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Maybe I’ve just been reading too many youtube comments, but as a game artist, you can’t quite help get the feeling that some people consider you partially responsible for the downturn in the quality of recent blockbuster titles. I was recently discussing the new GTA facial animation technology with some friends and someone made a comment along the lines of “Meh. It’s a shame people will be praising this, the gameplay will no doubt suck.” Hearing a comment like that isn’t uncommon, and nor is hearing support for it. There have been a bunch of memes with a similar attitude flying around the internet for the last few years, so I figured I should give a go at dispelling some of the main ones in the chance for some unity and piece of mind. Modern games just focus on graphics instead of gameplay This is by far the most common one to hear, and though there might be some truth in it, it’s just a gross dismissal of the issue. The statement is purposefully ambiguous – as to actually use a word other than “focus” ties people down. For these people graphics have just become a scapegoat for bad design. Most commonly by “focus”, people mean that more money is being spent on graphics than is justified. While games do have much larger budgets for artwork now – budgets across the board have increased. Programming teams, too, are larger, with a requirement for a much vaster selection of technical skills. These teams have had to deal with increasing expectations from the industry as well. The building of expansive maps and characters, which is often the standard now, isn’t just an artistic burden! Design teams are larger too, with a host of new dedicated positions for mapping, scripting, writing and many others. The idea of this paradigm shift by funding toward “having to be the best looking game” is simply a myth. Even more to the point – does anyone really believe money can simply be thrown at good game design, and if it was the case, with the kind of sums made from WOW, wouldn’t developers and publishers be doing it already? All my old favourites were just about gameplay Recently I went back and looked over some old reviews of one of my favourite games, Populous: The Beginning. I expected it to score well overall, being a fantastic game. But what I wasn’t expecting was the fact that in almost every review it scored 10/10 for graphics. Thinking about it afterwards, it didn’t seem so odd. The graphics for the time were amazing. Deformable terrain and flowing lava, as well as a beautiful world which felt alive with a host of subtle touches. Thinking about it even more I realized that almost all of my favourite games are in the same boat – Quake, Black & White, Sonic 3, Half Life, numerous others. I couldn’t even think of an example with graphics significantly worse than average. Developers have been pushing both graphical and technical bounds since the beginning of gaming. Graphics are largely unimportant in a game I think most people would agree, that almost by definition, gameplay is the most important part of a game. But pretending that graphics are unimportant is simply ridiculous. Atmosphere is one of the key parts of a game, and is deeply tied to the graphical style and quality. Immersion also is important, and while this doesn’t really relate to the number of polygons a game can draw, the consistency of the visuals are hugely important. Developments in graphics are a hugely important device in opening up doors and new opportunities for game designers. It isn’t just coincidence that the vast majority of games for early systems were very similar, and usually tile based or 2D scrolling platformers. Perhaps in the near future we’ll see another shift in game design and development, similar to what happened when 3D worlds became a legitimate mechanic. I, for one, want to be around when that happens, not lamenting over my Sega Mega Drive. I don’t care about graphics providing the gameplay is good This one is most commonly heard from the die hard fans of games such as Dwarf Fortress and the various MUDs and Roguelikes out there. There are grains of truth in this statement but most advocates seem to just be picking and choosing what they consider to be “graphics” when it suits them. Gameplay and graphics can’t be separated so easily. Interaction, the key element of games, requires graphics at some level, and if it is impossible for a person to relate to this representation of interaction, the game is bound to fail. The origin of this meme appears as an attempt to distance oneself from the typical screaming Call Of Duty kid, but just because a game doesn’t look like a generic Gears Of War clone, with bloom and HDR turned up to 11, doesn’t mean it isn’t impressive graphically or technically – often quite the contrary. A good example is the indie gem Minecraft. Perhaps suprising to some, most artists would agree Minecraft has excellent graphics – and the progammers are reasonably impressed too. The whole game is soaked in atmosphere, the style is charming and consistent. There isn’t much more you could ask for. Look on the net and you’ll find hundreds of instances of most incantations of puzzle and platformer games. It isn’t a surprise that the most popular version is usually the one with the most charming graphics ( N, Orisinal come to mind). Number of polygons might not matter to some people, but the ultimate system for how interaction is achieved, does. So whose fault is it One of the common trends I see in great games that stick in your mind, is an approach where by the essence of the game appears to be drawn out from the world. Populous, as mentioned above, is a good example of this, as well as another old favourite, Dungeon Keeper. In games such as this, the world and gameplay go together so beautifully that it isn’t even possible to quantify the gameplay mechanics without including the graphics, the atmosphere, the story and all the rest with it. It seems that many modern blockbusters have a focus on “features”. Fallout 3, for example, feels very odd to play because it is set in this wonderful rich universe, but the gameplay is still more or less completely separate and abstracted from the setting. In a similar way, you could name a number of other recent titles, that seem like basic first person shooters with a graphical setting, and a number of “features” tacked onto the side – and none of that holds together very well. Graphics and gameplay aren’t these two brothers competing for attention, and if you intend on making a truely great game, act like the responsible parent and don’t send them to their individual rooms – force them to play nicely together. |
Looking for news you can trust? Subscribe to our free newsletters. Every once in a while, this activism stuff is easy—you gear yourself up to push hard on a door, and the door turns out to be unlocked. For months we’ve been gathering people from around the country for a big protest Monday—the first mass civil disobedience action about global warming in the nation’s history. Thousands are headed to Washington, to block the streets around the coal-fired power plant owned by the US Congress that powers Capitol Hill. It’s the perfect symbol of how dirty coal is: for those who have to breathe the DC air, for those who have to live by the scalped mountains of West Virginia and Kentucky, and for those who happen to live on a rapidly heating planet. And now it’s the symbol of something else: how easy it would be to change. Late last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid released a letter to the Architect of the Capitol, which is what they call the guy who runs the physical plant. It told him to figure out how to switch the plant over to natural gas. Just like that. It wasn’t just the demonstration they feared–it was also the 12,000 young people now flooding in to Washington for Powershift ’09. (I’m writing this from the city’s convention center, surrounded by college kids busy networking, sign-making, and otherwise demonstrating what a movement looks like). Pelosi had promised to speak to the throng, and she was smart enough to figure out one thing that would be on their minds–she’ll get a well-deserved cheer when she appears. (UPDATE: Due to weather conditions in Washington, Pelosi canceled her appearance at the Monday rally.) And not just for closing down the power plant, but for energizing the anti-coal movement with a quick and sweet victory. We’ll still be out there on Monday risking arrest, but it will be partly a victory bash. And partly a reminder that when you push on doors they swing open–sometimes even before you push. It’s not usually this simple. But we’ll take it. (On Sunday, The Washington Post did report that the Architect of the Capitol has estimated that converting the power plant will cost $7.78 million and that this office did not know how quickly it could be done; congressional Republicans are asking the architect to determine if the plant could continue to burn coal but more cleanly.) Meanwhile, we’ve had an interesting weekend here in DC. The cable news channels have been focused on covering CPAC, the conservative political action conference at the Shoreham Hotel. And sure, it’s kind of fun—the retreat of the dominant political ideology for the last three decades back into its cave, with the puffy figure of Rush Limbaugh still bellowing. But it’s also the past. The future—largely uncovered, but endlessly more exciting—was just a few blocks away, in and around Washington’s convention center. It’s been an activist heaven the last three days—a collection of incredibly talented people, most of them young, busy figuring out how to make the next few decades actually work. Twelve thousand is a large number—I don’t know the last time in America that 12,000 activists gathered for anything. Much less anything as well-organized and determined as this. Panel after panel has covered everything from the efforts by 1sky.org to find a precinct captain for climate change in every corner of America to our campaign at 350.org to make October 24 the biggest single day of global protest ever. At night the big name entertainment (Santigold!) has mixed with the big name speakers: Van Jones, new EPA head Lisa Jackson, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. It is—I can testify personally—something of a trip to talk to 12,000 people at a time. Powershift was big when it started in 2007—6,000 kids gathered at the University of Maryland—but its doubling in size reflects the fact that the Obama campaign was no fluke. Young people really are ready to lead the way, which is a good thing since we have to clear so much wreckage from the last few decades. Jessy Tolkan and Billy Parish—and a crew of dozens and dozens of other young activists—have orchestrated this growing wave for years now, and managed to keep it simultaneously tough and yet open to reality. These kids are not devoted to cultural revolution—they’re busy figuring out how to use Twitter and Facebook to carry out the very real tasks of accelerating the switch in our energy system. But everyone’s pretty brave, too. Across the street from the Convention Center, in a warren of converted warehouses, people were busy preparing for Monday’s protest. Many of the young people here are facing a tough job market—and so they listened soberly as an incredibly level-headed Greenpeace lawyer explains the ins and outs of being arrested. No one knows what the police will do, so it’s hard to gauge the exact risk. But suffice it to say, in the winter of 2009 it takes courage to risk an arrest record. To keep that courage flowing, teams of artists next door were busy knocking out signs and banners—and also neckties, because the organizers have made it clear from the start that they hope protesters will turn out “dressed to impress.” Not just because they’ll seem “respectable.” But because it will remind anyone who’s looking on that the real radicals are those determined to keep pouring carbon into the atmosphere. The real radicals have been at the Shoreham cheering Rush Limbaugh. It’s odd to think of people collecting bail money and painting placards as the responsible middle, but as we move into the new post-Reagan world that’s how it works. |
BMW's self-driving concept car. BMW BMW will test its self-driving cars in Munich next year in an effort to keep up with ride-hailing firms like Uber, which have spent billions on pay-per-use personal transport. The German carmaker will have about 40 vehicles with self-driving functions in Munich's inner city and then expand the project to other cities, BMW executives said on Friday. "There is a trained test driver behind the wheel of every car," Klaus Buettner, BMW's Vice President in charge of Autonomous Driving said. Uber's rapid growth has prompted BMW to consider how autonomous vehicles may help them accelerate their own push into pay-per-use transport. Uber launched a pilot program in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in September, allowing select Uber users to hail the company's self-driving cars. A self-driving Uber. Uber Uber, along with companies like Lyft and Juno, have shaken up the traditional auto industry business model of selling cars by offering customers an alternative to vehicle ownership through smartphone-based ride-hailing services. Now traditional car companies are expanding their own ride-hailing schemes, while investing in self-driving technology. "Ride hailing is nothing more than manual autonomous driving," Tony Douglas, Head of Strategy for BMW's mobility services said. "Once you dispense with the driver you have a license to print money." BMW has already made significant progress expanding into the market for car sharing by introducing pay-by-the-minute services like ReachNow in Seattle, Douglas said. "We had 14,000 people sign up in 4 days, in a market already served by Zipcar, Uber, Lyft and Car2go," Douglas said. "Someone else spent the money to educate the market and then we came in with a cool product. We will not be the largest, but we can be the coolest," Douglas said. BMW plans to use not just its expertise making premium vehicles, but also its ability to manufacture, own and manage fleets of premium vehicles. "Uber and Lyft do not operate their own fleets of cars. Owning the fleet means you can make offers that Lyft and others are unable to provide. For example providing car sharing for a specific community only," BMW's Chief Executive Harald Krueger said. BMW also plans to release its self-driving vehicles in China in 2021. The company is also committed to releasing an all-electric car with autonomous capabilities in 2021 as part of its Project iNext. By 2025, BMW said that vehicle will be fully autonomous. BMW's announcement comes about a week after Ford said it will begin testing its self-driving vehicles in European companies in 2017, raising its current fleet of 30 self-driving vehicles to about 100. Ford also said it will release an autonomous taxi fleet for public use in at least one US city by 2021. (Editing by Alexander Smith; Reporting by Edward Taylor; Danielle Muoio contributed to this report.) |
(Last Updated On: January 22, 2019) Introduction In a relational database system, a one-to-many association between links two tables based on a Foreign Key column so that the child table record references the Primary Key of the parent table row. As straightforward as it might be in a RDBMS, when it comes to JPA, the one-to-many database association can be represented either through a @ManyToOne or a @OneToMany association since the OOP association can be either unidirectional or bidirectional. The @ManyToOne annotation allows you to map the Foreign Key column in the child entity mapping so that the child has an entity object reference to its parent entity. This is the most natural way of mapping a database one-to-many database association, and, usually, the most efficient alternative too. For convenience, to take advantage of the entity state transitions and the dirty checking mechanism, many developers choose to map the child entities as a collection in the parent object, and, for this purpose, JPA offers the @OneToMany annotation. As I explained in my book, many times, you are better off replacing collections with a query, which is much more flexible in terms of fetching performance. However, there are times when mapping a collection is the right thing to do, and then you have two choices: a unidirectional @OneToMany association association a bidirectional @OneToMany association The bidirectional association requires the child entity mapping to provide a @ManyToOne annotation, which is responsible for controlling the association. One the other hand, the unidirectional @OneToMany association is simpler since it’s just the parent-side which defines the relationship. In this article, I’m going to explain the caveats of @OneToMany associations, and how you can overcome them. There are many ways to map the @OneToMany association. We can use a List or a Set. We can also define the @JoinColumn annotation too. So, let’s see how all these work. Must read for everyone using jpa The best way to map a @OneToMany relationship with JPA and Hibernate https://t.co/qa1sSYqA9P via @vlad_mihalcea — simih (@simih1) September 20, 2018 Unidirectional @OneToMany Consider we have the following mapping: @Entity(name = "Post") @Table(name = "post") public class Post { @Id @GeneratedValue private Long id; private String title; @OneToMany( cascade = CascadeType.ALL, orphanRemoval = true ) private List<PostComment> comments = new ArrayList<>(); //Constructors, getters and setters removed for brevity } @Entity(name = "PostComment") @Table(name = "post_comment") public class PostComment { @Id @GeneratedValue private Long id; private String review; //Constructors, getters and setters removed for brevity } Now, if we persist one Post and three PostComment(s) : Post post = new Post("First post"); post.getComments().add( new PostComment("My first review") ); post.getComments().add( new PostComment("My second review") ); post.getComments().add( new PostComment("My third review") ); entityManager.persist(post); Hibernate is going to execute the following SQL statements: insert into post (title, id) values ('First post', 1) insert into post_comment (review, id) values ('My first review', 2) insert into post_comment (review, id) values ('My second review', 3) insert into post_comment (review, id) values ('My third review', 4) insert into post_post_comment (Post_id, comments_id) values (1, 2) insert into post_post_comment (Post_id, comments_id) values (1, 3) insert into post_post_comment (Post_id, comments_id) values (1, 4) What is that! Why there are so many queries executed? And what’s the deal with that post_post_comment table anyway? Well, by default, that’s how the unidirectional @OneToMany association works, and this is how it looks from a database perspective: For a DBA, this looks more like a many-to-many database association than a one-to-many relationship, and it’s not very efficient either. Instead of two tables, we now have three tables, so we are using more storage than necessary. Instead of only one Foreign Key, we now have two of them. However, since we are most likely going to index these Foreign Keys, we are going to require twice as much memory to cache the index for this association. Not nice! Unidirectional @OneToMany with @JoinColumn To fix the aforementioned extra join table issue, we just need to add the @JoinColumn in the mix: @OneToMany(cascade = CascadeType.ALL, orphanRemoval = true) @JoinColumn(name = "post_id") private List<PostComment> comments = new ArrayList<>(); The @JoinColumn annotation helps Hibernate (the most famous JPA provider) to figure out that there is a post_id Foreign Key column in the post_comment table that defines this association. With this annotation in place, when persisting the three PostComment entities, we get the following SQL output: insert into post (title, id) values ('First post', 1) insert into post_comment (review, id) values ('My first review', 2) insert into post_comment (review, id) values ('My second review', 3) insert into post_comment (review, id) values ('My third review', 4) update post_comment set post_id = 1 where id = 2 update post_comment set post_id = 1 where id = 3 update post_comment set post_id = 1 where id = 4 A little bit better, but what’s the purpose of those three update statements? If you take a look at Hibernate flush order, you’ll see that the persist action is executed before the collection elements are handled. This way, Hibernate inserts the child records first without the Foreign Key since the child entity does not store this information. During collection handling phase, the Foreign Key column is updated accordingly. The same logic applies to collection state modifications, so when removing the firsts entry from the child collection: post.getComments().remove(0); Hibernate executes two statements instead of one: update post_comment set post_id = null where post_id = 1 and id = 2 delete from post_comment where id=2 Again, the parent entity state change is executed first, which triggers the child entity update. Afterward, when the collection is processed, the orphan removal action will execute the child row delete statement. So, is a java.util.Set any different? No, it’s not. The same statements are executed if you use the @JoinColumn annotation on a unidirectional @OneToMany Set association. Bidirectional @OneToMany The best way to map a @OneToMany association is to rely on the @ManyToOne side to propagate all entity state changes: @Entity(name = "Post") @Table(name = "post") public class Post { @Id @GeneratedValue private Long id; private String title; @OneToMany( mappedBy = "post", cascade = CascadeType.ALL, orphanRemoval = true ) private List<PostComment> comments = new ArrayList<>(); //Constructors, getters and setters removed for brevity public void addComment(PostComment comment) { comments.add(comment); comment.setPost(this); } public void removeComment(PostComment comment) { comments.remove(comment); comment.setPost(null); } } @Entity(name = "PostComment") @Table(name = "post_comment") public class PostComment { @Id @GeneratedValue private Long id; private String review; @ManyToOne(fetch = FetchType.LAZY) @JoinColumn(name = "post_id") private Post post; //Constructors, getters and setters removed for brevity @Override public boolean equals(Object o) { if (this == o) return true; if (!(o instanceof PostComment )) return false; return id != null && id.equals(((PostComment) o).id); } @Override public int hashCode() { return 31; } } There are several things to note on the aforementioned mapping: The @ManyToOne association uses FetchType.LAZY because, otherwise, we’d fall back to EAGER fetching which is bad for performance. association uses because, otherwise, we’d fall back to EAGER fetching which is bad for performance. The parent entity, Post , features two utility methods (e.g. addComment and removeComment ) which are used to synchronize both sides of the bidirectional association. You should always provide these methods whenever you are working with a bidirectional association as, otherwise, you risk very subtle state propagation issues. , features two utility methods (e.g. and ) which are used to synchronize both sides of the bidirectional association. You should always provide these methods whenever you are working with a bidirectional association as, otherwise, you risk very subtle state propagation issues. The child entity, PostComment , implement the equals and hashCode methods. Since we cannot rely on a natural identifier for equality checks, we need to use the entity identifier instead. However, you need to do it properly so that equality is consistent across all entity state transitions. Because we rely on equality for the removeComment , it’s good practice to override equals and hashCode for the child entity in a bidirectional association. If we persist three PostComment(s) : Post post = new Post("First post"); post.addComment( new PostComment("My first review") ); post.addComment( new PostComment("My second review") ); post.addComment( new PostComment("My third review") ); entityManager.persist(post); Hibernate generates just one SQL statement for each persisted PostComment entity: insert into post (title, id) values ('First post', 1) insert into post_comment (post_id, review, id) values (1, 'My first review', 2) insert into post_comment (post_id, review, id) values (1, 'My second review', 3) insert into post_comment (post_id, review, id) values (1, 'My third review', 4) If we remove a PostComment : Post post = entityManager.find( Post.class, 1L ); PostComment comment1 = post.getComments().get( 0 ); post.removeComment(comment1); There’s only one delete SQL statement that gets executed: delete from post_comment where id = 2 So, the bidirectional @OneToMany association is the best way to map a one-to-many database relationship when we really need the collection on the parent side of the association. Just @ManyToOne Just because you have the option of using the @OneToMany annotation, it does not mean this should be the default option for every one-to-many database relationship. The problem with collections is that we can only use them when the number of child records is rather limited. Therefore, in reality, @OneToMany is practical only when many means few. Maybe @OneToFew would have been a more suggestive name for this annotation. As I explained in this StackOverflow answer, you cannot limit the size of a @OneToMany collection like it would be the case if you used query-level pagination. Therefore, most of the time, the @ManyToOne annotation on the child side is everything you need. But then, how do you get the child entities associated with a Post entity? Well, all you need is just a single JPQL query: List<PostComment> comments = entityManager.createQuery( "select pc " + "from PostComment pc " + "where pc.post.id = :postId", PostComment.class) .setParameter( "postId", 1L ) .getResultList(); Which translates to a straightforward SQL query: select pc.id AS id1_1_, pc.post_id AS post_id3_1_, pc.review AS review2_1_ from post_comment pc where pc.post_id = 1 Even if the collection is not managed anymore, it’s rather trivial to just add/remove child entities whenever necessary. As for updating child objects, the dirty checking mechanism works just fine even if you don’t use a managed collection. What’s nice about using a query is that you can paginate it any way you like so that, if the number of child entities grows with time, the application performance is not going to be affected. If you enjoyed this article, I bet you are going to love my Book and Video Courses as well. Conclusion As you will see in a future article, bidirectional collections are way better than unidirectional ones because they rely on the @ManyToOne association, which is always efficient in terms of generated SQL statements. But then, even if they are very convenient, you don’t always have to use collections. The @ManyToOne association is the most natural and also efficient way of mapping a one-to-many database relationship. Download free ebook sample Share this: Tweet |
