to work on the “missing Cooper” case. – Ray penetrated Mr. C’s inner circle and worked with him in the “months or weeks” prior to Mr. C’s surfacing in Buckhorn. – Tammy believes that Ray first came in contact with Mr. C in Las Vegas. In her preparation of the dossier, she came across a “vague reference” indicating that two years earlier, Ray began the operation in Vegas where Mr. C had established part of his organization with Duncan Todd as the principal operative. – Tammy came across a “partially garbled phone message” to an agency intermediary, in which Ray claimed that he was reporting directly to a Blue Rose Task Force member but did not identify this person. – At some point before his death in Western Montana, Ray made a call from a burner phone later found at the location of his body. Based on the data retrieved from the phone, Tammy concludes that Ray believed he was working for and had initially been recruited by Phillip Jeffries. – They found a relatively new matchbook from The Dutchman’s on Ray’s body at The Farm, but the real-world Dutchman’s motel was demolished in the late 1960s. The presence of the matchbook from The Dutchman’s opens up a very interesting possibility—and one that I’ve been toying with since The Return. I think it’s very possible that Ray Monroe has been to The Dutchman’s to “see” Jeffries. I also believe that the “intermediary” that Ray contacted was the “Impostor Jeffries” that Mr. C spoke to in Part 2. In our Black Lodge/White Lodge series article, “Judging Jeffries,” I took the position that Impostor Jeffries was MIKE, and I stand by that theory. I would add at this point that I think Jeffries and MIKE were working together to get DoppelCoop back into the Lodge. We know that Ray ended up with the Owl Ring and that the last person seen with the ring was MIKE, who got it after the Dougie tulpa disintegrated. Ray tells Mr. C that he got the ring from some random prison guard, but since Ray is constantly lying to Mr. C and knew he was about to die, I don’t think we can take this as gospel truth. We know from Part 17 that MIKE is able to physically enter The Dutchman’s, and I believe MIKE brought the ring to Jeffries after he got it back from Dougie. I would argue that, at some point before his “arrest,” Ray physically visited The Dutchman’s, which is where he acquired the ring (and the matchbook) along with instructions from Jeffries on how to use it once he killed Mr. C. There are several instances that point to the fact that Ray knew more about the Lodge aspect of things than initially suspected. First, when he calls Jeffries after he witnesses the Woodsmen with Mr. C in Part 8, Ray says, “I saw something in Cooper. It may be the key to what this is all about.” He also says that Mr. C got “some kind of help” (which, for my money, is the funniest line in the entire Return) but he doesn’t seem as freaked out by the whole situation as one might expect. Someone with no Lodge experience or knowledge, seeing a bunch of semi-transparent men emerging from nowhere and performing some sort of ritual extraction of a demon egg from a man’s body, would probably have some serious questions for his handler. After the initial shock and terror of seeing the Woodsmen reveal BOB to him, Ray seems (relatively) calm as he leaves a message for Jeffries. He seems more confused than anything else, as if he is to some extent aware that entities like this exist but he’s not quite sure how they operate. Another thing that sticks out to me is the scene right before Mr. C kills Ray, when Ray tells him, “I know who you are.” To be fair, a lot of what Ray tells Mr. C in this scene is bullshit. He lies about the coordinates—he got them from Jeffries, not Betty. There’s no evidence to suggest that Betty would have even had access to the coordinates, and even if she did, the Hastings/Ruth coordinates are not the same as the trap coordinates Ray gives to Mr. C. He also lies about Jeffries not mentioning Major Briggs, which is later confirmed by Gordon in Part 17 when he tells Tammy and Albert that Ray “sent a cryptic message indicating that the Cooper we met at the prison is looking for coordinates—coordinates from a certain Major Briggs.” But despite the fact that Ray is lying through his teeth about a lot of things, the line “I know who you are” rings true to me. He’s a Blue Rose informant, after all, and it doesn’t get any bluer than Mr. C. At this point, Ray knows he’s going to die. He knew it pretty much the second Mr. C started arm wrestling Renzo. At this point, an aside: can we please as a fandom just take a moment to appreciate George Griffith’s facial expressions during the arm wrestling scene? Ok, moving on. I think when Mr. C tells Ray to put on the ring, he knows exactly where that ring is going to send him. Ray’s body stays in Montana and his soul (or whatever you want to call it) ends up in the Lodge. Perhaps this was part of Jeffries’s plan all along, or perhaps it was Mr. C’s way of giving that f^cker Ray his just deserts. Either way, Mr. C comes out on top and lives to fight another day and Ray gets a one-way ticket to Lodge-ville. Of all the characters in The Return, I would not have guessed that Ray Monroe would end up as a Lodge dweller, but I’m intrigued by what his Lodge life would be like. Is he doomed to lie on the black-and-white floor, bleeding from the head for all eternity? Is he going to wake up and start hanging out with Leland? Will he continue to do MIKE and Jeffries’s bidding from beyond the grave? We’ll likely never know, but as frustrating as the not knowing is, there’s something to be said for keeping the mystery alive. Help us keep the conversation alive! We publish new content daily that can easily be found by following us on Twitter @25YLSite, joining our Facebook group or becoming an email subscriber here on the site. 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Scientology minister Wendy Honnor also describes herself as an Anglican Christian. Picture: Adam Knott HERE'S the thing. depending on your outlook, Kate and Emmanuel Foundas are either two of the nuttiest and potentially most sinister people you will ever meet, or a charming, successful, savvy couple with a social conscience. In Australia today very few, however, would allow them to be both once they learnt their religion. Yes, you guessed it, they are Scientologists. And not just dabblers. These guys are hard-core. Kate, 55, gave up an international career as a dressage rider and trainer – she was a member of Australia’s Olympic program in the lead-up to the Sydney 2000 Games – to work full-time for the Church in Melbourne in 2005 as an auditor. In Scientology terms she’s made it, having attained their spiritual equivalent of nirvana. Kate is “clear” after hundreds of hours of expensive auditing and training here and in the US. “I have all the answers to all the questions I have ever had, and that is a pretty amazing and peaceful place to be,” she says. Read Next Her husband, Emmanuel, is a successful businessman whose CV includes stints at Macquarie Bank; he is now CEO of the Australian arm of a US software company. He also has significant commercial interests in China. Until last year, he was also president of the Victorian chapter of the Church of Scientology. He is not “clear” yet, but hopes to get there one day. He freely admits he has had a lot of work to do to clean up his act – “problems with fidelity for a start” – but is a self-proclaimed “warrior for Scientology” and therefore committed to his own spiritual journey. Both Kate and Emmanuel insist that Scientology saved their relationship; without it, they say, they would not be the happy, well-adjusted couple I meet. So if you sat next to them at a dinner party – and I have – you’d never guess they belong to an organisation that believes in all this really weird stuff. In the interests of full disclosure, I know them slightly through mutual friends and had never heard a peep out of them about Scientology. I guess it’s not polite to bang on about religion over the entrée, but surely the Scientologists are different? They’re grabbing you off the street and thrusting their personality tests at you and soon after, shoving their impenetrable books down innocents’ throats... Aren’t they? So I wanted to find out why these seemingly normal people also happen to believe, or so I’m told, that we descend from spaceships. And let’s face it; the Church of Scientology has definitely got an image problem at the moment. Some would argue it always has. But in the past 18 months Scientology has rarely been out of the papers here and abroad, and none of