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Aaron Hernandez was found dead in his prison cell last month after hanging himself with a bedsheet. He was 27 years old and serving a life sentence for the murder of Odin Lloyd. Four years earlier, Hernandez was a member of the New England Patriots and had recently signed a $40 million contract extension. In the weeks since his death, details about his time behind bars reveals a life that is miles away from the one he previously knew. Yahoo.com's Dan Wetzel writes of an angry and frustrated man unaccustomed to being told what to do and when to do it all while spending most of his days in a 7-by-10-foot cell. "His aggressive tone … has become an excessive habit when he does not receive what he wants, when he wants it," one Bristol County guard wrote in a report. "He is constantly kicking his cell door and screaming at the top of his lungs utilizing profanity at times when he wants something, regardless of how miniscule it is. It is not uncommon for Hernandez to kick his cell door constantly until an officer approaches his cell merely to ask the officer for the current time." Hernandez was often involved in fights with other inmates; in Bristol County Jail he was charged with 21 disciplinary offenses stemming from 12 separate incidents during his 22 months there. Then, at the Souza-Baranowski prison, 78 more disciplinary offenses -- including 12 major incidents -- over a two-year span. "Hernandez struck [name redacted] with a closed fist to the face and both men engage[d] in a physical altercation," according to a Souza-Baranowski incident report. "The combatants ignored several direct orders to cease their actions and chemical agent was utilized to separate the inmates." For a glimpse into just how much Hernandez's life had changed, Wetzel recounts a story from Nov. 20, 2013. Hernandez was on on Disciplinary Detention Status at the time in the Bristol County Jail, where he was housed while awaiting trial, which also meant he couldn't receive commissary. But a mistake was made, two dozen honey buns were delivered to his cell, and Hernandez realizing what had happened, got to work on finishing off every last honey bun before the officers caught on. Wetzel writes: "He ate one honey bun and then another. And another. And another. Each was individually wrapped, so the trash began to pile up, as Hernandez plowed through his order. He alternated sleep with more and more of the pastries. This was Man vs. Food, Bristol County House of Corrections Edition." With four honey buns remaining, the officers realized the error and confiscated them. "I'm a smart dude," Hernandez told an officer according to a jail incident report. "I knew you'd be coming for this stuff … that's why I ate as much food as I could." Hernandez then asked if he could have those final four honey buns. His request was denied. In another incident, Hernandez ate a letter he wrote in response to guards seizing his correspondence. He once physically tore up a letter in front of guards and then ate it so they couldn't keep it. "I'll eat the [expletive] and then you don't get [expletive]," Hernandez shouted according to an incident report. Three-and-a-half years later, Hernandez killed himself and Wetzel tries to make sense of it all. |
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has shared more details about its upcoming Vega family of GPUs, as well as information regarding the progress the company has made with its open-source ROCm software stack for HPC and Machine Learning (ML). These new Vega GPUs look like they have sufficient performance to be in the same ballpark as NVIDIA ’s highly acclaimed family of PASCAL GPUs. Taken together with the optimized ROCm ML software AMD has developed, they form a solid first step for market entry. But it will all come down to the ROCm open source software to transform the hardware’s potential performance into real value. The New Vega GPUs AMD announced the Radeon Instinct MI6, MI8, and the Vega-based MI25 for Machine Learning back in December, with Vega shipments expected mid-2017. Vega is being positioned for compute-intensive training jobs against the NVIDIA Pascal-based Tesla P100 with what looks like competitive performance potential. Now, AMD has announced it is adding a workstation form-factor GPU to the Vega line, called the Radeon Vega Frontier Edition, targeting ML development environments. AMD said its Vega strategy is to deliver better performance on Vega than NVIDIA Pascal, and to price for a 2x advantage in price / performance. AMD intends to court developers and researchers who want to start evaluating AMD’s Vega products for Machine Learning and help build out the company’s open source suite of software and libraries. Note that AMD has a two part story here in reducing TCO: lower cost & higher I/O capacity from the Zen-based Naples server CPU combined with the price / performance advantage of the Vega GPU for Machine Learning. The ROCm Machine Learning Software AMD began building the critical Machine Learning software ecosystem last year, with open source Linux drivers, libraries and tools. The company showed how this effort is making good progress, critical to transforming hardware theoretical specs into application-level performance for ML. AMD has shared at its Financial Analyst Event that it has achieved a 13-16-fold increase in software performance since November as it optimizes its libraries. Company executives also laid out a software roadmap, detailing the path ahead to deliver Caffe2, Tensorflow, PyTorch and MXNet later this summer to support the Vega hardware, along with the optimized solvers in ROCm. Conclusions AMD recognizes that NVIDIA has a significant head start in the Machine Learning market, having spent years optimizing its hardware and software, and having just announced the new high end Volta GPU. But the Machine Learning market is still quite young and is growing very fast; there’s room for an Avis to compete with NVIDIA’s Hertz. It appears that AMD is laying the foundation of hardware, software and developer relationships needed to build an attractive business. The company has completely revamped and optimized its software stack and has designed new GPUs that are tailored for Machine Learning algorithms with features such as reduced precision math and optimized solvers. Importantly, the decision to open-source AMD’s software enables the industry’s ecosystem to add momentum to that development effort. Now AMD needs to execute flawlessly, build out an ecosystem, and establish footholds in the key companies that are shaping this industry. It would be very interesting if the company could also leverage its Semi-Custom Business Unit to gain one or two partners in the autonomous robotic and automotive segments, much in the same way AMD became the leader in the gaming console business. AMD recognizes that it will be a journey to build the hardware and software ecosystem to compete in this lucrative market, and it is taking great care to start off with the right first steps. AMD’s next steps should be interesting to watch. *Performance for NVLINK Optimized P100 Device http://www.nvidia.com/object/tesla-p100.html -- Disclosure: Moor Insights & Strategy, like all research and analyst firms, provides or has provided research, analysis, advising and/or consulting to many high-tech companies in the industry, including Advanced Micro Devices and NVIDIA. The author does not have any investment positions in the companies named in this article. |
Increased number of audits for test centers across the world Collaborating with colleges with respect to student identity and reporting misuse Anonymous reporting of malicious activity regarding the SAT Taking in the cooperation of US law enforcement agencies to identify, report and act against people/parties responsible for breaches Did you ever retake an exam because somebody somewhere leaked the question paper? Oh boy! This is probably the worst reason possible to repeat a test. Months of hard work gone down the drain because of one person’s lack of ethics.Apart from the irritating aspect of preparing once again to retake the exam, something like this also undermines your confidence in a test. This shaken confidence feeling further extends to the authority that oversees these competitive exams. In the case of the SAT, it is the College Board, the sole authority regarding everything SAT.There have been breaches in the past on the SAT security too. The College Board has competently handled these issues. It has further strengthened its security protocols both before and on the day of the exam. For most part, as a diligent student aiming for an admission in a good college, you really do not have to bother about these issues. Just that, having the knowledge regarding these instances and the measures is ‘good to know’ to retain your confidence in the exam. How will you perform if you don’t trust the examiner?Let’s look at key measures taken to maintain and retain SAT security:-The SAT is mainly taken by millions of students worldwide to apply for higher education. This is the only and actual intended purpose of the SAT. But there are other reasons why someone takes the SAT. There are people who take the SAT to understand how it is modeled, like educators for instance. Their purpose is to know the pattern of the SAT so they can train students better to crack the SAT. There are other people who take the SAT for state funding. College Board has clear intended purpose policy that helps decide on the test dates based on the reason one is taking the exam. Anyone found in breach of this policy stands the risk of score cancellation.Question and Answer or QAS service in short, is the only exception to the rule of ‘never ever disclose any question on the SAT’. The disclosure by any means – text, SMS, email, chat or any other electronic/non electronic forms is not accepted. If you are found doing any of these (which I hope not!) your SAT exam and scores if applicable are cancelled. College Board provides a clear policy on QAS and how to go about it.These two points are super critical and hence important to understand from the point of view of a student. Your actions and choices before taking up the SAT need to factor in these two points.There are other key security measures that are active on the SAT exam day and during the exam.The photo ID is the most primary and a key tool to root out miscreants whose intention is plain mischief and not taking the SAT. College board is particular that the photo should match the person reporting for the test. There are no two ways to go about this policy.The SAT exam sections are ordered in a manner and the student is expected to respect and follow this order. You should not skip this order for your own sake. If found doing so, your exam stands cancelled.All sections of the SAT are timed. No student can go to the next section if he/she has few spare minutes on hand. The way the exam is designed it is not possible to do it. If you are one of those geniuses who somehow manage to do this, then the penalty is score cancellation.You are allowed to use a calculator on the SAT, provided the calculator falls under the guidelines as mentioned by the College Board. Mobiles are a strict no. Then there are electronic devices. Should you carry your favorite mp3 player to the SAT? Well, you are going to the exam center to write a competitive exam and not for recreation, so the answer is no. Read up on the College Board’s phone and electronic device policy The College Board is proactive in scanning through various security threats that keep emerging, including cyber threats for paper leaks. It has taken various measures to maintain the sanctity of the SAT.Some of new policies revised and made public in February 2017 include:- It is really important for you as a student to identify all points that can lead to confidentiality breach with respect to SAT and not be a party to it. Your focus as an aspiring student should be to crack the SAT with best scores. You do your bit and let security measures taken by the College Board be your guardian. |
SWIFT CEO Gottfried Leibbrandt has spoken to the Financer, sharing his thoughts on cryptotechnologies as such, their current and future influence on the banking sector, and on the bitcoin digital currency in particular. Leibbrandt described himself as a keen bitcoin user who often urges others to get a wallet and try it to understand the essence of the technology. He called bitcoin "a fantastic user experience", adding however, that from the scalability point of view bitcoin does not seem yet to be able to replace traditional currencies. “The whole outstanding value of bitcoin is just a couple of billion dollars and the daily volume, if I’m not mistaken, is in the order of $50-100 million. The volumes that are going through the global financial system are about 100,000 times that number. That’s the order of magnitude of what happens today, and I’m not sure I can see that being replaced by Bitcoin on a meaningful scale. That’s not to say that it won’t be there in its niche," said Mr. Leibbrandt. SWIFT CEO added that, though believed to be frictionless by many, in reality bitcoin is not 100% free of friction, as the mining costs paid out to bitcoin miners amount to about 1% of the total transaction volume, which is “not negligible”. Describing the effect the bitcoin digital currency and blockchain technology are able to produce, and are already producing, on banking sector, Mr. Leibbrandt said that banks will hardly be displaced by the digital technologies, but rather will adapt to the changes and transform themselves. And still he admitted seeing it all as a challenge: “Certainly I see all of us being challenged. Absolutely. I think these things have the potential to fundamentally change how we do things with money and banks have to worry about how to absorb and leverage it. That applies to SWIFT as well,” he said. Nevertheless, Mr. Leibbrand believes that banks have some things in their favour, including infrastructure and the experience of working with high value exchange, which includes managing credit and market risks, capitalisation and regulatory framework. He noted that the default risks, which are usually faced by intermediaries such as banks, in peer-to-peer lending are encountered by lenders themselves. The peer-to-peer technology thus, in the view of Mr. Leibbrandt, can be absorbed by banks, them additionally insuring peer-to-peer lenders from the default risks. Likewise, he believes, the blockchain technology should also get absorbed by banks: “We’re looking at the blockchain technology, keeping a very close eye on it. If there is a way to improve the service we provide to the banks with that new technology, then we will use it. We are absolutely on it.” When asked whether he sees any reason in claiming that taxation and regulation cannot be applicable to digital currencies, Mr. Leibbrandt said he could not agree at all: “I think that’s complete baloney. People said you couldn’t tax things on the internet, because the internet is global. I think governments have made pretty good progress in how to tax internet commerce. You can tax it in the country of the receiver or in the country of the sender of the goods – or both... I firmly believe that where there is value exchange, it will be regulated and it will be taxed. That’s a whole framework we’ve had in place for thousands of years, and I don’t see that being turned on its head by this technology. I think everybody realizes that regulation and taxation is needed.” He added that he doubted the concept of money without government as such, saying that history has seen very few examples of such concept's success. Summarizing his stance, Mr. Leibbrandt repeated once again that the technology does affect, and will grow to affect more, the banking sector, and will continue to be a challenge difficult to overestimate. As Coinfox reported earlier, huge banks are now getting more and more involved in researching and adapting cryptotechnologies, laboratories being opened worldwide, partnerships signed and investments made into the sector. Maria Rudina |
- The UBC Thunderbirds alpine ski team travelled to Alpental, Wash., for their first slalom races of the year.UBC was representing the entire country as the only Canadian school competing in the United States Ski Collegiate Ski and Snowboard Association (USCSA).The team started off with very strong performances in the morning by both the men and women; with everyone finishing in the top 15 overall.UBC truly dominated the race in the second run with outstanding showings by every athlete. In the end, both the men and women outclassed their competitors by combined team results that were over six seconds faster than the second place teams.Notable performances were the brother and sister duo of Mike and Sam Bisnaire from Toronto, Ontario who finished first and third respectively.At the end of the day, all five men finished in the top ten overall.(4th),(5th) and(6th) had only 16 one hundredths of a second separating them.rounded out the strong men's team performance also finishing in the top ten.Behind Sam Bisnaire wasin 5th, Sam Davis in 8th, closely followed by Tobi Britton in 12th and Kelsey Nilson in 14th.Day two of the race was cancelled due to heavy rainfall.The team is now focusing on the first giant slalom of the year, this coming weekend at Spokane, Washington.-30- |
3 Shares 0 3 0 0 The class action lawsuit was filed Wednesday by the law firm Maurice Blackburn on behalf of former juvenile detainees Dylan Jenkings and Aaron Hyde. It details accounts of “unlawful” physical and psychological abuse inside notorious youth detention facilities in the city of Darwin, local news outlets reported. If successful, the legal effort would not only see Jenkings and Hyde compensated but also set a precedent for the other mostly aboriginal youth who have suffered harsh treatment by prison guards inside youth correction centers in the Northern Territory. “Our clients are concerned not only of their own treatment, but the treatment of other young people in youth detention centers,” said Attorney Ben Slade. “These young people are entitled to be compensated for the wrong that was done to them. Things have to change.” The class action case is just the latest legal proceeding to emerge since Australian broadcaster ABC showed video footage of children being stripped naked, tear-gassed, and physically abused inside youth detention centers in a news program called Four Corners. Following the report, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced a royal commission that would conduct a probe into the youth detention and justice system in the territory. In a statement, the Northern Territory’s Acting Chief Minister Nicole Manison said that, because the matter was before the courts, she would not comment other than acknowledging that the government was seeking legal advice. In the case filed in the Federal Court, lawyers charged that in 2012 prison staff “struck” the then-15-year-old Hyde several times in the ribs while the juvenile was handcuffed. Staff then allegedly “slammed” Hyde’s head into a door frame before handcuffing him for up to an hour to a basketball court fence, with his arms above his head. According to the court document, he was then allegedly stripped naked, placed into an isolation cell with no permanent bedding or tap water for up to three weeks. The document also alleged that Jenkings and another youth detainee were tear-gassed, before being taken to a room and “punched, kicked and struck… with batons and shields.” They were then put into solitary confinement for two days. “These young people were beaten; they were regularly isolated in cells on their own; they were strip-searched and they were humiliated and frightened and… tortured,” Slade said. Lawyers, however, said that legal proceedings for the case would likely take years to complete. Both Jenkings and Hyde are currently serving sentences at Darwin’s adult correctional facility. |
The LG V30 has been unveiled as the standard smartphone of the two LG unveiled at the end of August. But the LG V30 Plus (known formally as the LG V30+) was considered to be the more exciting of the two V30 models. There’s only one major difference between the two LG V30 models in terms of specs. The LG V30+ has 128GB of storage while the LG V30 has 64GB of storage. One minor difference between the two phones, specs aside: the LG V30 was available at all carriers while it appeared as though the LG V30+ would be a Sprint exclusive here in the US. All four major US carriers (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint) have already started selling the LG V30, but Sprint was the only carrier with the LG V30+ in its clutches – that is, until now. Fifth-ranked wireless carrier US Cellular now has the LG V30+ available for sale at its website and in stores. The LG V30+ is available in Aurora Black and brings the same specs you’ve loved about the LG V30: a 6-inch, Full Vision POLED display with a Quad HD+ resolution and 18:9 aspect ratio, Qualcomm’s octa-core Snapdragon 835 SoC, 4GB of RAM, microSD expansion, 5MP front-facing camera, 16MP (f/1.6) and 13MP (f/1.9) dual rear camera combo, USB Type-C charging, and a 3,300mAh battery running Android 7.1.2 Nougat. Though it hasn’t arrived yet, the LG V30+ will be eligible for Android 8.0 Oreo. The LG V30+, like the LG V30, has received HDR support from Netflix, allowing you to watch movies and TV shows with incredible detail. The LG V30 camera app has been ported over to rooted LG G6 models, so you can test out what the V30 camera experience has in store if you own LG’s earlier smartphone from this year. US Cellular customers can expect to pay $30.20 per month for 30 months on an installment plan, or $849 outright. LG has created a Second Year Warranty Program for its LG G6, and we expect the LG V30 and LG V30+ to carry the same 2-year protection. The LG V30+ was inspired by LG’s G6+ announced this summer. The LG V30 is considered to be LG’s best smartphone ever, and the expansion of the LG V30+ to carriers beyond Sprint is good news for US customers. SOURCE [US Cellular] |
NEW YORK – While the scheme Hillary Clinton devised to equate Donald Trump with Donald Duck may seem juvenile, the illegal coordination between the Clinton campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and the non-profits Democracy Partners and Americans for Change reveals a deep-seated disrespect for federal election laws that has roots in the Saul Alinsky teachings that influenced both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in their formative years. On Monday, as WND reported, James O’Keefe released his third Project Veritas Action video in a series documenting Democratic Party campaign corruption. The latest shows Robert Creamer of Democracy Partners affirming Hillary Clinton was personally involved in an illegal scheme to have protesters dressed in Donald Duck costumes, funded by a non-profit organization, coordinate with the campaign to stalk Donald Trump and disrupt his rallies. As O’Keefe pointed out, the Donald Duck campaign likely involved “public communications” for purposes of federal election law, violating a clear prohibition on having a campaign-controlled political activity opposing Trump to be paid for by tax-favored contributions sponsored by a non-profit organization such as Americans United for Change. Creamer’s roots in radical Chicago go back to the 1960s when, like his Democracy Partners colleague Marilyn Katz, he was a member of the radical Students for a Democratic Society. Katz is president of MK Communications in Chicago. Sign the precedent-setting petition supporting Trump’s call for an independent prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton! Clinton’s association with Creamer and Katz suggests she has not departed from her radical roots, dating back to the insubordinate role she played on the Watergate Committee in her zeal to remove Richard Nixon from the presidency, even if the tactics required involved a measure of dishonesty. Like Creamer and Kahn, Hillary has ties to Alinsky in Chicago that trace back to 1968 when Clinton was an undergraduate at Wellesley. The public record shows that Clinton at Wellesley supplemented her in-person interviews with her mentor Alinsky with previously unpublished correspondence. She composed her senior thesis on the community organizing tactics Alinsky outlined in his book “Rules for Radicals,” which was then in the process of being published. Alinsky dedicated the book to Lucifer as “the very first radical.” Examining Katz’s radical pedigree adds a chapter to understanding why a firm such as Democracy Partners chose to follow an illegal path, acting as underground political operatives seeking to advance Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign by provoking violence. Project Veritas video: ‘Ducks on the ground’ Creamer was forced to resign from Democracy Partners after a video from O’Keefe last week exposed his activities inciting violence at Trump rallies. Creamer’s credentials as a leftist radical are familiar to scholars of the far-left such as Stanley Kurtz, the National Review Online editor who in 2010 authored the bestselling book “Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Story of American Socialism.” “Creamer is a longtime Alinskyite activist and a leader in Obama’s old community organizing network,” Kurtz wrote last week in a National Review article titled “Alinskyite Tactics, Robert Creamer, and Us.” Kurtz notes Creamer was a key figure in the work of Chicago’s community organizing training center, the Midwest Academy, to which Obama had close ties, that was founded by “die-hard socialists who had once been part of the radical 60s SDS,” to persuade young socialist revolutionaries in the 1970s adopt a more “pragmatic” Alinskyite stance. “Alinskyite leftists quite simply do not believe in liberal democracy, which is why they’re so willing to violate its norms,” Kurtz added insightfully. On O’Keefe’s third video at 13:08, Creamer off-camera can be heard speculating that one of the Donald Duck protesters could incite violence, “possibly at the Iowa State Fair this week because Pence is there and the duck is planning to follow him around.” Katz was equally sanguine about the use of violence as a political technique to win elections. Following the threat of violence from protesters at the University of Illinois-Chicago, Katz wrote an editorial in which she praised the protesters for forcing Trump to cancel the rally. On March 13, in an editorial titled “Stopping Trump: The Chicago Model,” Katz wrote that the protesters, who she described as “a loose amalgam of labor, women, immigration, students, and Black Lives Matters activists,” successfully denied Trump the use of the publicly supported facility on campus “on the basis that the rally posed a threat to the safety and security of students.” The threat of student violence was to be commended, Katz argued, as long as the result was to silence Donald Trump. Chicago radical: Marilyn Katz On July 21, 1996, the New York Times Magazine reported that Katz, whose MK Communications was then consulting with Mayor Richard M. Daley on urban policies, provided security for the SDS at the Democratic National Convention in 1968, when violent protests in the street turned against Daley’s father, Mayor Richard J. Daley. Katz’s violent revolutionary tendencies were first exposed during the infamous 1969 SDS “Days of Rage” protest in Chicago in connection with the “Chicago Seven” trials, when various radical organizers of the demonstrations during the 1968 Chicago DNC, including Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, and initially Bobby Seale, were prosecuted. During the “Chicago Seven” trial, William Frapolly, an undercover policeman, testified that Katz, as SDS security head, briefed a group of protesters in Lincoln Park on an “arsenal of anarchy” that included a cluster of nails sharpened at both ends and welded or soldered together at the center, so the nail cluster could be thrown like a baseball at police, or put underneath tires to disable police cars. Subsequent to Katz’s Lincoln Park address, SDS activists were alleged to have thrown cellophane bags full of human excrement and cans of urine at police during the 1968 DNC riot, as well as golf balls impaled with nails. In Chicago, allies with radicals Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, whose revolutionary Weather Underground broke off from SDS in 1969, worked with Katz to organize the infamous 2002 anti-war rally at which Obama claims to have reached one of the “most gut-wrenching decisions” of his life by publicly railing against President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq. In 1971-1972, Katz helped form the New American Movement, NAM, described as “a combined Old Left-New Left organization that included Communist Party USA members from the 1930, while devoting itself to the grassroots communism advocated by Italian socialist Antonio Gramsci.” NAM produced an activist text entitled “Marxism: What it Is & How to Use It.” Ben Johnson, in a 2009 commentary, wrote about a 1973 NAM manifesto that declared: “We admire, and draw inspiration from, many accomplishments from the Russian, Chinese, Cuban and Vietnamese revolutions … as representing, on balance, very positive steps forward in human history … we deeply value Lenin’s contributions to revolutionary theory and practice …We identify with Lenin’s revolutionary spirit and determination; we agree with his critique of mechanistic determinism and economism, his writings on the nature of the state, his approach to creating a ‘revolutionary alliance of the oppressed,’ and his treatment of nationalism and imperialism.” In 1977-1978, Katz founded the Reproductive Rights National Network, commonly known as R2N2, as an early leftist organization that evolved into an activist group in what Hillary Clinton’s campaign likes to characterize as Trump’s “war on women.” R2N2’s goal was described by pro-choice movement author Suzanne Staggenborg: “The long-term goal was to develop an ‘offensive movement’ [against the pro-life movement] that could fight for a more comprehensive set of demands as the conditions for ‘free choice,’ including child care, national health-care, high-quality education, and guaranteed income.” In 1983, NAM merged with Michael Harrington’s Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, DSOC, to form the Democratic Socialists of America. Among Katz’s clients at MK Communications, Inc. have been: Harold Washington’s 1983-1987 mayoral campaign, Amnesty International, Project Vote, the ACORN-affiliated voter registration project that employed young community organizer Barack Obama in Chicago, Jimmy Carter’s Habitat Company, and the Joyce Foundation, on whose board Obama sat. Sign the precedent-setting petition supporting Trump’s call for an independent prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton! |