The “Rapport de la Commission d’enquête sur l’octroi et la gestion des contrats publics dans l’industrie de la construction” (“Report of the commission of inquiry on the granting and managing of public contracts in the construction industry”), which casts an unblinking gaze on Quebec’s demonstrably corrupt political culture, follows a long tradition of wordy inquiry commissions brought into existence during the decade-long reign of former Quebec Premier Jean Charest. There was also the “Commissions de consultation sur les pratiques d’accommodement reliées au différences culturelles”, which parsed the place and nature of immigrants in Quebec society; and the “Commission d’enquête sur la processus de nomination des juges du Québec”, an examination of political influence in the nomination of Quebec judges. Jean Charest had a habit of calling commissions of inquiry as a way to diffuse public pressure; such things allowed the former premier to be seen as doing something, when in fact he was simply buying time. It was remarkably effective. Both the immigrant and judge nomination commission reports are gathering dust, in large part because of their milquetoast conclusions: Quebecers and immigrants should be more accepting of one another, and Quebec judges are nominated without fear or political favour, point final. Based on its conclusions alone, one can at least hope this investigation of corruption within Quebec’s construction industry will be more dust-repellent. Called into being by Charest in 2011, what became known as the Charbonneau commission—so-named after its president, Superior Court Justice France Charbonneau—examined how public contracts at the municipal and provincial level were awarded. After 300 witnesses and 3,000 documents filed over 263 days of public hearings, she and the commission found ever so much more: the corruption that had metastasized in Quebec’s construction industry, as part of organized crime’s giant money-laundering scheme, had spread to its public service, its unions, its engineering firms and, most notably, its political parties. “This inquiry confirmed that there is a real problem in Quebec, one that was more extensive and ingrained than we could have thought,” Charbonneau said today in an extraordinary preamble to the 1,741-page report. She continued. “[Testimony] revealed the existence and the workings of types of collusion orchestrated by engineering firms and construction companies in Montreal, in Laval and elsewhere in the province, as well as within [Quebec’s] ministry of transport and its municipal affairs ministry.” “[The testimony] also showed the huge problem of the accepting of gifts from suppliers to the keepers of the public purse, along with civil servants, their mandarins, and elected officials within the City of Montreal, the ministry of transport and municipal affairs. A culture of impunity developed.” “The witnesses also revealed that the mafia had infiltrated Quebec’s construction industry. Cartels formed so as to prevent other companies from bidding on public contracts. Construction company owners revealed they were victims of threats, intimidation and assaults. Certain members of organized crime attempted to take control of legitimate companies so as to launder dirty money derived from illegal activities.” “FTQ-Construction”—the province’s largest union federation of construction workers—“solicited individuals tied to the mafia and Hells Angels, who wanted to gain access to the FTQ’s finance and investment arm, its real estate arm, and the province’s union of electrical workers. These individuals had close ties with FTQ Construction’s director general, as well as its president.” The veritable brain that allowed these corruptive tendrils to thrive was Quebec’s political parties themselves. “Witnesses revealed political financing’s hidden face. They clearly demonstrated the connections between the financing of political parties and the awarding of public contracts.… As one witness mentioned, ‘the machines of political parties today have become monsters and have considerable financial demands.’ Other witnesses underlined how certain [government] ministers were obliged by their political parties to raise a certain amount of money. These practices rendered elected officials vulnerable to outside influences when it came to the awarding of public contracts. It is therefore necessary to cut these connections.” Students of Quebec’s labour history will note how, at least in the case of union violence, little has changed in the province. In 1974, in protest of a rival union on the job site, local FTQ leader Yvon Duhamel purposefully drove a bulldozer into a power installation at Quebec’s massive James Bay hydroelectric project. The ensuing public outrage spurred a wordy commission chaired by another judge, Robert Cliche, which found that, yes, a culture of “violence, sabotage, walkouts and blackmail” existed within the movement. Political financing, though, is a different beast—at least, it was supposed to be. The violence meted out by union members, as well as the unions’ tendency for timely, sizeable donations to the political party in power, helped usher in some of the strictest political financing laws in the western world. In 1977, the Parti Québécois banned donations from corporations and unions, and limited individual donations to $3,000 a year, with the names of donors inscribed in a registry. Premier René Lévesque declared an end to what he called “the old tradition of political financing.” In fact, it seems that influencing political parties through donations has proven to be as enduringly stubborn as union violence in Quebec. Actively and illegally influencing political parties is perhaps the gravest of sins outlined in the Charbonneau commission report, if only because it enabled corruption elsewhere. And municipal and provincial parties were rather ingenious in circumventing Lévesque’s laws. “The main parties solicited donations from companies wishing to bid on government contracts. These companies would consider this part of their business development strategy, and expect to see a return on their investment,” the report reads. To get around the ban on corporate donations, these companies would strongly suggest that their employees donate to the municipal and/or provincial party, and reimburse them afterwards. “By the middle of the 2000s, the main engineering firms were giving $100,000 a year to the party in power.… Witnesses also showed that companies typically financed several parties at once, out of fear of retribution should the governing party lose power. Companies also offered favours and gifts to elected officials and ministers.” The Quebec-based employees of SNC-Lavalin, one of the largest engineering firms in North America, gave a total of $2.5 million to political parties in between 1998 and 2011. Employees of Dessau, also based in Montreal, gave roughly $1.8 million. By comparison, Lino Zambito got off cheap. In 2012, the contractor testified that he’d given 40 roses and Céline Dion tickets to Liberal municipal affairs minister Nathalie Normandeau, and hosted a boffo fundraiser for her, in 2008. “Thank you 40 times,” Normandeau responded, according to a letter made public during commission hearings. (Incidentally, Normandeau publicly asked me to apologize for “Quebec bashing” after Maclean’s published a 2010 cover story on government corruption in the province.) France Charbonneau concluded her report with 60 recommendations. They are, for the most part, quite sensible: the creation of an independent public contracts authority to oversee the process across the province; prohibiting ministers from soliciting political contributions from potential contractors; and the creation of a law allowing citizens to pursue acts of fraud in the name of the state. This law, which exists in the U.S., would essentially declare the obvious: that the Quebec government, like any sizeable government, simply doesn’t have the resources to root out corruption within its own ranks. The Charbonneau report faces significant headwinds. Jean Charest is no longer in power, and though he suffered electorally from all the allegations of corruption—Charest lost his seat and the keys to power in the 2012 election—the Liberal Party he once led is back in power following Péquiste Pauline Marois’ disastrous 18 months in power. Quebecers were once outraged at the Liberal Party of Quebec, only to elect it back into power less than two years later. It’s political amnesia at its worst. If the Charbonneau commission has taught us anything, it’s that in Quebec in particular, political amnesia only perpetuates political corruption. Let’s hope there is enough fodder in the report to break the cycle once and for all. |
I’m no stranger to strict dress codes; I grew up in a small Alabama town and went to a small religious school, where girls were not allowed to wear shorts, tank tops, or anything other than a dress on Wednesdays . It seemed normal at the time and the school has long since abandoned its “girls can’t wear shorts” rule—but the point is: they recognized the archaic dress code as being unnecessary, sexist, and impractical. Unfortunately, not everyone has followed suit. Schools all over the country still sporadically make the news when they ban girls from wearing perfectly reasonable clothing to school functions. Their rationalization is always the same: it might cause boys to think “impure thoughts.” Seriously. That bums us out. Last weekend, Utah high school student Gabi Finlayson was asked during a school dance to wear a coat over her dress—for the entire duration of the dance. Why? Her dress was showing too much shoulder, according to reports. “Somehow my shoulders are sexualized,” Finlayson told KUTV News, “like it’s my responsibility to make sure the boys’ thoughts are not unclean.” Finlayson was excited about the dress she bought for the dance, and found it while on a trip to Paris. She loved it because it reminded her of the classic, elegant style of her idol, Audrey Hepburn. There’s nothing offensive about this dress—and Finlayson says there’s no way it breaks the the school’s dress code, which states, “formals, backless dresses and/or tops may not extend beyond the bottom of the shoulder blades. Girls’ dresses and tops must have a 2″ minimum strap on each shoulder. Shawls, boleros and other shrugs are acceptable if worn over the dress at all times. Cleavage covered.” Finlayson says that there were definitely people testing the dress code at the dance, and “were a lot of dresses that were very short, very tight, a lot more exposing or revealing than mine,” she told the news station. Her mom is livid with the school saying, “the message that sends to girls is really troubling and damaging and they’ve already got so many other damaging messages that are being sent to them…how have we gotten to the point that we look at shoulders as if they’re somehow pornographic? As if they are this shameful thing.” Despite the fact that we’re making progress with gender equality, many schools still maintain a shaming stance when it comes to young women and their clothing, ultimately teaching girls to be ashamed of their bodies and blaming them for other people’s reactions. It’s still happening all over. Girls are shut out from prom because of the length of their dresses, others have had to “parade” around male administrators who decide whether their dresses fit properly. At one school, a female student was punished and forced to wear a “shame shirt” for breaking the dress code. The solution here is a simple one, and no one sums it up better than Finalyson herself, saying, “maybe instead of teaching girls that they should cover themselves up, we should be teaching boys that we’re not sex objects that they can look at.” [Images via, via] |
<www.gimagclip.com> Despite this item actually being around for a while now, I didn't know about it till a site visitor tossed me an email about it. The SLMC appeared to have a straightforward design and good use of space so I decided to give it a try. 2 main versions are available with the original SLMC being a barebones version intended for mostly the competition market. The other version is the GI version which is the same thing, but with a fancy MOLLE compatible carrier for MIL/LEO users. Me being MilSpecMonkey and all, I went for the GI version. The main idea is that this lil guy can hold 4 double stacked pistol magazines or 7 single stacked magazines. The spring pushes the magazines so that a magazine is always ready in the extraction slot as long as any magazines exist. As some may call it, a magazine for magazines. So why go through all this spring loaded trouble? The big sell is having to only worry about one place to go grabbing for your magazines which can make reloads more reliable and speedy. With traditional pouches, most users do a sweeping motion to feel for the next available magazine. As a bonus perk to the design, the magazines are stacked side by side with bullets facing directly away from the body. This causes the pouch to stick out slightly further away from the body, however you can fit 4 pistol magazines in the space that 3 magazines require in traditional pouches. This savings is even greater when considering 7 single stack magazines. The main shell of the SLMC is made of kydex with a simple spring and follower inside. The whole back plate is attached with some tough hook and loop to allow size adjustment to different types of magazines. I found this shaped kydex creation method a pretty clever way of avoiding having to make some fancy plastic molds. Since it isn't a huge well known product yet, the price is decent all things considered. The instructions that are included will work for most, but I blew a lot time figuring out WTF was going on due to my SIG magazine bottoms having a lot of side lip extension. I tired at first to line up everything nice in a straight line, which was a pain in the ass,<FIG1>this however quickly resulted in shifting with any use <FIG2>. As you can see from the picture the second magazine is preventing extraction of the first so I was worried I was going to fucking die with this thing on in a real situation. Luckily after playing around with arrangements more, I found that the stair-step formation works nice and reliably <FIG3>. Not everyone is going to have this issue, for example single stack 1911 magazine generally have no side lip extensions at all. Forgive me in advance that the carrier I show is a modified version. I am having trouble finding my original one, but didn't want to delay this review. I hope to recover it and add pics. The GI part of the SLMC is simply the Cordura based carrier. This allows for mounting to gear with enough PALS space and also gives extra security to the system by adding a flap to the extraction port. To get to business the user folds open the side flap and then it will attach itself to the top of the pouch using hook and loop. Although not required, the SRB can be unlatched to open up the pouch to make reloading easier or to generally access the kydex part of the SLMC. Getting back to the mods I spoke of, the main change I made was to cut an opening in the carrier corner to give access to the extraction notch. Normally the carrier is complete and thus covers up this notch that clearly was made to make grabbing on the magazines easier. Now with my quickie mod, I feel I have the best of both worlds with the ease of the original and security options of the GI version. Do note that although it didn't take long, I did have to re-sew the edges after this mod. The pouch would start to fall apart had I didn't. I even considered taking a dremel to make a larger extraction notch, but decided to try it out as is first. I wish the back was setup in a tradition MOLLE fashion, but it is missing horizontal webbing. The way it currently exists is prone to having the snaps detach since there is no weave. My guess is this decision was made since a belt can go through this area, however a specific belt mount version is offered by Garrett Industries. On that note, the GI site currently states: "A MOLLE mounting plate with adjustable cant will be available soon! " When it comes down to actually using this pouch, the "new" grip is actually pretty close to how many users already grab their magazines. Finger indexing is still possible, the grip just starts 90 degrees rotated which actually works out well economy of motion wise to getting them bullets up in your gun. One of my main complaints is a fairly hard problem to solve due to the spring. The magazine retention is a bit tight with 4 magazines installed, yet a bit loose while only 1 is installed. Extraction is still easy enough when 4 are inside, however due to the loose spring with just one, grab failures can occur since the user can unintentionally push the magazine temporarily inside. I make sure and say temporary since it isn't stuck in there or anything, just the spring allows it to be pushed out of accessibility during a quick grab attempt. To work around this issue I make sure and grab by pushing DOWN on the extraction area to first come in contact with the magazine, then grip. When doing a traditional sweeping motion, this is when the grab failures can occur. I wanted to bring up the issue, however can't say I'd want the spring any more powerful or weak. After getting this thing adjusted how I wanted and mounted on my battle belt, I've been digging it a lot. Having a nice compact pouch to hold 4 pistol magazines at the expense of a little more depth is totally worth it to me. Also, once I trained myself to avoid issues on the last mag grab, I've found it to perform very smooth while under the stress of training scenerios. If I were to change something else, I'll see if I can add a horizontal webbing strip to the back to allow proper PALS weaving. Other than that, I think the GI SLMC is a pretty cool lessor known product. The main kydex part comes in all black, but the GI carrier is currently available in Black, OD, Coyote, ACU, MARPAT, and Multicam. Made in the USA. |
Coming Soon The Stand Off In 1969, L.A.'s newly formed SWAT team attempts to raid the Black Panther Party headquarters, resulting in an intense face-off that lasts for hours. October Faction Follow the adventures of a retired monster-hunter and his family, which includes a thrill-killer, a witch and a warlock. Based on Steve Niles's comic. The King Hal, a wayward prince, ascends the English throne upon his father’s death, and must navigate the palace snake pit, and inherited war and chaos. River's Edge High schooler Haruna befriends loner Yamada, then is drawn into the tangled relationship between him, a model and the girl who loves him unreasonably. The Dirt In this dramatization of Mötley Crüe's no-holds-barred autobiography, the band hits the monster highs and savage lows of heavy metal superstardom. Edoardo Ferrario: Temi Caldi Italian comedian Edoardo Ferrario riffs on life at 30 and unpacks the peculiarities of global travel, social media and people who like craft beer. Rudy Ray Moore When Hollywood shut him out in the 1970s, multi-talented Rudy Ray Moore created his own work, including the well-known blaxploitation film, "Dolemite." Escape from Hat A desperate rabbit rallies an unexpected band of allies to help him escape from inside a magician's hat and return to the human boy he loves. |
ES Football Newsletter Enter your email address Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid You already have an account. Please log in or register with your social account Crystal Palace could hijack Leicester City’s move for former Inter Milan midfielder, Alessandro Cannataro. The 20-year-old is currently on trial with the Foxes, having terminated his contract with the Italian giants on Monday, with one-year remaining on his contract. While Claudio Ranieri’s side remain front-runners for his signature, Standard Sport understands that Crystal Palace have expressed an interest, while Charlton Athletic and Watford are also monitoring the player. Watford, alerted through their connections in the Italian market, have asked to be kept updated on the player's situation, while Charlton’s leading scouts have been informed of his recent availability and remain in contact with Cannataro representatives. Cannataro, who has posted a series of photos to his official Instagram account over the past week suggesting he could move to England, last night confirmed that he was leaving Inter after seven years with the club. A photo posted by Alessandro Cannataro (@cannataro) on Jul 26, 2015 at 12:50pm PDT “Thanks @inter for these amazing 7 years,” he wrote. “Now ready for a new challenge!!” Cannataro, captained his country at Under-19 level, operates as a central midfielder. Meanwhile Palace, having already signed Yohan Cabaye from Paris Saint-Germain, are close to agreeing an £8 million fee for Sunderland striker Connor Wickham. |
What: Hiking Doi Chiang Dao (2225 metres), the 3rd highest mountain in Thailand – beginners/intermediate. Where: Chiang Dao, 72km North of Chiang Mai, Thailand. How to get there: By motorbike, car or taxi from Chiang Dao village (walking to the trailhead is not recommended!) Budget: 200 baht of park entrance fee + 30 baht per vehicle. Hiking Doi Chiang Dao After days of amazing and successful climbing we moved further north, leaving Crazy Horse with the feeling of having accomplished our goal for 2014. Thanks to the people from CMRCA in Chiang Mai who pointed out to us the possibility of hiking Doi Chiang Dao in the village of Chiang Dao. Hiking sounded great as our upper bodies were starting to feel sore from multiple days of climbing; plus, the idea of sleeping at the foot of a mountain without visiting the top is unbearable in our case and would have left us with itchy feet and thoughts of regret. Sleeping Arriving at the village without any reservations we thought it would be easy to find a nice, comfortable bed. Unfortunately all the recommended places were full and much more expensive than expected. But, never let yourself be fooled by those expensive expat-oriented places that appear in the guidebooks, the best view in town is at Baan Suan Bon Resort where for 600-800 baht you can rent a bungalow with breakfast included in the middle of a splendid garden surrounded by the Daen Lao Mountain Range at 5 min walking distance from the village. Eating Chiang Dao is a small village where not much happens. Foreign visitors go there mainly to visit the hot springs and cave. But, as we saw for ourselves, most tourists there were Thai people coming for hiking. There are not a lot of options for eating and things close early! We skipped the famous Chiang Dao Nest, Chiang Dao Nest 2 and Malee’s, despite their good reputation and the fact that they are cited in every single guide, preferring to eat on the street. That’s how we discovered the lady on the other side of the ditch – past the tiny bridge and the rivulet on your left. The tables are on wooden platforms and it does not look like a restaurant. As a general rule in Thailand I have often found the street food better than restaurant. We also greatly enjoyed having the spiciest pumpkin curry I have ever had, as well as good drinks, at Bamboo Mountain Coffee House. The place is owned by an American/Thai couple with whom we had fun chatting and exchanging tips about traveling like a Thai in Thailand. Yes, it is still possible to get off the beaten track in Thailand – just go as far as possible from the sea… Doi Chiang Dao At 2225 m elevation, Doi Chiang Dao is the 3rd highest peak of Thailand. The hike starts at about 1100 metres. We planned our hike based entirely on the information we found on blogs and forums. It is still not clear if you can or cannot hike the mountain by yourself or if you have to hire a porter and a guide – which are both useless in this case. We were told at the CMRCA that you don’t need a guide as long as you do the hike in one day. If you wish to sleep on the mountain, you have to hire a guide and porters and go on an organised trip. In my opinion despite the fact that it makes it a fairly big hiking day, it is unnecessary to sleep on the mountain. Step I: Entrance fee and getting to the car park First things first, this mountain is difficult to access if you don’t have a car or motorbike. We drove to the main gate of the park and paid our entrance fees and there on the morning of the hike. According to Big Little Planet Blog (one blog that was extremely useful!) a taxi will charge you 700 baht and I greatly recommend you pay that amount or rent a vehicle to go to the beginning of the track rather than walking. The road to get to the car park is extremely narrow, has lots of sharp curves and people drive fast. It looks dangerous to walk on that road! We drove by car and made sure to signal our presence with the horn at every sharp curve. It’s the most dangerous part of the hike and I almost regretted not wearing my helmet and not having a vomit bag… Step II: Start The Hike Once you have found the car park (about 7 km passed the park checkpoint), the trail will be on your left identified with some sticks. Nobody asked us to see our tickets or anything. After 3-5 min you should pass some kind of wooden gate; if you see it you are on the right track! Step III: The first 45 min We left the car park around 9am. The first 45 min were the most difficult part of the hike: steep, muddy and slippery. We did it as fast as we could, passing several porters. Even if it was the dry season the dew made the ground and vegetation quite wet. I was happy to be wearing proper hiking shoes and long pants. I would not recommend wearing sneakers and certainly not flip-flops – it’s impressive though how all the porters wear simple plastic imitation Crocs with socks. Just remember: if you can hike the first 45 minutes, the rest will be easy! Step IV: Turning left at the sign As it was mention on the Lonely Planet forum the track is clearly indicated and it is hard to get lost while going to the summit (at the sign written in Thai turn left). Hard to get lost but to add to the info I would say not impossible! At some point there was a sign with multiple indications written only in Thai (normal as we are in Thailand). On our way down we passed that sign and thinking there was only one track on the mountain continued strait – in the wrong direction – for a good 20 min until we realised we were not descending into a valley as we were supposed to be. In fact, there are 2 main tracks to hike on the mountain the other one leading to another car park. To avoid any mistake make sure you turn left at the sign on your way up and right on your way down… Step V: Continue to the campground From there, the hike was quite steady and easy going. We were surprised at the amount of people we passed and a little disappointed by the amount of rubbish on the way – toilet paper, poopoo spots here and there, and bunch of cigarette butts – come on smokers this is wrong… We did leave the car park a bit late and I regretted not leaving at 7am as planned. It was a bit more frequented than expected; this hike is definitely very popular among Thai hikers especially during the New Years holiday period! The nature was very beautiful. We spent the rest of the hike surrounded by mountain peaks with few clouds and the sound of birds. Banana trees were everywhere and bamboo trees were squeaking all along the way. After a little more than 2 hours we finally reached the campground, about 200 metres below the summit. Much closer to the top than we had expected, the campground consists of a big field at the base of the summit with lots of porters and guides. It was in fact quite busy with groups of people cooking and listening to music while others were starting to head down. Lots of porters with incredible amounts of extremely heavy stuff were coming and going, making me feel happy to be doing the hike in one day. I am a little antisocial when camping and expect to be away from all civilization… I am of a traditional style camper; in my book, ghetto blasters are strictly prohibited in the wild! If you are like me, then avoiding the “campsite” and doing a one-day trip up and down Doi Chiang Dao is definitely a better choice. Step VI: Reaching the top We reached the top in 2 hours and 48 minutes. The people at the campground were quite nice explaining in Thai with lots of gestures the way to the top – it’s not clear where to go exactly. From the campground there was about 1 km of hiking and easy scrambling and there it was! We had literally 10 min to take pictures and admire the view before being wrapped in clouds of fog, but it was totally worth it. It was much cooler at the top, about 10 degrees Celsius. We drank our little treat – a can of Singha at the top of the mountain (a kind of weird tradition in our family)… The descent was pure fun; we even ran a little to make it quicker. Doing it in a day or two ? We are both in good shape and love hiking. We were coming back from a week of rock climbing and despite being a bit sore and tired we were able to do the hike in 6 hours – we walked quite fast and got lost on the way down adding a good 45 minutes. The choice of doing it in one day or as a 2 day organised tour should depend on your level of fitness and experience. We saw all kind of people doing the hike – some seemed to enjoy their experience some looked like they were dying! In my opinion, I think it’s reasonable to say that an active person can totally do it return in 8 or 8 1/2 hours. It’s a long day of hiking. In case of doubt, 2 day trips are being organised from Chiang Mai including transport and food. Useful links www.biglittleplanet.com www.summitpost.org www.lonelyplanet.com Advertisements |
