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Whether you’re on the right, left, or squarely in the middle, we can all agree that veterans aren’t treated nearly as well as they should be in this country. In fact, they’re blatantly disrespected in many ways. But how is President Trump, who made lots of campaign promises to veterans, doing on this issue after roughly a year in office? When Barack Obama entered office in 2009, he found the veterans of this country in the middle of a decades-long plight, which he promised to fix many times during his campaign for the presidency. “Caring for those who serve -- and for their families -- is a fundamental responsibility of the Commander-in-Chief,” Obama said in a 2007 campaign speech. “It is not a separate cost. It is a cost of war. It is something I've fought for as a member of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs. And it is something I will fight for as President of the United States.” Perhaps Obama did fight, but he certainly didn’t get any results. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is in worse shape than it’s ever been. Scandals, abuse of funds, and a toxic workplace culture are just a few of the issues plaguing the VA, and they all seemed to be exacerbated under the Obama administration. Even something as seemingly simple as trying to locate and receive military documents that are needed in order to apply for things like VA mortgages, retirement benefits, and employment is nearly impossible to do on your own. Most veterans end up using a service like DD214 Direct to streamline the process. This isn’t an article about Obama’s failures -- of which there are plenty -- but it’s important to understand where things stood when Trump entered office. Not to give the Trump administration excuses, but rather to show why the VA was such a big priority during the campaigning season and continues to be today. Is Trump Making Headway? With so much in disarray, President Trump had his work cut out for him entering office. However, he promised to make the VA a focal point, so it’s fair game to hold him accountable and see how he’s doing. And if you cut through all of the media noise and BS, you’ll see that he’s actually making some headway. Here are just a few examples of small wins and steady steps in the right direction: With so much corruption in the VA, Trump signed into law legislation that paves the way for the firing of employees who engage in misconduct. It also helps protect the whistleblowers. In what Trump once called “the most corrupt agency in the United States,” these new standards have already led to the firing of a whopping 1,163 employees and suspension of an additional 387 (as of early November). In May, the White House proposed a 6 percent increase to the VA budget, which included an increase of $13 billion for the “choice” program that allows veterans to opt for private healthcare coverage. One of Trump’s campaign promises was a private hotline to the White House to field complaints 24/7. While it’s been a bumpy road, the administration has followed through on this promise with a soft launch In August, Trump signed legislation to give veterans an additional $3 billion for educational assistance over the next decade. Forever GI, which is actually a combination of more than a dozen different bills, allows spouses and children of service members killed on duty to qualify for scholarships (or have tuition reimbursed. This isn’t to say Trump has fixed the VA. He hasn’t even solved some of its biggest problems yet. What his slow, steady progress does show is that he’s making the VA a priority. There’s a long way to go. Privatization of the VA is probably the only permanent solution to the longstanding plight of veterans in the U.S., but that’s an enormous battle that would likely require a two-term presidency. If the VA is ultimately fixed, it’ll be thanks to big changes like this. But if you want to know where a president should start, just look at what Trump is doing right now. You start with small wins, build trust, and then execute more sweeping reforms. It’s Too Early to Judge Why is it that the Left is so quick to judge the Trump presidency as a failure when he’s completed, at a very minimum, just 25 percent of his term? Who says he has to live up to every promise within the first year? What would we have said about Obama, Clinton, and Carter if they had only been given a year to enact their policies? History will ultimately determine whether the Trump presidency was a success or failure. It’s impossible to do so in the moment (especially when it’s only a fraction of the way complete). However, as we begin to see what sort of leadership style Trump has adopted as president, it’s clear that he’s not nearly as impulsive as most thought he would be. Sure, the tweets are still questionable (at best), but his actual decision-making is rather poised. On the topic of veterans affairs, Trump hasn’t lived up to every promise he made during the campaign, but he has at least three years left. He has, however, made progress in some key areas and laid promising foundations in others. While the media will continue to bash him for breathing, the reality is that he’s already done more to benefit veterans than Obama accomplished in eight years. |
From Yonhap News: Japanese Researchers P rove Mixed Ancestry Hypothesis After DNA Analysis The present day Japanese are the mixed descendants of the archipelago’s earliest settlers Jomon-jin and the late-comers Yayoi-jin who crossed the strait from the Korean peninsula, according to a genetic analysis. The researchers from the Graduate University for Advanced Studies [Sokendai] of Kanagawa prefecture [Japan] published the results of their findings in the Journal of Human Genetics on November 1st. This research further confirms previous research findings by analysing over 900,000 DNA mutations per person, significantly improving the robustness of the result. The researchers focused on a population sample of 460 from Kanto, mainland Chinese, European descendants, in addition to another 71 Ainus and Okinawans. The result shows the present-day Japanese are the inter-marriage between the earlier settlers and later-comers. This confirms the the ‘mixed-blood’ ancestry hypothesis. The Ainus were closest to the native Okinawans and less so to the Kanto population. The Kanto population displayed the most genetic resemblance to Koreans. Until now, there have been a number of theories postulating on the origin of the Japanese, first of which was the Jomon dispersal-adaptation hypothesis, the displacement by the Yayoi population on the Jomon population, and the mixed-blood ancestry between the Jomon and the Yayoi. Sokedai’s professor Saito Naruya confirmed that the finding matched the mixed-blood ancestry hypothesis The researchers plan to conduct further DNA sample analysis from the bones recovered from the Jomon burial sites. Comments from Daum: pupupoo: Unacceptable. If there is any Korean genes there, they wouldn’t be like that 크리스탈러: No no, the ruling class are Korean, and the ruled are Japanese. Their king is also Korean. That’s not what they want to admit. 불세출: So how come they evolved to be so mean? 세코닉스: So Korea and Japan are same ethnicity and same nation? ke ke, Korea is the closest ethnicity to Japanese!! So we are brothers! ke ke, well we are enemies but still share the same ancestry!! Or close relatives, but Korean people always mock them as monkeys and make fun of their looks… That’s just spitting in own our face ke ke ke Koreans are only hurting themselves ke ke s-cool: Our nation is the same ethnicity as the cancer of the world, quite unpleasant… 체리파이: Ah…. That’s why I seem to feel not so distant to the Japanese women in my computer~ ke ke 가seo자라: Very unpleasant — 진룡: If that’s what they got for mixing with us… their indigenous population… could not have been human.. 서일: It’s all our fault… We spread our seeds there… *cough*..~!! 해남뱃놈: ssoyoonfafa: As far as I am concerned they are mixed between the Okinawans and local monkeys. 구름: The reason why the Korean wave is so popular in Japan is precisely because of this. In their DNAs is the idea that ‘whatever came from Korea is superior’ for thousands of years and passed down to the present day. It’s a natural reaction. The Japanese invasions of Korea in 1592 was all about stealing our pottery, artistic and intellectual achievements. Their present economic downfall could be attributed to the fact that they have not been able to steal anything from us for the last 70 years, and could not produce anything new. 무지개: Japan was founded by those who lost the power game in the Korean peninsular (Baekje, Kokuryo, Gaya…), so that’s why they are always hateful toward us. They would eliminate every one of us here and take over our land [if they could] Find out what Japanese netizens are saying! Visit japanCRUSH now! |
Once upon a time, Juan Pérez, the poorest of the poor, reaches fame in a fluke accident in what seemed to be an attempt of suicide, to protest against the government and his social condition. The Ministry of Economy, surrounded by the scandal in which he is blamed by Pérez's decision, decides to reward him changing his life giving him a little house, a car and a job. But when other poor people (Pérez's close friends) find out about his reversal of fortune, decide to imitate him faking suicide attempts in different buildings in Mexico City. The Ministry of Economy, terrified by the glance of having a plague of beggars, decides to declare poverty a crime and hence finish for once and for all with all the poor in the country. Pérez ends up behind bars. Three years later, Pérez is released and goes back to his previous social condition, but this time, aware of having one day as a rich man is better than a life as poor, he will do anything to get out of his misery... And he will manage to ... Written by Juan pérez |
A national statistic shows 90-percent of the dollars spent by African Americans go to businesses that are not African American owned or invested. So a new program called Reverse 90 hopes to change that. The African American Chamber of Commerce designed it with the hope that discounts and deals would draw customers to the chamber's 400 member businesses. Come inside Naturally Ever After salon and you'll find professional, organic hair services with a smile plus a big discount! "We're actually offering free haircuts for new customers through the end of February with the purchase of a salon service," Audrea Rogers said. The ladies at Naturally Ever After are doing that through Reverse90.com. "Anyone can go to reverse90.com and take advantage of the deals offered by the businesses," Nicole Giles of the African American Chamber of Commerce said. Expect 10, 15, 25-percent off all kinds of services and merchandise. Plus, get 30-percent off semi-personal training sessions at Bodyrock Boot Camp. The African American Chamber of Commerce set up Reverse 90 to encourage the support of African American owned and invested businesses. LINK: Reverse90.com |
A public reply to John Textor and Digital Domain's new business model Mr. Textor, this is in response to the news that Digital Domain's new business plan is to now have up to 30% of their labor force be unpaid students. I am a visual effects professional. I have been both an artist and a visual effects producer. I understand the economics of the visual effects industry and the extremely thin margin most visual effects studios operate on. I am empathetic to Digital Domain's situation. It has become increasingly difficult to turn a profit as costs rise and visual effects budgets are slashed. As a visual effects producer, I cannot condone Digital Domain’s unethical plans to turn a profit. If the future of Digital Domain is students paying to work for your company, I never want to work with Digital Domain or anyone who continues to associate with Digital Domain. I will encourage every visual effects professional I meet, artist or producer, to boycott Digital Domain. And without visual effects professionals, what type of future does Digital Domain have? Do you believe that students can create the same quality visual effects as professionals? Do you believe that our years of training, professional experience, and skill can be matched by a student? If Digital Domain follows through with this plan, then you will have to accept that untrained student work is the best you will ever get. I will not work for you. Those I know will not work for you. No visual effects professional will work with you. And do you really expect studios, directors, or producers to risk being boycotted as well for working with you? As a lone individual, I know that I cannot damage your company. I know that I am just a cog in the multi-billion dollar entertainment industry. Mr. Textor, when you attack all visual effects professionals’ ability to earn a living and provide for our families, you no longer have one cog to worry about, you should be worried about the entire machine crashing. So, to every visual effects professional globally, demand what you have earned. Demand respect for your skills. Demand your experience be valued. Demand a fair wage for your skilled work. Demand to be treated like the professional you are. And to you Mr. Textor, continue to devalue the work of visual effects professionals. Continue to believe that you can get by on the cheap on your labor. Continue to attack and destroy people's professions and livelihoods. And I will make it my mission to destroy Digital Domain. Remember Mr. Textor, the years of experience, skills, and tireless efforts of the visual effects professionals that you are trying to drive out of the business have brought your company its awards and accolades. Do you expect many will want to work with you when Digital Domain does not have any professional artists to create award winning work? When Digital Domain closes and you move to another shop, it doesn’t matter. Whatever shop you go to Mr. Textor, we will not work with you. Any shop you are associated with will close because of you. You have pushed our backs up against the wall. We have nothing to lose in this battle, Mr. Textor. You've shown us your version of the future, and we professionals are not a part of it. You have a $10 million dollar investment in Digital Domain stock. By the time we're done, it will be worthless. Digital Domain will be remembered for their amazing work, and at one time being a studio artists wanted to work for, but every visual effects professional will remember John Textor as the man who tried to destroy the visual effects industry. tang1039 |
