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TAMPA, Florida (Reuters) - A military strike on Iran could have the unintended consequence of stirring nationalist sentiment to the benefit of Tehran’s hard-line government, U.S. General David Petraeus told Reuters. Iran’s June election gave President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a second term but sparked the worst internal crisis in the Islamic Republic’s history, putting internal pressure on a government already facing the threat of more sanctions over its nuclear program. “It’s possible (a strike) could be used to play to nationalist tendencies,” Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command region, which includes Iran, said in an interview this week. “There is certainly a history, in other countries, of fairly autocratic regimes almost creating incidents that inflame nationalist sentiment. So that could be among the many different, second, third, or even fourth order effects (of a strike).” Tensions over Iran’s nuclear program have set off speculation that Israel could make good on veiled threats to hit its arch-foe pre-emptively. But Israel’s envoy to Washington said in December the U.S.-Israeli dialogue on Iran has not reached the point of discussing the military option. U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates, have warned that any strike on Iran would not stop the Islamic Republic from pursuing nuclear weapons. Instead, it would only delay Tehran, an opinion Petraeus said he shared. Dennis Blair, the U.S. director of national intelligence, told Congress on Tuesday that Iran was keeping open the option of developing nuclear weapons but that it remained unclear whether Tehran had the political will to do so. Petraeus, commenting on advances of Iran’s nuclear program, said: “On the one hand, there is no question that there has been a continuation of various aspects of the nuclear program but I’m not sure it has always proceeded as rapidly as has been projected at various times.” GRADUAL BOOST IN DEFENSES Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday Iran was ready to send its enriched uranium abroad in exchange for nuclear fuel under a plan the West hopes will stop the material from being used for atomic bombs. The same day, Iran also said it would soon hang nine more rioters over unrest that erupted after the June presidential vote, which protesters said was rigged. Petraeus cautioned that the “big winner” of the election had been Iran’s security apparatus, expanding the influence the Revolutionary Guards Corps, including its elite Qods force. “It’s gone from I think a theocracy that had democratic elements in a narrow spectrum ... to a government that is the result of a hijacked election and a regime that is kept in power by security services to a vastly greater extent than has ever been the case before,” he said. Asked how this changed prospects diplomatically, Petraeus said: “I don’t think it simplifies the situation for those who are trying to pursue diplomacy if the role of the Foreign Ministry is diminished further and the role of the Qods force has been augmented.” To counter the Iranian threat and reassure anxious Gulf allies, the United States has expanded land- and sea-based missile defense systems in and around the Gulf. Petraeus stressed it had been a gradual build-up — an approach shared by both the Obama and Bush administrations — and not something sparked by events in Iran in recent months. “This has been built up over years of inflammatory Iranian rhetoric, alarming Iranian activities and Iranian provision of arms, money, training, explosives and direction in some cases to a variety of different extremist elements,” Petraeus said. Iran has accused the United States of seeking to stoke “Iran phobia” in the Middle East by deploying the missile defense systems in the Gulf. The United States and major European allies are pursuing broader U.N. sanctions against Iran due to its disputed nuclear activity. The United States, Britain, Germany and France have called for a fourth round of U.N. measures against Iran for refusing to halt uranium enrichment activities as demanded by five Security Council resolutions. |
MONTREAL–It has travelled thousands of kilometres in space, repaired orbiting satellites, unclogged astronauts' toilets and helped build the International Space Station. Now the Canadarm appears set to come home. There have been five Canadarms since the first one flew into space in 1981. Now NASA will end its space-shuttle program in the fall of 2010. ( NASA TV / AP FILE PHOTO ) The Canadian Press has learned that NASA and the Canadian Space Agency have been working to bring home the original Canadarm, which first flew into space in 1981. Discussions aimed at repatriating the robotic limb have been going on between the American and Canadian agencies for more than a year. The conversations come as the U.S. closes its space-shuttle program, and seeks to divest assets from those missions. Article Continued Below NASA has used five versions of the Canadarm over the years. "The Canadian government retained ownership of the original Canadarm and NASA and the Canadian Space Agency are currently discussing its return," said NASA spokeswoman Katherine Trinidad. The Canadian Space Agency declined to comment when asked what it planned to do with the 15-metre, 411-kilogram tool. NASA explains that the original arm flew on the Space Shuttle Columbia and has rotated with the other arms to fly on numerous shuttle missions over the years. The Canadarms are removed after every space flight and refitted on different shuttles, as necessary. The space arm was deployed for the first time on Nov. 13, 1981, when it was lifted out of Columbia's cargo bay by American astronaut and pilot Richard Truly. "The arm is out and it works beautifully," Truly reported to Mission Control at the time. "Its movements are much more flexible than they appeared during training simulations." Article Continued Below Paul Cabot, the curator of the Canadian Air and Space Museum in Downsview, said his museum is very interested in acquiring that piece of aerospace history. "We've contacted NASA, we've contacted the CSA, we're waiting to see what happens," he said. Noting the Canadarm was built in nearby Brampton, "we would like to bring it back to its origin and celebrate its history," Cabot said. The first Canadarm was designed, developed and built by a division of Spar Aerospace in Brampton, which was later acquired by MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. The Conservative government blocked the 2008 sale of MDA to a U.S. firm, Alliant Techsystems. On its website, the Canadian Space Agency says five Canadarms were built and delivered to NASA between April 1981 and August 1993. Two were destroyed in the tragic explosions of the shuttles Columbia and Challenger. Canadarms are currently being used on the three U.S. shuttles still in service – Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour. But NASA is retiring the shuttles this fall and they have already been put up for sale. The shuttle Discovery has already been promised to the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington. The two others, Atlantis and Endeavour, are up for grabs, but only American museums or schools are allowed to bid for them. Trinidad notes that with one arm going back to Canada, one of the soon-to-be-retired shuttles will be left without an arm. One Canadarm remains on the space station. NASA recently slashed the price tag on the shuttles from $42 million (U.S.) to $28.8 million. A Canadian government official said he was unaware of NASA's plans for the shuttles or any of their parts. |
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California just became a one-party state. California Governor Jerry Brown speaks at a news conference to announce the Public Employee Pension Reform Act of 2012 at Ronald Reagan State Building in Los Angeles, California August 28, 2012. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni Governor Jerry Brown and his Democratic allies on Tuesday won a mandate that might be the envy of President Barack Obama, turning the nation’s bluest state into one in which Democrats will likely have all but complete political control. Voters approved a tax hike championed by Brown and soundly rejected a measure that would have gutted union political power. Perhaps most importantly, if initial vote totals hold in several very close legislative races as the final absentee ballots are counted, they will have handed Democrats supermajority control of both houses of the state legislature for the first time in 79 years. Brown, who largely failed to gain cooperation from Republicans over the last two years, now owns the field. He has the opportunity to overhaul the tax code, reform the Byzantine governmental processes that have hobbled Sacramento for decades, and even potentially touch the “third rail” of California politics, the low-property-tax measure known as Proposition 13. “I guess you might say it’s our time,” Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg told a news conference. The ascendance of Democrats and their union backers may give more than a little pause to businesses and wealthy individuals, who now face higher taxes and the prospect of even more new taxes and regulations. The state’s top personal income tax rate was already the second highest in the nation at 10.3 percent before Tuesday’s vote, and will now rise to 13.3 percent for the next seven years. “Enabling the tax-and-spend majority in the capital to have carte blanche to heap new and unanticipated taxes on already struggling Californians gives us extraordinary concern,” said John Kabateck, California executive director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses. Brown was quick to acknowledge the need for restraint. The former seminarian cited the Biblical story of Joseph and the pharaoh at a news conference Wednesday, in which Joseph told the pharaoh to prepare for lean years in times of plenty. “We need the prudence of Joseph going forward over the next seven years and I intend to make sure that’s the story we look to for our guidance,” he said. Indeed, despite the eye-popping income tax rates, the state’s overall tax burden is not exceptionally high due to low property and business taxes. The effective business tax of 5.3 percent is only barely above the national average of 5.0 percent, according to an Ernst & Young report for the Council on State Taxation. But some in the Brown coalition did appear to have more spending on their minds. “We have the capacity to rebuild this state,” said Dean Vogel, president of the California Teachers Association, which spent $32.8 million in support of Brown’s tax hike and other ballot campaigns. He cited the need to address chronic underfunding for education and clean up the tax code - which could include closing tax loopholes. PIONEERS IN POLITICAL INTRACTABILITY California has historically been ahead of the nation in many things - including intractable partisan political warfare. Decades of extremism in both parties left little ground for compromise, and the state’s constitution allowed the legislature’s Republican minority, dominated by a conservative, no-taxes wing, to block any major change. Deals made to pass budgets have created tortuous funding mechanisms and a welter of obtuse regulations, Democrats say. Now, assuming the vote totals hold, Democrats, with two-thirds majorities in the state Senate and Assembly, will have the power to pass tax hikes or put constitutional amendments before voters on their own. The Senate appears likely to have 28 Democrats, one more than needed to reach two-thirds, and the Assembly is on track to have 54 Democrats, exactly two-thirds. That supposed ease of governing contrasts with the predicament of fellow Democrat Obama. His second term begins with a Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate and a Republican majority in the House of Representatives, the same divided Congress that thwarted his agenda in the last two years. Liberal Democrats in California were already talking about new oil severance taxes, higher taxes on commercial real estate and the end of tax breaks in so-called enterprise zones. At the edges of many conversations was the question of whether Democrats could or would change Proposition 13, the 1978 measure that keeps property taxes low and which voters approved when Brown won the second term of his first tour as governor. He was elected to a third term in 2010. Prop 13 is still extremely popular, but some Democrats see room to chop away at its protections for business property while maintaining the core homeowner safeguard against rising property tax bills. TAX CRAZY? Republicans cautioned that any such efforts would be hazardous. “The natural inclination for politicians is to over-interpret the mandate they’ve been given with an election like this one,” said Dan Schnur, director of the Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California, and a former spokesman for Governor Pete Wilson, a Republican. Still, voters broke from form in approving Brown’s tax hike, and clearly support more spending on education. California ranks 47th of 50 states in per pupil education spending, and if the tax measure hadn’t passed, $6 billion in additional education cuts would have been triggered. Brown, ironically, may now emerge as the conservative force in discussions with the most liberal members of the legislature. “The governor is going to see it as his mission to keep the brakes on anybody going crazy with the money,” said labor union lobbyist Barry Broad. Moderate Republicans might be more open to join the conversation with Democrats, since it was the only way for them to be relevant, added analyst Scott Lay, a lobbyist for state community colleges. But the supermajority gives the legislature room to ignore Brown as well - or at least override his vetoes. That’s likely to put in check some of the governor’s ambitions, such as a second overhaul of public pensions. “If I’m a Democratic leader of the legislature, I’m not waking up this morning thinking ‘Boy, I’ve got to go after public pensions,’” said Jack Pitney, professor of government at Claremont McKenna College. Brown himself sidestepped the issue of vetoes at a news conference. “This is about celebrations, not about drawing lines in the sand,” he said. |
The Palestinians and the perspective of Permanent Revolution 26 November 2009 Repeated attempts by Mahmoud Abbas and the Fatah leadership to restore their flagging authority amongst the Palestinian masses have only underscored the abject failure of Fatah’s perspective of securing a Palestinian state through an agreement with Israel and its sponsor, the United States. Abbas, whose presidential term has already expired, has announced that he would not stand in the elections scheduled for January 24, while his spokesmen threatened the collapse of the Palestinian Authority. He did so after being humiliated by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who publicly ditched calls for a settlement freeze that are part of the so-called Road Map for peace in the Middle East. Clinton also praised Israel for making “unprecedented” concessions in offering to limit their construction. Abbas declared that there would be no further negotiations without a settlement freeze, with officials making clear they also wanted the US to announce that East Jerusalem will be the capital of a future Palestinian state. This met with a stony response from the Obama administration, particularly as Washington calculated that elections were unlikely given that Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, opposes them. It has since been confirmed that Abbas intends to cancel the elections altogether. Fatah’s next move was to announce it was seeking support from the Arab regimes for a unilateral declaration of independence and would then demand recognition by the United Nations Security Council. No such support was forthcoming from the various Arab despots. The US immediately ruled out recognition, as did the European Union. Finally, Abbas told the BBC that he supported the call by senior Fatah members for a “third intifada.” But he made clear that this means only an escalation of protests against settlement construction and that Fatah will not endorse an armed struggle against Israel. Abbas stated frankly, “There is the military option, which is not realistic, and when I talk about a military solution I mean the Arab countries starting a war against Israel, and there is no Arab country ready for such a scenario. There is the armed struggle, and I am against that because it will only bring destruction and devastation to the Palestinian people, which the last war in Gaza proved.” The Palestinian masses, under Fatah’s leadership, have been led into a dead end with truly tragic consequences. It is 61 years after the Naqba, when three quarters of a million Palestinians were expelled from their homes by Israeli forces and turned into exiles. It is 55 years since the movement that became Fatah began decades of struggle for a democratic and secular state of Palestine. It is 16 years since this perspective was abandoned in favour of a “two-states” solution, when the 1993 Oslo Accords were signed by Arafat and Abbas—establishing the PA supposedly as part of a five-year interim period leading to an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. Yet today, the Palestinians are confined to two separate militarised ghettos surrounded by Israel and subject to repeated bloody invasions, policed by rival security services and lorded over by a corrupt bourgeois layer that has grown fabulously wealthy while the workers and peasants are denied jobs, medical treatment, decent food and even access to clean water by Tel Aviv. The “peace process,” meanwhile, has been nothing but a screen behind which Israel has consolidated its control of East Jerusalem and much of the West Bank’s best land, vastly expanding settlements and, in the process, dividing the PA’s territories into numerous fragments by a system of roads, military checkpoints and the infamous “Security Wall.” This outcome represents not merely the failure of Abbas, even though he personally embodies the attempt to secure a state through an alliance with Washington that began under Oslo. There is no faction within Fatah that offers an alternative to this failed perspective. Hamas merely projects a more radical form of protest, under the guidance of its sponsors in Saudi Arabia and Iran, tied to a regressive advocacy of a religious state. Leon Trotsky, in his theory of permanent revolution, established that in the imperialist epoch, in countries with a belated capitalist development, the bourgeoisie is incapable of achieving genuine economic and political independence from imperialism. This prognosis has been amply confirmed. Throughout the Middle East and internationally, the living standards of the workers and peasants have been eroded while corrupt bourgeois cliques act as guardians of the existing economic and social order. The Arab regimes, even when they control vast oil riches, function within a world economy that is dominated by transnational banks and corporations. Their wealth is dependent upon the economic exploitation of the working class. And it is their fear of a challenge to their rule emerging within the working class that is the main factor in ensuring their loyalty to the imperialist world order. For this reason, the Arab states have again and again played a despicable role in betraying the Palestinian masses. Today, they act as direct accomplices in Israel’s suppression of the Palestinians, as in the case of Egypt, or mouth platitudes while this historic crime continues. Nothing would be changed by the addition of a Palestinian mini-state dominated by the Palestinian bourgeoisie. There can be no successful struggle by the Palestinians for their emancipation from Israeli oppression that does not take as its point of departure the forging of an independent movement of the working class in opposition to all factions of the Arab bourgeoisie throughout the Middle East. Central to such a struggle must be a concerted effort to reach out to the Jewish working class. The Arab masses must consciously repudiate the reactionary identification of the entire Jewish people with responsibility for the crimes perpetrated by the Israeli state. The foundation of Israel was advanced by the Zionist movement as an answer to the terrible genocide suffered by European Jewry. Fascism, the crimes of Stalinism and finally the horrors of the Holocaust were utilised to legitimise the creation of Israel through the brutal suppression and forcible expulsion of the existing inhabitants of the region. Zionism has, ever since, acted as the major obstacle to the political development of the Jewish working class. But its domination can be overcome. Israel is wracked by deep-going social and economic contradictions that are rooted in the vast and growing levels of inequality, unemployment and poverty. This is objectively driving the working class into conflict with the ruling elite and its military apparatus. To preserve its existence, the Israeli bourgeoisie must not only resort to ever more grotesque repression of the Palestinians, but must also mount ever more savage attacks on social conditions and democratic rights at home. A powerful political alliance can be formed, on the basis of the common interests of Arab and Jewish workers in opposition not only to the Israeli state, but to all of the region’s bourgeois powers. The fate of the Palestinian masses is inexorably bound with that of the working people of the entire region. It cannot be solved within the existing framework of capitalist nation states through which imperialism exerts its control. It requires the unification of the working class, Arab and Jewish alike, bringing behind it the rural poor, for the creation of a socialist federation of the Middle East. Only this can create the basis for the rational development of the region’s vital resources for the benefit of all its peoples and those of the entire world. Chris Marsden Chris Marsden |
Yesterday, to much fanfare, the First Lady announced that the Darden Group — owners of Red Lobster and Olive Garden, among other restaurants — will voluntarily improve their menus, cutting calories and sodium and making healthier options available for kids. In an allegedly bold move, the company is specifically committing to cutting calories and sodium on its menu by 10 percent over the next five years. What does this really mean? Let’s imagine you’re dining out at Olive Garden one evening. You’ve got an appetite, so you order your favorite, the fried calamari appetizer. For an entrée, you go for the braised beef and tortelloni dinner and for dessert you treat yourself to the Zeppoli with chocolate sauce and a Caffé Mocha. Worried about your calorie count, you skip the beer and go for a Limonata, not realizing its calories match or surpass most of the beers on offer. The grand total? 3,930 calories, nearly twice as many as you should be eating in an entire day. Fast forward five years and, if Darden sticks to its word — and, keep in mind, there is no guarantee the company will — that meal would set you back a mere 3,537 calories, or 177% of your daily caloric intake (and that’s not even counting the bread basket). This seems a little underwhelming, to me; not exactly deserving of fancy press conferences and pats on the back, especially when it comes with the publicity glow of the First Lady. When we turn to sodium content, which the company said it would also reduce by 10 percent, and the story is similar: The meal you’re having delivers 5,405 mg of sodium. That’s three-and-a-half times what the majority of us—especially the elderly and people with high blood pressure—should consume according to the federal government. So, in five years, that meal of yours would still clock in at just over three times your total daily recommended sodium. This is not just a trifling detail. Sodium overconsumption is clearly linked to a staggering increase in heart disease and stroke across the country. So worrisome is sodium intake, in fact, that last year the Institute of Medicine recommended mandatory limits on salt in packaged and restaurant foods. Michael Jacobson, the Executive Director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said that acting on these recommendations could “save hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of dollars in health-care expenses.” Yet despite the fact that Darden’s commitments are far from earth-shattering — the cynical among us might even suggest this fanfare distracts from the many more serious changes that would actually improve public health — their promises got big coverage. Within a day, 583 related news articles, in sources as notable as the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times, reported on it. In the biz, this is called “earned media.” All those eyeballs reading about Darden? That’s free publicity. Reading about Darden alongside flattering pictures of the First Lady and happy-looking customers? That’s priceless free publicity. Don’t get me wrong: I’m happy the First Lady has focused on improving public health and addressing the epidemic of childhood obesity. But — precisely because the stakes are so high — we need to be clear about the difference between progress and PR. Wimpy, voluntary change is exactly the kind of change for which industry wants to get press. Darden’s announcement is just the latest in a long line of similar proclamations. Remember, Walmart’s “big” news back in January that it was making moves to reduce sugar and sodium in “thousands” of packaged products by 2015? And, as public health advocate Michele Simon reported at the time, we should pause to remember the history of broken promises, too: McDonald’s committed to cut trans fats, but didn’t. Ruby Tuesday’s promised to list nutrition facts on its menus, but back-tracked. Soda companies promised to change the beverages they sold in schools, but they haven’t. Maybe the Darden Group will reduce calories and sodium content by 10 percent in five years. Or maybe not. Even if it does, the move only scratches the surface of the changes that would need to sweep their menus to make it easier to make healthy choices at their restaurants. In the meantime: split the appetizer, take half the entrée home, drink water… and do you really need that Zeppoli? That’ll take it down to 1,120 calories, around one third fewer than your original meal. Hey, maybe you should have a press conference about it? |
Some selections from the Diwan of Imam al-Shafi’i: إذا حارَ أمرُكَ في مَعْنَيَيْن *** ولم تدرِ فيما الخطا و الصواب فخَالِفْ هَوَاكَ فإنَّ الهوَى *** يقودُ النفوسَ إلى ما يعاب If you are caught in confusion between two matters, And you don’t know what is right and what is wrong. At that point, disobey your desires; for indeed desires, Only lead the soul to what is blameworthy and wrong. ما حك جلدك مثل ظفرك *** فتول أنت جميع أمـرك وإذا قصـدت لـحاجـةٍ *** فاقصد لمعترفٍ بفضلك Nothing can scratch your skin quite like your own nails, So take care of all your affairs by yourself. And if you must seek help for some of your needs, Then seek out a person who knows well your virtue. يريد المرء أن يعطى منـاه *** ويأبـى الله إلا مــا أرادا يقول المرء فائدتي ومالـي *** وتقوى الله أفضل ما استفادا A person wants to be given their lot of fate, But Allah refuses it to be except what He wishes. A person will say ‘My profits! My wealth!’ But the fear of Allah is the best of all profits. كل العداوات قد ترجى مودتها *** إلا عداوة من عاداك من حسدِ Every type of enmity can be turned into love, Except the enmity of he who hates you out of envy. ولا تعطين الرأي من لا يريده *** فلا أنت محمود ولا الرأي نافعه Do not give your opinion to one who does not want it, For neither are you praiseworthy, nor will the opinion benefit him. لقد أصبحت نفسي تتوق إلى مصر *** ومن دونها أرض المهامه والقفر فوالله لا أدري أللفوز والغنى *** أساق إليها أم أساق إلى القبر My soul has come to yearn for Egypt, And all other lands are lands of toil and emptiness. By Allah I do not know; is it towards success and riches, That I am being driven to, or is it my grave? [Incredible lines of poetry, since Imam al-Shafi’i actually died in Egypt] Source |
Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, using the specter of rampant crime and the drug trade, won extensive support from the American government to build up highly trained state security forces. Now, those same forces are repressing democracy. The post-election situation in Honduras continues to deteriorate as Hernández, a conservative leader and stalwart U.S. ally in Central America, has disputed the result of last week’s vote while working to crack down on protests sweeping the nation. Initial results showed Salvador Nasralla, an ex-sportscaster chosen by an alliance of left-wing political parties as their candidate, leading the vote count after the November 26 presidential election. The lead was substantial enough that a magistrate on the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, or TSE, estimated victory by Nasralla, characterizing his lead as “irreversible.” The next day the TSE announced that Hernández was closing the gap. Then it suddenly stopped publicizing the tally, alleging that its electronic system went down, prompting criticism from European Union election observers. Police and military flooded the streets in the hours of silence that followed. On Wednesday, the announcement that Hernández had overtaken Nasralla in the vote count was met with disbelief. In the words of Salvadoran journalist Carlos Dada, “There are only two possibilities: Either the TSE is of Olympic incompetence or it’s committing fraud.” The turn of events led to chaos on the streets, and Hernández instituted a military-imposed curfew across the nation on Friday. At least one protester has been killed and scores of others have been injured and arrested in violent clashes with police. For human rights observers, the curfew and delay of an official recount are steps to produce an inevitable Hernández victory, regardless of the vote tally. “The delay has only served to fuel claims of mass fraud, confusion, and deep suspicion,” said Karen Spring, a human rights activist with the Honduras Solidarity Network. The demonstrators “went into the street because they know that being calm means allowing a cover-up to happen and what many call a dictator to illegally stay in power,” she added. Several observers on the ground told The Intercept that they have seen elite military police from the TIGRES and Cobras units alongside the Honduran National Police involved in clashes with protesters in the capital, Tegucigalpa, and around the country. The three forces are increasingly coordinated as the violence soars, they say. On the evening of Wednesday November 29, the three forces launched tear gas against an estimated 1,000 people who were gathered to wait for results outside the building where the TSE tabulated. Among the demonstrators was former Police Commissioner María Luisa Borjas, who wrote in an email statement to a group of journalists that the people gathered included many children and the elderly, along with opposition candidate Nasralla and his pregnant wife. An American human rights observer also present said that when the coalition of police forces attacked the crowd, the gathering was peaceful. “People were singing and had a giant Honduran flag, they were running up and down the street. It was beautiful actually. People were angry — it was loud — but it was peaceful,” the observer, who asked for anonymity given the increasingly dangerous situation, told The Intercept in a phone interview. On Friday evening, as police cleared demonstrators from the streets of the La Kennedy neighborhood of Tegucigalpa, officers adorned with visible TIGRES insignia were spotted by Spring. The TIGRES were accompanied by Cobras and Honduran National Police, or PNH, according to another human rights observer from the U.S., who also asked not to be named out of fear for her safety. On Saturday night, Borjas received multiple emergency calls from the Cabañas neighborhood of San Pedro Sula, a city in northern Honduras. People were being forced out of their houses and into the streets when Honduran law enforcement, including the PNH, launched tear gas canisters into their homes. Police attacked because the neighbors had begun a “cacerolazo,” a common form of protest in Latin America, banging pots and pans when state repression makes anything else impossible. Upon forcing people out of their homes, the PNH arrested them, Borjas said. “This is happening as we speak,” she told The Intercept in a phone interview Saturday night, adding that the TIGRES and Cobras maintain a strong presence on the streets, especially around the building where the votes are being tallied. Police officers in riot gear clash with supporters of Honduran presidential candidate for the Opposition Alliance against the Dictatorship coalition, Salvador Nasralla, near the Electoral Supreme Court, as the country waits for the final results of the weekend’s presidential election, in Tegucigalpa, on Nov. 30, 2017. Photo: Orlando Sierra/AFP/Getty Images The PNH and elite military police units are among the beneficiaries of generous security-related foreign aid earmarked for Honduras by the U.S. government. Figures compiled by the Security Assistance Monitor show that Honduras has received nearly $114 million in security support since 2009. The PNH receives extensive training by various branches of the U.S. government. The exact substance of U.S. training for foreign security forces is notoriously difficult to ascertain, but some light has been shed by new data provided by the Departments of State, Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security at the request of Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., and shared with The Intercept by John Lindsay-Poland, a Latin America expert who participated in making the request. In 2015, for instance, the data shows that members of the PNH received courses titled “Advanced Close Quarter Combat,” “Tactical Safety and Survival,” “Communication and Electronic Intelligence,” among others, and received donations, including Toyota trucks and computers. “Multiple Honduran Military and Law Enforcement Units” also received trainings on “Special Forces Advanced Military Operations in Urban Terrain,” “Reconnaissance and Surveillance,” and other themes. “This will support [U.S. Southern Command] Theater Engagement strategy and will improve partner national [counternarcotics] units’ abilities to conduct unilateral and combined [counternarcotics] missions,” reads the text describing the purpose and objective of those courses, as reported by the Defense Department and U.S. Southern Command. Courses listed for the year 2016 were similar. The instructors of the courses both years included federal agencies like the DEA, FBI, and the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, along with other agencies such as the Chicago police force. The data does not include additional detail about course curriculum or identifying information of trainers or trainees. Since the elections, the Honduran government has made no effort to conceal the role of the two elite military police units. In the run-up to the election, Secretary of Security Julián Pacheco Tinoco announced that TIGRES and Cobra forces would be among the 16,000 police officers deployed to monitor the election. The Comando de Operaciones Especiales, or Cobras, are riot police trained by U.S. SWAT teams. The Tropa de Inteligencia de Respuesta Especial de Seguridad, or TIGRES, were formed to fight urban violence and organized crime in 2014 by Hernández as he took office promising to bring down the world’s highest peacetime murder rate. The TIGRES are paid a higher salary than traditional Honduran police, and they have also benefited from close coordination with multiple U.S. military bases in Honduras. A video obtained by the Wall Street Journal shows Green Beret units training with the TIGRES in the mountains of Honduras. The militarized units, known to operate at night with uniforms that disguise officers’ faces, have featured widely in Hernández’s political campaigns as the president has championed his war on crime. But the TIGRES, Cobras, and PNH have all been denounced for human rights violations. The TIGRES in particular are said to have been used to harass political opponents and simply rob the cartels they are designed to rein in. Shortly after the formation of the unit, TIGRES officers assigned to work with the U.S. Embassy on counternarcotics operations stole $1.3 million from cocaine traffickers targeted in a raid. Most controversially, there have been allegations that TIGRES were involved in the harassment of Berta Cáceres, an internationally known and respected human rights and environmental activist who was assassinated last year. Before her death, Cáceres, an outspoken critic of the Hernández administration, warned that commandos from the TIGRES had occupied her rural community, where Cáceres had led a protest movement against a planned hydroelectric dam. In a recording made just one month before her killing, she explicitly named the TIGRES, calling commandos from the force a “hostile and aggressive presence.” There have been attempts to stem U.S. aid to Honduras since the environmentalist’s killing, either through enforcing existing statutes, such as the so-called Leahy Law, barring aid to military or police units with serious human rights violations, or passing new legislation. In the House of Representatives, 68 Democrats have sponsored H.R. 1299, the Berta Cáceres Human Rights in Honduras Act, to make Honduran foreign aid contingent on anti-corruption measures and a halt to the killing of journalists and activists in the country. “The Honduran security forces are using our taxpayer dollars to repress peaceful demonstrations against stolen elections.” The Republican majority in Congress has not scheduled a hearing for the bill, making its prospects unlikely. Now, Cáceres’s nephew Silvio Carrillo, who lives in the United States, tells The Intercept, “The Honduran security forces are using our taxpayer dollars to repress peaceful demonstrations against stolen elections. We are giving Juan Orlando Hernández money so he can get away with murder.” The build-up of military police forces, ostensibly to combat the drug trade, comes as the Hernández administration faces increasing attention for its own role in drug cartels. In March, Devis Leonel Rivera Maradiaga, the former leader of the Cachiros cartel, told a federal courtroom in New York that he had met with Hernández’s brother to steer government contracts to a company used to launder cartel money. The revelation was made during the case of Fabio Lobo, who pleaded guilty for attempting to smuggle several tons of cocaine from Honduras to the United States. Lobo is the politically connected son of Porfirio Lobo Sosa, Hernández’s predecessor and ally in the right-wing National Party. Lobo was elected in 2009 following the coup d’etat that swept the left-wing President Manuel Zelaya out of office. A separate and equally stunning revelation was made last year in a courtroom in South Florida, during a case involving two nephews of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro prosecuted for drug trafficking, as researcher Jake Johnston recently reported for The Intercept. During the trial, José Santos Peña, a Mexican drug trafficker-turned-informant, confided that he had met with Pacheco, Hernández’s chief of security and head of the TIGRES forces, to discuss plans to move cocaine from Colombia through Honduras to the United States. Santos said he was introduced to Pacheco by Fabio Lobo. Johnston notes that despite the disclosures, “Pacheco remains a close U.S. ally, whose ties to the US military span decades.” Now, Johnston adds, “Pacheco is overseeing the same security forces that are repressing election protesters in the streets.” Additionally, two 2017 reports, one from Global Witness and the other from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, uncovered damning evidence of systematic corruption, especially as concerns the National Party, to which Hernández belongs. The increasing scrutiny, as well as the cascading corruption scandal involving millions of dollars stolen from the Honduran social security program in part to fund campaigns for the National Party, has prompted a bonanza of D.C. lobbying by the Honduran government. Since 2014, Honduras has retained four lobbying firms to reach out to lawmakers, members of the Trump administration, and the American media. Records show that one lobbyist, Gus K. West, has reached out to Florida’s Republican Sen. Marco Rubio and Democratic Rep. Ted Deutch, among others on Capitol Hill, to tout Honduran efforts to combat crime and wrote to the New York Times on the assassination of Cáceres. Another lobbying shop on government retainer, Keybridge Communications, has boosted Hernández’s re-election effort, sending press releases to U.S. media boasting about the president’s commitment to confronting corruption and the integrity of the presidential election. In a December 1 statement distributed by Keybridge, the government of Honduras said that it is “deeply sad that violence has erupted on the streets of Honduras and that our nation’s democratic institutions have come under attack ” — violence it goes on to blame on ousted President Mel Zelaya for “inciting” Nasralla’s supporters to engage in violence. Hernández has also traveled to Washington to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, both of whom warmly welcomed the leader. He is also close to White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, who referred to the president this year as a “great guy” and a “good friend.” Cultivating powerful friends in Washington has worked so far, as Hernández has weathered criticism over his handling of the Cáceres slaying, the social security scandal, and his administration’s reported ties to drug traffickers. The crackdown by security forces only further impresses the need to reconsider their U.S. funding, experts say. “U.S.-funded police and military are engaged in violent repression of Honduran protesters, using munitions marked as made in the USA,” said Dana Frank, a history professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “For years, members of Congress have called for an immediate suspension of police and military aid to Honduras, because of ongoing human rights abuses like this, committed with impunity,” said Frank. “Now those forces are being used to repress the basic right of the Honduran people to protest. The Honduran elections offer a chance to declare which side the U.S. is on: democratic processes and the rule of law or the ongoing dance with a dangerous dictator, further consolidating his power.” Correction: Dec. 8, 2017, 9:53 a.m. An earlier version of this piece mischaracterized the restrictions on foreign aid imposed by the Leahy Law. It bars assistance to particular units alleged to have committed a serious human rights violation, not entire regimes. |
More money = more meat. In the U.S. and most of the Western world, that equation has held strong since the 1930s. But the math no longer adds up. Meat consumption is dropping across Europe and now in the U.S. While still among the countries with the biggest meat appetites in the world, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports meat eating in the U.S. is on the decline, three decades after health concerns first started denting demand for beef. After peaking at 184 pounds per person annually in 2004, Americans now eat an estimated 167 pounds today, according to the Earth Policy Institute, an environmental think tank, with consumption at its lowest level in more than a decade. (This is boneless weight for beef, chicken, turkey, and pork rather than the higher estimates that include whole carcasses). In the developing world, the correlation between money and meat is strong. The trend is driven by a number of factors. Rising prices have hit people’s pocket books. Demand is shifting away from expensive cuts, and so companies are increasing exports overseas where consumption is booming. The decades-long drumbeat of health warnings from doctors and health agencies have also had an impact. All of this is drawing praise from advocates of healthier diets that go easier on the planet: obesity, degraded ecosystems, and greenhouse gas emissions are all exacerbated by modern meaty diets and the factory farms that feed them. Yet in the developing world, history is repeating itself. From Brazil to China, growing wealth had fed a voracious appetite for fat and protein, most of it from livestock (typically at the expense of tubers, cereals, and other plants that compose traditional diets in poorer counties). That’s, of course, good news for many countries where malnutrition and growth stunting remains a problem. But it also spells trouble for global health of people and the planet. Around the world, more than a third of adults are now overweight or obese, up from 23% in 1980. Most of the super-sizing has occurred in the developing world, reports the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), a U.K. think tank that focuses on development and humanitarian issues. Although meat-heavy diets are not solely to blame, the rising incidence of some cancers, diabetes, heart disease, and strokes are all correlated with excessive fat consumption and obesity. This growth is eventually expected to taper off. For now, however, in the developing world, the correlation between money and meat is strong. In China, increases in income almost exactly track rising meat consumption, reports the ODI. |
“I try as much as I can to organize our money, so that we often go without a meal to reduce our daily spending. My children also share clothes, which they trade between them” Residents of the areas under siege by the Assad regime and its militias in the northern Homs countryside live a bitter reality in managing their daily needs, as most people exist without work and no source of income, coupled with an increase in the prices of basic food items incompatible with the regular family wage. Siege Alternatives Residents have been forced to look for alternatives and solutions which are in line with their reality by lowering their daily nutritional intake and going without many basic needs, especially fuel, for which people have found alternatives by relying on natural power and alternative energy. Abou Mohamed al-Salah, a man in his 40s and the breadwinner for a family of five, spoke to Alsouria Net about his previous work as a shop owner and truck driver. He said, “My monthly revenues were more than enough to secure the needs of my family. But now, after the regime’s siege of the town of Rastan, I can no longer work on the truck. The regime has also hit the main market in the city and destroyed my shop.” Salah continued, “My family needs 90,000 Syrian pounds ($420) a month to buy food, clothes and the like to secure our needs at an acceptable level. A gas canister, if it’s available, costs 20,000 pounds, and a bundle of bread costs 300 pounds. This is not to mention that the rest of the food prices have gone up too much for me to be able to afford them.” He added, “We’ve used wood as an alternative to gas for cooking and heating, and now after two years the price of wood has risen too and we can no longer provide it. The price of one ton has gone up to 80,000 pounds.” He said, “We’ve started to use a new method, the ‘miraculous tin box’, as the people of Rastan like to call it — a jerry can usually used for storing oil or fat — by burning a little straw and nylon bags by moving an air stream over it with a small fan.” This is a good method that can save families a great deal of money, according to Salah. Limited Income According to Alsouria Net’s correspondent, many people manage their affairs with much less than the 90,000 pounds Salah mentioned, and some budgets barely exceed 500 pounds ($2.30) a day, while the price of a daily pack of bread is 300 pounds. Abou Adi works to break up the rooftops of buildings destroyed during bombardments, pulling steel rods from the dilapidated constructions and selling the material. This earns him between 500 and 1,000 pounds a day. “My work is extremely exhausting from morning until evening,” Abou Adi says, “but I don’t have any other choice. Five hundred pounds can buy my family bread, which is better than nothing.” Many families have lost their main income earner, which has forced mothers to provide for their children, as with what happened to Omm Hayyan, a widow to a martyr who died during regime bombardment two years ago. Today Omm Hayyan, a mother of three children, has no income except handouts for orphans given to her by a charity, which is about 60,000 pounds per month. Omm Hayyan says, “I try as much as I can to organize our money, so that we often go without a meal to reduce our daily spending. My children also share clothes, which they trade between them.” “We rely on provisions which we prepared in the summer by storing wheat and bulgur and other grains and food that can be stored. But it’s not enough to go on, and we repeatedly have to deal with this during the week,” she said. About 250,000 people live in the northern Homs countryside, 60 percent of them without work and with no fixed source of income because of the regime’s bombardment of the institutions and markets, from which checkpoints prevent people from leaving by the city’s entrances and exits. This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author. |
In the absence of a state-sponsored cyberattack, there are other ways to glean someone’s fingerprint. Researchers at Tokyo’s National Institute of Informatics were able to reconstruct a fingerprint based off of a photo of a person flashing a peace sign taken from nine feet away. “Once you share them on social media, then they’re gone,” Isao Echizen told the Financial Times. Face-shape data is susceptible to hacking, too. A study at Georgetown University found that images of a full 50 percent of Americans are in at least one police facial-recognition database, whether it’s their drivers’ license photo or a mugshot. But a hacker wouldn’t necessarily need to break into one of those databases to harvest pictures of faces—photos can be downloaded from Facebook or Google Images, or even captured on the street. And that data can be weaponized, just like a fingerprint: Last year, researchers from the University of North Carolina built a 3D model of a person’s head using his Facebook photos, creating a moving, lifelike animation that was convincing enough to trick four of five facial-recognition tools they tested. The fundamental trouble with biometrics is that they can’t be reset. If the pattern of one of your fingerprints is compromised, that’s fine; you have a few backups. But if they’re all gone—some law-enforcement databases contain images of all ten fingers—getting them replaced isn’t an option. The same goes for eyes, which are used for iris or retina scans, and your face. Unlike a compromised password, these things can’t be changed without unpleasant surgery or mutilation. “If Border Patrol and your bank and your phone all are collecting your fingerprint data, all it takes is one actor who figures out how to manipulate that and you’ve basically wiped out the usefulness of that information,” said Betsy Cooper, the director of the Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity at the University of California, Berkeley. What’s more, fingerprints and face shape, the two most widely used forms of biometric identification, stay quite stable over time. A study of automatic face-recognition systems from Michigan State’s Biometrics Research Group examined nearly 150,000 mugshots from 18,000 criminals, with at least 5 years between the first and last photo. The researchers found that one off-the-shelf software package was still 98 percent accurate when matching a subject’s photo to one taken 10 years prior. There’s even a field of research that studies how facial software can recognize the same face before and after plastic surgery. The same Michigan State lab found that fingerprint patterns stay consistent over time, too. This time, the study examined a database of fingerprints from more than 15,000 people who were arrested by Michigan State Police over the span of five years. The results showed that for practical purposes, a 12-year-old fingerprint could be matched with an original, with nearly 100 percent accuracy. In another experiment, the group found that children’s fingerprints begin to stabilize at about one year of age, and remain of sufficient quality to identify them for at least a year. |
Every month, Netflix messes with its lineup, adding content both familiar and novel to its streaming service, and this November is no different. Netflix is bringing some beloved films and shows to its online catalog this month, along with a few Netflix Originals. Be prepared to say goodbye to some cinematic masterpieces (depending on who you ask), along with some films that, frankly, should only be streamed as a last resort. The Highlights Netflix’s new arrivals include some heavy hitters, like Marvel’s The Punisher, and the Spike Lee series She’s Gotta Have It. The Punisher follows anti-hero Frank Castle’s quest for justice, and arrives November 17. She’s Gotta Have It, based on Lee’s 1986 comedy film of the same name, arrives November 23, just in time for binge watching after you devour your Thanksgiving dinner. Netflix is also debuting Mudbound on November 17, both on its streaming service and in theaters. It’s a Netflix Original film following the aftermath of a family’s relocation to Mississippi during World War II. Advertisement Humor fans can look forward to new Netflix Original comedy specials, like actor and comedian Deray Davis’ How to Act Black (relax, he’s black), Brian Regan’s Nunchucks and Flamethrowers, and Mea Culpa. A second season of Maria Bamford’s Lady Dynamite drops November 10, as does the first season of Trailer Park Boys: Out of the Park: USA. Once again, a few iconic films and TV shows are leaving Netflix this November. Much to the disappointment of bullet-time fans everywhere, the entire Matrix trilogy is gone on the first of the month, as is V for Vendetta (couldn’t wait until the fifth of November, huh?). All nine seasons of How I Met Your Mother are out the door as well. The departure of Human Centipede: First Sequence from Netflix is probably for the best, but the removal of an actually good film, the psychological thriller Hard Candy, leaves me a tad disappointed (and relieved that chat rooms are a thing of the past). Advertisement Arriving in November November 1 November 2 November 3 November 4 November 5 November 6 November 7 November 10 November 12 November 13 November 14 November 15 November 16 November 17 November 20 November 21 Beat Bugs: All Together Now — NETFLIX ORIGINAL Brian Regan: Nunchucks and Flamethrowers — NETFLIX ORIGINAL Saving Capitalism — NETFLIX ORIGINAL The Case for Christ November 22 November 23 November 24 Bushwick Cuba and the Cameraman — NETFLIX ORIGINAL Frontier: Season 2 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL The Many Faces of Ito: Season 1 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL Trailer Park Boys: Out of the Park: USA: Season 1 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL November 27 November 28 November 29 November 30 Leaving in November November 1 Back to the Secret Garden Black Books: Series 1-3 Christmas with the Kranks Get Rich or Die Tryin’ Hard Candy Hugo Ravenous The Brothers The Legend of Hell House The Matrix The Matrix Reloaded The Matrix Revolutions The Newton Boys Thomas & Friends: A Very Thomas Christmas Thomas & Friends: Holiday Express Thomas & Friends: Merry Winter Wish Thomas & Friends: The Christmas Engines Thomas & Friends: Ultimate Christmas Twilight V for Vendetta November 3 Do I Sound Gay? November 5 Hannah Montana: The Movie Heavyweights Sky High November 8 The Heartbreak Kid November 11 Goosebumps November 13 How I Met Your Mother: Seasons 1-9 November 15 Jessie: Seasons 1-4 The Human Centipede: First Sequence We Are Still Here November 16 Cristela: Season 1 Dream House Joan Rivers: Don’t Start with Me The Break-Up November 17 Reggie Yates Outside Man: Volume 2 Somewhere Only We Know November 22 The Warlords November 25 Gringolandia: Seasons 1-3 November 30 Hatched Legends: Seasons 1-2 The Gambler |