Alex Karras was recently released from a California hospital after having kidney failure so he could spend his final days with family. "He may be dying of kidney failure because now his body is catching up to the deterioration of his mind," Craig Mitnick, Karras' attorney in a lawsuit against the NFL, told The Associated Press on Tuesday afternoon. The 77-year-old former defensive tackle and actor, who was born and raised in Gary, Ind., has been surrounded by his wife and kids at his home in Los Angeles. In his day, Karras was one of the NFL's best defensive tackles. The Detroit Lions drafted Karras 10th overall in 1958 out of Iowa and he was a four-time All-Pro over 12 seasons with the franchise. Karras became a bit of a celebrity through George Plimpton's behind-the-scenes book about what it was like to be an NFL player in the Motor City, "Paper Lion: Confessions of a Second-string Quarterback." That led to Karras playing himself in the movie adaption, and it opened doors for him such as being an analyst alongside Howard Cosell and Frank Gifford on "Monday Night Football." Karras had a well-known appearance as Mongo in the 1974 movie "Blazing Saddles" and was a star in the 1980s sitcom "Webster." He took on another role this year as lead plaintiff in a complaint against the NFL by ex-players who claim the league didn't do enough to protect them from head injuries. "Alex's decision to get involved in this was for the right reasons -- to help the game of football," Mitnick said. |
Let me make a prediction: You will buy an E-Bike, and like me, you will love having one. Wallerang Ebike Over the last six months, I've been testing a wide variety of E-bikes and have come to believe strongly that E-bikes are in the future for many of us, specifically those over 50, but in time, for everyone. I've tested bikes from brands you know such as Trek, Specialized and Raleigh, and ones you haven't such as Swedish Ebike company Wallerang (which turned out to be my favorite but more on that later). An E-bike is a two-wheeled bicycle-like personal transport device that has a motor that is powered in part by a rechargeable battery. In some cases pedaling the bike engages the battery (pedal assist bikes) or even recharges it (although that is not always the case). Others have a throttle. Either way, a motor is engaged that helps power the bike faster, or makes hills or upwards grades easier. In cases where you might have dismounted and walked the bike up a hill, you can now cruise; where others passed you, you can now pass them. Your friends may think of an Ebike as cheating or tell you that if you are not pedaling all the time, what's the point. They do not get it: An Ebike allows you to bike more often, in more places -- and for those who rately bike at all, it creates a compelling, easy reason to do so. With an Ebike suddenly you can take rides and bike trips that seemed daunting; or work commutes that you feared would make you sweaty are suddenly manageable. It also gives a psychological boost - it increases when you might ride and how often and opens up a world of biking to those who thought it too much work. As I said, perfect for aging boomers who want the illusion of youth without the work. My romance with Ebikes started about six months ago when I came into possession of a first generation Ebike by A2B. It has a throttle and goes up to 20mph. The battery is built into the stem and charges in a few hours. However, the bike is very heavy and clunky, closer to a moped than a bicycle. Still I have used it with great pleasure around Santa Monica and it is fun to run errands with. It also provided a great introduction to Ebikes and gave me a sense that what I was looking for did not need to be faster, but it needed to be lighter and look more like a bicycle. Also I was looking for it to maintain the same strength going up hills as did my A2B which, despite its weight, is quite powerful. In California, where I live, Ebikes have become so popular that the legislature recently passed regulations defining motorized bicycles by class, according to speed and other features. Class 3 Ebikes go over 20 mph and are not permitted on ocean bicycle paths; class 2 ebikes (20 mph and under) are treated like regular bikes. This is just one indication that the Ebike market has exploded. For further proof, a few weekends ago I attended the Santa Monica E-Bike Expo held at the Santa Monica Pier beach parking lot where I was able to inspect and try more than a dozen different brands of E-bike. Specialized Ebike Traditional bike brands such as Raleigh, Trek and Specialized (Specialized calls theirs "Turbo Bikes) have all introduced their own branded Ebikes. In addition there are many other specialized, American and European brands dedicated to Ebikes including Stromer, Tempo, Bulls, Gazelle, Kalkhoff, Riese and Mueller, Wallerang and Yuba. Each has its own distinctive positive attributes - as well as drawbacks. Which model is best for you, is a matter of how (and where) you will most use the bike (on trails, on city streets, etc..) as well as price, features (do you need it to haul cargo or kids) and some are distinguished by style. There are those who will argue the virtues of whether the ebike is rear wheel powered hub or front and whether the chain is encased or not; how many gears and how you shift them, and the location of the battery. Is it a mountain bike, a road bike, for commuting or off road. For some it is purely an esthetic question of what looks the best. However, to me, what matters most is how you feel riding the bike. As a caveat, I will note that there are many crowdfunded ebikes on Indiegogo and Kickstarter, most of which are priced at substantial less than the models I tested. Some of them require you to assemble them, and servicing them is more of a promise than a guarantee. As a result, my own survey is limited to the brands below all of which have US distribution and are serviced by the stores that sell them and/or their U.S. distributor or manufacturer. Let me start with my favorite, Wallerang. Wallerang is a Swedish bike company from Gothenburg, Sweden. They like to call themselves a marriage of Scandinavian design and Japanese technology. They've set up U.S. headquarters in Santa Cruz, CA. The bikes are all purpose commuter bikes with a aluminum frame, a Shimano mid-step electronic gear shift (with an automatic setting). The frame is non-suspension but they do have models with front shocks. They are also built with a modular system allowing for a variety of cargo carrying choices front and back. But all of that is just justification for the fact that from the moment I rode their M.02X Smartbike, it just felt right. What is great is that you just get on and ride and the gear shifting and power assist are all automated. This was the Ebike for me. Wallerang Smart bike (posed with model Therese) The M.02X has a suspension fork is available as a step-through. This means you sit comfortably on the bike and on whatever terrain you ride. The power when climbing is strong. I liked the silent drive unit and the shifting with three easy to click buttons (and the fully automatic option) make riding simple. There is cycle computer that comes standard with gear, range and battery indication. From the moment I sat on the Wallerang I felt not just comfortable but like I wanted to go somewhere on this bike. The price, (around $3600) is steep. But if that is within your budget, I can say that there was no Ebike I liked more, no bike that I would be eager to use as often as possible on as many roads as possible. My second favorite was Kalkhoff, which boasts its German engineering and its pedigree of having made bicycles for almost 100 years, making all their own components in Germany. They are premium commuter Ebikes with a dozen different styles including features such as electrical gear shifting and combination back pedal and disc brake, bike lock and battery lock. They have pioneered smart displays and Bluetooth enabled navigation. They are well made and have entry level bikes that retail in the US for under $1600 (although of course one covets the higher price models). If I was looking for an entry level Ebike in price, Kalkhoff provides good value. As for the other Ebikes I tested: Raleigh makes a line of Ebikes that are moderately priced (for Ebikes) which is to say in the $1600-$2600 range. They handle well and produce a strong push when pedaled. However I found the bike somewhat stiff in its handling and not as comfortable as I would have liked. Specialized's Turbo Ebikes are more in the $4500 price and above price range, but they make powerful mountain bikes to take you up hills (a claimed 530 watts of power!) and are attractive and well-made (personally they are more expensive than I'd spend but if money is not an issue I would recommend trying them). Trek makes commuter bikes that begin around $3000, have a mid-drive motor, and have long range battery and come with Trek's warranty. The Trek was stiffer ride, did the job well but it was more about efficiency than pleasure. I would say Trek is a safe reliable choice, but I wasn't crazy about how the bike felt (again this is highly personal but I felt on the Trek as if my butt would wear out before the ebike did). Yuba SPicy Curry Ebike Some of the brands you might not have heard of include Yuba which make cargo Ebikes and ones that can accommodate young kids as second (or even third) passengers. Priced in the $3-4000 range they weigh between 55-70 pounds, but are around six feet in length and really can haul your groceries or kids around town. Gazelle Ebikes also in the $3-4,000 range, are a Dutch brand that has a retro look (leather seats and handles). Their ebikes are practical and have a spare simple design. The ride is comfortable and the bikes are not too heavy. More stylish are Farragut Ebikes which look like classic bicycles. The ride is somewhat stiff and I didn't find them as comfortable or powerful as other brands but they are attractive. Stromer is a Swiss ebike that is perhaps the most solid of those I tested. The Stromers are serious ebikes, they feel a little bit heavier (and they are more expensive) but it is fair to say they are the Cadillac of the crowd and the one many Ebike stores recommended to me for all around use. Bulls Ebike The Germans made a strong showing at the Ebike Expo. Bulls has been in the Ebike market since 2010, mostly in Europe, and has a wide variety of Ebikes from fat-tire off road models to commuter bikes - they are priced at middle and higher range ($3500 and above). The one I rode was an all-purpose model and it handled well. They have a wide range of drive systems and models but I didn't feel they were as intuitive to use as I might have liked. BMW (yes that BMW) makes an Ebike ($3,430) featuring Bosch motors with a 400 watt battery and shimano disc brakes and a top speed of 25 mph (making it a class 3 bike). The design is clean and there is a ten-gear system (a bit too much for me). There is an onboard computer that makes gear recommendations. Another German company is Riese and Muller who make more than a dozen models (including folding bikes, some with multiple batteries allowing for an extended range, (also with Bosch motors) as well as cargo ebikes that carry their cargo in front. Their bikes have a distinctive look and appear well engineered (some look somewhat Rube Goldberg-esque). However, I am not sure about the extent of the US dealership service and support. At whatever price point you choose, and for whatever best suits your needs there's an Ebike for you. And biking with assist is better than not biking at all! As for me, I know I'm going to upgrade from A2B sooner rather later. |
Thanks for pointing this out! I've adjusted the Motley Fool article for the correct quote. Fortunately, the article was entirely based on the actual quote since I was listening to the call live. I just went to Seeking Alpha to grab the quote word-for-word. I did read it over but my eyes glossed over the word "no" being missing; probably because in my head I already knew what Musk was saying since I listened to the call myself, so I just didn't catch it. Fortunately, this changes nothing about the surrounding arguments nor the thesis of the article. But it is a good distinction to get right, that's for sure.As always, my goal is to produce quality content. In the future, if you find an error it would be great you could reach out to me on Twitter (via message preferably) ASAP as this could help correct the issue right away so more people won't have to be misinformed by the error.Normally, I try to rely on Cap IQ transcripts of Tesla's earnings call, but it wasn't available yet. Lesson learned though. I'll be triple checking Seeking Alpha transcripts from here on out. And I'll continue going to Cap IQ first.You guys are awesome. Trust me, I hate making mistakes! |
When it comes to a sophisticated lawn care game, professional sports takes the cake. Which makes sense, really – the grass used on during the Super Bowl will be viewed by roughly 111 million people. Every detail in the Super Bowl is painstakingly crafted, grass included. So, how is the grass so perfect at the Super Bowl even though the game is played in an indoor stadium? Super Bowl Grass Importation Strategy The simple answer is that the grass used in the Super Bowl is not grown there. In fact, for the past 4 indoor championships, it has been grown in Alabama by a company called Bent Oak. As far as the type of grass, according to the co-founder, Doug Lipscomb, the grass is a hybrid version of Bermudagrass grown on top of layers of dirt which is on top of plastic. Growing Super Bowl grass is obviously a challenge, because people expecting both aesthetics and performance, which is supremely difficult to perfect. In an article for al.com, Lipscomb explained: “A lot of fields look good and play bad. A lot look bad and play well. It’s kind of hard to put everything in one package.” Of course, Bent Oak is keeping their proprietary formula a secret for the time being. Keeping Alabama Grass Green Before Game Time Because Bent Oak is growing and supplying natural grass, not artificial turf, it requires a good amount of sunlight to keep it healthy before the game. Even though the Pheonix Stadium has a retractable roof, this doesn’t provide enough sunlight. The solution is pretty cool, though: Basically, they keep the field outside of the stadium in the time preceding the game. Then for game time, they wheel it right back into the stadium. Check this video out: You don’t have to be hosting a Super Bowl to want a great lawn. If you’re in Austin, Orlando, Washington DC, or Northern Virginia, let us help you! |
A 62-year-old grandmother, who posted soiled underwear to a couple she had been harassing for years, has been sentenced to three years in prison with the final two years suspended. Goretti O’Dowd, of Parkmore Estate, Tuam, pleaded guilty at Galway Circuit Criminal Court to three charges of harassment involving two people at various locations in the town on dates between May 2012 , and October 2014. Defence barrister Conal McCarthy said she had a long history of mental health issues and was under the care of the psychiatric services. Judge Rory McCabe said the continuous, prolonged nature of the harassment placed it at the high side on the scale of gravity. The harassment took many forms, he said, and its impact on the victims was severe. Referring to a psychiatric report, Judge McCabe said it concluded the accused had “a very complex and indeterminable psychiatric profile” and there was no doubt she needed help. He said that while he was being told the accused was currently receiving therapy there was no guarantee she would continue to receive it once she stepped outside the doors of the courthouse. “It seems to me she will not concentrate her attentions on this unless she’s placed in ‘a controlled environment’ and there is a very real risk of recidivism and a questionable hope of rehabilitation if she is not,” Judge McCabe said. He directed O’Dowd have no contact with her victims or any members of the victims’ families and he also directed she be assessed and given the appropriate treatment and follow-up care while in prison. A condition of the suspension, he added, was that she be of good behaviour and not reoffend during the next five years. |
Phil Kessel had a night in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Final. The main attraction of the renowned ‘HBK’ Line, Kessel assisted on Carl Hagelin’s second period goal that opened scoring in the game (which came off a Kessel shot) and then scored one himself to put the Penguins up 2-0 in the crucial road game. After basically being run out of Toronto last summer (you remember hot dog-gate of course) Kessel has been an important player for the Penguins on their run to the Stanley Cup Final. He leads the team with seven goals and 16 points in 14 games, which puts him squarely in the mix for the Conn Smythe Trophy at this point. But no one should be surprised by this. After Game 3, Lightning coach Jon Cooper even spoke up about Kessel’s brilliance. Chris Johnston on Twitter “Phil Kessel probably doesn’t get near the respect he deserves,” Cooper said. “He’s scored a ton of goals in this league. Bonino’s kind of one of those underrated players. He’s always playing with Getzlaf and Perry, you look at the teams he’s played on, there’s always been name stars ahead of him. But he’s a heck of a player. Hagelin’s won everywhere he’s gone.” The ‘HBK’ line was blessed by its namesake, Shawn Michaels, over the weekend and now it appears as though the former wrestler could make his way to Pittsburgh for Game 5 after the team invited him. As this line gets more respect, and as Kessel continues to shine for the Penguins, maybe he will start getting the recognition he deserves. |
Full Sized Personal Cremation Urn is the latest in custom personalized cremation urns. They are created from one or two photographs with an exceptional attention to detail. With advances in facial analysis and state of the art 3D imaging, these high tech urns can be made to look like anyone. The personal urn does not come with hair. For hair we can digitally add hair if you wish, as you can see with our sample of President Obama. For people with longer hair we can add a wig from your specifications. This cremation urn comes on an elegant solid marble base. A Plaque and Nameplate are also available. Personal cremation urns can be designed to look like anyone. We just need good pictures. We prefer one picture from the front and one from the side. Complexions can be adjusted in the final stages and customers get a chance to proof the results. We will produce a computer generated image of what your urn will look like. Once you have approved the image - we will begin production. Like all of our custom made products - there are no refunds on custom urns. |
Global Water PPP Market To Triple By 2020 Many countries are facing a perfect storm of financing constraints and water infrastructure shortfalls. Dramatic declines in oil and commodity prices, low water tariffs, groundwater overdrafts, and untreated wastewater discharges are prompting governments to tap the private sector through public-private partnership (PPP) schemes. According to a new report from Bluefield Research, the market for water PPP projects is set to nearly triple between 2016 and 2020, adding an average of 16 million m3/day of treatment capacity annually versus approximately 6 million m3/day between 2010-2015. Total investment is expected to surpass US$58B, of which 80% will target new seawater desalination and wastewater treatment plants. The global adoption of the water PPP model will come to the fore in the next five years through a combination of continued growth in markets where the model is well-established (China, Brazil), resurgence in markets that have stalled (Indonesia, Philippines, Mexico, Egypt), and new markets opening up (Persian Gulf countries, Vietnam, Peru, the United States). "Particularly in emerging markets, led by China, municipalities are hard pressed to match the financial capacity and operational expertise that the private sector can provide," said Phuong Pham, Senior Analyst at Bluefield Research. "National governments aim to de-risk their water sectors for private investment with new PPP laws and more attractive contract tenders, while preserving long-term control over assets." Water PPP Projects Planned by Country and Asset Type, 2016-2020 An increasingly diverse group of private and semi-private firms are responding to new tender opportunities for PPP contracts. Bluefield's analysis of the portfolio strategies of the 50 largest global water players indicates that the water PPP market is in transition, with a cast of new players emerging. The global PPP market is led by integrated water players Veolia and Suez who have sustained their positions in recent years with over 19 million m3/day of capacity each, followed by semi-private local utilities (SABESP, COPASA), rapidly scaling Chinese players (BEWG, China Everbright), emerging utility concessionaires (Manila Water, AEGEA) and integrated water players (Aqualia). "Many players turned their backs on PPP opportunities during the recent recession because of their capital intensity, while they deleveraged and reviewed their value chain positions overall," said Keith Hays, Vice President of Bluefield Research. "This market shakeout has left a field of players with clearer strategies to navigate continued macroeconomic uncertainty and address new opportunities." Top 50 Global PPP Players, Capacity Under Management 2015 These and other insights are found in Bluefield's new report - Public-Private Partnerships in Water: Company Strategies & Market Opportunities, 2016-2020. This report is based on Bluefield's analysis of over 1,800 PPP projects in 44 countries, including top-down regional trends and bottom up company profiles, accompanied by a robust data appendix. About Bluefield Research Bluefield Research provides in-depth, actionable insight to help companies evaluate risk and identify opportunities across global water markets. Executives at utilities, project developers, independent water producers, EPCs, and technology companies rely on Bluefield to define and execute winning strategies. |
ComicBook has exclusively learned the working title for the upcoming The Punisher series on Netflix - Crime. Frank Castle is officially back and better than ever. The Punisher, played by John Bernthal, was first introduced into the dark and gritty Marvel / Netflix world in season 2 of Daredevil, in which he took fans of the popular vigilante character by storm. In fact, Frank Castle stole the spotlight, enough so that he managed to land his own solo series. Bernthal was just spotted in Brooklyn on set, donning a black hoodie, a grizzly beard, and the general "all-black all the time" Punisher look, meaning it's very possible that The Punisher is already filming. Fans were rather upset to learn that John Bernthal is unable to appear all four days at this year's New York Comic Con due to his "Netflix production schedule." The actor will still be appearing on Saturday and Sunday this coming weekend, hopefully with some news. Details concerning The Punisher Netflix series have been kept mysteriously under wraps. We do know that Ben Barnes has joined the cast, and some have guessed that the British actor will play Bobby Saint, a dirty mob boss with a penchant for dealing illegal weapons. Considering the upcoming slate of Marvel series on Netflix including Iron Fist, Jessica Jones Season 2, and the tag-team miniseries The Defenders, we expect to see The Punisher debut sometime in 2018. However, with Frank Castle, sooner is always better. |