Recently, researchers from University of Colorado Boulder developed a new technique to distinguish lung cancer cells from healthy cells via nanoparticles. The finding is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The new synthetic polymer can deliver a drug into lung cancer cells only, and hence leave the healthy lung cells intact. The drug is RNA-based and it can disrupt the function and inhibit the growth of cancer cells by eliminating the proteins in the cells. Cell selection is an important advantage because previous chemical drugs can kill all rapidly dividing cells, including both cancer cells and normal cells. Although they are effective to stop the growth of cancer, they also can bring serious side-effects. In the new technique, cancer cells are selected based on their physical and chemical features. This means the drug carriers are cell-specific, and that patient outcomes in the clinic can change significantly. However, developing the process was not easy. Researchers tested hundreds of materials, and finally found that cells could respond to a synthetic polymer differently. Importantly, the polymer could distinguish cancer cells from heathy cells in the same patient. Currently, it is possible to use genetic sequencing to customize drug regiments for each patient. This new nanotech finding enable doctors customize the drug carrier to improve patient responses. Experiments in mice showed that the cancer-selective nanoparticles could stay in the cancer cells for more than 1 week, whereas in the control condition (nonselective) nanoparticles only could exist for several hours. This means that the cancer growth could be greatly inhibited. Future research will apply to this new technique to clinical field to improve efficacy and reduce adverse side effect of cancer therapies. Citation: Yunfeng Yan et al. Functional polyesters enable selective siRNA delivery to lung cancer over matched normal cells, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2016). doi: 10.1073/pnas.1606886113 Figure legend: This Knowridge.com image is for illustrative purposes only. |
WASHINGTON — Blue Origin may be preparing for another test flight of the company’s New Shepard suborbital vehicle, based on an airspace restriction published by the Federal Aviation Administration Jan. 21. The temporary flight restriction notice covers a region of airspace that corresponds with Blue Origin’s test site north of Van Horn, Texas. The restriction, between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Eastern Jan. 22 and 23, is for “space flight operations,” according to FAA, although the notice does not provide any additional information about the nature of the operations. Blue Origin has not confirmed plans for any test flights, keeping with the company’s practice of not announcing tests until after they take place. However, the FAA has issued similar flight restrictions prior to earlier New Shepard flights, including one shortly before the vehicle’s last test flight Nov. 23. On that November flight, New Shepard’s crew capsule flew to an altitude of 100.5 kilometers before parachuting to a safe landing. The vehicle’s propulsion module made a powered vertical landing using its BE-3 engine, which the company hailed as a milestone in their efforts to develop reusable vehicles. In a press conference Nov. 24, Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos said the company planned to fly the vehicle again after performing inspections. “Yes, we’ll refly this booster,” he said. “This mission was completely nominal and this vehicle is ready to fly again.” He said at the time it would be “some number of weeks” before the company would attempt another test flight. Bezos also said at that press conference that the company planned “the most through test program over the next couple of years that we can possibly do” with New Shepard before beginning commercial flights with people on board. Company officials, though, have suggested that commercial flights carrying research payloads, but not people, could begin later this year. |
A federal judge on Wednesday denied a motion to dismiss a crimes against humanity case brought against evangelical pastor Scott Lively of Massachusetts. Lively is accused of violating international law by inciting the persecution of LGBT individuals in Uganda. The lawsuit was filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) on behalf of Sexual Minorities of Uganda (SMUG) in 2012. “We are gratified that the court recognized the persecution and the gravity of the danger faced by our clients as a result of Scott Lively’s actions,” CCR Attorney Pam Spees said. “Lively’s single-minded campaign has worked to criminalize their very existence, strip away their fundamental rights and threaten their physical safety.” The lawsuit alleged that Lively aided the persecution of LGBT people in Uganda over the past decade and inspired notorious anti-LGBT legislation known as the “Kill the Gays” bill. Lively attended an anti-gay conference entitled “Seminar on Exposing the Homosexual Agenda” in 2009 in which he accused gays and lesbians of having genocidal tendencies. His lecture lead to the introduction of the bill, the lawsuit claimed. Ugandan organizers of the 2009 conference admitted they helped draft the bill and Lively himself admitted to meeting with lawmakers to discuss it. Lively has denied that he conspired with government officials or religious leaders in Uganda to craft specifics of the legislation. He has said the lawsuit against him “boils down to nothing more than an attempt to define my Biblical views against homosexuality as a crime.” “Clearly, this lawsuit is intended not only to silence me as an effective voice of opposition to the ‘gay’ agenda, it is also to intimidate everyone else who would dare to follow my example,” he wrote on his blog last year. |
Leader of GamerGate 02/18/16 (Thu) 00:42:43 bfabab No.316682 >>316678 Mentioned >there's a lot of people who hate Twitter and don't like the types of people on it. That gave me an idea, make a thread on /pol/ and let them know there's a real chance of really hurting twitter/taking it down and making them regret the SJW trust and safety council. There's enough butthurt and desire for mayhem to convince people to make accounts and shit up trending advertising. You just have to be careful not to make them think you're asking them to do it for gamergate or the whole thread is going to be infighting and butthurt over "gamergoys" or whatever. This can be big enough to spread to 4chan if there's little to no association with gamergate as you can always count on people hating on twitter/SJWs/brands advertising/capitalism/normalfags(not to mention lulz/the desire for chaos) as long as they're not busy hating gamergate/rs. |
Novoda has a reputation of building the most desirable apps for Android and iOS. We believe living and sharing a hack-and-tell culture is one way to maintain top-shelf quality. One of the big announcements of Google IO 2016 was Firebase. No longer "just" a database, the Firebase umbrella now includes integrated Analytics, Crash Reporting, Push Messaging, Dynamic Links, Storage, Hosting, and more. Is this new platform ready for all your projects? Should you spend time learning everything about it? We like to keep on top of new technology at Novoda, so we decided to dedicate some time to explore the new Firebase. With a small team of four developers (two for iOS and two for Android) we took the idea of a chat application shown in most sample code and expanded it into a more feature-rich example. Today we want to share with you our findings and the demo app that was built during this exploration. Say hello to Bonfire! Android, Google Play and the Google Play logo are trademarks of Google Inc. The iOS app hasn’t made it through the app review process, but you can sign up to our beta A sample app We are releasing the full source code for Bonfire, together with this blog post. Play with the sources and experience what can be quickly built on top of the Firebase stack in a real-world app example. Because most sample apps out there are focused only on showcasing how to use Firebase, they often end up being too simplistic to be a real benchmark. We wanted to create a real example of what an application using Firebase might look like. Bonfire features: Real time chat organised into channels Authentication using Google Sign-In Channel names limited to one emoji on database level Public and private channels Any user can create a channel Channel members can add and remove members of a private channel Remote configuration of the order of channels in the channels screen Invite users to the app with a customised welcome screen Firebase as an architecture One of the most exciting things about Firebase is the ability to use it across multiple platforms: Android, iOS and web. At Novoda we’ve been working to create apps with a consistent architecture across iOS and Android. Firebase fits very well with that approach. Despite some minor differences between the APIs, having a common basis for discussing our code encourages and enables cross-platform collaboration. Database Firebase started out as just a realtime database. Now this term is collectively used for the whole suite of tools. Though its name has slightly changed, Firebase Realtime Database (as it’s now known) remains a very impressive piece of technology. Firebase Realtime Database is a cloud-hosted NoSQL database, and data is stored in a JSON structure. You can view the data in an online dashboard, which is really useful during development. Additionally, offline modifications and data synchronization are handled automatically across multiple platforms. This gives you a fully functioning key-value store with data sync that requires only minimal setup. #####Firebase Realtime Database Dashboard In order to make your data structures scale it’s a common practice to create indexes to query. The issue is that at the moment this means executing two queries separately. One to retrieve the index and a second one to read the data at the index. As such, it would be great to have the ability to declare a composition of those two queries in a single operation. An example found in Bonfire would be to query the list of channels a user has access to, and for each channel ID retrieve the channel info. We must handle this kind of query ourselves at the moment, which adds complexity in our code. This also makes it less efficient than if it were part of the Firebase query language. Another downside is the lack of control over the offline and synchronisation behaviour. As it stands now there is no control over conflict resolution when a sync happens. The ability to define a javascript function that is used to resolve conflicts would give back control to the developers and allow for more confidence in the service.. Access to key nodes is managed through a set of ”database rules”, which allow for powerful read-write access control and flexible data validation. This is not only crucial for security reasons; it is also very useful whilst developing your applications. Since in a Firebase backed app your database is essentially your API, you want to be able to ensure it is used consistently on different clients. With database rules preventing any not explicitly allowed interaction, you’ll be immediately notified if you try to write to the wrong place by mistake. This means you won't risk writing half your messages to messages and the other half