the news has been good. There have been disturbing claims by former members of abuse within the Australian organisation. These have included allegations of coerced abortions, false imprisonment, stalking, harassment, extortion and serious labour-law violations. This has all fuelled the notion that the Church is nothing more than a wacko cult and a dangerous one at that; Tom Cruise has long ceased to be a public relations positive, and as for John Travolta, well, let’s just say it’s lucky he can dance (and fly Qantas planes). But there’s no hint of any of this when I meet Wendy Honnor, an ordained Minister with the Church of Scientology and, frankly, maybe the best thing they have going for them in Australia at the moment. And maybe that’s why she has been chosen to do something the Australian Church has never agreed to before: allow a journalist to experience first-hand their controversial spiritual counselling. I am to be “audited” by Minister Honnor and she decides, after meeting me, I could also do with a little of their “suppression therapy” to help deal with some lingering health problems. In fact, that’s the area we decide to concentrate on in my sessions – my bung neck. I injured it 18 months ago while reporting on the Victorian bushfires and although I have since had successful surgery, it still gives me some grief. Anyway, it seems like the safest area of my life to expose to the Scientologists and the Australian public, because auditing is a deeply personal experience and I’m not about to lie down and offer up my childhood or my marriage. Yes, my neck will do just fine. Day one I hear her before I see her, which I soon come to learn is Honnor’s way. “Hellooo!” she shouts through her screen door as she bounds down the hall of her inner Sydney home to greet me. For weeks we’ve been exchanging emails, phone calls and text messages in preparation for this day. I am determined to leave my prejudices about Scientology at the airport – spaceships, anyone? – and instead, treat this whole gonzo episode as objectively as any other assignment (I have extracted a promise from my editor that he’ll send in the cult busters if I don’t come back). But my mind is whirring as I sit opposite Honnor while she begins to explain Scientology counselling 101 on her whiteboard. While she’s taking me through some of the basics – our past dictates our current behaviour (nothing earth-shattering there, I point out, and she agrees) – I’ve registered something critically important. Honnor is charming, charismatic and clearly very nice. I guess they wouldn’t send their most dour and unfriendly auditor to deal with a journalist, but I know already this is going to be tough. Some of what she says makes sense or is familiar because Scientology’s founder, the wily and clearly persuasive US science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, borrowed heavily from other philosophies and religions when he penned the treatise he called “Dianetics”, his how-to guide for a happy life. It all gets a bit weird when Honnor asks if I believe in reincarnation. I don’t and they do, again something not confined to Scientology. But a belief in past lives is no peripheral thing; it is key to their beliefs. “This is when it gets really exciting!” she exclaims, beaming at me as she writes furiously on her whiteboard. My heart sinks because I know I’m not going to buy it and I tell her. “That’s fine!” she says. The big message today is about suppression. There are people in our lives – 2.5 per cent of the population – who are toxic, who wish us ill and who can make us sick, depressed, or, in my case apparently, cause a disc to rupture in my neck. In Scientology, 99 per cent of the battle is spotting these “two-and-a-half per centers” because, Honnor assures me, “they’re always there”. Our lives, she says, are affected by three things: suppression, our ethics (that includes what you have done to others and what others have done to you) and finally the “reactive” mind – that’s where the past lives come in. Things we’ve ¬buried in our subconscious, possibly for centuries, but which can come back and trigger, say, a bung neck. “Tiger Woods, for instance, I could have fixed him in a few hours,” Honnor tells me. “He was crying every time he won a tournament. He had an ethics problem and someone was suppressing him.” Princess Di was another damaged person whom Honnor reckons she could have sorted in a few hours. Paris Hilton and Prince Harry are others she thinks could do with a little auditing to sort out their messy lives. But back to me. We run through the details of my injury and then the big question is posed. “When,” Honnor wants to know, “did you experience symptoms similar to this in your past?” This is problematic, because I hadn’t. Like many people, I’ve experienced aching muscles after too many hours hunched over a computer, but it’s not the same. I know this is important because Scientologists believe that if you think hard enough you will locate the beginnings of your symptoms way back in your life, or in a past life. And, Honnor explains, if I think really hard I’ll recognise that there was a “suppressive” person in my life causing the pain in my neck. Tomorrow we’re going to delve into this a little further. As I climb into a taxi, exhausted, my brain is still whirring – only now I’m remembering some of the bastards I’ve encountered in my life and wondering if I can pin my crook neck on them. Day two I should fill you in a little on Wendy Honnor. She is 54 years old, has been married but is now single, and is an ordained Minister in the Church of Scientology. Like any minister of religion, she can perform weddings and funerals, she makes hospital and prison visits and she does international disaster relief work. She is also a Christian and describes herself as an Anglican. “Although nothing,” she insists, beats a “good Catholic mass at Christmas.” She has an international reputation as an auditor and her private practice takes her around the world. She has conducted, she estimates, more than 20,000 hours of auditing. She has been awarded Scientology’s highest award – the Freedom Medal – for her humanitarian community work both in Australia on youth suicide prevention and for her volunteer ministering at major disasters. She worked at the 2001 India earthquake; then she happened to be travelling through the US when the Twin Towers came down. She was asked by the Church to go there immediately and spent the following two weeks working alongside other volunteer ministers of all denominations at Ground Zero. “It changed my life,” she says quietly. “I was a mess afterwards but I had some auditing and I was able to bounce back fresh as ever.” While she was there she performed on-the-spot “assists” (a Scientology technique designed to get someone back into the present when their attention is stuck in some upsetting moment in the past) on emergency workers so they could keep on digging. She has audited the rich and famous but can’t say who because that is confidential. Today she gives me an example and I can’t help but be riveted. “I was called in to help an actor who was working on the set of a movie in Europe and had been rushed to hospital several times over a few months, coughing up blood,” she says. “No one could work out what was wrong. When I saw him he was pasty-faced and told me straight away that he felt he was dying. He wasn’t a Scientologist but another famous actor had put him in touch with me because he was desperate. We talked for a while and then he told me how he had this one weird symptom.” The actor apparently told Honnor, “I feel like my feet are not touching the ground.” That night he came to her hotel and she audited him. What emerged is a classic example of a Scientology audit. “I found this incident when this actor was a young man and he was hit over the back in a pub brawl and jumped over a hedge and his feet didn’t touch the ground as he was escaping the police. Then he saw another incident when he was riding his motorbike and fell off on his back. Then suddenly he said, ‘Oh my God, I can see a castle and a horse and there’s a battle going on.’ He was hit with an iron bar, fell off his horse, was stabbed and was coughing up blood,” Honnor tells me. Okaay. So then what happened? “Well this guy started looking better as he was telling me this and he could hear the words ‘he’s dying, he’s coughing up blood’ and it became a command in his head. Anyway, we pressed on with the audit and then we were back in the 13th century and he was on the gallows and being HUNG! His feet were swinging off the ground!!” The actor was reportedly better the next day and has never coughed up blood since. I’m squirming because I know what’s coming my way. Past lives. And I’m still struggling with the neck issue and past symptoms that I still can’t find. That’s the reason Honnor has told me this story because, she says, the point is that it’s the similar effects of an injury that matter; the circumstances don’t have to be the same. We move on to another important tool that auditors pass on to their clients (or “pre-clears”, as people such as me are called) during counselling. It’s called the “Tone Scale” and it measures people’s emotional state. If I learn to recognise people’s “tone” – for example, if they’re hostile, angry and resentful – then I’ll also know they are potential trouble for me and I should keep a safe distance. Honnor urges me to consider the scale – it is lengthy, listing 59 “tones” ranging from simple descriptions such as enthusiasm, cheerfulness, conservatism, boredom, anger, covert hostility, fear, grief – and then apply these descriptions to people in my life. The higher you are on the scale, the better it is for everyone. In my case we identify two people who, in my opinion, register low by these markers. “These people are basically out to destroy you,” she says, in a very matter-of-fact tone. Bloody hell. Tomorrow we’re doing an “audit”. Day three Auditing is a central practice in Scientology and the one that earns them many converts and just as many detractors. The idea is that the person being audited is cleared of negative influences by identifying personal trauma or difficulties. These past traumas will present themselves to me during the audit as mental snapshots that I need to recognise and then hopefully be freed from. “It’s brilliant, it works every time,” Honnor insists. “That’s why I love this technology, because it changes people’s lives and it can happen in just hours!” The auditor asks specific questions according to Hubbard’s strict techniques. There is no room for deviation and the auditor must not, at the end of an auditing session, attempt to analyse what has gone down. The mood is less breezy today, sombre even, when I arrive at Honnor’s. She’s not talking in exclamation marks. She’s low-key and looks serious. I’m guessing she’s in the zone for auditing and I begin to feel queasy. She asks if I’ve eaten because it is important, she explains, not to be distracted by external influences such as hunger during an audit. She also checks that I haven’t taken any drugs or had alcohol in the past 24 hours. We then resume our positions and she asks me to close my eyes and tells me that they are to remain closed until the end of the session, when she will say, “Cancel.” At that point, she says, I will return to the present. She asks me to recall when my neck last hurt. I say that probably when I last felt under pressure. We’re off and running. Next I’m describing in considerable detail a conversation with my physiotherapist some weeks earlier where he read me the riot act over my rehabilitation progress. At some point – time becomes a blur as question after question keeps coming – I say I feel trapped and Honnor seizes on it. When was the last time I felt trapped? Can I feel any pain in my neck? Yes, actually, and it wasn’t there before. Damn, what is going on? I shuffle around, trying to get comfortable on the couch, mentally telling myself, eyes still firmly shut, that it’s because we keep talking about the pain in my neck. Don’t underestimate the power of suggestion, I tell myself, and it seems like good advice to carry into a Scientology auditing session. Honnor is relentless. She repeats the same question – when did I feel trapped? – for what seems like hours and it might be, because time really does stand still. I’m floundering until finally she swings it around again and asks me again when I last felt under pressure. Something must flicker across my face because she pounces. “What did you just see?” she asks. I am in the main street of Marysville, two days after the bushfires have reduced the hamlet to smouldering ruins. I can smell the burnt eucalypts and hear the utter silence. “What are you thinking?” she asks. “That I shouldn’t be here, that I’m standing in a graveyard,” I say. Which was true. While this is happening I’m aware of my responses but also I feel as if I’m in a trance. So many of the same questions, so much pressure to find answers. Honnor then asks when was the last time I felt like I’d been in a graveyard and I am hurtled back in time again to the morgue at Denpasar Hospital the day after the first Bali bombs exploded. “What are you thinking?” she asks quickly, and I say without thinking, “I feel guilty, I shouldn’t be here.” Day four Today we are in a suburban home in Melbourne and I am going to have an “assist”, the form of auditing Hubbard came up with to help people with illness or injury. Again, it’s all about the past. In my case, we’re on the neck again but between our sessions in Sydney and today I’ve been ill with food-poisoning and so Honnor wants to investigate that a little more first, especially once I tell her I’ve had the symptoms before. This session is full-on. Eyes closed, she checks I’ve had no drink or drugs and we begin. For two hours she asks me the same two questions and nothing else. It becomes a mantra and, after a while, a very uncomfortable one. “When did it happen?”, followed by the question, “Where are you now?” The starting point is, when did I first feel the pain in my gut that landed me in hospital recently? “At the hospital,” I say, maybe 100 times, before I reel it back further and another incident pops into my head from a few years earlier. I repeat that answer another 100 times (or so it seems) before suddenly I’m back on my neck when we’re supposed to be dealing with the pain in my gut. “Where did it happen?” she asks and I say, “At Alexandra.” The significance of that answer is not lost on me, even in my confused state. Alexandra was the staging post for the bushfire emergency efforts and where I was based in the days after Black Saturday. It was where my neck went bung. So we’re back where we left off in the last auditing session and I’m suddenly exhausted. I want to go to sleep right here on this couch. It goes on and on, the same two questions, but I don’t get out of Alexandra. When it’s over, Honnor doesn’t analyse what has transpired other than to say she thinks the “technology has worked very well” on me. She thinks I’ll find a marked improvement in my neck pain. Great! The final audit I return one more time to Honnor for a final audit. It is an intensely frustrating experience. For four hours I sit with my eyes closed, aware of where I am but trapped inside her questions as she takes me back, back, back through my life. The question today centres on when I have ever felt obligated to push through even though I am completely overwhelmed. A good example I throw up is forcing myself to meet an important deadline the day after the death of a close friend. We circle around this for some time, Honnor asking me to recall the minutes leading up to the awful phone call and the minutes after. We move on after a while. It’s not upsetting, it’s predictable. She tries hard to get me time-travelling. I am not surprised. Past lives had to come up sometime. Same goes for dead loved ones. It does make me anxious, though. Try as I might – I’m still determined to keep an open mind and give this a whirl, and besides, some of what we have discussed in our sessions has made sense – I can’t do it. I can’t propel myself into Victorian England or ancient Rome or anywhere else that I haven’t been in this life. When we finish, we don’t discuss what’s just happened. Honnor tells me that she’ll be interested to know how things go with my bung neck. So far, no change. Scientology in a nutshell The church of Scientology was founded in 1953 in America, based on the teachings of science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. Scientology teaches that people are immortal spiritual beings who have forgotten their true nature. Its method of spiritual rehabilitation is a type of counselling known as auditing, in which practitioners aim to consciously re experience painful or traumatic events in their past in order to free themselves of their limiting effects. Famous scientologists include John Travolta, Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, Kelly Preston, Nancy Cartwright (the voice of Bart Simpson), Beck, Kirstie Alley, Juliette Lewis and Kate Ceberano. According to the Church, today there are more than 6000 Scientology churches, missions and groups in 159 countries around the world. In the 2006 census only 2507 Australians identified their religion as Scientology. The Church disputes this figure, claiming many of its members don’t identify their religion in census forms. Allegations by former Australian Scientologists include forced imprisonment, coerced abortions, embezzlement of church funds, physical violence, intimidation and blackmail. The Church denies all allegations. The church of Scientology has been recognised as a religious denomination in the US, Italy, South Africa, Australia, Sweden, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain. Many European countries, including the UK, Ireland, France and Germany, do not recognise it as a religion. |