Says Bruce Braley "threatened to sue a neighbor over chickens that came onto (his) property." We know why the chicken crossed the road, but what happened after it crossed into Bruce Braley’s yard? A televised debate on Sept. 28 (and a later mention on Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show ) brought a months-old incident involving a congressman from Iowa, a lawyer and some rogue chickens back to the national stage. It’s one of Iowa Republicans’ favorite anecdotes -- that Democratic Senate candidate Rep. Bruce Braley got into a dispute with a neighbor because her chickens wandered onto his vacation property, a lake house in Holiday Lake, Iowa. There’s a website, BraleyChicken.com , and reports of promotional rubber chickens . Karl Rove’s conservative political action committee American Crossroads released an ad in July attacking Braley over the dispute. In Des Moines on Sept. 28, Republican Senate candidate Joni Ernst was well prepared with a quip about what the chicken incident says about Braley as a leader. Ernst and Braley are vying to succeed retiring Democrat Tom Harkin in one of the nation’s tightest and most-watched Senate contests. "Congressman, you threatened to sue a neighbor over chickens that came onto your property," Ernst said. "You’re talking about bipartisanship. How do we expect as Iowans to believe that you will work across the aisle when you can’t walk across your yard?" "That’s just not true," Braley replied. "I never threatened to sue anyone." The chicken incident, which came to light in July, has been well reported. But we wondered about their disagreement at the debate. Did Braley actually threaten to sue or not? There was a real dispute over chickens, but we didn't find evidence for a lawsuit threatened against the neighbor. The backstory The Braleys’ neighbor, Pauline Hampton, keeps chickens in her backyard as pets and therapy animals. These chickens were previously unfenced and would occasionally wander onto the Braleys’ property, and Braley’s wife, Carolyn, claimed she could smell them. Hampton says she did not know that the chickens were bothering her neighbors until this past spring, when Carolyn Braley told Hampton that she would be filing a complaint to the neighborhood homeowner’s association. The neighborhood rules say, "No animals or birds, other than household pets, shall be kept on any lot." (The Braleys weren’t the only Holiday Lake residents who had problems with the chickens, according to Yahoo and the Washington Post , both of which interviewed other Holiday Lake residents.) Carolyn Braley’s complaint came up at the neighborhood association board meeting in May. The board ruled that the chickens are indeed pets and Hampton could keep them, as long as she fenced them into her yard. Problem solved? Well, not quite. The lawyer It doesn’t appear that any legal action was taken, so why do Republicans keep saying Braley threatened to sue over the chickens? After the matter was settled, the conservative Iowa Republican , broke the story after it acquired a series of emails . They show that Braley contacted the neighborhood association’s lawyer about a week after the board’s decision about Hampton’s chickens, complaining about the board’s "lack of action" and saying he believes "chickens are not pets and should not be permitted at Holiday Lake." The Iowa Republican treated these emails as a smoking gun. However, these emails -- among the lawyer, the neighborhood association board and Braley -- do not say anywhere that Braley was considering a lawsuit. In fact, they say the opposite. The lawyer, Thomas Lacina, writes: "The implication from Mr. Braley was that he wants to avoid a ‘litigious situation.' " Iowa Republicans say that the fact that Braley, a former trial lawyer, hinted at a "litigious situation" is evidence enough that he was considering a lawsuit -- but it still doesn’t definitively prove it. One interpretation of the email is that Braley said to the lawyer he wants to "avoid a litigious situation," but he will sue if he has to. But another interpretation is that Braley told the lawyer he planned to "avoid a litigious situation" under all circumstances. Point is, we don't know what was going on in Braley's head or the details of private conversations he had with his wife and the lawyer -- and neither does Ernst. (By the way -- Jeff Patch, the author behind the Iowa Republican story, is now the communications director for the Iowa Republican Party.) A spokesman for Braley told us that "a lawsuit was never part of the picture at all -- nor was there ever any threat of a lawsuit. Any claims to the contrary are false." "I just reached out to somebody I knew expecting to get a phone call back and instead this thing blows up," Braley told the Washington Post. In an interview with PolitiFact, Hampton said Braley never threatened to sue her -- though she was under the impression that he threatened to sue the neighborhood association board. In a local newspaper, the Quad City Times , one board member said he thought a lawsuit was in the air, while the board’s vice president said he never thought that was a serious possibility. We called the neighborhood association board, but they declined to comment and hung up the phone. We also want to note that the original Iowa Republican story says the association’s lawyer billed the board nearly $1,700 over the dispute, but the budget document does not specify that the costs directly pertained to Braley’s interaction with the lawyer. Additionally, the board vice president told the Quad City Times that the figure wasn’t entirely accurate, and the association's lawyer "handles a number of chores and has a monthly budget." Our ruling Ernst said Braley "threatened to sue a neighbor over chickens that came onto (his) property." Some might not like the way Braley and his wife handled a dispute with a neighbor -- by going to the neighborhood association and then consulting the association's lawyer. Even so, there is no material evidence that Braley threatened a lawsuit against the neighbor or was even considering one. Even the neighbor says that. We rate Ernst’s claim False. |
MUMBAI: City-based Islamic scholar, Dr Zakir, has won the Saudi Arab's King Faisal Award 2015. Naik and four others were chosen for the prestigious award for their services to Islam. Naik, founder if Islamic Research Foundation (IRF), is an international preacher on Islam. He did his MBBS from Nair College in Mumbai and later opted to preach Islam. The award contains a prize of 7.5 Lakh Saudi Riyal. "We are happy to inform you that Naik has won this award, said Mubarak Kapdi, Naik's relative and an educationist. Naik runs an Islamic international school and a research centre in Mumbai.Today he is considered the most influential preacher who also conducts inter-religion seminars on international level. Besides Naik, four others have also been chosen for this award from various countries. Eom Sent from my iPhone |
Far out: The amazing images from the Space Shuttle's seven-day stint at the International Space Station Advertisement Tomorrow the Space Shuttle Atlantis is due to touch down on Earth after a successful seven-day mission to deliver vital equipment to the International Space Station. During the past week as astronauts stockpiled the outpost and performed maintenance a series of stunning images were taken which we reveal here. Previously when images were released by Nasa they were soon after the event but still very fuzzy. It is only on recent missions that images of this quality of image were released almost as soon as they had happened. They are testament to the rapid advances in technology available to both the public and space scientists. This stunning image shows the Sun greeting the International Space Station as seen from the Russian section of the orbital outpost. It was taken , photographed by one of the Space Shuttle crew Space Shuttle astronaut Robert L. Satcher Jr., uses a digital still camera to take a picture of his helmet visor during mission's first mission outside the space station. Also visible in the reflections are various components of the station and astronaut Mike Foreman (upside down, top centre of picture) The Space Shuttle, left, shortly after it cast off to head home and (right) its view of the Space Station, looking back, as it drifts away. These slightly muzzy images used to be as good as images from space would get The U.S. is retiring its three-ship shuttle fleet in 2010 after five more missions to complete construction and outfitting of the £59billion space station. The shuttle departed at 9pm GMT two days ago as the spacecraft soared nearly 220 miles above the Pacific, just north-east of New Guinea. Atlantis is scheduled to land tomorrow morning at Nasa's spaceport in Florida On board Atlantis is one astronaut eager to hold his newborn daughter for the first time and another who's been away from her young son since the summer. Sun set in space: The thin line of Earth's atmosphere is illuminated as the sun sinks behind the planet Astronaut Nicole Stott, on her way home after three months in orbit, said goodbye to the five colleagues she left behind on the space station. 'It was a real pleasure working with you guys," she radioed. "I was blessed with a wonderful crew, and I look forward to seeing you guys on the ground real soon.' Today marks the 89th day in space for Ms Stott, a 47-year-old engineer. She flew to the space station at the end of August. She said she can't wait to see her husband and seven-year-old son, and to have a pizza. Spaceman Randolph Bresnik is also eager to get back. His wife gave birth to their second child, Abigail Mae Bresnik, on Saturday - shortly after his first spacewalk. The shuttle astronauts had to take one final survey of the wings and nose of their ship using a 100ft, laser-tipped inspection boom before they headed off. They need to make sure the vulnerable thermal shielding was not damaged by micrometeorites over the past week. Atlantis' cargo bay - brimming with big spare parts when it arrived at the space station last Wednesday - was empty. Astronaut Robert L. Satcher Jr. works outside the International Space Station as he participates in Atlantis' first spacewalk during the maintenance mission This image from the Space Station looks down over the Russian Soyuz spacecraft and the docked space shuttle Atlantis, with Earth's horizon forming the background Tools in hand, astronaut Randy Bresnik works on the exterior of the Columbus module of the International Space Station during the Atlantis crew's second spacewalk The astronauts installed some of the equipment during three spacewalks and performed other work to keep the station operating long after the retirement of Nasa's three shuttles next fall. The next shuttle visit, by Endeavour, is in February. The space station, a project of 16 nations, then will be serviced by Russian, European and Japanese cargo ships, though none can transport the heavy pumps, tanks and gyroscopes carried by the shuttle. Astronauts will fly exclusively on Russian Soyuz capsules at a cost of about £30million a seat. The U.S. has been developing a replacement for the space shuttles, but it is not expected to unveil it until 2015 at the earliest. An advisory panel tapped by the Obama administration to assess Nasa's human space programs determined the new spaceship won't be ready until 2017. In addition to flying to the station, which currently is funded only through 2015, the new ships are being designed to fly astronauts to the moon and other destinations in the solar system. The programme, however, is under review. During Atlantis' mission, astronauts conducted three spacewalks to install antennas, science experiments, cargo mounts and other tasks. They are returning with the station's broken urine-recycling system, which purifies wastewater into potable water. Also returning to Earth are six mice that have been aboard the station since late August for science experiments. Three of the mice died while in space, though scientists are not sure why. Astronaut Robert L. Satcher Jr (left) works Space Station during the Atlantis' first spacewalk of the mission. Anchored to a mobile foot restraint, the same astronaut during another part of the six hour 37 minute spacewalk. He and fellow astronaut carried out various maintenance projects including installed a set of cables for a future space-to-ground antenna and replaced a handrail This image was taken by a crew member on the International Space Station shortly after the Shuttle undocked. Undocking of the two spacecraft occurred at 3:53 a.m. (Central Daylight Time). This is six hours behind GMT. The area of Earth below is unspecified |
Posted January 1, 2016 at 7:56 pm Really, I would've been happy with this comic just being the first panel, but the last two establish that they're FINALLY going to be working on designing the MV5 form, so I guess it's for the best that they're there. As a result of watching the TV show NCIS, I commonly refer to the slapping of people upside the head reproachfully as "the Gibbs slap". This, however, is not a propr example of a Gibbs slap, and could only be applied if used loosely. A proper Gibbs slap is performed while walking past or looking directly at the recipient, and it is most properly performed by a marine named Gibbs. Sarah, being neither a marine or named Gibbs, and standing stationary with her eyes closed, is merely slapping Ellen upside the head, though this only really matters if one wants to get technical (which I usually do). |
The U.S. Air Force has dispatched a specially designed "nuclear sniffer" aircraft to Europe to monitor heightened levels of radiation originating from an undetermined source. Unusually high levels of Iodine-131, a manmade radioactive material, reportedly have been detected across the European continent since early January, according to France's Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety Institute (IRSN), which said that the radioactive cloud has since traveled from Norway to Spain. Finland, Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany and France also were affected. In response to the incident, the U.S. sent the WC-135 Constant Phoenix, sometimes called a "nuclear sniffer," which reportedly has landed at Surrey airbase in the U.K. The aircraft, tasked with isolating the source of the radiation, was "on a preplanned rotational deployment scheduled far in advance," a U.S. Air Force spokesperson told the Independent Thursday. "Anything contrary is completely baseless." "The WC-135 routinely conducts worldwide missions and we are not going to get into further details." The radioactive material was first discovered in the isolated Artic Circle region north of Norway; however, its origins have yet to be determined. The IRSN said the substance's short half-life was "proof of a recent release" and, despite unfounded rumors of a Russian atomic bomb test, established the "most likely source of detected iodine" was "a plant for the production of radioactive elements for medical use," IRSN said in a tweet posted Monday. Iodine-131 has various pharmaceutical uses. The IRSN also said no other nuclear materials had been discovered, and no health concerns were associated with the levels currently detected. It said it had brought its findings to the Ring of Five, an international group of European organizations dedicated to radiological study. Some have criticized European governments for not making their early January findings public until days ago. The WC-135 Constant Phoenix has been used to detect radiation levels after nuclear disasters such as the Soviet Union's Chernobyl incident in 1986 and Japan's Fukushima meltdown in 2011. The aircraft also reportedly was dispatched to monitor North Korea's nuclear activity. |
Soon there will be a new president in the White House and his name is Donald Trump. That doesn't mean President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have to like it. SEE ALSO: The internet takes a fond look back at the Obama presidency Instead of a graceful exit, the internet imagined Biden plotting pranks against Trump and Mike Pence on his way out. Obama, always the adult, isn't exactly onboard. Joe: Okay so we sneak in one night around February, steal his shoes Obama: Joe Joe: And then dump legos all over the floor pic.twitter.com/2KCU7LbciV — jacqueline (@jacquelinehey) November 13, 2016 Biden: Ok here's the plan: have you seen Home Alone Obama: Joe, no Biden: Just one booby trap Obama: Joe pic.twitter.com/BgZ4lCoqg4 — Male Thoughts (@SteveStfler) November 13, 2016 Obama: "Joe, why are you still holding my hand?" Biden: "I wanna freak Mike Pence out" Obama: "But why?" Biden: "Just roll with it" pic.twitter.com/o5KZZ0Ysgz — thomas moore (@Thomas_A_Moore) November 12, 2016 Obama: Didn't think he'd be late Biden: I gave him the wrong address Obama: Joe he's the president-elect Biden: idgaf what they call him pic.twitter.com/6pQzOJY92x — Mr Sam (@Sammart123) November 12, 2016 Joe: Yes, that was me. Obama: Please stop. Joe: I will not stop. This room will smell so bad when he gets here. Obama: Joe... Joe: Nope. pic.twitter.com/49WkhsUwvr — Aaron Paul (@aaronpaul_8) November 12, 2016 biden: cmon you gotta print a fake birth certificate, put it in an envelope labeled "SECRET" and leave it in the oval office desk obama: joe pic.twitter.com/UTtv1JkE5o — jomny sun (@jonnysun) November 11, 2016 Biden: You know he needs an official gov't phone right? Imma give him a Note 7. Obama: But Joe, don't those.... Biden: Exactly. pic.twitter.com/HFXzpSN9Kj — Tatiana King Jones (@TatianaKing) November 13, 2016 Biden: I took a Staples red button & wrote "Nukes" on it Obama: Joe! Biden: Tweets to him in Russian when pressed pic.twitter.com/j7rdFd1tXs — Crutnacker (@Crutnacker) November 13, 2016 We're gonna miss you, Barack and Joe. |
Fatherland is a 1992 alternative history detective novel by English writer and journalist Robert Harris. Set in a universe where Nazi Germany won World War II, the story's lead protagonist is an officer in Kripo, the criminal police, investigating the murder of a Nazi government official who was one of the participants at the Wannsee Conference. In so doing, he discovers a plot to eliminate all attendees of the conference in order to help Germany establish better political relations with the United States. The book's plot inverts some of the conventions of the detective novel. It begins with a murder and diligent police detective investigating and eventually solving it. But since the murderer is highly placed in a tyrannical regime, solving the mystery does not result in the detective pursuing and arresting the murderer, but the contrary – the murderer pursuing and arresting the detective. The novel was an immediate best-seller in the UK. It has sold over three million copies and has been translated into 25 languages.[1] Plot [ edit ] It is April 1964 in Nazi Germany, specifically the week leading up to Adolf Hitler's[note 1] 75th birthday. Detective Xavier March is an investigator working for the Kriminalpolizei (Kripo), as he investigates the suspicious death of a high-ranking Nazi, Josef Bühler,[note 2] in the Havel on the outskirts of Berlin. As March uncovers more details, he realises that he is caught up in a political scandal involving senior Nazi Party officials, who are apparently being systematically murdered under staged circumstances. As soon as the body is identified, the Gestapo claims jurisdiction and orders the Kripo to close its investigation. In the story, March meets with Charlotte 'Charlie' Maguire, a female American journalist also determined to investigate the case. They both travel to Zürich to investigate the private Swiss bank account of one of the murdered officials. Ultimately, the two uncover the truth behind the staged murders: Reinhard Heydrich,[note 3] the head of the SS, has ordered the Gestapo to eliminate the remaining officials who planned the Final Solution (of which few Germans are aware) at the Wannsee Conference in January 1942. The elimination is being hurried to safeguard an upcoming meeting of Hitler and United States President Joseph P. Kennedy by ensuring that the fate of the missing Jews can never be revealed. Maguire heads for neutral Switzerland, hoping to expose the evidence of the extermination to the world. March, however, is denounced by his ten-year-old son and apprehended by the Gestapo. In the cellars of Gestapo headquarters at Prinz-Albrecht-Straße, March is tortured but does not reveal the location of Maguire. Globocnik boasts that Auschwitz and the other camps have been totally razed, and March will never know the truth for certain. Kripo Chief Arthur Nebe stages a rescue, intending to track March as he meets with Maguire at their rendezvous in Waldshut-Tiengen on the Swiss/German border. March realises what is happening and heads for Auschwitz, leading the authorities in the wrong direction. The Gestapo catches up with March at the unmarked site of Auschwitz. Knowing that Maguire has had the time to cross the border into Switzerland, March searches for some sign that the camp existed. As Gestapo agents close in on him in a helicopter, March uncovers bricks in the undergrowth. Satisfied, he pulls out his gun and leaves the readers to draw their own conclusions. Characters [ edit ] Fictional [ edit ] Xavier March . A detective in the Kriminalpolizei with the concurrent honorary rank of Sturmbannführer (Major) in the SS, March (nicknamed "Zavi" by his friends) is a 42-year-old divorcé living in Berlin. He has one son, Pili (Paul), who lives with March's ex-wife, Klara. March's father died in 1929 from wounds sustained while serving in the Imperial German Navy during the Great War and his mother was killed in a Royal Air Force bombing raid in 1942. March commanded a U-Boat in World War II and was decorated for bravery and promoted. He married his nurse after the war, but the marriage steadily deteriorated afterward. His military service helped him rise through the police ranks to detective. By 1964, however, he is secretly under Gestapo surveillance for what they correctly perceive to be an intense dislike of the Nazi regime. For example, March refuses to donate to the 'winter-relief', showed "insufficient enthusiasm" for his son's involvement in the Jungvolk, has rebuffed all incentives to join the Nazi Party, tells "jokes about the Party", and worst of all - has shown some curiosity about what happened to a Jewish family who used to live in his present apartment. . A detective in the Kriminalpolizei with the concurrent honorary rank of Sturmbannführer (Major) in the SS, March (nicknamed "Zavi" by his friends) is a 42-year-old divorcé living in Berlin. He has one son, Pili (Paul), who lives with March's ex-wife, Klara. March's father died in 1929 from wounds sustained while serving in the Imperial German Navy during the Great War and his mother was killed in a Royal Air Force bombing raid in 1942. March commanded a U-Boat in World War II and was decorated for bravery and promoted. He married his nurse after the war, but the marriage steadily deteriorated afterward. His military service helped him rise through the police ranks to detective. By 1964, however, he is secretly under Gestapo surveillance for what they correctly perceive to be an intense dislike of the Nazi regime. For example, March refuses to donate to the 'winter-relief', showed "insufficient enthusiasm" for his son's involvement in the Jungvolk, has rebuffed all incentives to join the Nazi Party, tells "jokes about the Party", and worst of all - has shown some curiosity about what happened to a Jewish family who used to live in his present apartment. Charlotte "Charlie" Maguire . A 25-year-old American journalist, Maguire has been assigned to Berlin by the fictional news service World European Features . Midway through the novel, she and March fall in love and begin a relationship. Maguire comes from a prominent Irish-American political family but is something of a renegade. The daughter of a U.S. State Department official and German actress who left with him before the war, Maguire speaks fluent German without an accent. . A 25-year-old American journalist, Maguire has been assigned to Berlin by the fictional news service . Midway through the novel, she and March fall in love and begin a relationship. Maguire comes from a prominent Irish-American political family but is something of a renegade. The daughter of a U.S. State Department official and German actress who left with him before the war, Maguire speaks fluent German without an accent. Hermann Jost . A 19-year-old cadet in an SS military academy, Jost was out running when he discovered the corpse which triggered March's investigation. March is certain that Jost witnessed more than he is willing to disclose and at first believes him to be covering up a homosexual relationship with a fellow cadet—a death penalty offense. But ultimately, March persuades Jost to admit the truth—he witnessed the dumping of the body and recognised SS General Odilo Globocnik at the scene. Midway through the novel, Globocnik smugly tells March, "It's over. You have no witness". March learns that Jost has been sent to a punishment battalion in occupied Russia, likely resulting in his death. . A 19-year-old cadet in an SS military academy, Jost was out running when he discovered the corpse which triggered March's investigation. March is certain that Jost witnessed more than he is willing to disclose and at first believes him to be covering up a homosexual relationship with a fellow cadet—a death penalty offense. But ultimately, March persuades Jost to admit the truth—he witnessed the dumping of the body and recognised SS General Odilo Globocnik at the scene. Midway through the novel, Globocnik smugly tells March, "It's over. You have no witness". March learns that Jost has been sent to a punishment battalion in occupied Russia, likely resulting in his death. Paul "Pili" March . March's ten-year-old son, Pili lives with his mother and her partner in a bungalow in the suburbs of Berlin. Pili is a fully indoctrinated member of the Jungvolk — the junior section of the Hitler Youth for boys between the ages of 10 and 14. Later in the novel, Pili denounces his father to the Gestapo, all the while unaware of what they will really do to him. . March's ten-year-old son, Pili lives with his mother and her partner in a bungalow in the suburbs of Berlin. Pili is a fully indoctrinated member of the — the junior section of the Hitler Youth for boys between the ages of 10 and 14. Later in the novel, Pili denounces his father to the Gestapo, all the while unaware of what they will really do to him. Max Jaeger . March's friend and Kripo partner, Jaeger is 50, lives with his wife Hannelore and four daughters in Berlin, and is disinclined to question 'the system'. At the end of the novel Jaeger drives the getaway car that rescues March, but it is revealed that he was the one who has been informing against March since before the novel began, and that March's "rescue" was arranged by the Gestapo as a ruse to find Charlotte Maguire. . March's friend and Kripo partner, Jaeger is 50, lives with his wife Hannelore and four daughters in Berlin, and is disinclined to question 'the system'. At the end of the novel Jaeger drives the getaway car that rescues March, but it is revealed that he was the one who has been informing against March since before the novel began, and that March's "rescue" was arranged by the Gestapo as a ruse to find Charlotte Maguire. Walther Fiebes . Fiebes is a detective working in VB3, the Kripo's sexual crimes division, along the corridor from March's office. A man with a deeply prurient nature, Fiebes relishes his work investigating sexual crimes cases including rape, adultery, and interracial relationships between "Aryan" women and their Slavic servants. . Fiebes is a detective working in VB3, the Kripo's sexual crimes division, along the corridor from March's office. A man with a deeply prurient nature, Fiebes relishes his work investigating sexual crimes cases including rape, adultery, and interracial relationships between "Aryan" women and their Slavic servants. Rudolf "Rudi" Halder . March's friend and a crewman on his U-boat, Rudi is now an historian working at the immense Reich Central Archives, helping to compile an official history of the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS on the Eastern Front. . March's friend and a crewman on his U-boat, Rudi is now an historian working at the immense Reich Central Archives, helping to compile an official history of the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS on the Eastern Front. Karl Krebs. Krebs is an officer in the Gestapo, and is an example of the younger, university-trained SS-men whom Globocnik hates. Based on historical figures [ edit ] Harris, in the book's Author's notes, explains that many characters in the novel are based on the real people with the same names and, indeed, the biographical details are correct up to 1942. After that, the narrative is fictional. The following descriptions follow what is in the novel. Odilo Globocnik . An aging Obergruppenführer in the Gestapo and right-hand man of Reichsführer-SS Reinhard Heydrich, nicknamed "Globus". Globus is a principal antagonist of the book, personally responsible for the assassinations of the Wannsee officials. After March's apprehension by the Gestapo, Globus takes over March's interrogation, administering several brutal beatings. . An aging Obergruppenführer in the Gestapo and right-hand man of Reichsführer-SS Reinhard Heydrich, nicknamed "Globus". Globus is a principal antagonist of the book, personally responsible for the assassinations of the Wannsee officials. After March's apprehension by the Gestapo, Globus takes over March's interrogation, administering several brutal beatings. Arthur Nebe . The chief of the Kripo, Nebe by 1964 is an old man with a sumptuous office in Berlin. Initially appearing to support March's investigation for political reasons despite the Gestapo's involvement, Nebe eventually ascertains the threat posed to the Reich's international standing by March's investigations and weaves a ruse to March so that he reveals the whereabouts of the evidence. . The chief of the Kripo, Nebe by 1964 is an old man with a sumptuous office in Berlin. Initially appearing to support March's investigation for political reasons despite the Gestapo's involvement, Nebe eventually ascertains the threat posed to the Reich's international standing by March's investigations and weaves a ruse to March so that he reveals the whereabouts of the evidence. Josef Bühler . A secretary and deputy governor to the Nazi-controlled General Government in Kraków. . A secretary and deputy governor to the Nazi-controlled General Government in Kraków. Wilhelm Stuckart . A Nazi Party lawyer, official and a state secretary in the German Interior Ministry. . A Nazi Party lawyer, official and a state secretary in the German Interior Ministry. Martin Luther . An advisor to Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, . An advisor to Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, Reinhard Heydrich. Heydrich is the current head of the SS and is considered a likely successor to Hitler. He is a principal antagonist of the book, although he never features personally. He ordered the assassinations of the Wannsee officials personally to eradicate all first-hand evidence of the Final Solution. In the real world he was assassinated on 4 June 1942 in Prague, but not in the story. Others mentioned [ edit ] In each case, the description following the name describes how they appear in the novel, again following reality up to 1942. Also referenced though not by name are the Beatles, their recent appearances in Hamburg and their great popularity with young Germans, which has been condemned in the German press. The people the book names as attendees of the Wannsee Conference all did so in reality. Some are central to plot of the novel, but the others are already dead at the time of the novel's events. The fictitious backstory to the novel [ edit ] Alternate World War II history [ edit ] Fatherland where the Germans won The world in 1964 in the novelwhere the Germans won World War II . Germany and its sphere of influence are in red; the United States and its sphere of influence in blue; China in yellow Throughout the novel, Harris gradually explains in a fictional backstory the developments that allowed Germany to prevail in World War II. The author explains in the Author's notes that, except for the backstories of the fictitious characters, the narrative describes reality up to 1942 and is subsequently fictional. A significant early point of divergence is that Reinhard Heydrich survived the assassination attempt by Czech fighters in May 1942 – which in reality killed him – and later became head of the SS. (Another divergence is the political career of Joseph Kennedy, who was disgraced in 1940 during the Battle of Britain. In this timeline, for an unexplained reason his political fortunes do not suffer – or possibly, recovered after the German victory – and he becomes president.) The Nazi offensives on the Eastern Front ultimately pushed back the Soviet forces, with the Case Blue operation succeeding in capturing the Caucasus and cutting the Red Army off from its petroleum reserves by 1943. The Nazis also found that the Enigma machine code had been broken. A massive U-Boat campaign against Britain thereafter succeeded in starving the British into surrender by 1944. In the novel, King George VI, the British Royal Family and Prime Minister Winston Churchill flee into exile in Canada. Edward VIII regained the British throne soon afterwards, with Wallis Simpson as his queen. The US defeated Japan in 1945 using nuclear weapons. Germany tested its first atomic bomb in 1946 and fired a non-nuclear "V-3" missile above New York City to demonstrate an ability to attack the continental United States with long-range missiles. Thus, after a peace treaty in 1946, the US and Germany are the two superpower opponents in the Cold War of this world.[note 4] There is a reference to a brutal regime having power in China, but no reference to its ideology and whether it is headed by Mao or somebody else. Alternate post-war history [ edit ] The fictional backstory describes how, having achieved victory in Europe, Germany reorganises Europe east of Poland into Reichskommissariats. Following the signing of the Treaty of Rome, Western Europe and Scandinavia are corralled into a pro-German trading bloc, the European Community. By 1964, the United States and the Greater German Reich are involved in a Cold War. The only exception is Switzerland, which retains its neutral status. The German invasion of the Soviet Union has died down into an endless guerrilla war in the Ural Mountains and Siberia. Mounting casualties (at least 100,000 since 1960, according to the novel ) have sapped the German military, despite Hitler's statement (quoted in the novel) about a perpetual war to keep the German people on their toes. Dead German soldiers are returned to Germany in the middle of the night. The action of the novel takes place from 14–20 April 1964, as Germany prepares for Hitler's 75th birthday celebrations on the 20th. A visit by the President of the United States, Joseph P. Kennedy, is planned as part of a gradual détente between the United States and the Greater German Reich. The novel suggests that the Nazi hierarchy is eager for peace because its efforts to settle the conquered Eastern lands are failing due to continued resistance from Polish and Soviet partisan movements. Moreover, the Nazis failed to instill their ideology in the younger generation, and many young Germans turn away from it – though active opposition to the regime is limited. The Holocaust has been explained away officially as merely the relocation of the Jewish population into areas of Eastern Europe where communications and transport networks are still very poor. Despite this, many Germans suspect the government has eliminated the Jews, but generally do not care or are too afraid of the Nazi authorities to say or do anything with this knowledge. Some surviving Jews escaped to Soviet territory, where they have provided testimony of the extermination efforts – while Nazi authorities decry this as Bolshevik propaganda, the outside world is aware of the Holocaust. The American president, however, remains neutral so as not to further damage relations, and refers only to vague "human rights violations" he wishes to investigate while visiting Berlin. The end suggests that the plans of both Kennedy and Hitler might be seriously derailed by the documents which the book's protagonists obtained and which Charlie successfully smuggled out of Germany. Their publication, giving concrete hard evidence on the systematic murder of the Jews, might cause the cancellation of the Hitler–Kennedy summit and sabotage the plans for a German–American détente, on which the Nazis were counting for economic recovery. It might also cause Kennedy to fail in his bid for re-election in November 1964. The book does not mention who the opposing candidate is and what policies does that candidate support, though it might be more of an anti-Nazi Cold Warrior. Greater German Reich and international politics [ edit ] Fatherland ' s 1964 Europe s 1964 Europe The first few pages of Fatherland feature two maps: one of the city centre of Berlin and another showing the extent of the massively expanded Greater German Reich, which now stretches from Alsace-Lorraine (Westmark) in the west to the Ural Mountains and lower Caucasus in the east. The Reich has retained Austria (now known as the "Ostmark"), Slovenia, the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and Luxembourg (now named "Moselland"). In the East, Poland is still ruled as a colony by the General Government while Soviet territory west of the Urals has been divided into five Reichkommissariats: Ostland (Belarus and the Baltic states), Ukraine with Odessa, Muscovy (from Moscow to the Urals), and Caucasus, along with Generalkommissariat Taurida (Southern Ukraine and the Crimea). There is also mention of a German naval base in Trondheim, Norway where the Reich's nuclear submarines are based. Berlin has been remodelled as Hitler's "capital of capitals", designed according to the wishes of Hitler and his top architect, Albert Speer,[note 5] and is the world's largest city, with a population of ten million. The virtually powerless "European Parliament" is based there. In the novel, the rest of Western and Northern Europe, excluding Switzerland, has been corralled by Germany into a European Community (made up of Portugal, Spain, France, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland). Eastern European countries dominated by the Germany of Fatherland include Croatia, Greece, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Albania, and Serbia. The nations of Fatherland's EC, despite being nominally free under their own governments and leaders, are presumably only just sufficient to police their own territory. European nations are under constant surveillance by Berlin and are subordinate to Germany in all but name – the German flag flying over the Union's headquarters being twice as big as those of the other nations. By the time the Reich had turned its eyes to Switzerland, seeking to absorb its German-speaking cantons, the stalemate of the Cold War had settled in and Switzerland had become a convenient neutral spot for diplomacy, and for American and German intelligence agents to spy on each other. Consequently, Switzerland is the last state in Europe with a foreign policy independent of Berlin. In the backstory, the United States is locked in a Cold War with the Greater German Reich. Since the end of the war in 1946, both the US and Germany have developed nuclear and space technologies. Japan was defeated by the US after the United States detonated one atomic bomb on Japanese territory. The United States is said to have not participated in the Olympic Games since 1936, but is expected to in 1964.[note 6] A passing remark hints at China being ruled by a harsh government, but its precise nature is not mentioned. A greatly reduced Soviet rump state consisting of Siberia, the Russian Far East and Central Asia still exists with its capital in Omsk, while the United States supplies weapons and funds which are used by the Russians to tie down German forces in the Urals. Although German propaganda plays down the war in the east, the war on the Eastern Front is taking its toll.[note 7] Canada, Australia and New Zealand are now allied with the United States. Princess Elizabeth resides in Canada and is recognised by Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States as the rightful queen of the United Kingdom. Winston Churchill also lives in Canada. The novel describes that since the end of the war, a stalemate has developed between Germany and the United States, which seems to overshadow international relations. New German buildings are constructed with mandatory bomb shelters; the Reichsarchiv (German National Archive) claims to have been built to withstand a direct missile hit. Nazi society [ edit ] In the novel, Germany concentrates on the containment of the USSR. Hitler has taken some steps to soften his image over the years, and now wears civilian clothes most of the time instead of Party uniform. Nonetheless, no substantive changes have taken place in the Nazi regime's basic character. The Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act of 1933, the legal bases for Hitler's dictatorship, remain in effect. The press, radio and television are tightly controlled. Dissenters are still sent to concentration camps. Conditions in the camps are reputed to be as harsh as they were in the 1930s and 1940s, though the International Red Cross is occasionally given staged inspections. In the novel, the bedrock of Nazi ideology is still the policy of blaming subversive and minority groups for Germany's economic and social problems. Jews, Communists, homosexuals, and interracial relationships (particularly between "Aryans" and Slavs) continue being scapegoats for the Nazi Party. Nazi propaganda has previously depicted America as a land of corruption, degeneracy and poverty. However, as the diplomatic meeting between Hitler and Kennedy nears, German propaganda is forced to change its image of America to a more positive view. Despite its ideological and moral decline, Germany has a high standard of living, with its citizens living off the produce of their European satellite states and freed from physical labour by thousands of Polish, Czech and Ukrainian workers. The European nations export high quality consumer goods to Germany (noted imports are domestic electronics from Great Britain) while also providing services, such as an SS academy at Oxford University and imported domestic staff. Hitler's personal tastes in art and music remain the norm for German society. Military service is still compulsory. Eastern Europe has been colonised by German settlers (although local partisan resistance movements are still active) and the German population has soared as a result of Nazi emphasis on childbirth. As the original generation of Nazi leaders that founded the party and came to power alongside Hitler are now beginning to die off, increasing numbers of Nazi officials are well-educated technocrats in the mould of Albert Speer. The police force is integrated with the SS, with police officers having honorary SS ranks.[note 8] According to the main characters, however, German society in the early 1960s is becoming more and more rebellious. The young generation have no memory of the instability that paved the way for Hitler's rise to power. Student protests, particularly against the war in the Urals, American and British cultural influence, and growing pacifism are all found in Nazi society. Jazz music is still popular and the German government claims to have come up with a version which is free from "Negroid influence". In spite of the general repressiveness, the Beatles' real-life Hamburg engagements have happened here as well (and have already been denounced in the state-run press). Germany is under constant attack by terrorist groups, with officials assassinated and civilian airliners bombed in-flight. Christianity is suppressed, and Nazi youth organisations are compulsory for all children. Universities are centres of student dissent, and the White Rose movement is once again active. The Nazis continue with their policies for women, encouraging them to remain in the home and bring up many children (still emphasising the first two elements of Kinder, Küche, Kirche), although women are clearly present in the Nazi bureaucracy. Nazi organisations such as Kraft durch Freude still exist and fulfill their original roles such as providing holidays to resort areas under German control. German citizens are still encouraged to contribute to the Winterhilfswerk. A sprawling transport network covers the entire Reich, including vast autobahnen and railways in the manner of the actually proposed Breitspurbahn system, carrying immense trains. Technology [ edit ] The level of technology in Fatherland is much the same as in the actual 1960s. The German military uses jet aircraft, nuclear submarines, and aircraft carriers, while civilian technology has also advanced considerably. Jet airliners, televisions, hair-dryers, coffee machines, and photocopiers are used in Germany. The United States and Germany appear to have sophisticated space technology. Germany's space program is based at the old rocket-testing facility at Peenemünde on the Baltic coast. The extent of space exploration is not specified, but a conversation between March and Maguire suggests that German boasts about being ahead of the Americans in the Space Race are justified. Critical evaluations [ edit ] British scholar Nancy Browne noted the similarities between the ending of "Fatherland" and that of Ernest Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls": "Both novels end with the protagonist about to embark on a single-handed armed confrontation with a large number of Fascists or Nazis, of whose outcome there can be no doubt - but the reader does not witness the moment of his presumed death.(...) Like Hemingway's Robert Jordan, Xavier March is facing this last moment with an exhilaration born of having no further doubts and dilemmas, no more crucial decisions which need to be made, nothing but going through on his chosen course and dying in a just cause. And like Jordan, in sacrificing himself March is ensuring the safe escape of the woman he loves.[22] In other media [ edit ] Film [ edit ] A TV film of the book was made in 1994 by HBO, starring Rutger Hauer as March and Miranda Richardson as Maguire for which she received a Golden Globe Award in 1995 for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for TV. Rutger Hauer's performance was also nominated, as well as the film itself. The film also received an Emmy nomination in 1995 for Special Visual Effects.[23] Radio [ edit ] The novel was serialised on BBC radio, starring Anton Lesser as March and Angeline Ball as Charlie Maguire. It was dramatised, produced and directed by John Dryden and first broadcast on 9 July 1997. The ending is changed slightly to allow for the limitations of the medium: the entire Auschwitz camp is discovered in an abandoned state, and Charlie Maguire's passage into Switzerland is confirmed to have occurred. Audiobook [ edit ] The unabridged audiobook version of the novel was released by Random House Audio in 1993, read by Werner Klemperer,[citation needed] best remembered for his two-time Emmy Award-winning role of bumbling Colonel Klink on the 1960s TV series Hogan's Heroes. Release details [ edit ] 1992, UK, Hutchinson ( ISBN 0-09-174827-5), Pub date 7 May 1992, hardback (First edition) ISBN 0-09-174827-5), Pub date 7 May 1992, hardback (First edition) 1993, UK, Arrow ( ISBN 0-09-926381-5), Pub date 12 May 1993, paperback ISBN 0-09-926381-5), Pub date 12 May 1993, paperback 2012, 20th Anniversary edition, UK, Arrow ( ISBN 978-0099571575), Pub date 26 April 2012, paperback The novel is in seven parts, each of several chapters. The first six parts describe the fictitious events of Tuesday, 14 April to Sunday, 19 April 1964 and are named after the individual days. Part seven, Führertag is set on Hitler's 75th birthday, 20 April 1964. Notes [ edit ] ^ Hitler (as with the other "real" characters in the novel) is described factually up to 1942 after which the treatment is fictional. ^ As with the other "real" characters in the novel, the biographical details up to 1942 are based on fact, after which the treatment is fictional. ^ In reality Heydrich was killed in 1942 ^ It is not explicitly stated whether Germany and the United States are the only nuclear powers in the world of Fatherland. ^ Harris states the architectural description follows Speer's actual plans ^ The novel does not make references to the League of Nations or a possible existence of the United Nations. ^ Africa and Latin America are not referred to in the novel. ^ The integration occurred historically in 1936 See also [ edit ] References [ edit ] Citations [ edit ] Works cited [ edit ] |
Crispy, flaky puff pastry wrapped around a tasty chickpea and mushroom filling, what’s not to love? Try my delicious vegan Chickpea Mushroom Turnovers. So these last few weeks of cooking for a fussy six-year-old have turned me into a bit of a Machiavelli, cooking up schemes to stay ahead of the game. And for some crazy reason, I thought you would want to read my scary little tale. Before I became a mom in the real world, I liked to dream of a fantasy one where my child would love vegetables, adore whole grains, and wouldn’t get enough of beans and lentils (c’mon, I’m not naive– I did say it was a fantasy world). Of course there would be ice cream and cookies and chips and donuts, but they would be occasional treats. And wholegrain, when I could help it. Meeting Jay was not an unexpected but still challenging introduction to what a child’s fantasy world looks like. For the first few days after we had picked him up, we waited at a hotel in Delhi for his immigration-related paperwork to come through. We had the luxury of hotel breakfast buffets and dining out and Jay, I soon found out, had a tendency to rush for the fried and the crispy and the intensely sugary. Even muffins– decidedly less sweeter than cupcakes– did not meet his bar. After two days of watching him make the worst possible choices, I decided to take matters in hand. At breakfast, he would eat a healthy food like cereal or idli or dosa, followed by fruit, and after that, if he was still hungry, he could have anything he wanted. Easier said than done. Every day he ate that healthy breakfast, Jay would want to throw up right after. In fact, throwing up, we discovered, was his response to anything he really didn’t want to do. While sometimes he actually did manage to summon up some icky stuff, at others it was clear he was pretending because he’d retch and retch and nothing would come out. So Desi and I did what we thought was the only reasonable thing to do. We treated all of those throwing-up fits as though they were no big deal. When it happened, Desi would quietly leave the table to take him to the bathroom, and after it started to happen in the car– whenever we were out and he didn’t get a toy or something else that he had just seen in a store — we started giving him a paper bag to throw up in. We were mindful to keep an eye on him in case it was something more serious, but we didn’t make a big fuss when he threw up, nor did we give in to his demands. A week or two later, realizing he was getting nowhere, the throwing up subsided, although it’s not yet completely out because, let’s face it, kids will throw up sometimes and it’s okay when it’s not part of a tantrum. There’s more. I have been trying to ease Jay’s transition by making familiar foods for him, like dal and rotis and rice and sabzi– all foods he routinely ate at the orphanage and liked and are quite healthy. But every time I’d introduce a new meal like spaghetti or a sandwich– even one touted as “kid-friendly” by every food website in the world — he would turn up his nose. I am a bit of a food Nazi (thanks to my mom whom I am increasingly channeling these days) which means Jay isn’t just allowed to refuse what he thinks he doesn’t want to eat, nor do I rush at dinnertime to cook something else for him just because he isn’t too keen on the food I just served (I’ve seen enough friends with kids have their lives reduced to misery with that attitude and even if I didn’t work full-time there’s no way I’d cook two separate meals). So I’ve set a simple rule: he gets to choose how much he eats, so if it’s an unfamiliar food and he wants to eat just a little first, that’s what he does. There are meals when he isn’t too sure about a new food and will pick at it, but there are others when he will stuff himself silly on seconds and thirds. In balance, I think he is doing just fine. Increasingly he is opening up to new foods although we still have a long way to go, and yes, he does clean his plate at every meal, like mommy and daddy do. But here’s what’s been the most challenging part: In the first week of bringing Jay home, Desi and I found ourselves sitting at the table for more than 90 minutes for each meal while Jay slowly chewed his food, got distracted by every single thing around him, picked imaginary hair out of his plate, and hid food in the sides of his mouth — we later found that he just spat it out when he went to the sink to rinse his mouth. Since we simply don’t have 90 minutes to devote to each meal– who does? — I came up with a trick. I started to time his meals. So he gets half an hour for each meal and if he goes over that, he gets a cross. Five crosses mean that the next day, he doesn’t get the half-hour of TV he is allowed each day. Five stars — one star for each meal completed on time– means he gets a food treat he loves. Jay doesn’t like getting those crosses and he does enjoy looking at the timer and shrieking in mock terror as the minutes count down. He has actually finished at least three meals within the half-hour limit in the last week, and we got very close on many others. Yes, there are still days when he will sit at the table for an hour or more and look dolefully at the food as though it’s going to kill him, but I am feeling more confident now that in time my scary tale is headed for a happier ending. *** These Mushroom and Chickpea Turnovers are food in his new world that Jay actually likes, perhaps because they are crispy and savory. And even if you don’t have a fussy child to deal with at mealtimes (lucky you!), you will love them. They make a great snack or a lunchbox/brown bag and they are utterly delicious. Even better, they’re healthier than your average puff-pastry-turnover recipes because I used part-whole-wheat pastry to make these. I had the pastry sheet left over from my Thanksgiving dinner, where one of the dishes I made was a Potato-Olive-Onion tart not unlike this one. It was delicious and because this was a rather special Thanskgiving for our new, bigger family, I didn’t really have the time or opportunity to take photos. But I promise to make it again and share it someday. I won’t repeat the puff pastry recipe because I’ve already posted it before— all you need to do for a whole-wheat version is substitute half the flour with whole wheat. You can also just buy it from the store– popular brands are typically vegan. One of the best things about this recipe– one I know all moms will like to hear — is that it comes together in minutes. The puff pastry is something you hopefully already have on hand when you make these, and most ingredients come out of jars or cans. The only thing you need to chop is the mushrooms and onions and coriander leaves. Now for the recipe. Enjoy, all! And for more inspiration if you’re planning to cook vegan meals for your kids, check out my compilation of 66 Kid Friendly Vegan Recipes. More recipes to try: *** 5 from 1 vote Print Chickpea and Mushroom Turnovers Prep Time 10 mins Cook Time 35 mins Total Time 45 mins Crispy, flaky puff pastry wrapped around a tasty chickpea and mushroom filling, what's not to love? Try my delicious vegan Chickpea Mushroom Turnovers. Course: Appetizer/meal Cuisine: Vegan Servings : 6 turnover Author : Vaishali Ingredients 1 sheet whole wheat puff pastry. See recipe notes below for the recipe. You can also just use storebought puff pastry. 