to msgs because of miscommunication. #####Firebase Realtime Database Rules The database rules come with some limitations too. They can get quite complex even for our simple chat app. Luckily, the Firebase console contains a simulator where you can test access to specific nodes of your database. The main issue with the database rules at the moment is the lack of feedback on the client side when a query fails validation. The fact that the only reply when a read or write rule has failed is “Permission Denied” is a great security practice. However, if the write permission is granted, a validation rule failure still sends “Permission Denied”, and this is often too vague to be helpful. Being able to get some form of feedback from the data validation on the client side would be great. A possible solution could be adding tags with an error code to boolean expressions in the validation rule. Those codes could be sent alongside the error to the clients. Analytics Firebase Analytics automatically tracks a bunch of information about your users, such as location, device information, user engagement, and more. On top of that, there are multiple predefined events that you can use. #####Firebase Analytics Dashboard You can also define your own custom events. The difference we noticed between the two is that custom events are not displayed with all their details in the Firebase console. This means that you can't view parameters of your custom events or filter based on them. For instance, we wanted to track the average length of messages sent in the app. We could log that a message was sent, but could not see the 'message length' value in the Firebase console. However, there is a remedy for that: Firebase provides a handy integration with BigQuery, where you can get the full analytics data, including any custom parameters you have added. This particular feature is worth drawing attention to, since BigQuery allows in-depth analysis of both your analytics data and also external data in Federated data sources. This has tremendous potential for data analysis, custom dashboards, and visualisation of anything one can think of. Just look at what was acheived in this awesome Google I/O talk. Crash reporting Setting up Firebase Crash reporting is really simple and the basic setup automatically logs all fatal crashes without you having to do anything. Apart from that, it allows you to manually log non-fatal errors together with some custom additional information. If you are looking for more in depth analysis of the crash reporting go read this great post. Authentication #####Firebase Crash Reporting Dashboard Firebase integrates very easily with popular authentication methods such as Google Sign-In, Twitter and Facebook. The authentication status can easily be used as part of the database access rules. For example, the following code defines a user profile that only authenticated users can read and that only the owner can modify. "$user_id": { ".read": "auth != null", ".write": "auth.uid === $user_id" } #####Bonfire login screen on Android Dynamic links are pretty cool! If your app is installed, they will deep link into it. If it’s not, they will take you the relevant store (App Store or Play Store). After the app has been installed, they’ll pass you the link. This has multiple uses beyond analytics tracking, as it allows you to deep link immediately after installation or provide custom onboarding paths into the app. Crucially, they are cross-platform, which means that you can generate links from iOS or Android that will deep-link into any platform. #####Opening invite link when the app is not installed Firebase also contains Invites, which are built on top of dynamic links and aim to make it easy to create invitation messages. This feature relies entirely on Google Sign-In and feels totally out of place on iOS. Therefore, to keep the UX as consistent as possible across both platforms, we decided to only use dynamic links. Cloud testing Unfortunately Test Lab features are only available for Android. Regardless, the Test Lab features for Android are really impressive and still worth looking into. Firebase Test Lab for Android allows you to run your instrumentation tests in the cloud on a set of devices and API versions. On top of that, the lab contains a feature called Robo test. This could be described as a more intelligent monkeyrunnner which can traverse through your app automatically without you having to write the tests. It also generates a graph of your activities with the paths that it followed when moving between screens. #####Activity graph created by Robo For both instrumentation and Robo tests, Test Lab records a video of the screen, so you can watch the tests after they are finished. If all that is not cool enough, you can run the tests from Android Studio or from command line which makes it pretty easy to integrate with your favourite CI server. Server-side logic The ability to define some server-side logic would take Firebase from great to amazing. One of the biggest issues with a synced NoSQL database is that it requires each client to implement similar logic to handle things like indexes. Duplicating data is totally fine. Duplicating logic, on the other hand, not so much. What if you could write a single element to your database on the client, and update all the relevant indexes throughout the code in the cloud? There are of course caveats around offline capabilities when over-relying on server side logic. If used correctly, though, they could greatly reduce the amount of client-side code that needs to be written on each platform and the risks that results from those implementations getting out of sync. Drawbacks Firebase looks great to kickstart a new project with a small team, but it is not perfect just yet. Firebase depends on Google Play Services, which is a big issue if you have a project that you want to scale worldwide. A lot of users in China and other regions won’t be able to use your apps. In the Western world, Kindle Fire users will be excluded as well. In our opinion, this is a blocker to being able to use it as the base for most of our apps. It should be possible for Firebase to abstract away the dependency on the Play Services and allow support for a wider range of devices. As an example, a library called Firebase Job Dispatcher uses the abstraction of a Driver to enable replacement of the default GooglePlayDriver with a custom implementation. A similar approach for replacing Play Services (even if it meant writing a fair bit of logic ourselves) would enable developers to truly rely on Firebase for their apps without reducing their ability to reach developing markets. Google may never remove the dependency on Play Services as they have a clear vested interest in their adoption. However, we would like to believe that, like us, they can see the power and reach it would gain by doing so and that we will soon be able to use Firebase in any of our projects. Another blocker that prevents us from using Firebase on larger projects is the lack of configuration management across projects. You can easily create a project for production and one for development, but then you need to sync your database rules, manage multiple URLs, etc. (cue headache). The ability to have a production, development, or even short-lived testing environments where you could run tests would really take the platform to the next level. Firebase does have the ability to give users permission to only certain parts of the console, but being able to completely switch off some features (e.g. deleting all the data in the database with just a couple of clicks) would help a lot. Conclusion Even if Firebase might not be ready for your large scale projects, we think that it is worth diving into it right now. You can always start small with only a subset of the available features, like Dynamic links and Remote configuration. Just the combination of those two on a legacy project is already rather powerful, especially considering how easy to implement they are. In its current state, Firebase as a whole is great for small projects that are starting from scratch, and don’t mind the restriction to devices with Play Services. However, with a few adjustments from Google it truly has the potential to become the new backbone of most of the apps out there. Now go on and have some fun with it! Contributors: Ben Augustin and Jozef Celuch for developing the Android side, Yvette Cook and Dominic Freeston for the iOS part of this app, Joe Timmins for helping us keeping things testable and a nice fresh perspective and Qi Qu for the amazing design work and everyone else at Novoda always contributing comments, ideas and suggestions. |
Jahmal Cole is organizing an "Explore Englewood" event Saturday. View Full Caption DNAinfo/Stephanie Lulay ENGLEWOOD — My Block, My Hood, My City founder Jahmal Cole said he hopes that by hosting his next event in Englewood Saturday, he will help change the neighborhood's narrative. Cole usually takes kids and teens from the South and West sides to explore neighborhoods in other parts of the city they haven't been to. But for this event, he's encouraging people from other communities to ignore Englewood's stigma and see the neighborhood he calls a "diamond in the rough" for themselves. "It’s really about getting people to Englewood to visit a couple of places and talk to somebody," Cole said. "We’re trying to start 100 new conversations on our Facebook page so we can change the narrative about Englewood." For the "Explore Englewood" event he also wants to expose the area's rich history and cultural attractions as well as a list of places he calls "hidden gems." "The media always says you can’t go further south than the White Sox stadium," he said. "I want people to go out there. I want people to go out there on their own and actually step outside their comfort zone, experience different perspectives, ideas. I think when they do that, they’ll begin the process of not seeing Englewood as a third world country." The day will begin at 11 a.m. at St. Benedict Church, 6540 S. Harvard. Attendees can visit resource tables to learn more about what's going on in the community. At 1 p.m. Cole will have lunch at Dream Cafe, 748 W. 61st St. Other places he recommends people visit Saturday include: Kusanya Cafe: 825 W. 69th St. Sikia Restaurant: 740 W. 63rd St. Imagine Englewood If: 730 W. 69th St. I Grow Chicago: 6402 S. Honore St. Ogden Park: 6500 S. Racine Ave. Hamilton Park: 513 W. 72nd St. Cole started his organization after meeting kids who had never been outside of their South and West side neighborhoods. Through his exploration program, he is able to take groups of 10-15 to explore other neighborhoods like Greektown, Edgewater and the Loop. For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here: |
So yesterday was met with the news that Final Cut Pro X was finally available and like someone waiting outside the famous PT Barnum museum in New York City, I plunked down my $299 to download the software and ensure that the information I had gotten over the past few months was correct. I was wrong. It was worse.We joked at NAB that this was "iMovie Pro" and doggone it if that isn't what this turned out to be. A very souped up version of iMovie '11 but with iMovie's ability to "Export to FCP" removed. The basic operation is identical. Apple just added a few new features and rolled in some color tools and sound tools. But who cares about the actual operation of the editing interface, give me a couple of days and I'll by flying through the interface. That's not the problem. The problem is the insular thinking that Apple seems to have taken with this application. In fact, I just wrote a review on the App Store (where FCPX is hovering between 2.5 and 3 stars) and it sums up the major features that are missing or will cause us issues if we tried to implement this app moving forward. As I'm sure you won't see this review quoted anywhere in the Apple marketing blitz and it's always possible it won't even be posted on their site, here it is in its entirety…Built from the ground up to be completely self contained, one editor, one machine. Cannot even talk to other Apple pro software.Cannot open previous Final Cut Pro projects. period. We have 10 years worth of projects that cannot be opened.Cannot collaborate with other editors. You can't simply hand off a project file to another editor who has the same media like you could with previous versions of FCP. All of your project organization is now globally contained in the application rather than in your project file. You would literally have to give that other editor your computer to open your project with all of your organization.There is no way to customize the organization of the project media. "Events" are nice for home movies, home photos and such, but organzation is clunky at best for a professional video editing environment, whether that's working in your home or in a facility.Media keeps wanting to copy itself to the local drive. We have over 60TB of media in our facility, we could not