The Apache XML Graphics team is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Apache FOP Version 2.0 [1]. Apache FOP (Formatting Objects Processor) [2] is an output independent print formatter driven by XSL Formatting Objects (XSL-FO) [3]. FOP is a Java application that reads a formatting object tree and renders the resulting pages to a specified output format, of which a variety of formats are supported. Apache FOP is published under the Apache License v2.0. Because of changes to the API, the version number has been bumped to 2.0. Java 6 or later is minimum runtime required. This release fixes a number of bugs. In addition the following significant functional enhancements are provided: Side float support Whitespace Management Extension fo:inline-container partial support Support for rounded corners Improved support for complex scripts PDF Linearization Support OpenType CFF fonts Subset support for Type 1 fonts Support for AES 256 PDF encryption Default encryption is now 128 bit SVG graphics can use FOP custom fonts PDF custom document properties AFP OCA Color Support CMYK TIFFs in AFP through IOCA FS45 PDF VT support PDF Page Piece support Extension to resize background images Low level mechanism to augment PDF /Catalog and /Page dictionaries For release notes see [4]. Source and binary distributions can be downloaded from an ASF Mirror at [5]. Further download information is available at [6]. Maven artifacts for this release are available at [7]. Note, that depending on which download mirror you use, it may take up to 24 hours to see the download images at [5]. [1] http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/2.0/ [2] http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop [3] http://www.w3.org/TR/xsl11/ [4] http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/changes.html [5] http://www.apache.org/dyn/closer.cgi/xmlgraphics/fop [6] http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/fop/download.html [7] https://repository.apache.org/index.html#nexus-search;gav~org.apache.xmlgraphics~fop~2.0~~ The Apache XML Graphics team. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: fop-users-unsubscribe@xmlgraphics.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: fop-users-help@xmlgraphics.apache.org |
BitLocker is a full-disk encryption feature available in recent Windows versions (Vista, 7, 8.1 and 10) Pro and Enterprise. BitCracker is a mono-GPU password cracking tool for memory units encrypted with the password authentication mode of BitLocker (see picture below). Our attack has been tested on several memory units encrypted with BitLocker running on Windows 7, Window 8.1 and Windows 10 (both compatible and non-compatible mode). Here we present two implementations: CUDA and OpenCL. Requirements For CUDA implementation, you need at least CUDA 7.5 and an NVIDIA GPU with minimum cc3.5 (i.e. Kepler arch) How To Use the build.sh script to build 3 executables: hash extractor BitCracker CUDA version BitCracker OpenCL version The executables are stored in the build directory. Before starting the attack, you need to run bitcracker_hash to extract the hash from the encrypted memory unit. > ./build/bitcracker_hash -h Usage: ./build/bitcracker_hash -i <Encrypted memory unit> -o <output file> Options: -h, --help Show this help -i, --image Path of memory unit encrypted with BitLocker -o, --outfile Output file The extracted hash is fully compatible with the John The Ripper format (see next Section). Then you can use the output hash file to run the BitCracker attack. > ./build/bitcracker_cuda -h Usage: ./build/bitcracker_cuda -f <hash_file> -d <dictionary_file> Options: -h, --help Show this help -f, --hashfile Path to your input hash file (HashExtractor output) -s, --strict Strict check (use only in case of false positives) -d, --dictionary Path to dictionary or alphabet file -g, --gpu GPU device number -t, --passthread Set the number of password per thread threads -b, --blocks Set the number of blocks N.B. In case of false positives, you can use the -s option (strict check empirically verified, it works with this repo images encrypted with Windows 7, 8.1 and 10). In the the run_test.sh script there are several attack examples using the encrypted images provided in this repo: imgWin7: memory unit encrypted with BitLocker using Windows 7 Enteprise edition OS imgWin8: memory unit encrypted with BitLocker using Windows 8 Enteprise edition OS imgWin10Compatible.vhd: memory unit encrypted with BitLocker (compatible mode) using Windows 10 Enteprise edition OS, imgWin10NonCompatible.vhd: memory unit encrypted with BitLocker (NON compatible mode) using Windows 10 Enteprise edition OS, imgWin10CompatibleLong27.vhd: memory unit encrypted with BitLocker (compatible mode) using Windows 10 Enteprise edition OS using the longest possible password (27 characters) Currently, BitCracker is able to evaluate passwords having length between 8 (minimum password length) and 27 characters (implementation reasons). |
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who is running for reelection in 2018, called for greater resistance and political warfare against the Trump administration during a town hall discussion at the Robert Boland Theatre in Berkshire Community College’s Koussevitzky Arts Center in Pittsburgh, Massachusetts, on Saturday morning. “The point is that we must persist,” Warren told the crowd of approximately 800 people, according to the Berkshire Eagle. Only 600 students fit into the auditorium, and 200 stood outside to hear the progressive senator speak. “People say to me, ‘Oh, but it’s tiring’ and ‘we’ve done this for six months’ — well yeah, nobody said that a fight was easy…you’ve got to fight because it’s the fight that’s important,” she said. “Keep in mind that right behind Trump is another Republican who does not share our values,” Warren said. “You get to fight because it’s the fight that matters.” At one point during her talk, Warren told the audience, “If this isn’t a moment to stand up and fight back, then I don’t know when it comes.” She reportedly also noted that the Democrats “can’t shoot at everything that moves” when it comes to fighting for the issues that matter most to them. Last month, Warren stood on an empty New York stage, reading excerpts from her latest book, This Fight is Our Fight: The Battle to Save America’s Middle Class, and read what sounded like a warning for President Donald Trump: “Donald, you ain’t seen nasty yet.” In May, Warren half-joked, at an event in Chicago that she wishes Republicans would donate their bodies to science so she could “cut them open.” Saturday’s nearly two-hour-long town hall was mostly focused on the Republican’s plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare). “It is not a healthcare plan. It’s a tax-cut plan,” she reportedly said of the American Health Care Act (ACHA). Last month, Breitbart News profiled the Senate healthcare bill, known as the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), and noted that it offers “more generous tax credits and a slower rollback of Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion compared to the House’s American Health Care Act (AHCA).” Warren suggested that increasing access to healthcare will save money in the long run. “I say to the Republicans, if you won’t do it out of humanity, do it out of concern for your pocketbook… That we will save more money in the longer run if we get good, effective healthcare in place.” In an interview with the media after the town hall event, Warren said, “I think our conversation should be about how to expand Medicare for more and more Americans.” Adelle Nazarian is a politics and national security reporter for Breitbart News. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter. |
What is a Sunday morning church service for? As Christians, we meet together on the first day of every week, the day of Christ’s resurrection. We sing songs, hear preaching, and (hopefully) take Communion. But why? What is the purpose and goal of this meeting? To many people, our gathering together as the Church on Sunday is about evangelism, about reaching the lost. Contemporary, upbeat songs attract them, relevant preaching helps them see the usefulness of Christianity to their lives, and finally we invite them to make their professions of faith and perhaps join our church. Let me be entirely clear from the outset: trying to reach the lost, or doing the things I just mentioned, is not at all bad. I could never say they are. Nonetheless, I believe that the outreach focus is not the right focus for our weekly meetings. As Ecclesiastes reminds us, there is a time and a place for everything, and, Biblically, our weekly gatherings as the Church are not, I am convinced, for evangelistic purposes, but for, well, the Church itself. Scripturally, church (the weekly service) is for the Church (the people). It is not about reaching unbelievers, but about building up the Body of Christ. Honestly, it would be difficult to point to a particular proof text for this point, but that’s not because it’s unbiblical, but because it is the basic assumption of all the New Testament letters to the churches. Reading any of the letters makes this clear enough if you’re paying attention, but some passages that draw it into sharper focus might be 1 Corinthians 14, large portions of Ephesians, or the latter chapters of Hebrews. Acts also shows this pattern. There are two parallel ministries in Acts: the evangelistic ministries which occurred out and about in society, and the gatherings of believers by themselves. There was public preaching to the crowds, and after and apart from that the believers gathered together devoting themselves “to the apostles’ teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to the prayers” (Acts 2:42). In fact, this verse I believe sums up how Church is meant to work. In order to become the people we need to be to reach the world for Christ from Monday to Saturday, we must participate in the right Body-building, sanctifying activities together on Sunday. We learn from the apostles’ teaching how to live the Christian life rightly, so that we please God and win people to the beauty of the Gospel life. In fellowship we encourage and assist one another as fellow believers to spur each other on to good works, to reassure doubts, to share burdens and joys, and to share insights and experiences with our common Savior. By the breaking of bread in Communion, we recall the sacrifice of Christ in the past, enjoy His sustaining power for us in the present, and train ourselves to live in anticipation of the resurrection life which we will share with Him in the future. Finally, our collective prayers invite God’s supernatural power and presence into our life together as the Body of Christ. These means of sanctification—preaching, fellowship, sacraments, and prayer—are the essential elements of our weekly gatherings as the Church, in addition to worship, and yet are explicitly believer-oriented. Only believers can “devote themselves to the apostles’ teaching” in a productive and transformative way. Only believers can encourage one another with the Gospel, share burdens in Christ, and build each other up with their spiritual gifts. Only believers are permitted to take Communion and so feed on the nourishment of Christ’s body and blood given for us. Only believers have unfettered access to God’s throne of grace for prayer. And only believers know to worship God in spirit and in truth. The point is fairly simple, then. Our meetings as the Church are meant to be by the Church for the Church. Unbelievers are, of course, welcome. They can come to hear the Gospel, which is always a good thing. We can love them and show them the life of Christ in its beauty. Yet the presence of unbelievers in our meetings is assumed in the New Testament to be occasional and potential rather than normal and intentional (see 1 Cor. 14:23). The basic and important pattern is the gathering of Christians to be Christians. I again emphasize, though, that this is not at all to say anything against evangelistic outreach towards unbelievers. In fact, I would instead say that the church-for-Church model is an essential part of reaching unbelievers. By concentrating on the strengthening and renewing of our life in Christ together when we meet on Sundays, we can become more and more able to reach the world around us the rest of the week. This is, in fact, exactly what the earliest Christians historically did. They met together early Sunday morning before going to work (as Sunday was a workday for them) for the benefits I mentioned above, and then they set out on their weeks to be the best followers of Christ they could be in the sight of unbelievers. The Lord’s Day was a time to recharge together in the presence of the one Lord, so that by His Spirit they would be empowered to fulfill the Great Commission when they went their separate ways. I believe we could do well to relearn this approach in modern times. It seems to be more Biblical, and have been more historically effective at producing active Christians, than seeker-sensitive or evangelistic approaches. And in fact, it stands as a challenge to us all specifically in evangelism. It’s harder to be a witness for Christ in our actual, daily lives and reach unbelievers there than to round them up for a Sunday preacher, after all. Maybe if we try we’ll find that the hard way is, as usual, the better. Share this: Facebook Twitter Tumblr Pinterest Email More Pocket LinkedIn Reddit Print Like this: Like Loading... |
By: JACK M. Gone is the day when a grocery store was a place where you’d just go to pick up your weekly groceries. Times have changed, and today’s supermarkets use every trick in the book to get you separated from your hard-earned cash. Behavioral psychology, marketing science, neuroscience and biometrics are now as important a part of business strategy as those crisp veggies that grab your attention or the aroma of freshly-baked bread. When it comes to how most of us buy our groceries, at least in North America, the supermarket has all but replaced the friendly mom-and-pop corner store and your local butcher shop and bakery. More and more of these outlets have added ancillary services to their aisles and aisles of shopping convenience – it’s now commonplace to find a florist, a bakery, a sushi counter and a drug store inside the supermarket. Many even have an area where you can sit down and have a meal. And added to this is the increasingly obvious fact that this supermarket chain has bought up that supermarket chain, or these two giants have merged to form a super-giant. Maybe “supermarket” is no longer the term to use – “megamarket” may be more appropriate. At any rate, these behemoths of the food industry have become very, very good at getting you to buy more stuff than you probably need, or worse yet, to buy stuff that you don’t need at all. They’re using science to get their way, and here’s how. Most of us are creatures of habit. Next time you’re in one of those large grocery chain stores, note the direction that most of the shoppers are walking. It’s probably counter-clockwise. Why? Who knows? It’s just the way most of us are wired; it’s probably the same reason why most running tracks also go counter-clockwise. The big grocery chains know this, and that’s why the main entrance is usually (but not always) on the right-hand side of the store – right away the shoppers are subconsciously drawn into a comfortable counter-clockwise walk, and that just feels “right.” Even if the main entrance is on the left, or in the centre, you’ll still be drawn into a counter-clockwise walk. You’ll also notice that more often than not, the first thing you’ll see as you enter the supermarket is the fresh produce department. And those shelves and displays full of lettuce, tomatoes, apples and blueberries will immediately put you in a good mood; I mean, who wouldn’t feel perky in a sea of bright and fresh looking greens, yellows, reds and blues. So, between that comfortable counter-clockwise walk and being surrounded by all those shelves and counters of fresh-looking fruits and veggies that are designed to make us feel good, there’s a better than average chance you’ll spend a little more time in the store. And more time spent in the store means more money spent in the store. Staying with the fresh produce for a moment, you’ll notice that colour is used to get your attention. The marketers know that our eyes are naturally drawn to a potpourri of colour, so you’ll seldom see all the green produce – lettuce, cabbage, kale, cucumbers and broccoli – all together. The colours will be well mixed, so you’ll see some bright yellow peppers, rosy-red tomatoes and purple eggplants scattered among all the greens. The same, of course, goes for fruits; you’ll be more inclined to buy strawberries if they’re sitting next to the blueberries than if they were sitting next to the raspberries. Mixing up the colours like this subconsciously grabs our attention and increases the chances that we’ll hang around just a little longer and, you guessed it, spend a little more money. Mixing up the reds, yellows and greens in the fresh produce area is purposefully designed to get your attention and spend more money. So, if you go to the store to pick up some dairy, cold cuts, bread, cheese and your favourite giant-sized bag of nachos, there’s a good chance that you’ve already put a few goodies from the produce department into your shopping cart – a few goodies that you had no intention of picking up at all. And speaking of shopping carts, you may have noticed that they’ve gotten quite a bit bigger over the years. In his book Brandwashed, marketing guru Martin Lindstrom noted that when stores doubled the size of their carts, shoppers on average bought 19 percent more stuff. Anyway, getting back to your shopping list, you’ll see that those staples of dairy, bread and meat – the things that many of us go to the market for in the first place – are usually tucked away in the back of the store, forcing us to walk past all kinds of products that we had no intention of buying. And guess what’s also tucked away in the back…the public washrooms. So, if you have to heed the call of nature, you’ll have to walk past aisles and aisles of more temptation. And now that you’re in a store-designed good mood, feeling just a little carefree as you meander around the counter-clockwise circuit and maybe taking a nibble from one of those imported strawberries that you had no intention of buying in the first place, there’s a whole host of tricks that the merchandisers still have up their collective sleeves, all concocted to get your attention and leave your wallet just a little thinner. To get your undivided attention (even for half a second, because that’s all it takes) price tags and “specials” tags are frequently brightly coloured – shades of red and yellow are favourites. Props like fresh flowers in the produce department and bottles of wine scattered haphazardly throughout the cheese section will appeal to that part of your brain that says “spend, spend, spend.” But I’m saving the black-belt tricks for last. The decoy is a tried-and-true device that puts money in the supermarkets’ bank accounts every time, and this is how it works. There are two very similar products, Brand ‘A’ and Brand ‘B’ (olive oil, for example), and they are placed side by side on the same shelf. Brand ‘A’ olive oil is the product that the store is trying to sell more of (maybe the store got a great deal from its own supplier and there’s a better-than-normal profit margin for the store), and they do this by posting an artificially higher price sticker on Brand ‘B’. Suddenly, Brand ‘A’ looks very attractive to the shopper, and who can resist a bargain, right? Brand ‘A’ flies off the shelf and Brand ‘B’ – the decoy – looks like a loser. But there are no prizes for guessing who the real loser is. The decoy is a tried-and-true device that puts money in the supermarkets’ bank accounts every time. Next, there’s what’s referred to as “end of aisle placement,” sometimes known as “end caps.” The supermarkets know that we don’t go up and down every aisle in the store, but an eye-catching arrangement at the end of, or entrance to, an aisle will demand your attention. These products seldom have anything in common with the rest of the products in the aisle and are frequently near their expiry dates. And if they’re not near their expiry dates, then there’s the illusion that somehow these end-of-aisle products are on sale; the fact is that the end of an aisle is prime real estate, and the companies that actually make those products frequently pay the supermarkets big bucks to have their products placed there to begin with. But worst of all is the fact that because these end-of-aisle products sell significantly more than if the same product were on a “regular” shelf, the prices are often artificially jacked up. Don’t get lured into the “end-of-aisle” traps. Whether a particular product is placed at eye level, high up or low down on the shelf is the next trick that supermarkets have learned. We are inherently lazy shoppers, and once again the supermarkets know this. If there are three brands of breakfast cereal stacked up vertically, nine times out of ten our eyes will be attracted to the brand that’s at eye level. And because we’re lazy, we just grab that one, and that’s exactly what the supermarkets expect us to do. A quick look up or down will often get you an equally good product, and often at a better price. And if you have kids with you, their eyes will land on the lower levels, where the goodies that are known to get their attention lie. And there’s a whole lot more in their bag of tricks. Free samples are a ploy that the big chains use to either promote a new product or get rid of older products that weren’t selling at all. The intent here is to make you feel guilty for not buying that box of cookies or jar of jam. By all means, grab a free sample (or two or three if you can); just don’t make eye contact, grab your freebie and move on. As you walk around the store, the background music is often slow, making you more likely to walk around at a slower pace. And then there’s the check-out counter – maybe the biggest trap of all. Don’t get tempted into the infamous “impulse purchase” trap. When you’re waiting in line at the checkout, leave the candy bars and magazines behind. Don’t fall into the “free samples” trap. They’re meant to make you feel guilty. Don’t get tempted into the famous “impulse purchase” trap. When you’re waiting in line at the checkout, leave the candy bars and magazines behind. So, next time you’re planning a quick trip to the supermarket, or even if you’re doing some serious weekly shopping, here’s a few tricks of your own that you should consider: 1. Make a list of what you need and try to stick to it. 2. To minimize going astray, stick your ear buds in to avoid the store’s distractions. 3. Before you buy your usual cereal or can of tuna, check around for a different and cheaper brand. 4. Be the contrarian and walk around the store in a clockwise fashion. 5. Don’t fall for well-lit and well-placed “specials”. There’s usually nothing special about them at all. 6. Unless you have a lot of stuff to buy, use a carry basket instead of a buggy. 7. Don’t fall for the “free samples” trap. 8. When you see a sign that says 2 for $4, you can still usually buy one for $2. 9. Avoid those last minute temptations at the checkout counter. 10. Never, ever, ever go grocery shopping when you’re hungry. Image sources: teamripped.com, blogcdn.com, buzzfeed.com, discountshelving.com, videofruit.com, kinja-img.com |
A REAL DOLL by A.M. Homes drawing by Helen, age 8 I 'm dating Barbie. Three afternoons a week, while my sister is at dance class, I take Barbie away from Ken. I'm practicing for the future. At first I sat in my sister's room watching Barbie, who lived with Ken, on a doily, on top of the dresser. I was looking at her but not really looking. I was looking, and all of the sudden realized she was staring at me. She was sitting next to Ken, his khaki-covered thigh absently rubbing her bare leg. He was rubbing her, but she was staring at me. "Hi," she said. | "Hello," I said. "I'm Barbie," she said, and Ken stopped rubbing her leg. "I know." "You're Jenny's brother." I nodded. My head was bobbing up and down like a puppet on a weight. "I really like your sister. She's sweet," Barbie said. "Such a good little girl. Especially lately, she makes her-self so pretty, and she's started doing her nails." I wondered if Barbie noticed that Miss Wonderful bit her nails and that when she smiled her front teeth were covered with little flecks of purple nail polish. I wondered if she knew Jennifer colored in the chipped chewed spots with purple magic marker, and then sometimes sucked on her fingers so that not only did she have purple flecks of polish on her teeth, but her tongue was the strangest shade of violet. "So listen," I said. "Would you like to go out for a while? Grab some fresh air, maybe take a spin around the back-yard?" "Sure," she said. I picked her up by her feet. It sounds unusual but I was too petrified to take her by the waist. I grabbed her by the ankles and carried her off like a Popsicle stick. As soon as we were out back, sitting on the porch of what I used to call my fort, but which my sister and parents referred to as the playhouse, I started freaking. I was suddenly and incredibly aware that I was out with Barbie. I didn't know what to say. "So, what kind of a Barbie are you?" I asked. "Excuse me?" "Well, from listening to Jennifer I know there's Day to Night Barbie, Magic Moves Barbie, Gift-Giving Barbie, Tropical Barbie, My First Barbie, and more." "I'm Tropical," she said. I'm Tropical, she said, the same way a person might say I'm Catholic or I'm Jewish. "I came with a one-piece bathing suit, a brush, and a ruffle you can wear so many ways," Barbie squeaked. She actually squeaked. It turned out that squeaking was Barbie's birth defect. I pretended I didn't hear it. We were quiet for a minute. A leaf larger than Barbie fell from the maple tree above us and I caught it just before it would have hit her. I half expected her to squeak, "You saved my life. I'm yours, forever." Instead she said, in a perfectly normal voice, "Wow, big leaf." I looked at her. Barbie's eyes were sparkling blue like the ocean on a good day. I looked and in a moment noticed she had the whole world, the cosmos, drawn in makeup above and below her eyes. An entire galaxy, clouds, stars, a sun, the sea, painted onto her face. Yellow, blue, pink, and a million silver sparkles. We sat looking at each other, looking and talking and then not talking and looking again. It was a stop-and-start thing with both of us constantly saying the wrong thing, saying anything, and then immediately regretting having said it. It was obvious Barbie didn't trust me. I asked her if she wanted something to drink. "Diet Coke," she said. And I wondered why I'd asked. I went into the house, upstairs into my parents' bath-room, opened the medicine cabinet, and got a couple of Valiums. I immediately swallowed one. I figured if I could be calm and collected, she'd realize I wasn't going to hurt her. I broke another Valium into a million small pieces, dropped some slivers into Barbie's Diet Coke, and swished it around so it'd blend. I figured if we could be calm and collected together, she'd be able to trust me even sooner. I was falling in love in a way that had nothing to do with love. "So, what's the deal with you and Ken?" I asked later after we'd loosened up, after she'd drunk two Diet Cokes, and I'd made another trip to the medicine cabinet. She giggled. "Oh, we're just really good friends." "What's the deal with him really, you can tell me, I mean, is he or isn't he?" "Ish she or ishn' she," Barbie said, in a slow slurred way, like she was so intoxicated that if they made a Breathalizer for Valium, she'd melt it. I regretted having fixed her a third Coke. I mean if she o.d.'ed and died Jennifer would tell my mom and dad for sure. "Is he a faggot or what?" Barbie laughed and I almost slapped her. She looked me straight in the eye. "He lusts after me," she said. "I come home at night and he's standing there, waiting. He doesn't wear under-wear, you know. I mean, isn't that strange, Ken doesn't own any underwear. I heard Jennifer tell her friend that they don't even make any for him. Anyway, he's always there waiting, and I'm like, Ken we're friends, okay, that's it. I mean, have you ever noticed, he has molded plastic hair. His head and his hair are all one piece. I can't go out with a guy like that. Besides, I don't think he'd be up for it if you know what I mean. Ken is not what you'd call well endowed.... All he's got is a little plastic bump, more of a hump, really, and what