WASHINGTON — Stung by a fierce backlash from Donald J. Trump’s ardent supporters, four Republican members of Congress who had made headlines for demanding that Mr. Trump leave the presidential race retreated quietly this week, conceding that they would still probably vote for the man they had excoriated just days before. From Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the only member of the Republican leadership in either chamber who had disavowed Mr. Trump, to Representative Scott Garrett of New Jersey, who is in a difficult re-election fight, the lawmakers contorted themselves over Mr. Trump. Some of them would not mention him by name, preferring instead to affirm their support for the generic “Republican ticket,” still grasping for a middle ground. They said that if Mr. Trump would not make way for his running mate, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, to lead the party after the release of a recording on Friday showing Mr. Trump bragging about groping women, they had little choice but to vote for their embattled nominee. But the collective about-face owed less to his refusal to exit a race in which ballots are already being cast than to the fury his supporters unleashed at the defectors at rallies and on social media. And Mr. Trump himself escalated his bitter feud with the country’s highest-ranking elected Republican, Speaker Paul D. Ryan, saying at a rally in Florida on Wednesday that Mr. Ryan’s refusal to actively support his candidacy was part of a “sinister deal going on.” |
Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2008 July 22 Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth Credit: Matt Harding & Melissa Nixon Explanation: What are these humans doing? Dancing. Many humans on Earth exhibit periods of happiness, and one method of displaying happiness is dancing. Happiness and dancing transcend political boundaries and occur in practically every human society. Above, Matt Harding traveled through many nations on Earth, started dancing, and filmed the result. The video is perhaps a dramatic example that humans from all over planet Earth feel a common bond as part of a single species. Happiness is frequently contagious -- few people are able to watch the above video without smiling. |
Turner Gill Last week, Charles Barkley accused Auburn University of race discrimination after the school hired Gene Chizik as its next football coach over Turner Gill. “I think race was the No. 1 factor,” complained Barkley. “[Y]ou can’t compare the two résumés and say that Chizik deserved the job.” Chizik—a white man who helped lead Auburn to a 13-0 record in 2004 as the school’s defensive coordinator—had a 5-19 record in his two seasons as a head coach at Iowa State. By contrast, Gill—an African-American—turned around the University of Buffalo, one of the nation’s weakest football programs, and guided the team to a Mid-American Conference championship. Not surprisingly, the school denies that race was a factor in the hiring: Auburn’s athletic director, Jay Jacobs, insists that Chizik was simply the “best fit” for the school. So, who’s bluffing: Is Jacobs heading up an apartheid athletic program, or is Barkley just playing the race card? Accusations of bias are so vexing because it’s often impossible to tell whether they have merit. Unless an athletic director gets drunk at a tailgate party and owns up to a “whites only” policy, we’ll never have an open-and-shut case. It’s hard to prove that a specific hiring decision was made on the basis of race, especially in a job as specialized and rarefied as head coach of a major college football team. As evidence of racism, Auburn’s critics point out that Gill’s won-loss record was better than Chizik’s. But a coach has to do more than win games: He also has to schmooze the boosters and alumni who contribute money to the college. One might even say that, from the perspective of the university, winning is a means to the end of successful fundraising. A coach who can rake in the contributions might be a “better fit” than a coach who wins more often but can’t charm the alumni. But couldn’t fundraising success be related to race? It’s not hard to imagine a good ol’ boy booster network that responds more generously to a white coach than a black one. If the school’s hiring decisions are driven by the racial preferences of their donors, that’s still race discrimination. In the early days of civil rights law, some businesses tried to defend themselves from charges of discrimination by arguing that they were simply responding to their customers’ racial preferences by refusing to hire blacks—they claimed that racist whites wouldn’t buy from black salesmen or eat food served by black waiters. Courts quickly and correctly rejected this alibi. Almost every employer in a racially prejudiced society would be able to blame his discrimination on his customers; such an exception would easily swallow the rule against race discrimination. So maybe the real problem isn’t a specific racist hiring decision but rather a soft, pervasive bigotry among the boosters and alumni who ultimately run the show. It’s not just Auburn that seems to have a Jim Crow-era hiring policy for coaches—it’s a problem across college football. While only six of 119 coaches (5 percent) in the NCAA’s top division are black, 28.5 percent of coaches in major college basketball are black, and almost one-quarter of NFL coaches are black. It’s also worth noting that only one of college football’s six black coaches, Miami’s Randy Shannon, represents a major-conference school; the rest are employed by universities where football is not a huge moneymaker. Perhaps the numbers we’re seeing in college football have to do with the economic model of the good ol’ boy booster club. College basketball, while a big deal for the top schools, isn’t the money magnet that football is. And in pro football, profit is tied to advertising, network ratings, and therefore performance, so irrational bias is punished not only on the field but also in terms of cash flow. In a similar vein, economic historians have argued that racial discrimination in professional baseball was finally eliminated, not by litigation or the civil rights movement, but by television. Television raised the monetary rewards of fielding a winning team by opening baseball to national markets and national advertising—this made it too costly for owners to indulge their own racism and the racism of established players and local fans. College football’s critics are particularly incensed about the fact that while there are only six black coaches in major college football, 50 percent of the athletes are black. In fact, the Black Coaches and Administrators has opened a national hotline offering legal advice to disappointed black applicants for NCAA coaching positions; for the BCA, the next step could be helping one of those applicants file a race discrimination lawsuit. (In the week since the BCA announced the hotline, two black coaches have been hired—Ron English at Eastern Michigan and Mike Haywood at Miami of Ohio.) But the disparity between black coaches and black athletes doesn’t prove discrimination. Coaches aren’t hired from the pool of football players—many, indeed most, athletes aren’t qualified for or aren’t interested in coaching. In an early case involving statistical evidence of discrimination, the Supreme Court confronted a similar issue: A school district accused of discriminatory hiring tried to defend its very small percentage of black teachers by pointing out that the percentage of black students in the district was equally miniscule. But the court rejected this comparison as irrelevant: Teachers aren’t drawn from the same pool as students. The correct comparison was between the percentage of black teachers in the school district and the percentage of black qualified and interested potential teachers