possibly copy that much to a local computer.No directory structure when media is offline. When media is offline you simply get a red screen with an exclamation point. There is no "Reconnect Media" function or any other function that will tell you where the media is supposed to be. With previous versions you were presented the original media path. Since this is based on iMovie, it expects that everything lives internally.Multicam tool, which was one of the best in the industry, completely eliminated.OMF and XML export and import completely eliminated. There is no way to send projects to Apple's own software from within Final Cut Pro.Color Correction tool is mediocre at best. Apple Color, which was a $25,000 piece of software when Apple purchased it, seems to have been eliminated and replaced with dots and presets. I've used a lot of color correction tools as part of my work and what Apple has presented is one of the worst I've seen from a supposed professional tool.Cannot assign audio tracks. The Trackless editing makes things faster initially but we send all our audio out for ProTools mixing. As such we need to assign audio to tracks. Narration to Track 1 and 2. Interviews to Tracks 3 - 6 and so on. So our audio engineers knows exactly what's on which track.No true video output. According to an AJA Video Systems PDF on using their Kona cards with FCPX what you see on your external display is a "preview" version of your video. Not a true video signal that you can use for color correction or confidence viewing in front of a client. Simply cannnot have a professional video editing application without true video output.No support for Capture from Tape (outside of Firewire) or Edit to Tape. We capture from and edit to tape just about every day. HDV is really not a format we use very much but if we did, well then we were perfectly set up in FCPX.All in all the worst product launch I've ever seen from Apple or pretty much any software manufacturer. Instead of a nice suite of applications that worked well together (FCP, Color, Motion, SoundTrack Pro, DVD Studio Pro) you now have one big app that really doesn't do all that much well. It completely ignores the 11 years of existence by giving you zero options to open older projects. We called it iMovie Pro when it was debuted back in April and quite honestly, that's what it is. When you open the application and the first thing you see is "Import iMovie Events" and then you select File > Import and the two of the four options are "iMovie" there's no denying that this application was built on iMovie's consumer foundation rather than FCP's professional foundation. There are some neat features included and there's no denying the interface itself is nice to look at.But I get the sense that Apple just didn't want to take the time to re-write all of the features that made this a solid professional application and dominated the post production market. Why, I'm not sure, but we will be moving our shop away from FCPX over the next month or so. As I noted in a blog entry back in April, Apple really dropped the ball on this one. Living in their insular world in Cupertino they have come up with what they think a professional editor requires to get the job done. In my 20 year professional experience, they missed the mark by a wide margin.If you are a one man band or never have the need to collaborate with anyone else or ever open any of your old FCP projects, then this is for you. Especially if you have never used a non linear editing system before. Otherwise, you'd be best to either steer clear of this application, or download it to use for your home movies and private projects. Steve Jobs was wrong. This is not "awesome." Not even close.----------------------------------------End of the review.In fact I forgot to mention the fact that layered Photoshop file support is gone. All photoshop files appear as a flattened image. In our shop we build multi layered graphics for name supers for example. I'll have 12 layers of names and the 13th layer is the backdrop. So I create one graphic for 12 supers. Now I'd have to create 12 graphics.Just the fact that we can't open old FCP projects alone would be enough for me to stop, but add up everything I've mentioned (and more) there is just no way that any amount of fancy new tools built inside a stand alone app that traps you in said stand alone app is going to make it in our workflow. It's easier to move the projects into Avid or Adobe Premiere than it is to move them into the new Final Cut Pro.Let's just forget the word "professional" for the moment. You're an upstart filmmaker who has this installed on your iMac at home cutting your latest project. You gave the media to a buddy of yours who has offered to help on his laptop. So you send the Project file over to him and guess what? He'll see your timeline but all that organization you did with the smart folders, keyword folders, etc.... are gone. All he sees is a huge "Event" with all your media just laid out there. Whereas if you were both working in Final Cut Pro 7 or earlier, when you handed him the Project file, all of your organization (bins, sequences, etc…) would all be there.So far the only people I've seen with positive reviews of the application are those who were in the beta test program, application developers or those who do not make a living as a video editor. I simply will not "cut Apple some slack because it's a 1.0 release." That's complete BS. In 1999 when Final Cut Pro first came out it was the new kid on the block. So what if it didn't have certain features, it saved you from having to buy a $100,000 Avid or $30,000 Media 100. It's 2011 and Final Cut Pro is (was) the broadcast standard editing tool. Apple has had at least two years to completely redevelop the software from the ground up. To have left out so many of the features that were already in Final Cut Pro 7 and say 'well it's a 1.0 release and it will grow as we move along' is just completely self serving. In other words, the developers at Apple, who do NOT make a living as a video editor, decided that they would completely re-invent video editing based on their preconceived notion of what a video editor does. If it's not right the first time, we'll just develop more features, on our own timeline without telling anyone what we're doing, until we get it right. It's just painfully obvious this is a consumer product first and a professional application second. If that's Apple's goal, that's perfectly fine because the consumer market FAR exceeds the professional market. Just tell us so we can move on instead of waiting out this two year game of "what will they do."For now, and it's sad for me to say this, I'm done with the game. This was the product that completely built my company starting in 2000 / 2001 and now it's time for me to say goodbye. As I tell everyone else, if the tool isn't working for you, then find a tool that does. Fortunately we have Adobe Premiere which has made incredible strides of late and already supports our AJA Kona boards. We also hear that Avid is on a path that will open up the cards soon as well.So it's been a good 10 year ride and if the application does truly get to a point where we can use it again, we could always bring it back. But for now let me just say, Goodbye Final Cut Pro and Thanks for all the Fish. |
Japan may not be the best in the world when it comes to speaking English, but it remains a pioneer in developing cutting-edge translation technology. With the 2020 Tokyo Olympics approaching, the nation is once again plotting to surprise the world, this time with high-quality, real-time machine translation systems. Public and private institutions are working eagerly to develop and upgrade the technology so it can easily be used by tourists, whose numbers are growing sharply. Below, we take a look at the current situation of the machine translation industry and what the future holds for real-time translation devices. How does electronic translation work? Real-time translation systems include applications that can be installed on smartphones, computers or other gadgets linked to the Internet. One merely selects the targeted language, speaks into the device and waits for it to translate the words in audio or visual form. The words of the speaker are sent by the app to a computer server, which analyzes the voice and selects the closest translation from a vast collection of phrase pairs in its database. The more the app is used, the more sophisticated it becomes. This is done by gradually increasing the amount of usable data on the server with the user’s consent. Machine translation is the product of over 60 years of research and is now entering its prime thanks to advances in cloud computing and machine learning, said Eiichiro Sumita, a senior researcher at the government-funded National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) who has more than 35 years of experience in the field. NICT’s official translation app, VoiceTra, currently covers 27 languages, including such exotics as Urdu, Sinhala and Dzongkha, for text. For speech, it is “good enough to make understandable 90 percent of what you want to say” in English, Korean, Chinese and Japanese, if short sentences are used, Sumita said. What is the government’s aim for real-time translation? Last April, the internal affairs ministry announced a global communication program, which, using NICT’s translation engine, is aimed at helping people around the world engage in borderless communication. The ministry wants to provide real-time machine translation services at sightseeing, shopping and medical venues to help visitors who may feel hesitant about coming to Japan because of the language barrier. The ministry’s vision reflects the government’s tourism goal, which is to raise the annual number of inbound travelers to 20 million by 2020, from 13 million in 2014. It is planning to allocate ¥1.38 billion in fiscal 2015 to improve the overall quality of real-time speech translation technology and increase the available languages to 10 or more, including Thai, Vietnamese and Indonesian, to cover 90 percent of the tourists who come to Japan. The plan to host the Olympics has no doubt increased the urgency of the project, Sumita said, because public and private entities alike have started working together on it on an “all-Japan basis.” How exactly would the technology help foreign visitors? Although not always grammatically perfect, the output of current real-time translation devices is practical enough to enable the simple conversations desired by sightseers, experts say. With the 2020 Olympics in sight, VoiceTra was used on an experimental basis by volunteers at the Tokyo Marathon last month, which drew some 5,000 runners from abroad. Each volunteer was encouraged to install the app on his or her smartphone to offer support in multiple languages. Meanwhile, NTT Docomo Inc. has developed Jspeak, an app that translates real-time phone conversations via voice recognition technology and its own original database. The carrier aims to improve Jspeak’s output quality enough to achieve a TOEIC score of 700 for Japanese-English translators by 2016. That means it would be able to accurately translate documents involving official announcements or the details of business meetings, said Minoru Eto, managing director of NTT Docomo’s innovation management department. Will machine translation eventually be able to replace professional translators? Both professional interpreters and developers of machine translation systems agree that electronic systems will never be able to replace the professionals. Mikako Miyahara, a veteran Hiroshima-based interpreter who specializes in information technology, said machine translation will not replace humans because people are unlikely to trust machines for important work. “If there is just a tinge of doubt in translation output, communication as a whole may end up in doubt,” she said, warning that if the Japanese government wants to promote intercultural understanding with its global communication program, using machine translation alone won’t work. But Miyahara also expressed concern that some clients of machine translation services, who are usually monolingual, tend to depend too much on low-cost translation and disregard the quality and skills of professionals. “More and more clients now ask translators to merely do post-edit work, which is to fix machine translation output into natural expressions, at extremely low wages,” she said. NICT’s Sumita agreed. “You have to bear in mind that machine translation can cover only a small portion of what man can do” no matter how much it develops, he said. “The good thing about machine translation is you can rely on it anytime you need it in everyday situations where you don’t need professionals,” he said. |