the hell are you supposed to do with that?" She was telling me things I didn't think I should hear and all the same, I was leaning into her, like if I moved closer she'd tell me more. I was taking every word and holding it for a minute, holding groups of words in my head like I didn't understand English. She went on and on, but I wasn't listening. The sun sank behind the playhouse, Barbie shivered, excused herself, and ran around back to throw up. I asked her if she felt okay. She said she was fine, just a little tired, that maybe she was coming down with the flu or some-thing. I gave her a piece of a piece of gum to chew and took her inside. On the way back to Jennifer's room I did something Barbie almost didn't forgive me for. I did something which not only shattered the moment, but nearly wrecked the possibility of our having a future together. In the hallway between the stairs and Jennifer's room, I popped Barbie's head into my mouth, like lion and tamer, God and Godzilla. I popped her whole head into my mouth, and Barbie's hair separated into single strands like Christmas tinsel and caught in my throat nearly choking me. I could taste layer on layer of makeup, Revlon, Max Factor, and Maybelline. I closed my mouth around Barbie and could feel her breath in mine. I could hear her screams in my throat. Her teeth, white, Pearl Drops, Pepsodent, and the whole Osmond family, bit my tongue and the inside of my cheek like I might accidently bite myself. I closed my mouth around her neck and held her suspended, her feet uselessly kicking the air in front of my face. Before pulling her out, I pressed my teeth lightly into her neck, leaving marks Barbie described as scars of her assault, but which I imagined as a New Age necklace of love. "I have never, ever in my life been treated with such utter disregard," she said as soon as I let her out. She was lying. I knew Jennifer sometimes did things with Barbie. I didn't mention that once I'd seen Barbie hanging from Jennifer's ceiling fan, spinning around in great wide circles, like some imitation Superman. "I'm sorry if I scared you." "Scared me!" she squeaked. She went on squeaking, a cross between the squeal when you let the air out of a balloon and a smoke alarm with weak batteries. While she was squeaking, the phrase a head in the mouth is worth two in the bush started running through my head. I knew it had come from some-where, started as something else, but I couldn't get it right. A head in the mouth is worth two in the bush, again and again, like the punch line to some dirty joke. "Scared me. Scared me. Scared me!" Barbie squeaked louder and louder until finally she had my attention again. "Have you ever been held captive in the dark cavern of someone's body?" I shook my head. It sounded wonderful. "Typical," she said. "So incredibly, typically male." For a moment I was proud. "Why do you have to do things you know you shouldn't, and worse, you do them with a light in your eye, like you're getting some weird pleasure that only another boy would understand. You're all the same," she said. "You're all Jack Nicholson." I refused to put her back in Jennifer's room until she forgave me, until she understood that I'd done what I did with only the truest of feeling, no harm intended. I heard Jennifer's feet clomping up the stairs. I was running out of time. "You know I'm really interested in you," I said to Barbie. "Me too," she said, and for a minute I wasn't sure if she meant she was interested in herself or me. "We should do this again," I said. She nodded. I leaned down to kiss Barbie. I could have brought her up to my lips, but somehow it felt wrong. I leaned down to kiss her and the first thing I got was her nose in my mouth. I felt like a St. Bernard saying hello. No matter how graceful I tried to be, I was forever licking her face. It wasn't a question of putting my tongue in her ear or down her throat, it was simply literally trying not to suffocate her. I kissed Barbie with my back to Ken and then turned around and put her on the doily right next to him. I was tempted to drop her down on Ken, to mash her into him, but I managed to restrain myself. "That was fun," Barbie said. I heard Jennifer in the hall. "Later," I said. Jennifer came into the room and looked at me. "What?" I said. "It's my room," she said. "There was a bee in it. I was killing it for you." "A bee. I'm allergic to bees. Mom, Mom," she screamed. "There's a bee." "Mom's not home. I killed it." "But there might be another one." "So call me and I'll kill it." "But if it stings me I might die." I shrugged and walked out. I could feel Barbie watching me leave. I took a Valium about twenty minutes before I picked her up the next Friday. By the time I went into Jennifer's room, everything was getting easier. "Hey," I said when I got up to the dresser. She was there on the doily with Ken, they were back to back, resting against each other, legs stretched out in front of them. Ken didn't look at me. I didn't care. "You ready to go?" I asked. Barbie nodded. "I thought you might be thirsty." I handed her the Diet Coke I'd made for her. I'd figured Barbie could take a little less than an eighth of a Valium without getting totally senile. Basically, I had to give her Valium crumbs since there was no way to cut one that small. She took the Coke and drank it right in front of Ken. I kept waiting for him to give me one of those I-know-what-~ looks, the kind my father gives me when he walks into my room without knocking and I automatically jump twenty feet in the air. Ken acted like he didn't even know I was there. I hated him. "I can't do a lot of walking this afternoon," Barbie said. I nodded. I figured no big deal since mostly I seemed to be carrying her around anyway. "My feet are killing me," she said. I was thinking about Ken. "Don't you have other shoes?" My family was very into shoes. No matter what seemed to be wrong my father always suggested it could be cured by wearing a different pair of shoes. He believed that shoes, like tires, should be rotated. "It's not the shoes," she said. "It's my toes." "Did you drop something on them?" My Valium wasn't working. I was having trouble making small talk. I needed another one. "Jennifer's been chewing on them." "What?" "She chews on my toes." "You let her chew your footies?" I couldn't make sense out of what she was saying. I was thinking about not being able to talk, needing another or maybe two more Valiums, yellow adult-strength Pez. "Do you enjoy it?" I asked. "She literally bites down on them, like I'm flank steak or something," Barbie said. "I wish she'd just bite them off and have it over with. This is taking forever. She's chewing and chewing, more like gnawing at me." "I'll make her stop. I'll buy her some gum, some tobacco or something, a pencil to chew on." "Please don't say anything. I wouldn't have told you except...," Barbie said. "But she's hurting you." "It's between Jennifer and me." "Where's it going to stop?" I asked. "At the arch, I hope. There's a bone there, and once she realizes she's bitten the soft part off, she'll stop." "How will you walk?" "I have very long feet." I sat on the edge of my sister's bed, my head in my hands. My sister was biting Barbie's feet off and Barbie didn't seem to care. She didn't hold it against her and in a way I liked her for that. I liked the fact she understood how we all have little secret habits that seem normal enough to us, but which we know better than to mention out loud. I started imagining things I might be able to get away with. "Get me out of here," Barbie said. I slipped Barbie's shoes off. Sure enough, someone had been gnawing at her. On her left foot the toes were dangling and on the right, half had been completely taken off. There were tooth marks up to her ankles. "Let's not dwell on this," Barbie said. I picked Barbie up. Ken fell over backwards and Barbie made me straighten him up before we left. "Just because you know he only has a bump doesn't give you permission to treat him badly," Barbie whispered. I fixed Ken and carried Barbie down the hall to my room. I held Barbie above me, tilted my head back, and lowered her feet into my mouth. I felt like a young sword swallower practicing for my debut. I lowered Barbie's feet and legs into my mouth and then began sucking on them. They smelled like Jennifer and dirt and plastic. I sucked on her stubs and she told me it felt nice. "You're better than a hot soak," Barbie said. I left her resting on my pillow and went downstairs to get us each a drink. We were lying on my bed, curled into and out of each other. Barbie was on a pillow next to me and I was on my side facing her. She was talking about men, and as she talked I tried to be everything she said. She was saying she didn't like men who were afraid of themselves. I tried to be brave, to look courageous and secure. I held my head a certain way and it seemed to work. She said she didn't like men who were afraid of femininity, and I got confused. "Guys always have to prove how boy they really are," Barbie said. I thought of Jennifer trying to be a girl, wearing dresses, doing her nails, putting makeup on, wearing a bra even though she wouldn't need one for about fifty years. "You make fun of Ken because he lets himself be every-thing he is. He doesn't hide anything." "He doesn't have anything to hide," I said. "He has tan molded plastic hair, and a bump for a dick." "I never should have told you about the bump." I lay back on the bed. Barbie rolled over, off the pillow, and rested on my chest. Her body stretched from my nipple to my belly button. Her hands pressed against me, tickling me. "Barbie," I said. "Umm Humm." "How do you feel about me?" She didn't say anything for a minute. "Don't worry about it," she said, and slipped her hand into my shirt through the space between the buttons. Her fingers were like the ends of toothpicks performing some subtle ancient torture, a dance of boy death across my chest. Barbie crawled all over me like an insect who'd run into one too many cans of Raid. Underneath my clothes, under my skin, I was going crazy. First off, I'd been kidnapped by my underwear with no way to manually adjust without attracting unnecessary attention. With Barbie caught in my shirt I slowly rolled over, like in some space shuttle docking maneuver. I rolled onto my stomach, trapping her under me. As slowly and unobtrusively as possible, I ground myself against the bed, at first hoping it would fix things and then again and again, caught by a pleasure/pain principle. "Is this a water bed?" Barbie asked. My hand was on her breasts, only it wasn't really my hand, but more like my index finger. I touched Barbie and she made a little gasp, a squeak in reverse. She squeaked backwards, then stopped, and I was stuck there with my hand on her, thinking about how I was forever crossing a line between the haves and the have-nots, between good guys and bad, between men and animals, and there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop myself. Barbie was sitting on my crotch, her legs flipped back behind her in a position that wasn't human. At a certain point I had to free myself. If my dick was blue, it was only because it had suffocated. I did the honors and Richard popped out like an escape from maximum security. "I've never seen anything so big," Barbie said. It was the sentence I dreamed of, but given the people Barbie normally hung out with, namely the bump boy himself, it didn't come as a big surprise. She stood at the base of my dick, her bare feet buried in my pubic hair. I was almost as tall as she was. Okay, not almost as tall, but clearly we could be related. She and Richard even had the same vaguely surprised look on their faces. She was on me and I couldn't help wanting to get inside her. I turned Barbie over and was on top of her, not caring if I killed her. Her hands pressed so hard into my stomach that it felt like she was performing an appendectomy. I was on top, trying to get between her legs, almost breaking her in half. But there was nothing there, nothing to fuck except a small thin line that was supposed to be her ass crack. I rubbed the thin line, the back of her legs and the space between her legs. I turned Barbie's back to me so I could do it without having to look at her face. Very quickly, I came. I came all over Barbie, all over her and a little bit in her hair. I came on Barbie and it was the most horrifying experience I ever had. It didn't stay on her. It doesn't stick to plastic. I was finished. I was holding a come-covered Barbie in my hand like I didn't know where she came from. Barbie said, "Don't stop," or maybe I just think she said that because I read it somewhere. I don't know anymore. I couldn't listen to her. I couldn't even look at her. I wiped myself off with a sock, pulled my clothes on, and then took Barbie into the bathroom. At dinner I noticed Jennifer chewing her cuticles between bites of tuna-noodle casserole. I asked her if she was teething. She coughed and then started choking to death on either a little piece of fingernail, a crushed potato chip from the casserole, or maybe even a little bit of Barbie footie that'd stuck in her teeth. My mother asked her if she was okay. "I swallowed something sharp," she said between coughs that were clearly influenced by the acting class she'd taken over the summer. "Do you have a problem?" I asked her. "Leave your sister alone," my mother said. "If there are any questions to ask we'll do the asking," my father said. "Is everything all right?" my mother asked Jennifer. She nodded. "I think you could use some new jeans," my mother said. "You don't seem to have many play clothes anymore." "Not to change the subject," I said, trying to think of a way to stop Jennifer from eating Barbie alive. "I don't wear pants," Jennifer said. "Boys wear pants." "Your grandma wears pants," my father said. "She's not a girl." My father chuckled. He actually fucking chuckled. He's the only person I ever met who could actually fucking chuckle. "Don't tell her that," he said, chuckling. "It's not funny," I said. "Grandma's are pull-ons anyway," Jennifer said. "They don't have a fly. You have to have a penis to have a fly." "Jennifer," my mother said. "That's enough of that." I decided to buy Barbie a present. I was at that strange point where I would have done anything for her. I took two buses and walked more than a mile to get to Toys R Us. Barbie row was aisle i4C. I was a wreck. I imagined a million Barbies and having to have them all. I pictured fucking one, discarding it, immediately grabbing a fresh one, doing it, and then throwing it onto a growing pile in the corner of my room. An unending chore. I saw myself becoming a slave to Barbie. I wondered how many Tropical Barbies were made each year. I felt faint. There were rows and rows of Kens, Barbies, and Skippers. Funtime Barbie, Jewel Secrets Ken, Barbie Rocker with "Hot Rockin' Fun and Real Dancin' Action." I noticed Magic Moves Barbie, and found myself looking at her carefully, flirtatiously, wondering if her legs were spreadable. "Push the switch and she moves," her box said. She winked at me while I was reading. The only Tropical I saw was a black Tropical Ken. From just looking at him you wouldn't have known he was black. I mean, he wasn't black like anyone would be black. Black Tropical Ken was the color of a raisin, a raisin all spread out and unwrinkled. He had a short afro that looked like a wig had been dropped down and fixed on his head, a protective helmet. I wondered if black Ken was really white Ken sprayed over with a thick coating of ironed raisin plastic. I spread eight black Kens out in a line across the front of a row. Through the plastic window of his box he told me he was hoping to go to dental school. All eight black Kens talked at once. Luckily, they all said the same thing at the same time. They said he really liked teeth. Black Ken smiled. He had the same white Pearl Drops, Pepsodent, Osmond family teeth that Barbie and white Ken had. I thought the entire Mattel family must take really good care of themselves, I figured they might be the only people left in America who actually brushed after every meal and then again before going to sleep. I didn't know what to get Barbie. Black Ken said I should go for clothing, maybe a fur coat. I wanted some-thing really special. I imagined a wonderful present that would draw us somehow closer. There was a tropical pool and patio set, but I decided it might make her homesick. There was a complete winter holiday, with an A-frame house, fireplace, snowmobile, and sled. I imagined her inviting Ken away for a weekend without me. The six o'clock news set was nice, but be-cause of her squeak, Barbie's future as an anchorwoman seemed limited. A workout center, a sofa bed and coffee table, a bubbling spa, a bedroom play set. I settled on the grand piano. It was $13.00. I'd always made it a point to never spend more than ten dollars on anyone. This time I figured, what the hell, you don't buy a grand piano every day. "Wrap it up, would ya," I said at the checkout desk. From my bedroom window I could see Jennifer in the backyard, wearing her tutu and leaping all over the place. It was dangerous as hell to sneak in and get Barbie, but I couldn't keep a grand piano in my closet without telling someone. "You must really like me," Barbie said when she finally had the piano unwrapped. I nodded. She was wearing a ski suit and skis. It was the end of August and eighty degrees out. Immediately, she sat down and played "Chopsticks." I looked out at Jennifer. She was running down the length of the deck, jumping onto the railing and then leaping off, posing like one of those red flying horses you see on old Mobil gas signs. I watched her do it once and then the second time, her foot caught on the railing, and she went over the edge the hard way. A minute later she came around the edge of the house, limping, her tutu dented and dirty, pink tights ripped at both knees. I grabbed Barbie from the piano bench and raced her into Jennifer's room. "I was just getting warmed up," she said. "I can play better than that, really." I could hear Jennifer crying as she walked up the stairs. "Jennifer's coming," I said. I put her down on the dresser and realized Ken was missing. "Where's Ken?" I asked quickly. "Out with Jennifer," Barbie said. I met Jennifer at her door. "Are you okay?" I asked. She cried harder. "I saw you fall." "Why didn't you stop me?" she said. "From falling?" She nodded and showed me her knees. "Once you start to fall no one can stop you." I noticed Ken was tucked into the waistband of her tutu. "They catch you," Jennifer said. I started to tell her it was dangerous to go leaping around with a Ken stuck in your waistband, but you don't tell someone who's already crying that they did some-thing bad. I walked her into the bathroom, and took out the hydrogen peroxide. I was a first aid expert. I was the kind of guy who walked around, waiting for someone to have a heart attack just so I could practice my CPR technique. "Sit down," I said. Jennifer sat down on the toilet without putting the lid down. Ken was stabbing her all over the place and instead of pulling him out, she squirmed around trying to get comfortable like she didn't know what else to do. I took him out for her. She watched as though I was performing surgery or something. "He's mine," she said. "Take off your tights," I said. "No," she said. "They're ruined," I said. "Take them off." Jennifer took off her ballet slippers and peeled off her tights. She was wearing my old Underoos with superheroes on them, Spiderman and Superman and Batman all poking out from under a dirty dented tutu. I decided not to say anything, but it looked funny as hell to see a flat crotch in boys' underwear. I had the feeling they didn't bother making underwear for Ken because they knew it looked too weird on him. I poured peroxide onto her bloody knees. Jennifer screamed into my ear. She bent down and examined her-self, poking her purple fingers into the torn skin; her tutu bunched up and rubbed against her face, scraping it. I worked on her knees, removing little pebbles and pieces of grass from the area. She started crying again. "You're okay," I said. "You're not dying." She didn't care. "Do you want anything?" I asked, trying to be nice. "Barbie," she said. It was the first time I'd handled Barbie in public. I picked her up like she was a complete stranger and handed her to Jennifer, who grabbed her by the hair. I started to tell her to ease up, but couldn't. Barbie looked at me and I shrugged. I went downstairs and made Jennifer one of my special Diet Cokes. "Drink this," I said, handing it to her. She took four giant gulps and immediately I felt guilty about having used a whole Valium. "Why don't you give a little to your Barbie," I said. "I'm sure she's thirsty too." Barbie winked at me and I could have killed her, first off for doing it in front of Jennifer, and second because she didn't know what the hell she was winking about. I went into my room and put the piano away. I figured as long as I kept it in the original box I'd be safe. If anyone found it, I'd say it was a present for Jennifer. Wednesday Ken and Barbie had their heads switched. I went to get Barbie, and there on top of the dresser were Barbie and Ken, sort of. Barbie's head was on Ken's body and Ken's head was on Barbie. At first I thought it was just me. "Hi," Barbie's head said. I couldn't respond. She was on Ken's body and I was looking at Ken in a whole new way. I picked up the Barbie head/Ken and immediately Barbie's head rolled off. It rolled across the dresser, across the white doily past Jennifer's collection of miniature ceramic cats, and boom it fell to the floor. I saw Barbie's head rolling and about to fall, and then falling, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. I was frozen, paralyzed with Ken's headless body in my left hand. Barbie's head was on the floor, her hair spread out underneath it like angel wings in the snow, and I expected to see blood, a wide rich pool of blood, or at least a little bit coming out of her ear, her nose, or her mouth. I looked at her head on the floor and saw nothing but Barbie with eyes like the cosmos looking up at me. I thought she was dead. "Christ, that hurt," she said. "And I already had a head-ache from these earrings." There were little red dot/ball earrings jutting out of Barbie's ears. "They go right through my' head, you know. I guess it takes getting used to," Barbie said. I noticed my mother's pin cushion on the dresser next to the other Barbie/Ken, the Barbie body, Ken head. The pin cushion was filled with hundreds of pins, pins with flat silver ends and pins with red, yellow, and blue dot/ball ends. "You have pins in your head," I said to the Barbie head on the floor. "Is that supposed to be a compliment?" I was starting to hate her. I was being perfectly clear and she didn't understand me. I looked at Ken. He was in my left hand, my fist wrapped around his waist. I looked at him and realized my thumb was on his bump. My thumb was pressed against Ken's crotch and as soon as I noticed I got an automatic hard-on, the kind you don't know you're getting, it's just there. I started rubbing Ken's bump and watching my thumb like it was a large-screen projection of a porno movie. "What are you doing?" Barbie's head said. "Get me up. Help me." I was rubbing Ken's bump/hump with my finger inside his bathing suit. I was standing in the middle of my sister's room, with my pants pulled down. "Aren't you going to help me?" Barbie kept asking. "Aren't you going to help me?" In the second before I came, I held Ken's head hole in front of me. I held Ken upside down above my dick and came inside of Ken like I never could in Barbie. I came into Ken's body and as soon as I was done I wanted to do it again. I wanted to fill Ken and put his head back on, like a perfume bottle. I wanted Ken to be the vessel for my secret supply. I came in Ken and then I remembered he wasn't mine. He didn't belong to me. I took him into the bathroom and soaked him in warm water and Ivory liquid. I brushed his insides with Jen-nifer's toothbrush and left him alone in a cold-water rinse. "Aren't you going to help me, aren't you?" Barbie kept asking. I started thinking she'd been brain damaged by the accident. I picked her head up from the floor. "What took you so long?" she asked. "I had to take care of Ken" "Is he okay?" "He'll be fine. He's soaking in the bathroom." I held Barbie's head in my hand. "What are you going to do?" "What do you mean?" I said. Did my little incident, my moment with Ken, mean that right then and there some decision about my future life as queerbait had to be made?" "This afternoon. Where are we going? What are we doing? I miss you when I don't see you," Barbie said. "You see me every day," I said. "I don't really see you. I sit on top of the dresser and if you pass by, I see you. Take me to your room.| "I have to bring Ken's body back." I went into the bathroom, rinsed out Ken, blew him dry with my mother's blow dryer, then played with him again. It was a boy thing, we were boys together. I thought sometime I might play ball with him, I might take him out instead of Barbie. "Everything takes you so long," Barbie said when I got back into the room. I put Ken back up on the dresser, picked up Barbie's body, knocked Ken's head off, and smashed Barbie's head back down on her own damn neck. "I don't want to fight with you," Barbie said as I carried her into my room. "We don't have enough time together to fight. Fuck me," she said. I didn't feel like it. I was thinking about fucking Ken and Ken being a boy. I was thinking about Barbie and Barbie being a girl. I was thinking about Jennifer, switching Barbie and Ken's heads, chewing Barbie's feet off, hanging Barbie from the ceiling fan, and who knows what else. "Fuck me," Barbie said again. I ripped Barbie's clothing off. Between Barbie's legs Jennifer had drawn pubic hair in reverse. She'd drawn it upside down so it looked like a fountain spewing up and out in great wide arcs. I spit directly onto Barbie and with my thumb and first finger rubbed the ink lines, erasing them. Barbie moaned. "Why do you let her do this to you?" "Jennifer owns me," Barbie moaned. Jennifer owns me, she said, so easily and with pleasure. I was totally jealous. Jennifer owned Barbie and it made me crazy. Obviously it was one of those relationships that could only exist between women. Jennifer could own her because it didn't matter that Jennifer owned her. Jennifer didn't want Barbie, she had her. "You're perfect," I said. "I'm getting fat," Barbie said. Barbie was crawling all over me, and I wondered ifJen-nifer knew she was a nymphomaniac. I wondered if Jennifer knew what a nymphomaniac was. "You don't belong with little girls," I said. Barbie ignored me. There were scratches on Barbie's chest and stomach. She didn't say anything about them and so at first I pretended not to notice. As I was touching her, I could feel they were deep, like slices. The edges were rough; my finger caught on them and I couldn't help but wonder. "Jennifer?" I said, massaging the cuts with my tongue, as though my tongue, like sandpaper, would erase them. Barbie nodded. In fact, I thought of using sandpaper, but didn't know how I would explain it to Barbie: you have to lie still and let me rub it really hard with this stuff that's like terry- cloth dipped in cement. I thought she might even like it if I made it into an S&M kind of thing and handcuffed her first. I ran my tongue back and forth over the slivers, back and forth over the words "copyright 1966 Mattel Inc., Malaysia" tattooed on her back. Tonguing the tattoo drove Barbie crazy. She said it had something to do with scar tissue being extremely sensitive. Barbie pushed herself hard against me, I could feel her slices rubbing my skin. I was thinking that Jennifer might kill Barbie. Without meaning to she might just go over the line and I wondered if Barbie would know what was happening or if she'd try to stop her. We fucked, that's what I called it, fucking. In the beginning Barbie said she hated the word, which made me like it even more. She hated it because it was so strong and hard, and she said we weren't fucking, we were making love. I told her she had to be kidding. "Fuck me," she said that afternoon and I knew the end was coming soon. "Fuck me," she said. I didn't like the sound of the word. Friday when I went into Jennifer's room, there was something in the air. The place smelled like a science lab, a fire, a failed experiment. Barbie was wearing a strapless yellow evening dress. Her hair was wrapped into a high bun, more like a wedding cake than something Betty Crocker would whip up. There seemed to be layers and layers of angel's hair spinning in a circle above her head. She had yellow pins through her ears and gold fuck-me shoes that matched the belt around her waist. For a second I thought of the belt and imagined tying her up, but more than restraining her arms or legs, I thought of wrapping the belt around her face, tying it across her mouth. I looked at Barbie and saw something dark and thick like a scar rising up and over the edge of her dress. I grabbed her and pulled the front of the dress down. "Hey big boy," Barbie said. "Don't I even get a hello?" Barbie's breasts had been sawed at with a knife. There were a hundred marks from a blade that might have had five rows of teeth like shark jaws. And as if that wasn't enough, she'd been dissolved by fire, blue and yellow flames had been pressed against her and held there until she melted and eventually became the fire that burned herself. All of it had been somehow stirred with the lead of a pencil, the point of a pen, and left to cool. Molten Barbie flesh had been left to harden, black and pink plastic swirled together, in the crater Jennifer had dug out of her breasts. I examined her in detail like a scientist, a pathologist, a fucking medical examiner. I studied the burns, the gouged-out area, as if by looking closely I'd find some-thing, an explanation, a way out. A disgusting taste came up into my mouth, like I'd been sucking on batteries. It came up, then sank back down into my stomach, leaving my mouth puckered with the bitter metallic flavor of sour saliva. I coughed and spit onto my shirt sleeve, then rolled the sleeve over to cover the wet spot. With my index finger I touched the edge of the burn as lightly as I could. The round rim of her scar broke off under my finger. I almost dropped her. "It's just a reduction," Barbie said. "Jennifer and I are even now." Barbie was smiling. She had the same expression on her face as when I first saw her and fell in love. She had the same expression she always had and I couldn't stand it. She was smiling, and she was burned. She was smiling, and she was ruined. I pulled her dress back up, above the scar-line. I put her down carefully on the doily on top of the dresser and started to walk away. "Hey," Barbie said, "aren't we going to play?" © 1990 A.M. Homes |