2 cups cooked or canned chickpeas or garbanzo beans 8-10 button or crimini mushrooms 1 tsp olive oil 1/2 tsp black mustard seeds 1/2 large onion, minced 1/2 tsp garlic powder 1/2 tsp ginger powder 1/2 tsp garam masala 1 tsp red pepper flakes Juice of 1/2 lemon 2 tbsp minced coriander leaves Salt to taste Instructions Thaw the puff pastry until it reaches room temperature. In a saucepan, heat the oil and add mustard seeds. When they crackle, add the onion. Saute the onions until they start to brown. Add the garlic and ginger powder, garam masala and red pepper flakes. Stir to mix, then add the mushrooms with a pinch of salt. Once the mushrooms are cooked and have expressed all their water, add the chickpeas and lemon juice and coriander leaves. Stir to mix and let the mixture dry out completely. Turn off the heat and set aside to cool. Roll out the puff pastry into a slightly larger rectangle and, with a pastry cutter, divide it into six pieces. Roll out each piece into a 6 by 3 inch rectangle. Divide the chickpea-mushroom filling into six and place each portion on one half of each rectangle, leaving a 1/2-inch border. Brush the edges with some water and turn over the other half of the puff pastry over the filling. Press down on the border to seal, and crimp the edges with the tines of a fork for a decorative look. Place the pastries on a baking sheet. Make a couple of slits on the top of each turnover with a knife or a pizza cutter. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Bake the turnovers for 25 minutes until they are golden. Remove to a rack and let them cool for a few minutes before serving. Roll out each individual piece further Recipe Notes To make whole wheat puff pastry, follow this recipe. Substitute half the all-purpose flour with whole wheat flour. *** I’ll leave you with a photo of Jay and Opie bonding. 🙂 |
New Delhi: In a reprieve for Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and others, the Delhi High Court today stayed till 13 August the criminal proceedings before a trial court against them in a case relating to acquiring ownership of National Herald daily. "Renotify the matters on August 13. Till that time, the impugned order dated June 26, 2014 of the trial court against the accused shall remain stayed," Justice V P Vaish said. The stay has come as a relief to Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and others including Congress treasurer Moti Lal Vora, General Secretary Oscar Fernandes, Sam Pitroda and Suman Dubey who were asked to appear before a trial court tomorrow. The court's order came after senior lawyers, Kapil Sibal, A M Singhvi and Harin Raval, appearing for Sonia, Rahul and Vora respectively, concluded their arguments with the plea that the complaint and summons be quashed as the trial court order was "erroneous" on fact and law as well. The Congress leaders have challenged a lower court's summoning orders against them on a complaint of BJP leader Subramanian Swamy alleging cheating and misappropriation of funds in the acquisition of the daily by Young Indian (YI). Pitroda is the only accused who, so far, has not moved the high court as the summons has not been served on him. Besides Gandhis, Vora is among the directors of Young India which were recently given almost 99 per cent ordinary shares of the Associated Journals Limited (AJL). AJL had been publishing newspapers 'National Herald' in English, "Navjivan" in Hindi and "Quami Awaz" in Urdu. Sibal and Singhvi, during the arguments, challenged the "locus" of Swamy in filing the complaint saying that the offence of cheating and criminal breach of trust are "compoundable" in nature and it is not the case that the BJP leader is a victim of these alleged crimes. "This is a case where no single ingredient is being made out against the accused. Not even one element is made out against him (Rahul). The complaint is drafted on completely barred law," Singhvi said. "There is not even one single aggrieved complainant in this case but Dr Swamy is a hypothetical complainant. As per him (Swamy) the whole world is deceived but there is not a complaint. This is very strange," he said. Sibal, appearing for the Congress President, sought quashing of the trial court proceedings, saying, "Every finding of the magistrate, on every point, is erroneous. "This is the most unfortunate proceedings against a party which is seeking to revive a newspaper, which is associated with the Congress party for over 80 years. Courts must be extremely careful in scrutinising such matters," he said. Former Law Minister refuted Swamy's claim that Sonia and Rahul, who hold majority shares in Young India, have been benefited from the acquisition of AJL as the YI is a charitable firm under Section 25 of the Companies Act. Such companies do not pay any dividends, salary or any benefit to their shareholders, he said. Singhvi, who argued after Sibal, gave a chart to the judge to drive home the point that the accused shareholders of YI had no ownership of the properties of AJL as nothing has been transferred to YI. "All the properties, including the building on Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg here, are still with the AJL and have not been transferred to YI," he said. "The properties owned by AJL in Delhi, Mumbai, Patna, and Panchkula are under government leases, except for one property in Lucknow which is under a long-term lease to a charitable eye hospital. The covenants of these properties specifically restrict the disposal of these properties," he said. Citing an apex court judgement, he alleged that Swamy has been running a "vicious" campaign against Gandhis on social websites such as Facebook and Twitter and they are in public domain. Swamy had earlier made statements that he wanted to see Gandhis behind the bars, he said. Singhvi also said Swamy had withheld the information from the trial court about the dismissal of his complaint by the Election Commission in November 2013. The BJP leader had sought de-registration of Congress party. The court has now fixed the matters for hearing on 13 August when the counsel for Suman Dubey and Swamy will argue their case. Swamy, however, opposed the stay of trial saying that they should have alleged these pleas in the trial court and now the whole process would be stalled. While summoning the six as accused in the case, the trial court had held that Swamy has established a prima facie case of cheating, misappropriation of funds and criminal breach of trust against them. Swamy had accused Sonia and Rahul Gandhi and others of conspiring to cheat and misappropriate funds by just paying Rs 50 lakh by which YI obtained the right to recover Rs 90.25 crore which the AJL had owed to the Congress party. The accused persons were summoned under sections 403 (dishonest misappropriation of property, 406 (criminal breach of trust) and 420 (cheating) read with section 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC. PTI Firstpost is now on WhatsApp. For the latest analysis, commentary and news updates, sign up for our WhatsApp services. Just go to Firstpost.com/Whatsapp and hit the Subscribe button. |
A century of stagnation? Insights from the economic history of Argentina Nauro Campos Argentina is the only country in the world that was 'developed’ in 1900 and ‘developing’ in 2000. Various explanations highlight the roles of trade openness, political institutions, financial integration, financial development, and macroeconomic instability. No study has so far attempted a quantitative assessment of the relative importance of each of these competing factors. This column presents new evidence suggesting that financial development and institutional change are two main factors behind the unusual growth trajectory of Argentina over the last century. Once upon a time, Argentina was a very rich country. There is little disagreement that this time was in the period before WWI. According to della Paolera and Taylor (2003), Argentina’s 1913 level of per capita income (USD 3,797 in 1992 US Dollars) compared favorably to that of France (USD 3,452) and Germany (USD 3,134.) Large inflows of foreign physical, human, and financial capital shored up the expansion of primary products exports (grain, meat, wool and leather) which fueled rapid economic growth. Disagreement is seldom about whether the fall occurred and mostly about when and why. Some argue that the decline started with the Great Depression (e.g. Diaz-Alejandro 1985). Conde (2009) associates its beginning with WWII, Taylor (1992) argues for 1913, and Sanz-Villarroya (2005) estimates an even earlier structural break in 1899, while Campos et al. (2012) report Bai-Perron estimates supporting two main structural breaks (1922 and 1964). Yet by 1947 Argentina was still ranked 10th in the world in terms of per capita income and della Paolera and Taylor (2003) estimate that the ratio of Argentina’s to the OECD’s income declined to 84% in 1950, to 65% in 1973, and then to 43% in 1987. It rebounded in the 1990s but with the run-up to the 2001 crisis again reverted (Figure 1). Figure 1. Ratio of Argentina's GDP per capita to developed countries' GDP per capita, 1885-2003 Note: Authors' calculations using GDP per capita data from Maddison (2007), Western Europe is: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and United Kingdom. US-CAN-NZ-AUS is Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the US. A vast literature emerged offering various competing explanations for such extraordinary long-run relative economic decline (Taylor 2014). One reason that has received considerable attention is increased competition in international markets (especially from Australia, New Zealand, and Canada) during and after WWI and the concomitant decline in migration and foreign capital inflows. Finance has also received a great deal of attention with the Argentine decline linked to low savings rates and associated high population dependency rates (Taylor 1992). A key role has also been attributed to international financial integration as there may have been excessive dependence on one source of foreign capital (U.K.) with changes in global leadership (U.S.) contributing substantially to the Argentine decline (Taylor 1998). Another well-researched reason is trade openness (Diaz-Alejandro 1985). The ratio of exports and imports to GDP in Argentina exceeded 50% in the pre-WWI period, declined throughout the inter-wars years (from about 45% to 20%), and practically did not exceed 25% after 1945. It is still debated whether this was driven by the disruption of international trade during WWI and the Great Depression, or by the adoption of protectionist policies by successive Argentinean governments. These declining trade-to-GDP ratios may also reflect the failure to diversify away from agriculture and the exhaustion of the agricultural frontier (Debowicz and Segal 2014). Many argue that macroeconomic policies in general – and their inconsistency and the resulting macroeconomic instability in particular – are also to blame. For instance, della Paolera et al. (2003) show how public deficits throughout Argentinean history play an important role in explaining the decline. More recently emphasis has turned to institutional factors. Acemoglu and Robinson (2006, p.7) note that “The political history of Argentina reveals an extraordinary pattern where democracy was created in 1912, undermined in 1930, recreated in 1946, undermined in 1955, fully recreated in 1973, undermined in 1976, and finally reestablished in 1983”. Alston and Gallo (2010) identify the onset of widespread electoral fraud in the 1930s as a turning point and argue that this erosion of the rule of law is a main reason for the decline. A horse race worth watching? We use the power-GARCH framework and annual data from the 1890s onwards to provide a quantitative assessment of the relative importance of each of these competing explanations (trade openness, macroeconomic instability, institutional change, domestic financial development, and international financial integration), focusing on four different types of effects: direct (on mean economic growth), indirect (via growth volatility), dynamic (short- and long-run), and structural breaks Regarding the direct effects on economic growth, the PGARCH multivariate analysis reveals a robust positive effect of the development of domestic financial institutions (private and savings bank deposits to GDP) as well as a negative growth effect from the instability of informal institutions (chiefly general strikes and guerilla warfare). As for the indirect effects on economic growth (through growth volatility), the results support negative roles for formal political instability (constitutional changes) and trade openness. The numerous constitutional changes and the radical changes in trade policy have significantly contributed to dampen the ‘expected’ part of growth volatility, and this in turn has a further negative effect on economic growth. In terms of the dynamic effects, the results suggest that changes in political institutions and international financial integration (U.K. interest rates) have affected Argentine growth negatively in the last hundred years or so both in the short- and in the long-run. Interestingly, the effects of political instability are larger in the short- than in the long-run, while those for financial development are negative in the short- but positive (and larger) in the long-run (Campos et al. 2014). These combined results suggest that financial institutions and political institutions exhibited first-order effects on Argentina’s economic growth path since the 1890s. Their preponderance is justified on the basis that their effects are significant either directly or indirectly, and in both the short- and long-runs, and accounting for structural breaks. The direct growth effect of financial development is positive, but has a negative short-run effect and a larger, positive long-run effect. Hence Argentina’s fall is better explained by institutional change – informal political instability has a negative direct effect and negative short- and long-run impacts on growth, while formal political instability has equally significant and negative indirect growth effects (Campos et al. 2012 show that these results are also obtained for a much wider range of measures of political and financial institutions). There are additional results worth mentioning. For instance, international financial integration may also contribute to the fall because both short- and long-run effects are negative, yet there are no robust direct or indirect effects. Trade openness may have contributed as well, because short-run and indirect effects are negative, yet no long-run effects were found. Accounting for structural breaks suggest that trade openness may have been important before 1930, while macroeconomic instability may have been particularly important in more recent years (after 1970.) Crises’R’Us What lessons do we draw? One may be tempted to portray the Argentine experience as the clearest case of post-1820 stagnation over a century – that is, of secular stagnation stricto sensu. One indeed may be tempted to derive as a main lesson that Argentina ‘proves’ that secular stagnation is a real possible outcome of any forthcoming ‘lost decade(s)’ in Europe (Crafts 2014.) Yet I do not believe that this is the main lesson. Instead it is one that economic historians already knew for a while (cf. Haber et al. 2007) but that has been, to a large extent, ignored by the rest of the profession – institutions do matter but among them, political institutions and financial institutions seem fulcral. We should try to do more to understand not only how these two sets of institutions individually affect growth but also how the manner in which they interact may ultimately shape economic development. References Acemoglu, D, and J Robinson (2006), Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, Boston: Cambridge University Press. Alston, L, and A Gallo (2010), “Electoral Fraud, the Rise of Peron, and Demise of Checks and Balances in Argentina”, Explorations in Economic History, 47, 179-197. Campos, N, M Karanasos, and B Tan (2012), “Two to Tangle: Finance, Instability and Growth in Argentina”, Journal of Banking and Finance, 36, 290-304. Campos, N, M Karanasos, and B Tan (2014), “From Riches to Rags, and Back? Institutional Change, Financial Development, and Growth in Argentina since the 1890s”, Bonn: IZA DP 8654. Crafts, N (2014), “Secular Stagnation: US hypochondria, European disease?”, in Teulings, C. & R. Baldwin (eds), Secular Stagnation: Facts, Causes and Cures, CEPR Press. Conde, R (2009), The Political Economy of Argentina in the Twentieth Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Debowicz, D and P. Segal (2014), “Structural Change in Argentina, 1935–1960: The Role of Import Substitution and Factor Endowments”, Journal of Economic History 74, 230-258. Diaz-Alejandro, C (1985), “Argentina, Australia and Brazil Before 1929”, in D. Platt, & G. di Tella (Eds.), Argentina, Australia and Canada: Studies in Comparative Development, 1870-1965 (pp. 95-109). New York: St. Martin’s Press. Haber, S, D North, and B Weingast (Eds.) (2007), Political Institutions and Financial Development, Palo Alto: Stanford University Press. Sanz-Villarroya, I (2005), “The Convergence Process of Argentina with Australia and Canada: 1875-2000”, Explorations in Economic History, 42, 439-458. Della Paolera, G and A Taylor (2003), “Introduction”, in G della Paolera and A Taylor (Eds.), A New Economic History of Argentina, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Della Paolera, G, M Irigoin, and C Bózzoli (2003), “Passing the Buck: Monetary and Fiscal Policies”, in G. della Paolera and A Taylor (Eds.), A New Economic History of Argentina, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Taylor, A (1992), “External Dependence, Demographic Burdens and Argentine Economic Decline after the Belle Époque”, The Journal of Economic History, 52, 907-936. Taylor, A (1998), “Argentina and the World Capital Market: Saving, Investment, and International Capital Mobility in the Twentieth Century”, Journal of Development Economics 57: 147–84. Taylor, A (2014), “The Argentina Paradox: Microexplanations and Macropuzzles”, NBER Working paper 19924. |
After a very long wait (for which I apologise), the Material version of 8sms is finally here ... albeit only as a BETA for now. The Material theme of 8sms should work natively on Android Lollipop devices. For older devices (Android Jelly Bean and KitKat), full Material is not available so there's a compatibility layer which gives about 80-90% of Material. You can get the Material BETA from the 8sms website: http://8s.ms/download/releases/8sms-1.48.4-material.apk http://8s.ms/download/releases/8sms-1.48.5.apk This can be installed over your existing version of 8sms and you will still retain the ability to update from Google Play in the future. There is no need for an uninstall and reinstall. EDIT: 8sms still defaults to the old "Classic" theme. To enable the Material theme, please go to Settings » Appearance and choose a theme (and also optionally tick the Floating action button checkbox). If all goes well, this will make it into the next Google Play release as 1.49 (fingers crossed!). Please note this is only a BETA and I expect a wide variety of opinions, both negative and positive, on whether it's been done well (or not). There are likely to be bugs and accidental omissions here and there. Notably, the quick-reply pop up has not been themed. I'm not quite sure what to do about that. Enjoy! Thank you all for your continued support of 8sms. |
Ancestry.com has made a connection between former president Abraham Lincoln and actor George Clooney. The family bloodline link is Lincoln’s maternal grandmother Lucy Hanks. Clooney is Lincoln’s half-first cousin five times removed. Ancestry.com’s Michelle Ercanbrack points out what else they have in common: “They’re both human rights advocates. … Both are excellent writers. … And obviously both have the talent of being able to grow a really great beard.” Clooney grew one for the WWII film “The Monuments Men.” Does the name Hanks ring a bell? Yes, Tom Hanks is also related to Lincoln. He is Abe’s third cousin, four times removed. Hanks probably didn’t need the bloodline to land the job, but he did narrate the 2013 film Killing Lincoln, based on Bill O’Reilly’s book. Plus, Hanks has experience. He read from the Gettysburg Address during the inaugural celebration for President Obama in 2009. |
Update: This word was added in September 2017. The gender-neutral Mx. is used as a title for those who do not identify as being of a particular gender, or for people who simply don't want to be identified by gender. 'Mx.' is a gender-neutral honorific for those who don't wish to be identified by gender. Though the earliest print evidence dates to 1977, the word has only recently become popular. Pronounced to sound like mix or mux, the title Mx. (which, like other honorifics, is styled without the period in British English) is used increasingly on various official forms in the UK, including driver's licenses and banking documents. Although the earliest print evidence of Mx. is from a 1977 issue of an American magazine called Single Parent, the title has not seen much official or published use in the US. It did, however, appear twice recently in The New York Times: a June 4th article noted Mx. as someone's preferred honorific, and a June 5th article all about Mx. made it clear that the June 4th use was an exception. The title simply isn't familiar enough to the newspaper's readers to be fully adopted. It's not clear whether or when Mx. will catch on in the US. The timeline for such developments can be long, as the title Ms. taught us not all that long ago. Coined in 1901, the now-commonplace Ms. wasn't fully adopted by The New York Times until 1986. Mx. seems to be moving more rapidly—it was added to Merriam-Webster Unabridged in April 2016. |
We may be entering into a series of events that are spiraling out of control, and all we can do is sit back and watch it all unfold. Vikings owner Zygi Wilf is in Los Angeles, meeting with L.A. mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. This after Roger Goodell had already met with the mayor. Gee, I wonder about what? Tomorrow's meeting with Goodell and Governor Dayton is no longer a status update meeting. It's a 'shit or get off the pot' meeting. Goodell has been to L.A., one can presume, to see how long it will take to have a new stadium built in Los Angeles, and what kind of support there will be for one. I'm pretty sure that timeline will be relayed to the Governor, and they're going to tell him 'get it done by the end of this legislative session, or deuces'. So, there you have it. Barring something unforeseen and miraculous, shit just got real, yo. Two weeks, or they're gone. And the NFL ain't coming back. Discuss. |
