text stringlengths 0 100k |
|---|
. HOLIKA HOLIKA GUDETAMA - LAZY & JOY COLLECTION . HOLIKA HOLIKA GUDETAMA LAZY & JOY EGG BUN PUFF . HOLIKA HOLIKA GUDETAMA LAZY & JOY CUPCAKE EYE SHADOW PALETTE . HOLIKA HOLIKA GUDETAMA LAZY & JOY DESSERT HAND CREAM . HOLIKA HOLIKA GUDETAMA LAZY & JOY FACE 2 CHANGE PHOTO READY TONE-UP CUSHION SPF50+ PA+++ . HOLIKA HOLIKA GUDETAMA LAZY & JOY COLLECTION JELLY DOUGH BLUSHER . WHERE TO BUY? WHAT ARE YOU PLANNING TO BUY? [ CLICK HERE FOR PART 2 OF THE COLLECTION! ] note: these pictures are from the official holika holika website, see disclaimer Holika Holika collaborates with Gudetama again and came with another collection called Lazy & Joy! The items are adorable, I just want them all! Check out the whole collection in today's blogpost. I am sure they will add more products into this collection within these few months. What is on your wishlist? Also, follow me on my instagram: @ Sokobeauty where I am sharing all new collections faster than on my blog. [ CLICK HERE FOR PART 2 OF THE COLLECTION! ]This collection includes hand creams, a make up sponge, blushers, tone up cushion and eyeshadow palettes.Make up sponge with gudetama! Too cute, it enlarges when you put it in water.Adorable palettes with cute gudetama cupcakes on it. There are 2 palettes, the first one has more red and brown shades, and the second one has brown and bronze shades. I am curious how the pigmentations are.It comes in a hand cream set but can also be purchased separately. It contains 3 kinds of hand creams: custard, sherbet and cream cheese. I really cannot imagine how they smell like.These blushers come in 4 shades!Edit: 21/10/2016: It's sold now at vutydesign.com and at testerkorea.com |
Orica-AIS today announced that Australian cyclist and Ella contributor Loren Rowney will join the Aussie squad in 2016. Rowney, a two-time Route de France stage winner, is Orica-AIS’ first new recruit for 2016. She was recruited after her Velocio-SRAM team announced it would disband at the end of the season. While part of the highly successful Velocio-SRAM team (previously Specialized-Lululemon) the 26-year-old has notched stage results at the Trophee d’Or Feminin, Tour of New Zealand and Feminin International de l’Ardeche. “To say I’m pumped about finally being teammates with this crew is an understatement,” said Rowney. “I really enjoyed my time with Velocio-SRAM, and learnt so much. I’m the professional I am today because of that team, however, there’s always been a part of me that wanted to be on an Aussie team.” “ORICA-AIS has always had a really aggressive approach in their racing style,” Rowney continued. “I’ve always liked and respected that in their style of racing, so I look forward to testing myself more in those race situations where you just have a go and see what happens.” Sport director Gene Bates knows Rowney well and said he’s looking forward to allowing Rowney to highlight her versatility more and develop her into a classic’s rider. “We are really pleased to be able to have Loren on the team next year, we’ve been looking at her for the last couple of years,” Bates said. “Loren is a very versatile rider and we think she has a lot more to offer than what we’ve seen. She’s had some good wins from small groups but also a top 20 at Het Nieuwsblad, which also highlights her ability over a one-day classic.” |
WATCH: Randy Bryce explains the importance of labor unions for America's middle class The man known as the "Iron 'Stache" gives Salon the history of his union, and why membership is so important The Democratic challenger to House Speaker Paul Ryan is making a name for himself but wants the United States to know that labor unions are still important to the health of the economy. "Often there are non-union workers on the same job site as union workers," Randy Bryce told Salon. "Which everybody benefits from." Advertisement: A labor leader, Bryce says he wants to bring the Midwest to Washington and is going after the top House Republican in that spirit. Bryce exploded on the national spotlight with a powerful two-minute ad directly challenging Ryan. Bryce said he's in the "Buy America" camp, and believes that Trump — with his anti-NAFTA and anti TPP stance — is following in his footsteps. Bryce also gave Salon a history of the Iron Workers Union and how it was founded. |
MEXICO CITY — Firefighting crews extinguished a fire aboard a fuel tanker belonging to the Mexican state oil company, Pemex, late Sunday afternoon, about 30 hours after an explosion sent flames billowing into the air off the Gulf Coast port of Veracruz. Pemex said all 31 crew members aboard the tanker, the Burgos, were safely evacuated. The tanker was carrying 80,000 barrels of diesel fuel and 70,000 barrels of gasoline, but officials said the boat’s double hull reduced the risk of a spill. “Up to now, we have not detected any extensive spill,” José Antonio González Anaya, Pemex’s chief executive, said at a news conference in Veracruz that was broadcast by radio on Sunday, shortly before the fire was contained. It was too early to determine the cause of the explosion, he said. The 558-foot Burgos was carrying the fuel from the port of Coatzacoalcos to Veracruz and was 6.7 nautical miles offshore when the explosion occurred at 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, Mexico’s communications ministry said. |
Would you wear skinny jeans if they were illegal? As it turns out, the answer is yes, at least for one young North Korean woman. Danbi and I are browsing through a South Korean market, when she stops to admire a pair of slim fitting pants. “Girls just love these back home!” she declares. By home, she means a city in far-off North Korea. She flips her hair dramatically, and laughs heartily, as she tries on a sparkly hair clip. She recalls, “We all wanted to be able to run our fingers through our hair like this. Like we saw in a South Korean TV show. But we couldn't. Because we didn’t have enough shampoo in North Korea, so your fingers would just get stuck!” Danbi is a 24-year-old North Korean refugee, who paints a picture of the totalitarian regime that’s quite different from the one we’re used to seeing, but an account supported by other defectors and those working with North Koreans. Yes, the country is rife with human rights abuses and grinding poverty. But Danbi, who took on her new name after fleeing, is from a city near the Chinese border — which has become surprisingly porous, and so she’s grown up in this presumably closed nation with a window to the outside world. She says she shopped in black markets with smuggled foreign goods and watched American and South Korean TV shows, via smuggled USB sticks, since she was a kid. So by the time she entered junior high, Danbi says what she learned in school — that Americans can’t be trusted and South Koreans are poor — she doubted its truth. A police officer browses a South Korean market. Danbi says many of the goods sold here can also be found in North Korean markets. Credit: Heidi Shin Now Danbi was probably a lot more daring and enterprising than your average North Korean teen. But she is part of a generation of North Korean millennials who were kids during the country’s devastating famine of the 90s. So young people like Danbi didn’t look to the country’s dictators to provide in the way their parents did, nor did they respect the government's rules. North Korean refugee Danbi in her South Korean apartment, getting ready to go out. In North Korea, youth informants patrol the streets, to report young people who violate the country's dress codes. Jeans, which are popular in South Korea, were seen as a symbol of American imperialism in the North. Credit: Heidi Shin I’m struck by how much Danbi sounds like an American teen. She questions authority and brags about skirting the country’s dress codes as a teenager in North Korea. She tells me about the time she was caught by youth informants for wearing a form-fitting outfit, which had been smuggled from the South. “They draw a line on the street, and make you stand there, while they tear at your clothes as people walk by. To make an example of you,” she explains. Jeans were seen as a symbol of American imperialism—and girls caught wearing them would have holes punctured in them to keep them from being worn again. Hair that was too long was also cut on the spot, she says. Danbi adds that if you’re caught five or six times, that’s when you’re sent to do forced labor, unless you have the connections and resources to pay a bribe. 24-year old North Korean refugee Danbi swipes through photos on her mobile phone. She has no contact with family back home, she says. But some North Korean refugees continue to communicate with their families in the North, via care packages and smuggled Chinese cell phones. Credit: Heidi Shin Still most North Koreans live in extreme poverty. Electricity is limited to a few hours each day, food and running water can be scarce, and the daily threat of forced labor camps — or even harsher punishments—is real. But Danbi saw the difference it made to have access to the outside world. She recalls, “We had neighbors with relatives in the South, and suddenly they started doing a lot better, since their family started sending money back. At one point, my mother even joked, why don’t you disappear and send some money back for us, too.” According to the NGO Liberty in North Korea, North Korean refugees routinely send money back to North Korea each year. Those who can afford it are also said to communicate with their families on a regular basis, via care packages and smuggled cell phones. Danbi escaped to South Korea four years ago — after learning she was being investigated by the North Korean government, and she couldn’t bribe her way out. Now she’s married to a South Korean man, and what she says she misses most about North Korea — is working the black markets, and the family she left behind. |
Because Luke Hughes has a master’s degree in neurophysiology and psychology from Oxford, and uses terms like “emotional authenticity” when talking about his upcoming “leadership RPG” Burden of Command, I reached for my little tin of Big Questions when preparing today’s interview. Amongst the sensitive subjects discussed below: the glorification of war through video games, swearing on virtual battlefields, and why players of XCOM resemble seagulls. RPS: How are you hoping to achieve “emotional authenticity” in Burden of Command? Luke: By making it first and foremost a human experience rather than a tactics and strategy experience. Thanks primarily to permadeath, death has real significance in Burden of Command. Permadeath matters not just because your player character might die but because as a leader you have to think about your NPC lieutenants and enlisted men’s deaths. You will have to consciously send men you’ve grown to like and respect into harm’s way. If they don’t come back, you can’t just reload and bring them back. Time and again vets on the team, including ones with combat tours behind them, have emphasized the importance of this aspect of command. What we call Men versus the Mission. This War of Mine, Darkest Dungeon, XCOM and of course more traditional roguelikes have employed this mechanic, but here we use it to make you think about the virtual lives you hold in your hands, not just your own. Of course if you don’t give a damn about them and view them only as sprites this will fall a bit flat. So as a second technique we use ‘choose your own adventure’ like leadership moments. These seek to focus you on the Burdens of Command by presenting you with tough and often very historical choices. Not only Men vs Mission but for example, your men versus say the fate of other men (e.g. do you hold the hill at terrible cost so a different company is not outflanked?) What about the lives of civilians caught in the crossfire? Or even those of the enemy when the opportunity for perhaps too needless a slaughter is offered (like the still debated Highway of Death in the first Gulf War). When is it right to offer up your own life, ending your avatar’s career? Context-linked character outbursts (“barks”) and the wonderful portraits created by Mariusz Kozik regularly appear on the screen further humanising your troops. Finally, we try to center the tactical battlefield mechanics around human psychology: Morale, Suppression, Trust, Respect, Experience, and what might be called of the natural human “fear of death.” We try to create emotionally authentic battlefield mechanics. RPS: Computer wargames have got by with simple morale variables and leader proximity buffs for decades. Why go deeper? Luke: Why is a wargame experience only about tactics? The founding father of tactical wargames, Squad Leader’s John Hill once wrote: “Squad Leader was a success for one reason: it personalized the board game in a World War II environment. Take the “leaders,” or persons, away from it and it becomes a bore. Though this may sound surprising, the game has much in common with Dungeons & Dragons. In both games, things tend to go wrong, and being caught moving in the street by a heavy machinegun is like being caught by a people-eating dragon. Squad Leader was successful because, underneath all its World War II technology, it is an adventure game, indeed Dungeons & Dragons in the streets of Stalingrad.” Since then we’ve largely lost sight of his insight and left the roleplaying and emotional experience to the dice (“Snake Eyes! My squad just went berserk right as you charged across the street.. Oh man it just took out… etc, etc”). Close Combat digitally went significantly further with psychologically modeled soldier sprites. Unfortunately the sprites died so quickly you never had time to form the emotional connections like real bands of brothers do. Why not take John Hill’s D&D analogy seriously? What we do first is attempt to put you in the boots of an infantry captain in World War II. That’s why we brought in historian John McManus, have many vets on the team, and even hired an archivist to go into the US National Archives and retrieve actual after action reports written by the captains and lieutenants who were there at the time. We’re hoping that by emphasizing the personal emotional experience of being a wartime leader, with all the responsibilities and emotional burdens that entails, that we are doing a more authentic war game, not a less authentic one. Just like how This War of Mine conveyed some of the emotional experience of being civilians in a war zone. That being said, “simple morale variables and leader proximity” go a darn long way on the tactical side. But in the 30 years since John Hill there has been a lot of fine thinking in tactical board games as well as digital ones (Steel Panthers, Close Combat, Command Ops, anyone?). Standing on the shoulders of those giants especially those in the boardgame space we believe we can emphasize even more emotionally authentic tactics and aspects of battlefield leadership. For example, many many tactical games both cardboard and digital focus on firepower even if on the surface they appear to focus on morale. Typically you repeatedly fire at an enemy unit until it “breaks” and “routs” or is otherwise removed from the map through firepower alone. Firepower equals the “kill.” A fair statement for artillery but much less so for small arms fire. On real battlefields soldiers who weren’t panicking kept their heads down because they didn’t want to die. Would you stand up in the face of active machine gun fire to surrender or run away? I wouldn’t and they didn’t. Hence in WWII it took something like 8000 bullets to inflict a casualty. So instead you’ll need to close to assault a suppressed enemy. But real warriors are usually reluctant to engage in hand to hand fighting. Leo Murray, the author of the superb book Brains & Bullets, estimates that left to their own devices fewer than 20% of soldiers are willing to commit to a hand to hand assault. It will be your burden as a leader to motivate that other 80% into finishing the job. For that you’ll need to have earned their trust by risking your own ass with them under fire. You can see how the human factors built on and off the battlefield come back to play a role in tactical mechanics. I go into more detail on the mechanics of suppression, trust, and so forth in my latest dev blog. RPS: War is a cruel, capricious creature so, surely, games that represent it accurately must be cruel and capricious too? Luke: Random death was of course pervasive in World War II, and officer casualty rates were high. What you might call the all too real “physical authenticity” of the battlefield. So shouldn’t we just have your or your officers randomly die with frequency to be authentic? Well, two answers, first the casualty rates dropped significantly if you had battlefield experience. A lot of the casualties came on the first day or even moments of battle before soldiers had learnt to keep their head down, read the terrain, etc. Secondly, and perhaps more subtly, I think we need to juxtapose physical authenticity and emotional authenticity. Real soldiers form emotional bonds. Good leaders are often like fathers to their men, shepherds. And real soldiers have lots and lots of time off the battlefield to form those bonds. Remember the saying “war is 99% percent boredom and 1% sheer terror”? Well unless we plan a boredom simulator (probably not a sensible move from a sales perspective), we have to capture that emotional authenticity by reducing capricious death sufficiently to allow you to develop the emotional connection with your men that is part of the reward and burden of command. All that being said if you insist on wandering around in the open in front of unsuppressed machine guns then yes you will experience the capriciousness of war. And sometimes even if you don’t act with folly. Though typically we’ll wound you and put out of action if you’re following good tactics rather than just kill you outright. Everyone is subject to permadeath in Burden of Command, including you. But we lighten up on the pedal to create the time for emotional authenticity and thereby an engaging gameplay experience. RPS: Do you think games about war can glorify their subject thereby making real wars more socially acceptable? Luke: As Robert E. Lee once said, “It is well war is so terrible or we should grow too fond of it.” Many wargamers, myself, among them, have sometimes felt concerned that, as I believe you once put it, we are playing in a graveyard. That we extract and focus on only the intellectual challenge of generalship and or the excitement and ‘glory’ of a well fought tactical battle. Similarly it is clear many people feel disquiet at the “power trip” that the endless offing of the enemy in a first-person shooter like Call of Duty creates. There is a place for the study of strategy and tactics and a place for escapist fun but there is also a place for an engaging experience touching on complex realities. The sales of games like This War of Mine – which explores the harsh realities of civilian experience in a warzone – suggests players of all kinds and not just wargamers might welcome engagement just as much as “fun.” Interestingly I have never felt any disquiet working on Burden of Command. Quite the opposite, in fact, that perhaps we are doing some small service by showing respect for the realities of war and the burdens of leadership. Interestingly we have many vets on the team and among the playtesters, including some with combat experience, and while they are quick to point out that no game can really touch directly on the reality of combat, they also feel that Burden of Command, by being respectful of the emotional and leadership burdens of the real experience might do a service. Much like Band of Brothers, or American Sniper, if done well we can gain not only a sober sense of the challenges of war, but also a respect for those who endure it on our behalf. In short we can take away not the “glory of war” so much as a respect for those who serve and those who have served. Men like the Cottonbalers, the focus of our project. RPS: Tactical wargames like BoC obviously can’t show the disturbing visual reality of war but they could offer aural authenticity. Will there be F words and nerve-chafing screams in the game? Luke: There weren’t going to be until you suggested it, Tim! But honestly, it’s an excellent idea. Our current plan is to have the writers Allen Gies and Paul Wang write many textual “barks” that trigger dynamically by situation and personalities involved to draw you into the “emotional action.” This War of Mine did a fine job on this. But if we can afford to do it on the auditory side for certain background human sounds like you suggest, that might be powerful. RPS: I understand you’ve played the new CoD. If you’d been in a position to boost its realism in any single area prior to launch which area would you have chosen? Luke: I’d have added respect for death. CoD does a remarkable job visually and with human characters setting the stage of war but then it pulls its punches through gameplay mechanics. Right now in CoD your own death is only the inconvenience of a near instant reload. The NPCs around you are generally protected by “plot armor” meaning they have to stick around for the extended plot to be realized and the very expensive voice acting not to be wasted. Like Darkest Dungeon or This War of Mine I’d suggest taking the risk of giving it permadeath. Similarly, how can you experience the weight of war if your decisions can’t get others (the NPCs) killed? Look at how much players bond with the fanciful soldiers in XCOM or Battle Brothers. This comes back again to the core burdens of command, your irreversible responsibility over the life and death of others. Of course making such changes would mean a lot of other design changes for CoD (like procedural “levels” to make permadeath acceptable like in a roguelike). Not an easy task. It is our good fortune that we built Burden of Command from the ground up with emotional authenticity in mind. RPS: The term ‘hero’ seems to be everywhere these days. Will there be heroes in Burden of Command and how will we know them when we encounter them? Luke: Too often the a hero in a gaming context is someone who dispatches endless enemies with dramatic skill. In his book On Combat Colonel Grossman talks about certain men being “sheepdogs” meaning they see their role by contrast as the protection and welfare of others. Such men often make good leaders, like Captain Winters in Band of Brothers (a personal hero of mine). I always remember that scene where Winters decided to falsely attest to his superior to having sent out a second canal patrol at the end of the war to spare needless loss of life. However, I also remember many times where he had to order attacks that would likely kill men he respected and cared about because of the responsibilities of his role. In Burden of Command we similarly want to give you a role where you decide how you balance your mens’ futures versus your moral responsibility for the mission’s success. Where you have a chance to be a different kind of hero. RPS: Does your knowledge of neurophysiology and psychology influence the way you design? Luke: I tend to think about game design from the mindset of the “biological basis of behavior.” When Sid Meier says “games are a series of interesting decisions” I’m immediately thinking “what the heck is an “interesting decision” in biological terms? Well animals assess the world constantly in terms of “threats” and “opportunities.” I remember once watching a seagull I’d thrown some bread to… bread I threw deliberately close to me. It kept dancing into range of the bread (“opportunity!”) and then dancing back as it saw me too close (“threat!”). That seagull was dancing on the cusp of an “interesting decision.” Guess what. Our biology as gamers isn’t any different. So when we realize in XCOM that if we move into the building this turn we’ll get to destroy the objective before the clock runs out (“opportunity!”) and then we realize there are probably Xenos hiding in the building (“threat!”) we suddenly find ourselves hovering on the cusp of an “interesting decision.” So in Burden of Command I try to make sure most tactical decisions involve an opportunity and a threat. Or at least two equally enticing opportunities where you get to pick only one. There the threat is the opportunity cost of the choice not taken. I push the writers to think similarly for the Choose Your Own Adventure decisions. RPS: How have you prepared for your first foray into computer game design? Luke: Well, I’ve sat at the feet of many virtual mentors during the past year. I’ve spent a lot of time watching Game Design Conference (GDC) talks on YouTube, listening to game design podcasts (shout out to Three Moves Ahead, Ludology Podcast, Dirk Knemeyer’s Game Design Round Table), and studying game players feedback in forums. I also spent a lot of time analyzing successful digital designs outside of wargames (XCOM, Crusader Kings 2, Banner Saga, This War of Mine, etc) to try to make myself think out of the (game)box about the wargaming genre. Then I read through all of William Bernhardt’s books on writing (the Red Sneakers series) to get myself educated on narrative design. We’re at a very fortunate time in the game industry when so many brilliant people are sharing their insights virtually. Finally I brought to the team of series of outside advisors and experts like Chris Avellone, Alexis Kennedy, William Bernhardt, well-known artists and more to advise us on good and visually appealing game design. So, well, we’ve been doing our homework. If our design falls short it won’t be from lack of trying! RPS: Thank you for your time. * * * If Burden of Command has a polar opposite it’s probably The Operational Art of War IV. Released yesterday, the most anticipated wargame of the year (according to its publisher, Matrix Games) is about as human/compassionate as a Czech hedgehog. TOAW4 has much more important things to worry about than whether one wisecracking 18-year-old private from the Bronx steps on a Bouncing Betty near Aachen in 1944 while going to the aid of his wounded commander. Its concerns are generally brigade, division, or corps sized. Capable of simulating almost any 21st, 20th or late-19th Century op, the TOAW series has been a genre favourite for almost twenty years. This latest version includes a reworked GUI, support for modern monitors, and realism advances in several areas including naval warfare and supply. A few quick-off-the-mark purchasers are clearly surprised and disappointed by the game’s AI inconsistency (Some of the myriad scenarios feature a so-called Programmed Opponent ensuring challenge and historicism in singleplayer. Others rely on an incompetent generic understudy and are best suited to PBEM) but a slightly misleading feature list won’t, I suspect, prevent TOAW IV from swelling the series’ small but loyal fan base. * * * |
Prisoners have won a fight to play the latest computer games in their prison cell[GETTY/PH] Inmates are now able to play the newest version of football game FIFA and will also be able to play big-budget shooter Destiny, both of which hit stores this week, after prison chiefs relaxed rules. Convicts previously had to "make do" with "ancient" consoles like the Playstation 2 and Xbox, which were released in 2000 and 2001 respectively. But well-behaved prisoners have now been given "enhanced privileges" allowing them to use their own money to but the bestselling Xbox 360. Although it is not as up-to-date as the Playstation 4 (PS4) and Xbox One, released last November, it still allows them to play newly-released games. The consoles are available to buy from GEMA Records, the biggest supplier of consoles and video games to prisons. FIFA 14 is one of the games prisoners will be able to play in their cells [PH] With the amount of time we spend in our cells these days we need something to stave off the boredom A prisoner The move is in sharp contrast to a recent pledge from Justice Minister Chris Grayling's to crackdown on "holiday camp jails". One prisoner at HMP Gartree in Leicestershire, said prisoners on "enhanced status" were "loving" playing the new games on their Xbox 360 consoles. The gadgets have been specifically adapted with the wi-fi removed to stop prisoners obtaining access to the internet. Another inmate, who did not want to be named, said the new consoles were "brilliant". He said: "It might cost an arm and leg when we're only getting £10-a-week in wages, but the games you can get on Xbox 360 are so much better than the old consoles. "With the amount of time we spend in our cells these days we need something to stave off the boredom." Prisoners will also soon be able to play new shooter Destiny [PH] |