PARIS — France carried out new airstrikes overnight against Islamist fighters in central Mali, as Paris pledged on Tuesday to commit more troops to a potentially protracted campaign against extremists pressing south from a jihadist state they have forged in the desert north of the country. The assessment that the conflict could be long and perilous appeared to be reflected in a call by France on Tuesday for Arab support to bolster an African force to fight the insurgents. “We — not just the French, but all nations — have to combat terrorism,” Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said during a visit to the United Arab Emirates in the Persian Gulf, announcing that donors would meet later this month, probably in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to discuss financing an offensive against the rebels in Mali, Reuters reported. “Everybody has to commit to oneself in fighting against terrorism,” Mr. Fabius said. “We are pretty confident that the Emirates will go into that direction as well.” |
"Empty spaces, what are we living for?Abandoned places. I guess we know the score.On and on. Does anybody know what we are looking for?Another hero. Another mindless crime.Behind the curtain, in the pantomime.Hold the line.Does anybody want to take it anymore?The show must go on! The show must go on! Yeah!Inside my heart is breaking, my make up may be flaking but my smile still stays on."- QueenQueen got me again whilst doing my Five Nights At Freddy's art (yes, I'm a big Queen fan). XD This is my version of Nightmare Toy Bonnie. I know Scott's done the main classics for now..I don't think he'd do the toy animatronics but it's wishful thinking so I designed Toy Bonnie in his 'Nightmare' form. He's not absolutely terrifying but I didn't want to change around with the original's appearance too much or he wouldn't be recognized as 'Toy Bonnie'. He's now become quite a special character in my mind and I have only one person to thank for that.Could you love this monster bunny? |
Zadie Smith’s tale of the quest for a new corset on New York’s East Side – “Rome says: enjoy me. London: survive me. New York: gimme all you got” – has been shortlisted for the BBC National short story award. The all-female shortlist – the third for the award in nine years – pits Smith against her fellow Orange prize-winners Lionel Shriver and Rose Tremain, as well as Tessa Hadley and new talent Francesca Rhydderch, whose debut The Rice Paper Diaries won the Wales book of the year award for fiction. Over 550 stories were submitted for the BBC’s £15,000 prize. Smith, who has said that she has “only recently become comfortable with the form” of the short story, makes the cut with Miss Adele Amidst the Corsets, in which her protagonist is forced to “haul ass across town to buy a new corset” amid the “crappy old buildings higgledy-piggledy on top of each other, ugly students, shitty pizza joints, delis, tattoo parlours” of the East Side. “New York just expects so much from a girl – acts like it can’t stand even the idea of a wasted talent or opportunity,” writes Smith. “And Miss Adele had been around.” “About a month after the story was published I was walking down Broadway and a six-foot middle-aged black drag queen not unlike Miss Adele shouted over: ‘Liked that story, Miss Zadie!’ That’s about the best review I’ve ever had,” Smith has said. Tremain’s The American Lover is “an intensely moving story of a life lost to love”, said the BBC, while Shriver’s Kilifi Creek sees a gap-year traveller – “another dewy-eyed Yank who confuses a flight to Africa with a trip to the zoo” – brush up against death as a swim turns out to be more than she bargained for. Hadley’s Bad Dreams opens as “a child woke up in the dark. She seemed to swim up into consciousness as if to a surface, which she then broke through, looking around with her eyes open”, and according to the judges, “elegantly and precisely captures the moment when a child’s unexpected awakening exposes the unease and isolation lurking beneath the surface of her home life”. The Taxidermist’s Daughter, by Rhydderch, sees a young girl in postwar Wales become aware of her sexuality, and of an older man. The shortlist was announced on Front Row on Wednesday evening. Chair of judges Alan Yentob, creative director of the BBC, praised the “rich and varied” selection of stories, adding that the form “has a unique ability to capture a single defining moment”. “It invites us to dive headfirst into another world and to savour an experience which can remain with us for a very long time to come. In their very different ways these five stories do just that,” said Yentob, who is joined as a judge by the authors Laura Dockrill and Adam Foulds, editor Philip Gwyn Jones and BBC Radio editor of books Di Speirs. Speirs added that the shortlist “shows just how varied and how revealing a few thousand words can be”, with the five contenders featuring characters who “move from innocence to experience and in their own very particular circumstances, reflect moments of universal truth for all of us”. The winner of the prize, which is run in partnership with Booktrust, will be announced on 30 September, and will join former winners including James Lasdun, Julian Gough and Sarah Hall. This year’s shortlist: Bad Dreams by Tessa Hadley The Taxidermist’s Daughter by Francesca Rhydderch Kilifi Creek by Lionel Shriver Miss Adele Amidst the Corsets by Zadie Smith The American Lover by Rose Tremain |
In the 1990s, mountain bikers in the Greater Cincinnati Area has few locations where they could use their bikes as they had been designed to be used…on off-road trails. Enjoying the sport meant hours of driving to other spots in the Midwest. That changed in 1997, when a group of dedicated riders came together to create a trail network in the region. The Cincinnati Off-Road Alliance (CORA) now maintains more than 60 miles of public multi-use trails within one hours of downtown Cincinnati. Through activities like trail building days, racing events, and social gatherings…we foster a healthy off-road community in and around the Queen City. As of June 2012, we teamed up with the International Mountain Biking Association (IMBA) to strengthen the mountain biking advocacy all across the state of Ohio. |
How to Get Your Friends Onto the Bitcoin Bandwagon Most of us who have ever listened to a bitcoin talk delivered by Andreas Antonopolous come away with renewed clarity as to the “obviousness” of bitcoin being the best thing since… ever. Why then is it so hard for us to get our friends to become even mildly as enthusiastic as we are? This short article aims to cover the five topics to master when bringing people into the bitcoin / crypto revolution. Keep It Simple You might think that dropping jargon like “decentralisation”, “block rewards”, “satoshis” and “the Federal Reserve” in your first few sentences when describing bitcoin sounds awesome but your mate doesn’t. Once it’s over their head, you have lost them. And you might not realize where you lost them because they won’t tell you. When making a point and introducing new words… keep it simple! Phrases like “Does that make sense?”, Do you agree? Are you with me?” cannot be used often enough. Make sure your audience is with you every step of the way. When you get stuck on a topic great! This is where the real learning takes place. Also read: India Encourages ‘Mission Mode’ Digital Currency Adoption Be Patient Most of us didn’t “get it” the first time we heard about bitcoin. Learning this stuff is difficult not only because of new words and technology but also because this subject challenges beliefs people have had all their lives. I know it’s exciting and you want to tell everyone everything but focus on little chunks and find out what areas peak you friends curiosity and focus on that. In a way, us earlier adopters had it much easier because back then most of the information out there on the net was actually useful. Now a newbie has to sort through the ocean of rubbish, click bait and scams online to hopefully get correct information. Help them navigate this minefield by giving them people to follow on youtube like Andreas. Also read: Andreas Antonopoulos: AMA With the 8BTC Community Give your mates time to absorb the information and encourage them to continue the discussion with you later. Know When to Drop It It is easy for us bitcoin believers to get a bit over enthusiastic when sharing our wisdom and try to push the issue when others don’t seem to grasp the concept. If you can tell a discussion is going nowhere know when to back off. Not everyone wants to discover the best thing ever right now and sometimes repetition is not key. It is easy for Bill Gates or Warren Buffet to command attention when they are talking about money, but odds are you don’t have the reputation they do. Before being persuasive in anything you need to understand how you are perceived by your audience. Do people come to you for worldly advice? Are you the guy who always has a crazy idea? Understanding how you are seen before during and after your chat will help you design your approach. Some people just won’t see you as an authority on this subject. That is fine. The important thing to realize here is that maybe they want a conversation and you may have turned it into a lesson. Just let it be known that you are into this stuff and eventually, if you are open and agreeable, a lot of these people will start approaching you. Never Argue Us bitcoiners have all the answers. We have heard every argument against bitcoin 100 times before, and we waste no time correcting our mistaken comrades. — “Yes the FED is a massive scam.” — “No, the government can’t just shut bitcoin it down.” — “No, bitcoin has never been hacked.” Even though we feel that we are doing a fantastic thing by showing our mates the reality of the world, more often than not the other person feels like we are attacking their views. A wise quote is “He who is convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.” Coming at people’s’ beliefs like a bull at a gate is not the best approach. So what is? Start by finding common ground instead of going head to head. Whether your audience is left wing or right wing, interested in business, charity, history or the arts, there are limitless bitcoin and blockchain examples you can use to show how a situation they care about can be improved. Also read: Scientific Research Proof-of-Concept Validates Bitcoin Technology Once they see clearly how this new technology can improve something they care about, they will naturally start to see how it can apply to basically everything else. Give Them Bitcoin All the philosophizing, videos and preaching in the world will have little effect compared to getting your friend to EXPERIENCE bitcoin. Once your buddy has shown any interest at all, do the following… • Help them download a wallet and send them bitcoin! • Get them to send it back. Explain that you just sent money to them like an email and help them understand that you can send it anywhere in the world 24/7 and that it can be 2 cents or 20 million dollars. And… fish for aspects of bitcoin that peak their curiosity. • Show them the live transactions on Tradeblock. • Show them the trading volume on Coin Dance. Conclusion Sometimes it can seem crazy that people don’t see how awesome bitcoin is like we do. In 20 years though, convincing people that bitcoin is a great thing for the world will seem as necessary as convincing people that the world is round today. In the meantime, sticking to these tips will help you spread the gospel of bitcoin more effectively as well as help you keep your friends and sanity along the way. How have you helped your friends jump on the bitcoin bandwagon revolution? Let us know in the comments below. Image courtesy of Shutterstock, Tradeblock, Coindance Bitcoin.com is the most unique online destination in the bitcoin universe. Buying bitcoin? Do it here. Want to speak your mind to other bitcoin users? Our forum is always open and censorship-free. Like to gamble? We even have a casino. |
With expansion commitments in place in New York City, Atlanta and Orlando, Fla., Major League Soccer could be eyeing a Midwest city for its next franchise. Expansion to Minneapolis-St. Paul would give the Fire another regional rival; their closest rivals are the Columbus Crew in Ohio and Sporting Kansas City in Missouri. “The Midwest is a priority,” MLS Commissioner Don Garber said Friday. “Minneapolis is a big priority for us. We have two prospects that are hoping to join the league as soon as they can. … I’m hopeful we can resolve our lack of coverage in the Midwest with another team soon.” One Minnesota expansion group includes owners of the NFL’s Vikings. A proposed MLS team could play in a new Vikings stadium currently under construction. The 19-team league will grow to 21 next season with additions of New York City FC and Orlando City FC. Miami remains in the mix pending commitments for a downtown stadium. An investment group also is targeting a team in Sacramento, Calif. Garber touched on a few other topics: --Although the Fire set a league record with 18 ties this season and eight other MLS team had 10 or more entering Saturday, Garber said there are no plans restore a tiebreaking format. “Ties are a part of the sport,” he said. “I came in in 1999 and changed the rules that had a shootout. I don’t believe it will ever go back to a situation where we have tiebreaker.” --The Fire have missed the playoffs four of the last five seasons. Garber sympathizes with frustrated fans. “(Fire owner Andrew Hauptman has) … turned this organization into a very professionally focused one. He has hired Frank Yallop who has been a winner in almost every year that he has been involved in Major League Soccer, and I’m confident that the performance of the team will only improve. … You just have to believe in management, believe in Frank, believe in Andrew that it’s going to get better next year.” --It was the luck of a league-supervised draw that the Fire lost out on Jermaine Jones, a U.S. national team star, to New England. “(Hauptman) tried very hard to get Jermaine Jones,” Garber said. “He stepped up to the plate and was willing to make an unprecedented financial commitment. It’s not his fault Jermaine is not here.” |
TAMPA — The Yankees’ minor league complex — “across the street,” as they say here, since it indeed stands across the street from George M. Steinbrenner Field — overflows with young talent nowadays. More will be coming once blue-chippers such as Gleyber Torres and Clint Frazier get cut from the big-league squad. Gary Denbo, the Yankees’ vice president of player development, sat on a bleacher seat Friday night and oversaw his impressive kingdom, put together by scouts and coaches and minor league managers, all of whom are overseen by general manager Brian Cashman. Offense was Denbo’s bag until he took over this job in 2015. He earned a reputation as Derek Jeter’s swing whisperer and worked as the Yankees’ hitting coach in 2001, among many other gigs. Yet he knows what butters his bread nowadays. “Our biggest goal in player development is to develop starting pitchers,” Denbo said. That explains how a college reliever in Texas turned into a professional starter in Trenton, for now, with more upward mobility desired. It serves as the underlying premise for Chance Adams’ origin story. “It’s a little different. It’s been really fun,” Adams said recently at The George, before the Yankees reassigned him across the street. “The coaches have really helped me. It’s not like they just threw me in there and said, ‘Here, go start.’ They built me up for it. They did the necessary precautions. They’ve been kind of easy.” “We got together as a group and decided that we’re going to take our best arms and put them in the starting rotation,” Denbo said. “We saw that Chance had three pitches that had a chance to be average or plus.” Your browser does not support iframes. About that name, since Denbo used it twice in one sentence? Adams shrugged with a smile and said his parents “had two name choices and they went with this one,” over Keegan. Fast-forward the Arizona native’s tale to Yavapai Junior College in Prescott, Ariz., then Dallas Baptist University, where his fastball soared from the 90-93 mph range to 93-97 in one season. “At Dallas Baptist, they did a lot of heavy squats,” Adams said, in offering his theory for his escalation. “We didn’t run unless we were in trouble. A lot of heavy lifting. Also weighted balls. I still do that. I guess maturing a little, too.” Yankees vice president of domestic amateur scouting Damon Oppenheimer, acting on the recommendations of area scout Mike Leuzinger and cross-checker Brian Barber, liked what he saw of Adams on video and popped him in the fifth round of the 2015 amateur draft. Adams had thrown in 23 games for Dallas Baptist, all in relief, totaling 59 innings, and struck out 83 while walking 13 (thanks, The Baseball Cube). After signing for a $330,000 bonus, he began his professional career by pitching out of the bullpen. That changed in the 2015-16 offseason. “We saw that Chance had three pitches [fastball, slider and changeup] that had a chance to be average or plus,” Denbo said. “And our pitching coordinator Danny Borrell mentioned that he does a great job with repeating his delivery. He’s able to not only have good control but good command of his pitches. We simply put all of those things together and decided to put him in the rotation to see how it worked. “We were watching to see to make sure he maintained his velocity after the first few innings and he did that. … The rest of it, he took the bull by the horns and he ran with it.” Adams’ .169 opponents’ batting average over 25 starts (127 ¹/₃ innings) last year, as he split time between Single-A Tampa and Double-A Trenton, ranked as the best among qualified pitchers in organized ball, according to Baseball America (which ranked Adams as the eighth-best Yankees prospect). He has joined James Kaprielian and Justus Sheffield as the Yankees’ starting pitching prospects most likely to succeed. That he struck out five and walked six in his three Grapefruit League outings, totaling four innings, shows he is both unfinished and intriguing. “Whatever they want to do with me, I’m happy,” Adams said. Nothing makes any team happier than developing a starting pitcher. |
gabhart wrote: Recon is at the printer this week, so I thought I would post a bit of a sneak peek. 140 *NEW* cards • contested resources (CRs) – 14 (7 sets of 2) • junkyard (JY) – 8 (2 sets of 4) • mercenaries – 109 (2 sets of 20, 8 sets of 8, 1 set of 5) • buildings – 6 (2 sets of 3) • leaders – 2 • gang – 1 3 *NEW* actions • Cancel – Interrupts another action such as a recon action. The canceled card and the card performing the cancel action are both discarded. • Instant – A special type of card. No tribe member is required to grant a benefit. • Recon – Enables you to peek at cards and gain essential information that you otherwise would not have knowledge regarding. Recon rules: *Only you may see cards as a result of your recon action. You may not share this information with any other player. *Cards are returned in their original order. *It may be possible for your recon action to be interrupted through a cancel action or as a result of a snipe attack. |
(San Diego, CA) – Green Flash Brewing Co. showed off its new Epic Journey series on Tuesday. More below… — In case you haven’t noticed, San Diego and craft beer are kind of a thing. For our 6th Anniversary, we created a beer to acknowledge the synergy behind the bustling craft beer culture along the 30th Street corridor in San Diego’s North Park neighborhood. When we debuted 30th Street Pale Ale (dubbing it “an IPA on any other street”), we reserved it for locals only. Now, our highly bittered and dry-hopped American Pale Ale is part of the national Hop Odyssey series for the second year in a row. This month, you can enjoy 30th Street Pale Ale in 22oz bottles for the very first time, as well as on draft! Grab a bomber for your next bottle share, because this hop-forward pale ale is only around for a limited time. Check your local bottle shop and join us on an epic journey today. Here at Green Flash, we believe in continuously evolving. This means crafting and sharing unique brews to inspire and awaken your palate. Our Passion for hops presents infinite possibilities. As explorers, we are constantly seeking new hop varieties, fresh combinations and innovative brewing methods to create our Hop Odyssey series. Released over twelve months, these six hoppy adventures are available wherever fine craft beers are sold. This year marks an exciting turn on our voyage as we are releasing Hop Odyssey in 22oz bottles, perfect for sharing with friends along for the adventure! Set sail on an epic journey and Taste Enlightenment today. |