Prime Minister Stephen Harper accused his Liberal and NDP counterparts of playing politics by opposing the Canadian combat mission against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria. "I think on behalf of both Justin Trudeau and Thomas Mulcair, their positions on the military mission in Iraq and Syria, the mission against ISIS, is irresponsible electoral politics, and I think most Canadians understand that," Mr. Harper said at a news conference in Quebec City on Thursday. The Prime Minister focused his attack on Mr. Trudeau, who recently reiterated his plans to put an end to the CF-18 bombing mission against IS positions in Iraq and Syria, and called for the restoration of diplomatic relations with Iran. Story continues below advertisement "It's very strange … to say his priority is the restoration, or to become best friends, with one of the state sponsors of terrorism in the world, the government of Iran, and that he wants to cut the relationship that we have established with all of our allies and with a large international coalition to take the fight against the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria," the Conservative Leader said. Mr. Harper added IS "has executed and is planning attacks against Canada and Canadians." Canada has six CF-18s bombing Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria and two surveillance planes monitoring the battle from the air as well as one air refuelling plane. About 600 personnel are supporting this work from Kuwait. The military also has nearly 70 special forces soldiers training peshmerga fighters in their battle against Islamic State forces. "We'd move away from the CF-18 [bombing] mission," Mr. Trudeau said in an interview on CBC's Power & Politics this week. "This government has failed miserably to demonstrate why the best mission for Canada is to participate in a bombing mission." Under a Liberal government, Mr. Trudeau said a priority for the Canadian Forces would be "training up local troops doing the fighting on the ground." The fate of Canada's military mission in Iraq and Syria will be a major issue in the next election campaign, with the NDP and the Liberal Party having voted against the deployment supported by the Conservative government. Story continues below advertisement Story continues below advertisement Mr. Harper was in Quebec City to announce $7-million in federal funding for a tall ships regatta that will make stops in the Maritime provinces and Quebec during the celebrations of Canada's 150th anniversary in 2017. |
Michigan will not be the only school camping in the recruiting hotbed known as Georgia this summer. Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer and his staff will be at Lawrenceville (Ga.) Central Gwinnett on June 16, per head coach Todd Wofford. "I got a call from the Ohio State high school relations department, and they asked me if I was interested," Wofford said. "I built a relationship with Coach Meyer and the staff from when they recruited Trey Johnson. They felt our high school, with the castle in the background, would be a good avenue to be our guest at our camp." Top247 offensive tackle Tony Gray, defensive tackle Emmanuel McNeil, and 2018 quarterback Jarren Williams are among the FBS prospects at the school, which is located in one of the most talent-dense regions of the country. Gwinnett County sends over 50 prospects to FBS programs each cycle, more than most states. "With us being in Gwinnett County and all the talent we have here, it made sense," Wofford said. "I thought it would be a good opportunity for our school to have such an esteemed guests assist in our camp." A couple in-state programs will be asked to attend as well. "I am inviting Georgia State and Georgia Southern to attend as well," Wofford said. Michigan will be guests at camp at Ellenwood (Ga.) Cedar Grove on June 2. A satellite camp in Florida could be in the works for Ohio State as well. |
Seattle Mariners Have Best Medical Staff: The 2013 Martin-Monahan Award [The Martin-Monahan Award for best medical staff is presented annually by RotoWire in partnership with Bleacher Report's Will Carroll.] Maintaining the overall good health of a 40-man roster over a 162-game season is a grueling and often ignored task in Major League Baseball. Each team's medical staff is taxed throughout the year as they work to not only manage but prevent injuries from derailing a season. Despite their best efforts injuries inevitably occur but the ability to respond to these setbacks and quickly and safely return to players to the field is the benchmark of a truly successful medical team. Established in 2003, the Martin-Monahan Award was created to honor the MLB medical staff - physicians, Athletic Trainers, physical therapists, and other associated health professionals - that contributed most to their organization. A series of measurements including days lost, injury cost, and multi-year averages, all factor into determining the winner providing tangible evidence of their efficiency and productivity for their often-overlooked and underappreciated contributions. The Martin-Monahan award is named after two well-respected and outstanding Athletic Trainers that spent their career committed to improving and preserving the health of their athletes. Dick Martin, a long-time Athletic Trainer for the Twins, helped set the standard for care amongst MLB medical staffs. Gene Monahan spent 39 years taking care of the New York Yankees, serving as the Athletic Trainer for seven World Championship teams. This season, we are proud to present the award to the medical staff of the Seattle Mariners. Led by Head Athletic Trainer Rick Griffin and Medical Director Dr. E. Edward Khalfayan, the team thrived in their ability to keep their top talent on the field, particularly the pitching staff. Griffin has held the head Athletic Trainer position since 1983 and worked over 4,000 games for Seattle. He has toured Japan multiple times with the MLB All-Stars and been a spokesperson for MLB's PLAY Program. His work last season went beyond the players as he was one of the first responders to tend to Seattle manager Eric Wedge following his mild stroke in late July. Griffin and his team have found success in recent years by executing a well-designed game plan and learning from their vast amounts of experience. The Mariners made nine disabled-list moves all season, the lowest such total in all of baseball. Of these nine moves, only two involved pitchers as promising set up Stephen Pryor and veteran Josh Kinney spent extended periods of time on the DL. Pryor missed 168 games after tearing a muscle in his back and shoulder while Kinney missed 88 games with a rib injury before ultimately being designated for assignment. Starters Felix Hernandez, Hisashi Iwakuma, and Joe Saunders started a combined 96 games, a total matched or bettered by only five other three-man starting units throughout the MLB. Due to the hard work of Griffin and the medical team, the Mariners had the second-fewest days lost to injury with 566. Outfielder Franklin Gutierrez was the position player sidelined most frequently as his reoccurring hamstring problems accounted for 125 total games or 40 percent of the total games Seattle position players would miss due to injury. However the loss of Gutierrez was minimized by the surprise production from veteran Raul Ibanez and Dustin Ackley as well as Griffin's ability to keep the rest of offense on the field. The effectiveness of the Mariners medical staff also made an impact financially as the team would have the lowest injury cost in the MLB. A low injury cost is a good indicator that the top contributors not only were available to play but rebounded quickly when an injury did occur. Justin Smoak and Michael Saunders were able to overcome problematic injuries and returned shortly after becoming eligible for reinstatement from the 15-day DL. We would to like to congratulate Griffin and the entire Seattle medical staff and look forward to presenting them with 2013 Martin-Monahan Trophy at the upcoming Winter Meetings. Previous Martin-Monahan Award Winners: 2004 Tampa Bay Rays 2005: Milwaukee Brewers 2006: Chicago White Sox 2007: Cleveland Indians 2008: Pittsburgh Pirates 2009: Philadelphia Phillies. 2010: Chicago White Sox 2011: Kansas City Royals 2012: Cincinnati Reds |
BUCHAREST (Reuters) - Someone in Romania thought he’d made a fair amount of money when he sold an old typewriter for 100 euros at a flea market. He was wrong. The “typewriter” was, in fact, a German Wehrmacht Enigma I, a World War Two cipher machine, and the collector who bought it put it up for sale at the Bucharest auction house Artmark with a starting price of 9,000 euros ($10,300) (www.artmark.ro). On Tuesday, Artmark sold it to an online bidder for 45,000 euros. “The collector bought it from a flea market. He’s a cryptography professor and ... he knew very well what he was buying,” Cristian Gavrila, the collectible consignment manager at Artmark, told Reuters. Romania was an ally of Nazi Germany until 1944, when it switched sides to the allies. Historians say it may host many other cryptographic machines not yet discovered. Last month, Christie's New York Books set a world auction record of $547,500 with its sale of a "four-rotor Enigma cipher machine, 1944," to an online bidder. (here The Enigma was used to encode and decode messages sent by the various branches of the Nazi military, but the British mathematician Alan Turing and his team at Britain’s wartime codebreaking center, Bletchley Park, cracked the codes. By some estimates, their work shortened the war by two years. |
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Mark Gorton is perhaps best known for founding the peer-to-peer service LimeWire. But his real passion is transportation — specifically bicycles, and making cities friendlier to them. Gorton makes no bones about his disdain for the automobile and its impact on cities, and he's used his passion, and money, to promote more-equitable transportation policies. He founded OpenPlans, a nonprofit focused on promoting transparent government and civic engagement, and he's tried to bring an open source approach to urban planning. He also launched Streetsblog. He believes the automobile plays an unnecessarily large role in urban transportation and says it does more harm than good. He stops short of calling for the outright eradication of cars in our cities, but wants to see policies that aggressively discourage them. Many will consider his views radical, but his call to rethink the car's place in our urban landscape is moving into the mainstream. A growing number of urban planners favor the "complete streets" model of multimodal transit that embraces walking, cycling and transit alongside automobiles. The Obama administration has been promoting a similar approach through the federal Transportation, Housing and Health departments. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood essentially codified the idea when he said the needs of pedestrians and cyclists must be considered with those of motorists. Gorton's views are sure to inflame, but that's the point. He wants to start a discussion and get people thinking ... Wired.com: How did you become a bike activist? Mark Gorton: It started about 10 years ago. I just started riding my bike to work. After going through [New York's] Central Park and almost getting hit, you start to think about how roads work and you realize how screwed up they are. At some point I had the insight that our streets could function way better then they do today. Once you have a vision of a much better city and better world, it is hard to sit back and not do anything about it. A large part of what we're doing is communication, just getting the idea out that there is a better way. >'We should be rationing the ability for people to drive because it has so many negative social consequences.' Wired.com: How so? Gorton: About five years ago we started the NYC Streets Renaissance campaign. We focused on showing there are better policies out there in terms of how streets are being managed. The ideas were set around bus rapid transit, congestion pricing, and bicycling. We made great progress, and now people can see these ideas being implemented. Now we are reaching a point in New York where there is a broad public debate about how we manage our streets. Some people are pushing back on the reforms we have been making, so now I am trying to articulate why the automobile is bad transportation technology in a dense city. Wired.com: What are you advocating? Gorton: A complete change of policy in terms of our society, particularly in how a big city deals with the automobile. For the last 100 years the automobile was the favored technology, it was given dominance over the streets and preferred over light rail. New York City used to have 1,300 miles of light-rail track. It was the greatest streetcar network the world has ever known. It was completely ripped out because of this infatuation with the automobile. It killed an enormous amount of transportation capacity, making it harder to move around today than it was 50 to 70 years ago. The fundamental problem with the automobile, beyond the social aspect, is that it does not fit in a city as dense as New York. It is physically impossible for all the people to drive who want to. The ultimate constraint is the amount of road space. That is not going to change in New York City. Wired.com: How do you get a society that is inherently connected to the automobile to utilize something else? Gorton: Step 1 is educate people that the automobile is a technology that should be discouraged. We should stop subsidizing it through things like free parking and priority road space. We should be promoting mass transit. We should be creating a safe bicycle network that makes cycling a viable option. In Amsterdam, you have 40 percent of the people making their daily trips by bicycle. The bicycle can be a serious transportation tool in a city. Basically, the litmus test is this: If a policy makes it harder and more expensive to drive, chances are it's a good policy. If it makes it easier to drive it is a bad policy. Wired.com: People will argue that roads are designed for cars and more people drive than ride, so we shouldn't yield space to bicycles. Gorton: That has essentially been the policy for the last 100 years and it has worked out horribly. You can look at the places that have done the opposite of that and see if those places are happy. The places that have encouraged bicycling, which tend to be Northern European cities, are really happy with what they have and are trying to continue it. Look that the places that are the most auto-oriented, places like Atlanta and L.A. They know they have big problems. They are trying to deal with a disaster they have brought about themselves. >'It doesn’t cost a lot to have a pleasant livable world.' Wired.com: What about bike lanes? Good? Bad? Gorton: I think it goes on a street-by-street basis. When you are in a big city and you want people to ride bikes, you cannot mix them with cars. It is unsafe. If you look at the cities with the most biking, they have a completely safe and dedicated bike network. Every street is safe for biking. Every major street has separated bike paths where bikes are separated from cars. If we look at what other cities are doing around the world we can really do a lot without ever coming up with a new idea by just copying what has been successful. Wired.com: So what are the major issues to work on? Gorton: What I am trying to get people to understand is cars should be a disfavored technology. We should be consciously trying to minimize them and we should be making it harder — more expensive and more inconvenient — for people to drive. We should be rationing the ability for people to drive because it has so many negative social consequences. Most people don’t get that. Most people believe that driving is something that is protected in the Constitution and fundamental to being an American. Wired.com: What is the world you envision? Gorton: One with radically reduced automobile usage. I think you could have it done in a matter of a few years, if you just had a real dedicated effort. If there was a lot of societal consensus you could have automobile usage down by 50 percent, and with that you could make great strides in a making a city more livable. It is mostly policy changes, not a lot of expensive infrastructure. It doesn’t cost a lot to have a pleasant livable world. Top photo: Cyclist in Amsterdam. (Ovejanegra/Flickr) |
The zombie genre is full of so many classic movies we often forget that time has not stood still and that new gems are arriving almost every year. I am in my early 30’s which means I am a die-hard fan of classic zombie movies like Lucio Fulci’s ZOMBIE and George A Romero’s Dawn of the Dead and of course the greatest horror movie of all time Night of the Living Dead. As much as I love the classics there are a ton of new zombie movies that have been released over the last few years that are as equally creative and deserving of fanfare as the early classics. This list is my tribute to the best modern / new zombie movies that everyone should see. I have specifically tried to focus on newer zombie movies and a mix of styles so although you may not love every film on my list you should be able to find plenty to enjoy. So let’s get to it. The best new zombie movies worth watching, in no particular order. STALLED Stalled is a British zombie movie where the entire premise is shot in a tiny bathroom stall and although that may not sound very exciting I assure you Stalled is one of the true gems of the modern zombie genre. I recently watched Stalled on NETFLIX and despite its limited budget and resources it packs outstanding cinematography, great direction and enough classic horror homage’s to make any horror nerd grin. Directed by Christian James Stalled stars Dan Palmer and is the story of a man who is trapped in a bathroom stall during a Christmas holiday party turned zombie apocalypse. The marketing team behind stalled might have failed to build a buzz for the film but the film is still very much worth your time. Cockneys vs. Zombies Once again I defer to the Brit’s for another great zombie flick and of course it’s another zombie comedy. This go around I present Cockneys vs. Zombies a comedy directed by Matthias Hoene and written by James Moran and Lucas Roche. Cockneys vs. Zombies is about a bunch of wannabee tough guys, a few real tough guys and their grandparents who unit to survive the apocalypse. Set in the East End of London this British zombie comedy is funny, ballsy and full of heart that also offers one hell of a cast including Alan Ford. You will know Alan Ford from all kinds of British gangster films including Snatch and Lock Stock and 2 Smoking Barrels. Ahhh Zombies / Wasting Away Wasting Away is a really fantastic movie that came out of left field. I had heard very little buzz about the film and the last thing I expected was a Return of the Living Dead caliber zombie comedy. It has an outstanding original concept, great production values and is from start to finish a well-polished and hilarious zombie movie. La Horde The French do horror right and Zombie movies are not exempt from this fact. La Horde is a brutal and visceral zombie movie with a really cool concept. A group of the most vicious criminals in France go head to head with the police in a bloody war in an apartment complex only to find things take a twist when zombies attack. Two very clear and distinct enemies must team to fight off the undead while watching each other with one eye. Resident Evil Resident Evil has spawned a whole series of horrendous sequels and 3D action debacles but that does not negate the fact the original movie is a great film. I expected very little when I bought the film out of a discount bin but it has become one of my all-time favorite action-zombie movies. Dawn of the Dead George A Romero’s Dawn of the Dead is by far one of the greatest zombie movies ever made. When it was announced that Zack Snyder would remake it I was not concerned. Zack Snyder is the genius behind 300 and the thought of him doing a remake of Dawn had me excited and Zack did not disappoint. He paid homage to the original but made his own movie and did so in spectacular style. Dawn of the Dead is one of the few truly great remakes of all time. The Dead The Dead is the Gone with the Wind of zombie movies. I should clarify though it is by no means boring, doesn’t have southern accents and is not about cotton fields. The Dead is an epic zombie adventure set in Africa as a lone man tries to escape the Dead and find his way home to his family in a country he does not know, Africa. Rambbock Berlin Undead Berlin Undead is a stylized foreign zombie movie about a man caught in his ex-girlfriend’s apartment complex as he works to survive a zombie attack. It has a love angle, has plenty of intensity and its stark visual style in many ways reminds me of REC without the point of view which I am not a fan of. Berlin Undead is an unexpected treat that every fan of zombie films should watch. Dog House Women are dangerous creatures and nothing exemplifies this more than Dog House. The story is just outright hilarious with enough carnage and brutality to please even the biggest gore hounds. The concept is a group of buddies head to a small town for a night of drinking and discover everyone is missing as the result of an apocalyptic outbreak with a twist. Dog House is a movie I have seen at least 20 times and it does not stop being funny. Dead Heads Dead Heads is another zombie movie that slipped under the radar with very little fanfare. It’s the story of a man who goes on a cross country trek to find his lost love with a fun twist, he’s a zombie. This indie zombie movie is full of laughs, carnage and great story telling Dead Snow Earlier in the week we told you that Dead Snow 2 was finally going to be made and it became one of our most shared news items in a matter of hours. That in itself should tell you something about Dead Snow. This foreign zombie movie has college students, chainsaws, old school horror movie references and Zombie Nazi’s. There is nothing bad you can say about Dead Snow let’s hope the sequel is half as good. Pontypool Pontypool is an indie Canadian zombie movie that much like Dead Snow is a beautiful film wrapped in a truly unique story. Pontypool plays out like a stage play and for me is the closest thing I have seen to George Romero’s classic Night of the Living Dead. It has an outstanding cast an original story and a very small environment where it plays out in making the film both excellent and terrifying. Zombieland Zombieland has 32 rules and all 32 rules spell awesome. Zombieland may have had a relatively unknown writing team behind it but it will go down in history as one of the greatest zombie movies of all time. Zombieland 2 is coming and it will have big shoes to fill. Zombieland is the story of teen romance, loss, love and zombie’s zombie’s zombies. Shaun of the Dead With Zombieland out of the way we might as well get to Shaun of the Dead the greatest zombie comedy since Return of the Living Dead. It’s the story of two stoner slackers who wake up one day to discover the whole world has gone to hell in a hand bag. Shaun must find his girl, get his mom and get to the Winchester bar where they can hold out the apocalypse eating bar nuts and drinking wellies. A truly hilarious movie that put Nick Frost and Simon Pegg on the map. Mutants Mutants is another example of great French horror and easily matches any of the other films on this list. It’s the story of a pregnant woman and her husband who are caught out in the open during an outbreak that turns people into voracious mutants. You could make the argument much like 28 Days Later that this is not a zombie movie but given the ingredients of the movie I am arguing it is. Mutants is stark, brutal and absolutely fantastic! Fido I am a sucker for quirky comedies and FIDO is one of the best. FIDO is set in an alternate 60’s where mankind has managed to put down a zombie outbreak and turned the zombies into domesticated help. It’s a story of a Boy and his dog only the dog is a zombie and yes… it’s got lots of carnage, laughs and zombie action. FIDO is an intelligent zombie comedy that pays homage to many classic films REC REC is one of the few good point of view films to garner recognition from horror fans. I am not a fan of the found footage format or the point of view angle but REC you can’t help but love. Firefighters are dispatched to an apartment complex and things quickly spiral out of control as they find themselves quarantined and under assault by an unknown and vicious adversary. Which ones did I miss? Sound off in the comments with other awesome zombie movies that are NEW and worth watching. |