in the local labor market. Similarly, to smoke out possible discrimination, we’d need to compare the percentage of black coaches with the percentage of blacks among qualified and interested potential coaches. We can get some idea about this pool by looking at the coordinators and assistant coaches at Football Bowl Division schools. One recent survey showed that 12.2 percent of coordinators were black and 30.6 percent of assistant coaches were black. So the disparity between coordinators or assistant coaches and head coaches is not as stark as between coaches and athletes, but it’s still significant. Of course, the head coach position is far more important for fundraising. Maybe the black coordinators and assistant coaches can make the right moves on the field but aren’t learning to make the right moves with the boosters. If that’s the case, and if blacks aren’t being mentored, nurtured, and prepared to take the helm when they’re working in entry-level assistant positions, then the problem isn’t really the hiring decisions for head coaching positions—it’s much more diffuse, and much harder to zero in on. Even if it’s not proof of racial discrimination, the disparity between the percentage of black athletes and of black coaches is relevant, at least symbolically. A sport that’s dominated by white coaches and black athletes—white overseers giving orders to young black bucks who do the physical work—can bear an uncomfortable resemblance to a plantation. (And, fair or not, this resemblance is just a tiny bit greater when the overseers give their orders with Southern accents and the school is located in the former Confederacy—sorry, Auburn.) Add to that what many consider to be the exploitation of so-called “student athletes,” most of whom won’t make the pros and don’t receive a decent education because they need to spend most of their time practicing or playing ball. To the critics, we have an overwhelmingly white university administration and booster base that are happy to benefit from these black kids’ efforts in their athletic primes but won’t support even the best of them as coaches later in their careers. To be sure, none of this proves that Turner Gill was turned down by Auburn because of his race. But it does suggest that college football is in need of reform that goes much deeper than getting rid of the Bowl Championship Series. |
Contents show] Personality Edit The(小さな鬼,"Little Demon") is a creature that appears within Soul's mind after having gotten the Black Blood within him from Ragnarok, the oni-appearing creature representing the Black Blood within him. The Little Ogre acts not only as the manifestation of the Black Blood present within Soul, but also the subsequent madness it produces. As such he has an extremely cautious nature, concerned only with the concept of power and the goal of drawing Soul further into his intoxicating madness, which would mean that The Little Demon would be able to take Soul's body as his own. It seems he cannot lie, being a part of Soul; he is unable to keep secrets from him. However, he can distort the truth to Soul by only speaking partial truth and manipulating the manner in which he says things to him. He also contains his composure most of the time he is seen, having the very same, creepy smile on his face at almost all times. However, he has a powerful voice when he becomes annoyed or displeased and is enraged by speaking of the Black Blood's resistance. The Ogre only seems to be excited by the use of the Black Blood, and often expresses his excitement by biting on his fingernails. Appearance Edit The Little Ogre only appears in the Black Room with Soul. He appears as a horned, red imp creature in a black double-breasted suit. The creature has rather long arms and black fingernails. He has a noticably long, large nose, and completely white almond-shaped eyes. There appears to be a black mask around his eyes. He also has a wide, eerie smile and sharp teeth. Relationships Edit He is a nameless little demon that resides inside Soul's soul and called "Little Ogre" by Soul, since he doesn't know his name. Created after Soul was infected with the Black Blood by Ragnarok, he is the Black Blood manifested. The Little Ogre tends to show himself whenever Maka and Soul are on the verge of losing a battle, and constantly tries to tempt Soul into using the Black Blood's power. This would boost Soul's and Maka's abilities exponentially, yet it would also edge them closer to madness. For the most part Soul ignores the ogre's temptation, though if all options are exhausted he will give into the power, albeit briefly. It would seem the Little Ogre is concerned with Soul's survival, but this is likely only because he apparently needs Soul's body. Soul appears to dislike the Ogre and being in the Black Room. Once, when the creature tries to invite him into the Black Room, Soul, who is seemingly irritated by this, commands him to close the door because he's 'letting in the stink'.[2] Although the two only share a very loose connection established due to her role as Soul's partner, Maka is still influenced by the Little Ogre's presence whenever its madness is induced within Soul. Little Ogre doesn't seem to think much about Maka positively or negatively. However, for all appearances he respects Soul's dedication to her since he let Maka throw in her opinion on the use of the Black Blood's power against Crona. History Edit "The Eve's Fight to the Death" Edit The first time the Little Ogre appears is during Maka and Soul's second confrontation against Crona, though Maka manages to find Crona's soul and convince Crona to be their friend before the Black Blood's madness could overcome both Soul and herself. He next appears in the battle against Mosquito, where the Blood's Resonance was channelled into Kid and Black☆Star along with Maka via Soul's piano playing. This provided the group with a massive power boost, easily overwhelming Mosquito's form from 100 years ago. It still retained the same consequences though, inflicting Soul with madness. However, Soul cut off the power when he knew they couldn't win due to the current circumstances. "Operation: Capture Baba Yaga's Castle" Edit The Little Ogre's next appears in Baba Yaga's castle when Soul is caught in Arachne's trap, where he mocks Soul for his weakness (though the spell is broken before he can go any further). Later on, during the final battle with Arachne he appears again, imploring Soul to call upon his power to defeat the madness spread throughout the castle by the powerful Witch. This time, though, Soul counters him, saying it wouldn't be useful as his power wouldn't be able to reach everyone. Arachne's spider webs, which are invading the minds of everyone in the castle and causing madness, have also gotten into the soul room. However, Soul manages to turn this to his advantage by using Soul Resonance via piano playing to counter Arachne's power, defeating her without calling upon Little Ogre's power, much to the diminutive apparition's surprise. "Mad Blood" arc Edit As Crona fights against Tsar Pushka and Feodor in Moscow, the release of Crona's new Black Blood ability, Mad Blood, is felt even by Soul Eater in Death City. He clutches his chest, feeling pain in the scar Crona gave him long ago. Soul and Maka then receive an order from DWMA to accompany Franken Stein, Kim Diehl, and Jacqueline O'Lantern Dupré to assist the DWMA Moscow forces to determine how Crona transformed Tsar and Feodor into globs of Black Blood. Upon their arrival in Moscow, Soul is clutching his chest with one hand—and clutching Maka’s pigtail with the other, as he has fallen again into madness. Soul screams out of his pain, as a blast of energy erupts from his chest’s scar, as if an eye is opening. From within Soul, the Little Ogre cackles at the prospect of ruining the Death Scythe's life. As the mad Soul fights Stein and his friends, Maka realizes that Soul's scar has reopened to the point that madness itself leaks out. Inside his soul, Soul demands that the Little Ogre explain what has happened to him—only to see the creature is no longer little but towering over him. The Ogre explains that Soul has finally become honest with himself, and he wants to hear the Weapon answer: "What kind of guy are you?" As he faces down Soul, the large Ogre identifies the Weapon's problem: he is afraid to be more reckless and exploit the Black Blood to its potential because, even if it would make him stronger, then he would be judged for his madness. Soul hides behind excuses of his fear of madness and his desire for discipline. This is Soul's pattern, the Ogre