I’ve been writing about Donald Trump’s mysterious connections to Russia for close to eight months. Over that time, I’ve occasionally heard from law enforcement or intelligence types who say, “You’re on to something … Keep going.” To which I’ve wanted to reply, “Really?” I say this half in jest but only half. I’ve always been highly skeptical of the more outlandish theories about Trump and Russia. Whether this is naïveté or the skepticism of experience I’m not sure. But whether we’re investigators or reporters or just people trying to make sense of the world we live in, it is important that we try to find the simplest explanation that accounts for all the facts we know. Relatedly, we should look for explanations which require as few leaps of speculation or unattested and fantastical facts as possible. It’s a life version of Occam’s Razor. The simplest explanation isn’t necessarily the right one. But in the spirit of Occam’s Razor, we should prefer it because it usually will be. To state the key point for clarity and emphasis, it is not the simplest explanation. It it is the simplest explanation which accounts for all the known facts. That distinction makes all the difference in the world. With this prologue and with the above in mind, here is what I would call the innocent explanation of the Trump/Russia story. I don’t think it is necessarily the true story. Or, to put it more precisely, I don’t think it is necessarily the whole story. But I think it accounts for most of the what we know so far. Here goes. 1. In the late 90s and early aughts, Donald Trump ran out of lenders. A string of bankruptcies on top of numerous ventures where he walked away unscathed and lenders lost their shirts convinced every major US bank to stop lending to him. The only exception is DeutscheBank, which of course is not a US bank. This put Trump’s whole family business under great strain. In response he increasingly took capital from abroad, especially from Russia and other post-Soviet successor states. Whether this was the influence of lawyer Michael Cohen or his almost decade long business partnership with Felix Sater and his coterie doesn’t really matter for present purposes. It did happen. None of this is speculation. All of this happened. What we don’t know is quite the degree of his dependence on money from the former Soviet Union, both for investment capital and for the purchase the numerous apartment units which make up his ubiquitous high-rises. None of this is illegal or wrong. Foreign capital is pervasive in the New York City area real estate market. 2. Trump gets into this world. He associates with these people. He starts thinking like they do. Perhaps along the way, people in this murky Russian world where oligarchs and mafiosos and legitimate businesspeople are hard to differentiate and perhaps not really different at all, find out about his dirty laundry. Nothing extravagant like sex tapes. Just the more garden variety stuff business associates find out about each other from long association. We know Trump is highly secretive. His myriad partners and investors likely know a lot of those secrets. Consider the example of Felix Sater I wrote about today: there are probably a lot of secrets. 3: One thing I think we’ve learned about Trump over the last almost two years is that what’s helpful to Trump is good. People who are helpful to Trump are also good. In fact, they’re the best people. Things that aren’t helpful to Trump are bad. Things that threaten Trump are especially bad. Trump is highly malleable in his thinking and he doesn’t do detail. From watching him casually for decades and intensively for almost two years, it seems clear to me that, in his mind, what Donald Trump thinks is right. Not just right but the rightest. We probably all think this about our deeply ingrained beliefs. It’s almost a tautology. But for Trump I don’t think it matters whether it’s deeply ingrained or just something that seemed convenient to say for some situational purpose or provided some momentary advantage the day before. The key point is that it’s not that Donald Trump thinks the right things. Whatever he thinks or says is by definition right. What’s good for Donald Trump is not just right but obviously right. And vice versa. 4: Now the 2014 Russian seizure of Crimea comes along, to be followed by the low intensity intervention in eastern Ukraine and, critically, the imposition of western sanctions. If Trump is significantly dependent on capital out of Russia, those sanctions are going to put a crimp on all his ventures. It won’t be fatal. But it will hurt – potentially a lot. They’re also bad for a lot of people he works with and likes and needs. That also means they’re bad. Remember, what is good for Donald Trump is right and vice versa. The sanctions regime is bad for Donald Trump. It’s bad for his friends. Ergo the sanctions regime is bad. We should also remember that by 2015 Trump had spent 10 to 15 years working in the company of people like Felix Sater, Tevfik Arif, Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort. They are all from or invested in or implicated in that world. They think a certain way and he does too. Even if we posit no bad faith on Trump’s part, it would be surprising if some number of people that Trump and his people come into contact with did not have relationships with or work for Russian intelligence. 5: So by 2015, this gets you to a pretty clear storyline: Sanctions wrong; Russia good; Putin good; Putin strong. To me this provides a fairly satisfying explanation for most of what we’ve seen over the last year and a half: Trump’s weirdly fawning attitude toward Putin, hostility toward Russia sanctions, insistence on the obviousness of ‘getting along’ and ‘making a deal’ with Putin. It also gets us most of the way to explaining why he has so many people in his orbit with conspicuous on-going communications and relationships with suspicious figures in the Russian intelligence world or the criminal underworld. The point we cannot understate with Trump is the man’s bullheadedness and the iron equation of what’s good for Trump being right, good and obviously the best. The final reason this theory makes sense to me is that Trump’s world is pervasively disorganized and corrupt. That’s less fertile ground for conspiracies than influence operations, which is easy to reconcile with what I’ve set forth above. It also gives some explanation or some logic to the fact that Trump’s Russia-infused coterie includes a lot of people who just seem like idiots. Why did Carter Page go on Chris Hayes’ show last night? Why is he on TV at all? That simply makes no sense. Why did Michael Cohen take a meeting with a shady pro-Russian Ukrainian parliamentarian – with Felix Sater in tow! – right as the Russia story was engulfing his boss’s presidency? Seriously, why? Again, I think what I’ve described here gets you most of the way toward an explanation of at least most of the facts we currently know. And it requires no fantastical facts not currently in evidence: no extortionate sex tapes, no treasonous deals with Putin. It all comes more or less together by long association, interest and some specific and clear characteristics of Trump’s personality. It’s not clear these broad outlines require anything illegal or any one thing beyond putting personal financial interest above the national interest. To me, this seems obvious with Trump. It requires little imagination. And, as I’ve said, I think his mind doesn’t really distinguish between these things. What’s good for Trump is right. Everybody wants to do what’s right. And if they don’t, they should. Now, here are three problems I identify with this theory. 1. There are more than a few facts that are very weird and difficult to explain and what I’ve laid out here doesn’t really provide a satisfying explanation. That’s a big problem. 2. This is a theory that addresses perhaps not all but most of the publicly known information. But I think the publicly known information is only a very small subset of the full story. To really know the full story we’d need investigators with access to tax returns, business records, financial transactions. People would have to be deposed. There would need to be subpoenas. None of that has happened. We’ve only scratched the surface. Trump’s world is built on secrecy and confidentiality. What are the odds that a full investigation would unearth lots of new details but nothing that really upends my theory? Not a good moment for my theory. 3. Here’s the big final point. Let’s assume some version of my narrative above is accurate. On its face its mainly about bad priorities and bad values. But anyone trying to make this chain of events happen in real life – not just Trump but his various business associates, hangers-on and supporters – would have a very difficult time not committing a large number of bad acts in the process. Maybe very bad acts. It may not be inherent in the storyline. But it’s just the way that world works, especially when you have a principal who has a vast ability to justify what satisfies his self-interest, his desires, his need to dominate and be right. As we’ve already seen, even the fairly innocent stuff is hard not to lie about. Eventually that will get someone in trouble. There’s too much dirty money, too many things that may be narrowly legal but need to be lied about, too many scams and bad actors. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, the entire story remains difficult for me to get my head around. My inherent skepticism is frequently challenged by finding that things did happen which really shouldn’t have. The need to lie and lie conspicuously about things that aren’t even that central to the action is almost always a sign of something big under the water than hasn’t surfaced yet. Trying to figure out the Trump story is a bit like instruments only flight rules. You’re supposed to ignore your feelings and sensations and focus only on the instruments. Because they’re right and your sense of speed, up and down and so forth are just not reliable. In this case, experience, the ways things work tells us something like this can’t happen. But instruments say otherwise. [Did you enjoy reading this post? Considering supporting TPM by subscribing to Prime.] |
On the surface, there's nothing unusual about the talk featured in this video — a Catholic priest speaking in a church to a group of Christians. But the shirt worn by the priest gives a clue that it's an extraordinary event: embroidered discreetly on its black fabric in rainbow colours is the word 'Priest'. Since the 1970s the rainbow has been adopted by homosexuals around the globe as a symbol of gay pride and identity. This priest, British-born James Alison, is openly gay, and he's speaking here to a group of gay and lesbian Christians at Paddington Uniting Church in Sydney's eastern suburbs. The fact that he's openly gay, and supports the legitimacy of a homosexual lifestyle, puts him at odds with Church teaching, which he argues is outmoded and no longer tenable. The Vatican has consistently upheld its 1986 teaching that the homosexual 'inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder', and its instruction of 2005 that the Church 'cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practise homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called "gay culture"'. If Alison was a rabble-rouser or a noisy activist, he wouldn't be taken so seriously. But far from being a rebellious troublemaker, he is softly-spoken, eloquent, reasoned and reasonable in what he says. And he is deeply spiritual and devoted to the Catholic Church and to the priesthood. He's also a scholar of international standing, a leading exponent of the philosophy of Rene Girard, and much in demand around the world to speak about the work of this French philosopher. Girard is famous for his insights into the causes of violence, and the link between religion and violence. Alison was born in London in 1959. He was brought up in a staunchly evangelical Protestant family, but in his late teens converted to Catholicism. He studied at Blackfriars College at the University of Oxford, and gained his bachelor's degree and doctorate in theology from the Jesuit Theology Faculty in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. He has lived in the United States and a number of South American countries, and now resides in Sao Paulo. He belonged to the Dominican Order from 1981 till 1995, but now calls himself a 'freelance theologian', working around the world as an itinerant preacher, lecturer and retreat giver. In 2010 he led the prestigious John Main Seminar, the annual retreat and major international gathering of the World Community for Christian Meditation. Previous seminar leaders have included spiritual luminaries such as the Dalai Lama, Raimon Panikkar, Bede Griffith, Joan Chittister, William Johnston, Jean Vanier and Rowan Williams. With regard to homosexuality, Alison explains that over the last 50 or 60 years, science and psychology have uncovered evidence that being gay is merely a 'non-pathological, regularly occurring minority variant' in the human condition. In other words, science is telling us that rather than being a disorder, homosexual orientation is part of the normal spectrum of variation among human beings. He argues these recent scientific revelations are part of the unfolding natural law that challenges negative attitudes and beliefs regarding homosexuality, and the basis for official Church teaching, that being gay is 'an objective disorder'. |
Dear Wall Street Journal Executive Editor Almar Latour: I just finished reading your open letter encouraging folks to root for the Netherlands in the upcoming World Cup quarterfinal match against Costa Rica on Saturday. I see you addressed it to the “American soccer fan.” Since most everyone who lives in the Western Hemisphere is American, I felt invited to respond from our humble, tiny country of Costa Rica in Central America. You might have heard of us and our national football team, known as La Sele. We were expected to be quickly eliminated in the first round. After all, we were placed in the Group of Champions, and faced former World Cup winners Uruguay, Italy and England. We beat the first two and held the Brits scoreless, before sending them back home. In fact, Costa Rica hasn’t lost a 2014 World Cup match yet, and we are the only CONCACAF team left in the tournament. We take issue with your assertion that “there is no one for whom to cheer.” In reality, U.S. fans – half of our readers – have been supporting La Sele since we beat up on Uruguay, 3-1. Many thought it was a fluke, but they cheered us on, nonetheless. Then we beat Italy, and this tiny country exploded. Even more so when we beat Greece. We are the embodiment of the underdog spirit – and U.S. sports fans love an underdog. The Ticos play with national pride, dedication, sportsmanship and honor. And we don’t have an army. La Sele is the country’s army, and the team is marching through Brazil. You point out that your flag has the same colors as the U.S. flag. So does Costa Rica’s flag. The uniforms also are the same color, which makes sense (having the same colored uniforms as the national flag). We also have dozens of pristine beaches, beautiful sunsets, lush rain forest, breathtaking cloud forest, endangered quetzals, jaguars, dolphins, whales and nesting sea turtles. Hundreds of thousands of them. And we have one of the best goalkeepers in the world, Keylor Navas. Yet another reason Tim Howard fans should root for us, not you. And we have Sloth Kong. Please don’t misinterpret this letter as spiteful – we love the Dutch. One of our staffers is practically married to a Dutch woman. My ancestors were Dutch. My mom still has wooden shoes and tulips in her garden. But this is the World Cup. And it’s Costa Rica’s time to make history. Best of luck! David Boddiger Editor in chief, The Tico Times |
On August 30, the Italian state-controlled energy company Eni announced the discovery of a “supergiant” gas field off the coast of Egypt. According to initial assessments, the Zohr field contains 30 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of natural gas (equivalent to 5.5 billion barrels of oil), making it the largest ever discovery of gas in the Mediterranean. This is welcome news for Egypt's struggling economy and fragile political situation. It also creates new challenges and opportunities for the country's neighbors and for outside powers such as Vladimir Putin's Russia. Additionally, it provides powerful economic incentives for Cypriot reunification. As the United States takes stock of what Egypt's good fortune means for the region, it should find much cause for celebration. The Zohr field is the latest in a series of large offshore gas discoveries in the eastern Mediterranean. In 2009 and 2010, Israel celebrated the discovery of the Tamar and Leviathan fields, which together hold up to 26 Tcf of natural gas. Adjacent to Leviathan, in Cyprus' exclusive economic zone, lies the 7 Tcf Aphrodite field, discovered in 2011. Once developed, these deposits could satisfy both countries' domestic electricity needs for decades and open new opportunities for exports. While its neighbors were experiencing a gas bonanza, Egypt fell on hard times. Historically the second-largest gas producer in Africa, with 77 Tcf of proven reserves, in recent years Egypt has become a net importer. With falling production unable to keep up with rapidly growing domestic demand, and political turmoil slowing exploration and investment, the country experienced regular power outages. Because the Hosni Mubarak and Mohamed Morsi regimes both fell during periods of regular power cuts, the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi views these outages as a national security threat. To keep the lights on and quell potential unrest, Cairo has shifted energy from industry to residential areas, signed deals to import expensive liquefied natural gas (LNG), and accumulated a growing debt to foreign oil and gas companies. Mohamed Abd El Ghany / Reuters Women carry gas cylinders to fill them at a distribution point in Cairo January, 2015. Given this bleak backdrop, it is not surprising that one Egyptian politician described the |
The agent for former Packers TE Brandon Bostick, Blake Baratz, announced via his Twitter account that his client will be joining the Minnesota Vikings. Everything happens for a reason. My man @Bostick11 is coming to my hood. Great landing spot, in my backyard, the best is yet to come my man! — Blake Baratz (@blakebaratz) February 18, 2015 Bostick, 25, was placed on waivers by the Packers a few days ago, but joining the Vikings could be a great situation for him, as he’ll get an opportunity to have a fresh start with a new team. Bostick, 25, had another year remaining on his three-year, $1.485 million rookie contract, which included a base salary of $585,000. He would have been a restricted free agent in 2016. Unfortunate for the young tight end, his time in Green Bay will be remember for the botched onside kick in which he was supposed to be blocking, but aided the Seahawks’ dramatic comeback in the NFC Championship game. In 2014, Bostick appeared in 13 games for the Packers, but caught just two passes for three yards and a touchdown. |
On two occasions within the span of a few days, the woman simply refused to go up to the desk at which the clerk in question sat, the local Nerikes Allehanda (NA) newspaper reported. In explaining her decision, the woman explained to other clerks as well as a manager at the office that she didn't want to be served by a black person. The incident resulted in the woman being charged with harassment, with an alternative charge of insulting behaviour. In an initial review of the case, the Örebro District Court acquitted the woman, noting that she had never directly confronted the clerk in question about her reasons for not wanting to be served. As the derogatory remarks were only mentioned to the clerk's colleagues, the court ruled that the woman had no intention of insulting the clerk. The case was nevertheless appealed to the Göta Court of Appeal, which on Tuesday ruled as well that the woman wasn't guilty of committing any crime, even if he behaviour could be viewed as insulting by the clerk. |
Twitter’s advertising business is stalling, but the company is trying to focus on some flashes of improvement among the service — which it’s attributing to product changes, and not just to major events like presidential debates or the President’s usage of Twitter . There were some questions as to whether President Donald Trump’s usage of Twitter would be something that would a big driver for Twitter’s growth — along with the heavy usage of Twitter throughout the U.S. presidential election. An event like the election is essentially Twitter’s sweet spot, and Twitter’s usage among events is something that you’d expect to be a core part of the company’s growth and business. Despite this, CFO Anthony Noto said the majority of Twitter’s usage improvements came from product changes and marketing, and that those events and people weren’t the primary drivers. Twitter’s monthly active users count rose by 2 million, and Twitter said its daily active user growth is accelerating. Its DAUs are up 11% year-over-year. Total ad engagements grew 151% year-over-year, the company said, so there appears to be some signs that Twitter is starting to find new areas of growth. Amid all this, Twitter said it’s re-assessing its advertising products to emphasize the ones that are performing best and growing. “I would say is that the President’s use of Twitter has broadened the awareness of how the platform can be used, and it shows the power of Twitter,” Noto said. “When he tweets, it sparks conversation and discussion. So at a macro level, discussions on a platform really helps us be the best at showing what’s happening in the world and where discussion strengthens our key differentiators and comprehensiveness fast. From a quantitative perspective, what I’d say is each quarter, we measure and analyze factors that drive causal growth in the audience, not coincident growth. In the fourth quarter, the primary driver of our growth was, as I said earlier, product changes and marketing.” Diving deeper into that, Noto is essentially saying that it’s important to have these people on Twitter because it drives people to pay attention to the platform and use it to gather that news and conversation as it breaks on Twitter. But Twitter still has to provide a positive experience for its users and keep them on the service beyond just seeing the occasional Tweet. And Twitter has been notoriously seen as somewhat slow-moving in the product category, only recently starting to address things like abuse and harassment problems through product changes. “As it relates to impressions growth, which is another area we look, at as I mentioned earlier, the magnitude of the impressions platform is so large, it would be very hard for an event or a single person to drive sustained growth and impressions growth,:” Noto said. “All of that said, having the world’s leaders on our platform talking about global issues, people being passionately expressing their points of view, that’s all positive or Twitter, and that’s what we’re focused on. So anytime that we can drive faster distribution of content, more comprehensive content, more discussion or more personalization, we’re better at delivering what’s happening in the world and what’s being talked about.” While the company saw a lift in Tweet impressions, Noto said, it would be hard to assume that single major events would be the primary driver in the net increase in overall impressions. The company still touts its events — like its deals to broadcast NFL games and major political events like the inauguration — but even the sum of these products requires a good overall experience beyond just people coming to watch them on Twitter instead of somewhere else. “I think I’ve talked in the past about even on nights of the presidential debates, we would have like a 10% lift in Tweet impressions,” Noto said. “And even if I assume all of that lift is incremental, it only could translate into a 0.1% lift in impressions for the entire quarter. So to get double-digit growth for an entire quarter in impressions for 3 quarters in a row takes a fundamental change, and that’s being driven by machine learning in the timeline. It’s being driven by better notifications from a relevant content and all the things that [Twitter CEO] Jack [Dorsey] talked about. The other measure that we look at, because we do have a significant amount of video on the platform and that continues to increase is user active minutes, and that also has been up double digits. So we’re really encouraged by the outputs, but the inputs are really the product changes that are driving those engagement trends.” |
Armenian Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian insisted he was the initiator of the recent visit to Vienna, where he held meetings with Chairman of the OSCE Permanent Council and Permanent Representative of Austria. Asked to comment over the unfolding situation around the operation of the OSCE Yerevan Office, Nalbandian informed the extension of the organizations’ mandate in Armenia was included in the agenda of OSCE Permanent Council meeting. The minister assessed the meetings as quite constructive and important with the apparent outcomes became known on the same day. “At the Permanent Council meeting the Chairman of the OSCE Permanent Council and Permanent Representative of Austria outlined that throughout the discussions on the extension of mandate of the OSCE Yerevan Office one participating state, in particularly Azerbaijan, expressed a concern that the humanitarian demining programme of the Office was not in line with its mandate. In reality, the Office implements no demining programme, but rather an educational awareness raising project for a period of one year. The OSCE Chairmanship made an assessment of this issue on spot in the framework of his visit to Yerevan and concluded that the above-mentioned programme does not fall outside the mandate of the Office,” Nalbandian said, adding Azerbaijan continued complaining despite the communicated assessments. “I want to clarify that the matter is not about the Armenian Office, but that of the OSCE operating in Armenia. To put the other way, Azerbaijan is acting against the OSCE through opposing the organization’s operation in Armenia, condemning the OSCE that is allegedly threatening its security which is an evident lie that was acknowledged by the former Chairman-in-Office as well,” Nalbandian said. The minister went on saying the OSCE participating states requested the Yerevan Office to abstain from the implementation of the humanitarian demining programme, since the organization is a consensus based with Azerbaijan to object extension decision in any way. Nalbandian informed the member states expressed gratitude to Armenia for its constructive stance while the representative of Azerbaijan was in disgraceful isolation. In Armenian foreign minister’s words Azerbaijani actual frustration is explained by the fact Armenia has been always exemplified and praised for hosting the only OSCE Office in the region and has cooperated with it in all dimensions at the best possible way. |
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. -- Vice President Mike Pence got a raucous reception from the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday evening, where he encouraged conservatives to "make your voices heard in town halls" as GOP lawmakers have faced often angry constituents at their district forums. Pence's address was the ninth time the former Indiana governor had addressed the annual CPAC. "You know, the president and I have become good friends. It's the greatest privilege of my life to be vice president to a leader of such conviction, vision, and courage. Now, some people have remarked that we're a little bit different," he said. "You know, I'm a small-town guy. He's big city. I'm Midwest, he's Manhattan Island. He's known for his bigger than life personality, his charm, and his charisma. And I'm, like, not." Pence vowed that President Trump's campaign-trail agenda will be executed: "Over at the White House, I like to say we're in the promise-keepin' business these days." The VP, who was in charge of the transition, called Trump's cabinet "the A-Team." "President Trump has assembled the strongest conservative cabinet in my lifetime, bar none," he said. Pence declared that "despite the best efforts of liberal activists at town halls around the country, the American people know better: Obamacare has failed, and Obamacare must go." "With President Trump's leadership, Obamacare is going to be replaced with something that actually works, something that's built on freedom and individual responsibility. President Trump and I want every American to have access to quality and affordable health insurance, which is why we're designing a better law that lowers the cost of health insurance without growing the size of government," he said. "...You know, despite all the fearmongering from the left, make no mistake about it: We'll have an orderly transition to a better health care system that finally puts the American people first. And after we repeal and replace Obamacare, we're going to do a whole lot more." Pence told the activists that "the success of our movement and, more importantly, the success of our country depends as much on all of you as it does on us." "We've got to mobilize. We got to march forward, as if it's the most important time in the history of our movement, because it is," he continued, telling them to reach out "on the Internet and social media, and all those places where commonsense conservative messages are most desperately needed." |