Personalized ads now follow us around the web, their content drawn from tracking our online activity. The ad industry has suggested we're OK with it -- that we see benefits roughly equal to perceived risks. A study by University of Illinois advertising professor Chang-Dae Ham says otherwise, suggesting the industry may want to reconsider its approach. "The perception of risk is much stronger than the perception of benefit," Ham found in surveying 442 college students on how they coped with what is known as online behavioral advertising. "That drives them to perceive more privacy concern, and finally to avoid the advertising," he said. The study appears in the May issue of the International Journal of Advertising. Previous studies have looked at various aspects of OBA, but Ham said his is the first to investigate the interaction of various psychological factors -- or mediating variables -- behind how people respond to it and why they might avoid ads. "The response to OBA is very complicated," he said. "The ad avoidance is not explained just by one or two factors; I'm arguing here that five or six factors are influencing together." Ham examined not only interactions related to risk, benefit and privacy, but also self-efficacy (sense of control); reactance (reaction against perceived restrictions on freedom); and the perceived personalization of the ads. He also looked at the effect of greater and lesser knowledge among participants about how online behavioral advertising works. Those with greater perceived knowledge were likely to see greater benefits, but also greater risk, he found. Similar to those with little perceived understanding, they tilted strongly toward privacy concerns and avoiding ads. Ham's study of online behavioral advertising follows from his interest in all forms of hidden persuasion, and his previous research has looked at product placement, user-generated YouTube videos and advergames. But OBA is "a very special type," he said, in that it elicits risk perceptions and privacy concerns different from those in response to those other forms. The study conclusions could have added significance, Ham said, because research has shown that college-age individuals, like those in his study pool, are generally less concerned about privacy than those in older age groups. If his findings are an accurate reflection of consumer attitudes, Ham said they could represent "a really huge challenge to the advertising industry" since online behavioral advertising represents a growing segment of advertising revenue. Ham thinks advertisers, in their own interest, may want to make the process more transparent and controllable. "They need to educate consumers, they need to clearly disclose how they track consumers' behavior and how they deliver more-relevant ad messages to them," he said. Giving consumers control is important because it might keep them open to some personalized online advertising, rather than installing tools like ad blockers, in use by almost 30 percent of online users in the U.S., he said. With little understanding of online behavioral advertising, and no easy way to control it, "they feel a higher fear level than required, so they just block everything." It's all the more important because the technology is only getting better and more accurate, Ham said. Tracking systems "can even infer where I'm supposed to visit tomorrow, where I haven't visited yet." |
I love RPG lore. I walk into a virtual library in pretty much any game you care to mention, and I'm stuck there until I've read every single book in the place. And there are few games with more voluminous lore than The Elder Scrolls series, which is why the two series of books recently announced by Bethesda—The Elder Scrolls Online: Tales of Tamriel and The Elder Scrolls V: The Skyrim Library—represent such a dire threat to my wallet. Bethesda didn't actually reveal how much these books will cost, but they sure don't sound cheap. There are five "lavishly bound" volumes in total, two for TESO: Tales of Tamriel—Vol. 1, The Land, and Vol. 2, The Lore—and three in The Skyrim Library—Vol. 1, The Histories, Vol. 2, Man, Mer and Beast, and Vol. 3, The Arcane. The books will collect all in-game text from both TESO and Skyrim, plus concept art and, for the TESO books, nearly 100 pieces of all-new art "illustrating the lives, the land, and the lore of Tamriel at war." The series is being created by Titan Books, which has previously published licensed novels and art books for other games including BioShock, Crysis, Halo, Dead Space, Resident Evil, Thief, Titanfall, and two Elder Scrolls novels, Lord of Souls and The Infernal City. The first volumes are expected to launch in March 2015. |
For many teams with established starters at the most important positions, the preseason can be a boring matchup of players who won’t have much of an impact in the regular season. It’s doubtful that will be the case when the Houston Texans take on the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday night. The only game of the day features two teams with plenty of intrigue at quarterback and that makes for some drama typically not seen in week one of the preseason. Houston spent big money in the offseason to upgrade the offense, but all the moves will be moot if Brock Osweiler doesn’t pan out like the Texans believe he will. The former Denver Broncos protégé to Peyton Manning had a seemingly assured starting spot for the Super Bowl champions, but when the team was hesitant to open the pocketbooks, he decided to go elsewhere. Osweiler ended up taking a four-year, $72 million deal with the Texans, joining an offense that already featured DeAndre Hopkins and added speedy Will Fuller and Braxton Miller to the mix in the 2016 NFL Draft. That retooled offense, along with Lamar Miller in the backfield and some new offensive linemen up front, makes for a dramatically different lineup for the Texans that will debut against the 49ers in primetime. For San Francisco, it’s the first glimpse of what the Chip Kelly era will look in the Bay Area. Once the most coveted and sought-after coaches in the nation, the former Oregon offensive guru is working to redeem himself after the Philadelphia Eagles collapsed with Kelly at the reins. But to turn around his reputation and re-stake his claim as one of the smartest offensive coaches in the NFL, he’ll have to find success with one of the two reclamation projects the 49ers have at quarterback. Former Jacksonville Jaguars first-round bust Blaine Gabbert will start against the Texans on Sunday, but he hasn’t officially been named the starter for the regular season. A strong showing against Houston could do the trick, especially after Gabbert showed good things in his time as a starter during the 2015 regular season. Colin Kaepernick, who once appeared to be the clear-cut starter of the future for the 49ers, has been dealing with "arm fatigue" in the week leading up to the preseason opener. But defense could also steal the show for the 49ers after the team concentrated heavily on that side of the ball in the NFL Draft. The No. 7 overall pick, DeForest Buckner, is a 6’7, 291-pound tank of a defensive end who shouldn’t be hard to pick out in his first game in a 49ers uniform. How to watch When: 7 p.m. ET Where: Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara, Calif. TV: NFL Network, ABC 13 (Houston), CBS 5 (San Francisco) Announcers: John Sadak, Spencer Tillman (Texans); Bob Fitzgerald, Tim Ryan (49ers) Odds: 49ers (-3) Online: NFL Game Pass |
Evergreen State College Provost Requests ‘Lenient’ Grading for Anti-White Protesters Interim Provost Ken Tabbutt encouraged Evergreen faculty to be lenient when grading students who participated in the recent anti-white protests on campus, according to emails obtained by Campus Reform. Via Breitbart: In emails obtained by Campus Reform, Tabbutt reportedly encouraged faculty to “consider the physical and emotional commitment the students have made” in protest efforts that included roaming the campus with baseball bats. He then allegedly asked faculty to “consider accommodations for that effort.” The protest effort resulted in Biology Professor Bret Weinstein being forced to hold classes off campus due to safety concerns. Despite this, Tabbutt told the faculty that the academic work of the protesters may have been affected by them feeling unsafe. “Academic work of students that have not been involved in the protests may also have been affected; many feel that the campus is not safe,” Tabbutt added, observing that “the students impacted may be disproportionately represented in some academic programs but this extends throughout the entire curriculum.” The Provost is rewarding the violent-thug brand of activism and encouraging anti-white racism at Evergreen State by being lenient in any way. Instead of disciplining the fascist behavior of the offending students, this spineless creep is concerned with the trouble they went through terrorizing the campus with baseball bats. It is no wonder American universities are falling apart with people like Tabbutt in charge. A recap of the Evergreen State College controversy from Vice: |
File photo of Indian soldiers along the India-China border After making incursion bids in Ladakh through land route, Chinese troops have made several attempts to enter Indian waters at Pangong lake nestled in the higher reaches of Ladakh with the latest incident reported on Friday.According to reports reaching various government agencies, the Army had a face-off with the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) as recent as June 27 in the lake when their troops tried to enter the Indian waters.Udhampur-based Northern Command Army spokesperson Col S Goswami declined to answer a query from PTI about the latest incursion attempts and instead was asked to "approach PRO (Army)".However, there was no reply from his side when it was pointed out to him that he was the spokesperson of the Army.The spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs when asked by reporters on Saturday about reports of fresh incursions by Chinese troops in Ladakh region merely said Indian soldiers guarding the country's borders will be able to provide an appropriate response should any incident occur on the border.According to sources privy to the development, Chinese troops were intercepted at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the lake and sent back after the face-off drill during which the army personnel on both sides wave banners claiming it to be their territory.The incursions have taken place in eastern Ladakh and on the northern bank of Pangong Lake, located 168 km from Leh, the sources said.The Chinese patrols used to come frequently from the northern and southern banks of this lake, whose 45 km stretch is on the Indian side while another 90 km is on the Chinese side.However, every attempt was foiled by the Army which has been equipped with new boats.The high-speed interceptor boats, bought from the US, can accommodate nearly 15 soldiers and are equipped with radars, infra-red and GPS systems.These boats are stated to be as good as the Chinese vessels and are used to conduct reconnaissance and area domination patrols.The sources said the Chinese patrol boats were backed up by PLA troops from the banks of the lake and the move was apparently to put psychological pressure on the Indian troops who man the area.The situation along the banks of the lake has always remained volatile with Chinese troops being intercepted by Indian Army patrol several times after the three-week long stand-off in the Depsang plains of Daulat Beg Oldie (DBO) in May last year.The areas where the face-off frequently occurred included the Finger-VIII area, also known as Siri Jap. China has managed to construct a road up to Finger-IV area which also falls under Siri Jap area and is five km deep into the LAC, the sources said.China in its maps claims that this area belongs to it while the Indian Army has been claiming it to be part of Ladakh.However, as the Indian side was trying to back its claim during negotiations, the Chinese army constructed a metal-top road and claimed the area to be part of Aksai Chin area, the sources said, adding many a time the Indian Army has used the same road to patrol the area and lay claim over it. |