Reddit AKA the front page of the internet for cat gifs and atheist rage comics just earned a Guinness World Record for largest online Secret Santa game. Over the last three years, RedditGifts facilitated anonymous gift exchanges between 30,025 participants (including Stephen Colbert) in 115 countries. Only the Reddit team gets the award and they’re not sharing it with all the users although I’m sure if asked, one of the team members would do a IAMA about how their life changed thanks to a piece of paper. Just like how RedditGifts was started, it was a random Reddit user named someguyfromcanada (pictured) who got the ball rolling with the stat nerds at Guinness. In March 2011 (I think) we started getting PMs and emails from the reddit user someguyfromcanada. He was saying that he wanted to make it his personal mission to get reddit and redditgifts into the record books. He started with tweets and emails directed at Guinness, took the campaign to the reddit community and eventually, months later, Guinness decided that they were going to create a new world’s record category for us! So everyone, please, take a moment and thank someguyfromcanada. Without him, this would have never happened. RedditGifts was started by a Redditor (Dan “kickme444″ McComas ) back in 2009 and Condé Nast purchased the site itself in 2011. As Greg explained at the time, this acquisition gave the little pet project the proper support it needed to grow and better serve its users. In each gift exchange, participants are paired with another Redditor who is tasked with finding and giving an awesome gift. But this isn’t just for Christmas time. The giving goes on year-round, with categories for teachers, pets, comic books, dorm rooms. So get at it: Join the movement by making someone’s day and earn a little bit of real life karma. |
Belgium's gambling authority, the Belgian Gaming Commission, has launched an investigation into Star Wars: Battlefront II and Overwatch to determine if the loot boxes in those games constitute gambling, according to VTM News. Games of chance require a permit from the Gaming Commission in Belgium, and due to the random nature of loot boxes, they could fall into that category. Belgian Gaming Commission director Peter Naessens said (via PCGamesN), "If there is a game of chance, it is not possible without a permit from the Gaming Commission." If the commission determines that the loot crate system is a game of chance, the publishers of the games in question--Electronic Arts and Blizzard--could have to a pay a fine amounting to "hundreds of thousands of Euros." It's also reportedly possible that the games could be removed from sale in Belgium. Battlefront II's loot boxes can contain items that actually affect gameplay, while Overwatch's are cosmetic only. It's unclear if this would impact the ruling, however. "Games of chance cannot be compared to any other kind of economic services," reads a line from the commission's charter. "They may cause people to become addicted to gambling and cause them to lose a great deal of money. For this reason, a number of protective measures have been implemented to protect players against these sorts of potential risks." We have contacted Electronic Arts and Blizzard in an attempt to get their response to Belgium's investigation. We'll report back with new information as it comes to light. The Chinese version of Overwatch displays some loot box odds, though the game does not in other parts of the world. For its part, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime said Overwatch does not belong in the loot box controversy discussion because the game only offers cosmetic items in its crates. According to the Entertainment Software Rating Board, which is not a government agency, loot boxes do not constitute gambling. "While there's an element of chance in these mechanics, the player is always guaranteed to receive in-game content (even if the player unfortunately receives something they don't want)," a spokesperson told Kotaku. "We think of it as a similar principle to collectible card games: Sometimes you'll open a pack and get a brand new holographic card you've had your eye on for a while. But other times you'll end up with a pack of cards you already have." EA has faced a wave of criticism over Battlefront II's loot box/microtransaction systems. Just this week, EA CFO Blake Jorgensen said "people need to be patient" as the developer responds to player feedback and makes necessary changes. Notably, EA has gone on to remove all microtransactions from Battlefront II temporarily in response to fan complaints. |
GETTY Russia is reported to have donated 800 tonnes of flour to North Korea Citing the Facebook page of the Russian Embassy in Pyongyang, the Washington-based Radio Free Asia has said a Russian ship carrying the wheat flour arrived in North Korea’s port city of Chongjin on Monday. North Korea is heavily sanctioned under UN resolutions for its nuclear and missile tests. However, it is understood that the wheat flour has been provided through the UN’s World Food Programme. The secretive state has been hurt financially by international sanctions that prohibit the sale of military equipment and luxury goods. Despite this, the wheat flour donation is intended to be used to make dietary supplements for North Korea’s most vulnerable people, including children in the country’s Kangwon and Ryanggang provinces. Earlier this year, a UN report revealed that roughly two in five North Koreans are undernourished. GETTY It is understood that the wheat flour has been provided through the UN’s World Food Programme North Korea visitor captures secretive state with illegal selfies Fri, July 28, 2017 A visitor to North Korean used the ingenious technique of appearing to take selfies of himself in order to record his trip without attracting the attention of the autocratic regime’s feared security services. Play slideshow mediadrumworld.com 1 of 9 At a Pyongyang underground station, the deepest subway system on earth The report also showed that more than 70% of the country’s population relies on food aid. It has been estimated that 18 million people across the country continue to suffer from food insecurity and undernutrition as well as a lack of access to basic services. The isolated nation has a population of approximately 25 million and has faced food shortages for several years. GETTY Two-thirds of North Koreans still depend on food being distributed by the state |
Talk to any classic Range Rover enthusiast about a car that defines the brand and most will say Velar. The name Velar revers to a veil or velum covering an object, protecting it and keeping it hidden. Fitting then that this would be the term given to the original Range Rover prototypes from 1969 – 1970. In total there were 26 Range Rover Velar prototypes created and they are now highly coveted objects as they are seen as the origins of the Range Rover brand. These 26 Velars were subjected to hot and cold weather testing all over the world, were used on motorshow plinths once cleaned up and then tested to near destruction again once they left the motorshow. The life of the Velar prototype was a rough one, but one that paid dividends for years to come. When the Range Rover classic was launched in 1971 it was a highly luxurious model, as modern Range Rovers are today, and it took the world by storm as the combination of luxury and off-road prowess was so unheard of, this success was down to the rigorous life lead by the Velar prototypes. Nowadays the Velar prototypes are fast approaching 50 years of age, yet their story is largely untold. Within the specialist groups and forums the Velar name is one held dear and carries a great deal of heritage with it but no one outside of the Range Rover fraternity really knows about them. Did you know that a Range Rover Velar won the first ever UK off-road race in Wales in 1971? The man behind the wheel was Roger Crathorne, the man dubbed ‘Mr Land Rover’ because if there was anything he didn’t know about Land Rovers and off roading it wasn’t worth knowing. The early Velars were the first time much of the British public had seen such an unconventional car and all Velars played a part in bringing the Range Rover brand into the history books. It is clear that the Velar name is legendary, what started as describing early prototypes as ‘covered’ has now become a way to describe the origins and essence of the brand. Why then In 2017 are we we so interested in revisiting the Velar name? Last year insiders from JLR fuelled speculation that the next Range Rover could well be named, you guessed it, Velar. Rumours, spy shots and speculation from across the internet indicated that Range Rover were soon to be adding a new model to their product family tree; their fourth body shape to be exact. Sat between the Evoque and Sport models, the Velar stares at the SUV-Coupe market like the BMW X6 and Mercedes GLE and says ‘I’m taking you down!’. The new model was speculated with a choice of 6 and 8 cylinder petrol and diesel engines offering between 275 – 500bhp and will use many of the underpinnings as the hugely successful Jaguar F-Pace. Intended as a nod to the Charles Spencer King era and Range Rover Classic 2-door, this new prototype already carries a weight of expectation and judgement on it’s shoulders. While until now these were purely speculation and rumours we have seen this morning images confirming that we will be seeing something new added at this year’s Geneva Motorshow. The Range Rover community looks on with interest to see if the nomenclature sticks and, if so, does the car live up to its ancestral name? There’s not long to wait with this one, but we are surely interested! |
Defenseman Brent Sopel joined an elite group Wednesday night when the puck dropped for the Chicago Wolves' game at Lake Erie as he took the ice for his 1,000th regular-season game as a professional. The 37-year-old Sopel, who won the 2010 Stanley Cup as a member of the Chicago Blackhawks, has appeared in 659 National Hockey League games, 201 American Hockey League games, 136 Kontinental Hockey League games, and 4 International Hockey League games since making his professional debut in April 1996 with the AHL's Syracuse Crunch. The Wolves will honor Sopel with a ceremony prior to the team's game on Jan. 3 against the Rockford IceHogs at Allstate Arena. "Somebody said something to me about it last season and I'd never paid attention," Sopel said in a press release. "Since then, you understand where you are. To have 1,000 professional games is something special. It's been a lot of hard work. It's been a lot of sacrifice from my kids as well as myself. It's very special to me." Sopel was selected by the Vancouver Canucks in the sixth round of the 1995 draft. After honing his craft with the Crunch, Sopel spent parts of six seasons in Vancouver before earning stints with the New York Islanders, Los Angeles Kings, Chicago Blackhawks, Atlanta Thrashers, and Montreal Canadiens. He contributed 44 goals and 174 assists in NHL regular-season play along with 4 goals and 14 assists in 71 Stanley Cup Playoff games. Sopel spent the last three seasons in Russia before joining the Wolves this season. Going into tonight's game he has delivered 7 assists and a +3 plus/minus rating in 18 games. "I get to be back here playing the game I love in the city I love," Sopel said. "I get to come to the rink every day and being with these young guys makes me feel a little bit younger - some days. If guys have problems or need things, I've been around the block. If guys have any questions or concerns, I'm proudly there to help." — Story courtesy of the Chicago Wolves Contact Lindsay Kramer anytime: Email | Twitter | 315-470-2151 |
“For me it was a revolution,” Richard Leroy says, as we stand in Les Noëls de Montbenault, one of his small parcels of chenin blanc. “There was chenin and great terroirs, and no one in France knew it.” It’s the morning after Donald Trump has been elected, and no one has quite processed it yet. My American brain is numb, and it’s quickly dawning on the French that the candidacy of Marine Le Pen, once a running joke, is no longer all that funny. Revolution isn’t a word I take lightly, but perhaps it’s the right topic to discuss on this particular day. Certainly it’s on Leroy’s mind; almost his first words to me as I walk through the door of his small cellar? “There’s a revolution happening in wine right now.” For sure, that’s true in the sprawling region known as the Anjou, which encompasses Leroy’s land in the Layon valley, as well as well-known appellations like Savennières. Layon, though, is the core of the Anjou. It was once known for such sweet wines as Coteaux du Layon and Quarts de Chaume, but it has transformed itself in the past 15 years into a hub for precisely the sort of wines that are popular around the world right now: made with a minimum of artifice in the cellar; free from historical baggage about what they should taste like; often produced by first-generation winemakers with no family ties to wine. As such, the Anjou has emerged as French wine’s great hippie laboratory. (Some credit is due to nearby Angers, which hosts a number of key natural-wine gatherings.) It’s the current heart of the country’s natural wine movement, even more than the Touraine region to the east, home to pioneering vignerons like Catherine and Pierre Breton in Bourgueil, or Didier Barrouillet and Catherine Roussel of Clos Roche Blanche. And even more than Beaujolais, despite that region giving birth to the movement’s intellectual roots. Leroy has been an icon in Anjou’s transformation, especially after he achieved wider fame as a main character in Étienne Davodeau’s graphic memoir Les Ignorants (The Initiates). He started as a banker and wine lover in Paris, tasting a lot of great bottles—Pétrus, Romanée-Conti and so on—before moving to the Loire, thinking he might make sweet wines. Soon he discovered that the town of Rablay-sur-Layon, despite being nowhere particularly special, had a remarkable history with such things. Here, chenin blanc thrives on stark and stony volcanic soils of rhyolite and the altered basalt known as spilite, found on either side of the small Layon River. But Layon’s sweet wines require the presence of botrytis and late harvests, and Leroy was tired of competing with the local birds for his grapes. So he started picking earlier, and making dry wines. His two bottlings, Les Noels de Montbenault and Le Clos des Rouliers, quickly achieved cult status—a pinnacle of chenin at a time when that grape was beginning its star turn. Leroy had, perhaps inadvertently, mapped out the modern Anjou’s road to revolution: Find a place with clear underdog status, cheap land and newly fashionable grape varieties, and let the world take notice. I say “modern Anjou” because the current frenzy for the region’s wines can make it easy to overlook its significant past. Once upon a time, wines from appellations like Bonnezeaux and Quarts de Chaume were revered; Leroy himself points out that a 1921 Montbenault once sold for the same price as Château d’Yquem, the great Sauternes. But during the latter half of the 20th century, as interest in sweet wine dimmed, the region became known for cheap red wine, drab chemical farming and, more than anything, for a relatively trashy wine called rosé d’Anjou. “The ‘70s, with throwing your keys in a bowl and all that, was washed down with awful rosé from here,” says Toby Bainbridge, a British expat winemaker in the nearby village of Chavagnes, referring to one of that decade’s allegedly libertine pastimes. By the time Anjou’s new wave showed up, they didn’t have to struggle too much to break with the traditions of the past. When Mark Angeli of La Ferme de la Sansonnière arrived in 1989, “dry chenin had completely disappeared from the region for 50 years,” he recalls. The few reds being made were mostly rotgut, and appellation rules required them to be made from the two cabernets—franc and sauvignon—even though old-vine parcels of grolleau and pineau d’aunis thrived throughout the area. Anjou arguably felt like the right place to work precisely because there was so little precedent for the sort of things its new pioneers wanted to make: complex, dry wines from both chenin and red grolleau (plus some cabernet franc and other things), farmed organically or biodynamically, sometimes bottled under the relatively lowly “Anjou” appellation but often marked simply as vin de France. Their ranks grew rapidly, and included important figures like Leroy, who arrived in 1996, and Réné and Agnes Mosse, wine-bar owners in nearby Tours who were inspired to make their own wine by the 1990s Loire revitalization, helmed by winemakers like Jo Pithon and Marc Angeli. Successive waves have never stopped coming. Today it’s possible to locate at least a couple dozen emerging talents, including Vincent and Stéphanie Deboutbertin in Faye d’Anjou, who had a desire to work by horse and a sentimentality for chenin and grolleau; Geneviève Delatte and Nicolas Bertin of Bertin-Delatte, who bought their own land in 2008 after working for other winemakers; and Angeli’s former assistant Stéphane Bernaudeau, who finally set up his own cellar in 2015 and makes some of the region’s most compelling, savory examples of chenin. Some have acquired modest land, surely, but others have uncovered legitimately serious dirt. That’s my conclusion, as least, when I go to visit Benoit Courault, who farms just on the other side of Bonnezeaux, a village now largely fallen into obscurity. Courault studied in Burgundy before moving to the area in 2005, and I’ve been drawn to the uncommon depth of his wines. The reason why becomes clear when he takes me to a nearby clearing to see Les Guinechiens, a parcel of 50-year-old head-trained chenin planted on a compelling mix of acidic soils: schist, sandstone, quartz-like rocks. “It’s been badly treated,” Courault says of his land, “but it’s a great terroir.” That land, and its relative cheapness, attracted these newcomers; a hectare of planted vines can still be had for €13,000 (a bit more, in Courault’s case) and often as cheaply as €4,000 for unplanted land or less-desirable grapes like grolleau. But they were equally drawn by the success of earlier arrivals, who, with a colonial spirit, took pride in helping their new neighbors settle in. That engendered what Thomas Carsin of Clos de l’Elu, who arrived in Layon in 2008 after working Burgundy and Sonoma, calls “a rare spirit in the Anjou”—the sense that anything is possible. While these new naturalist arrivals get the most credit, it’s important to acknowledge that seeds of change appeared in the Anjou decades ago—by way of Pithon, for instance, who set up shop in Saint-Lambert-du-Lattay in 1978. He was edged out of his own property in 2008, but today his family continues under the Pithon-Paillé label, exploiting new ground like the steep slopes on the escarpment of Coteaux du Pont-Barré, a natural preserve just above the Layon river, where the family grows chenin on schist and volcanic “pudding stones,” a clash of two geological epochs. The Anjou also got a boost from one very vocal revolutionary just across the river in Savennières: Nicolas Joly, who left investment banking in 1977 to reclaim his family’s historic property, Coulée de Serrant—one of the few appellations in France owned by a single family. An early convert to biodynamics, Joly became arguably the world’s most vocal proponent for that farming system, writing several books on the subject, and founding La Renaissance des Appellations, a global group of like-minded vintners. Savennières, as one of the Loire’s more successful appellations, offered a template for what the rest of the Anjou could achieve, even if its wines were sometimes criticized for topping 15 percent alcohol. (Even in 1965, the expert Alexis Lichine found them “very high in alcohol, and very slow in maturing.”) But current-generation vignerons like Patrick Baudouin and Thibaud Boudignon have ushered in a leaner style for Savennières—and, perhaps more importantly, they also work with land the other side of the river, in Layon. This is a matter of basic economics, given that the Anjou overall has 17 times as much plantable land as Savennières’ 146 hectares. As Boudignon puts it: “I’d prefer great terroir from Anjou rather than shit from Savennières.” The new Anjou posse also came to a related conclusion: that it was wiser to abandon old appellation rules—controlled, as they often are in the Loire, by old-boy networks of local farmers—and simply make vin de France. That’s standard practice today in the natural wine world, but it took an early and particularly strong hold in the Layon valley. Winemakers here took pleasure in sustaining a revolutionary spirit when it came to appellation rules, including Angeli, who poked local authorities with his Rosé d’Un Jour (a play on “rosé d’Anjou.”) Most notable, though, is Olivier Cousin, the area’s pioneer in unsulfured winemaking, whose fight over the use of a grape name and the word “Anjou” on his labels led to perhaps France’s most visible—and colorful—legal battle over wine laws in the past few decades; it culminated with Cousin arriving to the courthouse with his draft horses in tow in a symbol of defiance against modern winemaking. (The case ended after an appeals court ruled Cousin violated the rules but reversed any penalties.) That cemented the Loire’s reputation as a place where appellations were dying, to the point that even Joly cut ties with the region’s official trade body a couple years ago. All of this makes a great countercultural tale. But I also believe the most meaningful work in the Anjou will ultimately come from those who comprehend that revolution isn’t merely a matter of ideology. While wines like La Roche Bézigon (a chenin made by another Angeli apprentice, Jean-Christophe Garnier) exist on their own terms, they’re still being grown on land—to Leroy’s point—that brims with history. Indeed, the soils in many corners of the Anjou, along with a relatively mild climate and humidity (hence the potential for botrytis, and sweet wines) have been a remarkable asset for a long time. There’s a reason this area is called “black Anjou”: It consists of jumbled remnants of the old Armorican Massif, all dark volcanic and metamorphic rock, full of schist, rhyolite, sandstone and more. Those soils bring a very different quality to the wines than the limestone-rich soils—”white Anjou”—farther east, near the city of Saumur. They give wines from places like Layon a more somber and spicy countenance than those from farther east—a darker quality, if you will, that’s perceptible even in the area’s more willfully natural specimens. All of which, I think, provides an opportunity for a real enduring legacy in Anjou, not just an insurgent blip. That’s important, because the thing with laboratories is that some experiments fail, and I encountered a good number of wines from the area that seemed like triumphs of minimalist ideology over taste. But there’s also a deserved clamor for the best of the new guard; try locating a bottle of Bernaudeau or Les Vignes Herbel, much less Leroy. I’d like to believe that the Anjou’s current popularity is creating pressure for better winemaking. But I do wonder: Have the wines found an audience simply because they tick the right natural wine boxes, or do they transcend fad? It’s a question that attends any sort of popularity these days. But what seems most promising in the Anjou is that the region’s best winemakers understand that their fight was never just about them casting aside old traditions. They comprehend that the revolution has to be sustained. And if they can make that happen, the fight has already been won. |
Last week, there were three significant homeless-related fire or fire hazard incidents around critical bridge infrastructure in Seattle: the RV fire under the Spokane Street viaduct/West Seattle Bridge on April 6, a propane tank explosion and fire underneath I-90/Edgar Martinez Way near Airport Way (across from the Field) on April 5, and removal of 26 propane tanks stacked around the base of a Magnolia bridge support column adjacent to a homeless encampment on April 4. Camping under low bridge structures can present a hazard for the City’s essential infrastructure, especially when there are concentrations of flammable materials such as pallets and mattresses, and a likelihood of open flames or vehicles with mechanical issues. SDOT engineers are particularly concerned about the concentration of approximately 30 RVs underneath the western most end of Spokane Street where the structure is the lowest because RVs are composed of a combination of chemicals and flammable materials that burn very hot and present a significant danger to bridge infrastructure. According to SDOT, RVs include many of the same chemicals that brought down I-85 in Atlanta last week. “Safety is our priority and having encampments and recreational vehicles under the West Seattle Bridge poses public safety risks especially if there are flammable/volatile materials being used to cook and heat inside the vehicles,” said Scott Kubly, SDOT director. “We are working with other City agencies to ensure maintenance access under our structures by keeping the area clear of potentially hazardous materials.” “The Seattle Fire Department has responded to a number of fires under the Spokane Street viaduct, including one last week where two RVs were destroyed and another in January where a man died in an RV fire. The concentration of occupied vehicles, tents, pallets, furniture and debris under the low bridge structure has created a specific fire hazard that needs to be addressed for the safety of the vulnerable people living there and the bridge itself,” said Seattle Fire Chief Harold Scoggins. The City is addressing the immediate hazard where the RV fire occurred last week, clearing that area of any RVs, vehicles, tents and other materials. SDOT has set a perimeter that encompasses the median along Spokane Street, from under the base of the West Seattle Bridge to Colorado Street on the east, that must be cleared. That area will then be fenced off to allow SDOT and Seattle City Light to perform repairs and maintenance, including following up on necessary lighting system repairs. On Friday, April 7, the City provided notice to individuals who were on site that clearing of the area within the perimeter described above would begin on Tuesday, April 11. Recognizing the large number of RVs and other vehicles present, many of which are not operational, the City expects this effort will take several days, possibly into next week. The Navigation Team has also been offering services and alternative shelter to these individuals, outreach that will continue as long as necessary. Additionally, on Friday the City began notifying RVs and vehicles parked all along the median under the Spokane Street viaduct to the east of the perimeter at Colorado Street that the City will be focusing enforcement of the 72-hour parking law. SPD is assisting with notification and will be leading that enforcement effort as the Navigation Team focuses its outreach efforts on people living in tents in that area. In general, the City has been focusing its efforts to address the homelessness crisis on working with individuals in tent encampments, especially the ones with the greatest public health and safety concerns for the individuals and the surrounding community. The Navigation Team has been finding success with many individuals, finding solutions that fit their needs and helping move them into safer living situations. Other City crews are addressing the trash related to encampments and illegal dumping in general around the city. In addition to these efforts, we will be assessing these low bridge structures around the city and will prioritize efforts to address immediate hazards. |