McDonald's is just getting started tapping the strength of its menu variety. (Photo: Justin Sullivan, Getty Images) With a fourth-quarter 2015 global comparable sales increase of 5% and a 5.7% lift in U.S. comps, McDonald's Corporation (NYSE:MCD) provided emphatic evidence in earnings released this week that it's indeed turning its revenue woes around. Though the company received some assistance from unseasonably warm weather in the U.S., it received its greatest top-line boost from the introduction of all-day breakfast at the beginning of the quarter. Resurgent traffic from all-day breakfast translates into solid revenue momentum at the outset of fiscal 2016. It would be premature to call McDonald's turnaround effort complete today, but it's not too early for perceptive investors to question conventional wisdom of the past few years, which holds that McDonald's may be too large and lumbering to ever experience significant growth again. Such wisdom ignores at least two of the company's intangible advantages which have been dormant for a while: the franchise's ubiquity, and its unique menu innovation system. The advantage of being everywhere McDonald's vast global enterprise handles a staggering amount of sales. The company recorded $6.3 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter, but systemwide sales, which count franchisee revenue, reached $17.0 billion. The McDonald's system can boast of such massive revenue generation because, of course, its restaurants are truly everywhere. Yet this scale, until recently, seemed to characterize a company that could no longer operate nimbly enough to keep pace with customers' rapidly changing tastes. Now it looks as if perceptions are in flux, and customers are returning in numbers. In this instance, ubiquity can very quickly transform into a competitive weapon. And McDonald's is so embedded in urban and semi-urban areas that when it introduces an innovation, even mighty Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX) must pay attention. To be specific, if McDonald's all-day breakfast continues to drive customer traffic higher this year, it will present a slight yet direct challenge to Starbucks' U.S. stores' sales growth. All-day breakfast is a "proof of concept" of McDonald's ability to attract more traffic during dayparts outside of its lucrative breakfast time-frame. But these revenue windows are the very ones Starbucks has pinned its long-term U.S. sales growth potential on. From lunch to snack hours, to the end-of-day tea break it has promoted through the purchase and expansion of high-end tea retailer Teavana, Starbucks sees its greatest comps expansion potential outside of its own successful breakfast daypart. Pressure on Starbucks' U.S. sales gains isn't a reality yet, but if McDonald's strings together another two to three quarters of 5% U.S. comps increases, the company will certainly climb the priority list when Starbucks management addresses competitive threats. Potential effects are exacerbated simply because so many McDonald's restaurants are proximal to Starbucks locations as customers make non-peak hour refreshment decisions on a daily basis. CEO Steve Easterbrook implicitly validated the company's wide market presence when he described the opportunity for McDonald's (and the opportunity cost to competitors) of all day breakfast this week during the company's Q4 2015 earnings call (emphasis mine): All Day Breakfast built on this momentum in the fourth quarter, exceeding internal expectations during the launch phase. It's driving incremental business. Many customerswho otherwise would have gone elsewhere are coming to McDonald's to enjoy some of their favorite breakfast items, like our Egg McMuffin and Hash Browns at lunch and throughout the rest of the day. The advantage of innovating everywhere Effective July 1 of last year, McDonald's operations were simplified into four basic reporting segments: the U.S., International Lead Markets, High Growth Markets and Foundational Markets. At the time, McDonald's rationalized that under the new structure, decision-making would be more streamlined and successful menu innovations could be propagated much more quickly across national borders. This second point capitalizes on geographical diversity, which investors may have forgotten about, but on which management seems to be extremely focused. With menus that can vary greatly from country to country, linked loosely by variations of core burgers and french fries, McDonald's essentially owns a set of test kitchens spread around the globe. The company's U.S. product experimentation, headed up at McDonald's headquarters by executive chef Dan Coudreaut, is still vital to domestic menu evolution. But there's a visibly faster and freer menu interchange between regions and countries that is supplementing typical product research and development. For example, during this week's earnings call, Easterbrook noted that Australia, which enjoys a current reputation as perhaps the most innovative McDonald's market, actually grabbed a successful idea from the U.S. during the past quarter. After testing all-day breakfast in 300 units, McDonald's Australia will extend the concept nationwide this quarter. Another illustrative example is McDonald's Canada's introduction of a stand-alone McCafe in Toronto last month. This smaller footprint store is focused on coffee, croissants, salads, cafe-style sandwiches (no burgers on the menu!), and desserts. Upon its launch, the Canadian McCafe tacked on an idea gleaned from the U.S. by adding a sliver of all-day breakfast, in the form of an always-available Egg McMuffin, to its lineup. Intriguingly, the inclusion of an all-day Egg McMuffin will lure core customers into trying a coffee shop, which appears designed from the ground up to compete with Starbucks. Again, the Canadian McCafe is but one experiment in McDonald's global laboratory, but a trial nonetheless that executives in Oak Brook, Ill., will take quite an interest in as the year progresses. As for that Canadian market, keep an eye on it, as we may soon see some innovations head south. "McTasters," the slider-style mini-sandwiches pictured at the top of this article, may have great potential in the U.S. market. At the current U.S. dollar to Canadian dollar exchange rate, a single McTaster would sell for approximately $2.12 stateside. That price point is low enough to land credibly on a value menu, but the sliders' diminutive size means they're not likely to cannibalize sales of core burgers and sandwiches. The amount of menu differentiation in the 100+ countries in which McDonald's operates will provide fertile ground for the future identification and cross-border promotion of its most successful products. Having said this, it's ironic to me that McDonald's, which has often been maligned for the sameness of its U.S. offerings over the decades, likely boasts the most varied aggregate menu of any international food retailer. Similar to the advantage of seeming to exist everywhere, McDonald's unique menu innovation strategy is a strength management has only just started to dust off and leverage. SPONSOR CONTENT: Something big just happened I don't know about you, but I always pay attention when one of the best growth investors in the world gives me a stock tip. 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Star in your very own fighting game on the Nintendo DSi! Be the star of your own fighting game! Create up to 8 characters based on you and your friends, then fight to the end! Welcome to Photo Dojo, where you create a dojo filled with ruthless (or humorous) fighting machines—using images of you and your friends! Use the Nintendo DSi Camera application to take pictures of yourself and your friends in various poses, then use the microphone to record sound effects and dialogue to give your warrior a voice. Choose one of the four available fighting styles, name your character, and you’re done! Better yet, repeat the simple, step-by-step process and create a lineup of up to eight fighters. Complete the setup of your game with the ability to make customized backgrounds and your choice of three awesome soundtracks...then prepare for battle! Two players can share one Nintendo DSi system and face off against each other in a one-on-one grudge match, while single-player mode offers the chance to pick your favorite fighter and take on a relentless wave of opponents of your own creation. If you’re ready for some seriously off-beat Kung Fu action—literally starring you—Photo Dojo’s unique twist on the side-scrolling beat’em up genre lets you use your imagination to set the stage for a fun-filled fight to the finish. May the best warrior win! |
Liberal Party faces election loss unless Turnbull and Abbott resolve issues, new president says Updated New Liberal Party president Nick Greiner has urged Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott to "be adults" and resolve their long-standing feud, warning the public displays of disunity will cost the Coalition the next election. Blaming the simmering tensions for the party's consistently poor polling, Mr Greiner said he would be meeting with Mr Abbott in coming weeks to encourage him to sit down with Mr Turnbull and settle their differences. "They need to resolve it face-to-face and they need to resolve it directly, not through intermediaries," he told Sky News. "If it isn't resolved, if we are not able to present a compelling, unified face to the Australian public, we won't win the election in two years' time." Mr Greiner said everyone needed to be adults about the situation, even though he could understand why Mr Abbott has "responded in a particular way" to being toppled as leader in 2015. At the time, the former prime minister promised there would be "no wrecking, no undermining and no sniping" but Mr Abbott has consistently waded back into the political fray to defend his legacy, criticise the Government's performance or push a conservative agenda. In recent weeks, he has inflamed tensions even further by giving a series of speeches and interviews, outlining an alternative policy vision to "make Australia work again". Mr Turnbull has been pushing back against the criticism and used Mr Abbott's words against him when he declared that the Liberal Party should occupy the "sensible centre" of politics. The constant navel-gazing has frustrated Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce, who warned the Liberal Party was becoming a "philosopher's club" and would drive voters to parties like One Nation. But Foreign Minister Julie Bishop hit back at Mr Joyce's remarks, saying she could not understand why people "from our own side would criticise the Government's performance". "Because all it is doing is driving people to Bill Shorten, in fact," she told Insiders. That view is shared by Mr Greiner, who said the Liberal Party needed "to stop talking about ourselves" because Labor and the Opposition Leader were "totally escaping scrutiny". Topics: abbott-tony, turnbull-malcolm, government-and-politics, federal-government, liberals, political-parties, community-and-society, australia First posted |
The existentialism we see today is rooted most prominently in the writings of Søren Kierkegaard, and as a consequence, it might be argued that modern existentialism started out as being fundamentally Christian in nature, only later diverging into other forms. It is thus important to understand Christian existentialism in order to understand existentialism at all. A central question in Kierkegaard’s writings is how the individual human being can come to terms with their own existence, for it is that existence which is the most important thing in every person’s life. Unfortunately, we are as if adrift in a infinite sea of possible modes of living with no secure anchor that reason informs us will provide certainty and confidence. This produces despair and anguish, but in the midst of our “metaphysical sickness” we will face a “crisis,” a crisis which reason and rationality cannot decide. We are forced to reach a decision anyway and to make a commitment, but only after making what Kierkegaard called a “leap of faith” — a leap that is preceded by an awareness of our own freedom and the fact that we might choose wrongly, but nevertheless we must make a choice if we are to truly live. Those who have developed the Christian themes of Kierkegaard’s existentialism explicitly focus upon the idea that the leap of faith we make must be one which causes us to surrender ourselves totally to God rather than to insist on a continued reliance upon our own reason. It is, then, a focus upon the triumph of faith over philosophy or intellect. We can see this perspective most clearly in the writings of Karl Barth, a Protestant theologian who was among the most faithful to Kierkegaard’s religious intentions and who can be looked upon as the starting point of explicitly Christian existentialism in the twentieth century. According to Barth, who repudiated the liberal theology of his youth on account of the experiences of World War I, the anguish and despair we experience in the midst of an existential crisis reveals to us the reality of the infinite God. This is not the God of the philosophers or of rationalism, because Barth felt that rationalistic systems of understanding God and humanity had been invalidated by the destruction of the war, but the God of Abraham and Isaac and the God who spoke to the prophets of ancient Israel. Neither rational grounds for theology nor for understanding divine revelation should be sought after because they simply don’t exist. On this point Barth relied on Dostoyevsky as well as Kierkegaard, and from Dostoyevsky he drew the idea that life wasn’t nearly as predictable, orderly, and reliable as it appeared to be. Paul Tillich was one Christian theologian who made extensive use of existentialist ideas, but in his case he relied more upon Martin Heidegger than Søren Kierkegaard. For example, Tillich used Heidegger’s concept of “Being,” but unlike Heidegger he argued that God is “Being-itself,” which is to say our ability to overcome doubt and anxiety in order to make the necessary choices to commit ourselves to a way of living. This “God” is not the traditional God of classical, philosophical theism nor is it the God of traditional Christian theology — a sharp contrast to Barth’s position, which has been labeled “neo-orthodoxy” because of its call for us to return to a a non-rational faith. Tillich’s theological message was not about turning our lives over to the will of a divine power but rather that it is possible for us to overcome the apparent meaninglessness and emptiness of our lives. That, however, could only be achieved through what we choose to do in response to that meaninglessness. Perhaps the most extensive developments of existentialist themes for Christian theology can be found in the work of Rudolf Bultmann, a theologian who argued that the New Testament conveys a genuinely existentialist message which has been lost and/or covered over through the years. What we need to learn from the text is the idea that we have to choose between living an “authentic” existence (where we face up to our own limits, including our mortality) and an “inauthentic” existence (where we recoil from despair and mortality). Bultmann, like Tillich, relied heavily upon the writings of Martin Heidegger — so much so, in fact, that critics have charged that Bultmann simply portrays Jesus Christ as a precursor to Heidegger. There is some merit to this accusation. Although Bultmann argued that the choice between an authentic and inauthentic existence cannot be made on rational grounds, there there does not seem to be a strong argument for saying that this is somehow analogous to the concept of Christian grace. Evangelical Protestantism today owes a great deal to the early developments of Christian existentialism — but probably more those of Barth than of Tillich and Bultmann. We continue to see a focus on key themes like the the emphasis of an engagement with the Bible rather than philosophers, the importance of a personal crisis with leads one to a deeper faith and personal understanding of God, and valuation of irrational faith over and above any attempt to understand God through reason or intellect. |
Kanye West really, really loves Florence (and why shouldn't he?) - he made that explicitly clear to Italian newspaper La Nazione. In an interview with the paper, West not only divulged that he's getting married to fiancé Kim Kardashian in the city this summer, but even that his daughter North was conceived there, and that he is "composing a whole album" there called - what else? - Made In Florence. With an artist as prolific as Kanye West, it's hard to know if Made In Florence is the same album Rick Rubin, Q-Tip, Evian Christ (and possibly James Blake) have been working on - the album West has hyped as his Born in the U.S.A. Why Florence? (Again, look. Look!) In his own words: “I adore Florence. I love Italy and the Italian lifestyle. To tell you the truth, I already came to the banks of the Arno [river] with Kim last year, just the two of us, incognito. I think that our daughter North was conceived here among the Renaissance masterpieces. It was our first honeymoon. It is one of the most beautiful cities in the world—for me the most beautiful in Europe.” He continues: "I am a romantic: for Mother’s Day I gave Kim a wall of flowers. Family is everything for me, the antidote to the pressure of fame. Family and creativity relax me. I am happy to create for my family." Not unlike with his peers and close friends Beyoncé and Jay Z, it's clear that family and marital bliss is important to Kanye now. What that means for the seething, indignant genius who brought us Yeezus, is hard to say. While Jay Z has struggled to release a decent solo album since becoming a husband and father, Beyoncé has absolutely flourished creatively since becoming a mother. No one owns marital satisfaction like Beyoncé. |
Here it is baseball fans. We've found Atlantis. I alluded to this in my review of MLB The Show 17 last week, but at last I can provide a confirmed sighting of a 3-6-3 double play turned entirely by the AI defense. For those who don’t watch baseball, or score a game, that’s the play in which the first baseman deliberately ignores the force out immediately at his base, instead throws down to the shortstop to force out a runner at second base, and takes the return throw to make two outs without any tag. As (N.C. State baseball hall-of-famer) Dan Plesac rightly observes, it’s one of the hardest double plays to turn. Yet I’ve seen this play in the benighted MLB 2K13, for God’s sake. Only now has this staple of baseball defense entered Major League Baseball's current console simulation. Last week, I saw a 3-6-3 attempted in minor league play in Road to the Show (and I participated in several in fielding drills as a first baseman) but never have I seen the game's AI complete one until last night. It's a thing of beauty. Let's watch it again. "The 3-6-3 will be in the game," Ramone Russell, the longtime designer and public face of MLB The Show, assured Samit Sarkar and me on a phone call back in February. "The game knows what is going on now, and it allows us to do so many more things. "[In development] we saw thousands of animations that we had but you never see, because in every play [the fielder] had to get the ball out as fast as he could," Russell elaborated. Fielding, he said, was completely rebuilt for MLB The Show 17. In past editions, the 3-6-3 opportunity presented such a complicated set of reactions to AI fielders that they were just hardwired to expect the pitcher to race over to first and complete the back end of any double play started by the first baseman. Well, the reaction timing for a user-controlled pitcher in Road to the Show sucks, unless one wants to waste a whole bunch of training points that can be better applied to the break on a split-fingered fastball. Even then a pitcher needs a lot of speed to get to the bag. It would drive me crazy, killing myself to get over to the bag while the first baseman stood one foot from it, hands apart in that insipid ready-up posture. As I said in the review, claims of a completely reworked this or that is the kind of thing I hear all the time about a sports video game, where the proof is going to be anecdotal at best and borne out over a long year. Here we've harpooned the white whale. Chris Gimenez to Jorge Polanco and back to Gimenez, to erase Matt Holliday and Chase Headley. It’s baseball’s most beautiful tango, pure grace and concealed effort. |
The following is an edited transcript of the audio. How can I help someone who thinks they aren't elect? I've had some people very close to me who have been in this category, so I don't take the question lightly. You should say to them, somewhere along the way, "You know, don't you, that the doctrine of election is not a paralyzing, destructive, excluding doctrine? It is a hope-giving, liberating doctrine for people like you." And then you could explain it like this: The doctrine of unconditional election, which I believe is biblical, says that God chooses us apart from any preconditions that he creates or foresees. He chooses us before we were born or did anything good or evil. This means that any given person at any given moment, looking back over their lives—whether the last five minutes or the last five decades—and seeing them shot through with sin, thus giving evidence of them being outside of Christ, is still eligible for salvation. None of the conditions of his past may be used to exclude him from heaven. A person who is struggling with whether or not he is elect is doing exactly the opposite. He is taking election and using it to exclude him from salvation. And I'm saying that, in reality, the doctrine of unconditional election makes it dead wrong and logically impossible to exclude one's self, at this point, from redemption, because the doctrine of unconditional election says that there is nothing you can bring to this moment right now to warrant your exclusion. You can't point to anything in your life which excludes you from election. Therefore believe and prove that you are elect! I think that has tremendous power to free people. Imagine the horror if you believed in some kind of conditional election that was somehow rooted in who we are or what we've become. You could then have someone like the thief on the cross, with thirty to fifty years of nothing but sinning on his record, who just becomes paralyzed and defeated when he considers whether or not he is elect. If such a man, after saying, "I can't be among the elect. I'm a thief, I'm dying, and I'll be in hell in just a few minutes," hears Jesus say, "You can't tell me that you're not elect, because nothing you've ever done excludes you from election, because election is unconditional," then I think that would remove a huge obstacle to his salvation rather than creating one. So, clarifying the meaning of unconditional election would be one way to help a person struggling with the doctrine. Other ways to help are to keep praying for them, patiently love them, and keep telling them the gospel. "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing from the word of God" (Romans 10:17). And the word of God has as its center the gospel. I know one woman in particular who absolutely despaired of her salvation and though that it could ever be. She was about to commit suicide on a Good Friday. But for some merciful reason she decided to give Christ one more chance and to read the Gospel of Luke, even though she had read it before. And when she got to the chapters on the crucifixion her eyes were opened and she saw him. She didn't see herself, she saw him. And he was so compelling that her heart lunged for him, embraced him, took him, and she knew that she was saved. That can happen to anyone, if they see Christ and not themselves. Try to get them away from introspection—"Am I elect? Am I elect? Am I elect?" Rather, help them turn their eyes to Christ and to seeing him. And then regeneration and the experience of election is a reflex that will happen from watching and seeing Christ for who he really is. |
This Friday, Puebla and Lobos BUAP played their first-ever game against each other in Mexico’s top circuit. The game was the birth of a new rivalry in the Liga MX, the Clasico Poblano, the Derbi Poblano, the Clasico de la Cemita or however you want to call the encounter. Straight from kickoff, there seemed to be a very distinct atmosphere at the Estadio Cuauhtémoc than what had been seen over the course of the year. The people of Puebla clearly cared about this game and showed it as nearly 50 thousand fans filled the beautiful stadium in Angelopolis. The official attendance for the game was 45,527 spectators and this was the product on the field did not disappoint the amazing atmosphere. Both teams fought for every single ball as if the game meant a playoff spot on the line or if it was the deciding game that would decide the relegation race. The 22 players on the pitch knew that this was no ordinary game and gave the fans a spectacle of a game. The intensity grew throughout the encounter and in the 34th minute, Puebla was already down a man as club captain Francisco Torres picked up a red card. There were several tough tackles throughout the match and both teams wanted to give their fans the win in this Clasico Poblano. Puebla did not seem to be affected by being a man down as manager Enrique Meza moved his team around precisely to still put in a very competitive effort. In the 83rd minute, the scoreless draw was finally broken at the Estadio Cuauhtémoc as Francisco “Maza” Rodriguez scored off a corner kick by Carlos Adrian Morales. The Lobos’ fans and players exploded in jubilation as even manager Rafael Puente Jr. celebrated with immense joy alongside his players. The final minutes of the match were very intense as La Franja almost managed to get the tie with some late minute heroics from goalkeeper Moises Munoz. Right down to the final second of the match, the game remained interesting as Los Camoteros snuck in one final scoring opportunity that just went over Lobos’ net. Puebla may have lost the match but the game proved to be a victory for the city of Puebla in general. Soccer in Puebla has been losing interest with La Franja really struggling recently over the last few years. The promotion of Lobos BUAP to the Liga MX sparked a bit of interest to the sport in the city but there were still very poor attendances for both teams in the city. This match sparked some interest in the beautiful game in the city of Puebla and hopefully, that can remain consistent heading into next season. Lobos BUAP is clearly a team on the rise and Puebla itself looks promising with manager Enrique Meza leading a new project with the team. The highest attendance this season before this game at the Estadio Cuauhtémoc had been just 16,716 spectators. The Cuauhtémoc is one of the biggest and most beautiful stadiums in the Liga MX and deserves more crowds like this in the near future. |