Campus protests against the ACLU are a sign that American 'liberalism' is being destroyed by the forces it unleashed and its own inherent contradictions. The far left, under the banner of Black Lives Matter, is protesting a campus speaker again. Who is it this time? Some neo-Nazi like Richard Spencer? An unscrupulous provocateur like Milo Yiannopoulos? Just a garden-variety scary conservative like Ben Shapiro? Nope, it’s the American Civil Liberties Union as represented by Claire Gastañaga, executive director of the ACLU of Virginia. Students took to the stage just a few moments after Gastañaga began her remarks. At first, she attempted to spin the demonstration as a welcome example of the kind of thing she had come to campus to discuss, commenting ‘Good, I like this,’ as they lined up and raised their signs. ‘I’m going to talk to you about knowing your rights, and protests and demonstrations, which this illustrates very well. Then I’m going to respond to questions from the moderators, and then questions from the audience.’ It was the last remark she was able to make before protesters drowned her out with cries of, ‘ACLU, you protect Hitler, too.’ They also chanted, ‘the oppressed are not impressed,’ ‘shame, shame, shame, shame’… ‘blood on your hands,’ ‘the revolution will not uphold the Constitution,’ and, uh, ‘liberalism is white supremacy.’ The moderate left has spent the past few years running interference for Black Lives Matter and Antifa, and some of us have been warning them that the far left hates the liberals, too. They’re now finding that out up close and personal, and I hope it terrifies them. This, along with similar incidents at other universities, is a sign of the final death of American “liberalism.” It is death by suicide, because liberalism is being destroyed by the forces it unleashed and by its own inherent contradictions. In the twentieth century, American liberalism was defined by a very specific ideological mix: advocacy of freedom of speech, political freedom, and resistance to government regulation in the field of personal morality and culture—combined with advocacy of broad and ever-growing government control over the economy. Notice that I say American liberalism, and that I usually put “liberalism” in quotation marks. Etymologically, “liberal” derives from the Latin word for “freedom,” and historically it referred to advocates of freedom, including advocates of economic freedom. That’s still true today in some other parts of the world. In Europe, “neoliberal” is an epithet for someone deemed too accommodating toward free markets. In Australia, the Liberal Party is the center-right, more pro-free-market party. So how is it that “liberal” came to refer to someone who advocates freedom in one area and government control in another? There is a specific philosophical answer to this, and that answer explains why today’s liberals are being eaten by their far-left offspring. The deepest roots of modern American “liberalism” go back to John Stuart Mill and his 1859 essay “On Liberty.” Mill was a prominent member of Britain’s Liberal Party back when it still stood for free markets, and to this day its remnant, the Liberal Democrats, use a copy of “On Liberty” as a symbol of the party’s leadership. Mill set out to make a case for liberty that was not based on “natural rights” but on utilitarianism. He starts with the principle that everyone should be allowed to do whatever he likes, so long as it doesn’t harm others: “the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.” But what constitutes a “harm”? Refusing to give someone a job? Charging “too much” rent for an apartment? Hurting someone’s feelings? To limit the concept of “harm,” Mill emphasized the difference between the private and the public, and between ideas and actions. The ideas you hold privately are nobody’s business but your own, while actions you take publicly might be harmful to others and can in principle be controlled by government. Here is how he summed up his argument: The maxims are, first, that the individual is not accountable to society for his actions, in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself. Advice, instruction, persuasion, and avoidance by other people if thought necessary by them for their own good, are the only measures by which society can justifiably express its dislike or disapprobation of his conduct. Secondly, that for such actions as are prejudicial to the interests of others, the individual is accountable, and may be subjected either to social or to legal punishment, if society is of opinion that the one or the other is requisite for its protection. Under this framework, you could still make a very compelling argument that, just as free speech leads to a more vibrant and creative society that benefits everyone in it, so do free markets—and Mill did just that. (His father, James Mill, was a classical economist influenced by Adam Smith, and he learned those lessons well.) But Mill’s main legacy was the creation of this division between intellectual freedom, which he treated as an inviolate basic principle—”over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign”—and economic freedom, which was to be defended on purely pragmatic grounds. The first kind of freedom was way more important than the second. I think you can begin to recognize this outlook. What happened next was the rise of economic theories—particularly Marxism—that argued the entire capitalist economy is a giant engine of exploitation, that it inherently consisted of people using their economic freedom to harm others. The framework created by Mill allowed the moderate left to adopt this Marxist view of the economy, but without going full totalitarian. They could agitate for control over just about everything in the economy, but they were still “liberals” because they defended free speech and political freedom and what one summary describes as “the freedom to pursue tastes (provided they do no harm to others), even if they are deemed ‘immoral.'” Free to be you and me, baby. That’s how we got the basic mid-twentieth century “liberal.” But it couldn’t and didn’t last. At the height of liberalism, in the early 1970s, Ayn Rand summed up the contradiction this way: “The liberals see man as a soul freewheeling to the farthest reaches of the universe—but wearing chains from nose to toes when he crosses the street to buy a loaf of bread.” Obviously, you can’t be both of these things at the same time. This strict separation of ideas from action, of the private from the public falls apart the moment you try to apply it to reality. What’s the point of being free to think if you’re not free to act on your thinking? And how can we say that private thinking and private preferences have no effect on others, when they clearly influence the way people act? So the liberals either had to return to the idea of individual rights that protect our freedom of action in all of life, or they had to resolve the contradiction by calling on government to regulate everything. Guess which one they chose. Just as Marxism created a whole system for finding real and imagined harms to be regulated in the realm of economics, the extension of Marxism to race and gender created a whole system for finding real and imagined harms to be regulated in the realm of ideas, behavior, and culture. It invoked a whole system of “triggers” and “microaggressions” that marginalize and exclude certain victim groups, even if the people in that system are not conscious of any intent to do so. Therefore, we have to be constantly on the lookout for the harm caused by ideas and root out all of these thought crimes. We could see the results during the controversy over the engineer fired by Google for an allegedly sexist memo questioning the assumptions behind their “diversity” initiatives. The New Republic‘s Jeet Heer tried to invoke the old rules of liberalism: “Firing people for their ideas should be opposed.” He got an earful from critics on the left, who replied that expressing one’s ideas is an act. Even holding those ideas privately is unacceptable because it inherently creates a “hostile work environment” that would be “harmful to women’s well-being.” It became clear very quickly that he was relying on an ideological framework—the framework of liberalism, going back to Mill—that his readers on the left have already rejected. With it goes liberalism’s distinction between ideas and action and its pretense of constructing some kind of special defense of intellectual freedom while controlling everything else. Hence the new regime now being established on college campuses, where professors with unimpeachable “liberal” credentials now find themselves harassed and shouted down by angry mobs and students find their every action monitored for transgressions, down to their choice of Halloween costumes. The old “liberals” wanted to dispense with individual rights so they could pursue the fantasy of setting themselves up as benevolent, all-seeing planners who would protect us from harm and order our lives to achieve the “greatest good for the greatest number.” But they wanted to do this while still thinking of themselves as the good guys, as fighters against oppression, as defenders of liberty. That is the pretense being torn down today in the suicide of liberalism. Follow Robert on Twitter. |
As in just about every other field, computers have become an essential part of biological research. Complicated algorithms and analyses that once took months of work by specialists are now available as Web services, and whole areas of study, such as genomics, can be pursued entirely in silico. But, even though most biologists know how to plug in their data and act on the output of computational tools, precious few understand the math that's going on behind the scenes, as most bioscience degree programs don't require computer science or any math more advanced than calculus. Two papers in the latest issue of Science argue that that's a bad thing. One focuses on the ability to represent the behavior of biological systems through algebraic notation, an area that's badly neglected in both science and math education. The second focuses generally on the incorporation of biology-specific math and computer science into the education system. Both assume that the lack of a math background is a serious problem. In general, as someone who has done a small bit of bioinformatics and a lot of biology, I'm the perfect target audience for this argument. But in reading the papers, I came away with the sense that the authors have lumped different arguments together in a way that confuses the real issues. So what follows is my attempt to separate them out and evaluate each issue separately. The first problem arises in the paper from Pevzner and Shamir, which treats the terms computational biology and bioinformatics as two names for the same discipline. That may be how things are commonly understood but, to me at least, these are two separate endeavors. Bioinformatics, as its name suggests, is primarily focused on the computer-aided analysis of data generated in biological systems, such as genome and gene expression array analysis. We'll get back to that later. Computational biology involves the attempt to model biological systems in silico. These models are informed by the biology, but they don't necessarily require any biological data to be fed to them in order to run. Obviously, anyone performing computational biology better have a really good grip on both biology and math/computer science, or they won't be able to know whether the models are valid and fix them if they're not. The same really doesn't apply to bioinformatics. Since there's always real, underlying biological data there, the computation and analysis can be separated—a bioinformatician can simply turn to a biologist and have them sanity-check the results. Fundamental, tool, or service So, if we accept that everyone doing computational biology better know both math and biology, that's still not evidence that regular biologists need math. Most regular biologists will end up using bioinformatics tools to align DNA sequences, pick primers, etc. So do they need to know the math behind the tools? I think to answer that, you have to understand where bioinformatics sits on what I'd call the fundamental/tool/service spectrum. For biologists, fundamentals are things like organic chemistry. All of biology ultimately depends on it, and every biologist should really know something about it—even field biologists, who will have to consider things like how diet and environmental chemicals affect the organisms they study. Bioinformatics really isn't a fundamental; knowing how certain calculations are performed won't necessarily tell you anything about biology. In fact, it's somewhere between a tool and a service. A tool is something that an average biologist will wind up using that has some biology behind it. So, for example, it's possible to use PCR to amplify DNA samples without knowing anything about what's going into the tubes used for the reactions. But it's much better if a biologist does know; the reactions behind PCR illustrate biological principles, and are essential knowledge for troubleshooting the procedure when it goes wrong (as it inevitably does). In contrast, DNA sequencing, which used to be a tool, has become a service. You put your DNA sample in the mail, and download the sequence data from an FTP account a few days later. The precise details of the actual sequencing reaction that was performed don't really matter. For the most part, bioinformatics software like those for sequence search and alignment are analogous to a service: the computer spits out a useful result, and you really don't care how it got there. If you can't get a decent result, your first response isn't to look for someone who knows math; it's to look for someone who's more proficient with the service, and knows how to tweak the input parameters. Knowing the math behind things might help with the tweaking or to appreciate the underlying biology, but it