While universities don't tend to shout as loudly about their latest tech innovations as do Google, Cisco and other big vendors, their results are no less impressive in what they could mean for faster, more secure and more useful networking. Here's a roundup, in no particular order, of some of the most amazing and colorful projects in the works. Follow Bob Brown on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/alphadoggs 1. Exploiting T-rays Who needs electricity to run superfast computers when there's terahertz radiation, or T-rays? University of Utah engineers have reached deep into the electromagnetic spectrum to find this new way to build circuits for computers that would run a thousand times faster than today's gigahertz-speed computers. The development involves creation of waveguides to send and manipulate T-rays, also known as far-infrared light. "We have taken a first step to making circuits that can harness or guide terahertz radiation," says Ajay Nahata, study leader and associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, in a statement. "Eventually - in a minimum of 10 years - this will allow the development of superfast circuits, computers and communications." 2. Hybrids: Computers, not cars A multi-university research team funded by the Department of Defense is working to combine computer memory functions typically performed by magnetic components and computer logic operations typically handled by semiconductor components into a hybrid material. The benefit would be faster and more compact machines that chow down less power and are less expensive to build. "In this approach, the coupling between magnetic and non-magnetic components would occur via a magnetic field or flow of electron spin, which is the fundamental property of an electron and is responsible for most magnetic phenomena," says Giovanni Vignale , a University of Missouri physics professor in the College of Arts and Science, in a statement. "The hybrid devices that we target would allow seamless integration of memory and logical function, high-speed optical communication and switching, and new sensor capabilities." The Department of Defense awarded a $6.5 million grant to the University of Iowa for the project. In addition to the Iowa and Missouri schools, also working on the project are researchers from New York University, University of California at Berkeley and the University of Pittsburgh. 3. Getting to bottom of Web searches Web search might seem like a complex issue, but it really boils down to three basic kinds of searches: informational, navigational and transactional (related to buying something). That's the word from researchers at Penn State University's College of Information Sciences and Technology and Australia's Queensland University of Technology who looked at more than 1.5 million queries from hundreds of thousands of search engines users. The bulk of searches (80%) proved to be informational, with the other 20% split between navigational and transactional. The researchers used an algorithm that they say classified searches with a 74% accuracy rate. "Other results have classified comparatively much smaller sets of queries, usually manually," said Jim Jansen, assistant professor in Penn State's College of Information Sciences and Technology, in a statement . "This research aimed to classify queries automatically. The researchers' work is outlined in a paper titled "Determining the informational, navigational and transactional intent of Web queries" that will appear in the May issue of Information Processing & Management. 4. Mapping the whole Internet Israeli researchers have created a topographical map of the Internet by enlisting more than 5,600 volunteers across 97 countries who agreed to download a program that tracks how Internet nodes interact with each other. The result is "the most complete picture of the Internet available today," Bar Ilan University researcher Shai Carmi told the MIT Technology Review. "A better understanding of the Internet's structure is vital for integration of voice, data and video streams, point-to-point and point-to-many distribution of information, and assembling and searching all of the world's information," Carmi and fellow researchers state in a new report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "It may reveal evolutionary processes that control the growth of the Internet." Carmi's research uses a program called the DIMES agent, which is downloaded onto volunteers' computers and performs Internet measurements such as traceroute and ping. The project's Web site promises that, along with providing a "good feeling," using the DIMES agent will provide maps to users showing how the Internet looks from their homes. Users of the program chat about their findings at this forum. Another project that tracks Internet traffic growth is called the Minnesota Internet Traffic Studies (MINTS) site. 5. The Fluid Project A handful of universities, including the University of Toronto and the University of California, Berkeley, is working to build a software architecture and reusable components that can make Web applications easier to develop and use. The Fluid Project's work focuses on user-centered design practices. Vendors such as Mozilla Foundation, IBM and Sun are also taking part. The latest news out of the project is that a grant has been awarded to the Adaptive Technology Resource Centre at the University of Toronto from the Mozilla Foundation to promote DHTML accessibility and the adoption of ARIA (the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative's Accessible Rich Internet Applications specification). 6. Attila: one radio on many wireless networks Today's wireless networks are in a rut: Most radios that form the networks can only work on one frequency band of the spectrum. If that band is glutted, glitchy or jammed, the radios are useless. Enter Attila the Radio, invented by two researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology, in Hoboken, N.J. The concept is simple: Attila parcels out a stream of data packets over any and all available wireless spectrum at the same time. The packets could stream, for example, over a Wi-Fi mesh, Verizon's Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) cell network, rival AT&T's Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) airwaves, and over a WiMAX link. Current prototypes use several radios, one for each of the networks being used, but the goal is a single radio. The future of Attila the radio lies now with Attila the company, formally known as Atilla Technologies, which was founded in 2005 by two Stevens Institute of Technology researchers. 7. Sniffing out insider threats Researchers are developing technology they say will use data mining and social networking techniques to spot and stop insider security threats and industrial espionage. Air Force Institute of Technology researchers have developed software that can spot insider threats using an extended version of automated document indexing known as Probabilistic Latent Semantic Indexing (PLSI). This technology can discern employees' interests from e-mail and create a social network graph showing their various interactions, researchers said. The technology could help any organization sniff out insider threats by analyzing e-mail activity or find individuals among potentially tens of thousands of employees with latent interests in sensitive topics. The same technology might also be used to spot individuals who feel alienated within the organization as well as unraveling any worrying changes in their social network interactions. The researchers explain that individuals who have shown an interest in a sensitive topic but who have never communicated to others within the organization on this subject are often the most likely to be an insider threat. The software can reveal those people either with a secret interest in that topic or who may feel alienated from the organization and so communicate their interest in it only to those outside the organization, researchers said. Another important signal of alienation or a potential problem is a shift in the connections between an individual and others within the organization. If an individual suddenly stops communicating or socializing with others with whom they have previously had frequent contact, then the technology could alert investigators to such changes. The research team tested their approach on the archived body of messages from the liquidated Enron company e-mail system. 8. All about Twitter University of Maryland students have written a paper called "Why We Twitter: Understanding Microblogging Usage and Communities" examining why people Twitter. Also known as microblogging, Twittering is a new form of communication in which users can describe their current status in short posts distributed by instant messages, mobile phones, e-mail or the Web," according to the paper's abstract. The authors, Akshay Java, Xiaodan Song, Tim Finin and Belle Tseng, say the paper "presents our observations of the microblogging phenomena by studying the topological and geographical properties of Twitter's social network." They concluded that figuring out why individuals microblog is elusive, but that by analyzing an aggregate of data across a community can provide insight into why a group of people microblog. 9. Spotting phishers Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University have developed an online game designed to teach Internet users about the dangers of phishing. Featuring a cartoon fish named Phil, the game, called Anti-Phishing Phil, has been tested in CMU's Privacy and Security Laboratory. Officials with the lab say users who spent 15 minutes playing the interactive, online game were better able to discern fraudulent Web sites than those who simply read tutorials about the threat. The game focuses on teaching Internet users how to tell the URL of a fraudulent site from a legitimate one, officials say. It offers tips such as examining URLs for misspellings of popular sites, dissecting a Web address to understand where it's pointing to, and using Google to validate a URL against search results. More here. 10. RFID and the heart Telemedicine researchers have been awarded a $400,000 grant to work on integrating RFID technology with cardiac sensor networks used to monitor patients' heartbeats. The Rochester Institute of Technology says its work will make cardiac sensor networks more secure, reducing the chances of identity theft or other abuse. The work could also make the healthcare process work more efficiently by supporting RFID tags on medicine bottles, the school says. "Telemedicine technology can greatly increase the quality of medical care while also decreasing healthcare costs," said Fei Hu, assistant professor of computer engineering at RIT, in a statement. "Through this project we hope to increase the integration of RFID into existing cardiac sensor networks, ensure the overall security of the system and promote the implementation of the technology in nursing homes and adult care facilities across the country." 11. Analyzing the "Dark Web" Computer scientists at a University of Arizona lab have created a project called Dark Web that is designed to track and analyze the moves of terrorists and extremists using the Internet to spread propaganda, recruit members and plan attacks (click here to read our feature on cyberwar). The project, which is funded by the National Science Foundation and other federal agencies, is led by Hsinchun Chen at the Artificial Intelligence Lab in Tucson. Dark Web's specialty is tracking massive amounts of information scattered across thousands of Web sites and in e-mail and other online programs. Spidering, link analysis, multimedia analysis and other techniques are used, according to the NSF. A method dubbed Writeprint is used to strip away the anonymity of terrorists online by analyzing language, semantic and other features of content and comparing it with other content posted across the Internet. Authors can be identified and new information published by the authors can be flagged as it is posted and spread. One recent study by the Dark Web team identified stories and videos used to train terrorists in building improvised explosive devices. Not that the terrorists are unaware they're being watched. "They can put booby-traps in their Web forums," Chen said in a statement, "and the spider can bring back viruses to our machines." 12. Really, really fast wireless Scientists at the Georgia Electronic Design Center (GEDC) at the Georgia Institute of Technology have designed a system that can transfer data at 5Gbps at a range of 5 meters. |
Just as preliminary results show he has won his country's landmark election, Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaçi faces allegations of being involved with a mafia-like Albanian group responsible for smuggling weapons and human organs throughout eastern Europe, the Guardian is reporting. A Council of Europe inquiry report on organized crime named Thaçi as a godfather-like "boss" of a network that began operating criminal rackets in the run-up to the 1999 Kosovo war, and has held powerful sway over the country's government since. The report cites FBI and other intelligence sources, and also names Thaçi as exerting "violent control" over the heroin trade. On a more grisly note, figures from Thaçi's inner circle are accused of secretly taking captives across the border into Albania after the war, where a few Serbs are said to have been murdered for their kidneys, which were sold on the black market. Dick Marty, the human rights investigator behind the inquiry, will present his report to European diplomats from all 47 member states at a meeting in Paris on Thursday. The Guardian quotes excerpts from Marty's report: In confidential reports spanning more than a decade, agencies dedicated to combating drug smuggling in at least five countries have named Hashim Thaçi and other members of his Drenica Group as having exerted violent control over the trade in heroin and other narcotics. Thaçi and these other Drenica Group members are consistently named as "key players" in intelligence reports on Kosovo's mafia-like structures of organised crime. I have examined these diverse, voluminous reports with consternation and a sense of moral outrage. According to CNN, the report comes at a critical time for Thaçi, whose Democratic Party of Kosovo led the newly independent nation's weekend elections. However, he now faces the challenge of forming a coalition with other government parties, many of which have accused him of electoral fraud. |
By Kevin Chen / Staff reporter Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, is likely to secure orders from Apple Inc to produce next-generation processors “starting as early as the second quarter of 2013,” Credit Suisse said last week. The projected timeframe would come “earlier than expected,” Manish Nigam, head of the brokerage’s non-Japan Asia technology research division, said in note to clients on Friday, citing their recent checks with several equipment suppliers and other companies in Japan, Taiwan and China. Previously, Credit Suisse said it expected Apple would seek a second source for its chips other than Samsung Electronics Co by either late next year or early 2014. Nigam said their checks also suggested Apple might start chip production at TSMC by using the Taiwanese firm’s 28-nanometer (nm) technology, rather than its prior views on the 20nm node. “If our checks are correct, the market would take this move as a surprise,” Nigam wrote in the note, although he said it was still hard to determine which product is going to be manufactured at TSMC. Nevertheless, the brokerage said any new product would be a net addition to demand and therefore it was increasingly confident about the prospects for TSMC and Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (ASE, 日月光半導體), which is expected to package the chips, in the belief that the two companies will be ramping up capacity for a sizeable new customer starting some time in the first quarter of next year. The brokerage on Friday upgraded shares of TSMC to “outperform” from “neutral,” and raised its target price from NT$95 to NT$109. Shares in TSMC ended at NT$98.1 in Taipei trading on Friday, up 1.55 percent from the previous session, while ASE’s closed 0.2 percent up at NT$24.75, down 4.44 percent so far this year, according to data from the Taiwan Stock Exchange. |
The speed of innovation in the graphics technology spaces shows few signs of slowing down, and the recent releases of Nvidia's top-tier GTX 1080 and Titan X Pascal are highly significant - both of these cards are capable of handing in good performance at 4K resolution. However, there's still some uncertainty about just how powerful the new Titan X actually is and to what extent a locked 60fps is possible? We're into uncharted territory here: benchmarks only go so far and are highly limited in nature. What's the actual experience like? First up, a bit of background. The next-gen consoles are seemingly targeting 4K displays, for a few reasons. Firstly, there's no denying that 4K UHD TVs are gaining momentum in terms of sales and dropping hard in price-point. Secondly, GPU technology is scaling, while CPU performance is remaining mostly static - for the consoles, this translates into a continuation of the status quo in terms of frame-rates. And finally, both Microsoft and Sony don't want to leave their existing userbase behind, so they are seeking to use image quality and resolution as the selling factor for their new hardware - not performance. And that's not exactly what the core PC gamer wants. They want better visuals than console and higher performance. And that's exactly the premise on which we put together our 1080p60 gaming PC, pairing a Core i5 6600K with a GTX 1060. But the real question is - can we get a similar experience using PC hardware. Is the Titan X Pascal powerful enough to deliver both the image quality and resolution boost required? A hands-on playtest with the Titan X Pascal on a bunch of demanding titles. This it the closest yet to compromise-free PC 4K gaming experience. Now, of course, Nvidia's latest and greatest is supremely expensive at $1200. But this level of performance won't always be so prohibitively costly. There's a certain element of speculation here but expect a 1080 Ti with at least a third of the price lopped off within six months. And in a world where the GTX 1070 at $380 offers slightly improved performance compared to the last-gen Titan X, which originally sold for $1000, it's safe to assume that patience will reap rewards. And those rewards are significant. Star Wars Battlefront locks to 4K at 60fps with headroom to spare at ultra settings on a Titan X Pascal system. The Witcher 3 - sans HairWorks of course - almost follows suit, dropping a few frames when heavy alpha effects work is in place (easily solved if it bothers you by dropping back foliage proliferation by 'one notch'). Grand Theft Auto 5 is also a silky smooth experience with all of its standard settings, bar MSAA and grass quality ratcheted up (again, dropping to the next preset down on the latter solved performance issues). Overwatch? No trouble whatsoever. In fact, a 4K60 lock is possible on GTX 1080. Thus far, the experience - and the kinds of compromises required to achieve a locked 60fps - are similar to the settings tweakery faced by GTX 970 owners running at 1080p. And that's a significant comparison. Nvidia's last-gen card is generally considered to be a superb GPU for full HD action - the most popular graphics product for running at the most popular gaming resolution. To achieve something approaching equivalence at 4K is a genuine milestone. Nvidia's GTX 970 is widely acknowledged to be a great 1080p card, so what happens if we compare its 1080p performance with Titan X Pascal's 4K frame-rates? It's an eye-opener. GTX 970 1080p Titan X Pascal 4K GTX 1080 4K Assassin's Creed Unity, Ultra High, FXAA 51.3 43.1 32.5 Ashes of the Singularity, Extreme, 0x MSAA, DX12 40.5 63.7 53.6 Crysis 3, Very High, SMAA T2x 72.5 50.0 40.1 The Division, Ultra, SMAA 50.2 49.6 37.3 Far Cry Primal, Ultra, SMAA 56.2 54.7 42.4 Hitman, Ultra, SMAA, DX12 59.0 62.1 46.7 Rise of the Tomb Raider, Very High, High Textures, SMAA, DX12 69.7 57.1 44.8 The Witcher 3, Ultra, Post AA, No HairWorks 60.7 63.1 47.5 There are issues, however. Rise of the Tomb Raider piles on the effects work and while much of the gameplay remains at our target frame-rate, sustaining it completely is extremely challenging. We've even tried it with GTX 1080 SLI and are encountering similar issues: 50 to 60fps is the best we can do, dropping down into the 40fps area for cut-scenes, where only disabling Lara's 'PureHair' can improve matters. Similarly, Deus Ex gameplay at high settings (essentially equivalent to consoles) stutters between 48-60fps, generally feeling rather uneven. Scaling up resolution clearly introduces challenges on certain titles, but what's clear is that by and large, we have reached the point where 4K on Titan X Pascal is indeed equivalent to that ballpark GTX 970 experience. Eager to see if my perceptions matched up with reality, I broke out the FCAT data. As the benchmarks rendered out, the results proved fascinating. Titan X is faster in Ashes of the Singularity and the Witcher 3 and average frame-rates are broadly equivalent in The Division, Hitman and Far Cry Primal. However, it's interesting to note that watching the benchmarks play out, the differential adjusts on a per scene basis - sometimes GTX 970 is faster, sometimes it's Titan X Pascal at 4K. The vast resolution delta incurs a very different load at any given point, a marked departure from the usual 'parallel lines' we tend to see in benchmark data taken at the same resolution on different cards. It's interesting to note that even in the title where GTX 970 is far ahead - Crysis 3 - it is possible to get a very good 60fps experience on our 4K set-up. The bottom line is that the arrival of GTX 1080 and Titan X Pascal are significant in that for the first time, 4K gaming is something I actually want, where the experience comes across as a substantial upgrade over 1080p. There are two reasons for this - first of all, both GPUs are capable of providing a worthwhile experience at UHD, where I don't feel that the experience has to be unduly compromised to the point where the experience actually suffers - either in terms of frame-rate or quality settings. Titan X irons out performance issues and allows more titles to hit higher frame-rates, but GTX 1080 is still in the game. Our first 4K hands-on demo with GTX 1080 - it demonstrated that we'd finally found a GPU that could support 4K gaming without too many compromises. Secondly, while I still question the point of 4K resolution on a traditional 24 or 27-inch PC monitor, I've been using a 40-inch Samsung 4K UHD TV recently as a monitor replacement. To be frank, it's been a game-changer - pixel density is still immense, but I finally feel that I've got the extra size that makes the most of the resolution. In terms of physical dimensions, the Samsung HD screen is slightly wider than a 1440p ultra-wide display like the Acer Predator X34, but obviously it also has a lot more vertical real estate. Rise of the Tomb Raider and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided demonstrate that even the Titan X Pascal finds its limits on some titles, but even here there is a workaround: UHD TVs are designed to work at both 50Hz and 60Hz (to accommodate content from different territories - we're still affected by the PAL legacy in Europe). Switch to the slower refresh and your GPU requirement for a locked, consistent, high frame-rate drops significantly. Frame-rate drops too of course, but gaming at a locked 50fps is still beautifully smooth - the consistency is there. At the end of the day, the difference between 50fps and 60fps is a mere 3.3ms per frame - 16.7ms vs 20ms - I can live with that if it eliminates stuttering performance. The downside is that stutter if you dip below 50fps feels markedly worse (v-sync stutter is 40ms vs 33.3ms), but the solution here is to mitigate it as much as possible by using Nvidia's adaptive v-sync control panel option. As for the experience itself? Well, it's extremely impressive. Game-changingly so, in fact. The detail resolved is immense, and obviously in the desktop environment, view distance isn't really an issue - you're getting your bang for the buck. New games look beautiful, but even older titles produce some great results - it's been fascinating to replay titles like Crysis 3 and the Tomb Raider reboot in order to sample a 'UHD remaster'. Select older titles feel genuinely refreshed. The effectiveness of extreme resolution may well change for the negative in the living room (though DF's John Linneman is reporting superb results from his brand new 55-inch OLED screen) and it may well be further impacted by the upcoming console experiences, where upscaling along with other necessary compromises get factored into the equation. But in the here and now, I've finally found a 4K set-up that works for me - and it's stunning. |