Senator Rand Paul took to the Senate floor Wednesday to deliver an extended speech designed to close debate on allowing bulk collection of phone data from millions of Americans by the National Security Agency (NSA), one of the most intrusive provisions on the USA Patriot Act. The Republican presidential candidate's campaign sent out a fundraising plea as he took the podium at 1:18 p.m. (1718 UTC). "There comes a time in the history of nations when fear and complacency allow power to accumulate and liberty and privacy to suffer," Paul said. Other senators, including Democrat Ron Wyden, joined Paul, who spoke for 10 hours and 30 minutes. In March 2013, he gave a 13-hour Senate speech to oppose President Barack Obama's drone policy, cut short, he said at the time, only by the limits of his bladder. Congress passed the USA Patriot Act - short for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism - after the September 11, 2001, attacks. Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor, exposed the data collection program as one of several revelations about US espionage two years ago. 'Any unauthorized collection' With the law expiring June 1, the US Justice Department circulated a memo that described the powers that would lapse and the actions NSA would have to take in advance to avoid legal challenges. "After May 22, 2015, the National Security Agency will need to begin taking steps to wind down the bulk telephone metadata program in anticipation of a possible sunset in order to ensure that it does not engage in any unauthorized collection or use of the metadata," the Justice Department announced. In a 338-88 vote last week, the House of Representatives approved the Freedom Act to end the bulk collection. President Barack Obama has said he would sign the measure into law if it reached his desk. Republican majority leader Mitch McConnell, who favors renewing the act as is, said the Senate will move before its recess. Among Paul's Senate rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham favor extending the program. Ted Cruz supports the version passed by the House. However, Paul argues that the watered-down reforms still allow for mass data hoovering. Other Republican candidates include former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and two challengers from the private sphere. On the Democratic side, the former first lady and secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton voted for the USA Patriot Act as a senator in 2001. Her opponent in the race for the Democratic nomination, Senator Bernie Sanders, voted against the act while serving in the House of Representatives at the time. mkg/bw (Reuters, AFP, AP) |
Slaven Bilic spent two years in charge of Besiktas Slaven Bilic dedicated West Ham's point against Liverpool to the people of Turkey after the terror attack outside Besiktas' stadium on Saturday. Bilic spent two seasons as manager of the Super Lig team before leaving them in the summer of 2015 to make the move to the Premier League with the Hammers. He had an emotional reaction after the 2-2 draw at Anfield when asked about the explosions outside the Vodafone Arena, which claimed the lives of 38 people and left more than 150 being treated in hospital. Many of the dead were reported to have been riot police who were still in the area around the stadium nearly two hours after Besiktas had beaten Bursaspor 2-1. "I would like to dedicate these points to people in Turkey because we were there for two years, me and my staff, and they are following us big time," Bilic said. "I feel for them, my prayers are for them, it's unbelievable what happened there. I was all around the world, working or on holiday, and they are maybe the best people I ever met. "So it's very sad what's happening in one of the best cities and one of the best countries...not because of the nature of the country but because of the people. "They are so friendly, so good, so warm and everything, that it's basically tearing me apart what's happening there. Big condolences for the families of the victims." |
Pin 0 Shares In this song there are quite a few breaks. But because it's not too fast, it's a great song to play around as dancers. Yardbird Shuffle Written by James A. Noble. Personnel: Woody Herman, Tommy Linehan, Walter Yoder, Frank Carlson. Woody Herman and James A. Noble I wrote a short biography about Woody Herman here. There is a lot of information about Herman on the internet: Wikipedia, allmusic, npr etc. But unfortunately, I couldn't find anything about the composer James A. Noble. If you have some informations then please let me know. By the way, there is still an active Woody Herman Orchestra on the road! Title: Yardbird Shuffle Artist: Woody Herman's Four Chips Recorded: September 10, 1941, Los Angeles Album: The Band That Plays The Blues Tempo: 138 bpm Dance: Lindy Hop Click the link to download the song from iTunes ･ Amazon ･ Amazon DE ･ Amazon UK You can find all the songs of the series also on my Spotify playlist and on 8tracks. Official hashtag of the series: #djcsotw What do you think about this song? Do you think it's too difficult for dancers? Let us know in the comment section below. Now Check Out |
Livestreaming platform Twitch is partnering with the White House to hold a competitive gaming event aimed at raising awareness about the importance of health insurance. The event, which will be held Dec. 12 from 4 pm to 8 pm ET, will encourage viewers to meet the Dec. 15 deadline for health insurance coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplace. Dozens of streamers, among them professional gamers, will take part in the historic esports and gaming marathon. “We appreciate how the White House has recognized the power and passion of our community,” Brian Petrocelli, product marketing manager at Twitch, said in a press release. “Their desire to present the competitive gaming event to promote health coverage enrollment exemplifies how they continue to have their hand on the pulse of the younger generation. We share their enthusiasm since we also see the value of health coverage and encourage everyone to explore their options.” Twitch will hold a Rocket League tournament commentated by Goldenboy, and featuring members of NRG Esports‘ Rocket League team. Justin Wong and Mike Ross will be on hand for a Street Fighter V showmatch, with the entire event hosted by Anna Prosser Robinson. Other gaming personalities set to compete are ActaBunniFooFoo, Annemunition, bijoudemi,darkness_429, Elspeth, imcoty, kungfufruitcup, LifeWithLaughs, Okaydrian, thatchickparker, and Voyboy. Esports has a high number of freelancers, both due to the newness of the industry and the relative youth of many seeking professional employment. Of course, that means complicated discussions about the need for health insurance, and of course, whether it should be provided by employers. |
For many years, the EU pursued the strategy of ‘leading by example’ in international climate negotiations. However, since the Copenhagen climate summit, frictions inside the EU and a paradigm shift have become increasingly evident, write Severin Fischer and Oliver Geden of the influential German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP). With the October 2014 compromise in the European Council on a new climate framework for 2030, the international climate negotiations have become less important to the EU and a more incremental domestic approach prevails. Fischer and Geden argue the time is ripe for a new EU climate narrative, not based anymore on top-down imperatives, but on a broad bottom-up approach that includes additional economic and security benefits of emission reductions. Since the beginning of climate negotiations, the European Union (EU) has led efforts to move mitigation policies forward worldwide. Up to the notorious 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) in Copenhagen 2009, the EU clearly pursued a strategy of ‘leading by example’. Europeans tried to come to a deal by taking unilateral decisions in advance of the negotiations, demonstrating their firm commitment to multilateral climate policy. The disappointing outcome of COP 15 was one of several reasons why the EU changed its tack. Not only were Europeans feeling the delayed political impact of the EU’s eastern enlargement on climate policymaking and the short-term effects of the economic crisis, there was also open opposition to the EU’s ‘frontrunner’ strategy from central actors within the EU. This was evident from the difficult discussions around the EU’s 2030 energy and climate strategy. The EU’s leadership role in past international climate negotiations Since the United States’ decision not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and subsequent withdrawal from a constructive role in international climate negotiations during the presidency of George W. Bush, the EU has emerged as the main actor among industrialised countries to push the process forward under the UN convention. During the 2000s, climate policy evolved as a key feature of the EU’s emerging foreign and security policy identity. The creation of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme and a framework directive for renewable energy would have been less likely without the ongoing international climate negotiations Climate policy has generally been seen as one of the few policy fields in which the EU is able to develop coherent positions and speak with a single external voice. This is also reflected in domestic policymaking processes such as the Burden Sharing Agreement for the implementation of the mitigation commitments in the context of the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period. The creation of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) and a framework directive for renewable energy would have been less likely without the ongoing international climate negotiations and their effect of reaffirming the EU’s self-perception as a pioneer in climate policy. The EU’s climate and energy strategy started officially with the March 2007 decision of the European Council to establish an “integrated energy and climate policy”. In their conclusions, the heads of state and government derived the arguments for their domestic actions mainly from the international climate negotiations and the goal of limiting global warming to no more than 2° Celsius. Their voluntary adherence to the UN-level process was also reflected in the conditional target of a 30 percent greenhouse gas reduction by 2020 compared to the base year 1990 if a legally binding UN treaty including all major emitters could be achieved. A 20 percent reduction served as the fallback option. This strategy was developed by a group of northern and western EU member states around Germany, France, the UK, and Denmark, which urged the leaders of Central and Eastern European countries to agree to the close tie this implied between the UN process and the EU’s domestic mitigation policy. The close connection between the international climate negotiations and the EU’s domestic climate policy was originally meant to create pressure for ambitious domestic policymaking. Since the Copenhagen climate summit, however, this argument has begun to erode. A talk-action gap in post-Copenhagen climate policy The 2009 climate summit in Copenhagen can be seen as a turning point in the EU’s frontrunner approach. Although the EU Commission continued its dual strategy of promoting the domestic benefits of transformation to a low-carbon economy and creating incentives for international climate negotiations, an increasing number of member state governments had become vocally sceptical of this approach. When the new Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard initiated consultations over a unilateral increase in the EU’s mitigation target to 30 percent despite Copenhagen’s failure to meet the predefined conditions, the idea was rejected not only by Central and Eastern European member states but also by some of the countries that had been hit severely by the economic crisis, such as Italy or Finland. Even the German government had no clear position on this proposal. The roadmaps were regarded as an integral part of the EU’s climate policy, but they were never endorsed in the Council of the European Union by the ministers for the Environment, Energy or Transport The decline in attention for climate policy issues after Copenhagen became most evident in the debate over the Commission’s ‘Roadmap 2050’. In October 2009, during preparations for the Copenhagen summit, EU leaders agreed in the European Council Conclusions to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 80-95 percent by 2050 – a target that was derived from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) in 2007 and was meant to be consistent with international efforts to limit the global temperature increase to 2°C. Numerous member states have since included this reduction target for 2050 in their national energy strategies. However, at the EU level, this target was set only under the condition that “[the European Council] supports an EU objective, in the context of necessary reductions according to the IPCC by developed countries as a group, to reduce emissions by 80-95% by 2050 compared to 1990 levels”. The wording suggests that the 80-95 percent target would have to be based on a joint commitment by all developed countries (Annex I parties to the UNFCCC). In addition, it would be subject to scientific review by the IPCC. In the majority of subsequent scientific assessments of EU climate policy, however, these conditionalities for the 80-95 percent target were simply ignored. As a follow up to the Copenhagen summit, the European Council asked the Commission to analyse the economic effects of implementing such a long-term mitigation target. In response, the Commission presented three ‘roadmaps’ for the period up to 2050: one on the low-carbon economy, one on the energy sector, and one on the transport sector. In these documents, the Commission implicitly formulated a concept of climate policy mainstreaming based consistently on the 80-95 percent target. Like the proposed European Council target, the roadmaps entered the sphere of macroeconomic modelling as “EU projections” and were regarded as an integral part of the EU’s climate policy. Politically, however, the roadmaps were never endorsed in the Council of the European Union by the ministers for the Environment, Energy or Transport. A Polish veto blocked the conclusions on the low-carbon roadmap and the energy roadmap, and the transport roadmap was not even put to the vote. While various directorates of the Commission were busy talking about the future EU climate policy, there was still no political action: it was a textbook example of “organized inconsistency”. The current discussion in the EU takes place against a very different international background than half a decade ago Like the 2050 roadmaps, other attempts to implement domestic climate policy measures have been delayed or stopped at the legislative level. Measures ranging from a substantial reform of the EU ETS to the indirect land-use change provisions in the biofuels sector or the provisions in the Fuel Quality Directive to stop Canadian oil sands from entering the EU all look like EU climate policies, but have never actually been implemented through formal legislative procedures. As a consequence, to many observers, little seemed to change in EU climate policy after the failure of Copenhagen. Frictions inside the EU and a paradigm shift in EU climate governance, however, became evident with the beginning of the negotiations for a new energy and climate framework until 2030. Paradigm shift in the 2030 debate The two most important factors driving current debates around the new 2030 framework for energy and climate policy in the EU are, first, the signs that Europe’s economies are slipping into long-term recession and, second, the lack of progress in international climate negotiations. When the Commission first presented its proposal for a 2030 energy and climate package, in January 2014, criticism came from two camps. Environmentally progressive actors (including NGOs and northern and western EU member state governments) said the target of 40 percent emissions reduction by 2030 (compared to 1990) was not ambitious enough. More interesting, however, was the message from the second camp: Poland and the other “Visegrad” countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia) felt that it was too early for such far-reaching decisions as long as the outcome of international climate negotiations was still unclear. Thus, just as international developments were used as an argument for more ambitious commitments by progressive northern and western member states in the 2007 debate, in the post-Copenhagen period, the changed circumstances were the most frequently cited argument for less ambitious targets. If EU climate policy really wants to be ‘science-based’, the 28 heads of state and government would have to decide on a new 2050 target now What is also important here is that the current discussion in the EU takes place against a very different international background than half a decade ago. Not only are global emissions still rising and some developing countries already producing emissions in excess of the per capita emissions of several EU member states, the traditional distinction between ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ countries has begun to dissolve. If the EU’s 2050 emissions reduction target is really supposed to be based on IPCC assessments, it would have to be revised in accordance with the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) from 2014. This would result in a new distribution of responsibilities within the EU, with Central and Eastern European member states now finding themselves in a different. slightly “weaker” country category (Economies in transition – EIT) than northern and western member states (OECD-1990). Furthermore, the crucial number of “80-95 percent emissions reductions by 2050”, which was given in AR4, is neither updated, nor referred to in AR5 – for the EU or for Annex I countries as a whole. If EU climate policy really wants to be ‘science-based’, the 28 heads of state and government would have to decide on a new 2050 target now. But since this would most likely result in a long controversy potentially undermining the EU’s image as a global climate policy leader, the EU’s 2050 climate objective continues to refer to an outdated IPCC report. The 2030 compromise After a long debate on the target architecture for the EU’s new 2030 energy and climate framework, the European Council decided in October 2014 on a 40 percent domestic emissions reduction target for 2030. This time, however, the international climate negotiations were perceived differently. This was reflected in a review clause in the Council Conclusions asking the heads of state and government to reassess the EU decision after COP21 in Paris in December 2015. Whereas the Western European countries were presenting the review to their populations as a chance to raise the EU’s climate ambitions after 2015, the Central and Eastern European countries were conveying the message that nothing had been decided conclusively and that the review after Paris could lead to a reduction in ambitions. This “constructive ambiguity” of the European Council conclusions helped to bridge the widening gap between climate policy ambitions inside the EU. Conclusions Experiences with European energy and climate policy since 2007 show that, in contrast to what environmentalists, think tanks, energy companies, policymakers, and macroeconomic modellers often assume or even call for, the EU does not consistently make decisions or pass measures that correspond to its own political programme of a low-carbon energy system transformation. The lack of rapid progress in international climate negotiations and the ongoing economic crisis have fundamentally challenged the EU’s decarbonisation agenda. With UN negotiations failing to deliver emissions reductions that are consistent with the 2° C target, the EU will be forced to shift its internal policy debate to politically achievable progress and “evidence-informed” policy rather than the so far prevailing approach of “evidence-based” policymaking. In this sense, the EU’s climate diplomacy will have to accept that the only possible form of a successful COP21 deal in Paris will be a ‘pledge and review’ system, since key players like the United States or China will not be willing to renegotiate the scope of their mitigation commitment. Most likely, the changing international landscape will also accelerate the already observable trend towards a more incremental domestic approach. As a result, EU climate policy will become a ‘normal’ policy area. With the year 2050 approaching and the gap widening between the official 80-95 percent reduction target and political realities, it is time for a new EU climate policy narrative. Such a narrative should reflect the broader shift in international climate policies from a top-down to a bottom-up approach that is more common in diplomacy and more in touch with mainstream politics, where economic co-benefits in terms of employment, air quality, and energy security are just as important as emission reductions. This would still allow the EU to argue that its climate targets are more ambitious than those of any other developed country in the UN climate negotiations. More importantly, it would underscore that the EU is continuing its climate policy leadership, albeit in a different way – no longer based on imperatives formulated by climate scientists, but relative to commitments by other industrialised countries. Editor’s Note Severin Fischer (@FischerSeverin) and Oliver Geden (@Oliver_Geden) are Senior Research Fellows at Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. SWP is the largest foreign policy think tank in Europe, funded primarily by the Federal Chancellery. This article is based on an academic paper, The Changing Role of International Negotations in the EU’s Domestic Climate Policy, published in the International Spectator: The Italian Journal of International Affairs. |
As reports swirl about Members of Congress in transition, it’s the perfect time to delve further into the mechanisms of congressional authority. How are Members assigned to committees, to chairmanships, to status as ranking members? How are leadership positions determined? Has it always been that way? This is especially true of the US Senate, where even one chairmanship changing hands can have a domino effect across many other committees. We’re watching as Waxman challenges Dingell, Cantor challenges Blunt, Lieberman faces a loss of a chairmanship, Emanuel leaves a leadership position, and any number of other congressional transitions-in-progress. Here’s a rundown of some of the most relevant CRS reports on these topics, many of which have just been added to OpenCRS.com. All embedded versions are from my issuu.com account. RS21165: House Standing Committee Chairs and Ranking Minority Members: Rules Governing Selection Procedures, December 27, 2006 (OpenCRS link) RS20881: Party Leaders in the House: Election, Duties, and Responsibilities, December 08, 2006 (OpenCRS link) RS20933: Senate Leadership Structure: Overview of Party Organization, December 07, 2006 (OpenCRS link) RS20930: House Leadership Structure: Overview of Party Organization, July 10, 2003 (OpenCRS link) RS20499: House Leadership: Whip Organization, February 12, 2002 (OpenCRS link) RS20887: Senate Leadership: Whip Organization, December 07, 2006 (OpenCRS link) RS20465: House Committee Organization and Process: A Brief Overview, April 21, 2008 (OpenCRS link) RL30743: Committee Assignment Process in the U.S. Senate: Democratic and Republican Party Procedures, November 3, 2006 (OpenCRS link) 98-610 GOV: House Subcommittees: Assignment Process, May 11, 2007 (OpenCRS link) 98-367 GOV: House Committees: Assignment Process, February 25, 2008 98-183 GOV: Senate Committees: Categories and Rules for Committee Assignments, October 26, 2006 (OpenCRS link) 98-151 GOV: House Committees: Categories and Rules for Committee Assignments, March 20, 2008 (OpenCRS link) |
Thankfully, the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Conor McGregor international press tour is over. This four-day event started out entertaining and wound up being just plain embarrassing and unfortunate, and both men are to blame. With each city, the comments and language grew more immature and tired. If you missed the final leg of the tour in London, consider yourself fortunate. If you're just masochistic and/or curious, here's a look at the entire event: Here are the biggest takeaways from a disastrous experiment that should never be duplicated. Our CBS Sports video team kept an unofficial scorecard for profanity use over the 4-day tour: McGregor 90, Mayweather 61 So there's that. — Brian Campbell (@BCampbellCBS) July 14, 2017 London's Setup Was the Best of All If you're ever watched a major boxing match in the United Kingdom, you shouldn't be surprised that the folks in London had the best ramp, introductions, stage and overall presentation. Things looked stellar, but it's too bad the fighters were mostly tapped of entertaining material. The Staredown, Part 4 The two men had their fourth set of staredowns in as many days. McGregor has been getting more physical with each day and his disposition was its most adversarial on Friday. Still, there was nothing of major note in this aspect of the event. I guess after three days there wasn't much else to say to one another in close quarters. Predictably, the London Crowd is Eating out of Conor's Hand To no one's surprise, the London crowd was on McGregor's side. They cheered loudly as McGregor told his rags-to-riches story and booed Mayweather unrelentingly. This had a lot to do with McGregor's comfort level during his speech. Conor's Best Lines In what lasted about 10 minutes, McGregor called Mayweather stupid for wearing high heel shoes on Thursday. He was implying Mayweather was trying to look taller. Conor also antagonized Mayweather's security team by calling them juiceheads. McGregor went in on Showtime Sports president Stephen Espinoza for the third day in a row. This time, Espinoza looked legitimately irritated by McGregor's gesture. McGregor criticized Mayweather Promotions president Leonard Ellerbee for his attire and took a seat with the crowd even more on his side than they were when he began. Conor Touches Floyd's Head As he walked around the ring/stage, McGregor rubbed Floyd's bald head and insulted him. Mayweather laughed and kept playing with his phone, but this was the first time either man has touched the other–aside from incidental contact–during the four-day tour. Conor rubbed Floyd's head during the final leg of the tour and somehow chaos didn't break out. So how did Floyd react? #FIGHTINGWORDS pic.twitter.com/IpY8u1QMWY — FOX Sports: UFC (@UFCONFOX) July 14, 2017 Floyd is Fresh Out of Material When it was Mayweather's turn on the mic, it didn't take long to discover he was struggling to find new material. This is example No. 1,009,383 that this tour went on far too long. Mayweather made a couple of solid trash talk comments. Perhaps the best was his references to McGregor tapping out three times in his MMA career. Mayweather augmented his commentary with a song being played through the arena's sound system highlighting the word "tap out." If only that were the most memorable thing Floyd said during the London event. Floyd's Gay Slur Most of the international press tour has been inflammatory and inappropriate. For the most part, McGregor has been more guilty than Mayweather. On Friday, Mayweather was the one making the most insulting and hate-filled remark. During one of his profanity-laced tirades, Mayweather called McGregor a fa###t. If I'm being honest, I can't say I'm surprised Mayweather made the comment, it's not the first time he's made an inappropriate remark about an opponent, but I am shocked he was reckless enough to say something like that publicly. That didn't take long ... Floyd Mayweather Drops Gay Slur on Conor McGregor, 'You F****t!' https://t.co/G3ozenkMkC — Boxing Insider.com (@BoxingInsider) July 14, 2017 Every time you start to believe Mayweather is turning the corner, maturing and understanding how to be respectful towards people, he does something that obliterates the concept. It was yet another sad display in a series of disappointing rhetoric. McGregor Wins the Day, But Everyone is Tired of This Stuff Thanks to Mayweather's slur, the pro-McGregor crowd and Money's lack of fresh material, this was easily a McGregor win. That said, I've never been so glad to see a press event end than I was when Mayweather, McGregor and their entourages left the area on Friday. I can only hope no one ever tries to duplicate this tour concept ever again. Former world champion and Ireland native Carl Frampton dropped this gem on us shortly after the event ended, and he's probably right to some degree. You all know that after this fight, Mayweather and McGregor will be friends for the rest of their days, right? I love it! — Carl Frampton MBE (@RealCFrampton) July 14, 2017 The Fight Should Be Held in London Don't blame the fans or the folks in charge of setting up the arena for the event. They did a solid job, and that's why I believe this fight would be even more of a spectacle if it were held in the UK. They are the kings of pageantry before pugilism, and the grandiose style would be a perfect fit for this novelty fight. What's Left for Showtime All-Access After four days of talk, one has to wonder, does the public still have an appetite to see these two men do anything else but fight? We'll find out soon as Showtime All-Access begins on July 28 on Showtime. |