just as well might not—empirical experience can be more useful in many cases. In a worst case scenario, of course, biologists can always resort to contacting someone who has training in bioinformatics, in much the same way as a biochemist might contact an immunologist if they needed to know more about that field. That's supposed to be helpful? If bioinformatics is a service, why isn't knowing how to use something as a service good enough? The authors simply state it is without providing an explanation. "For example, biologists sometimes use bioinformatics tools in the same way that an uninformed mathematician might use a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) kit," they write, "without knowing how PCR works and without any background in biology." Presumably, we're supposed to view that as problematic, although the authors never explain why it is. The second paper, from Robeva and Laubenbacher, isn't brilliant about supporting its position, either. It's a sort of plea for education in algebraic modeling, which can apparently be used to represent biological systems. The authors make their argument by using a textbook case: the Lac operon, a gene regulation system that appears multiple times in a typical biologist's educational history, probably starting at AP bio in high school. In modeling terms, however, the Lac operon needs three equations to be described, one of which takes the form: L=k L ? L (L e )? G (G e )Q - 2?M(L)B - ? L L They point out that presenting it in Boolean terms leads to a simplified diagram that still captures the essential features of the system. Even when simplified, however, it's not obvious that the model is any more informative than the standard textbook description, which refers directly to the biology. And I'm skeptical that knowing the model would actually improve a biologists' ability to perform biological research. This probably comes across as overly harsh—to a certain extent, the authors have a valid point: the more biologists know about the tools and services that they rely on, the better off biology as a whole will be. Informed researchers are more likely to notice anomalous results and squeeze more information out of their data by better deploying existing tools. And the authors' suggestion that we design mathematics courses that will prepare biologists to solve the problems they'll ultimately face would undoubtedly produce a more appealing math education. But the same sorts of things can be said about biostatistics and physical chemistry, and it's rare to see either of those made a requirement for undergraduate degrees or doctoral programs. (The former would have been very useful at several points in my research career, and even more useful now.) If the argument is going to be made that biologists should learn more math and computer science, then those advancing it need to do a better job of explaining what, precisely, biologists need to understand about the computational tools, and why simply knowing how to use the tool isn't good enough. There's also a practical issue at play; the authors argue that these additional computation courses be added to educational programs that are already loaded with required courses. That's pretty difficult to justify, especially given the other deserving topics that are already omitted from most program requirements. In the end, the key questions are avoided in these papers: what, specifically, biologists need to learn, and how will it help them perform their primary function, namely biological research. Without that information, it's going to be impossible to actually design a course that might improve anything. Science, 2009. DOI: 10.1126/science.1173876 Science, 2009. DOI: 10.1126/science.1176016 |
Crafty guys and gals, I'd like to introduce you to a very exciting art project called A Tree Undone (also). If you can knit or crochet a leaf, you can be a part of this art installation that will be installed on the Black Rock Playa during Burning Man at the end of August. Over three thousand hand-crafted leaves will decorate the sculpture - it will be so stunning! If you can squeeze in a few minutes a week and craft up a leaf or two or 20 (there are simple patterns on the web site or you can use/make up your own), you will not only have fun creating leaves, you'll be helping an ambitious and beautiful project come to fruition! Full details on how to participate can be found on the web site I'm planning on sending in as many leaves as I can. While crafting at's house this past Saturday afternoon, I hatched a new knitting pattern too. I liked the leaf patterns that were on the site well enough, but I decided a cute veined leaf would be my contribution. So, here it is! A cute veined leaf! If you knit it in worsted weight yarn, you'll have about a 5" leaf that is reminiscent of American elm leaves Note: at the bottom of this page you'll find a great description of how to do the symmetrical double decrease (sl2, k1, p2sso). It's basically a symmetrical k3tog.Cast on 10 stsRow 1: k10, cast on 9 stsRow 2: k19Row 3: k1, m1, k7, (sl2, k1, p2sso), k7, m1, k1Row 4: p19Row 5: p9, k1, p9Row 6: k9, p1, k9Row 7: k1, m1, k7, (sl2, k1, p2sso), k7, m1, k1Row 8: p19Row 9: p9, k1, p9Row 10: k9, p1, k9Row 11: k1, m1, k7, (sl2, k1, p2sso), k7, m1, k1Row 12: p19Row 13: p9, k1, p9Row 14: k9, p1, k9Row 15: k1, m1, k7, (sl2, k1, p2sso), k7, m1, k1Row 16: p19Row 17: p9, k1, p9Row 18: k9, p1, k9Row 19: k8, (sl2, k1, p2sso), k8Row 20: p17Row 21: p8, k1, p8Row 22: k8, p1, k8Row 23: k7, (sl2, k1, p2sso), k7Row 24: p15Row 25: p7, k1, p7Row 26: k7, p1, k7Row 27: k6, (sl2, k1, p2sso), k6Row 28: p13Row 29: p6, k1, p6Row 30: k6, p1, k6Row 31: k5, (sl2, k1, p2sso), k5Row 32: p11Row 33: p5, k1, p5Row 34: k4, p3tog*, k4Row 35: k3, (sl2, k1, p2sso), k3Row 36: p7Row 37: p3, k1, p3Row 38: k2, p3tog*, k2Row 39: k1, (sl2, k1, p2sso), k1Row 40: p3Row 41: k3togIf you are making your leaf for the Tree Undone project, DON'T TIE THEM OFF! The leaves are going to be unraveled. Read the site for more info *if you wish to try and make the p3tog a symmetrical double decrease - slip 2 purlwise at the same time, purl the next stitch then pass the two slipped stitches over the purled stitch and off the needles. If the whole make-the-p3tog-symmetrical process gives you the hives, don't worry about it! Your leaf will be cute even if the vein is a little wonky and non-symmetrical. |
Animation Festivals 2018 (Part 1, January – June) Animocje International Animated Film Festival (10th – 15th April), Poland Submission Deadline: 15th January 2018 Submission Fee: Free Films can be submitted by: Art and film schools, Production companies, Film institutions, Independent film-makers, Other groups interested in film-making holding the distribution rights to a specific film Films can be made in any technique (but at least 50% has to be animated), with a running time not exceeding 25 minutes. Categories: International Competition for the Bydgoszcz Award for the Best Animated Film, The Newest Polish Films Competition, Children’s Films Competition for Polish and foreign films made 2016-2018 Official Website Anifilm, International Festival of Animated Films (1st – 6th May 2018), Czech Republic Submission Deadline: 15th January 2018 Submission Fee: Free Categories: Student Film, Feature Film, Short, Video Game, Abstract and non-narrative animation Official Website Animex International Festival of Animation and Computer Games (14th to 18th May 2018), U.K. Submission Deadline: 22nd January 2018 Submission Fee: Free INTERNATIONAL CATEGORIES: STUDENT – CGI Animation Award, Visual Effects Award, 2D Animation Award, Character Animation Award, Narrative Award, Stop-motion Animation Award, Experimental Animation Award Official Website International Animation Film Festival (IAFF) – GOLDEN KUKER SOFIA (7th to 13th May 2018), Bulgaria Submission Deadline: 31st January 2018 Submission Fee: Free Categories: Short Film (1 minute, up to 10 minutes, 10-45 minutes), Feature Film (over 45 minutes), Student, Music Video, Animated Advertisement Official Website Animafest Zagreb (4th to 9th June 2018), Croatia Submission Deadline: 1st February 2018 (only films finished after 1st January 2017 are elegible) Submission Fee: Free Categories: Short Films, Feature Films, Student Films, Films for Children, Croatian Films Official Website Florida Animation Festival (13th to 17th June 2018), Florida, U.S.A. Submission Deadline: 15th February 2018 Submission Fee: Free Categories (Films must be up to 10 minutes in each category): Entirely computer-generated CGI/3D, Entirely 2D/vector based animation, Entirely traditional/frame by frame animation, Entirely stop-motion animation, Mixed media/experimental, VFX Official Website Annecy (11th to 16th June 2018), France Submission Deadline: 15th February 2018, 15th March (for Feature Films) Submission Fee: Free Categories: Short films, Graduation films, TV films, Commissioned films Official Website ANIMATOR: International Animated Film Festival (6th to 12 July 2018), Poland Submission Deadline: 20th February 2018 Submission Fee: Free Categories: Short Films, Feature Films Official Website Fest Anča International Animation Festival (28th June to 1st July 2018), Slovakia Submission Deadline: 20th February 2018 Submission Fee: Free Categories: Short Film, Student Short Film, Animated Music Video, Films for Children, Slovak Films Official Website Lanterna Mágica – International Animation Festival (22nd to 27th May 2018), Brazil Submission Deadline: 26th February 2018 Submission Fee: Free Categories: Short films with a maximum duration of 25 minutes and feature films lasting at least 50 minutes Official Website Countryside Animafest Cyprus (17th to 21st July 2018), Cyprus Submission Deadline: 28th February 2018 Submission Fee: Free Categories: Short Films Official Website SUPERTOON International Animation Festival (22nd to 27th July 2018), Croatia Submission Deadline: 1st March 2018 Submission Fee: Free Categories: Short Animated Films, Student Short Animated Films, Animated Films for Children, Animated Music Videos, Animated commissioned films Festival’s submissions are open to films applying all animation techniques, including combinations with live action and documentary. Over 50% of the production must be animated, and the Festival reserves the right to determine whether an entry qualifies as animation. Films should be completed after 1 January 2016. Films entered for previous festival will not be taken into consideration. Official Website ANIMAYO: International Film Festival of Animation, Visual Effects & Video Games (30th April to 5th May 2018), Spain Submission Deadline: 1st March 2018 Submission Fee: Free Categories: 2d animation, 3d animation,special effects, experimental, advertising, animation spots, videoclips, video games cinematic, special effects series and animation series Official Website Animaphix – International Animated Film Festival (26th to 29th July 2018), Italy Submission Deadline: 10th April 2018 Submission Fee: Free Categories: Films up to 20 minues Offficial Website NAFF: Neum Animated Film Festival (30th June to 6th July), Bosnia and Herzegovina Submission Deadline: 15th April 2018 Submission Fee: Free Categories: (all films must be up to 15 minutes long); 2D, 3D, Stop-motion puppet or clay, Student Films Official Website Anibar Animation Festival (13th to 19th August) Kosovo Submission Deadline: 30th April 2018 Submission Fee: Free Categories: Feature Film, Student, Music Video Official Website Ottawa International Animation Festival (19th to 23 September 2018), Canada Submission Deadline: 15th May 2018 Submission Fee: Free Categories: Feature Film, Student Film Official Website Fantoche International Animation Film Festival (4th to 9th September 2018), Switzerland Submission Deadline: 18th May 2018 Submission Fee: Free Categories: Animated shorts completed after 31 March 2017 that last no longer than 40 minutes Official Website ANIMA – Córdoba International Animation Festival (9th to 12th October 2018) Submission Deadline: 30th May 2018 Submission Fee: Free Categories: Feature and medium length animation, Short films: Fiction; Documentary; Non-narrative / Abstract, Commissioned Animation: TV / Internet series; TV / Internet Specials; Music Video; Videogame animation; Promotional / Advertising Animation; Motion Graphics Official Website Imaginaria – International Animated Film Festival (21st to 25th August 2018), Italy Submission Deadline: 31st May 2018 Submission Fee: Free Categories: Feature Films, Short Films, Children Films, Student Films Official Website anim’est (28th September to 7th October 2018), Romania Submission Deadline: 20th June 2018 Submission Fee: Free Categories: Short film – less than 50’, Feature film – more than 50’, Music video, Student film, Romanian Short Film Official Website |