by The National Commission on the Structure of the Air Force just sent its final report to President Obama and Armed Services Committees in both the houses of Congress on January 30, 2014. This glitzy report is over 122 pages long, with its main body being 45 pages, and almost 80 pages of appendices. Obviously, the report cost hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars to produce. Did the American taxpayer get anything of value for this expenditure? Will the information in this report serve any constructive purpose other than bloating the resumes of the Commission’s members? The short answers are NO and NO. Like most blue ribbon panel reports, this one is destined for the dustbin of history. It ducks even a basic acknowledgement of the most basic fundamental structure issues facing the Air Force. The only effect is to lull the reader to sleep with deadening verbiage. It that sense, this report is a really pathetic, if all too typical, example of why our government cannot solve its most basic problems. But the report does have one redeeming value: Its egregious omissions demonstrate the extent to which the collective mind of the American governing elite is disconnected from reality and is talking to itself. A very simple exercise proves this point: I ask you to take a few minutes to peruse this report; to repeat, it can be downloaded from this link. Now, for a little background on the problems underpinning the subject this report claims it is addressing: Fundamentally, the Air Force’s structural problems are rooted in its long procurement history of buying ever more technically complex equipment, with each new generation of equipment costing substantially more to buy and operate than its predecessor. This has caused an economic asymmetry wherein rising unit costs that always grow faster than budgets grow, even when budgets increase very rapidly, as they did in the 1980s and after 1997. The consequences of the relationship have been well understood for a long time: Weapons increase in complexity, force structure shrinks in size, weapons already in the inventory become older on average, and there is continual pressure to reduce readiness, because increasing complexity reinforces the aging to magnify operating costs further. The long-established Pentagon’s Power Games accelerate this evolution when budgets increase — the little shop of horrors known as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter being a recent case in point. This evolutionary pattern generates important indirect effects as well. These effects have also been understood for a long time (e.g., see my 1980 report Defense Facts of Life or my 2002 briefing Defense Death Spiral (DS), especially slides 23-50, both which were based on official DoD data). To summarize the indirect effects: First, as forces shrink in size, supporting physical infrastructure also shrinks (e.g., via base closures or depot shutdowns); but infrastructure is protected by local political pressures, so it always shrinks more slowly that force structure shrinks. Consequently, in the case of the Air Force, the bed down of airplanes on bases has become more diluted over time and its depot capacities become more excessive. These differential rates of shrinkage create cost-growth pressures and institutional rigidities that magnify the evolutionary pattern (DS analyzes this evolution explicitly on pages 49-50). Second, as forces shrink, organizational infrastructure (i.e., the number of operational units, command structures, headquarters, support services, etc) shrinks at a slower rate. Command structures become top heavy with a bloated rank structure. In the case of the Air Force, squadrons have fewer aircraft, wings have fewer aircraft, numbered Air Forces have fewer aircraft. In short, the increasing organization bloat produces requirements for excessive numbers of Lieutenant Colonels, Colonels, and especially Generals. The excessive rank overhead, coupled to an “up or out” promotion system, has all sorts of pathological results — e.g., it increases the predilection for micromanagement, over-centralization, bloated staffs, busywork, etc. These evolutions translate into increased costs in peacetime. Even worse, they increase organization rigidity to slow down decision cycles when the military goes to war (DS, especially pages 34-36). If you doubt this, just look at the tooth-to tail-ratio and bloated command structures in Afghanistan. To repeat, these problems have been understood for a very long time. Nor are they impossible to comprehend and explain in a digestible way without glitzy distractions. Consider, for example, an oped I published in the Washington Post in 1989 — 25 years ago! The subject is changing the force structure to make it more efficient without sacrificing capability. It gives the reader examples of the kinds of analysis and changes that should have been considered by National Commission on the Structure of the Air Force. (By the way, this Op-Ed was officially cleared by security review in the Office of the Secretary of Defense — and was never rebutted on a factual basis.) Shape Up and Fly Right: How to Build a Better Air Force for Less Money Franklin C. Spinney Published: Washington Post Outlook, April 16, 1989, Republished shortly thereafter in Air Force Times. Author’s note: This the officially cleared version and does not include minor copy editing changes by the editors of Washington Post. Between 1980 and 1989, defense spending grew by 40% in inflation adjusted dollars. The increase was not, however, distributed evenly throughout the budget; procurement and R&D spending soared by 67%, while spending for current operations (personnel, operations, and maintenance) increased by only 23%. As I explained in an earlier article (October 31, 1988), we “front loaded” our budgets with politically engineered modernization programs in the mistaken belief that, by spreading the money around to the important congressional districts, we could buy votes for ever larger defense budgets. Despite repeated warnings, Congress signed up uncritically to one front-loaded budget after another in the 1980s. The money flowed to contractors and subcontractors located throughout the fifty states, and defense jobs increased by 63%. Now we are poised to reap the consequences: even if future budgets are frozen at the current level, a huge bow wave of unaffordable procurement commitments and a stern wave of deferred readiness obligations will wash over the Pentagon and Congress in the early 1990s. If we do not change the way we do business, production rates will decline (but few programs will be cancelled), readiness for combat will plummet, equipment will get older, and forces will shrink. Some — perhaps many — defense workers will lose their jobs. What can be done to moderate the damage caused by the reckless politicizing of defense decisions? Is it possible to devise a fiscally responsible retrenchment plan that lays out an effective defense program without succumbing to the usual expedients of robbing readiness and shrinking the size of our forces to preserve the politically engineered money flows? It is possible–but only if our leaders have the courage to step up to some really tough choices. The fun is over, and as we say in the Pentagon, it is time to slaughter some sacred cows. One option for reducing budget requirements in the 1990s is to move a larger portion of our forces into the reserves. This appears to be most attractive in the case of the Air Force; but even in the case of the Air Force, it is not politically painless. To be effective, the reserve option must be part of a larger plan–one that forms a smaller number of larger units and closes excess bases. Such changes could generate enormous savings; readiness and sustainability could actually be increased; and further force shrinkage might be averted. Lets take a closer look at why it is possible to build a stronger Air Force for less money. Simply shrinking the size of the active force and increasing the reserve proportion does not automatically generate savings over the long term. Between 1956 and 1990, the active Air Force will have shrunk from about 23000 to 6900 airplanes–a decline of 70%. During the same period the reserves will have dropped from about 3000 to 2200 airplanes, but its share of the total force will have doubled from 12% to 25%. The drop in total operations is comparable (from 9 to 3.3 million flying hours). These impressive reductions did not generate any savings; on the contrary, after taking out the effects of inflation and introduction of ballistic missiles, we will spend 6% more for operations and maintenance in 1990 than in 1956 ($23.3 versus $21.9 billion in constant FY 89 dollars). How can 9100 airplanes cost as much to operate as 26000 airplanes? There are at least two reasons, and they reinforce each other: First, the evolution of ever more complex technologies increased operating costs. Fighter aircraft are a case in point: taking out the effects of inflation, our top tactical fighter in the mid-1950s, the F-100, cost about $1470 per hour to fly, while today’s top fighter, the F-15C costs over three times as much to fly–about $4660 per hour. High-technology engines and electronics, in particular, require more costly maintenance skills, increase the need for capital intensive diagnostics and repair equipment, shift repairs away from flight lines toward distant depots, and generate the need for more costly logistics technologies to manage the proliferating assortment of high value spare parts. In addition to driving up direct and indirect costs, these changes created economies of scale that favor the concentration of airplanes at as few locations as possible. Second, the number of airbases and squadrons declined more slowly than the number of airplanes. Constituency-based politics resisted the closing of bases and bureaucratic politics opposed reductions in “command flags.” Bases now support fewer airplanes, and many squadrons are now smaller than in the 1950s. The creeping mismatch between infrastructure and force size has relentlessly driven up overhead costs and unnecessarily magnified the effects of complexity-induced cost growth. Consider the current situation: In the continental U.S. and Alaska, after removing the bases recommended for deactivation by the base closing commission, there are at least 60 bases, with 300 million square feet of concrete, available to the active force for the “bed-down” of its combat-coded, replacement training, and sundry support aircraft. In 1990, however, the force structure assigned to these bases will require only 150 million square feet of parking space–yielding an average base load factor of 50%. (This calculation is based on official planning factors.) Moreover, the distribution is very uneven, eight bases have load factors in excess of 100% while 14 others, for example McClelland and Bergstrom (with load factors of 7% and 12%), have load factors of 20% or less. * In 1990, the 31 active KC-135 tanker squadrons have between 10 and 19 aircraft, the average being about 14. The historical norm for large airplanes is 18 planes per squadron. * Between 1986 and 1990, the active force of C-141 transports will have decreased by 16 aircraft, but the number of squadrons in the active force will have increased from 13 to 16. In three years, the average size of a C-141 squadron will have shrunk from 18 to 13.6 airplanes–a 24% decline. Squadron sizes now range from 12 to 17 aircraft. Taken together, low base load factors and understrength and irregularly structured squadrons mean we are using people and facilities inefficiently. We could reduce costs without shrinking the force by assigning more aircraft to some bases, by forming larger units, and by closing other bases. If, for example, we decided to increase the average base load factor from 50% to a modest 60%, we could eliminate 50 million square feet of concrete. This equates to closing somewhere between five and nineteen more bases, depending on whether we close large or small bases. So, even in the absence of an active-to-reserve swap, there is a real opportunity to reduce overhead by consolidating the active force. Now suppose we also take some airplanes off the 60 active bases by transferring them to reserve units, most of which are located at municipal airports around the country. If we keep the 60% load-factor goal and the larger active units, we could close even more bases, and multiply the savings further. Lets examine the reserve side of the restructuring opportunity. Reserve units are also too small; 70% of the tactical (fighter/attack, recce) and 100% of the intercepter squadrons have 18 instead of 24 airplanes; 100% of the tactical airlift squadrons are assigned only eight C-130s; and the strategic tanker and airlift squadrons are assigned eight or ten KC-135s or C-141s. With a few exceptions, these units can be easily and cheaply expanded. Most fighter and intercepter units already have facilities that are capable of supporting 24 aircraft, and the airlift and tanker squadrons have facilities designed to support 12 aircraft. Moreover, the current recruiting situation is excellent; somewhere between 500 and 800 pilots are now trying to enter the reserves. So, a large number of active airplanes can be transferred to the reserves without forming new reserve units. Now, bringing the different strands of the analysis together, the general idea is as follows: Consolidate the active force into a smaller number of larger units; transfer planes from the active force to the reserves to bring reserve units up to strength; where transfers are not feasible, consolidate the reserves into a smaller number of larger units by deactivating some reserve units and transferring their airplanes to other units; close enough bases to modestly increase the average base load factor for the active force from 50% to 60% or 65%. The following example illustrates what is physically, if not politically, possible by the mid-1990s: * Transfer 240 tactical fighters to the reserves (deactivate 10 active squadrons) to bring all the reserve units up to full strength. * Consolidate the reserve C-130s into eighteen 12-plane squadrons (deactivate 8 reserve squadrons). An active-to-reserve transfer is probably not appropriate since about 60% of the tactical airlift force is already in the reserves. * Transfer 20 C-141s to the reserves (forming one new 18 aircraft squadron and increasing the size of another reserve squadron to 10 aircraft); consolidate the active force into eleven 18- aircraft squadrons (deactivate 5 active squadrons). * Transfer 14 KC-135s to the reserves and use aircraft to increase 7 reserve squadrons from 8 to 10 aircraft; consolidate active force into twenty-four 18-aircraft squadrons (deactivate 7 active squadrons). * Consolidate the reserve interceptor force into nine 24-aircraft squadrons (deactivate 3 squadrons). * Use some of the savings to correct the growing shortages in the war reserve stockpile of spare parts and munitions. Result: the number of combat-coded airplanes stays the same, the total force is more combat ready because it is better supplied, 274 more airplanes (a 4% reduction in the active force) are in the reserves, and the reduction of at least 50 million square feet of concrete (closure of 5 to 19 bases) and the deactivation of 33 squadrons (22 active, 11 reserve) results in a leaner infrastructure that reduces manpower and budget requirements. Naturally, a restructuring of this magnitude would be disruptive in the short term, and we should expect considerable bureaucratic and political opposition. The following counterarguments are among those that can be expected: Rotation Base. A transfer of 240 fighters to the reserves will require a reduction in forward-based tactical forces in Europe and Asia because the stateside force will be too small to support reasonable personnel rotation policy. There is merit to this argument, but there are ways around it. Assuming we need to keep the same rotation policy (40-45% of our forces forward), we would have to reduce the forward forces by four squadrons (96 airplanes). While this reduction could have important consequences affecting alliance politics, the strategic consequences could be negated by dual-basing (keeping the overseas bases fully supplied and ready to receive aircraft while basing the aircraft in the U.S.) four more active units in the states. Our strategic warning capabilities are adequate to permit the timely deployment of these forces in periods of increasing tension. Moreover, the dual-basing policy could be combined with a burden-sharing plan in which our allies pay for the upkeep of the forward bases. Rated supplement. The Air Force currently has about 22000 pilots and about 6900 airplanes (some of which require two pilots). The rated supplement is composed of those pilots assigned to non-flying duties. It has been argued that a transfer of a total of 274 aircraft to the reserves (a 4% reduction in active aircraft) will make the flying inventory too small to support the manpower policies governing the assignment of pilots to non-flying jobs. All that is needed to get around this bureaucratic logjam is a revival of the “can-do” spirit. Non-mobilized contingencies. Some believe that a transfer of this magnitude would inhibit our ability to respond to undeclared wars such as the Grenada invasion. This argument relates mainly to tactical fighters, and it needs to be put into perspective. We have about 1750 fighter/attack aircraft in the active force; a transfer of 240 to the reserves would leave about 1500 in the active force. Surely 1500 airplanes is a large enough asset base to support such contingencies. Reserve recruitment. Some believe that a transfer 4% of the active force to the reserves will result in a long-term recruiting problem for the reserves–that by reducing the demand for new pilots in the active force, you reduce the number of pilots who eventually quit the active force, and therefore fewer pilots will be available to join the reserves in the 1990s. This argument turns the current situation on its head; pilots are waiting in line to join the reserves, and the active force has a mushrooming retention problem. If a reserve recruiting problem eventually emerges, we could recruit pilots directly into the reserves after they graduate from college, as is now done on a selective basis in the National Guard. But this is in the distant, unpredictable future. There is one counter-argument that will not be heard, namely that the reserves are not as effective as the active force. One of the best kept secrets in the DoD is the story of the Air Force’s reserves, particularly the Air National Guard. The reserves are a superb fighting force; they win more than their fair share of tactical competitions; they are manned by highly experienced dedicated personnel, and given a decision to mobilize, they can deploy as rapidly as the active force; and because they operate on a regimental system, reserve units have good personnel retention, they have enduring ties to local communities, and they have high unit cohesion and esprit de corps. If the shift to the reserves were combined with increased purchases of spare parts and munitions (made possible by the savings from the consolidation described above) a more combat ready, lower cost Air Force is possible. — End Oped — Of course there in nothing in the Commission’s report that even hints at these kinds of possibilities. One final point: We all know the DoD budget is poised to slow its rate of growth and possibly even decline in the short term. News reports indicate the Air Force’s force structure is poised to shrink yet again, and notwithstanding the huge increases of recent years, the AF has its worst aircraft aging problem in its entire history. These conditions also apply the force structures of the Navy and Army. Yet, as this chart shows, the Pentagon’s Operations and Maintenance Budget (the green shaded wedge) has exploded since 1997, even if one removes the effects of inflation using DoD’s cooked deflators. Moreover, that O&M budget is poised to remain high throughout the Pentagon’s peacetime planning horizon out to 2018 than at any time between 1948 and 2000. Note, this peacetime O&M projection is substantially higher than the O&M budget at the peak of the Vietnam war, yet it will be supporting force structures between 25% and 40% as large as those of the Vietnam War, and it is predicated on low peacetime operating tempos. Also bear in mind, the out year projection is much higher that that implied by the dreaded sequester. Put bluntly, the skyrocketing O&M budget means the economic chickens are coming home to roost. (I will have more to say on this in a future essay.) So, the Commission’s report appeared at a propitious time. Apparently, the Commissions’s goal was to determine what changes to the force structure and mix of active and reserve forces can help the Air Force cope with future budget constraints. This necessarily implies dealing with the monstrous O&M problem depicted above. If the Commission had done its job properly, it might have provided information to help decision makers in Congress and the Pentagon reduce future defense budgets efficiently. But if one compares the the kind of information in my 25 year old short op-ed and the official data reproduced in the Defense Death Spiral to the “new” information in the Commission’s report, at least three questions become obvious: * Is there any new information in the Commission’s report that will help decision makers reorganize the force structure of the Air Force in a way that helps to extract the Air Force from its ever more costly death spiral, especially when one considers the implications of the the projections in the chart or the budget sequester? * Or will the Commission’s obvious analytical omissions, merely work to set the stage for a horrendous readiness debacle in the near term, accompanied by the usual cries of a “hollow military,” to be followed by yet another burst of budget growth to bail out the DoD and the Military – Industrial – Congressional Complex? * Finally, can American taxpayers ever get his/her money’s worth out of government, if their government continues to waste money on blue-ribbon commissions manned by apprarachiks who produce glitzy reports that paper over real, obvious, and growing problems? To ask such questions is to answer them; and that demonstrable incompetence, dear reader, is why your Social Security and Medicare are poised to be sacrificed on the altar of the Military – Industrial – Congressional Complex in the name of fiscal prudence. Franklin “Chuck” Spinney is a former military analyst for the Pentagon and a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, published by AK Press. He be reached at chuck_spinney@mac.com |
Keep up to date with Serie A and Italy news with Goal.com's Italy page and join Goal.com USA's Facebook fan page Zac Lee Rigg writes things and stuff for Goal.com. You can follow him on Twitter @zacrigg , if you really want to I suppose. When Internazionale sold Mario Balotelli to Manchester City, Inter patron Massimo Moratti claimed the youngster was dispensable in part because of the arrival of Philippe Coutinho.Simultaneously, hordes of fans moved the cursor over to Google and typed in the Brazilian's name.What they will have found out is that Coutinho is an 18-year-old attacker, diminutive in stature, who Inter bought as a 16-year-old and loaned back to Vasco da Gama for two seasons. They would have read that he became a starter in Brazil, leading Vasco back to the top division and shining for the Brazilian U-17 side.What they won't have learned is how quickly Coutinho would adapt to Italy, though Rafael Benitez never had any doubts."He has many qualities, we're expecting him to do well straightaway," said Benítez at the press conference introducing Coutinho. "He can be the future of Inter."In that press conference, the youngster revealed himself a humble and meek alternative to the brash malcontent of Balotelli. When asked if he played like Wesley Sneijder, Coutinho almost blushed."I resemble Sneijder? If only; I would like that, and how."Benitez slowly eased Coutinho into the lineup in the early weeks, giving him substitute appearances. Against FC Twente, Coutinho played the last half hour and created two goal-scoring chances and took two shots. In the next Champions League matchup, Coutinho earned his first start, capitalizing on a shakeup from the loss to AS Roma and an injury to Diego Milito.Inter won 4-0.Coutinho has started the three matches since, in each further brushing aside his timidness. He even earned his debut for the Brazil national team against Iran earlier this month.His watershed moment came Wednesday against Tottenham Hotspur. Floating in from his left flank like usual, the Brazilian combined ball control as tight as the curls in his hair with short sharp passing (he completed 65 out of 73 feeds) to dismantle Tottenham and give Inter a 4-0 lead by halftime.Despite assisting one goal and creating another in the first half, Coutinho's slickest moments perhaps came in the second half when he moved more centrally alongside Sneijder. There he teamed up with his mentor to showcase a technically precise and eye-pleasing Inter fans won't be used to seeing.Count Sneijder among his fans as well. "With his qualities he will make it; he will make it for sure," the Dutch playmaker told UEFA.com.It's still early. Coutinho will have many more obstacles to maneuver around in his slick fashion, including when Milito returns to fitness and when opposition teams start signaling him out for particularly rough marking. But thus far Coutinho is carving out his place in Inter."I thought it would be more difficult to come into a squad that won everything last season," Coutinho admitted to UEFA.com, "but, thank God, I immediately found my place."2:30 p.m. EST, Saturday, Oct. 23Fox Soccer Channel, ESPN3.comSaturday's only match could very well be Sinisa Mihajlovic's last as Fiorentina coach. Dunga has already had to deny reports that he would take over the gig, with Viola propping up the rest of the table. Surely Fiorentina will improve on its five points from seven games once Adrian Mutu returns from suspension next week, but Mihajlovic might not have that long.Paulo Barreto, Bari. Bari has been undone by shoddy finishing this season, with Barreto and striker partner Jose Castillo especially guilty. Though Barreto has three goals, two are penalties, and he'll need to find the form of last year to keep Bari running smoothly.Draw.6:30 a.m. EST, Sunday, Oct. 24ESPN3.com, Fox Soccer PlusOne point ahead of Fiorentina in 19th place is Parma, which hasn't won since the opening day of the season. Sebastian Giovinco is fit once more, but will likely start the match from the bench. He might need to see some action to save Pasquale Marino's job.Also in trouble is Claudio Ranieri. A reversion to a bland 4-4-2 hasn't helped, with the defense over-reliant on Juan and the attack stagnant. A 1-3 hiding by FC Basel midweek means Ranieri really needs this match to hold onto some clout. He can take solace in history; Roma has won the last eight Serie A meetings with Parma, keeping six clean sheets along the way.For now, the fans are ignoring the plight of the coaches and concentrating on grumbling about the early Sunday kickoff. In protest of the early match, Parma Ultras are planning on bringing sandwiches and eating them (between yawns, we assume) as the players enter the pitch.Juan, Roma. Without the Brazilian, Roma's defense would be a mess. So often the team needs his interceptions and sturdy play to salvage matches when getting run over.Roma win.9:00 a.m. EST, Sunday, Oct. 24ESPN3.com, Fox Soccer PlusA limp draw with Red Bull Salzburg on Thursday undercut the momentum Juventus had earned after a respectable draw with Inter and a 4-0 thrashing of Lecce. Now the Old Lady has a quick turnaround to fly from Austria to the Renato Dall'Ara and try to break down a Bologna side intent on holding out.Milos Krasic, Juventus. It took the Serbian winger two minutes after entering the pitch to score the equalizer against Salzburg. Juventus really has become Krasic-dependent and will similarly rely on him to break down Bologna.Juventus win.2:30 p.m. EST, Sunday, Oct. 24Fox Soccer Channel, ESPN3.comThe last time these clubs met, Inter had two players sent off and Jose Mourinho was banned for three matches following his cross-armed gesture. Though this match will undoubtedly be less exciting, it should feature more goals than that 0-0 stalemate.Sampdoria hasn't had the smoothest of transitions this year, only winning two games thus far. One key will be how well Massimo Volta replaces the injured Stefano Lucchini in defense. He'll be up against the white-hot Samuel Eto'o.Philippe Coutinho, Inter.Inter win.2:30 p.m. EST, Monday, Oct. 25Fox Soccer Channel, ESPN3.comAfter disappointing midweek action, these two clubs will get an extra day's rest. Napoli failed to break down a woeful Liverpool side at home, and Milan once again found Jose Mourinho too much, losing 2-0 to Real Madrid.The fallout from that defeat included Massimiliano Allegri claiming that several indispensable players have lost that distinction. More mobile midfield options such as Mathieu Flamini and Kevin-Prince Boateng will likely see some time.Ronaldinho, Milan. One of the players who might now have to share time is Ronaldinho, as the Brazilian's influence has waned this year. A quick response would be a few assists on Monday.Draw. |