The following account of the sighting of alien beings came to me directly by eyewitness testimony. The lady who related her story swears that the facts of the case are genuine. She appeared to me to be an honest, upstanding individual with nothing to gain by spinning such a fantastic tale that follows. Although it cannot be proven at this point, this is more than likely a case of Alien Abduction. The case began on November 10, 2005, at about 3:00 AM. Our eye witness Maria and her daughter, heard an unusual humming sound, like that of a hurricane. Maria and her family lived in Aguada, Puerto Rico at the time of the incident. This strange sound hurt their ears, and they looked out of their window to find the source. Maria and daughter both clearly saw a disc-shaped UFO moving toward the west, and the rear of their house. Behind their house was a large forest, only marred by a large antenna. Beyond the forest lay the Atlantic Ocean. They were able to see a row of windows around the disc. It also had a green hue around it. The windows were of a dark green color. For a time, the mother and daughter would hear the same sound a couple of times a week. It was their custom to stay up late together watching Spanish soap operas. On April 28, 2006, the sound was again present near their home. Their dog, Dora, was incessantly barking in the backyard. Maria flipped on the back lights, and looked through her dining room window. She saw her dog laying on her back, with all fours straight up. She appeared to be either dead or unconscious. The family kept the dog chained to a pole at the rear of the backyard. She called to her dog, "Dora, Dora, what's wrong Dora?" As she lifted her eyes to the back fence, she was startled to see two creatures, which she took to be alien beings. They were standing just behind the back fence, and looking straight at her. One of the beings was only a few steps from the dog, with the second being close by. She describes the beings as about three and a half feet tall, with large oval heads, and big, slanted eyes. Their skin was a pale gray color, with only slits for mouths, and two small holes for nostrils. They also appeared to be naked, with very slim arms. Because of a cinder block wall a foot and a half tall at the bottom of the fence, she could not see the beings' legs. The aliens were staring at her. She stared back. She could sense being talked to, not by speech, but mentally. She felt they heard her when she thought to herself, "I'm going to wake up my husband, Nelson." She then left the window, and walked toward her husband's bedroom, but something strange happened on the way. She was compelled to go, not to her husband's room, but her daughter's. After waking her daughter, they both returned to the window. The aliens were still there. The staring match continued. The seventeen-year-old daughter was scared, and went back to bed. Her mother followed her to her room, and spent about 10 minutes with her. She then returned to the window once again. The beings were still there. Then, one of them told her mentally to open the back door. In her mind she refused to obey the beings order. He was more emphatic with her now, as he said, "You're going to open the door." She then began to move toward the back door, feeling very drowsy. This was the last thing Maria recalled. The next thing she knew, she was waking up the next morning in her own bed. She immediately went to her daughter, and asked her if she remembered the beings the night before. Her daughter corroborated her mother's account of what had happened. Maria than told their story to her husband, who slept in a separate room which faced the back yard. He did recall the dog barking the night before, but thought nothing of it. The witness advised me again that beyond the family's back yard fence was the large rainforest, which leads to the ocean. She says that this area is pitch black at night. Any activity behind the fence could hardly be seen from the back door of the house. If a craft had landed there, it could easily stay hidden from view. Her husband, after hearing the strange story, went into the back yard to check things out. The first thing he noticed was that the back door was open. He was also struck by the odd behavior of the dog. He seemed listless, and would not eat or drink anything. She would only lay around as if she was sick. This continued for several days, before the pet eventually returned to normal. Although this would mark the end of the alien sightings, it would not be the end of strange happenings at their home. On Monday, May 1, 2006, at about 1:00 AM, Maria was sitting in her living room, talking on the telephone. She was surprised to see a bright, glowing light moving through the woods in their back yard. This time, she immediately told her husband. They closed all the windows in the house to block out the light. The mother of the house was almost hysterical, and sobbing. She feared a return visit of the alien beings. Her husband was able to calm her down. Then, about an hour later, the same hurricane-like sound was heard. It sounded as if it was coming from over the house. There was a loud bang as if something had landed on their roof! The family discussed calling the police, but decided against it for fear of being laughed at. The only consolation to our witness was the fact that her daughter had also seen the beings in their back yard. Without her backing her story, she felt like she was losing her mind. She still cannot be certain that she was abducted, although she did have a dotted, circular mark on her left hand. She has not a clue as to how it got there. After a time, the mark went away, and things began to return to normal. As normal as they can be. The family had moved to their home in Puerto Rico from New York City, where the husband was an Assistant Deputy Warden for the Department of Corrections for twenty years. He worked at Riker's Island jail complex. He was known as a "no nonsense" type of man. |
Writing in The Guardian, Charlie Skelton has produced a remarkable piece of journalism aimed at unearthing the connections among the Syrian opposition and their friends in high places in the West ( “The Syrian opposition: who’s doing the talking?“). The take home message is that there are two groups of non-Syrians who are promoting regime change: globalists and neocons—two powerful forces indeed. One can certainly understand that there would be disaffected Syrians—there are dissidents in every regime, and especially so in a society riven with religious and ethnic divisions with a government dominated by an ethnic and religious minority, the Alawites. But the ever greater success of the insurgency seems unlikely without powerful allies in the West. Among the globalists, there is Bassma Kodmani of the Syrian National Council and her ties to the Bilderberg group and the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), and in particular, the CFR’s US/Middle East Project headed by Brent Scowcroft. Skelton also notes that Zbigniew Brzezinski and Peter Sutherland are on the board of the US/MEP. Sutherland is chairman of Goldman Sachs International and is a major player in the Bilderberg group. He is particularly loathsome character who, as “UN special representative on migration,” has been a strong advocate for the dissolution of all traces of European national identity based on a common peoplehood and a common culture (“EU should ‘undermine national homogeneity’ says UN migration chief.“) Sutherland cynically argues that the EU must have high levels of migration in order to care for an aging population, in the belief that that might be appealing to native Europeans. But it’s clear that he sees multiculturalism and the dissolution of European cultural and ethnic identities as intrinsically positive goals. As indicated in the article, these goals are to be pursued even if the migrants take jobs from natives. Scowcroft’s US/MEP is quite critical of Israel. For example, it now features an article, “Israel in peril,” discussing Israel’s “irrational” and “suicidal” policies in creating “Bantustans” on the West Bank. This puts them at odds with the neocons. Indeed, Bill Kristol recently boasted about how a major accomplishment of the neocons was to get people like Scowcroft and other “old-fashioned Arabists” out of the Republican Party. Centered mainly on pro-Israel advocacy, the neocons mentioned by Skelton are an influential contingent in the opposition to the Syrian government. The most obvious motivation is that Syria is allied with Iran, Israel’s arch-enemy. (Dennis Ross, a longtime pro-Israel activist [he was head of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy], should be included in this category.) Prominent neocons mentioned by Skelton include Michael Weiss (“the director of communications and public relations at the Henry Jackson Society, an ultra-ultra-hawkish foreign policy thinktank.” Henry Jackson is a sainted figure in neocon lore (see here, p. 27ff), hiring figures such as Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz as foreign policy aides well before they became synonymous with promoting eternal war on behalf of Israel. Other luminaries of the Henry Jackson Society mentioned in the article are a Who’s Who of neocons: Perle, Bill Kristol, Joshua Muravchik, and Robert Kagan. In a manner quite analogous to the role of Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and Abram Schulsky in creating the WMD myth in the lead up to the war in Iraq (see previous link, p. 48ff), Weiss’s function seems to be to produce atrocity propaganda for the media. For example, On 1 January, Nick Cohen wrote in the Observer [in an op-ed titled, “The west has a duty to intervene in Syria; Those who continue to appease President Bashar al-Assad also have blood on their hands”: “To grasp the scale of the barbarism, listen to Hamza Fakher, a pro-democracy activist, who is one of the most reliable sources on the crimes the regime’s news blackout hides.” He goes on to recount Fakher’s horrific tales of torture and mass murder. Fakher tells Cohen of a new hot-plate torture technique that he’s heard about: “imagine all the melting flesh reaching the bone before the detainee falls on the plate”. The following day, Shamik Das, writing on “evidence-based” progressive blog Left Foot Forward, quotes the same source: “Hamza Fakher, a pro-democracy activist, describes the sickening reality …” – and the account of atrocities given to Cohen is repeated. It turns out the Fakher is deeply enmeshed in the Henry Jackson Society. Given support from both the US/MEP and the neocons, it’s not surprising that the US government is deeply involved in supporting the Syrian opposition. For example, Skelton notes that the US State Department has funded the Democracy Council which supports opposition propaganda programs and exile groups. It is not at all surprising that there are credible reports (see also here and Skelton’s article) that the CIA is involved in providing military aid for the rebels. |
SCP-3877 SCP-3877 Object Class: Euclid Special Containment Procedures: The 50 km2 island located at ██°██'██.█″N █°██'██.█″E in the Pacific Ocean is to be stricken from all governmental and personal accounts. The location is to be actively shielded from remote observation so as to prevent inquiry or information breach. Any remote observation device such as drones which may pose a possible threat to the continued secrecy of the island must be promptly destroyed or redirected. Manned aircraft or seafaring vessels must be flagged down and questioned about their knowledge regarding the location. If it is determined the person or persons has no prior knowledge regarding the island, they are to be amnesticized and released. In the event a detained human has prior knowledge regarding the island, please refer to Document 3877-004 for proper interrogation techniques. The approx. 11 km2 section of the island which constitutes SCP-3877 is to be kept under guard from a distance of at least 500 meters. Guard is to be advised that if they are in a position in which they are capable of establishing line of sight with an instance of SCP-3877-1, they are at risk and they should be watchful for instances of SCP-3877-2. Any personnel planning to venture into SCP-3877 for any reason should carry with them equipment and body armor capable of overpowering a member of the species Ursus arctos in the event they are attacked by an instance of SCP-3877-2, as well as adequate radiation shielding from the remains of trampled grass instances of SCP-3877-3. Members of the indigenous population of the island are permitted entry to SCP-3877 for religious reasons. Any captive instances of SCP-3877-2 are to be transported to Biological Containment Site-66 in a simulated forested environment, and fed a diet typical of the species Ursus arctos on a regular basis. Caretakers are to be advised that given their anomalously efficient metabolism, SCP-3877-2 is capable of functioning on a significantly smaller amount of food than a non-anomalous member of their species of equivalent proportions. Description: SCP-3877 is the collective designation given to the entities which inhabit the 11 square kilometers of land on an island in the Pacific at the coordinates listed above. SCP-3877-1 are an estimated collection of ████ double sided freestanding mirrors of variable height and width. They are functionally identical to non-anomalous mirrors in most applications. Upon reflecting another instance of SCP-3877-1, the instances will display each other as a member of the kingdom Plantae, despite no physical change. A full list of observed species can be found in Document 3877-16, although the most prominently observed group, consisting of approximately 87% of all sightings, is the genus Quercus. Given the high density of SCP-3877-1, looking into an instance gives the illusion of the area consisting of SCP-3877 as a densely populated forest. Instances of SCP-3877-1 removed from the immediate area demonstrate no additional anomalous properties. SCP-3877-2 are a presumed biological species which populate the reflected surface within SCP-3877-1. The species is virtually indistinguishable from members of the species Ursus arctos, as the only observed difference has been SCP-3877-2's ability to subsist on a comparatively smaller amount of food. (Despite apparent vocalizations, no sound has been detected in accordance.) SCP-3877-2 only exists on one side of one instance of SCP-3877-1 at any given time. However, SCP-3877-2 may travel to another instance of SCP-3877-1 by concealing their complete mass behind the corresponding image of the plant displayed. Although not observed often, SCP-3877 is also able to travel to the reverse side of SCP-3877-1 by walking beyond the visible boundary. SCP-3877-2 demonstrates significant knowledge of this phenomenon and is able to utilize this knowledge tactically. SCP-3877-2 is capable of interacting with any object reflected onto the surface of SCP-3877-1. As SCP-3877-2 displays the general behavior and instinct of the species Ursus arctos, it will act somewhat aggressively to defend what it considers its territory and will actively hunt prey. A lack of availability of edible plant life has caused the population to become uncharacteristically aggressive and carnivorous. Due to the local populace's religion, human meat has become a significant part of SCP-3877-2's diet. Any material which is interacted with on the surface of SCP-3877-1 by SCP-3877-2 is to be considered an instance of SCP-3877-3. Any organism which is incapable of fending off SCP-3877-2 and reverting to normal reflection is also to be considered an instance of SCP-3877-3. SCP-3877-3 instances will no longer display a reflection on any surface, save the instance of SCP-3877-1 on which they were eaten, killed or otherwise moved by SCP-3877-2. Further research has revealed SCP-3877-3 instances are perceived telepathically as opposed to visually by observers, and light is no longer able to reflect off of the object or organism. Over the course of a 360 hour period, the telepathic effect will decrease in effectiveness and the instance of SCP-3877-3 will become gradually more blurred and transparent in observation. At the end of the 360 hour period, the subject will become impossible to perceive visually, and their material composition will rapidly (>1 second) degrade into alpha and beta particles and gamma radiation. Human subjects have reported a sharp vision throughout the process, suggesting the telepathic perception originates from the instance itself. Many experiments have been conducted on the entities of SCP-3877, some of which are listed below. Experiment Log 3877-001 Description: Shattering an instance of SCP-3877-1 (Oak tree) with a sledgehammer Result: Upon impact, SCP-3877-1 ceased to appear as an oak tree on all other instances of SCP-3877-01, simply reflecting as a shattered mirror. Remains have been determined to be non-anomalous. Experiment Log 3877-002 Description: Introduction of foreign mirror into SCP-3877 measuring 66 x 100 cm Result: Mirror reflected as large tubular bear cage trap. All repeated attempts with many different mirrors have yielded similar results. Upon SCP-3877-2 entering and activating trap, foreign mirror displayed top down view of the closed bear cage with SCP-3877-2 inside. Experiment Log 3877-005 Description: Shattering foreign mirror containing SCP-3877-2 with sledgehammer. Result: Upon impact, foreign mirror ceased display of tubular bear trap, and reflected cage displayed on SCP-3877-1 opened. SCP-3877-2 exited cage hurriedly and escaped. Experiment Log 3877-015 Description: Attempt to establish captive population of SCP-3877 utilizing transplanted instances of SCP-3877-1 and caged instances of SCP-3877-2 Result: Attempt successful. Successful captive population of ~39 instances of SCP-3877-2 established at Biological Containment Site-66. An unrelated and non-anomalous indigenous human population has been discovered inhabiting the island. Their hierarchy and tools are tribal in nature, and they have been dubbed the "Ursapiens" given their proximity and relationship with SCP-3877. Through the efforts of Foundation translators, contact and positive relationships with these natives has been established. Their tribal rites surrounding death are closely related to SCP-3877, suggesting SCP-3877 may precede the invention of the mirror. The population refers to SCP-3877 as the "Green Sea". An interview was conducted with a chief of the tribe regarding the tribe's relationship with SCP-3877. |
The Monnaie de Paris has released gold, silver, and base metal coins under this year’s Europa European Silver Coin Program. Under the program, member countries of the European Union cooperate to issue coins celebrating common aspects of European identity with a different theme selected each year. The theme for this year is 70 Years of Peace in Europe. The reverse design of the coin features a stylized image of a dove carrying a branch as a symbol of peace, tracing back to the story of Noah’s ark. In this depiction, the leaves on the branch of have been replaced by twelve stars, representing the twelve stars on the European Union flag. Above the dove are the two-letter symbols for the countries of Europe. The denomination appears at the base and the Europa silver star privy mark is incorporated. The obverse of the coin features a depiction of the goddess Europa with stars in her hair and her face next to flagstaffs representing the different countries in the European Union. There are twelve Euro symbols surrounding the image to represent the twelve stars in the European Union flag. Inscriptions include “Europa” and the “2015” date. The silver proof version of the coin is struck in 90% purity and has a weight of 22.20 grams and diameter of 37 mm. The mintage is limited to 10,000 pieces. Also available are 99.9% pure gold proof versions across three sizes. A 1/25 oz version has a mintage of 5,000 pieces, a 1/4 oz version has a mintage of 1,000 pieces, and a 1 oz version has a mintage of 500. The reverse design is also incorporated into 2 Euro base metal coins available in BU or Proof versions. |
Two children, including a six-year-old, spent five years of their life imprisoned in a foul-smelling room in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. Their mother barricaded them inside so she wouldn’t be disturbed. The mother, explaining the imprisonment, said she did not want to be bothered by her children, identified as Diana and Pavel. “The kids’ condition was just awful. They could neither walk nor talk. The boy, who is six, could not differentiate colors. Their personalities have totally degraded,” Nina Ivanova, an assistant to chief prosecutor of the region, told Life News. Irina, the children’s mother, took several planks and nailed shut the door to their room five years ago. She then hung a coarse cloth over the window. She wanted to get her life back, she told prosecutors. She would go to the Diana and Pavel’s room once a day to give them some food, writes Life News. The children’s grandmother used to shove nutrition through a small hole in the window to save them from starvation. “I saw the children were starving, though there was no financial reason for that: The parents are quite well off. I have offered feeding them myself, but Irina would not even let me come close to them,” said Irina’s mother. Despairing over her grandchildren’s living conditions, she called social workers. Upon breaking into the room, the social workers and police were paralyzed by the stench. The room was nearly empty, apart from a pile of mattresses where the children slept. “When we lifted a mattress, worms and maggots were swarming underneath it,” the tearful grandmother said. In addition to the development lag the children suffered, Pavel’s central nervous system was damaged and Diana suffers from acute gastritis. Prosecutors say both Irina, 24, and her husband are alcoholics who fight and argue frequently. Pavel and Diana have been turned over to their grandmother, but their condition requires constant medical attention. Prosecutors are currently collecting evidence against Irina, and plan to sue for removal of custody rights. |
Oakland residents freak out over news of new Uber headquarters Scaffolding covers half of the Sears building in downtown Oakland, CA, on Thursday, March 26, 2015. Construction on the Uptown Station project is underway at the old Sears building on 20th Street and Broadway in downtown Oakland. less Scaffolding covers half of the Sears building in downtown Oakland, CA, on Thursday, March 26, 2015. Construction on the Uptown Station project is underway at the old Sears building on 20th Street and ... more Photo: Michael Short, Special To The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Michael Short, Special To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 14 Caption Close Oakland residents freak out over news of new Uber headquarters 1 / 14 Back to Gallery When news broke that Uber will expand into the East Bay, buying the historic Sears building in Uptown Oakland, it prompted strong reaction online. Some were happy to welcome Uber, but many others decried the gentrification and impact on already-rising rents. See some of the reaction below: For more on this story, click here. |
As a 4-year-old girl cried for her mother, investigators allege Kyle Thompson responded “Your mommy can’t save you!” Thompson, of Montgomery County, Md., is accused of horrendous sex crimes against a trio of children under five years old, WUSA 9 reported Friday. The 31-year-old is charged with multiple sex abuse crimes after allegedly filming himself having sex and molesting the children. The FBI believes the accused sicko had been befriending young mothers since 2013 with the intent of violating their children, according to the report. An investigation into the allegations against Thompson began after an anonymous source tipped off police to the videos. One of them allegedly showed a girl’s arms being bound by a belt as Thompson performed a sex act, according to court documents. Those documents also claim Thompson attempted to molest of one his alleged victim’s older sisters, who escaped his grasp. A search of Thompson home allegedly turned up child porn and a cache of registered weapons, the New York Daily News reported. Investigators believe Thompson used those weapons to intimidate his victims. Upon his arrest, Thompson denied knowing the young girls, and claimed he’s innocent of the appalling charges he faces – multiple counts of sex abuse of a minor, a first degree sex offence, and a third degree sex offence. He remains behind bars. |