In the first, second, third, and fourth parts of this 1997 “lost tapes” interview series with late Cream bassist Jack Bruce, we discussed his Scottish roots, Sunshine Of Your Love, drugs, Cream’s breakup, David Letterman, the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame and White Room, among other things. Here, Bruce gives his take on some of the famous music players of the sixties. He had a wicked sense of humor, and clearly some of the following is tongue in cheek. Jim Clash: I know you were inspired by jazz and classical bass, but who are some rock bassists you admire? Jack Bruce: Well, James Jamerson, if you can call him a rock player. I would call him a rock player, definitely. [Paul] McCartney did great things. Rain is an example of his simple, lovely bass playing. JC: How about Noel Redding of Jimi Hendrix Experience? JB: Noel was a very good player, but I think Jimi played a lot of those bass lines. You don’t have to print that [laughs]. I mean, Noel would admit that. You can hear it’s Jimi on his records. JC: How about The Who’s John Entwistle? JB: Yeah, loud, very loud – but really good, especially for that band. It’s like asking, “Was Keith Moon a good drummer?” If you put Keith Moon and Ginger [Baker] together, Moon couldn’t hold a drumstick. But with The Who, he was fantastic. Moon’s tempos were up and down, up and down. Ginger’s just got faster all the time, which at least you could deal with. It’s relative. But, yeah, I can’t imagine any other drummer or bass player with that band in those days. JC: What did you think of John Bonham as Led Zeppelin’s drummer? JB: I found him very stiff. The thing about Bonham was that he had a fantastic sound. I think their experience as studio musicians helped them [Zeppelin] get the sonic thing happening. JC: Didn’t Jimmy Page play bass in The Yardbirds when he first joined? JB: Yeah, he used to play bass. Again, I remember Jimmy Page from being a session musician. That’s why I never took Zeppelin seriously. They were a bunch of session musicians that we kind of looked down on. We looked down on everybody [laughs]. We looked down on Mick Jagger and Keith Richards early on when they used to come along and try to sit in with us. We’d tell them to piss off: “Go away, learn to play and then come back” [laughs]. JC: Were they in awe of you guys? JB: In those days, yeah, when we were with Alexis Korner. But they had this idea we didn’t recognize as valid at the time - the kind of Chuck Berry approach to rock. I think Chuck Berry is great, by the way. But we were darker, more interested in the seedy side of the music, this real bluesy thing coming more from jazz. So in our stupid, arrogant way, we looked down on those people. JC: What was it about The Rolling Stones? JB: We used to play at the Flamingo Club, just down the road from here [Savoy Hotel]. I remember seeing the Stones play there – we did the all-nighters Fridays and Saturdays - not Cream, but this mixture of Ginger and me, Dick Heckstall-Smith and others. They [Stones] had a fantastic sound. Long before anybody else, they sussed that out as the important thing. I remember being amazed by the clarity and beauty of their sound live, whereas we were still scratching away trying to get it to happen. JC: Cream? JB: Cream didn’t have any sound at all. It was very difficult. We did Madison Square Garden, for instance, and it was impossible because technology hadn’t caught on everywhere in ’68. The stage was actually revolving, if you can imagine such a thing. I guess the audience would get a burst of guitar, some drums and bass, and then have to wait awhile for it to come around again. This is the God’s honest truth – the PA, it came down like, “And in the blue corner” - you know, the ones that used to come down! That’s what we had. We also did baseball stadiums with equipment a few feet high. It was embarrassing! Part 1: Lost Jack Bruce Tapes: Sunshine Of Your Love, Drugs, Ginger Baker Part 2: Lost Jack Bruce Tapes, Part II: ‘Eric Clapton Was Fashion Conscious’ Part 3: Lost Jack Bruce Tapes III: Letterman, RR Hall Of Fame, Frankie Lymon Part 4: Jack Bruce Lost Tapes IV: 'White Room Was My Favorite Cream Song' Part 6: Lost Jack Bruce Tapes VI: Cream’s Sound Fiasco, More Band Tension Part 7: Lost Jack Bruce Tapes VII: ‘I Don’t Want An Epitaph, Just Some Good Last Words’ Part 8: Jack Bruce Lost Tapes (VIII): Skip James’ Widow Thanks Cream For I’m So Glad Part 9: Lost Jack Bruce Cream Tapes (IX): ‘It Was Decided Eric Clapton Would Be Front Man’ Part 10: Lost Jack Bruce Cream Tapes X: ‘Albert King Asked Me, Where’s The Money?’ For Bad Sign |
I wrote earlier this week about some of the challenges in comparing state polls and national polls. Sometimes, apparent differences between the two sets of numbers can result from methodological quirks of the polling firms that are active in each arena, as well as random sampling error. With that said, we are starting to see a bit of a gap between our Electoral College and popular vote forecasts based on the latest polling data this week — one which potentially favors President Obama. In general, the polls from nonswing states this week, ranging from New Jersey to North Dakota, were mediocre for Mr. Obama. But his numbers held up better in swing states. Nowhere was this more apparent than in Ohio, where there were two new polls out on Friday. One of them, from the firm We Ask America, gave Mr. Obama an eight-point lead there. Another, from Magellan Strategies, put Mr. Obama up by two points. Our model “thinks” the Magellan Strategies poll is a more realistic estimate of the state of play in Ohio. The model now forecasts a three-point victory for Mr. Obama there, which it translates to about a two-in-three chance of his winning the state given the uncertainty in the forecast. Mr. Obama’s projected three-point lead in Ohio is important for the following reason, however: it’s slightly larger than the 2.4-point advantage that the model now gives Mr. Obama in the national popular vote. In other words, based on the data so far this year, Ohio has been slightly Democratic-leaning relative to the country as a whole. That reflects a reversal from the usual circumstances. Normally, Ohio — though very close to the national averages — leans Republican by two points or so. A split between the winners of the popular vote and the Electoral College is still relatively unlikely, in the view of the model. There is only a 3.9 percent chance that Mr. Obama will win the Electoral College but lose the popular vote, it estimates. However, the model now assigns just a 1.3 percent chance to the reverse happening: Mr. Romney’s winning the Electoral College while losing the popular vote. Ohio is a big part of the reason. It’s by no means impossible that Mr. Romney could win the Electoral College despite losing Ohio, but it would be an uphill battle. If Mr. Obama won all the states that John Kerry did in 2004, and Ohio, he would have 264 electoral votes. Winning New Mexico in addition to these states, where Mr. Obama is heavily favored, would make the Electoral College a 269-269 tie. That is not necessarily a problem for Mr. Romney. The incoming House of Representatives is likely to contain a majority of Republican delegations, which would presumably vote for him under the 12th Amendment. However, if Mr. Obama claimed any other competitive state that Mr. Kerry lost — Nevada, Iowa, Virginia, Florida or Colorado, for example — he would win the Electoral College outright, regardless of what happened in New Mexico. Of the states, Nevada is probably the most problematic for Mr. Romney. He has trailed in all the polls there, and it has increasingly begun to behave as a Democratic-leaning state. Another plausible scenario is that Mr. Romney could win New Hampshire, which Mr. Kerry won in 2004, but lose New Mexico and Nevada. In that case, he’d lose the Electoral College by two votes, with 268 electoral votes to Mr. Obama’s 270. Alternatively, Mr. Romney could try to win one of the Midwestern states that Mr. Kerry won — most likely, Pennsylvania, Michigan or Wisconsin. But these states have broadly similar demographics to Ohio, and it is unlikely that Mr. Romney would win them conditional upon losing the Buckeye State. Although state economic statistics have only modest predictive power as compared with the national numbers, Mr. Obama may be benefiting from the fact that Ohio’s unemployment rate has fallen substantially — to 7.3 percent from a peak of 10.6 percent. Had the national unemployment rate declined by a similar margin, Mr. Obama would likely be a clear favorite in the election right now. Much of the gain in Ohio has been from auto industry jobs, a relative bright spot in the economy, and a potential problem for Mr. Romney since he opposed the federal bailout of the major auto makers. Mr. Romney could seek to even the score by naming Senator Rob Portman of Ohio as his vice-presidential nominee. Vice presidents do not make as much difference as the conventional wisdom sometimes holds: a net gain of two points by appointing a home-state candidate is a roughly realistic estimate, although it can vary a lot from case to case. Still, gaining two points in Ohio would provide a pretty meaningful push to Mr. Romney given the way that the polls look right now. Mr. Obama also benefited on Friday from the rise in the stock market, which improved the model’s economic index. The S. & P. 500 closed at 1,386 points on Friday, its highest figure since May. The stock market is likely to remain volatile in the weeks ahead, as investors seek to weigh the consequences of critical economic news — including next Friday’s jobs report, possible actions by the Federal Reserve to stimulate the economy and efforts by the European Central Bank to defend the euro zone. My personal read on the stock market is that it seems to be pricing in a fairly high likelihood of stimulative actions by central banks, both in the United States and Europe. If investors do not get what they are hoping for, it could decline significantly. In the meantime, Mr. Romney’s campaign will need to consider whether it trusts the polls showing him down in Ohio, and if so, what actions it might take to remedy that problem. |
Arguing that Texas cities are essential to the state’s continued prosperity, a group of mayors on Friday urged the Legislature to avoid enacting laws that could harm their success, including proposals to crack down on transgender-friendly bathroom policies. As cities brace for continued, explosive population growth, fear of an economic backlash over the transgender bathroom bill is a growing concern, the mayors said after a downtown Austin lunch meeting to discuss legislative priorities. Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said a major corporation, while he was making a relocation pitch in a meeting last year that included Gov. Greg Abbott, raised concerns about a potential crackdown on transgender bathrooms. "The positions of some of our state elected officials were front and center of that discussion," he said. It wasn’t an isolated incident, Rawlings said. "I do it all the time when corporations come to Dallas, and a lot of them … ask me about that," he said. TEXAS POLITICS DELIVERED EVERY DAY: Sign up for our Texas Politics email San Antonio Mayor Ivy Taylor said she feared that her tourism-dependent city would lose two large 2018 events — the NCAA men’s basketball Final Four and a national NAACP conference — if lawmakers approved Senate Bill 6, which would prohibit transgender-friendly bathrooms in public schools and government buildings and overturn city ordinances requiring transgender bathrooms. "That would have a huge, multimillion-dollar impact on our city," she said. Austin Mayor Steve Adler, who set up Friday’s meeting of mayors and officials from 11 cities, said the transgender bathroom bill threatens the tourism economy that helps lower taxes for the city’s residents. "In this debate, I think we need to focus on what is working in the state of Texas," Adler said. "We have a wide open state. We attract businesses. We attract tourists. This is a state that is friendly and welcoming." Discussion of the bathroom bill, Adler complained, "is taking too much oxygen out of the room" — detracting from a desperate need to reform a school finance system that drains hundreds of millions of dollars from the Austin school district. Rawlings said he preferred to look at the "glass half full." "We believe we have leaders in the state of Texas who understand exactly what we just said. The speaker has built his career on pulling people together," he said. House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, has said passing a transgender bathroom bill isn’t a priority in the House, where the focus will be on fixing the state’s child protection system, reforming education financing and improving mental health treatment. LIKE US ON FACEBOOK: Our Lone Star Politics page brings Capitol news to your Facebook feed Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, however, has made SB 6 one of his priority items this session and has downplayed fears of an economic backlash as overblown and politically motivated. Abbott has largely stayed quiet on the matter except to criticize the National Football League for interfering in state political matters after an official said passage of SB 6 could preclude future Super Bowls from being held in Texas. "While there’s a lot of saber rattling, when push comes to shove, Texas will do the right thing," Rawlings said. In a legislative session dominated by issues of local control — such as when it is appropriate for state officials to limit or overturn ordinances ranging from shopping bag bans to anti-discrimination protections — several mayors said they hoped the Legislature would recognize that their cities have unique cultures and values that contribute to the state’s success. "Cities in Texas seem to be under attack at times, and we hate to see that because this really is a partnership. The cities don’t create success alone. The state doesn’t create success alone," said Mayor Maher Maso of Frisco, 25 miles north of Dallas. "We have to be really careful not to break it." |
A woman is accused of using a stun gun to discipline a 10-year-old child for not making oatmeal properly. According to the Orange County Sheriff's Office report released Thursday, Melissa Neale is according of brutally disciplining a child on several occasions. Neale bonded out of jail Friday. A witness, who said Neale and the child had been living in her home for three weeks, said she saw Neale slap the child in the face, punch her in the head, and grab her by the hair and pull her around the room. Then, deputies said on Sunday, June 15, the witness saw Neale get angry at the girl for not making oatmeal properly, get her stun gun, hold the child down and touch it to the child's leg. She said she saw the girl fall to the floor and scream. The witness said she decided to get help when the girl wrote a note saying she didn't want to live anymore. Deputies said Neale told them she never abused the child, and during the stun gun incident, the gun was never activated and everyone was just playing around. But deputies and the Department of Children and Families said the child's bruises and marks show otherwise. Neale was charged with aggravated child abuse with a weapon. Relatives are caring for the child. Deputies will not say how Neale and the girl are related. |
04/02/16Hello, I recently made some changes, I have hidden the promotional material of the comic of said title above as it was a taster for ideas and what I could show, and if there was an audience for it. The material is under storage and will be taken out once I’ve completed the story that is expected to take me a max of two years to completer as sketch, ink, colouring with help on script editing is no easy feat but might be able to squeeze in two pages a month. In short I’m dedicating not just time but a bit of my own life as well, as anyone involved in this.I will show sketches prior to pages (mostly) but some content I’ll hold back on.At some point I might include a novelisation of this.This image is not to be used on any other works, please respect that.If you like to follow the Xcom comic remember to include it on your watch list.RegardsTheBritWriterLink to opening pagechapter 2An introduction about some issues raised to me about the comic's story. |
Artist drawing of a gamma-ray burst, a cosmic explosion announcing the birth of a black hole. Image credit: NASA/Dana Berry/Skyworks Digital Well now, here’s something I never thought I’d hear: The Earth may have been hit by a gamma-ray burst, a violent cosmic blast of energy, about 1200 years ago! First off, this is nothing to panic about. If it happened at all, it was a long time ago, and unlikely to happen again for hundreds of thousands of years. And if it did happen, it didn’t cause any mass extinctions or anything like that—if it had, we’d have known about it earlier! But it’s very interesting, and while I remain skeptical, the astronomers involved make a compelling case. Here’s how it goes. An analysis of Japanese trees indicates a sharp increase in their carbon-14 to carbon-12 ratio in the past. Using the tree rings as a guide, this occurred in the years 774-775 AD. What does this mean? Most of the carbon around us is the carbon-12 flavor: Each atom has six protons and six neutrons in its nucleus. There’s a different kind of carbon, called carbon-14, which has, instead, eight neutrons and six protons. Carbon-14 is radioactive and decays into nitrogen over time. The fact that there’s any carbon-14 on Earth means it must be made continuously to resupply the atoms that go away, and this is done by cosmic rays (very high energy particles from space) hitting nitrogen in our atmosphere. This just balances the amount that decays—think of it like a sink where you run the tap at the right amount to balance the water that drains away. The water level in the sink remains steady. So we expect a certain amount of carbon-14 all around us. The Japanese trees have a sharp spike in them, about 10 times as much as usual! This also corresponds in time with a rise of carbon-14 seen in American and European trees, though the exact date is harder to pin down. It’s as if that sink you have suddenly has ten times as much water in it! That water had to come from somewhere. Not only that, but at the same time, something increased the amount of beryllium-10 (another radioactive element) in Antarctic ice by about 10 percent. That’s enough to be significant as well. What can make these big changes in elements all over the globe at the same time? Artist’s illustration of a blast from space. Image credit: NASA The best way to affect the whole Earth at the same time is to have something occur in space. It would take an extremely energetic (that is, violent) cosmic catastrophe to do it, something that could dump a lot of energy into Earth’s atmosphere. There are a few different things that could do this: a giant solar flare, a nearby star exploding, or a gamma-ray burst. A solar flare is unlikely; the energy needed to create the carbon-14 detected would be 20 times larger than any solar flare ever seen. That’s possible, so I wouldn’t necessarily rule it out, but the odds are pretty slim. A nearby exploding star, or supernova, is almost certainly not the culprit. To generate the energy needed to create the carbon and beryllium seen, it would have to have been less than 1000 light years away. That would’ve made it so bright it would’ve been visible in daylight! Also, no 1200-year-old supernova remnant has been detected, and it would be incredibly obvious if it existed (the Crab nebula is 1000 years old and more than 6000 light years way, for example, and is one of the brightest supernova remnants in the sky). The astronomers studying this even looked at a magnetar flare, but it would’ve been only 100 light years away or so to do the deed, and anything that close would’ve been seen a long time ago. That leaves a gamma-ray burst. And that’s amazing. A gamma-ray burst (or GRB for short) happens when a black hole is born. There are several ways this can occur; the most common is for an extremely massive star to explode at the end of its life. The core collapses to form a black hole, and the forces involved send out two colossal beams of energy, like deadly lighthouse beams, into space. If they’re pointed our way we see a flash of high-energy gamma rays. Hence the name. In this case, this kind of GRB was ruled out due to the ratio of the carbon and beryllium detected—had it been this flavor of GRB, the ratio of carbon to beryllium created would’ve been much lower than what was seen. Neutron stars merging can also create a gamma-ray burst. 1) Two neutrons stars orbit each other. 2) Over billions of years, the orbit shrinks. 3) Eventually the two merge, forming 4) an incredible explosion: a GRB. Image credit: NASA/Dana Berry/Skyworks Digital There is another kind of GRB, though: the merger of two neutron stars. Imagine two massive stars orbiting each other. One ends its life as a supernova. The core collapses, but doesn’t have the oomph needed to make a black hole. Instead, it forms a neutron star, an incredibly dense ball of neutron a few kilometers across but with the mass of the Sun. Then, sometime later, the second star explodes and also forms a neutron star. The two compact and ridiculously dense objects orbit each other, and over time (due to complicated relativistic effects) the orbit decays. The two neutron stars get closer, until, eventually, they get so close they merge. The gravity of either star is a billion times that of Earth, so when they merge, it’s a fiercely violent event. There’s a huge explosion, and again you get those twin beams of energy blasting out. If the beams miss us, well, no harm no foul. But if they happen to be aimed at Earth, we see a very short burst of gamma rays. Mind you, we see these events all the time, but they happen in distant galaxies, billions of light years away. We need sophisticated and sensitive telescopes to see them at all. But if one happened in our own galaxy, at a distance of about 3000 to 13,000 light years, then it all fits. The energy of the gamma rays hitting us would have been the equivalent of the detonation of about 200 one-megaton nuclear bombs, a huge amount, but spread out over one-half the Earth (and less devastating because there would not have been the huge fireball and radioactivity of an actual bomb). Also, the energy would’ve been sufficient to create the carbon-14 and beryllium-10 seen in the Japanese trees and Antarctic ice, and in the right ratio. This kind of burst lasts for literally two seconds at most, so it’s entirely possible no one would’ve seen it. And it doesn’t necessarily leave behind anything we could see now, like the expanding gas in a supernova. All that’s left is a black hole, dark and quiet. Artists’s illustration of a GRB. Image credit: NASA/Dana Berry/Skyworks Digital This all does hang together, and it does seem like a nearby GRB from a pair of merging neutron stars could’ve been behind the blast. This surprises me! We expect to see one of these events in our galaxy about once per million years or so, so having one happen just 1200 years ago seems unlikely. And it would have to have been aimed right at us; the beams from the explosion are narrow, so if it were aimed the wrong way we would’ve escaped the consequences entirely. But this idea is at least as likely as a ginormous solar flare, given we’ve never seen a flare anywhere near powerful enough to create those radioactive isotopes. So, wow. I wrote a book on scenarios like this, called “Death from the Skies!” [affiliate link], and in one chapter I described what it would be like to have a nearby GRB go off. I put one much closer to the Earth—a mere 100 light years away— so the effects were, um, not so good (like, setting the Earth on fire not so good). But the farther away they are the dimmer and less dangerous they are, and several thousand light years is a decent buffer. In fact, I’d consider that close for one in our galaxy, and it hardly had any lasting effect on our planet! Don’t get me wrong: If one of those went off now at that distance, it would be bad. Our atmosphere would absorb all the radiation and we’d be safe enough from all that here on Earth’s surface, but we’d lose satellites, the interaction of the high-energy gamma rays would blow out power grids all over the planet, and our civilization would be in big trouble. But remember, these events are very, very unlikely. So much so that I’m still skeptical a GRB was the culprit in this case! And no matter what it was, it must’ve been pretty rare. We watch the sky all the time, and if these kinds of events were common we’d have seen one by now. Still, it’s a reminder that the Universe is a dangerous place, and we’re not entirely safe just sitting here on our planet. We need to keep watching the skies, keep learning more, and increasing our understanding of what’s out there. If we don’t understand those dangers we can’t hope to prevent them, or at least prepare ourselves in case something like this happens again. Protecting our power grid and satellites is possible, though expensive, and if we hope to be able to keep our civilization going, we’ll need to understand all the potential dangers out there. |
The Chinese Century has begun. China's economy has surpassed that of the United States to take the title of the world's largest economy, according to recently released figures from the International Monetary Fund. China has been long projected to eventually overtake the U.S. in terms of sheer economic might, although the timeline was unknown. Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz noted that the World Bank projected it would happen in 2014, and the IMF agrees. The chart below shows the purchasing power parity of the world's biggest economies. China's 2014 GDP is now estimated at $17.6 trillion, edging out the U.S. by around $200 billion. That gap is expected to grow. But It's not all bad news. The U.S. economy is still growing, and Chinese growth adds to that. "The world economy is not a zero-sum game, where China’s growth must necessarily come at the expense of ours. In fact, its growth is complementary to ours. If it grows faster, it will buy more of our goods, and we will prosper," Stiglitz wrote in a column for Vanity Fair. The U.S. is still ahead by some other metrics, most notably patents, which can be an indicator of innovation. China, however, is gaining ground. |
Have you ever wished that your favorite day of the year, Halloween was recognized as an actual federal Holiday like Christmas and Thanksgiving? Of course you are not alone, and one person is taking this request to the White House in the form of an online petition that needs at least 100,000 signatures by July 25 to be taken seriously. But we can do that, right? Twitter user Richard Doredant contacted us last week about the new petition he started on the official White House website. Doredant’s petition states in part: “Halloween …is a celebration observed in a number of countries on October 31. Halloween is currently the second most important party night in North America. In terms of its retail potential, it is second only to Christmas.” Click HERE to sign the petition to make Halloween a federal holiday, and of course share this with everyone you know who loves Halloween like we do! For more Halloween news, follow @HalloweenDaily. |
LAHORE, Pakistan — Late one night, the imam Shabir Ahmad looked up from prayers at his mosque to see a 15-year-old boy approaching with a plate in his outstretched left hand. On it was the boy’s freshly severed right hand. Mr. Ahmad did not hesitate. He fled the mosque and left the village, in eastern Punjab Province. Earlier that night, Jan. 10, he had denounced the boy as a blasphemer, an accusation that in Pakistan can get a person killed — even when the accusation is false, as it was in this case. The boy, Anwar Ali, the son of a poor laborer, had been attending an evening prayer gathering at the mosque in the village, Khanqah, when Mr. Ahmad asked for a show of hands of those who did not love the Prophet Muhammad. Thinking the cleric had asked for those who did love the prophet, Anwar’s hand shot up, according to witnesses and the boy’s family. He realized his mistake when he saw that his was the only hand up, and he quickly put it down. But by then Mr. Ahmad was screaming “Blasphemer!” at him, along with many others in the crowd. “Don’t you love your prophet?” they called, as the boy fled in disgrace. |