Celtic have suspended 128 fans from their matches and relocated 250 season-ticket holders following damage caused to Motherwell's Fir Park on Friday. Seats in the South Stand were damaged while smoke bombs and flares were also thrown during Celtic's 5-0 win. The Green Brigade group of fans on Sunday said it regretted the scenes and admitted that it should have better policed its section of supporters. We are confident that the police and both clubs will play a full part in helping to identify those involved in what were shameful scenes Neil Doncaster SPFL chief executive But the club have decided to move fans from Section 111 of Celtic Park. The news came as the Scottish Professional Football League described the scenes at Fir Park as "shameful" and promised an investigation once it receives its match delegate's report within the next 48 hours. The Green Brigade is a group of fans known for banner displays and chanting who attend home games in Section 111 of the stadium. Uefa opened disciplinary proceedings against Celtic following banners displayed at the Champions League game against AC Milan with a slogan depicting Scottish warrior William Wallace and IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands. Celtic and Scottish Police have already with the football club already taking action following the estimated £10,000 worth of damage. The Scottish champions said they had issued "precautionary suspensions against 128 individuals preventing them attending matches involving Celtic, pending further investigation". These suspensions will cover matches away from home as well as at Celtic Park. Celtic say they will also be relocating around 250 season-ticket holders in Section 111 to other areas within the stadium, or offering refunds covering the remainder of the season to those who do not wish to be relocated. Flares and smoke bombs were set off at Fir Park during Friday's match "These events were an embarrassment to our great football club and are absolutely indefensible," said a club statement. "It is clear that there is an element which has no hesitation in bringing Celtic's name into disrepute. "This is something the club will not tolerate and we therefore have no other option but to take this action. "We will not allow the great name of Celtic to be damaged in this way any more. Our supporters deserve more than this." While insisting that none of its members were involved in Friday's events, the Green Brigade admitted that it had happened in an "unofficial Green Brigade section". The group had already been criticised by the club over political banners displayed at Celtic's Champions League game against AC Milan last month that led to Celtic being called to a disciplinary hearing on Wednesday by European governing body Uefa. What is the Green Brigade? The Green Brigade is a group of self-proclaimed "anti-fascist and anti-sectarian" Celtic supporters that was formed in 2006 and has been involved in a number of controversial incidents over the past few years. Despite being credited with bringing noise and colour to Celtic Park during matches, some of its actions and protests have led to condemnation from the club and the football authorities. The most high-profile, and perhaps most controversial, was its protest against the wearing of the poppy on Celtic shirts as part of the 2010 remembrance commemorations. Housed in Section 111 of the stadium, it unfurled a banner that read: "Your deeds would shame all the devils in hell. Ireland, Iraq, Afghanistan - No bloodstained poppy on our hoops." Celtic have threatened to close its section of the stadium in the past due to the group's refusal to adhere to safety regulations. Celtic's latest statement urged the supporters to unite behind the club in taking action to "protect vigorously" what it said was a "wonderful reputation" of its fans. The SPFL has yet to decide whether to take action and the next stage of any disciplinary action might not become clear until the start of next week. However, it issued a statement pointing out that, under its rules, the visiting club should recompense the home club for any damage caused by their support. Should the clubs fail to agree on a compensation figure, the league body would adjudicate on the matter. SPFL chief executive Neil Doncaster said: "We have already been in touch with both clubs and the police following the disturbances during Friday night's fixture at Fir Park. "We absolutely condemn this type of behaviour. It has no place in the game. "We are confident that the police and both clubs will play a full part in helping to identify those involved in what were shameful scenes. "We expect the SPFL match delegate report to be with us within the next 24-48 hours. "The SPFL will work closely with our colleagues at both clubs and with the police as part of a thorough investigation into Friday night's events." |
Futuristic technologies have never sounded more like they're right on the horizon. From lab-grown meat to virtual reality to fleets of drones that can transport goods almost anywhere, scientists and major technology companies are promising incredible changes that could shift what the world looks like just years from now. Designer Fernando Barbella is both entranced by and concerned with what all of these changes could mean, and he's created a series of images that depict what a not-so-distant year might look like with all of these advancements. Titled "Signs from the Near Future," Barbella's new project takes the form of a Tumblr filled with photographs that present what's coming down the road in a manner that often seems as though it could turn out to be eerily accurate. "I've been reading lots of articles and news lately related with innovation in science and technology," Barbella, who's based in Barcelona, tells The Verge by email. "New materials, mashups between living organisms and nanotechnologies, improved capabilities for formerly 'dumb' and inanimate things... there a zillion things going on around us!" Barbella wants his signs to not just depict that momentum and progress, but to reflect the potentially disturbing aspects of those advances as well. "The fact is all these things are going to cease being just 'projects' to became part of our reality at any time soon," he says. "I feel that as we increasingly depend on technology, we will probably have less space for individual judgment to make decisions." Beyond that, Barbella sees an interesting dynamic in the public's push and pull against what new technology allows us to do. Though the technology grants people access to information and other cultures, it also poses issues of privacy and ethics that hold that back. "I think we're going to get use to it," Barbella says. His images offer a look at why those issues are certain to keep coming — and at the same time, why many will ultimately fall aside. Rich McCormick contributed to this report. |
On Monday, The Huffington Post published a story entitled "Doubling McDonald's Salaries Would Cause Your Big Mac To Cost Just 68¢ More." HuffPost has since learned that the research used as the basis of the story contains significant errors that cast doubts on its claims. This story has replaced the one originally published in this space. The story drew on data presented by Arnobio Morelix, an undergraduate student from The University Of Kansas who identified himself as a researcher for the school. In an interview, Morelix told the HuffPost that only 17.1 percent of McDonald's revenue goes toward salaries and benefits, meaning that for every dollar McDonald's earns, a little more than 17 cents goes toward the income and benefits of its employees. However, as the Columbia Journalism Review subsequently noted, Morelix's analysis only takes into account the payroll and employee benefits of McDonald's company-operated stores while excluding franchise businesses. Prior to publication, HuffPost asked Morelix if his analysis included franchises and he said it did. He later conceded it did not. McDonald's franchises make up more than 80 percent of McDonald's restaurants worldwide. This means that a majority of the payroll and employee benefits of McDonald's workers are not included in Morelix's findings. A typical fast-food restaurant spends 30 to 35 percent of its income on labor, according to a recent release from the Employment Policies Institute, a research organization whose work is often cited by those who argue against increasing the minimum wage. The institute estimates that small-business owners who run McDonald's franchises spend about a third of their income on wages, which would mean the price of a Big Mac would go up by $1.28 to $5.27. A doubling of wages at McDonald's would almost certainly involve some layoffs, asserts Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and a HuffPost blogger. At the same time, more workers would stay in their jobs longer, Baker added. Experts generally assume that roughly one-third of the cost of increased wages gets passed on to consumers, with much of the rest of cutting into profits, Baker said. Regardless, McDonald’s is so vast and lucrative that it could easily survive a major wage increase, Baker added. “The idea that it’d put McDonald’s out of business, there’d be no way,” said Baker. |
I guess this is my little corner of the web where I can rant and rave about the trials and tribulations of daily life. Most days are pretty trivial, but every once in a while I am reminded of how difficult things can be and I wonder to myself, "Why have I signed myself up for this, again?"But anyway, a bit about me: I am a medical student in my early 20s, somewhere in the UK (not French at all!) on a five-year programme, except instead of keeping us locked in lecture theatres for two years, we have patient contact from almost the first week. This would be fine if it wasn't for the fact that I am also autistic. "Asperger's syndrome/high-functioning autism", to be more precise. You may be wondering, "If you managed to get into medical school, why does that matter?" Well, before I started it wasn't official. However, it was very obvious very quickly that I was having problems, both at university with my peers and in the hospital with patients.Things are better now. I'm no longer a freshman first-year with little clue about the world. Admittedly, there is still a lot I don't know and I don't feel any less emotionally stunted than I did way back when, but I can get through a patient consult now without staring at the wall behind the patient the entire time.One thing I really wish I had at the time I was starting out was some sort of resource on the net - a blog or a support website orthat let me know that I'm not the only autistic med student out there. But alas, all I found was a few blogs that hadn't been updated for a very long time. So my aim with this is to keep things up to date. However, I also want to retain my anonymity to some degree (for now, at least). But one thing I can promise is something not too far from the truth.Will anybody read this? I have no idea. I'm not a writer, so I won't be publishing anything worthy of a novel any time soon. But that's okay. If there is demand for it, perhaps I might be able to make this a regular thing. |
Contact: Kelly Ablard, 604.215.8784; Kelly.ablard@gmail.com (currently in California but reachable, returns Thursday) Marianne Meadahl, PAMR, 778.782.9017; Marianne_Meadahl@sfu.ca Journal paper: http://at.sfu.ca/jYvnUu (No longer online) The flick of an antenna may be how a male wasp lays claim to his harem, according to new research at Simon Fraser University. A team of biologists, led by former PhD graduate student Kelly Ablard, found that when a male targeted a female, he would approach from her from the left side, and once in range, uses the tip of his antenna to tap her antenna. Ablard suggests the act transfers a yet unidentified specimen-specific pheromone onto the female's antenna that marks the female as "out of bounds,” or “tagged.” The tagging-pheromone helps a male relocate the females he tagged, and deters non-tagging males from approaching tagged females. Males who tag females are much quicker courters than their competitors, and thus are likely in better condition physically, Ablard notes. “It is the first male to encounter a female that is likely perceived by females to be high-quality," she says. “Tagged females' avoidance behavior of ‘unfamiliar’ males suggests that tagged females attain a fitness advantage.” The research, published in the journal Behavioural Processes, was carried out in a biology lab at SFU over the past several years. Ablard, who defended her thesis in December and is set to receive her degree this spring, earlier studied olfactory communication in the slender and slow loris, a small nocturnal primate found in southern India and throughout southeast Asia, respectively. Simon Fraser University is Canada's top-ranked comprehensive university and one of the top 50 universities in the world under 50 years old. With campuses in Vancouver, Burnaby and Surrey, B.C., SFU engages actively with the community in its research and teaching, delivers almost 150 programs to more than 30,000 students, and has more than 120,000 alumni in 130 countries. -30- Simon Fraser University: Engaging Students. Engaging Research. Engaging Communities. |
The team behind Victory Sandwich Shop, S.O.S Tiki Bar, and Little Trouble are opening a full-service restaurant called LLoyd’s on Dekalb Avenue next spring. The new restaurant will take up residence in the forthcoming Perry King development (possibly called “The Dickey”) at 900 Dekalb Avenue between Krog and Elizabeth Streets. Ian Jones, co-owner of Victory Brands, gave Eater Atlanta the scoop on what to expect from LLoyd’s which will also include an adjacent, yet-unnamed coffee shop next door. The Vibe Jones describes LLoyd’s (spelled with two capital Ls) as an “unholy mix of Chili’s and southern comfort food.” Think neighborhood diner with paper placemats. “LLoyd’s is going to be a place people can come and hang out that won’t break the bank and offer comforting foods.” Jones says. “There will be the usual goofball sensibilities people have come to expect from us but with a little prime rib and fried chicken.” The Food The menu will skew more diner than dive bar and offer simple comfort fare such as French dips and burgers as well as prime rib and fried chicken nights. For those who remember steak nights at Paper Plane, Jones says they’ll be happy to know that’s the type of food and atmosphere the team hopes to offer at LLoyd’s. And, expect the drinks menu to be as low-key as the food. “We want this place to be just a bar with beer, wine, and cocktails bartenders are riffing on at the moment as well as the classics. We don’t want this to be complicated,” Jones tells Eater Atlanta. “If you want to drink whiskey and cokes, cool. If you want a beer or a martini, we can do that, too.” Victory Brands is currently seeking a chef for LLoyd’s who will also oversee some aspects of the kitchen at Westside’s Little Trouble. The Space Construction on the 3000-square-foot restaurant and coffee bar is set to begin early next year and should be completed by spring. LLoyd’s will be half bar, half dining while the coffee shop, located in the front lobby of the building next door, will be more of a kiosk. Jones says the coffee shop is meant to be an in-and-out spot. Some seating will be available inside and in the courtyard. Expect grab-and-go food items like “gas station biscuits” on the menu which Jones says will be wrapped in foil under a heat lamp at 8 a.m. for $6 or $7, with the price going down a dollar every hour. The coffee bar will also include a merch shop which will sell not only the brand’s t-shirts, buttons, and cups but other restaurants’ swag. Bart Sasso of creative studio Gentleman and a co-owner at Ticonderoga Club is handling the branding. Jones hopes LLoyd’s and the coffee shop will fill a void people didn’t know they needed. |
My brother, John, and his wife, Sheena, were overjoyed earlier this year to find out they were expecting twin boys. It was a long and painful road of infertility issues before they were able to start their family through I.V.F. On October 17, 2017, John came home from work and found Sheena, who was 36 weeks pregnant, in bed. He tried to wake her and realized something was seriously wrong. He called 911 and she was rushed to the hospital. John and our family were devestated to learn that Sheena had suffered a seizure that was attributed to preeclampsia. She had been healthy throughout her pregnancy, so this came as quite a shock. To everyone's despair, both of the twins had been deprived of oxygen for too long and did not survive before the emergency c-section was performed. On top of all of that, Sheena suffered another seizure after the c-section. She had to be intubated and her body started failing her. The most dire issues were her liver and kidneys, which started shutting down. Sheena was put on dialysis, but she continued to get worse. It was decided on Friday, October 20th that the best chance for Sheena was to transfer her to Rush University Medical Center. She remains there in the care of the best doctors. Currently, she has been receiving several treatments, including plasmapheresis and dialysis, which we hope will help improve her liver and kidney function. She has also been placed on the liver transplant list as a precaution. We are praying for her full recovery, but it is a slow process and she is in the hospital for an unknown length of time. It is likely she will also need therapy when she eventually comes home. Anyone who knows John and Sheena can tell you what wonderful, kind, generous, loving people they are. We were so excited for them; after years of trying, they were finally going to have the family they always wanted. They have not yet been able to grieve the loss of their beautiful baby boys together, and now Sheena is fighting for her life. In the meantime, we've set up this fund, to help alleviate the costs of this heartbreaking and life-changing event. All money raised will be given directly to John and Sheena to help them face the bills that come with Sheena’s treatment as well as all the unanticipated costs that have come from this long hospital stay. We would like to help ease the burden from these costs. We are so thankful for your donation. Anything helps and we are incredibly grateful for your support. |
Dota 2 events are known for attracting diverse crowd thanks to the game’s global popularity. ESL One Frankfurt last year was no different, and its second iteration this June is shaping up to be yet another unique experience. Some of the most notable teams in the scene will be taking to the floor in the Commerzbank Arena, which housed more than 12,500 roaring fans last year, and this year’s edition promises to be even bigger. In 2014, teams with German players such as mousesports and Fnatic enjoyed an overwhelming home crowd advantage as they played in front of their passionate fans. However, other teams need not worry. According to ticket sales thus far, Among the attendees we noticed some pretty exotic locations, and couldn’t help but do a little more digging. The fan with the greatest travel distance is coming all the way from Whangarei, New Zealand, and will have to Overall, our attendance rankings are understandably dominated by European attendees, as you can see from the list below: Fan country of origin ranking 2015 Germany United Kingdom Austria France Netherlands Denmark Italy Czech Republic Sweden Norway If you want to represent your country, be sure to tag yourself on our ESL One Frankfurt map! Last year, While witnessing the mesmerizing games on the huge 412m² screen last year, our fans also enjoyed plenty of snacks and refreshments in the arena. During ESL One Frankfurt 2014, If you want to be part of a truly global esports event, there’s still time to secure yourself a seat in the storied World Cup stadium in Frankfurt - weekend tickets, as well as the fabled Aegis Experience, are on sale now. Another wave of premium tickets will also be on sale in the near future, so stay tuned for further ESL One Frankfurt announcements and be sure to follow Share this article: Tweet 0 , meaning every team is on their way to getting their share of cheers and chants.to get to Frankfurt and back. That’s almost a trip all the way around the globe and four times the length of the Great Wall of China! Reykjavik will also be represented in Frankfurt, with our northernmost attendees to makefrom Iceland’s capital.. However, there is no age limit on esports!, but they will surely revel in the huge plays on the big stage just as much as the next fan., which equals around three beers per person. |
“Platte River has no knowledge of the server being wiped,” company spokesman Andy Boian said. “All the information we have is that the server wasn’t wiped.” ADVERTISEMENT The former secretary of State and Democratic presidential candidate said she deleted her personal correspondence amounting to 31,000 emails before turning over the server to FBI investigators. Deleted data can still be restored from a server unless it has been “wiped” – a process that involves overwriting underlying data with gibberish. A Clinton campaign spokesperson declined to comment to the Post. It is unclear whether anyone has the authority to restore the emails, even if they could be restored. Clinton and her staffers have deflected questions as to whether the server had been wiped, on several occasions saying they don’t know what “wiped” means. The FBI is investigating whether Clinton compromised classified information over the private server during her tenure as secretary of State. |
Coal's well-funded lobbying group today launched a television ad campaign featuring ordinary people talking about the importance of low-cost electricity, a message analysts described as coal's effort to rebrand itself before the Senate tackles climate legislation. The campaign from the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), an alliance of coal and utility companies, features 30-second unscripted spots with a electric-utility executive, an Ohio small-business owner and a St. Louis, Mo., energy efficiency consultant. Two-minute Internet videos offer similar messages on cost, availability and the environmental strides made by coal-fired utilities. The ads come as ACCCE pushes forcefully to gain support for coal. The lobbying group just rolled out a so-called citizens army of more than 200,000 volunteers to visit town hall meetings and other functions attended by members of Congress, where they will ask questions about energy policy. That effort is aimed at influencing senators, particularly those from states that rely on coal for power. "The fact that companies will pour their billions into these kind of programs suggests that they think they have impact," said Kenneth Green, resident scholar at American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. "Clearly, they believe that this does sway public opinion for their product, or they wouldn't advertize." Using real people is an effort to connect to voters and generate positive feelings about coal, Green said. "This kind of campaign ... is about winning the hearts and minds of people who are fiscally strapped in a recession," Green said. The TV campaign also arrives as ACCCE is under fire politically for its ties to a dozen fraudulent letters that were sent to three Democratic House members urging them to vote against their chamber's climate bill. Made to look as if they came from advocacy groups based in the lawmakers' districts, the letters came from a lobbying firm, Bonner & Associates, which was working on behalf of ACCCE. ACCCE blamed the letters on a Bonner employee who has since been fired. But congressional furor over the incident remains, and environmental groups are working to keep that anger alive. The ad campaign that starts today with the launch of Internet videos had been planned for months. It is launching now because it is finally ready, ACCCE spokesman Joe Lucas said. The ads will run on cable and network television in Washington, D.C., and Midwestern states. Lucas would not reveal the cost of the ads but said they are part of a $15 million to $20 million media budget this year. Lucas said the ads are a way of showing the importance of coal to real people, in terms of its connection to low-cost power and jobs. "These are people who are talking in their own words," Lucas said. The ads, he said, "tell the story from the perspective of people who live at the end of the power line." In one ad, Fred Shelton, a nonprofit agency worker who helps low-income residents with energy efficiency, talks about the importance of power prices. "A lot of people have to make decisions on whether to pay their utilities or buy a meal," Shelton says in the ad. "If energy costs were to increase, it would be very devastating to them. We need coal to make it more affordable to the everyday consumer. Low-cost coal is very important." The Sierra Club, a coal opponent, described the ads as inaccurate. The biggest cause of electricity rate spikes in the country is the building of new coal-fired power plants, said Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign.. "We're out there telling people, if people want lower electric bills, they want to steer well clear of coal," Nilles said. Nilles also questioned the trustworthiness of ACCCE, given that it is linked to fraudulent letters sent to House lawmakers. Lucas of ACCCE said Sierra Club is "cherry picking," using a fact in a Massachusetts Institute of Technology report that said the cost of building new coal plants is increasing. The same report said the cost of new generation for other power sources is increasing, as well, he said. 'Values mapping' ACCCE's television ads employ a strategy called "values mapping," said Green with AEI. A company applies its values to individuals, hoping that viewers will recognize them as their own values. "You figure out the values of the people who are using your product," Green said, then use "phrases or concepts that make these values more visible to people, then associate it with your product." That helps generate positive feelings about the company, he said. "They're awareness builders," Green added. "They're raising the threat of higher electricity prices." The ads do not mention the House energy bill or the Senate taking up climate legislation, but Lucas said the timing is partially connected to legislative efforts. "This is an important time for us to be out there with this message," Lucas said. The ads, he added, "will certainly play to the backdrop of the dialogue" about energy. As there is no Senate climate bill yet, Green said, the ads make sense in that they focus more on the concept of energy prices and availability than on asking people to oppose specific legislation. Coal received many provisions it sought in the House bill but is pressing for more in the Senate. Coal interests want a provision in climate legislation that would limit how much businesses must pay for carbon dioxide emissions under a cap-and-trade program. Coal also wants financial support for research into ways to capture carbon emissions and sequester them underground. And the industry wants to slow down the pace of the cap, which in the House bill tightens over time. For its ads, ACCCE used a talent scout who found the people to appear on camera, Lucas said. In one of the spots, small-business owner Olivia Albright talks about power costs while standing in her Toledo packaging shop. "Every piece of equipment in my shop runs on electricity. It needs to be plugged in. If it's not, it doesn't work," Albright says in the ad. "There would be some hard decisions for me to make if the energy costs went up. I would have to let some of my employees go. ... I need something that's going to be there, something that's affordable. Electricity from coal does that for me." Venita McClellon-Allen, an executive at the utility American Electric Power Co. Inc., speaks in her ad about the availability of coal-fired power. "Wind is a great option for the future, but it is not the 24/7 resource that we require," McCellon-Allen says. "We have to be able to meet our customers' needs in the middle of the night or the hottest summer day. Coal will help us do that regardless of what Mother Nature's doing." The ads also talk about coal as cleaner than it has been in the past. "The coal plants we're building today are light-years ahead of the ones built 30 years ago. They're cleaner, they're more efficient, and they're much better for the environment," McCellon-Allen says. "Coal is plentiful, dependable, and it's affordable." The Sierra Club's Nilles said coal is not a clean option, and environmental groups have attacked coal for describing itself as clean. Currently, there is no commercial-scale coal plant in operation that removes and sequesters carbon dioxide emissions, which are linked to global warming. But ACCCE's Lucas said environmental groups have limited use of the phrase "clean coal" to the elimination of carbon dioxide emissions. When coal backers talk about clean coal, he said, they are referring to advances over the last 30 years to remove many pollutants. Where is the Reality Coalition? The new ads strike a different tone than those used earlier ad war over the phrase "clean coal." Coal supporters last fall ran television ads talking about "clean coal." That campaign was part of $38 million that coal backers spent on advertising last year. In response, a coalition of environmental groups joined with Vice President Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection and started the Reality Coalition. It began airing ads declaring, "There's no such thing as clean coal." Lucas called the climate coalition's ads "snarky." The Reality Coalition did not reveal how much money it spent, saying at the time that its ad purchases were "competitive" with the coal industry's buys. The Reality Coalition in the spring moved from California to Washington, D.C., saying that it sensed the timing was right to be in the nation's capital. But the group has since disappeared from public view, not responding to reporter inquiries. The group's last Twitter tweet was April 28. Several have speculated that the Reality Coalition withdrew at the behest of Democrats who feared the group's activism and ties to Gore would keep moderates from voting for the House climate bill. Whatever the reason, the exit leaves no one with a big bankroll to fund ads competing with the new ones from coal. Nilles of the Sierra Club said environmentalists will continue their awareness efforts but that he expected ACCCE "will spend a lot of money to try to influence public opinion." Copyright 2009 E&E Publishing. All Rights Reserved. |