(Health.com) -- Children in Grades 3 through 6 who are obese are more likely to be bullied than their normal-weight peers, a new study has found. No one who has attended grade school -- or who has even the slightest familiarity with children -- will be surprised by these findings. What is surprising, however, is that obese children are bullied more often even if they possess qualities that can discourage bullies, such as having good social skills or doing well in school. "When we started this study, I really suspected that we might find that the obesity or overweight might not be the driving force," says the lead author of the study, Julie Lumeng, M.D., a professor of pediatrics at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor. "What we found is that it didn't matter. No matter how good your social skills, if you were overweight or obese you were more likely to be bullied." In the study, which appears this week in the journal Pediatrics, Lumeng and her colleagues followed more than 800 children -- all born in 1991 -- from 10 cities across the U.S. When the children were in the third, fifth, and sixth grades, the researchers surveyed teachers, mothers, and the children themselves about whether they were bullied, and also surveyed the adults about the children's social skills. They then compared these responses with the children's body mass index, a simple ratio of height and weight. Overall, kids who were obese were 65 percent more likely to be bullied than their peers of normal weight; overweight kids were 13 percent more likely to be bullied, although that finding was not statistically significant, the study notes. This pattern persisted even when the researchers took into account other factors that are associated with both obesity and being bullied, such as coming from a low-income family or doing poorly in school. Health.com: 10 habits of healthy families Still, the findings don't rule out the possibility that being overweight and being bullied share a common, underlying cause, says Matthew N. Davis, M.D., a primary care physician and the director of the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health. "There's always been the question in the back of people's minds about whether there was another factor involved which was related to both bullying and obesity," says Davis, who was not involved in Lumeng's study. Sylvia Rimm, Ph.D., a clinical professor at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, in Cleveland, Ohio, suggests that the low self-esteem of overweight children may make them targets for their peers. Rimm, who wasn't involved in the study, surveyed thousands of middle-school children for a 2004 book, "Rescuing the Emotional Lives of Overweight Kids." "Kids who considered themselves very overweight not only were bullied, but...indicated more loneliness, saw themselves as troublemakers, and saw themselves as sad, fearful, and wimpy," she says. "They really have huge struggles." One reason that children might be more apt to pick on their overweight classmates is that they are taking after adults, says Davis. "Children pick up behaviors from adults, so we always have to keep in mind how we're modeling respect for others around multiple issues, including weight," he says. "Imagine how many signals kids get about weight just by hearing conversations by adults or seeing advertisements on TV. The messages are everywhere in terms of trying to control weight and be a different size than you are right now." Wendy Craig, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, says that bullying and obesity are both major public health concerns that teachers and schools -- and not just parents -- need to address. Health.com: 20 easy meals for families to enjoy together Teachers "are like social architects," says Craig, who has studied bullying for more than a decade but wasn't involved in the current study. "They set the tone for what's acceptable. Teachers reinforce these messages every day in their classroom when they interact with kids." In fact, positive interactions with parents may help prevent bullying in the first place, according to another new study, presented today at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies in Vancouver, B.C. In that study, researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center analyzed data from the 2007 National Survey of Children's Health, which included more than 45,000 parents of children between the ages of 10 and 17. Children whose parents shared ideas and talked often with them were about 40 percent less likely to bully other children compared to the children of parents who said they didn't do those things regularly. On the other hand, the children of parents who said they are often angry with them or who feel bothered by them were up to three times more likely to be bullies, according to the study. Interestingly, previous studies have suggested that obese children are more likely to bully others, in addition to being the victims of bullying. One possible explanation for this, Lumeng says, is that children who have difficulty staying calm and controlling their impulses to lash out at others may also have a hard time regulating their eating, and may eat for emotional reasons rather than out of hunger. Health.com: Is it baby fat or obesity? Overweight children are caught in a vicious circle of self-destructive behavior, Rimm says. "They're inactive, and they're sad kids, and they use eating as gratification," she says. "Of course, the effect is that continued eating is almost their only source of satisfaction, and so it's a terrible cycle." Protecting overweight kids -- socially and physically --requires helping them break this cycle, Rimm adds. "A key thing is to discover their strengths and get them involved and active in extracurricular activities," she says. "If they concentrate only on their weight, they're not going to build confidence." |
50 years had passed. Another 100 will pass and there is always going to be someone who is wondering what is that mark standing for. It started life as the emblem of the British anti-nuclear movement but it has become an international sign for peace, and arguably the most widely used protest symbol in the world. It has also been adapted, attacked and commercialised.Many people have speculated on just what the symbol represents; some religious zealots even claim it signifies Christ on the cross with arms broken, or a Teutonic rune representing death and despair. But the truth is not so mysterious. What does it mean? One of the most widely known symbols in the world, in Britain it is recognised as standing for nuclear disarmament —and in particular as the logo of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). It was designed from the naval code of semaphore, and the symbol represents the code letters for ND which means Nuclear Disarmament.The circle, representing the concept of total or complete, surrounds the N and D signifying total or complete nuclear disarmament. In the United States and much of the rest of the world it is known more broadly as the peace symbol. It was designed in 1958 by Gerald Holtom, a professional designer and artist and a graduate of the Royal College of Arts. He showed his preliminary sketches to a small group of people in the Peace News office in North London and to the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War, one of several smaller organisations that came together to set up CND. The Direct Action Committee had already planned what was to be the first major anti-nuclear march, from London to Aldermaston, where British nuclear weapons were and still are manufactured. It was on that march, over the 1958 Easter weekend that the symbol first appeared in public. Five hundred cardboard lollipops on sticks were produced. Half were black on white and half white on green. Just as the church’s liturgical colours change over Easter, so the colours were to change, “from Winter to Spring, from Death to Life.” Black and white would be displayed on Good Friday and Saturday, green and white on Easter Sunday and Monday. The first badges were made by Eric Austin of Kensington CND using white clay with the symbol painted black. Again there was a conscious symbolism. They were distributed with a note explaining that in the event of a nuclear war, these fired pottery badges would be among the few human artifacts to survive the nuclear inferno. These early ceramic badges can still be found and one, lent by CND, was included in the Imperial War Museum’s 1999/2000 exhibition ”From the Bomb to the Beatles”. Later, in a letter, Holtom also admitted that the symbol reflected his mood at the time. “I was in despair,” he wrote. “Deep despair. I drew myself: the representative of an individual in despair, with hands palm outstretched outwards and downwards in the manner of Goya’s peasant before the firing squad. I formalized the drawing into a line and put a circle around it.” American journalist and playwright Herb Greer adds support for the Holtom explanation. He reported, “I was actually there on and before the first Aldermaston march for which it was created. I visited Holtom, I saw the original sketches and discussed it with him.” Ken Kolsbun, author of the book Peace: The Biography of a Symbol, reported that Holtom expressed regret in not designing the peace symbol with the joyful lifting of arms towards the sky. For most of Holtom’s life he would draw only the upright peace symbol. Holtom requested that the upright peace symbol be placed on his tombstone in Kent, England. If we take a look on the picture of his tombstone, we’ll see that his wish was unfortunately ignored. While it appears reasonable that the modern day peace symbol comes from Gerald Holtom, this logic fails to address the fact that the symbol has been used for evil both in modern times and for thousands of years. This same symbol was used by Hitler’s 3rd Panzer Division from 1941 to 1945. The image on the left is the regimental 3rd Panzer Division symbol. Soviet, Polish, and Hungarian citizens, having suffered from the Nazi massacres, undoubtedly struggled with Holtom’s use of the symbol as a thoughtful way to communicate peace. The symbol can also be found on some of Hitler’s SS soldiers’ tombstones. Another flaw in the Holtom creation story is the use of the symbol as an anti-Christian symbol by the Saracens as early as 711 A.D.For the Saracens, the image placed on their shields symbolized the breaking of the Christian cross. For some the broken cross was equated to a satanic symbol known as the raven’s craw or witch’s foot. While Holtom may not have known the historical meaning of the peace symbol, Bertrand Russell was a historian and member of the Fabian Society. A 1970 article in the American Opinion magazine claimed Russell knew the historical occult meaning and intentionally selected an “anti-Christian design long associated with Satanism.” The fifth and final Roman emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, Nero (born Lucius Domitius Ahenabarbus 37 – 68 AD), is remembered in history for persecuting Christians. Nero’s rule was so wicked he even had his mother executed. The First Roman-Jewish War (66 – 70 AD) started during his reign and today the term “Nero Cross” is the symbol of the “broken Jew” or “broken cross.” The most famous person believed to be crucified by Nero was the Apostle Peter. To symbolize humility and unworthiness in comparison to Christ, Peter requested that he be crucified with his head toward the ground. As a result of Peter’s death the upside down cross was used by early Christians as a positive symbol for peace. The symbol of the upside down cross changes its meaning when the person on the upside down cross is no longer Peter but Jesus. Anti-religious and satanic groups use the “Nero Cross” or inverted “Latin Cross” to symbolize everything opposite of Christianity. Today this is clearly illustrated by “black metal” or heavy metal music lyrics and imagery that communicate anti-Christian sentiments. In addition to musicians, film makers have reinforced the notion that the upside down cross is an anti-Christian symbol as illustrated by The Omen in 1976 and The Exorcism of Emily Rose in 2005. The symbol has also been used to communicate support for communism. Bertrand Russell once said: “There is no hope in anything but the Soviet way.” Governments–both those who supported communism and those opposed to it–have perceived benefits in aligning the peace symbol with communist ideology. For people like Bertrand Russell, the author of the 1927 essay Why I Am Not Christian, the symbol represented not only a pro-communism meaning but peace without God. CND has never registered the sign as a trademark, arguing that “a symbol of freedom, it is free for all”. It has now appeared on millions of mugs, T-shirts, rings and nose-studs. Bizarrely, it has also made an appearance on packets of Lucky Strike cigarettes.A decade ago, the sign was chosen during a public vote to appear on a US commemorative postage stamp saluting the 1960s.The symbol that helped define a generation of baby boomers may not be as widely used today as in the past. It is in danger of becoming to many people a retro fashion item, although the Iraq war has seen it re-emerge with something like its original purpose. “It is still the dominant peace sign,” argues Lawrence Wittner, an expert on peace movements at the University at Albany in New York.”Part of that is down to its simplicity. It can be used as a shorthand for many causes because it can be reproduced really quickly – on walls on floors, which is important, in say, repressive societies.” And can its success be measured? Fifty years on, wars have continued to be waged and the list of nuclear-armed states has steadily lengthened.But the cup is half-full as well as half empty. “There are many ways in which nuclear war has been prevented,” says Mr Wittner. “The hawks say that the reason nuclear weapons have not been used is because of the deterrent. But I believe popular pressure has restrained powers from using them and helped curbed the arms race.And the symbol of and inspiration for that popular pressure, says Mr Wittner, is Mr Holtom’s graphic. “Today because many people carry the symbol without understanding the history, we miss an opportunity to address historical uses and move forward to reclaim the symbol for good.When you see the peace symbol, I encourage you to see the person displaying it as communicating a message of love.If you display the peace symbol, my recommendation is point the arms of the peace symbol toward the sky to honor Holtom’s wish, address historical objections, and communicate love of all people.”Dave Dionisi, Teach Peace Foundation Information and images sources : 1 2 3 4 5 6 |
Would you like to create your very own backyard pharmacy by growing medicinal plants? There’s no better way to use whatever extra space you have at home than to create a garden space where you can grow medicinal plants. In fact, even if you live in an apartment setting, you can create a windowsill garden where you can grow medicinal plants. This is especially useful if you have little kids running around in the house who can acquire a burn, a shallow wound, a sore or strike up a fever. Basically, the medicinal plants to grow in your very own little garden space should be ones with the most number of medicinal values. Factors that You Need to Consider when Growing Medicinal Plants in a Garden Before giving out the top 10 medicinal plants that you can grow in your very own garden, here are a few tips to get you started. First, check on the area where you plan to grow the medicinal plants in. Will you be having a mini-garden or would you like to turn your lawn into a virtual resource of medicinal plants which you can call your very own backyard pharmacy? After analyzing the extra space that you have, consider other factors like sunlight, water, type of soil, type of container and the time of the year when the medicinal plants will thrive the most. By taking these factors into account, you can rest assured that your medicinal plants will be thriving in the mini-garden that you will create just for them. Top 10 Medicinal Plants For Your Garden Space Now that you already have an idea about the gardening basics, what exactly are the valuable medicinal plants that you can grow right in your very own garden space? Take a look at the following list: 1. Aloe Vera If there’s one medicinal plant which has 101 uses, that is none other than aloe vera. Let’s say that you or a kid in your home suffered from a minor burn, you can use the bottom stalk of aloe vera as a soothing balm by rubbing the exposed end on the burn. Aside from minor cuts and wounds, this medicinal aloe vera is also great for burns, treating eczema and reducing inflammation. Did you know that this medicinal plant can even be taken internally? You can actually drink aloe vera juice and use it to treat digestive problems, ulcerative colitis, chronic constipation and poor appetite. This plant grows well under the sun, so it works best for outdoor gardens. 2. Great Burdock Also called edible burdock or Lappa burdock, this medicinal plant is actually used as a root vegetable. In traditional medicine, the Great Burdock is used as a blood purifying agent, a diuretic and a diaphoretic. Aside from being medicinal, this plant also has great aesthetic value because of its purple-and-green thorny flowers which looks great against any garden. If you would like to add this medicinal plant to your backyard pharmacy, this can actually grow even without shade; just make sure that the soil is always moist so that the plant will thrive. Other uses for this medicinal plant include boils, rashes, bruises, burns, acne, ringworm and bites. 3. Pot Marigold The good thing about growing this medicinal plant in your garden is that it can thrive under any soil condition. As long as you make sure that the Pot Marigold grows in moist soil, it will very easily thrive. It’s also a great-looking addition to your garden aesthetically because of its deep-orange color. So what are the main uses of Pot Marigold medicinal plants? It can help heal bites, stings, sprains, sore eyes, wounds and even varicose veins. When taken internally, this medicinal plant can be used to treat chronic infections and fever. 4. Chamomile One of the medicinal plants, chamomile can help treat more than 100 separate ailments and conditions including the common cold, digestive problems, diarrhea, eczema, gastrointestinal conditions, mucositis, toothache, earache, shoulder pain and the common wounds. What’s good about chamomile is that planting them in your backyard will add a crisp and fruity fragrance to your garden. 5. Echinacea This lovely-colored flowering medicinal plant is considered to be one of the world’s most important medicinal herbs. It’s actually an herbaceous plant which has several different species. What makes the Echinacea plant a handy medicinal plant to be around is the fact that it has a wide array of uses, including the treatment of sores, burns, wounds, allergy relief, insect bites, stings and snakebites. This type of medicinal plants also have the ability to help relieve allergies by strengthening immune system. 6. Great Yellow Gentian Also called the Great Yellow Gentian, this medicinal plant comes from the mountains of southern and central Europe. It is actually a bitter herb which is used in traditional medicine, and its main function includes the treatment of digestive problems. This type of medicinal plants also aids in the relief of exhaustion from chronic diseases, it stimulates the gal bladder and liver while at the same time strengthening the body. 7. Tea Tree Look at the ingredients of any over-the-counter medicinal product or beauty product and you will see how tea tree oil is usually listed as one of its main ingredients. This just goes to show how useful the tea tree plant is medicinally. Tea tree oil comes from the leaves and twigs of the tea tree plant. It has a great many uses, including the treatment of acne, vaginal infections, athlete’s foot, warts, insect bites, cold sores, minor burns, thrush and chronic fatigue syndrome. 8. Peppermint There’s probably no better-smelling plant that you can grow in your garden than peppermint. It’s considered to be the world’s oldest medicine which has been used by people from the ancient times to relieve whatever it is that is bothering them medically. What makes peppermint such a medicinal garden essential is the fact that it is naturally rich in vitamins A and C, manganese and it helps reduce a number of symptoms including irritable bowel syndrome, upset stomachs, fevers, flatulence and spastic colon. 9. Ginseng Ginseng is one of the most beloved and popular medicinal plants in eastern countries. What makes ginseng such a great addition to your medicinal plants garden is the fact that it promotes general health instead of just being useful for a particular type of ailment. It’s the root of the ginseng which is particularly useful in relaxing the nervous system. It also helps reduce cholesterol levels, improve your immune system and stamina, and helps treat lack of appetite and sleep disorders. 10. Sage Both a cooking herb and a medicinal plant, sage is a great salve for insect bites, skin infections, gum infections and mouth infections. It can also help with indigestion, flatulence, depression and even menopausal problems. The Latin name, where sage was derived from, means ‘to heal’, which is an apt description for many ailments that can be resolved using this lush herb which doubles up as a medicinal plant. These are just some of the top herbal medicinal plants which can serve as a great addition to your garden space. Aside from giving your dwelling that green and homey feel, these medicinal plants have a variety of uses for whatever it is that is ailing you. Know about: The Most Reliable Herbs Cancer Fighting Super Foods |
Dragon TV has confirmed BIGBANG’s attendance to their Spring Festival for the New Year. According to Star News on January 22nd, Chinese media have reported that BIGBANG will be appearing at the annual event in China. Dragon TV have initially started teasing for the group’s upcoming appearance as they post a vague photo on their Weibo account with the tags saying, “famous star,” “global idol,” “top group” and “popular,” which led fans to speculate on the guests. Eventually, fans were able to pinpoint BIGBANG’s resemblance to the silhouette displayed on the update which was followed by Dragon TV’s confirmation earlier today. It is now being speculated that the group will be performing their popular hits, “Lies” and “Haru Haru” on the event, but to no confirmation as of yet. The 2015 Dragon TV Spring Festival for the New Year will air on February 19th. Source: YG-LIFE |
It has been more than 50 years since President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act, yet women still don't earn equal pay for equal work. It's time we fix this for women in Los Angeles and across the country. We need to fix this for young women entering the workforce saddled with student loan debt and for mothers responsible for caring for their young children or older parents. We need to fix this for women without college degrees and who don't have the earning power of women who had the opportunity to complete their higher education. We even need to fix this for men, many of whom rely on women as the sole or primary earners in their home. A significant gender pay gap still persists, which is why we cannot be passive as we acknowledge Equal Pay Day. This year, Equal Pay Day is April 8th, which represents how far into 2014 women must work to earn what men did in 2013. While it often feels like our battle for gender equality has come so far, it's startling to see that women still earn just 77 cents to the dollar that men earn. Women of color are hit especially hard: African-American and Hispanic women earn 70 percent and 61 percent, respectively, of what white men earn. Without any male income in their household, single women and lesbians may feel the pay gap effect all the more. This wage gap costs working women and their families more than $10,000 annually, and over a lifetime that cumulative effect of lower wages jeopardizes women's retirement security. Although women in California earn more than the national average, the majority of women in the district where I'm running for California State Senate actually earn far less. In most of our district, women earn on average only 69 cents to the dollar of what men earn. That is unacceptable, and something I will work hard to change when I'm in office. In the fight for something as important as pay equity, it's critical that our government leads by example. As a State Senator, I will call for an audit of California State employees to study how much women and men in comparable positions are paid and to analyze if women are reaching the upper echelons of State jobs, and if not, why not. Paycheck discrimination is not the only obstacle preventing women from having the same economic stability as men. We must also level the financial playing field by expanding job protections for those who find themselves in the family caregiver role - a role that disproportionately goes to women. That is why I will introduce a bill to include additional protections in California's paid family leave policy, so those taking time off to care for their families don't need to be afraid that they'll lose their jobs. Another way to bolster the economic situation of women is to make sure they have high-quality, affordable childcare options. The cost of childcare is a huge burden for working families, and if we want to support a stronger middle-class we need to make more of an investment in the programs that will help them the most. That is why I will be a champion for increased investment in early childhood education. Investing more in early childhood education, in addition to being a great boon for children's educational aptitude, will give parents flexibility and more opportunities to pursue their careers with adequate support. Increasing the State's investment also provides increased job opportunities for early childhood education providers, an industry primarily staffed by women. Equal Pay Day isn't just about recognizing an unequal paycheck. It's about opening up a conversation about our collective economic future, and fighting hard for the kinds of communities we want to live in, where full equality is a reality for everyone, and everyone has the opportunity to pursue their dreams. |
Volkswagen AG has said that it is buying a 16% stake in US truckmaker, Navistar International Corp. At $15.76 a share, that adds up to $256 million. According to Automotive News, the companies expect to reap combined synergies of $500 million over the next five years. Crucially, this is a chance for Volkswagen to get into the US heavy-truck market where it has struggled to gain a foothold against the big players like Daimler AG and Volvo AB. The strategic alliance with Navistar is an important milestone and will be very beneficial for both sides,” says Andreas Renschler, CEO of Volkswagen Truck and Bus. The partnership will focus on common powertrain systems and Volkswagen will gain two board seats at Navistar. Navistar is based out of Lisle, Illinois, and produces International brand trucks and IC Bus school and commercial buses. |
RENTON, Wash. (AP) - Earl Thomas has become the first Seattle Seahawks player voted to the Pro Bowl since 2008, with five other Seahawks named as alternates for the all-star game played in Hawaii. Thomas was named the starter at free safety for the NFC when the teams were announced on Tuesday evening. Thomas is the first Seattle player selected for the game since Walter Jones and Julian Peterson following the 2008 season. Between 1981 and 2008, the Seahawks had at least one player every year voted to the Pro Bowl. Strong safety Kam Chancellor, cornerback Brandon Browner and fullback Michael Robinson were all named first alternates for the team. Running back Marshawn Lynch, the Seahawks' first 1,000-yard rusher since 2005, was a second alternate and punter Jon Ryan was a third alternate. The Pro Bowl will be played Jan. 29 in Honolulu. |