Estimates have shown external debt at $87.1b, does not fully reflect implications of external vulnerabilities ISLAMABAD: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said that Pakistan’s gross external financing requirements would amount to $16.2 billion in the new fiscal year – a projection that does not fully reflect implications of external vulnerabilities the global lender itself mentioned in the same report. A critical review of the IMF’s Article-IV report on the state of Pakistan’s economy reveals fundamental contradictions and formal projections of the external sector. The estimates of gross external financing requirements, current account deficit, balance of trade and gross official foreign currency reserves do not match with the warnings that the IMF has given while discussing these issues in the report. IMF data bloats Pakistan forex reserves by $3bn The IMF released the report on Thursday – a month after its Executive Board gave its approval. Even optimistic projections of the external sector have shown the external debt at $87.1 billion including $67.3 billion external public debt. “External vulnerabilities have increased with a widening current account deficit and rising medium-term external repayment obligations,” said the IMF in its report. It also noted that external financing needs are expected to pick up amid a widening current account deficit. Rising imports, stagnant remittances, and weakly recovering exports are weighing on the current account deficit. However, when it came to translating these issues into formal projections, the IMF has somehow painted an optimistic picture. The IMF has projected Pakistan’s gross external financing requirements for fiscal year 2017-18 at $16.2 billion, which is even a billion dollar less than the last fiscal year. The $16.2 billion figure has been worked out by assuming that the current account deficit will be equal to 3.2% of the Gross Domestic Product or $10.1 billion. The external debt payments including short-term have been estimated at $6.2 billion. Although the final current account deficit figure for last fiscal year is not available yet, the central bank reported the eleven-month deficit at $10.6 billion or 3.8% of the GDP. The Planning Commission officials said that the current account deficit for the full year would be close to $11.5 billion or 4.1% of the GDP for last fiscal year. This will be 250% more than the official projection of the government. For the new fiscal year, the government has pitched the current account deficit figure at roughly $9 billion or 2.6% of the GDP. The independent estimates show that the current account deficit would be close to $13.5 billion – $3.5 billion higher than the IMF’s projection, for the fiscal year 2017-18. The gross external financing requirements would increase by the same amount to roughly $19.7 billion, said Dr Hafiz Pasha, the former finance minister. He said that the mismatch between the IMF analysis and its formal projection was primarily because the Fund did not want to scare investors in an election year. Against the backdrop of a record trade deficit of $32.6 billion in the last fiscal year, the IMF has painted a rosy picture of the trade sector in the new fiscal year. This is despite the fact that government does not have a plan to address issues leading to constant reduction in exports and mushroom growth in imports. The IMF has projected over 9% growth in exports in the new fiscal year as against 1.63% reduction in the last fiscal year. The Fund has advocated significant devaluation of Pak rupee against the US dollar to make Pakistani exports competitive in the global market. Contrary to this, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has formally launched an inquiry to find out the reasons behind 3.1% deprecation of local currency on July 5 that he got reversed by influencing the market. The IMF has projected almost 7% growth in imports in the new fiscal year, which is less than half of the growth rate that Pakistan witnessed in the last fiscal year. The IMF acknowledged surge in imports in the new fiscal year due to China-Pakistan Economic Corridor-related imports but it did not translate this surge into projections. Against $16.2 billion gross external financing requirements, the indicated inflows in the IMF report totalled to roughly $11 billion, leaving a financing gap of $5.2 billion even after taking an optimistic view. Yet, the IMF has shown the gross official foreign currency reserves at $18.9 billion by end of the new fiscal year, higher than last fiscal year’s reserves of $16.1 billion. After taking into account the $19.7 billion gross external financing requirements by assuming relatively realistic current account deficit, the financing gap will be close to $9 billion, which will either have direct bearing on the official foreign currency reserves or the external borrowings will significantly increase. Global lender warns of risks to Pakistan’s economic stability “My professional estimates suggest that Pakistan’s gross official foreign currency reserves will slip below $10 billion,” said Dr Pasha. He said that the IMF report showed the reserves at $18.5 billion by June 30 of this year, which actually were $16.1 billion. The IMF has shown the gross external debt of Pakistan at $87 billion in the new fiscal year by taking a relatively optimistic view of the current account deficit and official foreign currency reserves. Published in The Express Tribune, July 15th, 2017. Like Business on Facebook, follow @TribuneBiz on Twitter to stay informed and join in the conversation. Read full story |
News_release Chemical found in many plastics linked to multiple health threats Bisphenol A or BPA is a synthetic chemical widely used in the making of plastic products ranging from bottles and food can linings to toys and water supply lines. When these plastics degrade, BPA is released into the environment and routinely ingested. New research, however, from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine suggests it is the metabolic changes that take place once BPA is broken down inside the body that pose the greater health threat. More than 90 percent of all Americans are believed to carry varying levels of BPA exposure. In recent years, numerous studies have reported alarming associations between BPA exposure and myriad adverse health and development effects, from cancer and neurological disorders to physiological defects and, perhaps, a cause of childhood obesity. Of particular concern is that BPA exposure is correlated with disruption of estrogen signaling. The chemical’s molecular structure is similar to that of estradiol, one of the human body’s three main estrogens, suggesting that BPA binds to estrogen receptors. The estrogen receptor is designed to grab and hold estradiol and related estrogens. Disparate chemicals, however, can share some structures found in estrogens, enabling them to bind to the estrogen receptor. When that happens, problems can occur. In binding to the estrogen receptor, BPA can disrupt the body’s endocrine or hormone system, with consequences especially worrisome for fetuses, infants and young children. Earlier this year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups. Its use is more broadly banned elsewhere in the world. In new research published in the October 4 online issue of the journal PLOS ONE, two scientists at UC San Diego School of Medicine say three-dimensional modeling suggests a metabolite of BPA – a molecule produced when BPA is metabolized or broken down by the body – actually binds to the estrogen receptor much more strongly than BPA itself. The finding could point the way to development of a new class of drugs designed to specifically inhibit excessive estrogen activity linked to disease. According to Michael E. Baker, PhD, UCSD professor of medicine, and Charlie Chandsawangbhuwana, a graduate student in the UCSD Department of Bioengineering, several research labs have reported that BPA binds weakly to the estrogen receptor, suggesting that something else is interacting with this receptor. In 2004, Shin'ichi Yoshihara, PhD, and colleagues at Hiroshima International University, discovered that another compound, dubbed MBP, was produced when BPA was metabolized. MBP has a 100-fold to 1,000-fold stronger bond to the estrogen receptor than BPA. However, the structural basis for MBP’s high affinity for the estrogen receptor was not investigated further. In their PLOS ONE study, Baker and Chandsawangbhuwana revived Yoshihara’s research by creating three-dimensional, molecular models of MBP and BPA in the estrogen receptor and matching it against the crystal structure of estradiol in the estrogen receptor. They found that MBP’s longer structure allows both ends of the chemical to interact with the estrogen receptor in a way similar to estradiol. The shorter BPA molecule contacts the receptor at just one end, resulting in a weaker connection, providing an explanation for BPA’s lower affinity for the estrogen receptor. “In other words, MPB is basically grabbing onto the estrogen receptor with two hands compared to just one hand for BPA,” said Baker. “Two contact points makes a much stronger connection.” Baker said the 3D modeling supports the idea “that BPA is not the endocrine disruptor culprit. Instead, MBP is one (of perhaps several BPA metabolites) that causes disruption of estrogen signaling in humans and other animals.” He said the research points to the need to measure MBP levels in urine and blood of patients suspected of BPA-mediated health effects, and may fuel development of a new therapeutic treatment for conditions linked to excessive estrogen levels and activity, such as some forms of breast and prostate cancers. “One could use MBP, which has a novel structure, as a template to develop a new class of chemicals that could bind to the estrogen receptor with high affinity,” Baker said. “The goal would be to have these chemicals inhibit the action of estradiol instead of activating the estrogen response. These chemicals could control unwanted growth of estrogen-dependent tumors.” # # # Media Contact: Scott LaFee, 619-543-6163, slafee@ucsd.edu |
Live long enough and experience enough and you will have regret about something that happened along the way. There will be one who got away. For the New York Giants organization, the current one who got away is Dave Gettleman, general manager of Sunday's opponent, the 13-0 Carolina Panthers. Gettleman could easily be the Giants' general manager today. Read about Gettleman and talk to people who know him, and it's obvious he wanted the job when Ernie Accorsi retired after the 2006 season. Gettleman joined the Giants in 1998 and became pro personnel director in 1999. He interviewed for the GM post. He was stung when the organization selected Jerry Reese. The Giants are currently 6-7, fighting to avoid a third straight losing season and a fourth straight season without making the playoffs. The Panthers are gunning for history, and for a Super Bowl title. There is really no answer to the question, but it's only natural to wonder how the fortunes of these two franchises would be different if Giants' ownership had chosen Gettleman over Reese. Would the Giants have those two Super Bowl titles? Would they have more? Less? Would they still have missed the playoffs every years since 2007 in which they have not won the Super Bowl? Would they have been a more consistent team? There is no way to know. The only thing we can do is look more closely at Gettleman, learn about him, see what he's done in Carolina and try to infer what he might have done differently had he been running the Giants these past nine years. So, who is this guy? "He is an absolute trip to work with. He is a personality that guys in and around the space gravitate towards, said Dan Hatman, director of The Scouting Academy. Gettleman gave Hatman, who scouted pro personnel for the Giants, New York Jets and Philadelphia Eagles, his first NFL job with the Giants. "He thought he had a real good job at the Giants job that went to Jerry, and was a real good soldier afterwards, did his job and everything," Hatman said. "Clearly he spent the next few years hoping to get his shot." That shot finally came with Carolina in 2013. With Accorsi acting as a consultant as the Panthers searched for a GM, Gettleman ended up with the job. "Dave can find players and he’s got a way about him that makes people want to work for him. He’s a much nicer guy than I am," said Accorsi, who retired from the Giants in 2006. "He can lead without making enemies. He was the most loved guy in our building. We used to call him the Mayor. I said, ‘What office are you running for this week?’" The office he ran for and failed to get with the Giants in 2007 was now his in Carolina six years later. And perhaps unexpectedly, since he was already nearing his 62nd birthday. What did Gettleman do upon arriving in Carolina? Did he walk in full of big-city bravado, clean house after a lifetime of waiting to be the guy in charge, and put his stamp of the coaching and personnel departments? Nope. He sat back, watched and learned that he had good people he thought he could win with -- including then much-maligned head coach Ron Rivera. That's "very, very rare for a GM," said Hatman, adding that "He's not an alarmist. He's not a reactionary. He came in, he said he was going to get the lay of the land, figure out who needed to stay and who needed to go and that's what he did." Despite 6-10 and 7-9 seasons in his two years as coach before Gettleman arrived, the GM gave the coach a chance. Three straight playoff seasons have been the reward. "[There's a] very, very small number of people in football that would have given Ron Rivera the time of day to keep going," Hatman said. One player who appreciates the GM is Panthers star quarterback Cam Newton. "He's a great human being. A fair human being. I don't think he gets enough credit for that. He's an unbelievable person who searches for talent and not just talent, but good morally talent," Newton told Carolina media this week. "Guys that uphold their end of the bargain when they come here and guys that hold people to a standard. He know that in this league you have to produce whether you're a player, a coach or even a GM. We know that. It starts with him and Coach Rivera and it just trickles on down." It is impossible to know what the Giants' drafts would have looked like under Gettleman's direction. His NFL work had been in pro scouting before taking the Carolina job and having to learn the college scouting and draft process. Gettleman was head of a personnel department with the Giants that brought players like Madison Hedgecock, Domenik Hixon, Shaun O'Hara, Kareem McKenzie, Chris Canty and others to the Giants. What, if anything, have the Giants missed with Gettleman no longer part of their personnel department? Perhaps, if there is one thing that could be pointed to, it is what others see as Gettleman's focus on and ability to find quality offensive and defensive linemen. Players he apparently calls "hog mollies." "Dave spent a lot of time working on players in the trenches and then he took that acumen to Carolina," Hatman said. That, of course, is not to say the Giants can't identify quality linemen. They have drafted Jason Pierre-Paul and Johnathan Hankins on the defensive side, and Justin Pugh, Weston Richburg and Ereck Flowers on the offensive side. They have also had draft misses like James Brewer, Brandon Mosley and Damontre Moore, and some free-agent missteps as well. Those missteps are part of the reason the Giants struggle to rush the passer and block for the run. In Carolina, Gettleman has drafted key defensive linemen Star Lotulelei, Kawann Short and Kony Ealy, along with starting offensive lineman Trai Turner. He is building a team that can now do what the Giants used to do -- dominate both sides of the line of scrimmage. Could or would Gettleman have been as successful with the Giants as he currently is in Carolina? We will never know. |
A bankruptcy court judge has approved a transition plan that will sever U.S. Steel Canada from its U.S. parent and has allowed the company to suspend health-care benefits for tens of thousands of retirees. In a brief decision on Friday, Justice Herman Wilton-Siegal endorsed a plan for U.S. Steel Canada to form its own company to manage its Canadian assets. He also endorsed its request to suspend health-care benefits to 20,000 pensioners, and to allow a reprieve on paying property taxes. The details will be known on Tuesday. But Gary Howe, president of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 1005, said his union is disappointed. It will meet with drug benefit providers and look at other options to cover the gap for pensioners, particularly those under 65 not covered the province's Trillium drug plan. In the meantime, he said, "the real story is that 20,600 people will be without benefits that they've earned." But the decision has greater implications for U.S. Steel Canada (USSC), which runs plants in Hamilton and Nanticoke. The company has been in bankruptcy protection under the Companies Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) since last September. What happens to a stand-alone U.S. Steel Canada, and whether it can continue to operate, is still very uncertain. Other options included putting the company in "hot standby" mode in the hope that conditions change, or declaring it bankrupt, said Marvin Ryder, a McMaster University professor. Both Ryder and steel industry analyst Chuck Bradford told CBC Hamilton on Friday that selling the Hamilton operation in its current state is unlikely. It's more likely that it will be sold in pieces. The Nanticoke, with its pricey rolling mill, is a better candidate for sale, Ryder said. It may even be sold to U.S. Steel once it's separated from the Canadian company, or the corporation will get it as part of a "debt swap." All of these details are unknown. But "in terms of buying and operating (in Hamilton), I don't mean to be the bearer of bad news, but it's not likely," Ryder said. Howe said the steelmaker is locked into paying pension contributions at least until the end of the year. But he's not sure what will happen after that. There's also no time period specified yet for how long the company will go without paying health-care benefits or property taxes. U.S. Steel Canada pays about $6 million in property taxes per year in Hamilton. The company employs about 2,200 people. Mayor Fred Eisenberger of Hamilton said once the city hears more details, it will decide whether to appeal the decision. City taxes for the rest of the year amount to about $1.5 million. |
Photo Read in Chinese | 点击查看本文中文版 Andrew G. Walder is a sociologist at Stanford University who has written extensively on the Cultural Revolution and life in Maoist China. His latest book, “China Under Mao: A Revolution Derailed,” published this year by Harvard University Press, incorporates the latest scholarship on this tumultuous era, when bedrocks of Chinese society — especially private property and communal religious life — were destroyed in favor of Communist-style collectives. He argues that Mao lurched from crisis to crisis, inspired less by a new vision of Communism than a simplistic understanding of Stalinist ideology. Photo In painting this bleak picture, Mr. Walder helps explain why in the late 1970s, after Mao’s death, China embarked on far-reaching market-oriented economic liberalization — the basis for its prosperity and power today. In an interview, he discussed how the Communist victory in the civil war informed Mao’s approach to politics, who was responsible for most of the violence during the Cultural Revolution and what elements of Mao’s rule can be seen in President Xi Jinping’s administration today. Excerpts follow: Q. Why do we need a new book on Mao Zedong and the first decades of Communist rule in China? A. Some really good material on the Maoist era only really came out well into the reform era, but most social scientists were focusing on China’s reforms. The reforms were dramatic and unexpected, and so most of the attention focused on them. And these materials, as they gradually became available, languished. It took scholars like Roderick MacFarquhar, Michael Schoenhals, Frederick Teiwes and Warren Sun to begin to put this picture together. These works brought into focus the politics at the top. They dispelled many misperceptions. I see my role as connecting what happened at the top of the political system with the outcomes. Q. What sort of misperceptions did they dispel? A. Teiwes and Sun, for example, showed that what we thought of as the “two-line struggle” [between Mao and other leaders over economic policy in the early 1960s, in the aftermath of the Great Leap Forward, when famine killed at least 30 million] wasn’t really like that. The original idea was that Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi staked out positions different from Mao. This view was derived from the polemics of the period. Mao and his side criticized Deng and Liu, so scholars thought that this reflected a deeper reality. That twisted our perception of the real issues. Mao did accurately perceive that many people were not as enthusiastic as he was, but they went along with him, especially Liu Shaoqi. So the idea of two opposing camps was discredited. Photo It’s surprising how much we know about the Cultural Revolution compared to other movements, like the Great Leap Forward. The Red Guard movement, especially in universities, all had factional newspapers. They chronicled events. We now have tens of thousands of pages of material. I can’t think of a movement that is better documented. We think of it as mindless violence, but a lot of people were writing a lot about things they were doing. Q. I was struck by your description that the Communists’ guerrilla period was not as important to their governing style as we think. In fact, you argue that the civil war was far more important — and completely different from guerrilla war. A. Only when I read historical scholarship in the last 15 years that focuses on civil war and casualty figures of the Nationalists did I realize that they didn’t come to power through guerrilla war. You look at the casualty figures, and you realize that. In graduate school, most works we read glossed over that fact. For me, that was a revelation. The Communist Party did very little of the fighting against the Japanese, and it was a myth that a people’s war led the Communists to power. Instead, the conquest of China was a military conquest, much like the [Soviet] Red Army fought the Nazis. It was a mass mobilization that supported vast armies that defeated the Nationalists. I don’t think that’s sunk into the consciousness of the field. Q. How did that affect the Communists’ governing style? A. Mao had these startling victories. Everyone said he couldn’t win quickly against the Nationalists. Even Stalin urged caution. But he pushed and won. That was the approach he turned to again in the late 1950s with the Great Leap Forward. He thought that you could accomplish anything. Also, he learned that he shouldn’t listen to others. Q. I was also struck by how little Mao evolved. After the civil war, he seemed to learn nothing. A. Stalin also pushed hard for Communism, but after the war, he moderated his view and become relatively conservative. Mao never moderated his views. He became more radical with time. Q. In fact, he seemed like an intellectual lightweight. You say most of what he learned about Communist thought was from “The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks),” the textbook commissioned by Stalin and first published in 1938. A. He was a great strategist. But a lot of what he wrote was, if not ghost-written, heavily edited by people like [his secretary] Chen Boda. His understanding of Marxism-Leninism was based on a CliffsNotes edition of Stalinism. Q. Another interesting thing I learned was how he failed at everything he tried after the early 1950s. A. He was pretty good at that [covering up his errors]. I never thought of it this way until I wrote it down, but pretty much everything he tried after 1957, nothing worked out the way he thought. He didn’t intend to deliberately starve peasants. I think historians of the Soviet Union showed that Stalin was willing to starve peasants if they resisted collectivization. I don’t think Mao set out to starve peasants, but when it happened he wasn’t shocked. He viewed it as collateral damage. He was constantly making a risky move, and if it didn’t work, then he’d shift, and that didn’t work out. The whole Cultural Revolution decade was a mess because of that. Photo Q. You write that about 1.1 million to 1.6 million people died during the Cultural Revolution. A. In the literature, the number ranges from 40,000 to eight million. So it’s a relatively conservative estimate. But as a percent of the population, 750 million, that’s about one-fifth the death rate of Stalin’s Great Terror. Some people are annoyed that I’m minimizing the violence, but I’m trying to put it in perspective. Another point was that in the Cultural Revolution, most killing wasn’t by the students or Red Guards, but by the government. We focus on students killing their teachers. That touches a nerve. Or we focus on armed conflict between rebel groups. But most of the killing occurred when order — in quotation marks — was restored. It was not the rampaging Red Guards, even though those deaths were the most dramatic. It was the military restoration of order. The cure was far worse than the disease. Q. People often say that China’s president, Xi Jinping, is adopting elements of the Mao era, or even the Cultural Revolution. What do you think? A. He’s adopting some of the symbolism of Mao in the Cultural Revolution. People look back on that era as less corrupt. Similarly in Russia, people looked back at Stalin as someone who got things done. You can certainly say that about Mao. He bullied people, pushed them around and got things done. They’ve forgotten the outcomes. It reminds me a bit of the U.S. South after the Civil War. You had a Reconstruction period and then, after the 1870s, they began to rewrite the history and that what the Confederate flag stood for was heritage and tradition, not slavery and lynching. There’s a sanitizing of the historical record. What Xi is about is unity and stability and economic development, and that’s not what Mao was about. Mao was willing to throw things to the wind. He was willing to gamble. He never thought things could happen if it was orderly. He thought disorder was the midwife of progress. Xi is completely different. One example: Xi is clamping down on corruption, but he’s also clamping down on free expression and press freedom. But when Mao set out to reform the system twice, in the [1956] Hundred Flowers movement and the Cultural Revolution, he started out by opening the system to criticism. He invited people inside and outside the system to criticize. Xi does not want to do that. People have forgotten that Mao was an incredibly radical guy. But like a lot of these guys whose pictures end up on currencies, they end up as an icon. Q. On the positive side, he held China together and gave it territorial integrity. A. Yes, absolutely, but he also held China back economically, socially, intellectually, for 20 years. It’s interesting to think what would have been China’s trajectory if he’d stepped aside in 1961 or 1962. Certainly China wouldn’t have started the reform period in 1978, having dug itself in such a deep hole. This 10 percent a year economic growth that they like to boast about was in part making up for 20 years of a more or less very stagnant economy. Q. But did his destruction pave the way for reform? A. Mao destroyed the bureaucracy that might have blocked reform. The party and bureaucracy were still in turmoil in the late 1970s, so a leader like Deng Xiaoping had more options to reform the party than Gorbachev did. The array of forces against him were much weaker than in the Soviet Union. |