Falcons kicker Josh Harris flew well under the radar during 2014 and even afterward as yearly awards begin to be announced. Many Falcons fans think Bryant should have been named to the crop of players chosen for the 2015 Pro Bowl in Arizona. Last week, Bryant received one vote on the Associated Press' All-Pro team. While things were very tight in the kicking category among the league's best legs, Bryant did get some much-deserved recognition from ProFootballFocus.com as the site named him the starting kicker on their All-Pro team. Bryant went 29-of-32 on field goals in 2014, with his three misses coming from beyond 50 yards. His longest was a 54-yarder on the year, and he was one of four kickers who made 100 percent of their kick attempts between 40-49 yards. |
? It started right away, the singing. Turned on like a light as soon as the first beer was cracked, a Midwesternized version of “Battle Hymn of the Republic” rang out from a black bus that could have been carrying a crop of convicts. Instead, it was a different type of mob: soccer fans. Specifically, the Mass Street Mob, a rowdy group of fans who call Lawrence home and Sporting Kansas City their team. “Sporting, Sporting Kansas City Sporting, Sporting Kansas City Sporting, Sporting Kansas City The Wiz go marching on. On! On! On!” Formed by three Kansas University graduate students last year, the Mass Street Mob has grown from a small group of friends to include dozens of regulars and hundreds of followers across Twitter and Facebook. And while the founders — Adam Crifasi, Daniel Novin and Drew Rich — always rooted for Sporting KC, they weren’t superfans. “We watched the Wizards on and off,” Rich said. “I like watching the English Premier League and (Spain’s) La Liga,” said Crifasi, but an avid Kansas City fan he was not. Last season, as Sporting made a remarkable run to capture the Eastern Conference crown — eventually falling to the Houston Dynamo in the conference final — the trio thought Lawrence could bring its own flavor to the Cauldron, the boisterous fan group that loudly cheers Sporting. “The whole mind-set was that we knew there were soccer fans and Sporting fans in Lawrence, and we wanted to get them in the same place and cheer (Sporting) on together,” Crifasi said. Relying on Twitter and Facebook, the Mass Street Mob was born. And while its core consists of KU students, the founders say it’s inclusive. “When you say you’re a Mobster, you like Sporting, you live in Lawrence or root for KU,” Rich said. “You’re one of us.” The Mob is one of the newer pieces of the Cauldron, an overarching supporter group that takes its name from the days when Sporting was called the Wizards. Over the years, the Cauldron has spawned offshoots that show how varied and widespread Sporting fandom is. There’s La Barra KC, Brookside Elite, the Kansas City Yardbirds, KC Futbol Misfits, the Wedge (named after the shape of the section in which they sit), Ad Astra KC (which advertises itself as being family-friendly) and South Stand KC (located in the south part of the stadium). And, of course, the Mass Street Mob, which occupies bar stools at the Red Lyon before home games and when Sporting is on the road. The growth of supporter groups like the Mob has made an impression on Sporting players. “There’s always been passionate fans, but it’s been in smaller numbers (in the past),” says defender Matt Besler, an Overland Park native who rooted for the Wizards as a kid. “I wasn’t expecting amazing fans like that,” said French defender Aurelien Collin, who played in Portugal before coming to Sporting last season. “The love they give us, screaming and clapping and cursing at the referee — they are the 12th man on the field.” Sporting KC is Kansas City’s Major League Soccer franchise, born as the Kansas City Wiz in 1996, one of MLS’ original teams. Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt and his family founded the team. In 1997, the club was renamed the Wizards, a name that more closely identified its regional roots; a rainbow was incorporated into the logo. The team called Arrowhead Stadium home until 2008, when it moved to CommunityAmerica Ballpark, home of the Kansas City T-Bones. In 2010, under new ownership, the team announced two drastic moves. The first was dropping the Wizards moniker, under which the team won the 2000 MLS Cup, in favor of Sporting Kansas City, a nod to European organizations that include not only soccer, but other sports like boxing and swimming under the Sporting brand. The second was the construction of a new soccer-specific stadium in the Legends complex. Livestrong Sporting Park is so named because of a partnership with cyclist Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong Foundation. Its low canopy and compact seating is a far cry from the cavernous Arrowhead and the awkward configuration of CommunityAmerica Ballpark, far from ideal for a soccer pitch. Early on, the rebranding met with resistance. After all, for 15 years, soccer fans rooted on the Wizards, with stars like Preki, Alexi Lalas, Tony Meola and Josh Wolfe. But fans and players alike say the efforts made by team owner Robb Heineman have turned a small but supportive fan base into a large and loud legion of supporters. “I’ve played in three different countries professionally, and I would have done anything to play in front of a fan base and stadium like this one,” said head coach Peter Vermes, who starred for the Wizards from 2000 to 2002 after playing in Hungary and Holland and appearing in the 1990 World Cup for the U.S. National Team. “I don’t think you can compare it to the time I was here because it’s completely changed.” Mobsters will tell you it wasn’t always this way. Brothers Ben and Nathan Flures grew up rooting for the Wizards at Arrowhead. “It was quiet,” Nathan, a 22-year-old Olathe resident, remembers. Now? “It just blew up,” said Ben, a KU student, donning a power-and-royal blue scarf that reads “Mass St. Mob” on one side, with the Campanile stitched on the other. The ignition point, fans and players say, is when the Heineman group took over the team and moved Sporting to Livestrong. “(The fans) feel home now. This is our home,” said Jimmy Nielsen, the hulking Danish goalkeeper and Sporting captain. “We can feel a huge difference. Right now, there’s not a big difference in how the fans are, our fans, the soccer fans in America, compared to soccer fans in Europe.” Opposing players have taken note, too. “I think having the new stadium … has helped quite a bit,” said Matt Reis, goalkeeper for the New England Revolution, who entered the league in 1998. “The last couple of years playing at the baseball park really didn’t do a whole lot for the soccer community in Kansas City, and now having the great facility that they have there has really allowed the fans to come out and enjoy and embrace their soccer team. “It’s a great environment to play in.” Anecdotally, the surge in support took off after the rebrand. But the numbers bear that, as well. While the club would not provide specific figures, it said season-ticket sales have grown by 475 percent since 2010. Single-game revenue has increased by more than 325 percent in the last two years. More than 20,400 fans watched Sporting play its last home game against the Montreal Impact. This season, the club has averaged 19,017 in a stadium that has a seating capacity of 18,467. Mobsters say the new stadium has drawn new fans and brought back others who had drifted away. “When they moved to the baseball stadium, the games weren’t as enjoyable,” Novin said. But when Sporting moved into its new home, “the excitement just grew,” he said. Livestrong was designed for fans, from a low roof that insulates sound to wide-screen televisions throughout the park, including the restrooms. The architect, Kansas City, Mo., firm Populous, built it with a decidedly European flair, from the sleek design to the “SPORTING” spelled out in the seats, calling to mind a similar feature at Old Trafford, home to the famed English club Manchester United. “My feeling is the fan base has turned into a cult following. I think coming out to our games now is the thing to do in Kansas City,” Vermes said. “It’s more than just a soccer game. It’s an atmosphere.” It’s an atmosphere that has transcended the soccer pitch. “The rebranding has revitalized the organization,” Novin said. “That’s why we started to get more people out.” But for all the European influences apparent at Livestrong, make no mistake: This is Kansas City. The stadium is draped in KC imagery, with banners depicting the scout statue that surveys downtown Kansas City and the iconic Western Auto building. You’re just as likely to see a powder blue Alex Gordon T-shirt as a Kei Kamara shirt. “Welcome to Blue Hell,” reads one banner. The team has also worked to build a close relationship with fans. During pregame introductions, players’ Twitter handles are displayed on the Jumbrotron. There are regular meet-and-greet sessions with fans. The team’s practice sessions at Swope Park are open to the public. During a recent visit to Lawrence, players hung out with fans after a special training session at KU. “We understand how much (the fans) give us, and we try to give something back,” said Besler, who has cousins that attend Free State High. Game day for Mobsters begins at the Red Lyon, 944 Mass., and this night, May 5, Sporting took on the lowly Montreal Impact. From the pub, the group took a chartered party bus, singing and throwing back beers the entire 30-minute trip to the stadium. They tailgated in the parking lot before entering the stadium. They were well behaved, but well lubricated. Sporting KC went into that game against the Impact with the league’s best record, having won an MLS-record seven straight games before dropping two in a row. After dominating the first half, Montreal surprised Sporting by punching in a goal before halftime. That was followed by a second-half penalty kick, and the Impact upended Sporting. The Kansas City club would drop the following game against the Chicago Fire, a disappointing series of losses that followed a strong start. But these losses didn’t diminish the enthusiasm of the Mob. Even before the pregame pyrotechnics and player introductions, drums pounded. Massive banners were unfurled, displaying the various logos of supporter groups. The Mob’s crest — a shield dissected into four parts — features a red KU “K,” Sporting’s cursive “SC” logo,” the Campanile and the Red Lyon’s rampant lion. That set the tone for the rest of the game, during which the Mobsters and their Cauldron cohorts stood for the entire 90 minutes. The Mob handed out chant sheets to those unfamiliar with the rituals. They read, and they sang. Occupying the north end of the stadium, the Cauldron provided constant energy that feeds the rest of the crowd. While most fans sat politely, the Mobsters joined in chants and songs that range from the humorous (“Bring out your dead!” rings out when a Montreal player is carted off the field) to the R-rated (which can’t be printed in a family newspaper). Even as it became apparent Sporting wouldn’t win, the Cauldron continued to sing and drum and shout. And still, with its team down two goals with minutes to play, the crowd could be heard a mile away. In Lawrence, more than 2,500 kids are signed up to play in the Kaw Valley Soccer Association, said Marcus Dudley, executive director. The league was one of the first organizations Sporting partnered with for its Sporting Club Network, which works to grow interest in the sport and identify players who might have professional potential. Dudley said there are only two other organizations in the junior affiliate program, one in the Blue Valley school district in Overland Park and one in Tulsa, Okla. The Lawrence league, he said, was chosen for its size and because it retains players as young as 3 until they are 18. “Our youngest kids have some idea they’re connected to the major club,” he said. In the last year, Dudley said there’s been a huge uptick in interest from girls; last year, for the first time, KVSA offered girls-only leagues, and 165 players signed up. “The numbers show there are more kids staying (with the league), we’re seeing an increase in girls, we’re seeing a huge resurgence in high school” students that play for the league’s club teams, Dudley said. While soccer has yet to match baseball, football or basketball in American hearts and minds, it’s growing, helped out every few years by the World Cup and the Olympics (though the Americans failed to qualify for this summer’s Games). Still, Vermes said soccer players must also be ambassadors for the sport. Not that he thinks it will be difficult to win over pigskin-minded fans. “If you’ve never been to a game and you come to a game, I know you’ll be a fan from there after,” he said. |
A Dorchester man who says he looked out his window Monday and spotted a teenage boy hacking a stray cat to death with a machete behind an abandoned home on Mount Everett Street said he was stunned by what he witnessed. “It was very disturbing,” said Evins Justin of Dorchester, who immediately called the cops. “A person who would do that would do just about anything. He was just having fun cutting it up. Four or five cruisers showed up. He wasn’t even hiding.” Cops arrested the teen and charged him with two counts of cruelty to animals, possession of a dangerous weapon and trespassing, police said. He was arraigned yesterday in the juvenile session of Dorchester District Court and held pending a dangerousness hearing. Due to his age, his name was not released. “Officers observed dismembered animal parts in the yard, as well as a machete, handsaw, folding knife, a right hand rubber glove, bottle of Clorox bleach and a black trash bag marked with the defendant’s first name,” according to a statement from Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley’s Office. Neighbors knew something strange was had been going on over there. A large, dilapidated house with one collapsed wall sits on the overgrown lot. The home is boarded and covered in “No Trespassing” signs. But last week some had spotted a group of three boys walking over there. An errant football pass sent a 12-year-old girl, her sisters and a 2-year-old neighbor to the abandoned lot last week to track down the ball when the 2-year-old spotted what she thought was a toy — the severed head of a stray cat. “She wanted to keep it,” said the 12-year-old, who spoke in the presence of her adult caretaker but did not want to be identified for the story. “She thought it was a toy. I told her ‘No.’ Then we saw the body.” The girl took pictures with her phone that she shared with police. The cat’s body had no head and the paws had been cut off. She said the paws were littered around the large back yard. The girl said she and her sisters were glad that their own cats — Dora, Sparky and Minny — were OK. |
g a panel discussion on the civil war being waged in the White House between Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and senior Trump adviser Steve Bannon, a former Breitbart employee said it will be “open warfare” on Trump if Kushner gets Bannon fired.Appearing on MSNBC’s AM Joy with host Joy Reid, former Breitbart executive Kurt Bardella said the poor reaction from the conservative “Bannonite wing” of the party to the Syria attack was a sign they fear their man is losing his influence in the White House.“They’re concerned they are about to lose their link to the West Wing and direct access to the president through Steve Bannon,” Bardella explained. “Clearly Steve is under siege right now. The fact that so many on the conservative right so forcefully came out against the actions of the president and strikes in Syria just tells you how much trouble Steve actually really is in.” |
HOLLYWOOD, CA—Columbia Pictures president Doug Belgrad admitted Monday that the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was merely a promotional gimmick for the 2008 Adam Sandler vehicle You Don't Mess With The Zohan that spun a little out of control. "They knew a comedy this big was going to need a big marketing hook, so back in '47, our guys called some people at the U.N., and next thing you know we had ourselves an ethnic conflict that turned into a nice little return at the box office," Belgrad told reporters, adding that the comedy about an Israeli Mossad agent who fakes his own death to become a hairdresser in New York cost $90 million and several thousand lives. "In retrospect, we should have maybe dialed back on the Six-Day War, but we needed somewhere to anchor that Fizzy Bubbeleh joke. You can't buy press like that." Belgrad added that the film's highly anticipated sequel will involve Iran. |
At a meeting of the foreign affairs committee last week, Conservative MP Laurie Hawn said something sort of interesting. Specifically, Hawn, who is not standing for re-election, said, “I personally think that supply management is an anachronism that needs to disappear. But that’s my opinion.” This is not a particularly novel view of supply management. Indeed, beyond Parliament, this is an opinion that has been articulated by various observers in recent years; see here, here, here, here or here. Here is Brian Mulroney suggesting an end to supply management. Here is the Conference Board of Canada calling for reform. Nonetheless, the three major parties are all officially committed to steadfastly defending supply management. And so, the day after Hawn’s comments were reported, the New Democrats and Liberals pounced. NDP critic Malcolm Allen asked the trade minister to “denounce” Hawn, while Ruth Ellen Brosseau and Liberal MPs Marc Garneau and Mark Eyking also expressed concern. The New Democrats mentioned Hawn in questions on Thursday and Friday, as well. Regardless of your opinion of supply management, you should have some sympathy for Laurie Hawn. The issue here isn’t really the wisdom or utility of supply management, but how parliamentary politics works. It is inconceivable that every single Conservative, Liberal and New Democrat MP (or candidate) has the exact same opinion about supply management. Or, at least, it would be profoundly weird, unsettling even, if they all did. No sizable group of human beings should be of precisely the same mind on such a debatable matter. There are certain basic principles of human rights, equality and law that we might expect anyone running for office to support. But, beyond those values and ideas, we are dealing with matters of opinion (opinions that are, one hopes, often supported by evidence, but opinions nonetheless). Even if there is general agreement on those matters among the 338 individuals who will stand for each of the major parties in the next election, it stands to reason that they will not all agree on every detail of every relevant issue to an equal degree. Actually, it doesn’t just stand to reason that there are differences of opinion. It’s not just that that would be normal; it’s that that should be expected and encouraged—that a diversity of views makes for a healthier body politic. There is probably, one hopes, at least one New Democrat who isn’t entirely certain that supply management is the best choice of policy. There is probably, one hopes, a Liberal who has misgivings. Laurie Hawn might not be the only Conservative who would abolish supply management. In the case of supply management, a few dissidents might actually make for a real debate about the issue. Within each party, there are probably, one hopes, varying opinions on tax policy, justice, arts funding, parliamentary reform, foreign affairs, military deployment and child care. Even if it’s understandable that parties would prefer to present a unified front on most of the major issues of the day—and it should be remembered that that provides our federal politics with a certain coherence—it shouldn’t be surprising when differences appear along the edges. Laurie Hawn is not the leader of his party, nor a member of cabinet, nor a minister’s parliamentary secretary. Though a member of the governing party, he is not a member of the government. Unless delegated to do so, he does not speak on behalf of the government, so he should have some freedom to articulate a personal opinion. He has also not said anything here that would normally qualify as offensive. So the suggestion that he should be denounced by the trade minister is fairly ridiculous. Which is not to say that Hawn’s comments are entirely irrelevant, but there are limits to that relevance; the government and the Prime Minister shouldn’t be held responsible for every one of Hawn’s opinions, and any attempt to assign his opinion to the party can be, justifiably, considered unfair. Ahead of an election that will have more than a thousand individuals running for office, this is a principle worth asserting: The party leader should not be held responsible for every opinion of every person who runs under the party banner. “That’s his opinion, but it is not the opinion of this party, nor the majority of its members” should suffice as a response to all such differences of opinion on policy. Would it be a bit odd if a candidate disagreed with a core policy of the party’s platform? Yes. Should obnoxious expressions and opinions be condemned? Yes. But differences of view are not quite cause for scandal. If anything, Hawn’s expression of opinion should put some onus on those who disagree to explain their position. It’s popular to assert that the press gallery is to blame for fussing over every difference of opinion. But expressions of opinion from election officials are inherently newsworthy, all the more so, as long as differences of opinion within parties are so rarely expressed openly. And it should be noted that parties are generally quite eager to mock and scold their rivals whenever a difference emerges (even if you think parties would be loathe to establish that the party or the leader is responsible for every opinion of every MP and candidate). We might agree to at least two basic rules. First, that publicly stated differences of opinion are not necessarily signs of weakness in the party leader. Second, that attempts to brand a party with the opinion of a single member, or even a small number of members, should be challenged. When I was reporting on Brent Rathgeber’s new life as an Independent MP last year, Conservative MP James Rajotte, who seconded Michael Chong’s Reform Act, presented me with an interesting notion: “We have to get to a point whereby someone who agrees with [his] own party 90 per cent of the time, but has 10 per cent disagreement, is not seen as a rebel; [he’s] seen just as a thoughtful individual who fits within his party 90 per cent of the time, and 10 per cent may just have a different view, or [his] constituency may have a different view.” That sounds like the basis for an interesting, dynamic and lively political system. And Laurie Hawn is now somewhat closer to meeting that disagreement quota. |
Certain tasks like updating dependencies or migrating a database must be done after pulling code or checking out a branch. Other tasks such as re-indexing our ctags improve our development experience. Both kinds of tasks are easy to forget to do and are therefore error-prone. To address the problem, we’ve recently added a standard, extensible set of git hooks to our dotfiles in order to automate necessary, but annoying tasks. Git has a commonly under-utilized feature: hooks. You can think of a hook as an event that gets triggered before and after various stages of revision control process. Some hooks of note are: prepare-commit-msg - Fires before the commit message prompt. - Fires before the commit message prompt. pre-commit - Fires before a git commit . - Fires before a . post-commit - Fires after a git commit . - Fires after a . post-checkout - Fires after changing branches. - Fires after changing branches. post-merge - Fires after merging branches. - Fires after merging branches. pre-push - Fires before code is pushed to a remote. Our dotfiles’ convention for extension is to place our custom hooks in {pre,post}-$EVENT files within our ~/.git_template.local/hooks directory. Now, anything we add to those hook files will be automatically executed, running tasks that we normally would forget. I forget to re-index my ctags ! Lucky for you, we’ve set up git to re-index your ctags after each git command. I always forget to run bundle install after switching branches! Automatically install new gems: # ~/.git_template.local/hooks/post-checkout # use `hookup` gem if it's installed if command -v hookup > /dev/null ; then hookup post-checkout " $@ " else # otherwise, do it yourself [ -f Gemfile ] && bundle install > /dev/null & fi I never remember to run pending migrations! Automatically run your migrations: # ~/.git_template.local/hooks/post-checkout # use `hookup` gem if it's installed if command -v hookup > /dev/null ; then hookup post-checkout " $@ " else # otherwise, do it yourself [ -f db/schema.rb ] && bin/rake db:migrate > /dev/null & fi I document my API with fdoc, but I forget to generate the pages! Automatically generate the HTML docs: # ~/.git_template.local/hooks/post-checkout bin/fdoc convert ./spec/fixtures --output = ./html > /dev/null & I really like Go’s commitment to a standard code format, but I constantly forget to format my files! Run go fmt before you commit: # ~/.git_template.local/hooks/pre-commit gofiles = $( git diff --cached --name-only --diff-filter = ACM | grep '.go$' ) [ -z " $gofiles " ] && exit 0 function checkfmt () { unformatted = $( gofmt -l $gofiles ) [ -z " $unformatted " ] && return 0 echo > &2 "Go files must be formatted with gofmt. Please run:" for fn in $unformatted ; do echo > &2 " gofmt -w $PWD / $fn " done return 1 } checkfmt || fail = yes [ -z " $fail " ] || exit 1 exit 0 I want my extensive network of friends to know when I’m merging code! Send out a Yo every time you merge a branch: # ~/.git_template.local/hooks/post-merge curl --data "api_token= $YO_API_TOKEN " https://api.justyo.co/yoall/ > /dev/null & When we aggressively simplify and automate the tedious parts of the development process, we can focus on what’s important: getting things done. If you found this useful, you might also enjoy: |
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