The Federal Communications Commission is charging ahead with its plan to end “open internet” protections, referred to as net neutrality, that it says were unnecessarily heavy-handed regulations. The reversal of the Obama-era internet regulations has been intensely debated by internet companies, activists and internet users. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai on Tuesday, along with circulating his proposal, detailed in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece his plans for how the internet, its providers and the companies who do business on its highways should be governed. Don’t miss: Why Americans should brace for an internet where not all websites are treated equally “I’m proposing today that my colleagues at the Federal Communications Commission repeal President Obama’s heavy-handed internet regulations,” Pai wrote. “Instead the FCC simply would require internet service providers to be transparent so that consumers can buy the plan that’s best for them. And entrepreneurs and other small businesses would have the technical information they need to innovate.” The FCC plans to make its draft order public on Wednesday, ahead of an official vote on the proposed rule changes on Dec. 14. Netflix Inc. NFLX, +0.29% tweeted on Tuesday that it supports strong net-neutrality rules, and that it opposes the commission’s proposal to roll back protections. Also read: Netflix ‘publicly and loudly’ opposes the FCC’s net neutrality rule reversal We've been supporting for years thru IA and Day to Save Net Neutrality with a banner on Netflix homepage for all users. More info in Q4 2016 earnings letter, as well. This current draft order hasn't been officially voted, so we're lodging our opposition publicly and loudly now — Netflix US (@netflix) November 21, 2017 Those opposed to the reversal say getting rid of the protections will allow internet service providers (ISPs) to throttle the connection of some sites, giving preferential treatment to others at a price. FCC officials say ISPs will have to disclose any such actions, which will then be reviewed, most likely by the FCC and the Federal Trade Commission. The majority of those major ISPs are in favor of the FCC returning to, what the commission is calling, a “light-touch” approach to internet regulation. Check out: Netflix, Amazon, Twitter and others band together in protest of possible net neutrality rule reversal “We applaud the chairman’s efforts to repeal the ill-advised and outdated burden of Title II classification, which has harmed broadband investment and innovation.” wrote David Cohen, Comcast Corp.’s chief diversity officer in a company blog post on Tuesday. Though Comcast CMCSA, +0.60% argues investment and innovation has been stifled, in the company’s most recent third quarter earnings report it said that capital expenditures increased 1.2% year-over-year, reflecting, among other things, a higher level investment in scalable infrastructure to increase network capacity. In January, Comcast Chief Financial Officer, Michael Cavanagh, told investors that the company has maintained the best broadband product through “consistent investment and innovation.” One of the FCC’s main drivers for reversing current net neutrality regulation, however, is a perceived bind it puts on that very industry investment and innovation. The move to eviscerate #NetNeutrality tips the balance against consumers and without it, our economy and democracy will suffer. My thoughts 👇 pic.twitter.com/Hly7Fqs7c4 — Josh Shapiro (@JoshShapiroPA) November 22, 2017 Verizon Communications Inc. VZ, -0.25% said in a blog post that it supports the FCC reverting to pre-Obama internet regulation, as did Charter Communications Inc. CHTR, -0.74% “We’re very encouraged by Chairman Pai’s announcement today that the FCC will move forward next month to restore the successful light-touch regulatory framework for internet services,” wrote Verizon’s deputy general counsel for public policy and government affairs, Kathy Grillo. “The FCC appears poised for a much-needed return to the approach that fostered so many years of internet openness and innovation.” While throwing their support behind the FCC’s proposed approach to internet regulation, Comcast; Verizon and Charter have vowed to uphold open internet ideals. See: John Oliver calls on time-wasters and Trump trolls to swarm FCC website Read: New York attorney general says FCC won’t aid probe into fake net-neutrality comments “Comcast does not and will not block, throttle, or discriminate against lawful content,” wrote Comcast Cable’s Chief Executive Dave Watson. “We will continue to make sure that our policies are clear for consumers and we will not change our commitment to these principles.” AT&T Inc. T, +0.29% has not said anything publicly about the FCC’s most recent step toward ending current net-neutrality rules, but back in July the company joined the likes of Netflix, Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, +0.21% and Twitter Inc. TWTR, -3.06% in supporting a day of action to defend net neutrality. |
Memory chip partners Intel and Micron Technology shook up the flash and main memory markets back in July with the announcement of 3D XPoint memory, something that can be used as both a bit-addressable device like DRAM and a block device like flash. The two companies talked in generalities about how this memory might perform, saying that 3D XPoint will have about 1,000 times the performance of NAND flash, 1,000 times the endurance of NAND flash, and about 10 times the density of DRAM. The companies have also suggested that 3D XPoint memory, which will carry the Optane brand at Intel and which will be available in both main memory DIMM and SSD form factors, will cost somewhere between that of flash and DRAM, too. This gives Optane many attractive attributes both technically and economically to become a popular system component, and we fully expect that it will be just that. Intel is being careful not to overpromise and to also not give away too many details before Optane SSDs start shipping sometime in 2016. The company has not said when it will deliver Optane DIMMs, but at the OpenWorld conference hosted by Oracle, Brian Krzanich, chief executive officer at Intel, talked a bit about the evolving memory hierarchy – something we were coincidentally discussing at length here at The Next Platform as 3D XPoint was announced – and trotted out some benchmark tests that pitted Optane SSDs against flash SSDs. Keeping the ever-increasing number of cores on a processor fed is a big challenge, and Krzanich said that the addition of Optane 3D XPoint memory to systems would go a long way towards putting the balance of I/O, compute, and storage back in alignment to allow companies to unleash the performance in the processors. To show off the performance of the future Optane SSDs, Krzanich took a standard 1U server – it looked like on of Oracle’s X5-2 machines, a two-socket “Haswell” Xeon E5 v3 machine – and ran two Oracle benchmark tests using Oracle’s clone of Red Hat’s Enterprise Linux. The Oracle server was running two different Oracle application stacks – Krzanich did not identify them – and was partitioned to run the tests using an Intel P3700 NAND flash SSD on one side and the prototype Optane SSD on the other. The Oracle machine, by the way, has NVM Express links for SSDs, which is a way that the processor and the flash can be linked to each other with a thinner driver stack that gets unnecessary SAS and SATA controller code out of the stack and substantially boosts throughput and lowers latencies for non-volatile storage of all kinds – in this case, both NAND flash and 3D XPoint. On the first test, here is how the prototype Optane SSD stacked up against the P3700 NAND flash SSD: As you can see, it did a little bit better at 4.4X the I/O operations per second and about 6.4X lower latency. You might be presuming that the latency improvement was not just due to NVM-Express combined with Optane, but as you can see NVM-Express links were used for both kinds of SSDs in the test. A comparison with SAS or SATA SSDs would show an even wider performance and latency gap, we are sure. Here is how the two storage media stacked up on the second test using Oracle software: The performance gap was even wider on this test. (It would have been good to know precisely what these tests were, of course.) “This is a huge performance improvement,” Krzanich said. “I think all of us, for any kind of I/O operations, that could see a 5X to 8X improvement in speed – that’s what we have been looking for. It is an improvement in both performance and latency. But there is really more to this technology. Intel Optane SSDs provide about 200X less variability, and that is an additional benefit that you can count on for your datacenter.” By variability, we presume that Krzanich means that the average latencies will coalesce around a certain figure and not wander too much with jitter from outliers that have much longer latencies. As we have pointed out time and again here at The Next Platform, raw performance often matters for lots of scale-out, scale-up, and scale-in workloads, but consistency of performance often matters more. Raw performance is not much good if you can’t count on it. The idea is to do more transactions with a higher consistency, said Krzanich, with improved response times, and ultimately it will end with better user experiences for applications. “We have been real careful to not show this with slides, but with working demos, because I want people to get excited and realize that this is coming,” he said. “This isn’t five years from now, this isn’t two years from now. This is next year, and this is going to transform how we think about data and memory and storage.” Now, of course, SSDs are important, but in the long run, Intel also wants to have Optane 3D XPoint memory slot into the same sockets as DDR4 main memory, and Krzanich brought a mechanical model of an Optane DIMM to show off. This truly marks the return of Intel to the memory market, something it walked away from the main memory business in 1985, but given the tight coupling of processing and memory technologies, we have always said that it was inevitable that Intel would get back into the memory business. (If you count various cache memories, Intel never left the business, of course.) Krzanich said that Intel will have working Optane DIMMs ready later this year for early testers, and will combine the performance of DRAM with the capacity and cost of flash. What this means is that a mix of DDR4 and Optane DIMMs in a two-socket server with a total of 6 TB of addressable memory, “virtually eliminating paging between memory and storage, taking performance truly to a whole new level.” Krzanich added that data encryption in the DIMM, so that data at rest on the DIMM – it will take us all a while to get used to that – is secured. We look forward to seeing those Optane DIMMs in action and in seeing how they stack up to DDR4 DIMMs in terms of price and performance. We are gathering our thoughts about what Optane DIMMs and SSDs might mean for system and cluster designs, too. Like Intel, we expect some big changes. |
With the caloric needs of the planet expected to soar by 50 percent in the next 40 years, planning and investment in global agriculture will become critically important, according a new report released today (June 25). The report, produced by Deutsche Bank, one of the world's leading global investment banks, in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, provides a framework for investing in sustainable agriculture against a backdrop of massive population growth and escalating demands for food, fibre and fuel. "We are at a crossroads in terms of our investments in agriculture and what we will need to do to feed the world population by 2050," says David Zaks, a co-author of the report and a researcher at the Nelson Institute's Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment. By 2050, world population is expected to exceed 9 billion people, up from 6.5 billion today. Already, according to the report, a gap is emerging between agricultural production and demand, and the disconnect is expected to be amplified by climate change, increasing demand for biofuels, and a growing scarcity of water. "There will come a point in time when we will have difficulties feeding world population," says Zaks, a graduate student whose research focuses on the patterns, trends and processes of global agriculture. Although unchecked population growth will put severe strains on global agriculture, demand can be met by a combination of expanding agriculture to now marginal or unused land, substituting new types of crops, and technology, the report's authors conclude. "The solution is only going to come about by changing the way we use land, changing the things that we grow and changing the way that we grow them," Zaks explains. The report notes that agricultural research and technological development in the United States and Europe have increased notably in the last decade, but those advances have not translated into increased production on a global scale. Subsistence farmers in developing nations, in particular, have benefited little from such developments and investments in those agricultural sectors have been marginal, at best. The Deutsche Bank report, however, identifies a number of strategies to increase global agricultural productions in sustainable ways, including: * Improvements in irrigation, fertilisation and agricultural equipment using technologies ranging from geographic information systems and global analytical maps to the development of precision, high performance equipment. * Applying sophisticated management and technologies on a global scale, essentially extending research and investment into developing regions of the world. * Investing in "farmer competence" to take full advantage of new technologies through education and extension services, including investing private capital in better training farmers. * Intensifying yield using new technologies, including genetically modified crops. * Increasing the amount of land under cultivation without expanding to forested lands through the use of multiple cropping, improving degraded crop and pasturelands, and converting productive pastures to biofuel production. "First we have to improve yield," notes Zaks. "Next, we have to bring in more land in agriculture while considering the environmental implications, and then we have to look at technology." Bruce Kahn, Deutsche Bank senior investment analyst, echoed Zaks observations: "What is required to meet the challenge of feeding a growing population in a warming world is to boost yield through highly sophisticated land management with precision irrigation and fertilization methods," said Kahn, a graduate of the Nelson Institute. "Farmers, markets and governments will have to look at a host of options including increased irrigation, mechanisation, fertilisation and the potential benefits of biotech crops." The Deutsche Bank report depended in part on an array of global agricultural analytical tools, maps, models and databases developed by researchers at UW-Madison's Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment. Those tools, including global maps of land supply for crops and pasture, were developed primarily for academic research, says Zaks. The Deutsche Bank report, he continues, is evidence that such tools will have increasing applications in plotting a course for sustainable global agriculture. |
Jade Helm 15, the multi-state, two-month U.S. Army Special Operations Command training exercise, began today, but the conspiracy theories surrounding it have collectively become a story unto themselves — with wild theories to include FEMA death domes and ice-cream-truck morgues. The Army calls Jade Helm a standard training operation for unconventional warfare. But some have "connected the dots," and the military's true motives remain unstated: to either engage in an occupation or at least prepare for war within the U.S. Whether you have concerns about Jade Helm or simply find the theories and ensuing furor and paranoia entertaining, below are the most striking theories. Meanwhile, skeptoid.com has a primer for anyone looking for more benign explanations to the alleged evidence of nefarious plotting — for those unworried about being labeled "sheeple" by conspiracy theorists. FEMA Death Domes: In this Thursday, Dec. 6, 2012 photo, work continues on the construction of a new domed gym at Edna High School in Edna, Texas. The hurricane dome, a structure being built in part with money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, can be used to house first responders or residents evacuated during a storm. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip) A hurricane dome in Florida in 2012, a structure that was being built in part with money from FEMA. Photo Credit: David J. Phillip/AP × Fear of missing out? Fear no longer. Be the first to hear about breaking news, as it happens. You'll get alerts delivered directly to your inbox each time something noteworthy happens in the Military community. Thanks for signing up. By giving us your email, you are opting in to our Newsletter: Sign up for the Army Times Daily News Roundup Some have alleged that new dome-shaped facilities are being built by FEMA for the purpose of detaining insurrectionists. While the Associated Press has written about the shelters, Jade Helm conspiracy theorists have latched onto FEMA Death Domes. Though purportedly hurricane and storm shelters that can protect a large number of people (and in cases provide community facilities like gymnasiums), conspiracy theorists argue that walls designed to withstand hurricanes and tornados make great prisons, and have linked them to Jade Helm. Blue Bell Ice Cream trucks: If you are going to start a war, you need a place to put the bodies, right? Some conspiracy theorists believe Blue Bell Ice Cream trucks could serve as mobile morgues. While none of the conspirators at Blue Bell balked at the idea and publicized the plot, sleuths found evidence: film of about a dozen Blue Bell trucks traveling on the same highway as a military convoy, apparently I-25 in Colorado. FILE - In this April 10, 2015 file photo, Blue Bell delivery trucks are parked at the creamery's location in Kansas City, Kansas. Blue Bell Creameries announced on Tuesday, July 14, 2015, that an investment by prominent Texas businessman Sid Bass will "ensure" the return of its ice cream products to the market. Blue Bell released a statement Tuesday announcing Bass has become a partner. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner, File) Conspiracy theorists are trying to link Blue Bell with Jade Helm. Photo Credit: Orlin Wagner/AP Blue Bell closed it's Denver-area distribution center near I-25 in May, the same month as the video was posted. Fort Carson sits about 75 miles down I-25 from Denver. The company has said the convoy convergence was a coincidence. Blue Bell has been reeling from a recall and production shut-down following discovery of listeria monocytogenes in its ice cream. Multiple deaths in recent years have been linked to the outbreak. Still, a conspiracy-minded site called the company's first-ever recall suspicious and the trucks' proximity to a military convoy "creepy" while also linking the company to the Bush family and defense contracts, but admitted it couldn't verify whether the trucks were preparing to be mobile morgues or merely transporting food or just the trucks themselves from a closing facility. Walmart: Always Low Prices ... on bases for martial law: The world's largest retailer has become an essential element to any Jade Helm conspiracy site. A handful of Walmarts — two in Texas and one each in Florida, California and Oklahoma — suddenly closed in April for six months, with the company saying they needed to make plumbing repairs. There are actually two groups with conspiracy theories, which note that city officials in the cities said Walmart wasn't filing for permits for repairs, according to a Florida ABC affiliate. One group expressing doubt is organized labor: some of the closings were allegedly punitive and retaliatory measures against workers agitating for better wages and rights, something they've been convicted of doing in Canada. The Walmart store on Marine Boulevard on February 2, 2011 in Jacksonville, N.C. Walmart stores have also raised suspicions. Photo Credit: Colin Kelly/Staff But Jade Helm theorists remain unsatisfied with either explanation of the closing of five out of more than 4,000 U.S. stores. (In addition, they cite razor wire protecting the roof of an abandoned Walmart in Cincinnati, though some noted it is in a high crime area and that copper and HVAC equipment would be a target for thieves.) Jade Helm theorists say the military plans to enact martial law and use the stores as processing locations or possibly to control the food supply in poorer areas. A theory also involves China using the sites as command centers, as it allegedly tries to replace the dollar as the global currency with its own and disarm Americans during a hostile takeover of the nation. Asteroid strikes: Armageddon predictions are nearly as old as humanity, and while the world won't exist forever, doomsday prognosticators are still batting .000 despite many hearty swings. But they're nothing if not persistent, and now some believe that Jade Helm is preparation for an asteroid strike that will wipe out life on earth. (To be fair, sending Bruce Willis to land on it and drill a hole for a bomb wouldn't be much more useful.) The theory goes that eventually the world-ender will be discovered by the population as the asteroid nears, and the military will be used to corral the anarchy, possibly to force people to do what it thinks needs to be done to save humanity, or else just to make the last few weeks on earth less "Lord of the Flies" and more "North Korea." Russia to rescue independence-seeking Texans: Recently the incoming Joint Chiefs chairman called Russia the biggest threat to the U.S. Meanwhile, some Jade Helm theorists suggest Russia is coming to arm rebels in Texas in response to the U.S. arming of rebels in Ukraine and other countries in Russia's backyard. In fact, some say Russia has already infiltrated the U.S. to help prepare for the civil war. An alternative to this theory is that the U.S. is pretending Russia is arming an American rebellion in order to justify a declaration of martial law. Apparently the U.S. government is using the conspiracy websites to initiate the spreading of the lie that Russia is trying to start a civil war in Texas, all as a part of a false flag operation. And another angle says Russia is in a secret allegiance with President Barack Obama. This one suggests that foreign troops will actually run the FEMA camps imprisoning dissidents, a theory complete with a Russian invasion. Speaking of Obama: A number of online voices have cast doubt on the idea that there will ever be a 2016 election. They say Obama simply will impose martial law and become a tyrant ... using a military that largely disapproves of his overall performance as Commander and Chief. President Barack Obama speaks at the NAACP's 106th national convention at the Philadelphia Convention Center, on Tuesday, July 14, 2015, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) Will President Obama declare martial law? Yes, claim some theorists. |
Many articles could explain how easy it is to convert to Islam. A real convert tell his/her stories, and we can share their elation and excitement. There are even articles that explain exactly how to become Muslim. Many advantages are gained by converting to Islam, the most obvious one being the sense of calmness. Establishing a relationship with God in the most pure and simple way is liberating and exhilarating. 1. Converting to Islam liberates a person from slavery to man-made systems and lifestyles Islam emancipates the mind from superstitions and uncertainties. It liberates the soul from sin and corruption. Submission to the will of God, does not curtail freedom, on the contrary it gives a very high degree of freedom and filling it with truth and knowledge. Once a person accepts Islam they are no longer slaves to fashion, or consumerism. On a smaller but equally as important scale Islam liberates a person from the superstitions that rule the lives of those not truly submitted to God. A believer knows that good and bad luck do not exist. Both the good and the bad aspects of our lives come from God and as Prophet Muhammad explains all the affairs of a believer are good: “If he is granted ease then he is thankful, and this is good for him. And if he is afflicted with a hardship, he perseveres, and this is good for him”. (Muslim) After a person is freed from manmade systems and lifestyles he or she is free to worship God in the correct manner. A believer is able to put his trust and hope in God and sincerely seek His mercy. 2. Converting to Islam allows a person to truly experience God’s love. Converting to Islam allows a person to achieve God’s love by following His guide to life – the Quran, and the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad. When God created the world He did not abandon it to instability and insecurity. He sent a rope, firm and steady, and by holding tightly to this rope an insignificant human being can achieve greatness and eternal peace. God makes His desires perfectly clear, however human beings have free will to please or displease God. Say (O Muhammad to mankind): “If you (really) love God then follow me (i.e. accept Islamic Monotheism, follow the Qur’an and the Sunnah), God will love you and forgive you your sins. And Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” (Quran 3:31) And whoever seeks a religion other than Islam, it will never be accepted of him, and in the Hereafter he will be one of the losers. (Quran 3:85) There is no compulsion in religion. Verily, the Right Path has become distinct from the wrong path. Whoever disbelieves in Taghut and believes in God, then he has grasped the most trustworthy handhold that will never break. And God is All-Hearer, All-Knower. (Quran 2:256) 3. A benefit of converting to Islam is that God promises Paradise to the believer Paradise, as described in many verses of Quran, is a place of eternal bliss and it is promised to believers. God shows His mercy to the believers by rewarding them with Paradise. Whoever denies God or worships other than Him will be doomed in the Hereafter to the hellfire. Converting to Islam will save a person from the torment of the grave, suffering on the Day of Judgment and eternal hellfire. 4. A convert to Islam can achieve happiness, tranquility and inner peace Islam itself is inherently associated with inner peace and tranquility. When one submits to the will of God he or she will experience an innate sense of security and peacefulness. Perfect happiness exists only in Paradise. There we will find total peace, tranquility and security and be free from the fear, anxiety and pain that are part of the human condition. However the guidelines provided by Islam allow us, imperfect humans, to seek happiness in this world. The key to being happy in this world and the next is seeking the pleasure of God, and worshiping Him. Source: islamreligion.com |