About We truly love Robotics! Although it's one of the most enjoyable and exciting fields, it is also really challenging. The challenge comes from the need to understand different areas of science like electronics, computer and mechanics. Playing games is really fun too, so we thought it would be a great idea to have the best of both worlds. WiSoccero is designed to take advantage of the exciting art of robotics by removing all of the struggles involved and adding a little more fun. It helps you enter the world of robots with as little difficulty as possible. You can start by just playing with your friends and travel to incredible areas and learning about robots. You can even create your own amazing robotic projects. WiSoccero is agile and versatile. Unlike traditional RC Cars, it can move in any direction without any hesitation. It employs a special wheel arrangement and omnidirectional wheels which gives it a lot more freedom in maneuvering. This soccer-playing robot is capable of kicking and passing the ball. It utilizes an electromechanical part (solenoid) and the necessary electrical drivers. This system is capable of kicking the ball with different levels of force that can be controlled effortlessly. WiSoccero needs to be powered by 3 Li-ion 18650 cylindrical rechargeable batteries (at least 2200 mAh in capacity) that will last for about 2 hours under normal conditions. WiSoccero is equipped with a WiFi module (WiLoader). This wireless module lets you control and even reprogram your robot over WiFi. We've written a small computer program in order to control the robot through WiFi. Joystick commands will be interpreted and then sent by this software. We've tested many types of joysticks and the best ones have been chosen. For easier use and having to avoid wired connections, we've decided to provide you with a customized WiFi joystick kit that includes a Xbox 360 wireless controller shell. Assembling the joystick DIY kit will be an interesting experience. This way you will only need a joystick and 2 standard AA batteries; you will no longer need a computer. WiSoccero is based on ATmega2560 core and it has all standard Arduino Mega Headers. It is equipped with WiLoader for WiFi programming and communication. It also comes with a lot of great components for hobbyist and developers like three DC motor drivers, Gyroscope (for orientation setting), DIP switch, buzzer, two LED Strings, two configurable buttons, power and protection circuit, two rocker switches for turning circuit and motors on/off separately, isolated voltage booster circuit and power transistors for kicker mechanism. WiSoccero uses some IO pins by default for driving motors and performing other necessary tasks for playing soccer. However, we designed the entire circuit in a way that can be used as a development board for other projects too. Each component can be disconnected from the core by removing corresponding SMD jumpers. Also there are male headers on each module IOs that allows developers to use them in any way they need. WiSoccero is truly developer friendly. Thanks to its Arduino compatible headers and component placement, it's possible to use any Arduino Mega shield such as distance sensor shield for obstacle avoidance, camera shields for autonomous operations and much more. Also you can use all these amazing shields while playing soccer. It's truly fun! A soccer player needs to catch and control the ball. So to accomplish this task, we've looked for different mechanisms. After some brainstorming and actual testing we've found the best and most straightforward way in using magnetic force. We've attached a small and strong neodymium magnet to WiSoccero's front side. As for the ball, any kind of light and magnetic ball can be used. We've chosen Styrofoam Balls which are light, easy to draw on, and most importantly magnetizable by just sticking several steel flat head pins inside. We'll include a couple of balls and several steel flat head pins in WiSoccero's pack. You can simply stick these pins in the balls. Afterwards, color it in anyway you want and make it your own. This way you'll have a customized light magnetic ball. Have fun designing the DIY Styrofoam Ball! Introducing WiLoader, The new generation of programmers Have you ever thought of programming wirelessly ? WiLoader is the answer. But HOW ??? WiLoader easily connects to your WiFi network, then you can program your AVR, Arduino boards and Robots. It doesn't need any kind of cable for computer connection, especially those huge old USB ones. Because it employs WiFi, even your smartphone can be used to configure, communicate, control and monitor your targets via a WiFi-UART bridge. Embedded inside Arduino ! WiLoader is easy to set up, use and control. Since Arduino is an open source software and also has a lot of cool features and rich libraries, we will release a software patch for Arduino IDE to support and handle all WiLoader capabilities. WiLoader can be chosen like any other programmers inside the Tools menu. It is compatible with all operating systems and it performs flawlessly. WiLoader has a WiFi-UART bridge called WiCOM. You can send and receive serial data over WiFi by connecting WiLoader dedicated serial pins to AVR UART pins(RX, TX). Just like other COM ports that Arduino serial monitor uses for communicating and debugging MCUs. AVR & SMART PHONES !!! Nowadays smartphones have become an important and fun part of our lives. Therefor we thought why not connect WiLoader to them as well ?! With this connection not only you can set up WiLoader but also you are able to chat with your device via its app. WiLoader app is developed for both iOS and Android phones. You can use WiLoader app’s setting tab to configure its parameters such as scanning and connecting to desired WiFi network , choosing URAT port baud rate, naming your programmer and … We will release mobile apps source codes, In order to make it simpler for you to create custom apps . So enjoy this smartphone connection and create anything you want. It is going to be an amazing journey. You'll need an HTML5 capable browser to see this content. Play Replay with sound Play with sound 00:00 00:00 Arduino’s perfect match !! WiLoader is designed to fit on Arduino boards perfectly, so there is no need for any kind of cables or jumpers to connect WiLoader to the ICSP programming pins. Putting them together is really easy and straightforward, you just have to align the ICSP header with its counter parts on WiLoader. WiLoader is capable of a lot more than only programming Arduino. You can use its WiFi-UART bridge for creating startling projects, in order to use all of its capabilities WiLoader connects to Rx/Tx pins (UART pins) on Arduino too. You don't need wires or jumpers to couple its UART pin; when you put WiLoader on ICSP headers its serial pins will fit Arduino Rx/Tx pins without needing any further attention or care. Furthermore, since you might want to use shields with Arduino, WiLoader comes with extension headers for them too. You can enjoy working with any shield compatible with your board without any hassle. So in short, WiLoader is designed in a way that you can enjoy Arduino and its shields even more. Nothing is inaccessible any more !! WiLoader can help you reach all the things you desire. If you are developing a product and you need to upgrade its firmware or change the programming but it is too heavy to move every time, if it’s somewhere too hard to reach, if it needs to be installed in a specific spot, if it’s a drone or robot that is too exhausting to catch each time or even if it’s some old design that you just have to update; Well, WiLoader is the key. Because it’s a wireless programmer, it doesn't need a physical connection to your computer. As a result, it can program your device when it’s moving or too far and hard to access . You can even use WiLoader, when you don't even see the target yourself. So, WiLoader will help you reach everything you want and it will make developing quite more enjoyable for you. Save your USB ports !! These days, we are using more and more accessories and devices and each of these useful tools needs some sort of computer connection to work, mostly they require a USB port. The problem is that laptops and PCs have limited number of ports. As computer become smaller, sleeker and more compact the number shrinks too. Well, now you have one less connection to worry about and one more USB port to enjoy, because WiLoader doesn't need any physical connection to your Notebook, Laptop or Desktop computer. So, it frees up a USB port and adds one more handy device to use. WiFi AP and Client ! WiLoader uses WiFi for connection to computers, smartphone and other devices. It can connect to any existing network with just a few simple steps. So, WiLoader doesn't stop you from using the internet or anything connected to your network. Also, even if you don't have a WiFi network or for some reason you need another network for WiLoader, it is capable of creating one for you. You can rename its network and set its password. No matter what the situation is, WiLoader is ready to go. Petunia Tech We are a newly formed group of electrical, computer and systems engineers. Our goal is to break new grounds in Internet of Things (IoT) and create innovative products to elevate the quality of all our lives. The reason for choosing Petunia Tech as our company name is the reproductive process of this flower. The petunia pollination is quite like communication methods used in IoT and the way various elements interact with each other inside its network. We are working in several IoT related fields and have multiple products in different stages of development. |
Not to be confused with Fyodor Vasilyev Feodor Vassilyev (Russian: Фёдор Васильев, older spelling: Ѳеодоръ Васильевъ) (c. 1707[1] – 1782) was a peasant from Shuya, Russia. His first wife is claimed to have lived to be 76 and, between 1725 and 1765, have had 69 children (16 pairs of twins, 7 sets of triplets and 4 sets of quadruplets); 67 of them survived infancy with the loss of one set of twins - the record for most children born to a single woman. However her name, date of birth, and date of death, are all unknown. Vassilyev also had 18 children with his second wife, who had 6 pairs of twins and 2 sets of triplets, making him a father of 87 children in total. Of his 87 children, at least 82 are said to have survived infancy.[2][3] The data about Vassilyev's children are included in the Guinness Book of World Records.[3] |
The Romney-Ryan campaign is not letting go of Paul Ryan's repeated claims that President Barack Obama failed in a "promise" to keep the Janesville, Wisconsin, General Motors plant open (and it's not alone; the American Future Fund is also getting in on the act). Now that everyone knows that the plant was closed before Obama was even inaugurated, Romney and Ryan have moved to assailing Obama for not reopening it. Obama clearly never said "I promise to keep this plant open"—that much is clear from the Romney-Ryan campaign's own video, no matter how many times the video uses the word "promise" to describe his words. But that's not even the most brazen, cynical aspect of the video. Because here's the thing: Obama may not have been able, to this point, to get that GM plant reopened. But at least he wanted to, which is more than you can say about Mitt "let Detroit go bankrupt" Romney. Because of Obama's actions to rescue the auto industry (and those of George W. Bush before him), more than a million auto industry jobs were saved in 2009 and more than 300,000 in 2010. Since then, the auto industry has added 200,000 jobs, and GM reported record profits in 2011, standing as the world's largest automaker. None of that would have happened if Mitt Romney had his way. All those jobs would have been gone. GM's Janesville plant would still have been gone, but so would all the other auto plants that are still operating, even adding workers. Janesville would also have lost its GM dealership, what with there being no cars to sell. Toledo, Ohio, would not have gained 1,100 jobs at a Chrysler plant. Workers across the Midwest would not have gotten bonus checks. So even if Barack Obama had promised to keep the Janesville GM plant open—which he did not—it would be breathtakingly dishonest of Mitt Romney's campaign to take him to task for it. But that's how Mitt rolls. |
There is much to celebrate in the court decision against President Trump’s immigration ban. It was a stirring victory for the rule of law and reaffirmation of the independence of the judiciary. Yet America faces a serious problem which that decision did not address: the erosion of public faith in the rule of law and democratic governance. While we have been focused on partisan divides over government policy and personnel, an almost invisible erosion of the foundations of our political system has been taking place. Public support for the rule of law and democracy can no longer be taken for granted. In 2017, the rule of law and democracy itself are under attack by President Trump and his administration. This is as much a symptom as a cause of our current crisis. Public Policy Polling has released the startling results of a national survey taken this week. Those results show significant fissures in the public’s embrace of the rule of law and democracy. Only 53% of those surveyed said that they “trust judges more than President Trump to make the right decisions for the United States.” In this cross-section of Americans, 38% said they trusted Donald Trump more than our country’s judges. 9% were undecided. Support for the rule of law seemed higher when respondents were asked whether they thought that President Trump should “be able to overturn decisions by judges” when he disagrees with those decisions. Here only 25% agreed, with 11% saying they were unsure. Here are the potential sinister motives behind Donald Trump's voter fraud lie | Lawrence Douglas Read more But, the result changed when the data were narrowed to those who identified themselves as Trump supporters: 51% agreed that Trump should be able to overturn court decisions. 33% disagreed. 16% were not sure. It is tempting to attribute this difference between Trump supporters and others simply to the fact that the president’s supporters prefer a more authoritarian style of government, prioritize social order, like strong rulers, and worry about maintaining control in a world they perceive to be filled with threats and on the verge of chaos. As the PPP’s survey reveals, Trump is appealing to a remarkably receptive audience in his attempts to rule by decree – and many are no longer attached to the rule of law and/or democracy. Other studies confirm these findings. One such study found a dramatic decline in the percentage of people who say it is “essential” to live in a democracy. When asked to rate on a scale of 1 to 10 how “essential” it is for them “to live in a democracy,” 72% of Americans born before World War II check “10,” the highest value. But, the millennial generation (those born since 1980) “has grown much more indifferent.” Less than 1 in 3 hold a similar belief about the importance of democracy. And, the New York Times reports that while 43% of older Americans thought it would be illegitimate for the military to take power if civilian government was incompetent, only 19% of millennials agreed. While millennials may be politically liberal in their policy preferences, they have come of age in a time of political paralysis in democratic institutions, declining civility in democratic dialogue, and dramatically increased anxiety about economic security. These findings suggest that we can no longer take for granted that our fellow citizens will stand up for the rule of law and democracy. That’s why, while President Trump’s behavior has riveted the media and the public, our eyes should not only be focused on him but on this larger – and troubling - trend. If the rule of law and democracy are to survive in America we will need to address the decline in the public’s understanding of, and support for both. While we celebrate the Ninth Circuit’s decision on Trump’s ban, we also must initiate a national conversation about democracy and the rule of law. Civics education, long derided, needs to be revived. Schools, civic groups, and the media must to go back to fundamentals and explain what basic American political values entail and why they are desirable. Defenders of democracy and the rule of law must take their case to the American people and remind them of the Founders’ admonition that: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” We need to remember that our freedom from an arbitrary or intrusive government depends on the rule of law and a functioning democracy. We need to rehabilitate both – before this crisis of faith worsens. Austin Sarat is a professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College |
Dining with the devil: Milne's risky power play Posted The Greens might have lost their political innocence when it entered an alliance with Labor, but offering support to the conservatives is another matter entirely, writes Mungo MacCallum. The Abbott Government has no shame. This is hardly news but it is good to see it confirmed, yet again, by the deal with the Greens to abolish the debt ceiling in exchange for some largely meaningless and easily avoided undertakings about transparency. This time last year dealing with the Greens in any form was akin to selling your political soul. Julia Gillard's alliance, first with Bob Brown and then less comfortably with his successor Christine Milne, was excoriated, anathematised by Abbott and his colleagues; no sane or decent person could associate with these fanatical destroyers of Australia's wealth and freedom. Even after Milne formally dissolved the alliance, the attacks continued: the Greens had invaded the Gillard government like a malign, alien parasite and were still controlling their hapless and gullible hosts. The Greens were the enemy of all the Australian way of life; it was as simple as that. Any contact, however fleeting and superficial, risked contamination. And dealing with them was invariably and irrevocably lethal. But only, apparently, for a Labor government. The hardy conservatives are immune. And anyway, it is all about outcomes, the end justifies the means. So our dauntless Treasurer Joe Hockey had no real hesitation in following the Faustian example. And the pact he made was almost entirely one-sided; it did not even require his signature in blood. The debt ceiling was no more; never again would he have to go begging to Parliament for a rise, or endure the taunting and posturing of an understandably cynical opposition which had endured three years of thundering about the horrors of debt and deficit. The economic crisis was officially over, and so was the political one which had accompanied it. It was the first real win for the Government since its election, and Jockey and Abbott had every right to feel smug about it. Hypocrisy, shmypocrisy. Whatever it takes. There will be no sleepless nights on the government benches. But for the Greens, and for their leader in particular, it may not be quite so simple. Debt in itself has never been a real issue for them; the concept is fine, even desirable, if it is used for long-term projects and worthwhile purposes like improving infrastructure - sustainable infrastructure, that is - and the promises of reporting to Parliament and justifying government decisions look, at first glance at least, like a decent sort of quid pro quo. And by sitting down with Hockey, they have thrown off the label of being economic fringe dwellers; they have entered the political mainstream. But that may be exactly the problem; there is, after all, a terrible precedent. In 1999, John Howard was desperate to pass his Goods and Services Tax. His resurrection of the "never, ever" GST had nearly seen him defeated at the 1998 election and his political credibility now depended on getting it through a hostile Senate. Labor and the Greens were implacably opposed and to Howard's dismay, the independent Brian Harradine, on whose support Howard had been relying, also opposed it. His only hope was the Australian Democrats, and he turned to their leader, Meg Lees. The Democrats had campaigned in 1998 under the slogan of No GST on Food, and Lees took this as a licence to negotiate, saying she could make a bad tax better. In fact, exemptions destroyed the whole point of the tax, the efficiency resulting from its universality. However, Lees demanded and received a number of concessions on what she called "the necessities of life", a term which invited ever further widening of its inclusions. Eventually the list was finalised and Lees announced the Democrats would support the new package. But many of her supporters were furious; some were opposed to the tax in any form and others felt Lees should have fought harder for items such as books to be exempted. The parliamentary party split: two of the nine Democrat senators, Natasha Stott Despoja and Andrew Bartlett, crossed the floor to vote against the GST. Among the rank and file, the reaction was wider and more vehement. They called a leadership spill, as the Democrats constitution allowed, and although Lees survived the first attempt, a second in 2001 saw her replaced by Stott Despoja. A year later she resigned from the party altogether. The dispute was the beginning of the end. In the 2001 election, the Democrats only lost one senator, but in 2004, after more leadership turmoil and grass roots disillusionment, they lost three. Of the remaining four, two did not contest the 2007 election and the other two lost their seats. As a viable force, the Democrats were finished. In hindsight, it was clear that the trigger for their decline was Lees' agreement with Howard. He wooed her with the promise that it would make her party relevant, part of the processes of government. But that was precisely what rank and file Democrats did not want. They gloried in the fact that they were outsiders, unsullied by compromise. Their role was, in the words of their old slogan, to keep the (other) bastards honest. Lees should have been frustrating Howard, holding him to his 1996 promise that he would never, ever introduce a GST. They felt betrayed and although many hoped that Stott Despoja could restore the party's political virginity, when she failed, they threw in the towel. OK, the parallels are not exact: the Greens have a much more solid base than the Democrats and rather more resilience. And they are no longer pristine; by aligning with Gillard in 2010, they well and truly lost their innocence. But Abbott is not Gillard; he is, unequivocally, the enemy. If Milne is to offer him any solace at all (and there will be many on the party who think that she should refuse to piss on him if he was on fire) then the price should be a steep one; after all, look at what Brown extracted from Gillard. At the very least, Milne's deal will be the cause of a certain amount of dissension in the party, and she is not without rivals who will welcome the chance to undermine her. If she is again to sup with Abbott, she would be wise to take a longer spoon in future. Mungo MacCallum is a political journalist and commentator. View his full profile here. Topics: federal-parliament, federal-government, greens, liberals |
TNA News: Kurt Angle announcement on first Impact on Destination America 2015-01-06 11:34:03 TNA announced that Kurt Angle will be making a major announcement on Wednesday's Impact Wrestling television show. The show airs on Destination America at 8:00 p.m. CT. Read the official teaser at ImpactWrestling.com. Powell's POV: The teaser states that meetings regarding this announcement involved Dixie Carter, John Gaburick, and members of the TNA Board of Directors. My guess is that it involves storyline control of the company since Angle was the on-air authority and will be returning to the ring, but that's just a guess. RECOMMEND THIS ARTICLE: READ OUR INSIDER NEWS BEFORE ANYONE ELSE! BECOME A MEMBER FOR JUST $7.50 A MONTH (or less with a year-long sub) - GET THE FIRST LOOK AT EXCLUSIVE INSIDER DOT NET NEWS, TONS OF EXCLUSIVE AUDIO CONTENT, MEMBER MESSAGE BOARD ACCESS, START YOUR OWN BLOG, AND VIEW THE SITE WITHOUT ANY ADVERTISING: SIGN ME UP (or MORE INFO) Email This Article | Printer Friendly Page | Back to Main Listing RELATED ARTICLES FROM MGID AFFILIATE SITES... Loading... From Around the Web |
As we all know, Culver City has gotten very trendy in recent years. Home to famous spots like The Culver Hotel and Sony Studios, Culver City has developed a unique niche, according to one bartender we talked to: "It's where the hipsters go to hang out when they're not on." Whether or not that's true, there's no question that their bar scene in quite popping. Here are their ten best watering holes. See also: The 10 Best Bars in Silver Lake 10. Ugo Wine Bar Continue Reading The dimmed lighting, lit candles, Italian food and plethora of vino make the Ugo Wine Bar a perfect date spot. The service is friendly, helpful and extremely knowledgeable about wine. No snobby service here! The mellow atmosphere is a pleasant change from the typical hectic bar scene. Of course good wine is always expensive, so plan accordingly! 3865 Cardiff Ave. Culver City, CA 90232; 310-204-5645 Mary Carreon 9. Bigfoot Lodge West Located on the outskirts of Culver City, Bigfoot Lodge West lives between a video game store and an old bakery on Venice Blvd. The decor looks as if the Country Bear Jamboree built it. They're known for having an impressive whiskey menu, and have a mean, mean Manhattan. (Their mixology sister bars, Oldfield's, Bigfoot Lodge, and Thirsty Crow, are also boss.) During happy hour, drinks are only $5. 10939 Venice Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90032; 310-287-2200 Anne Fishbien 8. Father's Office Father's Office has an extensive beer selection and their delicious Office Burger. The restaurant/bar is a perfect setting for groups, as the booths are big and the bar is massive. Although expensive, make sure to ask about the beers that are not on the menu. They're worth it. 3229 Helms Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90034; 310-736-2224 Bernie Wire 7. City Tavern Beer on tap available at the table! This trendy gastropub gets packed fast which makes the parking situation a little irritating, but the beer is good, the food is equally as good, and the layout is awesome. 9739 Culver Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232; 310-838-9739 Mary Carreon 6. Backstage Bar & Grill Located across the street from Sony Studios, the 75 year old dive bar is a Culver City landmark. The pours are stiff, the food is good, the prices are cheap (very cheap) and the service is friendly. Oh, and the bar offers karaoke during the week and live music on the weekends on the weekends and live music during the week. Beware though: it gets really, really loud. As a Backstage regular told us, "my advice to anyone who wants to make Backstage a home is have ear plugs readily available at all times." 10400 Culver Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232; 310-839-3892 Mary Carreon 5. Public School 310 The booths are set up like study tables with adjustable desk lights, and the menus look like classic black and white speckled composition notebooks. The best part about Public School 310 is the happy hour, (or "recess" as they call it), menu. It's ten dollars for three glasses of wine, and that's the priciest deal on the menu! They also offer a variety of craft beers on tap, and the service is worth a good tip. 9411 Culver Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232; (310) 558-0414 Mary Carreon 4. The Blind Barber The Blind Barber is hard to find because from the front it looks like a place to get a haircut. Once you walk in past the barber shop area and pass through what looks like a utility closet, you enter into a hall way that leads to the hidden bar in the back. The speakeasy vibe is fun, and the bartenders are quick! 10797 Washington Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232; 310-841-6679 Mary Carreon 3. The Bar at the Culver Hotel Known as the "Historic Culver Hotel," the upstairs bar/lounge is the place to go on a Saturday night for serious socializing. The bar is small, so talking to others is basically mandatory. The lush 1920s vintage décor makes the lounge very trendy, which attracts a young, hip crowd. The bartenders are theatrical when making drinks, too, as they toss glasses in the air and catch them while mixing your cocktail. You will leave with a great buzz. . 9400 Culver Blvd. Culver City, CA 90232; 310-558-9400 Mary Carreon 2. Oldfield's Liquor Room Owned by the same people who own Bigfoot West, (and other great mixology spots), Oldfield's Liquor Room is the local time warp in Los Angeles. The classic cocktails, atmosphere, music and décor effectively capture a late 1950s, early '60s vibe. Get your Mad Men on, and briefly forget who you are. 10899 Venice Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90034; (310) 842-8066 Mary Carreon 1. Seventy 7 Tucked in an alley behind the Bank of America on Culver Blvd lies Seventy 7. The small candle lit lounge makes you feel like you're in an underground club far, far away from here. The bar's trendy, yet oddly seductive, ambiance makes all concept of time go out the window. What goes down behind the bar is what makes Seventy 7 special. The staff knows exactly how to make a strong drink taste great. Cocktails come fast, the bartenders are down to earth, there's live music and the food is tasty. What else is there to ask for? 3843 Main St. Culver City, CA 90232; 310-559-7077 See also: The 10 Best Bars in Silver Lake Want access to our Best Of picks from your smartphone? Download our free Best Of app for the iPhone or Android phone from the App Store or Google Play. Don't forget to check out the full Best of L.A.® online at http://www.laweekly.com/best-of. Follow us on Twitter @LAWeeklyMusic, and like us at LAWeeklyMusic. The 20 Worst Hipster Bands Top 20 Musicians of All Time, in Any Genre Top 20 Sexiest Female Musicians of All Time Top Ten Awkward Coachella Dance Move GIFs |