decides, as the weapon has always held back out of a family history in fear of never being as good as other members of his musical family, including his brother Wes. But the Ogre challenges Soul: has anyone ever actually aloud made any comparison of the Evans brothers? So long as Soul says he is not really trying, then he does not have to be judged for coming up short. If Soul had tried to compete and actually try his hardest, then he would no longer look cool. The Ogre reasons this fear is why Soul changed his last name, so not to ruin his family's reputation. The Ogre issues a challenge: how much longer will he spin his wheels? Why not, as he has today, firm up, "grow a pair," and unleash that power? "Start playing for keeps!" the Ogre screams. "Who are you?" Even as the Ogre has its mouth up against Soul, screaming at him, Soul clicks his tongue. To answer who he is, Soul responds, "I already know." But as the Ogre is up close to him, he sees how things really are: the Ogre never grew—he somehow is piloting a larger robotic duplicate of himself! The Ogre leaps out of the robot, refusing to take credit for this robot: it was Soul's madness that manifested this form before the weapon. Soul counters that Ogre makes poor assumptions: the weapon changed his last name not out of fear of embarrassing his family or to run away from them. "It was to draw a line." So the Ogre asks again: "Who are you?" More confidently, Soul answers: "I'm the Demon Scythe Soul Eater." The madness has ended. The Ogre is disgusted at how anticlimactic Soul's answer is, lacking "flair" or "gusto." Soul responds that "not being able to" speak with such qualities is just "part of who I am." As Soul answers, he fails to notice his meister standing in front of him until she smashes his head in with her hand in retaliation for Soul trying to act cool after tugging on her pigtails. "The Dark Side of the Moon" Edit As Maka fights Asura directly, the Kishin manages to stab his hands through Maka's chest. But thanks to her resonance with Soul Eater's Black Blood, she is able to heal the injury completely, even forming a new version of the Black Blood dress armor. With these enhanced abilities, Maka uses Soul's Death Scythe form to cut into Asura and throw herself and Soul into Asura's soul. From within his soul, Maka locates Crona, who announces plans to use the Mad Blood and Brew to create a seal around the Moon, then draw all of Asura's Black Blood from his body to form a seal around the Moon to trap Asura, Crona, and the dangerous contents of the Book of Eibon. As Maka and Soul escape Asura's body, they not only repel Asura's internal Black Blood but also seem to tear the Little Ogre away from Soul's body. In the Black Room, the floor around the Little Ogre breaks apart, as if the Black Blood that is represented by this room is leaving Soul's body. All Ogre can say is: "It's gonna be lonely", implying he is being expelled from Soul's body. Upon exiting Asura, the blackness in Maka's dress is pulled away, leaving her in a white dress while that Black Blood is combined with the rest to form the seal around the Moon. After this point, the Ogre is not seen again for the remainder of the manga, potentially no longer part of Soul. Anime Edit This section contains an instance from an anime not present in the manga and/or a deviation In the anime, the storyline is almost the same up until the battle against Mosquito for Brew. The Ogre appears once again to help Soul in the fight. As Soul plays the piano the Chain Resonance between Maka, Black Star, and Kid becomes stronger. Instead of the battle being cut short after Kid's attack, Soul continues to play the piano, him and Maka perform Soul Resonance and use the Majin Hunt ending the fight. Mosquito then escapes with the BREW he's found. He returns in the battle against Medusa Gorgon in her lair. When Crona "dies" - after saving Maka's life - via their mother, Maka falls under an uncontrollable rage that causes the Black Room to fill up with Black Blood. The Little Ogre appears and tells Soul she cannot hear him and that all he can do is sit back and take in the madness. Fortunately, Marie Mjolnir saves Franken Stein and Maka from the madness and they team together to defeat Medusa (and save Rachel Boyd). Maka and Soul use Majin Hunt to kill Medusa and rescue Rachel from Medusa's control. The Little Ogre appears again in the final fight against the The Little Ogre appears again in the final fight against the Kishin . Soul begins playing the piano. As before, the teams Chain Resonance is strong. However, this time, not too long after Soul begins to play, the ogre begins to grow in size, and soon after Soul is engulfed inside his body. After Soul collapses Maka then enters his mind in an attempt to save him. Upon entering, she finds herself in a large empty area. A door appears leading down, she enters it to find another door. Upon finding four more doors, the last one is blue. Inside she meets "Soul". This Soul shuts the door behind her stating that he is Soul. Maka then tells him that they should leave, coming up with different scenarios of escaping, with the Soul objecting to every one of them. Then he comes up with a solution. He shows Maka a blue box that looks similar to a treasure chest. He states that after activating the Black Blood, he hid his "courage" in the box, and that the only way to get out is to open the box, and only Maka can do it. A key appears in Maka's hand, and as she reflects on what she should do, she reveals that the one standing in front of her is not Soul, and that if it were Soul, he would have asked her if she had everything before shutting the door. After being noticed, the Little Ogre took his true form. He explained to Maka, that in there is the true Soul, and if the box is opened, Soul will be sucked into himself, and madness, if she doesn't, both himself and Soul will die. Even so, Maka decides to open the box, stating that she won't let Soul be pulled in. Maka saves Soul and they return to the same room that Soul is usually in. After, Soul accepts the Little Ogre as a part of himself, and then eats him whole. This is the ogre's last appearance most likely he "died" and the Black Blood was now in Soul's complete control. Trivia Edit The Little Ogre's Black Room resembles the Red Room from director David Lynch's television series Twin Peaks : both rooms contain old gramophones playing music where the Little Ogre in Soul Eater and the Red Room's occupant, The Man from Another Place in Twin Peaks , perform odd dances. These details are a few of the allusions that Soul Eater creator Atsushi Ōkubo has made to Lynch's works, such as an allusion to his film Mulholland Drive in Episode 17, and the allusion to his Twin Peaks film Fire Walk with Me , its title named in the product description for Ōkubo's series Fire Force . [3] : both rooms contain old gramophones playing music where the Little Ogre in and the Red Room's occupant, in , perform odd dances. These details are a few of the allusions that creator Atsushi Ōkubo has made to Lynch's works, such as an allusion to his film in Episode 17, and the allusion to his film , its title named in the product description for Ōkubo's series . The Little Ogre has a tendency to bite down on his fingers in moments of intense excitement (Like when Soul gives consent for power boosts via the Black Blood). The Little Ogre is referred to as the "Little Demon" or simply just "Demon" in the Anime. The Little Ogre seems to enjoy Swing music. The Little Ogre also seems to reside inside Maka, or at least for a short time. The manga features a scene where the Little Ogre grows to great size, exactly as in the anime. However, the manga version is simply the normal sized ogre sitting inside of a large mechanical imitation, this, and his comment about courage being unable to suppress madness, are clear references to the anime ending. References Edit |