Story highlights White House: US and India must stand "shoulder to shoulder" Modi: "Warm" conversation with Trump (CNN) Donald Trump spoke with India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a call Tuesday, one of the few world leaders the new US President has spoken to since taking office on Friday. According to a White House statement, Trump emphasized that Washington considers India a "true friend and partner in addressing challenges around the world." The new US leader also said he was looking forward to welcoming Modi in the US later this year. Modi's a frequent visitor to the US; he's made four official visits since he assumed office in 2014. Last June marked the seventh time he had met former President Barack Obama. On the call, Trump and Modi were said to have discussed opportunities to strengthen their partnership on the economy and defense, though no details were given. Read More |
Why did the Southern Beaufort polar bear population survey stop in 2010? It’s clear that the recently-published and widely-hyped new study stopped before the population rebound from a known decline was complete. The researchers of the recently-published paper knew before starting their mark-recapture study in 2007 that the population decline had taken place. They also knew why the numbers dropped and that previous declines, caused by similar conditions, had been followed by a full recovery. Did they really think a full recovery in population numbers was possible in only three four years, when cubs born in 2007 would not yet have been old enough to reproduce? In fact, a US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) fall survey of Southern Beaufort polar bears in 2012 found numbers were higher than they had been in a decade. To recap, the new paper (Bromaghin et al. 2015 2014, in press ) took numbers from previous studies that revealed a statistically insignificant decline from 2001-2006 and formulated a new kind of model that suggested the decline had actually been more severe, between 25-50%. The only new data reported was collected between 2007 and 2010 (details here). Survival of polar bears started to improve markedly by 2007 (a year of very low summer sea ice) and the population had recovered by 2010 to ~900 (range 606-1,212). The authors looked, but found no correlation of the decline with summer sea ice conditions as predicted by the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG) earlier this year. However, the USFWS reported in their 2013/2014 Polar Bear Newsletter [pdf here, pg. 17, lower right] that their fall aerial survey results showed that in 2012 the population was “high” compared to previous years and that bears were in “average” condition. “The number of polar bears observed in 2012 was high relative to similar surveys conducted over the past decade. Body condition appeared relatively normal for this time of year with most bears reported to be in average body condition.” Why would the authors of the 2014 paper cherry-pick their end dates, when they had to have known when they submitted their paper for publication that the population size had continued to recover beyond 2010? I suggest the reason is this: according to the USGS press release (pdf here), the 2010 estimate of ~900 bears (range 606-1,212) will be included in the next Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG) Southern Beaufort Sea (SBS) assessment. And here’s why that fact is crucial: As I said in a previous post (“BBC provides a forum for desperate biologists“), a new polar bear assessment is due by June 2015 (7 months from now) and the IUCN is demanding an argument with the kind of numbers that come from mark-recapture work. Because there were some serious problems identified with the previous Southern Beaufort Sea population assessment (Regehr et al. 2006), discussed here, the PBSG needed another SBS study to use for the upcoming 2015 IUCN assessment — this one (Bromaghin et al. 2015 2014, in press ) is it. The new method of modeling population estimates developed by Bromaghin and colleagues gave a result that just happens to be what the PBSG need to ensure the bears ‘threatened’ status is upheld. Stopping the study in 2010, which added only three years of new data, made a significant contribution to this desired result — the appearance of a population in decline. The bottom line is this: the authors knew that data existed showing the population had continued to increase beyond 2010 but they failed to mention that fact in their paper, in the press release or in their interviews with the press. Another instance of withholding data. References Bromaghin, J.F., McDonald, T.L. and Amstrup, S.C. 2013. Plausible combinations: An improved method to evaluate the covariate structure of Cormack-Jolly-Seber mark-recapture models. Open Journal of Ecology 3:11-22 doi: 10.4236/oje.2013.31002 Open Access, pdf here. From the abstract: “We present a new strategy for searching the space of a candidate set of Cormack-Jolly-Seber models and explore its performance relative to existing strategies using computer simulation. The new strategy provides an improved assessment of the importance of covariates and covariate combinations used to model survival and recapture probabilities, while requiring only a modest increase in the number of models on which inference is based in comparison to existing techniques.” Bromaghin, J.F., McDonald, T.L., Stirling, I., Derocher, A.E., Richardson, E.S., Rehehr, E.V., Douglas, D.C., Durner, G.M., Atwood, T. and Amstrup, S.C. 2015 2014 in press . Polar bear population dynamics in the southern Beaufort Sea during a period of sea ice decline. Ecological Applications 25(3):634-651. http://www.esajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1890/14-1129.1 Open Access. Regehr, E.V., Amstrup, S.C., and Stirling, I. 2006. Polar bear population status in the Southern Beaufort Sea. US Geological Survey Open-File Report 2006-1337. Pdf here. Polar Bear News 2013-14. 2013. Polar bear newsletter of the US Fish & Wildlife Service, Anchorage, Alaska. Pdf here. |
In 2003, when a leaky gypsum stack at an abandoned phosphate plant threatened to kill a vast cross section of Tampa Bay's marine life, Charles Kovach came up with a solution that saved the bay. But this month, 17 years after he was hired by the state Department of Environmental Protection, Kovach was one of 58 DEP employees laid off by the agency. Kovach believes those layoffs were designed to loosen regulation of polluting industries. "I've seen the way politics has influenced that agency in the past, but never like this," Kovach said. "It's not about compliance (with the rules). It's about making things look like they're compliant." On top of the layoffs is the fact that DEP Secretary Herschel Vinyard has installed a number of new people in the agency's upper ranks whose prior experience was working as engineers or consultants for companies the DEP regulates. The DEP's deputy secretary in charge of regulatory programs previously spent a decade as an engineer who specialized in getting clients their environmental permits. Another engineer who worked for developers heads up the division of water resources. A lawyer who helped power plants get their permits is now in charge of air pollution permitting. An engineering company lobbyist became a deputy director overseeing water and sewer facilities. And the DEP's chief operating officer is a former chemical company and real estate executive from Brandon. He's not an employee, though. He's a consultant who's being paid $83 an hour — more than Vinyard makes on a per-hour basis — to advise Vinyard and his staff on ways to save money. The DEP "was never great," said Mark Bardolph, a 27-year DEP veteran — and onetime whistle-blower — who was laid off from the Tallahassee office. "But now it's all a political farce." DEP press secretary Patrick Gillespie defended the agency's staffing under Vinyard. "The department strives to employ the most qualified staff members and seeks a diverse group of individuals to lead and support our mission of protecting the environment," Gillespie said in an e-mail. The layoffs weren't aimed at politicizing the agency or placating industry, Gillespie said. Instead, he said, the DEP was ensuring that "staffing levels are reflected by workloads and supporting the mission of protecting the environment." The agency's leaders "have spent months assessing staff and structures to identify inefficiencies and improvements and how to more effectively carry out our duties," he said. As for Brandon-based consultant Randall F. "Randy" Greene, Gillespie said he was hired because he "has a background in financial consulting and transactions and specializes in strategic and financial planning for companies and their officers." However, Gillespie could provide no contracts or other paperwork documenting what Greene does or when and why he was hired. Gillespie said he only works part-time but a state website lists Greene as a full-time employee. Greene could not be reached for comment, but his Linkedin entry says he has served as the DEP's chief operating officer since September 2011. The hiring of people from the private sector to run the agency's most important divisions has been going on since Vinyard, a shipyard executive, was appointed to the office in January 2011 by Gov. Rick Scott. According to former employees, the hiring and layoffs reflect the Scott administration's pro-business attitudes. "It's a hatred of regulation in general and in particular environmental regulations," Bardolph said. "It's profit that counts." Kovach, Bardolph and the other employees who were laid off learned their fate in November, but were kept on the payroll until this month to give them time to find new employment. One was notified via e-mail while on active duty with the Coast Guard, according to the advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. "The majority of positions they were eliminating are compliance and enforcement positions," said PEER's Jerry Phillips, a former DEP attorney. "They want to essentially turn the agency over to the regulated industries." Gillespie called Phillips' allegations "baseless" and said, "Rather than allow for environmental harm to occur and fine an entity after the fact, the department has put more effort into outreach and education in order to keep businesses and other permit holders in compliance." Both Kovach and Bardolph said the layoffs appeared to target more experienced employees, regardless of their past achievements or the importance of their jobs. "They got rid of everyone with any history and knowledge," Kovach said. The people who remain, he predicted, will be so cowed they "won't be able to speak their minds." Kovach was not known to be shy about speaking up. Nine years ago, when the bankrupt Piney Point phosphate plant began leaking and threatened to spill millions of gallons of waste into the bay, it was his proposal that saved the day: load it onto barges that sprayed it across a 20,000-square-mile area in the Gulf of Mexico. When his bosses told him he was being laid off, Kovach said, "they said, 'Don't you think it's about time you look for a new career?' " When he asked what they meant, "they suggested academia." Bardolph had run into trouble for speaking out before. As a state dairy inspector, he filed a complaint in 1999 alleging the DEP had failed to protect the aquifer from animal waste. As a result, he was transferred to a section that had nothing to do with permitting. Instead, he worked with people whose wells had been contaminated to help them find a new source of water. He was assisting a dozen or so when the ax fell, he said, and he was escorted out of the office with his belongings in a box. The people deciding who was laid off "looked at an organizational chart, but they didn't even know what people did," Bardolph said. "My boss was just outraged that they got rid of me." Then, Bardolph said, they got rid of his boss, too. Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report. Craig Pittman can be reached at [email protected] |
It’s happening right now: Windows 10 has closed ranks with Windows 7 as the most widely-used system – at least in Europe and the United States with a 30 percent market share each. Those who are only now switching over to Windows 10 will find the latest test helpful in finding the best security package. Windows 10 is becoming more and more popular and attracting many new users every day. Naturally, the fact that Windows 10 was available free of charge for a relatively long time, and every new PC has Windows 10 installed as its operating system, is facilitating its market conquest. Anyone just now switching over or planning to switch to Windows 10 needs a reliable security package. But which one? Was the old solution the best under Windows 7 or 8, or do any known security packages offer outstanding performance under Windows 10? The laboratory at AV-TEST has answers to these questions! 18 security packages put to the test All the known products on the market are found in the test list. The lab evaluated the 18 solutions in March and April 2017 in the categories of protection, performance and usability. In each test category, the solutions received up to 6 points, i.e. a maximum of 18. A total of two products managed to achieve the top score in the test. Avira AntiVirus Pro and Kaspersky Internet Security. In addition to the certificate for tested safety, the products also received a TOP PRODUCT rating, as they scored more than 17.5 points. This is followed by the products from Bitdefender, Symantec and Trend Micro with exactly 17.5 points. They also receive the additional TOP PRODUCT rating. The large midfield with 16.5 and 16 points is made up of products from AVG, F-Secure, G Data, AhnLab, Avast, BullGuard, McAfee and Microworld. The remaining products from ESET, ThreatTrack, Comodo, K7 Computing and Microsoft came in at 15.5 and 15 points. 5 packages can identify all threats In the test for protection, the packages were required to withstand the real-world test, followed by the AV-TEST reference set. In the first section, the goal was to fend off 175 new, still unknown threats, some of which were only a few hours old. By contrast, in the reference set there were 12,000 old acquaintances that were already wreaking havoc up to 2 weeks prior to the beginning of the test. So the packages were expected to be familiar with these threats. In the real-world test, 6 products managed to detect all the threats without exception: AVG, Bitdefender, F-Secure, Kaspersky Lab, Symantec and Comodo. Whereas the first 5 also achieved the 100 percent mark in the test with the reference set, Comodo fell short because it overlooked a few known threats. Overall, however, there were additional products in the test with the reference set that also achieved error-free detection. In addition to the 5 products from AVG, Bitdefender, F-Secure, Kaspersky Lab and Symantec, there are also G Data, Trend Micro, Avast and ThreatTrack. Despite minor errors, ultimately 10 products scored the coveted 6 points in this test category. Does more security slow down the PC? Users continue to complain that the security solution they are using slows down the PC. To verify this, the technicians in the lab install each solution on a standard and a high-end PC. Afterwards, applications are launched, websites are visited or files are copied and the amount of time required to do so is noted. The same test PCs without a security solution deliver the reference values. Naturally, every security suite required a few percentage points of resources – but it was not to exceed that level. The best scores in this test were achieved by the suites from Avira, Bitdefender, BullGuard, Kaspersky Lab, Microworld, Symantec and Trend Micro. All the packages earned 6 points for their performance. The protection packages from F-Secure and McAfee did not require vast resources, but they did need more: 5.5 points. AVG and G Data received 5 points. All additional packages were considerably more conspicuous in everyday use in terms of performance loss: AhnLab, Avast, ThreatTrack, Comodo, Microsoft, ESET and K7 Computing received a mere 4.5 or 4 points. Is this a real alarm or only a false alarm? Users are typically shocked if a red alarm window suddenly pops up when launching a normal application or surfing a favorite website. That is why for each solution, the lab examines whether false positives occur frequently. In the test, 500 websites were visited, programs were installed and launched, and 1.2 million files were scanned. The special feature in this test: all the websites, applications and files were clean – not a threat. Thus, the packages were supposed to respond accordingly. The result is consistently good, especially in detecting the websites. All the products worked error-free in this area. When installing and launching normal applications, there were a few false positives here and there. When scanning the 1.2 million files, the error rate was a maximum of 11 files. That is somewhat annoying in an individual case, but given the volume of files, it is still a good rate. Thus all the products in this test category received between 5 and 6 points. The best results were achieved by Avira, Kaspersky Lab, McAfee, ESET and Microsoft ab. Quick, secure error-free – why wait? The test of the 18 products under Windows 10 indicates that there are some protection products that offer excellent protection, do not slow down Windows and do not upset the user. Ranking very high in this category are the products from Avira and Kaspersky Lab with 18 points each. That is the highest score achievable in the test. This is followed by the suites from Bitdefender, Symantec and Trend Micro, also with excellent scores of 17.5 points. All three lost only half a point in the area of false positives. In terms of protection and performance, they are perfect. While the packages from AVG, F-Secure, G Data, AhnLab and Avast only reached 16.5 and 16 points respectively, they have one thing in common: 6 points in the protection category, the most important phase of the test. Anyone looking for a security package for Windows 10 doesn’t have to wait any longer. The test makes it easy to choose the right protection. |
Sign us up for this reboot. Black Panther costars Lupita Nyong’o and Danai Gurira recently took their friendship to the next level by throwing a joint Coming to America-themed birthday party. The friends, who are starring in director Ryan Coogler’s upcoming Marvel film, joined forces to celebrate their respective birthdays in style — Zamunda style. In honor of the classic Eddie Murphy film about an African prince who gives up everything to move to America, Nyong’o dressed up as the Lady-in-Waiting, while the Walking Dead star was the Queen-to-Be. Many members of the Black Panther cast attended, including T’Challa himself Chadwick Boseman, Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out), and Winston Duke (Person of Interest). Singer and Hidden Figures star Janelle Monáe also made an appearance. This isn’t the first time Nyong’o, an Oscar winner for 12 Years a Slave, and Gurira have worked together. Last year, Nyong’o starred in Eclipsed, a Broadway play written by Gurira. See the birthday festivities below. |
During my adventures in the IndieMakeupAndMore subreddit I have come across many new brands to try. Of the ones I have given a shot, Notoriously Morbid has to be one of my very favorites. Notoriously Morbid operates from both an Etsy page and a Storenvy page. I personally like ordering from Etsy more, as it is what I use most and trust. The owner keeps a very active Facebook account and is always having sales (keep your eye out for fun stuff on Fridays!) so there’s always a good opportunity to snap up some NM goodies! I finally decided to try them about three weeks ago when I noticed they had a blogger pack. The blogger pack was $5 and included one full size and four sample eyeshadows. The owner was kind enough to include two extra samples (which I believe is customary, but could be wrong). She also included a business card and a handwritten thank you. I absolutely love when brands do this. It shows they care about their customers. Look how lovely the goodies are! I loved that she had included this note. Her branding really is top-notch. I love the imagery. Plus the tissue paper and ribbon made me feel like I was opening a gift! All unwrapped! Even the plastic bag the shadows came in matched her theme. Beautiful! All the colors spread out. I love the side of the sample baggies. They are different than any I have seen before, and I find them a lot easier to work with than taller baggies. I only left a suggestion for two colors (Spiteful Jas and Witch With A Wand), but I loved every color she chose to include in the blogger pack. Belle’s Bounty might just be my favorite of the bunch. It is a gorgeous yellow-gold with lots of sparkle. I’ve worn this shadow on its own with winged liner before and it packs a punch. It’s also great with greens. The formula on this was great. Bitten is a beautiful black color with multi-color sparkle. Cry Wolf Cry is a pretty taupe color. It has slightly purple tones. The multi-color shimmer is the perfect way to dress up this taupe. This was the full-size I received, and it was packed to the brim. I wore this shade to work one day and I felt like it wasn’t too boring nor too outrageous. Perfect versatile color; wonderful for everyday wear. Jupiter Rain is a brilliant teal with gold sparkles. I haven’t actually used this one yet, but I think it would make a nice liner. Kilgharrah was hard to capture. It is a lovely shade of brown with rich olive tones and green sparkles. This shade borders on duochrome. This was the first one I slapped on my eyes because it looked so complex. Really a stunning shade, especially for Fall and Winter. Lycan’s Revenge is a deep red-crimson color with gold sparkle. I don’t normally like reds, but this one I do! Spiteful Jas is an emerald green with golden sparkles. I tried to get this one to show up true-to-color in my swatch, but failed. I love this color on the lower lashline. It really is the perfect teal for people who don’t do teals. Witch With A Wand is a pretty pinky peach. The site says it is a light brown, but I really only see pink. Not complaining! This is the perfect pinky color for me. I used it in a look with Lycan’s Revenge and they paired up wonderfully. Overall I love these shades! I tested them several times on their own and used together in looks and had much success. They blend very well and go on pigmented and strong. I had no issues with lasting power–over primer they lasted at least 8 hours with mini fading/creasing. They performed even better or Glitter Glue/Pixie Epoxy. I truly enjoyed using these and look forward to coming up with new looks! I was very impressed with the presentation of the products. The branding is clear and appropriate and the quality is high. I highly recommend Notoriously Morbid! Full-size shadows are $5.50 and samples are $1.25. NM frequently has sales (every Friday!) so there’s always a chance to score a good deal. I caved and pre-ordered their Sealed Judgement collection that is coming out for Black Friday! It’s a four-piece collection of full-size shadows along with a coupon code varying from 10%-40% that can be used all year! How could I resist?! |
Hillary Clinton, former secretary of state and the best the Democratic Party has to offer to lead the country, is in a pinch. Either she’s a complete fraud and liar or so completely out of touch with reality that someone should hide the car keys from her, even though she hasn’t driven in 20 years. When asked on Tuesday if she’d tried to wipe clean her secret, unsecured email server, Clinton came across like someone who’d wiped her brain clean. Her answer, the first time it was asked, was, “My personal emails are my personal business, right? We went through a painstaking process and turned over 55,000 pages of anything we thought could be work-related. Under the law, that decision is made by the official. I was the official. I made those decisions, and as I just said over 1,200 of the emails have already been deemed not work-related. All I can tell you is in retrospect had I used a government account and I’d said: ‘You know what, let’s release everything. Let’s let everybody in America see what I did for four years,’ we would have the same arguments.” Take a moment and think about that. Forget the absurdity of her claim of transparency since her records are, or at least were supposed to be, subjected to the Federal Records Act. There’s something else in her statement which should lead to more serious questions. Focus on the “55,000 pages” part. Are we to believe Hillary sat down at her desktop printer and printed more than 55,000 pages of emails? That’s 110 reams of paper and God only knows how much ink. Unless she had a printer that was certified secure to handle classified information, she could not print those documents on her home printer. The Clinton mansion is large enough to handle an industrial-sized printer/copier, but it’s unlikely there is one there. That means the time involved would, assuming an average of 30 pages per minute on a home printer, take Hillary around 1,800 minutes to print out those pages. That’s 30 hours. If she didn’t do it straight through, that would leave those printed pages unguarded while she slept. If this were the method she chose, which is doubtful, the odds are slim that she did this printing even over the course of two days, or by herself. It’s more likely it was done over a period of a few weeks with the help of staff. Did they all have the proper clearance? If she left the room, or more likely the house, with those classified documents sitting anywhere, she violated the law. After removing the prospect of her printing that many pages at home, the other possibility is she had someone else do it – probably her lawyer, David Kendall. Kendall is a long-time Clinton ally who had thumb drives with the classified emails on them in his possession for some time. Putting aside whether it was legal for him to possess those documents, it’s highly likely his law offices have one of those high-capacity printers that could spit out 55,000 pieces of paper fairly quickly. But it’s highly unlikely that printer is certified secure by the intelligence community, which would make it illegal to print classified documents on it. Who possessed and printed Hillary’s emails is important because she knew, or should have known (it doesn’t legally matter), there was classified material in them, up to and including the U.S. government’s highest classification. So who printed them? Where were they printed? How was that mountain of papers handled and guarded during that process? Where is the printer they were printed on? These may seem like trivial matters, but there are people in jail right now for mishandling classified material who took much more care than any of the options Hillary Clinton likely used. Hillary Clinton has a lot of explaining to do, but she’s not willing or able to do it. If she allows the press anywhere near her in the next year, and that’s not a given, how these pages came to be printed and delivered are questions she should be asked. Another question, a much simpler one, is why didn’t she just hand over electronic copies of her email? She was willing to put scans of them on thumb drives … why not the original version? That would make them easily searchable and would show an electronic trail if they’d been altered from their original form and had, say, classified markings removed. Hmm… Maybe she should be asked about that too? Of course, this would require an honest media interested in asking uncomfortable questions to the leading Democrat in the race to be president. The odds of that happening are about as low as the odds of Hillary following the laws governing the handling of classified documents. |
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