Need a friend? Never forget that God so loved the world that he gave us his only begotten son. And he so loved his children, that he gave us each an angel. I recall scooting to one side in my desk during second grade at St. Albert the Great school to make room for my angel to sit next to me. Our teacher Sr. Annette had just talked to us about our angels and made the suggestion that we could leave room in our seats for our angels to sit next to us. Since angels are spirits without physical bodies, it might seem silly, but I think my angel really did fill in that space next to me. How many kids these days grow up basking in the presence of their guardian angels? And how many parents comfort themselves with that knowledge? “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 18:10). There have been saints throughout history with the gift of seeing the angels. Some have reported seeing a multitude present at every Mass. And everyone has heard at least one angel story where a mysterious visitor gives much needed help to someone and then vanishes. “Are not the angels spirits in the divine service sent to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation? (Hebrews 1:14). As an adult, I don’t think enough about my angel but reading Angels for Kids by Donna-Marie Cooper O’Boyle has renewed my awareness and appreciation of them. “God created the angels before he created the physical universe and before he created human kind,” Donna-Marie writes. “The Angels shouted for joy when God created the earth (Job 38:4,7). Throughout the ages people have denied the existence of angels yet Donna-Marie points out that scripture abounds in references to them. “Jesus himself spoke of the angels,” she says. “When he was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, he referred to twelve legions of angels. ‘Do you think I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?’” (Matthew 26:53). Donna-Marie explains that Scripture reveals a hierarchy of angels and the Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us, “The Church venerates the angels who help her on her earthly pilgrimage and protect every human being” (CCC 352). “Wouldn’t you like to keep company with the incredible angelic friends who unceasingly glorify God and who have always been an important part of Salvation history?” Donna-Marie asks. She encourages us to talk to our angels often and begin our day praying to them. I share in Donna Marie’s daily habit of praying: Angel of God, my guardian dear, To whom God’s love commits me near. Ever this day be at my side, To light and guard and rule and guide. Perhaps the best part of reading this book with my kids is the strong reminder that angels are our friends. “He will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up so that you will not dash your foot against a stone” (Psalm 91: 11-13). Although Donna-Marie wrote this book for kids, everything in it relates just as much to adults, perhaps even more so. For as the toil and responsibility of our lives weighs us down at times, it is good to remember that we are not alone; God gave us angelic companions. It is so easy for kids to imagine and believe in angels, so grounding them in this reality is a blessing to last a lifetime. And for adults, contemplating the angels helps ignite a child-like faith in us to bask in the care of our own Guardian Angel. Perhaps it will even inspire us to scoot over just a bit to leave room for our angels today. If you liked this article, please share it with your friends and family using the Recommend and Social Media buttons below and via email. We value your comments and encourage you to leave your thoughts below. Thank you! – The Editors Print this entry |
The Palestinian political field, dominated by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) since the late 1960s, has been in a state of disintegration since the Palestinian Authority (PA) was established under the Oslo Accords. What has been the impact of PLO dominance and what were the repercussions of its disintegration for the Palestinian body politic? And to what extent has the disintegration of the political field affected the cultural field and its contribution to Palestinian national identity? These are the questions addressed in this commentary. PLO dominance of Palestinian political field began after the battle of Al-Karameh in 1968, which enabled it to establish a centralized relationship with the Palestinian communities in historic Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the Gulf, Europe and the Americas. These communities largely accepted the PLO as their sole legitimate representative despite the external influences upon it, including its heavy reliance on foreign aid, the ups and downs of its relationship with the country of residence, and its regional and international relations. As a result, the unique conditions and features of each community were neglected, as were their national, social and organizational responsibilities. From its position of dominance, the PLO was also able to consolidate the practice of elite politics, which was common in the Arab world and internationally but which should not have taken hold amongst the Palestinian people given their dispersal and their struggle for liberation. The fact that the PLO emerged and functioned in a regional and international environment unfriendly to democracy both in theory and practice contributed to this development. The Arab region was dominated by regimes with totalitarian nationalistic ideologies, as well as authoritarian theocratic monarchies and emirates; democracy was seen as an alien and colonialist Western concept. Similarly, the PLO and its factions formed alliances with socialist countries and the countries of the Third World, few of which enjoyed political democracy. The rentier nature of PLO institutions and factions and their reliance on aid and support from non-democratic Arab and socialist countries reinforced the elitist and non-democratic approach to politics. A third feature of PLO hegemony was that its factions underwent formal militarization at an early stage partly due to the PLO's armed confrontations with host Arab regimes and partly to the fact that it was constantly targeted by Israel. This formal militarization, as opposed to guerrilla warfare, helped to justify the extremely centralized relationship between the political leadership and its constituency. Between the 1970s and the 1990s, PLO factions and institutions suffered many severe shocks as a result of changes in the regional and international situation. These included the expulsion from Jordan following the armed clashes in 1970-71; the civil war that erupted in Lebanon in 1975, Israel’s invasion in 1982, the PLO exodus from the country and the Sabra and Shatila massacres; and the war against the Palestinian camps in Lebanon in 1985-86. The First Intifada (popular uprising) against Israel in the West Bank and Gaza Strip at the end of 1987 was also the period in which political Islam first invaded the Palestinian political field (1988). The collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1989, the first Gulf War in 1990-91 and the subsequent financial and political isolation of the PLO greatly eroded its alliances and its sources of revenue. The Repercussions of Disintegration During the First Intifada, the Palestinian political elite failed to understand the importance of restructuring the Palestinian national movement as well as of rebuilding the relationship between the centralized leadership and various Palestinian communities. Furthermore, the PLO failed to find a way to deal with political Islam when it emerged onto the Palestinian scene as an extension of the Muslim Brotherhood and did not integrate Hamas into the national political body. At the same time, Hamas failed to redefine itself as a national movement. The Palestinian political movement, which had previously been defined as a national movement or as a revolution began to be referred to as “the national and Islamic movement”. Indeed, the First Intifada drove the political leadership to further centralize decision-making: It signed the Oslo Accords without consulting the political and social forces within and outside Palestine. Oslo provided the PLO with the political, organizational and ideological rationalization to marginalize those representative Palestinian national institutions that did exist, using the argument that it was building the nucleus of a Palestinian state. The PA was excluded from dealing with Palestinians in Israel, and it lost interest in the Palestinians in Jordan early on. Its dealings with them as well as with Palestinians in Lebanon, Syria, the Gulf countries, Europe and America were largely reduced to bureaucratic formalities through its embassies and representative offices in these countries. When the establishment of the PA as a limited self-governing authority on parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip failed to lead to a Palestinian state, the political elites were deprived of a potential sovereign state-based center; this accelerated the disintegration of the national movement. Hamas' 2006 win in the legislative elections and total control over the Gaza Strip in 2007 contributed to the split of the self-governing authority into two authorities, one remaining in part of the West Bank and the other in the Gaza Strip. Both “authorities” remained under the occupation and control of a settler colonial state that continues to aggressively colonize land and displace Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line. The disintegration of the national political field has had several repercussions. The representative national institutions faded away and local political elites became dominant. The leaders drew their "legitimacy" from their past party or organizational positions and their diplomatic interaction with regional countries and international institutions. The prevailing discourse locally and internationally reduced Palestine to the territories occupied in 1967 and the Palestinian people to those living under Israeli occupation, thus marginalizing the refugees and exiles as well as the Palestinian citizens of Israel. The security apparatus in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip grew considerably in size and allocation in the general budget. The rentier nature of the authorities in the two areas was entrenched through reliance on foreign aid and remittances, and the influence of private capital in their economies increased. There were also significant structural shifts in the social structure of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. These included the emergence of a relatively large middle class to staff the PA institutions and agencies in areas such as in the education, health, security, finance and administration, as well as the new service and banking sectors and the many NGOs that were established. Meanwhile, the working class shrank in size. The inequalities between different segments grew and unemployment rates remained high, particularly among youth and new graduates. The "office holder" mentality took hold, replacing the mindset of the freedom fighter. Although Fatah and Hamas define themselves as liberation movements, they have been transformed into hierarchal bureaucratic structures and are focused largely on their own survival. The political and economic elites have not been shy about flaunting their privileges and wealth despite the ongoing repressive colonial occupation. The middle class in the West Bank and Gaza Strip knows very well that its standard of living and way of life is linked to the existence of both self-governing authorities. Nevertheless, most of the population remains subject to the oppression and humiliation of Israel’s military forces and armed settlers, and suffers not only from the lack of a decent living and professional future but also the absence of any national solution on the horizon. Israel and Egypt’s draconian siege against Gaza remains as tight as ever, punctuated by destructive Israeli wars, and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Jerusalem continues inexorably, using evictions, withdrawal of permits, and a range of other tactics -. These conditions set the stage for an explosive situation in the territories occupied in 1967. However, since the PLO, the political parties, the private sector and most civil society organizations did not or could not mobilize against occupation, the confrontations with Israel’s military occupation forces and settlers in the “wave of anger” underway since October 2015 have for the most part remained individual and localized in nature and lacking a unified vision and national leadership. The disintegration of the Palestinian political field has also led to increasing oppression and discrimination against Palestinian communities elsewhere in historic Palestine as well as in the Diaspora. The Palestinian citizens in the part of Palestine that became Israel in 1948 face a growing raft of discriminatory laws. Palestinian refugees in and from Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and elsewhere also face discrimination and abuse. Overall, the status of the Palestinian cause has experienced a setback in the Arab world and internationally, a situation exacerbated by the internal and external wars in some Arab countries. Yet Culture Thrives, and Nurtures National Identity Today, the Palestinian people have neither a sovereign state nor a functioning national liberation movement. Nevertheless, there is considerable strength in the Palestinian national identity due in large part to the role of the cultural field in maintaining and enriching the Palestinian narrative. The role of culture in nurturing Palestinian identity and patriotism is a longstanding one. After the creation of the Israeli state in 1948 and the defeat of the then political elites and the national movement, the Palestinian minority in Israel sustained the national identity through a remarkable flourishing of culture - poetry, fiction, music and films. The Palestinian writer and journalist Ghassan Kanafani captured this in his remarkable book on Palestinian resistance literature (al-adab al-mukawim fi filistin al-muhtala 1948-1966) published in Beirut in 1968. Other key literary figures included the poets Mahmoud Darwish and Samih Al Qasim, Nazareth mayor and poet Tawfik Zayyad, and the writer Emile Habibi, both in his own works, such as The Pessoptimist, as well as through the communist paper he co-founded, Al-Ittihad. In the 1950s and 1960s, when the Israelis kept the Palestinian citizens under military rule, literature, culture and art served to reinforce and protect Arab culture and identity and the Palestinian national narrative. These works were read throughout the Arab world and beyond, and enabled Palestinian refugees and exiles to sustain their identity through the continuous links with the culture and identity of their homeland. The “1948 Palestinians”, as they are often referred to in Palestinian discourse, also played a role in introducing other Palestinians and Arabs to the way in which Zionist ideology shapes Israeli policy and mechanisms of repressive control. Many of the 1948 Palestinian scholars and intellectuals joined Palestinian and Arab research centers in Beirut, Damascus and elsewhere and helped evolve this understanding. Since then, the cultural field has, especially at times of political crisis, offered more possibilities than the political sphere for Palestinians to come together in activities that transcend geopolitical boundaries in cultural forms and genres and all sorts of intellectual production. Literature, film music, and art continues to be produced – indeed is on the rise – ranging from world renown writers, directors and artists to the young artists and writers of today in Gaza and the West Bank and among Palestinians elsewhere. All of this is communicated in a myriad ways, including through social media, fostering and cementing intra-Palestinian and Arab ties and interactions across borders. The vitality of Palestinian patriotism is grounded in the Palestinian historical narrative and draws on the daily experiences of the communities that face dispossession, occupation, discrimination, expulsion and war. It is this vitality that perhaps drives Palestinian youth, largely born after the 1993 Oslo Accords, to confront Israeli soldiers and colonial settlers in all parts of historic Palestine. It also explains the large crowds that take part in the funeral processions of young Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers and in fundraising efforts to rebuild the houses demolished by Israeli bulldozers as collective punishment of the families of those killed in the current youth uprising. However, highlighting the significance and vitality of the cultural field does not compensate for the absence of an effective political movement built on solid democratic foundations. We need to learn from and transcend the shortcomings of the movement’s original institutions rather than wasting effort, time and resources to restore a disintegrated and defunct political field. We also need to move beyond those concepts and practices that experience shows us have failed, such as the very high degree of centralization: Politics must be the concern of the people and of the rank and file. We must also safeguard our national culture from concepts and approaches that enslave the mind, paralyze thinking and free will, promote intolerance, sanctify ignorance, and cherish myths. Rather, we should promote the values of freedom, justice and equality. We need a completely new understanding of political action. Such an understanding can be glimpsed in the language taking shape amongst youth groups and in the relationship between Palestinian political forces within the Green Line. It reflects a deepening awareness of the impossibility of coexisting with Zionism as a racist ideology and a settler colonial regime that criminalizes the Palestinian historical narrative. At the heart of this emerging political awareness lies the need to engage Palestinian communities in the process of discussing, drafting and adopting national inclusive policies: This is both their right and duty. It is equally important to recognize each community's right to determine its strategy in tackling the specific issues it faces while participating in the self-determination of the entire Palestinian people. Building a new political movement will not be easy because of growing factional interests and the fear of democratic values and practice. Therefore it is necessary to encourage community-based initiatives to form local leaderships, with the widest participation possible from community individuals and institutions, following the promising example of the 1948 Palestinians in organizing the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel to defend their rights and interests, and the West Bank and Gaza Palestinians in the First Intifada. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS) is also a successful example of this new type of political awareness and organizing. It brings together diverse political factions, civil society organizations, and unions behind a unified vision and strategy. Some may view this discussion as utopian or idealistic, but we are in dire need of idealism amidst the current chaos and destructive factionalism. And we have a rich history of political activism and cultural creativity upon which to draw. |
An Elkhart family on Wednesday learned the awful news that their son, father, friend was one of six American soldiers killed Tuesday when a military helicopter crashed in Afghanistan. U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Jesse Williams' mother, Debbie Passerallo, confirmed to WSBT a chaplain and Army representative knocked on her door at 6:30 a.m. Wednesday with the news of her son's death. U.S. defense officials say another person who was on board the Black Hawk helicopter was injured and survived. Initial reports said the chopper had mechanical problems and that the crew came under fire after the crash. Williams graduated from Elkhart Central High School in 2003. "As a mother, you're never prepared for this," said Passerallo. "You always know the possibility is there, but you just think, 'This can't happen to my son. This can't happen to my kid.' This deployment was different, and he knew it. The goodbye was longer, a little more intense. The tears were there. They weren't there on the other deployments." Williams has a 6-year-old daughter, Madison, Passerallo said. He last saw her on Father's Day at South Bend Regional Airport when he left for his deployment. "She knows but I don't think she really knows what it means," Passerallo told WSBT. "He lived for Madison. She was his little princess and she knew it." "He left a beautiful daughter behind," said Felix Rodriguez. "I know that was his heart and soul. Everything he did was for her and her future so, you know, it's sad." Rodriguez said Williams was the kind of man who would "give the shirt off his back for you." "He was an outstanding guy," Rodriquez said. "...good guy, went to fight for our country and gave his life doing what he loved best." The family tells WSBT Sgt. Williams' body will be brought to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware Thursday evening. The family will be there for that. There's no word yet when the funeral will be held. |
For nearly a year now, the Bush administration has been screaming to anyone who still bothers to listen to them that these pesky Improvised Explosive Devices would not be nearly so deadly or as prevalent if it were not for evil Iran providing Iraqi resistance fighters the technology and materials to construct the current generation of such devices our boys are getting hit by. Oh sure, the Iraqis would still be hitting us with roadside bombs, these squawkers say, but they try to give the impression that the devices would be several levels less in sophistication and lethality today, but for them damned Iranians. To hear Bush's propoganda spin-meisters put it, if it weren't for Ahmadinejad, the Iraqis would be reduced to throwing nothing but mere Molotov Cocktails. But is this true? Well, it is safe to say the Bush Administration has a credibility problem. And it has been expected for some time that Bush would like to find an excuse to engage Iran militarily. Perhaps even stooping low enough to fabricate such an excuse. They've done it before, after all. Key to determining if these allegations are true, as in any challenge of wrong-doing, is Habeus Corpus. No, not a court challenge, necessarily, but "produce the body";...show us the evidence. This is the Brave New World Order of the GWOT (global war on terror), however, and Bush's Ober-Leutnants aren't big on evidence, as we have seen time and time again. Still, it is indeed true Iran is looking forward to the day when the rest of the world retreats from Iraq so they can absorb it into themselves. Iran DOES indeed have motivation to assist the Iraqi resistance. It certainly COULD be true. Then there is the question of "so what?" Even if it IS true,...does it even matter? To guide us in answering these questions for ourselves, we need to know more detail about the specific advantages the Bush camp is claiming Iran has provided. Until recently, the allegation was that the IEDs planted by Iraqis in the last 2 years have increasingly in ratio consisted of devices using Explosively Formed Penetrators, or EFPs. EFPs are not a new technology. They have been around since at least WWII, and are derived from experimentation with the more commonly known Shaped Charge used in most anti-tank warheads. To understand how the EFP works, let us first examine the Shaped Charge. An armor-penetrating shaped charge is a cylinder that at one end has an inverted metalic cone (usually copper) which said cylinder is filled with explosive. A detonation is initiated from the end opposite of the inverted copper cone. As the detonation wave reaches the tip of the cone, the copper is thrust forward with the blast front. As the blast wave progresses forward, the rest of the cone follows suit. However, the angle of the cone also directs the progressing detonation wave towards the middle of the empty space of the cone's cavity, producing a liquified molten jet of copper that is travelling at incredible velocity. The molten stream of high velocity metal bores a hole through several inches of armor, creating horrible destruction to anyone inside. Explosive charges such as these are what make up the warhead of nearly any Rocket-Propelled Grenade (RPG) or similar projectile meant to defeat armor. Because the projectile is intended to detonate upon impact, the design of these devices is such that the gas jet of molten copper is focussed just a few inches in front of the charge itself. This is called the "stand-off", or the distance required from the explosive charge to the target to allow the jet to form together to a pinpoint so that it has the intesified energy to do what it does. The projectile's nosecone is usually the means by which the stand-off is maintained for uniform and effective performance. But it is the deep (or shallow) angle of the inverted copper cone (which becomes the molten stream) that determines how close or far away the stream comes together to form the deadly armor-perforating stuff that punches inside and creates an instantanious crematorium. However, in experimentations at Frankford Arsenal between WWII and Vietnam, U.S. Army Ordnance Corp technicians played around with shaped charges that had varied and different degrees of angle to their inverted copper cones. In some of these experiements the copper liners were not even cones, but were just plain flat, while others had barely a perceptible depression to them at all, and all manner of cupped or dish-shapes. It was discovered that while steeply (or deeply) inverted cone-shaped copper liners produced a streaming jet of molten copper immediately in front of the charge, cones that had a very shallow angle to them, resembling more of a platter than a cone, tended to throw the center of the copper platter forward just ahead of the main body. The rest of the platter's radius would then begin to fold back on itself, forming into a projectile that looked similar to a badminton shuttlecock or cone-like dart. This allowed for the creation of an aimable anti-tank mine that could be concealed off to the side of a roadway. This development was of interest to the military because armor on tanks is always thickest up front, but thinner on the sides, top and back. The U.S. has encountered Directional Mines before. They were not uncommon in Vietnam. The VC used to scrounge unexploded U.S. artillery