Image copyright Getty Images Environmental groups in the US have begun a legal challenge to President Donald Trump's approval of the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline. The 1,180-mile (1,900km) pipeline will carry tar sands oil from Canada to refineries on the Texas coast. A lawsuit filed in Montana by a coalition of groups says more environmental scrutiny is required. They - and some landowners - are concerned about potential contamination of ground and surface water. Supporters of the project say such fears are exaggerated. President Trump, who overturned President Barack Obama's rejection of the project, has said the pipeline will create jobs and improve US energy independence. Keystone XL pipeline: Why is it so disputed? The environmental groups - including the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, Northern Plains Resource Council, Bold Alliance, Friends of the Earth and the Center for Biological Diversity - say an environmental review of the proposed pipeline that was completed in 2014 is inadequate and outdated. Their lawsuit says that review minimises or ignores significant environmental impacts of Keystone XL, which will carry a particularly dirty type of crude oil, "including harm to land, air, water, and wildlife". More jobs? The $8bn pipeline, first proposed in 2008, would carry more than 800,000 barrels of oil a day. TransCanada, a Calgary-based company, wants to build it to carry oil from Canada through Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska. From there, it would connect with an existing Keystone pipeline network that would transport the oil to Texas Gulf Coast refineries. The US state department issued a permit for the project earlier this month after an evaluation which was required because the pipeline crosses an international border. But regulators in Nebraska have still to review the proposed route through their state before approving or rejecting it. The state's elected Public Service Commission will decide whether it believes the project serves a public interest, after reviewing evidence presented at a public hearing. TransCanada says the pipeline will create 13,000 jobs over two years, but opponents argue the vast majority of these jobs will be short-term work in the construction phase. |
Editor's note: The following is the version of the interview with Syrian President Bashar Assad that ran in the Monday edition of SPIEGEL. Earlier on Monday, the Syrian state news agency Sana published its own version of the interview. There are minor differences that reflect changes made by our fact-checkers. SPIEGEL: Mr. President, do you love your country? Assad: That is a simple, evident question. Of course. It's human to love where you come from. But it is not just a question of the emotional relationship. It is also about what you, as a person, can do for your home, especially when you are in a position of authority. That becomes especially clear in times of crisis. Right now, at a time when I have to protect my country, I am feeling just how much I love it. SPIEGEL: If you were a true patriot, you would step down and pave the way for negotiations for an interim government or a cease-fire with the armed opposition. Assad: The Syrian people will determine my fate. That is not a question any other party can decide. Who are these factions? Who do they represent? The Syrian people? At least part of the Syrian people? If they do, then let's go to the ballot box. SPIEGEL: Are you prepared to stand in an election? Assad: My second term in office will end next August. Two months earlier we will hold a presidential election. I cannot decide now whether I am going to run. It's still early, because you have to probe the mood and will of the people. If I no longer know that I have the will of the people behind me, then I will not run. SPIEGEL: So you're really considering giving up power? Assad: Whether I'm open-minded or not, this is about the decision of the people, because this is their country. It's not only my country. SPIEGEL: But you are the reason for the rebellion. The people want to get rid of corruption and despotism. They are calling for a real democracy and the opposition believes this will only be possible if you step down. Assad: Again, when you talk about factions, whether they are opposition or supporters, you have to ask yourself the question: Whom do they represent? Themselves or the country that made them? Are they speaking for the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Saudi Arabia and Qatar? My answer here has to be frank and straight to the point. This conflict has been brought to our country from abroad. These people are located abroad, they live in five-star hotels and they say and do what those countries tell them to do. But they have no grassroots in Syria. SPIEGEL: Do you dispute that there's a strong opposition against you in your country? Assad: That's normal. If I don't have opposition, it means all the people support me, and that's impossible. SPIEGEL: But we aren't the only ones who are disputing your legitimacy. "A leader who slaughtered his citizens and gassed children to death cannot regain the legitimacy to lead a badly fractured country," US President Obama said at the United Nations General Assembly at the end of September. Assad: First of all, you're talking about the president of the United States, not the president of Syria -- so he can only talk about his country. It is not legitimate for him to judge Syria. He doesn't have the right to tell the Syrian people who their president will be. Second, what he says doesn't have anything to do with the reality. He's been talking about the same thing -- that the president has to quit -- for a year and a half now. Has anything happened? Nothing has happened. SPIEGEL: From our point of view, it looks more like you are the one who is ignoring reality. If you stepped own, you would spare your people a lot of suffering. Assad: The whole problem wasn't about the president. What do killing innocents, explosions and the terrorism that al-Qaida is bringing to the country have to do with me being in office? SPIEGEL: It has to do with the president because your troops and intelligence services are responsible for a part of these horrors. That is your responsibility. Assad: Our decision from the very beginning was to respond to the demands of the demonstrators, although they were not truly peaceful demonstrations from the start. We already lost soldiers and policemen during the first weeks. Nevertheless, a committee changed the constitution (to reflect the protesters' concerns), and later there was a referendum. But we also have to fight terrorism to defend our country. I admit that mistakes were made during the implementation of this decision. SPIEGEL: The victims in the first protests in Daraa, where the insurgency began, were largely protesters who were beaten and shot. This harshness was a mistake on the part of your regime. Assad: In every implementation in the world, you have mistakes. You are human. SPIEGEL: So you admit that the harshness against the protesters was a mistake? Assad: There were personal mistakes made by individuals. We all make mistakes. Even a president makes mistakes. But even if there were mistakes in the implementation, our decisions were still fundamentally the right ones. SPIEGEL: Was the massacre at Houla only the result of the failure of individuals? Assad: It was the gangs and militants who attacked the village residents, never the government or its supporters. That's exactly what happened. And if you talk about proof, no one has proof against this. Actually, what happened was that our supporters are the ones who were killed, and we can give you the names of the victims' families because they supported our course against terror. SPIEGEL: We have plenty of evidence. Our reporters were in Houla, where they conducted in-depth research and spoke to survivors and relatives of the victims. UN experts have also come to the conclusion that the 108 village residents who were killed, including 49 children and 34 women, were the victims of your regime. So how can you deny any responsibility and blame the so-called terrorists? Assad: With all due respect to your reports, we are the Syrians. We live here and we know the reality better than your reporters. We know what is true and we can document it. SPIEGEL: The perpetrators are part of Shabiha, a militia that is close to your regime. Assad: Let me be frank with you. Your question is full of misstatements. However you put it, in the end a lie is a lie. So, what you say is not correct. SPIEGEL: So you deny that the Shabiha militia was involved? Assad: What do you mean by "Shabiha?" SPIEGEL: This militia, the "ghosts," who are close to your regime. Assad: This is a Turkish name. There is nothing called "Shabiha" in Syria. In many remote areas where there is no possibility for the army and police to go and rescue the people and defend them, people have bought arms and set up their own small forces to defend themselves against attacks by militants. Some of them have fought with the army, that's true. But they are not militias that have been created to support the president. At issue is their country, which they want to defend from al-Qaida. SPIEGEL: So massacres and terror are only