LABOUR leadership hopeful Liz Kendall has promised to punch the last surviving British coal miner hard in the face. The punch, which will take place in front of the media at the site of Woolley Colliery in Barnsley later today, is Kendall’s attempt to outflank her rivals on the right. Kendall said: “This miner, who lives in a terraced home on benefits and doesn’t even own a car, represents everything that Labour needs to leave behind. “He worked down the mines for more than 40 years and never invested in the property market, never started his own business, no aspiration whatsoever. “It will be my pleasure to deck him.” Once Kendall has punched 62-year-old Roy Hobbs, she will confiscate the instruments of the Woolley Colliery Brass Band and melt them down to make a statue of Alistair Campbell. Hobbs said: “She’s Labour, so I’m sure it’s for the best.” |
30 1827 I St Sacramento , CA 95811 (916) 668-6052 I tried to come here twice in the past month or so and I got turned away and then it was closed the rest of the time. yesterday I tried again and then found out that its no longer going to be "Mondo Bizarro". We'll miss you MBC. What a great coffee shop. The cream cheese bagel was huge and cappuccino was really tasty! Friendly comfortable place, great seating, really good food, great prices, plus free WiFi! And the owner has the best musical taste in all of Sacramento. They've been Mondo Bizarro since October 2010 she said. The lady behind the counter said it's still the same as it was as Butch-N-Nellie's except they added a few things and changed the name. They offer sandwiches, pastries, gelato, and drinks.. Some of the best coffee I've had. If you want to know what the specialty drinks are listed on the board on the wall-- there's a more detailed list on the counter. Great bites to eat-- Hello, Captain's Sammich for $7.95. Turkey, jalapeno spread, tomato, thinly sliced cucumber, pepper jack cheese on a croissant that they sandwich press and serve with chips or pasta salad. They have smoothies, coffee, tea, a few bottled beers.. Nice space. Chalkboard calendar on the wall for upcoming events like Open Mic. (I also spied $1 mimosas on Sundays..) Free Wi-Fi w/ purchase. Street parking. Couches, tables, and stools at the counter inside. Games. A couple tables on the sidewalk.. Right on the corner of 19th and I. $5 minimum on cards. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. I came up to Sacramento tonight to hang out with a friend who had recently come down with a cold. After watching a movie, we decided that the only thing that would really hit the spot was some serious comfort food. After weighing the options, we decided to take a quick jaunt down to Mondo Bizarro to pick up some grilled cheese sandwiches... you know, like Dad used to make when you were a kid, to make you feel more human again. We went in and the owners recommended that we spruce ours up. I ordered mine with Bacon and Pesto, and he's a vegetarian, so he ordered his with Pesto and mustard. We ordered a beer to share while we waited, Doppleweisen to be exact... which kind of tastes like freshly baked banana bread. I have to say that this grilled cheese was exactly what I was hoping for: Two thick slices of sourdough bread, three kinds of cheese, which is the perfect amount to make it to where it's pouring out, just enough down the sides. It was grilled on a panini press, so it wasn't greasy and covered in butter. The bread was soft, but still perfectly toasted... Really- it was the perfect adult version of a grilled cheese sandwich! The best part was, the owners are super friendly and checked in with us after we had tried our sandwiches, to make sure we were enjoying them. It was also a live music night, so there were two different musicians for the evening, strumming tunes while we devoured our delicious sandwiches. We actually ended up staying longer than we expected, just to have another beer and listen to the music. The thing about Mondo is that it is really like a second home. It is so comfortable there...the people are nice, and the owners really care about providing a great place for their patrons and their community. You can pick up awesome food, have a coffee, or a beer (and the people who work there are always introducing you to new things on their secret menu). They also have a different event going on practically every night, so you never know what exactly to expect, besides great food, great service, and great people. Since Butch n Nellies closed at the end of 2010, I had yet to return to this locale... until today. What was I thinking?! Although I'm not fond of the new name, it's very similar: gelato, pastries, coffee drinks, sandwiches. Did you know they have SANGRIA? And GUINESS FLOATS?! hmm, giving the Guiness milkshake at Burgers & Brew a run for their money... Of all the coffee houses I've visited in Sacramento, MB's barristas were the first to ask me if I wanted my cappuccino wet (less foam) or dry (more foam). *sob, sob* No other barristas have cared enough to ask me! I'm faklempt! Talk amongst yourselves; I'll give you a topic -- MB is neither Mondo nor Bizarro. Discuss. The cozy couch set reminds me a bit of Central Perk. (Anybody old enough to remember 'Friends?') Not too crowded midweek and not too loud... conducive to studying or working from a remote location! Great place to start your day! Can't say there's been much change since it was Butch & Nellie's. Ambience is pretty much the same and they continue to have live events throughout the week. WiFi always is reliable and quick....a must these days! I tried the "Freakin Good Quiche" on this visit and I am definitely a fan! I had my first Pumpkin Spice Latte of the season today, thanks to Mondo! It was amazing and was a great start to my day! I love this coffee shop. There's always a place to sit; the employees are super friendly; and the breakfast sandwiches are delicious! This I-shaped venue on I street is where I made my U.S. advent into live pop music performance a couple days ago for Tuesday open mic night. The stage lady/host was really friendly and called me "Acoustic Dave". Right on! It's a lesbian-themed place. Not that that should matter, but ye shall know ye audience, good sirs. In back, outside, there are couches and umbrella-ed tables. Back there I saw some people creating a piece of artwork, working together and chatting. While practicing outside, we found that next door neighbors on the second floor were our Bizarro Idol impromptu audience. Friendly people and a generally good place to be. Haven't tried anything from the kitchen, however. I'm gonna be the first one to review them! Under their new name change of course... this used to be Butch 'n Nellies and as far as I can tell it hasn't changed much beyond the name change (not sure if there was a change of ownership). This is still the awesome dyke-owned cafe and a lifeblood to both the gay, art, music and literary communities of Sacramento. :) I read a poem at the Midtown Out Loud open mic that just started up here, and I must say it was probably the best event of its kind I've been there, the quality of the performers and turn-out were outstanding, though the crowd got a bit noisy at times. But this place usually has lots of regular open mic events, so I hope this becomes as much of a tradition as Poetry Unplugged at Luna's! I haven't had the coffee here, but my friend got a latte, which she said was quite tasty... I've had sandwiches and that amazing gelato here before, so I hope they keep both of those mainstays! They supposedly have a new outdoor patio, but I didn't get to check it out, next time! I still love the casual sofa set-up and tables with chess boards painted on them. This is one of the cutest cafes in town and the one official dyke hang-out I know of in a town desperately needing it! I really hope that this place can continue under the name change and flourish for many years to come. :) I had a panini. It was huge! Not as warm as I was hoping for. Came with Cheetos not sure why. Although the place has changed ownership and its name. It has some of the same vibe as Butch & Nellie's without the funny artwork. They have a small stage set up in the front. It large bulletin event board noted music and poetry. Writing this is a review that is almost an impossible task to take on. Not because it would have to be forced out of me, but it is something that would take volumes to scribe the words that come to mind every single time that I think about this place. The World Famous Mondo Bizarro Café. What a fitting name if there ever was to describe what wonders are to behold once you walked through the door which has one of the most well written mission statements about their clientele. I ask that you take a moment and read this poetry that is etched upon the glass allowing you to see what awaits you on the other side of this truly welcoming portal. I first popped into this place when it was called Butch 'n Nellies. It was a dimly lit coffee house what had a really good chai latte. I only went back a couple of times after that. My landlords office was nextdoor so I would just pop in once a month. In October of 2010 they switched ownership to a family who would turn Bn'N into Mondo Bizarro. I started to see change right away with a more open and inviting feeling. Very organic. The staff made up of friends and family who work for tips...Yes, for tips. You can tell that they really do care and put their heart and soul into everything that they do. There is something very different about this place. At first glance that is what you may see, however if one looks closer you see and feel the warmth of a public house. This is a second home to many a folk in the Midtown area. I for one have become one of these denizens who is always greeted with a smile and hello from this family owned local businesses. Artists, poets, entertainers, activists, gamers, singers, photographers, musicians and all sorts of lost souls congregate here, sharing their crafts with one another without harsh judgements cast by others. I have engaged in many intellectual discussions here. Also, No smooth jazz!! Also to call this place a mere "coffee house" would be an insult, one I am truly sorry to have made a few sentences ago. Yes, it is true that the serve coffee, espresso drinks, tea and pastries, but that is not all. They also serve a selection of beers, ciders, wine, mimosas, and they have some beer/cider cocktails too. As for food they serve savory pastry puffs, cold sandwiches, hot soup, MASSIVE breakfast burritos, gelato, and the best grilled cheese sandwich in Sacramento!! No, seriously this grilled cheese is not to be missed. It is fully customizable and they grill it on a panni press so it's not dripping with butter. It's the adult version of the childhood classic. I am also a lactose-ovo vegetarian and there is plenty of food for me here and they are always willing to experiment...and they even have a secret menu too, shhhhhh. One of my most favorite items on this menu is a caffeinated chilled beverage simply called The Grasshopper. It's a magical blend of espresso, mango iced tea, matcha green tea...and that's about all I know. Pixie dust? Anyways, I highly recommend this. If you drink alcohol try a 50/50, a Guinness float or Tiger's Blood. On different nights of the week they have events. Tuesday's there is an open mic for musical acts, every 1st & 3rd Wednesdays is a night they call Midtown Out Loud which is an uncensored open mic for poetry, spoken word and acoustic performances, and a movie night on Thursdays. Aside from these regular events, they have Second Saturday art shows, concerts, benefits, and Holiday celebrations. I can go on forever about how amazing this place is, but I will let you finish that for me. Thank you for taking the time to read about my thoughts and praises of this truly magical Midtown establishment. 4 stars for the people here. They are the right kind of cool. Sometimes I like to test a place by not knowing what I want to order. Do you ever go into a place and describe what you want, instead of picking what you want? Well, I do this sometimes, and I've done it at MB twice - both with great results. I love when that works. Plus, I like a place in midtown where I can relax and spend some time on a couch. That's always a plus. Mondo You are mine Sweetest nectar of the gods Grilled cheese melts my heart I came here for Open Mic Night. I didnt try any of their food or drinks. It's a small place with a stage. Random people can just come up and sing or recite a poem. It was quite interesting. Come here if you have nothing to do or is interested in these type of things. It was a pretty good experience and my first time experiencing these types of events. My first visit to MB was the day that they hosted a fundraiser for Sacramento Native American Health Center, where I work. They accommodated the young man who had set the event up with the Butch and Nellie ownership and did so with a good spirit. The americano was delicious and so was the banana turnover. Thanks for being a fun couple and good neighbors. I will be back. Love this place. Great coffee is only the start! The sandwiches and breakfast burritos are amazing, too. The couch is comfy and easy to relax while listening to music or enjoying the art work. I go there to work and take a breather once or twice a week. The cafe is perfect for little meetings in a cool cafe setting. Very nice and friendly people that work there too. Thanks! Mondo is the best when you want to go to a place that feels like home. Unlike many cafe's the owner is your best friend and buying a cider feels like you're just paying rent on your apartment. Because this is where you come to house your heart. Wednesday nights at Mondo's are like heaven coming twice a month, where 50+ people gather to hear poetry, live music, and drink delicious Two Rivers Cider or one of their many beer options (both bottled and on tap). And while my review will never top the man who is now captain, I still come here every day looking for a little loving from the cold of winter. I love this place. The last time I was there getting coffee with a friend, there were three young boys quietly reading comic books on one couch, a couple playing scrabble at a table, and several people were clicking away on their lap tops. They have lots of fun open mic/trivia night/celebration-y things going on weekly- and all displayed on their fun chalk board calendar. There is such a sense of community and warmth. They will always give me suggestions for fun espresso drinks. I love that they clearly place a high value on coffee quality with out coming accross snobby or condesending. It makes ordering something new a lot less intimidating. :) A favorite spot to stop in Sacramento whenever I'm here :-) Very chill atmosphere, healthy food choices, friendly waitstaff! |
This was the most elaborate Atomic Energy educational set ever produced, but it was only only available from 1951 to 1952. The unifying characteristic of these toy guns is that they are all identified as “Atomic.” The top two, made of tin, were manufactured in Japan, probably in the 1950s or 1960s. When the trigger is pulled, sparks appear in the window on the barrel. Uranium Rush is a Gardner Games product from the mid 1950s. The information just to the left of the cactus on the top of the box (below) indicates that it was an “Educator Approved” Prestige Toy for 1955. This “Atomic Geiger Counter” was produced by the Bell Products Company of 4251 Forest Park Avenue, St. Louis Missouri, probably in the 1950s. Quoting the Instructions, “The Atomic Geiger Counter is a toy, and is completely safe. It does not detect uranium or any other radioactive ore. However, it is an educational toy which familiarizes the child (and the parent) with certain basic ideas and procedures of real uranium prospecting, by simulating radioactivity detection.” Image and Info Source Thanks howtobearetronaut |
My brother Ian Smart is not a racist. He is worse than that. A racist is normally someone with a grievance, who out of ignorance, and fuelled by urban and media myths, wrongly blames ethic minorities who have absolutely nothing to do with whatever their problem might be. My brother Ian has few problems, is rather well healed, well educated and mixes amongst the very highest echelons of the Scottish establishment. So when he asserts that there will be some sort of pogrom against the Polish and Pakistani communities (and presumably others) in a post independence Scotland, he is not doing this out of ignorance or prejudice, but out of political calculation. The calculation that if he asserts it loudly and often enough Scotland's ethnic communities and others can be scared into voting No. This is called playing the race card. It is one of the most dangerous things an individual can do in any context, and of course normally done by politicians of the far right. But for a Labour blogger to do it in Scotland, where there is a hard worked for and commendable cross-party and cross-society consensus against racial prejudice, and inject it into the highly charge debate on independence is despicable. No better that Enoch Powell in 1968: Allow fair non racial immigration into the UK and there will be “rivers of blood” he predicted, with no evidence and no basis in reality as events have proven. Vote for Independence in 2014 and my brother predicts something similar for Scotland. And what has been the reaction of the Scottish Labour establishment to the gratuitous playing of the race card by one of their own? At best silence, and in the case of old chum Jack McConnell supportive. Because sadly, Ian, the leading Labour blogger in Scotland and a regular TV pundit on this basis, is an outrider for more than a few of them. Apologise and retire. All the advice I can offer. And Ted Heath sacked Enoch Powell, Johan and co please note. A Postscript: This is my first blog post here for near on a year, My last one below is on a similar theme. A response to George Galloway playing the Green Card in a near identical context. Same time warped and unsupported bullshit from a washed out "lefty" And hear that silence from the Laborites on both occasions. |
Dean Stansel, an economics professor down in Florida, sends an article with some good news: A Florida state-house committee has voted to reduce an especially notorious kind of government licensing, Certificate of Need, or CON, requirements. “CON” restrictions are layered on top of state licensing and training requirements for medical professionals. They require that all medical providers wanting to build or expand an existing health-care facility, offer new services, or acquire new medical equipment must gain approval from state regulators just to run their businesses. Florida is one of the 36 states that have CON laws on the books. And there are many worse offenders, according to the work of my colleagues at the Mercatus Center — CON laws in Florida burden eleven types of providers and services, while the national average is 13 and some states regulate more than 20. But Florida could probably make it a lot easier to access health care if they rolled some of these rules back. I summarized my colleagues’ research on the impact of CON laws recently: As part of a large effort by the Mercatus Center to study CON laws around the country, economists Thomas Stratmann and Jacob W. Russ published a comprehensive empirical study looking at whether CON laws increase indigent care. They found that under the regulatory scheme, the poorest Americans see no increase in the availability of care and that it limits the provision of medical services. Their study shows that while on average there are 362 hospital beds per 100,000 people in the United States, the presence of a state CON regulation program reduces that number by 99 beds. They also found that for each additional service that a state regulates — such as the acquisition of CT scanners or MRI machines — the number of hospital beds per 100,000 people decreases by 4.7. Looking at CON laws on a state-by-state basis, my colleague Christopher Koopman found that Vermont is the worst offender, with its CON program currently regulating 30 different services, devices and procedures, which is much more than the national average of 14. But hospital beds aren’t the only casualties of CON regulations. They also reduce the number of hospitals with MRI technology by one to two hospitals per 500,000 people. Koopman calculated that in North Carolina, the fourth-worst CON state, it could mean 49 fewer hospitals offering MRI services. Advertisement Advertisement Here is what it would mean for Florida: Throughout the United States there are approximately 362 beds per 100,000 persons. However, in states such as Florida that regulate acute hospital beds through their CON programs, Stratmann and Russ find 131 fewer beds per 100,000 persons. For a county like Miami-Dade, with its population of approximately 2.62 million, this means that there are about 3,428 fewer hospital beds as a result of the state’s CON program. Moreover, several basic health care services that are used for a variety of purposes are limited because of Florida’s CON program. Across the United States, an average of six hospitals per 500,000 persons offer MRI services. In states such as Florida that regulate the number of hospitals with MRI machines, the number of hospitals that offer MRIs is reduced by between one and two per 500,000 persons.18 As a result, in an area like Miami-Dade County there are approximately five to ten fewer hospitals offering MRI services. Florida’s CON program also affects the availability of CT services. While an average of nine hospitals per 500,000 persons offer CT scans, CON regulations are associated with a 37 percent decrease in these services. For the 2.62 million people living in Miami-Dade, this could mean about 18 fewer hospitals offering CT scans. So why support such laws in the firat place? Here’s the argument Democrats are making in Florida: Democrats opposed to the bill said new hospitals would come in to compete for patients with insurance coverage and better financial means and leave uninsured and low-income patients to the larger public and safety net hospitals. “I feel this is an attack on hospitals serving the uninsured and poor,” said state Rep. Janet Cruz, D-Tampa, who expressed concerns about the impact on Tampa General Hospital. Advertisement Advertisement There’s so much wrong in so few sentences ere. First, health-care providers may not like competition, but it’s good for consumers. As the research shows, CON laws were intended to limit the supply of health-care services and they effectively did. They were also supposed to contain the cost of health care, and clearly they’ve failed at that. It’s also not clear how they’ve done a good job serving the poor. State policymakers in Florida are right to take a step closer to joining the other 14 states that are CON-law-free. It will slow the growth of health-care costs, would invigorate health-care innovation, open up the health-care market, create more competition, and ultimately offer more options to those in need of health care. |
When: Nov 6, 2015 from 6pm to 9:30pm Where: Rhino's All Ages Music Club, 331 S Walnut St, Bloomington, IN Admission: Free! Free Range Arcade is a gallery of video games made right here in the Midwest! Game makers from all over the region will gather here in Bloomington to show off their work. Featured Game Creators Studio Cypher Bloomington, IN SC recently partnered with Mundo Lanugo to create an iPad app that teaches preschoolers about Hispanic culture. Mommy's Best Games Louisville, KY MBG will be showcasing their just-released-on-Windows games Shoot 1UP and Explosionade! Zon Haralovich Bloomington, IN Zon will be showing off his outer space multiplayer sandbox game Contested Space. Mad Goblin Games Bloomington, IN Haywire on fuel station Zeta is a challenging isometric platformer that was just released on Steam! Come and see how far you can get! S.S. 64 Games Bloomington, IN They will be demoing their upcoming Tetris-meets-Jenga game StacksOnStacks(OnStacks). RareSloth Bloomington, IN They'll be showing off the new level editor for their iOS game Furdemption! Super Soul Lexington, KY Super Soul will be giving an early preview of their next game, Beam Me Up Patrick Stefaniak Bloomington, IN Patrick will be showing his art game, CUBEISM The Retro Rocketeers Bloomington, IN This student team has been working hard on their game, Mothership Defense Force! Mild Mojo Lexington, KY Do your best to make sure there's no dead air on this radio station control game, Disc Jockey Jockey! More Coming soon! If you have a game you'd like to show, send an email to ian@studiocypher.com. |
Origins Edit Institutions Edit Popular support Edit Portrayals of Communists Edit Those who sought to justify McCarthyism did so largely through their characterization of Communism, and American Communists in particular. Proponents of McCarthyism claimed that the CPUSA was so completely under Moscow's control that any American Communist was a puppet of the Soviet intelligence services. This view is supported by recent documentation from the archives of the KGB[53] as well as post-war decodes of wartime Soviet radio traffic from the Venona Project,[54] showing that Moscow provided financial support to the CPUSA and had significant influence on CPUSA policies. J. Edgar Hoover commented in a 1950 speech, "Communist members, body and soul, are the property of the Party." This attitude was not confined to arch-conservatives. In 1940, the American Civil Liberties Union ejected founding member Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, saying that her membership in the Communist Party was enough to disqualify her as a civil libertarian. In the government's prosecutions of Communist Party members under the Smith Act (see above), the prosecution case was based not on specific actions or statements by the defendants, but on the premise that a commitment to violent overthrow of the government was inherent in the doctrines of Marxism–Leninism. Passages of the CPUSA's constitution that specifically rejected revolutionary violence were dismissed as deliberate deception.[55] In addition, the party was often claimed to not allow any member to resign, so a person who had been a member for a short time decades previously could be considered as suspect as a current member. Many of the hearings and trials of McCarthyism featured testimony by former Communist Party members such as Elizabeth Bentley, Louis Budenz, and Whittaker Chambers, speaking as expert witnesses.[56][57] Various historians and pundits have discussed alleged Soviet-directed infiltration of the U.S. government and the possible collaboration of high U.S. government officials.[58][59][60][61] Victims of McCarthyism Edit Critical reactions Edit Decline Edit Repercussions Edit In popular culture Edit See also Edit References Edit |
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