shells and use the reclaimed explosives as the filler for their own "platter charges". They were able to craft these crude devices in jungle workshops that sometimes consisted of nothing more than workers using hammers and anvils to pound out concave ends that would be fitted to pieces of 55 gallon oil drums that had been sectioned into pieces 6 inches deep. With their massive size, they made up for in sheer blast energy what they lacked in quality construction or skilled aiming. Among other uses, these would be emplaced and camoflaged on the banks of waterways for use in ambushing U.S. Navy patrol boats. The waterways were an important supply network for the VC, and the Navy boats were a real niusance to them. More than a few PBRs were sunk by these. Where did the VC learn to make these things? From the U.S. Special Forces themselves, actually. Remember the Frankford Arsenal guys? Well, in the early 60's, as JFK expanded the size and role of U.S. SF units, the Army got more supportive of them as well. As originally conceived, the role of Special Forces in the event the Cold War went hot, was to be active behind enemy lines with bands of partizans and resistance fighters. Toward that end, SF troopers were to not only be soldiers, but teachers of skills to those they would be supporting and interacting with. The guys at Frankford Arsenal put together a sort of fieldguide text book of all the assorted nasties they had been fooling around with, which was meant to be not only studied by SF soldiers, but taken with them into theatres of operations to share with their allied partizans, making use of illustrations to help defeat language barriers. When our Special Forces guys first started going deep into the Vietnamese countryside and training rural country boys to be partners in defeating the communists, they used these texts, and copies eventually got into the hands of the enemy. Thanks, G.I.!!!! Since 1975, these Frankford Arsenal texts have been available via mail order in the U.S. in magazines such as Soldier Of Fortune and others. And of course, today, nearly all manner of weaponry ever devised is available on the internet, if you know where to look. (Where do you think I found these pictures?) In fact, this information and technology was so commonly available by the 90's, it was used by Germany's Red Army Faction (also known as the Baader-Meinhoff Gang) to assasinate the chief of Deutsche Bank, Alfred Herrhausen, in 1989. He was being chauffeured to work in his armoured Mercedes-Benz, with bodyguards in both a lead vehicle and another following behind. The bomb had been hidden in a school bag on a bicycle next to the road that the terrorists knew Herrhausen would be traveling in his three-car convoy. In the bag was a 20-kg bomb that was detonated when Herrhausen's car interrupted a beam of light as it passed the bicycle. The bomb and its triggering mechanism were quite sophisticated. The bomb targeted the most vulnerable area of Herrhausen's car—the door where he was sitting—and required split-second timing to overcome the car's special armour plating. It is unlikely that this IED had the precise engineering required to form the liner into a more effective slug or "carrot" shape, but in any case, the detonation resulted in a mass of copper being projected toward the car at a speed of nearly two kilometers per second, effectively penetrating the armoured Mercedes. (To be fair, however, it must be said that some believe it was the fact that Herrhausen sat on the World Bank and wanted to make significant changes, and that these people believe the assasination was a "false flag" op, performed by the CIA. Who knows?) So the basic science and know-how to make directional (aimable) IEDs that can destroy vehicles from concealed positions completely off the roadway has been generally available to the entire world for some time. Is it really any surprise then that this old technology has reared it's head in Iraq? Quite expected, actually, I would say. Pictured below is one of the captured directional mines using EFPs that the coalition commanders are claiming comes from Iran. A disarmed captured specimen was taken to Britain's explosive ordnance tech guys and disected and anylized. It was declared that the device exhibited a such a level of craftsmanship and sophistication that it had to have been fabricated by use of a lathe and trained ordnance engineers with experience in munitions manufacture. But while that is perhaps true, higher level commanders then made the LEAP OF LOGIC that this was evidence of Iranian assistance. Really? I have a metal lathe in my garage. I imagine there are a few hundred machine shops throughout Iraq, and many privately owned metal lathes sprinkled throughout the country as well. A good friend of mine is a former Army Captain who commanded for a time at a U.S. Army Ordnance Depot. After leaving the army, he went to school on the G.I. bill to become an aerospace machinist. Knowing what he does about these 2 careers in his life, I am confident that if Arizona were ever invaded by an occupying force, my friend and I could turn out some effective nasties in my garage "VC gun factory". It isn't too hard to imagine that there are former Iraqi army personel with skills like my friend. It isn't a stretch at all to imagine how these refined devices could be made entirely "in house". After all, after 4 years of war, all the stupid fighters are dead, and only the smart one remain. 4 years is long enough to conduct live fire R&D to see what works and what doesn't. Just because the Iraqi resistance is exhibiting an ability to evolve and enhance themselves is not, by itself, evidence of assistance by Iran. At least in this regard, assitance by Iran is nearly impossible to prove. Rather importantly, the Bush administration KNOWS this. And what if a raid conducted on a weapons factory in Bagdad did in fact result in capturing an Iranian ordnance engineer? Whould THAT prove anything. Hardly! The war has inspired Al-Quaida types from all over the muslim world to go to Iraq and assist their bretheren, out of their own personal motivation. Such a prisoner would have to be wearing his Iranian military uniform and have signed orders in his pocket before you could convincingly allege he was sent by the government of Iran. That is why I, and others like myself who understand how unsophisticated the manufacture of explosive ordnance devices really are, are extremely skeptical of any Bush camp claims of Iranian involvement. It certainly COULD be true. But it simply cannot be proved. I hope this has educated you a little as to what these devices are all about and how they work. For further study and review I have included a few links that provide interesting places to start. |
Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank, has stated that it’s not within ECB’s powers to regulate or prohibit digital currencies like bitcoin at the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European Parliament. Asked what are the material risks of bitcoin for the economy, he said there were three considerations, one was the size, two the extent of its use, third being their impact on the economy. An examination of all three aspects has concluded that it is absolutely premature to consider it as a means of payment in the future, he said. We need to reflect further, it’s size, but we haven’t reached any decisions, he said. “Certainly it’s not within our powers to prohibit or something similar or to regulate” bitcoin, he said, but we have not discussed any position institutional on the matter, he concluded. It’s not clear, at this stage, whether that was his full extent of bitcoin comments, but bitcoin’s price jumped $200 around the same time as Draghi’s comments on bitcoin. Draghi made headlines recently for telling Estonia that they could not issue an estcoin token through an Ethereum based ICO, unequivocally stating that the currency of the euro is the euro. He has not made any further statement on that matter as far as we are aware, with the situation on the proposed ICO somewhat unclear at this stage. But a Board Member of Germany’s Central bank stated that bitcoin is a “plaything” and central bank issued digital currencies were “unrealistic” at this stage. Draghi’s comments on bitcoin today were off-script, with his prepared speech not mentioning digital currencies. Focused instead on EU’s general economic outlook and ECB’s approach to monetary policy in the eurozone, arguing that they were currently undertaking a decentralized approach to monetary policy. |
Ruck'n Maul ARU chiefs offside in Ireland as well as France Greg Growden Ruck'n Maul: Ben Smith not Israel Dagg Features: Greg Holmes a worthy change as scrum 'anchor' News: Speight to play Sevens in new ARU deal Features: How the All Blacks have ruled Test rugby News: Michael Cheika rings Wallabies changes Article: Hooper-Pocock combo case-by-case call News: Wallabies inflicting damage in training Features: Izzy flies to early lead in Growden Medal News: Cooper reportedly staying in Australia News: Cooper's Toulon issue not our problem: ARU News: Leinster release Kane Douglas The relationship between Australian and Irish rugby officials has deteriorated due to the contract wrangle involving Kane Douglas and his return home to play for Queensland Reds. High-ranking sources have told Ruck'n Maul that Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) officials are "deeply unimpressed" with the behaviour of some of their Australian Rugby Union counterparts over their pursuit of Douglas, who decided to depart Irish province Leinster after only one season of a three-year deal; the Irish officials believe the ARU fervently tried to get Douglas to break his overseas contract so that he could be available for the Wallabies' Rugby World Cup campaign. Leinster were apparently underwhelmed by Douglas, as he failed to excel on the football field, but still they demanded a fair price to allow the lock to return to Australia. The IRFU held Douglas' contract, and Ruck'n Maul has been told by several sources that the union demanded a fee of around $Aus250,000 to release Douglas. Who exactly is paying this fee? The identity at the moment is a bit of a mystery; but let's just say we can anticipate eruptions if Ireland and Australia meet each other during the World Cup. This new comes just as influential Toulon owner Mourad Boudjellal is threatening to sue the ARU for trying to convince Quade Cooper not to join his club. Boudjellal has accused the ARU of "dirty" tactics. Seems the ARU is currently losing friends all over the world. Wallabies could be cocooned from distractions As Wallabies coach Michael Cheika gives several more players a chance against Argentina, he is also ensuring that World Cup tournament structures are in place. Sources close to Cheika claim he will be setting "some very firm guidelines" about player availability during the tournament, and has warned against tour operators "being guaranteed the endless amount of player appearances previously promised". Cheika is basically ensuring that player distractions are minimal. They could even be hidden away. Rugby Championship Preview: Argentina v Australia %] %] Emotional Beale has been warned Word out of the Wallabies camp is that the squad is a pretty harmonious group at the moment, even though we are told the out-of-form Kurtley Beale was emotional after he was not picked for the South Africa Test in Brisbane. Beale, who knows how to charm certain sections of the media, is hopefully a little happier now he is on the bench against Argentina. Beale's behaviour on and off the field will be closely observed by Cheika, who, according to his inner sanctum, "does not cop nonsense or silly antics". Beale has been warned. And the events of last year's Wallabies trip to Argentina haven't been forgotten. The Waratahs' Kurtley Beale is back on the Wallabies' bench © Getty Images Enlarge Shorten not the only Bill for U-turning There were many raised eyebrows following an article in The Australian last week, where ARU chief executive Bill Pulver appeared to be negotiating some odd U-turns. After strangely dismantling the ARU high performance unit shortly after he joined the organisation, Pulver now appears to see merit in such a system. "We really need to have a world-class high-performance program supporting the elite end of our game," Pulver said. Pulver added that ARU officials were "working with a number of industry experts pulling together a plan that will see the right high-performance environment for Australian rugby going forward", with the aim for the Wallabies to "be consistently in the top three teams in the world". The Wallabies have just moved from an embarrassing sixth to No.5 in the World Rugby rankings - an improvement but still another blot on Pulver's substandard three year period in charge. We are told that his comments about how the ARU could also soon be rich, rich, rich had many at board level "scratching their heads". After reading quotes such as "as I look over the next five years, the financial state of the game will probably never have been stronger", the ARU affiliates, tired of hearing how poor the national body supposedly is, have already started knocking on the head office's doors. Scott Fardy and the Wallabies have been ripping in to each other in Argentina © Image courtesy: Wallabies / Facebook Enlarge ARU wants independent board in New South Wales There was some interesting discussion at the recent Sydney Rugby Union special general meeting over what the ARU wants from NSW. The meeting was told the ARU "has expressed a strong desire for NSW to move to an independent board". The recommendation of a report is for the board to have two professional rugby representatives, two community representatives and three independents, including the chairman. We also hear the cooperation between the Queensland Rugby Union (QRU) and the Wallabies, while they were in Brisbane, was not as positive as in previous seasons. Then again, the QRU are currently struggling big time to get their own house in order. Australia 24-20 South Africa (Australia only) %] %] Quote of the Week "There is a lot more pride and passion in the jersey and I'm excited to be part of that." Adam Ashley-Cooper It will take some time before the shadow of the Ewen McKenzie/Di Patston era disappears entirely from above the Wallabies player group. Whispers of the Week As stakeholders complain about participation fees and budgetary cuts in Australian rugby, no wonder there was outrage in the ranks when they heard an ARU powerbroker brag about getting a one-year payout if his contract is terminated. This underperforming big wig added to the anger by going on about a compromise deal by which he stays on for an extensive period of time so the ARU avoid a payout. This will infuriate others at Crows Nest, who have their eyes firmly on his position, and the many who believe he has been a flop. Michael Cheika and a former NSW Rugby Union director were sighted at the Liverpool-Brisbane Roar soccer match at Suncorp Stadium the night before the Brisbane Test. Something had them laughing so much that it attracted the attention of more than one contributor to this column. The Australian players were on their best behaviour back at the Wallabies team hotel after the Brisbane Test; pity that some officials "threw a tantrum" when the free bar ended and then argued over the price of a bottle of red wine. And was that really a provincial coach struggling to find the bathroom despite repeated instructions from onlookers? Apparently Welsh referee Nigel Owens was a big hit on the public speaking circuit while he was in Brisbane for the Test. One of his best lines involved his thoughts on a former referee, who has recently departed the scene. Sadly, my editor would never allow me to reproduce the line; it is even too fruity for this cheeky column. (Editor's Note: Greg's right; you'll have to believe me when I say the line's brilliant and reduced me to tears of laughter, but this is a family-friendly forum.) © ESPN Sports Media Ltd |
Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key is a children's novel by Jack Gantos, published in 1998. It is the first of a series of books featuring the character Joey Pigza. The book was a National Book Award finalist.[1] Plot [ edit ] The book describes the life of a child named Joey Pigza who frequently gets into trouble at due to his erratic behavior. He has a habit of swallowing a key attached to a piece of string in order to pull it back out again, and on one instance he forgets to attach a string to the key, preventing him from pulling it back up. At school, Pigza puts his finger in a pencil sharpener, runs around with scissors, and cuts the tip of a girl's nose off. Pigza is on medication which he takes regularly, but it doesn't seem to be very effective.[2] As a consequence of slicing off the tip of his classmate's nose, Pigza is suspended from school and sent to a special education center. Joey Pigza fears that "something [is] wrong inside" him, a fear which escalates until the medications he is on are readjusted, and he feels he is able to make better decisions.[3] The book implies that Joey Pigza is dealing with a condition such as ADHD, adjustment disorder, depression, or conduct disorder, but an exact diagnosis is never specified.[2] Reception [ edit ] In a starred review for Horn Book Magazine, Jennifer Brabander praised the complex characterizations of Joey and the adults in his life and the book's frantic pace, reflecting Joey's narration.[4] Kristi Beavin, writing for Horn Book Magazine, also applauded Gantos' ability to craft Joey's voice.[5] While exploring disabilities in adolescent literature Abbye E. Meyer criticized that Joey never takes pride in his disability but instead is able to find self-acceptance only because of his intelligence.[6] The book received numerous honors and awards including being National Book Award finalist, American Library Association notable children's book, and School Library Journal's book of the year.[7] |
HBO is reported to be considering stepping outside of existing cable packages and offering itself as a stand-alone service in order to raise its current subscriber base – and if that doesn’t work, it just might abandon television altogether. The surprise news came from Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes, who told an audience at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference that the channel would consider being sold solo through cable/satellite providers and “new distributors” if he felt that the channel was being “overly hindered” by highly-priced bundles of channels. According to the New York Post, the channel may also consider cutting the cord with television altogether, dependent on the success of various HBO online plans, such as HBO Go, which allows those already subscribing to the channel to watch content online, and a planned iPad app to be launched next year. No timeframes were given for either initiative, however. More On Techland: Audiences Just Can’t Quit Network TV, Say Survey and CBS Exec App of the Week: TiVo for iPad HBO Surfs The Vampire Trend, Renews True Blood For Fourth Season |
Apart from his usual fancy self on stage,member Mark took the time to present his normal life style within their newAugust issue With a busy schedule performing overseas and appearing on variety shows, Mark mentioned that he always gets anxious before stepping on stage to greet fans. �"In the early debut days, I would always get nervous and anxious before going on stage. However, after 4 years, I feel like such emotions have dwindled a bit. Instead, my desires to present an energetic atmosphere has gotten stronger." When asked what his current hobbies were these days, the idol star answered, "I'm into shopping these days. �If I plunge into something, I tend to think about it for an entire week. I recently purchased a pair of sneakers and I thought I can maybe wear them when I go to the airport or practice in the studio. �I would like to launch my own fashion brand some day." Lastly, when asked to suggest a good summer song, Mark, of course, went on to name JJ Project's upcoming album. Check out his photos for 'Grazia' below. |
Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., criticized President Donald Trump Tuesday for equivocating in his condemnation of white supremacy following violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call File Photo) Two candidates who want to win the 2018 Republican Senate primary in Arizona have responded very differently to President Donald Trump’s comments following violence that broke out before a scheduled alt-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last weekend. On the one hand, incumbent Sen. Jeff Flake has repeatedly launched veiled criticisms at Trump this week for his perceived soft response to the presence of neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville. Trump reiterated at a press conference Tuesday that “both sides” were to blame for the tornado of violence that swept through Charlottesville Saturday. Flake responded to the president’s comments via Twitter. “We can’t accept excuses for white supremacy & acts of domestic terrorism,” he wrote. “We must condemn. Period.” We can't accept excuses for white supremacy & acts of domestic terrorism. We must condemn. Period. — Jeff Flake (@JeffFlake) August 15, 2017 Five hours later, he followed that up. “We can’t claim to be the party of Lincoln if we equivocate in condemning white supremacy,” Flake tweeted. We can’t claim to be the party of Lincoln if we equivocate in condemning white supremacy — Jeff Flake (@JeffFlake) August 16, 2017 Flake’s main challenger in the primary, former state senator Kelly Ward, had a much different take. She quickly came to the president’s defense after lawmakers criticized him for blaming “many sides” for the violence in Charlottesville. An ardent Trump supporter — her Twitter bio proudly flaunts the Trump-patented hashtags “#MAGA” and “#DrainTheSwamp — Ward retweeted a message from satirist Scott Adams calling for someone to “compile the full list of groups in need of disavowal so President Trump can do them all at once, in badness order.” On Saturday she retweeted the president and implored Americans to “stop the hate, violence, & rhetoric on both sides,” a hard echo of Trump’s comments. I agree - stop the hate, violence, & rhetoric on both sides - we need to stand together as Americans! 🇺🇸 https://t.co/MZ1poe7ih4 — Dr. Kelli Ward (@kelliwardaz) August 13, 2017 Three people died in Charlottesville Saturday as alt-right groups clashed with pockets of counter-protesters throughout the day. At one point a gray Dodge Challenger barreled into a densely packed group of counter-protesters, killing one and injuring at least 19 others. James Alex Fields, Jr., 20, of Ohio, has been arrested and charged with one count of second-degree murder, three counts of malicious wounding and for failing to stop at the scene of a crash that resulted in death. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Saturday that the Justice Department has opened up a civil rights investigation into the crash. |
The environmentalists will have us believe that renewables are providing a valuable contribution to the UK energy needs and that the use of any fossil fuels is evil. So now after years of our landscape and seascape being despoiled by huge rotating wind turbines and fields being covered with solar arrays let us consider where we now are. Coal was at one time was a huge industry in the UK employing hundreds of thousands of people but now a shadow of its former self. It has recently been announced that one of the last two remaining mines, at Thoresbury in Nottinghamshire, is to close this year with the loss of 1300 jobs at the mine and presumably thousands more in associated supporting industry. We still have nine coal-fired power stations that are not scheduled for closure any-time soon. There is one at Ironbridge in Shropshire due to close within the next few months and not included in the following list. NAME LOCATION BUILT PRESENT OWNER MW Aberthaw Barry, Glamorgan 1971 RWE npower 1500 Cottam Nottinghamshire 1969 EDF Energy 2008 Drax Selby, North Yorks 1974 Drax Group 3870 Eggborough Goole, East Riding 1967 British Energy 1960 Fiddlers Ferry Cuerdley, Cheshire 1971 SSE 1961 Ratcliffe on Soar Nottinghamshire 1968 E.ON 2000 Rugeley Staffordshire 1970 Int. Power 1006 West Burton Nottinghamshire 1968 EDF Energy 1972 Wilton Redcar & Cleveland 1951 SembCorp 197 Total continuous generation capacity 16,474MW (16.47GW). About 1/3rd of peak needs. According to RenewableUK website www.renewableUK.com and the linked page UKWED there are presently 6037 functional onshore and offshore wind turbines, with a rated peak generation capacity of 8.07GW onshore and 4.05GW offshore, total 12.12GW. On this glorious Easter Monday morning, 6 April 2015, and 8.35am, the electricity demand according to UK Energy Watch at www.ukenergywatch.org/Electricity/Realtime was 30GW. This was being supplied by the following means: SOURCE COAL NUCLEAR GAS IMPORT OTHER HYDRO WIND GW 11.11 7.44 6.43 2.994 1.146 0.488 0.438 % 37 24.8 21.4 9.9 3.8 1.6 1.5 The winner is COAL, coasting along at 2/3rd rated capacity. OTHER presumably includes solar but it is unknown what proportion that is. The loser as usual is WIND electricity generation providing just 1.5% of our bank holiday needs and producing a mere 3.6% of peak capability. According to RenewablesFirst on www.renewablesfirst.co.uk the present installations costs of onshore wind turbines are £1.4m for 0.5MW & 0.8MW, £2.7m for 1.5MW, and £3.1m for 2 to 3MW. For offshore turbines the installation costs are three times this. With about 4000 onshore turbines in operation with a peak rating total of 8GW we can say the average rating is 2MW. So as a first approximation the cost of onshore wind turbines is 4000 x £3.1m = £12,400m (£12.4b). For 2000 offshore turbines it would be about £18.6b. Total cost so far then ~ £31b. Wind Farm Statistics. Peak capacity 12GW, average generation just 2.4GW. Occasional generation as low as 0.2GW. Maximum lifespan of each turbine about 20 years. Mean time between breakdowns 2.5 years. Costs of servicing and maintenance never revealed. Nuclear In comparison the new Hinkley Point nuclear power station is to be built at a cost of £24b and has a continuous rating of 3.34GW with a 35-year lifespan. So it will provide one and a half times more power on average than all the existing wind turbines of the UK at four fifths of the cost and for almost twice as long. Expected breakdowns, none in 35 years! Coal and Gas Coal and gas fired power stations are cheaper and quicker to build but cost more to run. We don’t have enough gas unless we can start fracking and then can become net exporters again to help balance the economy. Coal fired power stations can also use the large remaining stocks of UK coal although it is more expensive than that mined in countries like the Ukraine. Shutting down coal fired power stations in the UK and supposedly being more reliant on renewables is cloud-cuckoo-land thinking. Especially when China and India are presently building 800 coal-fired power stations and bringing them online at a rate of 26 per year. Anyone who tells you that wind farms are providing an important contribution to the energy mix are green fanatics and completely blind to economics and the maintenance of a reliable electricity network. Pushing up electricity prices to consumers and industry by taxes added to producers and green taxes of 15% added to electricity bills is destroying industry, creating energy poverty and will NOT save the planet. There is only one party against renewable subsidies and wind farms and that is UKIP. For sensible energy policy, reliable energy generation and lower energy bills vote UKIP. |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.