perpetrated by the other side? Your militias, security forces and secret services have nothing to do with this? Assad: You cannot go to the extreme and make things absolute -- they did everything and we did nothing, 100 percent and zero percent. Reality isn't black and white like this. It has shades of gray. So if you want to talk about our side, if you talk about the decisions, we are defending our country. The mistakes are individual, and, as president, I wouldn't discuss individual mistakes because there are 23 million Syrians. Every country has criminals who have to be fought. They can exist anywhere, including the government or the army -- or outside the government and army. This is normal, but we don't have sufficient information about this. You're asking me to generalize, but I cannot generalize. SPIEGEL: A president's legitimacy is not a question of phrases and declarations. You are measured by your deeds. Through the deployment of chemical weapons against your own people, you have definitively lost the legitimacy to hold your office. Assad: We did not use chemical weapons. This is a misstatement. So is the picture you paint of me as a man who kills his own people. Who isn't against me? You've got the United States, the West, the richest countries in the Arab world and Turkey. All this and I am killing my people and they still support me! Am I a Superman? No. So how can I still stay in power after two and a half years? Because a big part of the Syrian people support me, the government and the state. Whether that figure is greater or less than 50 percent? I am not saying that it is the bigger part of our population. But a big part means that you are legitimate. That is very simple. And where is another another leader who would be similarly legitimate? SPIEGEL: President Obama said after the investigation into this crime by the United Nations that there was "no doubt" that your regime used chemical weapons on Aug. 21 in an attack that killed more than 1,000 people. Assad: Once again, I dare Obama to give a single piece of evidence, a single shred. The only thing he has is lies. SPIEGEL: But the conclusions of the UN inspectors Assad: What conclusions? When the inspectors came to Syria, we asked them to continue the investigation. We are hoping for an explanation of who is responsible for this act. SPIEGEL: Based on the trajectory of the rockets, it is possible to calculate where they were fired from -- namely the positions of your Fourth Division. Assad: That doesn't prove anything, because the terrorists could be anywhere. You can find them in Damascus now. They could even launch a missile from near my house. SPIEGEL: But your opponents are not capable of firing weapons containing Sarin. That requires military equipment, training and precision. Assad: Who said that they are not capable? In the 1990s, terrorists used Sarin gas in an attack in Tokyo. They call it "kitchen gas" because it can be made anywhere. SPIEGEL: But you really can't compare these two Sarin attacks -- they aren't comparable. This was a military action. Assad: No one can say with certainty that rockets were used -- we do not have any evidence. The only thing certain is that Sarin was released. Perhaps that happened when one of our rockets struck one of the terrorists' positions? Or perhaps they made an error while they were handling it and something happened. Because they have Sarin -- they used it earlier in Aleppo. |
Inside Trakai island castle I think everyone will agree that for Lithuania to be one of the world's great beer cultures is a bit surprising. For years I've been wondering why this would be, and now I'm finally in a position to propose an answer. And it is really a bit of a puzzler. Right north of the border is Latvia, where they speak a related language, and share the same Soviet heritage, but not the beer culture. Why? Clearly, the stagnation, isolation, and general backwardness of the Soviet system must have done much to preserve traditional brewing practices. It can't be the whole answer, however. Norway and Finland have preserved traditional brewing, without having ever been communist. Fragments survive in Estonia and Latvia, too, but Lithuania has a far stronger beer culture than all of these countries. Again, why? Let's start in 1945. At this point, all the Baltic countries have been annexed into the Soviet Union. However, they are not the same, for reasons I explain in my short history of the Baltic countries. Those differences turn out to be important. Firstly, at this point (1945), Latvia was much more industrialized than Lithuania. Traditional brewing is usually associated with farming, so it's likely that this meant that traditional beer culture was already much weaker than in Lithuania. Further, since Latvia had a Baltic German ruling elite, bigger breweries would predominantly be owned by ethnic Germans and therefore would likely brew in the German tradition. Red army soldiers statue, Vilnius Secondly, the Lithuanian Soviet Republic was run by the Lithuanians themselves to a much greater degree than in Estonia and Latvia. Many Lithuanians have told me that in Latvia the Soviets destroyed traditional brewing culture, but in Lithuania they unofficially accepted it. That fits fairly well with written material I've seen from various places. Atis from Latvia also blamed the Soviets for destroying traditional Latvian brewing. Thirdly, Lithuania did not see the same influx of Russian immigrants that Latvia and Estonia did, and that will have helped, too. Russians eventually came to make up the majority of the population of Latvia and Estonia, and it's clear that this will have damaged brewing culture dramatically, too. In Lithuania Russians never made up more than 10% of the population. As you see from what I wrote on traditional Nordic beer, traditional brewing dies by degrees. Traditional ingredients, methods, and ways of thinking disappear one by one, until ultimately people are brewing with international malt, pharmacy hops, and baking yeast, and the tradition is dead. Different countries have progressed along this scale to different degrees. Lithuania hasn't really taken the first step. Norway and Finland have taken a couple, Sweden, Estonia and Latvia a couple more, and Denmark has gone all the way. From what I'm told, the tradition is not completely dead in Latvia (and in Saaremaa in Estonia the kooduolut still lives), it's just much, much weaker than in Lithuania. Thus far, I think I've explained how the tradition stayed alive into Soviet times. From reading about the breweries it's clear that in the Soviet period many of the home brewers expanded their operations beyond simple home brewing, and started producing beer for sale. This would be for occasions like weddings, funerals, and for state officials. It's not clear whether this was entirely legal (surely it must have counted as private enterprise), but it seems to have been tacitly accepted, as Lithuanians were saying. Traditional brewing equipment, Dusetos Traditional homebrewing methods do not scale well. They are highly labour-intensive, and the equipment used is not designed for scale. Under the Soviet system, it was impossible to purchase equipment, or to get expertise from abroad, so these home brewers were pretty much left to their own devices. It's clear that they started improvising, making their own equipment and changing brewing methods in order to scale up. In so doing, they basically modernized Lithuanian home brewing culture into a new beer culture different from all others, since it developed in total isolation. This process began under the Soviets, and then when independence and the market economy arrived in 1991, it exploded. Within a few years Lithuania had over 200 breweries. That's a truly astounding figure. The British were recently delighted to pass 1000 breweries, but to achieve a similar figure for breweries per capita as mid-90s Lithuania they'll have to go well over 3500 breweries. Of course, as with other early craft brewing booms, most of these breweries have since disappeared, and this is an important development. It means that the breweries with the lowest quality and biggest consistency problems have been weeded out, so what remains is the best and most successful breweries. The Davra, Rinkuškiai, Joalda, Jovaru Alus, Su Puta, and Piniavos breweries at least are among the breweries that were started just after independence, arising directly out of the home brewing tradition. Suddenly it doesn't seem so strange that Lithuania should have a unique beer culture. |
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