The head of Ukraine's state TV company has been attacked and forced to resign by at least three MPs from the far-right Svoboda party. CRIMEA has fallen. Ukraine is teetering on the brink. Are Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania the next dominoes to fall? Russian officials last night expressed ‘outrage’ at Estonia’s treatment of its large ethnic Russian minority. It’s a familiar move: The Kremlin defended its seizing of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine a month ago with the pretext it has the right to protect Russian-speakers outside its borders. It’s by no means the first time this excuse has been heard. Nearly 80 years ago, Germany began its annexation of nearby states with the widely broadcast notion of protecting marginalised German-language speakers. Russia is now adopting the same line towards ex-members of the Soviet Union. A Moscow diplomat told a United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva last night that the language policy in the Baltic state of Estonia was comparable to what had caused it to move on Crimea — a move to prevent the use of the Russian tongue. The tactic is as fearful as it is familiar. In the 1930s Adolf Hitler asserted the desire to ‘unite and protect’ all German speaking peoples. For much of the decade, the West turned a blind eye. Then, as now, the problem was not all of these states wanted to be united — or protected. As the Crimea crisis continues to flare, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — which, like Ukraine, were all parts of the old Soviet Union — have expressed growing apprehension over Moscow’s intentions. Overnight, a Moscow diplomat told the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva: “Language should not be used to segregate and isolate groups … (Russia is) “concerned by steps taken in this regard in Estonia as well as in Ukraine.” RELATED: Russia “Gravest threat since the Cold War” This has done nothing to ease Estonia’s anxiety. Nor has unusually strong words from the United States Vice President Joe Biden while visiting Lithuania overnight: “We’re in this with you, together,’’ Biden said…. “Russia cannot escape the fact that the world is changing and rejecting outright their behaviour.” He went so far as to add: “Under Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, we will respond, we will respond to any aggression against a NATO ally. WILL WE HEAR THE ‘W’ WORD? The tough talk doesn’t end with Biden. Even as Ukraine surrenders any hope of retaining control of Crimea through ordering withdrawal of all its remaining troops, NATO has ramped up the rhetoric. “Our major concern right now is whether he (President Vladimir Putin) will go beyond Crimea, whether Russia will intervene in the eastern parts (of Ukraine),’’ NATO’s Secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen said this morning. Denouncing the moves in the Crimean peninsula as “military aggression’’, Rasmussen said Russia’s actions were part of a long-running pattern across the region to block nations from forging ties with the West. “If you look at all of this, you will see an overall Russian strategy,’’ he told an audience at the Brookings Institution think tank. “It serves their long-term strategic interests to keep instability in that region which can be used, among other things, to prevent countries in that region seeking euro-Atlantic integration. “That’s my main concern.’’ President Obama, however, appears to be playing the appeaser. In an interview with NBC News he reiterated that the US would not be taking military action in Ukraine against Russia. “We are not going to get into a military excursion in Ukraine,” he said. “For us to engage Russia militarily would not be appropriate and would not be good for Ukraine, either”. But the NATO chief said he expected alliance ministers to agree to bolstering assistance to Ukraine at an upcoming meeting but he did not specify what kind of aid might be approved. Ukraine has offered a hint: It is saying it will soon hold “joint military exercises” with the United States and Britain. US officials have said they are reviewing a request from Kiev for military support, including arms, ammunition and non-lethal equipment. WAR OF WORDS HEATS UP Renewed Russian threats over racial vilification are raising tensions in the Ukraine even higher. Earlier this week a pro-Putin newspaper said the chance for “bloodshed almost like in Syria” was high in the east of Ukraine. Ukraine has rejected the notion. Its ambassador told the UN human rights council that it had found no credible evidence of mistreatment of its Russian minority It retorted by asking for assurances against minority groups in Crimea, such as the Muslim Tartars and Ukrainian communities. Russia’s rhetoric has revived talk of the Cold-War era “Domino theory”. The reasoning went that as one country fell under communist influence or control, its neighbouring countries would soon follow. Preventing this topple-down effect was the cause for the military intervention of the United States in Korea and Vietnam. It was a theory born from the ashes of World War II, and the policies of appeasement that had led to it. Given the lack of vigour in the West’s reaction to the invasion of Crimea, many of the smaller former Soviet Union states now feel powerless as Putin begins to invoke the propaganda of history, language and culture (all from his perspective) as ‘cause for concern’ over their affairs. CULTURAL MELTING POTS The history of Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are messy as the modern states have always been on the border of two worlds. Two thousand years ago the region was the frontline between the Roman Empire and the ‘barbarian hordes’ Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have been fought over by the Danish, Swedes, Germans and Russians for centuries. In the medieval era, the Teutonic Knights — German warrior-monks — sought to claim the Baltic coast for Christianity and expel the heathen tribes. Estonia was seized by the USSR in 1940 and only regained its independence in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In recent decades, all three Baltic-coast states have joined NATO and sought to join the European Union. Ukraine is a slightly different story. In medieval times the region was a loose association of Poles, Lithuanians and Romanians who blended with scattered remnants of the Mongol and Tartar “Golden Horde”. Russia was only added to the mix when it joined Ukrainian ‘freedom fighters’ to expel their ‘Polish overlords’ in 1795. Now, Ukraine is made up of about 30 million Ukrainian speakers and 15 million Russian speakers. The main religion is Orthodox (15 million followers), with a sizeable chunk of Catholics (2.5 million). Unlike its northern neighbours, it has until recently maintained close and friendly contact with its former Russian overlords. But the recent overthrow of the corrupt Yanukovych government saw Russia lose the last vestiges of its Soviet Union-era influence over the strategic and beautiful region. President Putin simply could not put up with that. Thus the Crimean ‘velvet invasion’. |
(Pasta fagioli with meat) Pasta fagioli is traditionally meant to be a simple meatless dish of pasta and beans, but our society's obsession with fancy foods laden with meat sauces has made this version of the dish a staple at many tables…and restaurants. American cuisine (and franchise "Italian" restaurants like Olive Garden) has mutated it into a variation of the pasta-and-sauce dish we're all familiar with. This recipe for pasta e fagioli is based upon one that's been floating around on various Web sites. It claims to be an Olive Garden imitation recipe, and it has a lot of positive comments from people who tried it: www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/524/Olive_Garden_Pasta_E_Fagioli35471.shtml So, I gathered the ingredients together and began building it…but as I studied the recipe, I kept thinking, "Wait a minute. I could do better than this!" I'm not being egotistical when I say that, either – some of the ingredients smacked of the typical, everyday recipes you see on Web sites all over the place. Essentially, it was a typical combination of ground beef and tomato sauce, with some additional vegetables added…but adding insult to injury, the original recipe also had "48 ounces spaghetti sauce" as an ingredient in addition to 48 ounces of canned, diced tomatoes. What's more, the recipe listed "8 ounces pasta" at the very end, after providing the ingredients for a full gallon of pasta sauce. Oh, come ON now! If you have a family recipe for pasta sauce, then you could improve on this thing. And so I took a chance, and changed it around to make it more like my own family recipe for Italian pasta sauce. (Also, I found out I was out of ground beef at that time, so I had to make do with other meats.) As a result, my take on this recipe turned out to be simpler in preparation, even if the ingredients were a bit more elaborate: Pots needed: 2 (large enameled pot for the sauce at least 8 quarts or larger, plus a large stock pot for boiling the pasta) 2 pounds country-style pork ribs 1 pound Italian sausage, sweet 4 28-ounce cans diced or crushed tomatoes 3 tablespoons oregano 2 teaspoons garlic powder 2 teaspoons kosher salt 2 medium onions, chopped 4 medium carrots, sliced 4 ribs celery, diced 2 cups cooked red kidney beans 2 cups cooked white kidney beans 1 32-ounce carton beef stock 5 teaspoons parsley 2 1/2 teaspoons ground pepper 1 1/2 teaspoons Sriracha or other hot sauce 2 pounds dry shell pasta, or other small pasta, uncooked The sauce is easy: in an enameled pot of at least 8 quart size or larger, slice up the pork and sausage into medium-small slices, add them to the pot, and pour the tomatoes on top. (You don't have to brown or sear the meat in advance, because it's going to slow-cook in the sauce to the point where it falls apart.) Add oregano, garlic, and salt to the sauce. Chop up the onions, carrots, and celery, and mix them into the sauce. Drain the red and white kidney beans and add them to the pot. Add beef stock, parsley, ground pepper, and hot sauce. Mix it all together. Bring the pot of sauce to a low boil, then lower the heat and simmer. Cover the pot, and let it simmer for at least three to four hours. This will thoroughly cook the meat and vegetables. The pork will come apart completely and dissolve into the sauce. When the stew is ready to serve, prepare your pasta. Add plenty of salt to the water, at least one tablespoon for every two quarts of water (so that an 8-quart pot uses 4 tablespoons of salt). Do not add oil to the water; you'll want your pasta to stick to the sauce. Bring the water to a heavy roiling boil, then stir in pasta. Cook pasta until al dente (just soft enough to eat without being chewy). Drain the pasta in a colander. Mix the pasta directly from the colander in with the stew, and serve. |
“Stormin’ Norman,” as headlines proclaimed him, was lionized by millions of euphoric Americans who, until weeks earlier, had never heard of him. President George Bush, whose popularity soared with the war, gave him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Congress gave him standing ovations. Queen Elizabeth II made him an honorary knight. European and Asian nations conferred lavish honors. In his desert fatigues, he was interviewed on television, featured on magazine covers and feted at celebrations in Tampa, Washington and other cities. He led the Pegasus Parade at the Kentucky Derby in Louisville and was the superstar at the Indianapolis 500. Florida Republicans urged him to run for the United States Senate. Amid speculation about his future, a movement to draft him for president arose. He insisted he had no presidential aspirations, but Time magazine quoted him as saying he someday “might be able to find a sense of self-fulfillment serving my country in the political arena,” and he told Barbara Walters on the ABC News program “20/20” that he would not rule out a White House run. Within weeks, the four-star general had become a media and marketing phenomenon. Three months after the war, he signed a $5 million contract with Bantam Books for the world rights to his memoirs, “It Doesn’t Take a Hero,” written with Peter Petre and published in 1992. Herbert Mitgang, reviewing the book for The New York Times, called it a serviceable first draft of history. “General Schwarzkopf,” he wrote, “comes across as a strong professional soldier, a Patton with a conscience.” All but drowned out in the surge of approbation, critics noted that the general’s enormous air, sea and land forces had overwhelmed a country with a gross national product equivalent to North Dakota’s, and that while Iraq’s bridges, dams and power plants had been all but obliterated and tens of thousands of its troops killed (compared with a few hundred allied casualties), Saddam Hussein had been left in power. Postwar books, news reports and documentaries — a flood of information the general had restricted during the war — showed that most of Iraq’s elite Republican Guard, whose destruction had been a goal of war planners, had escaped from an ill-coordinated Marine and Army assault, and had not been pursued because of President Bush’s decision to halt the ground war after 100 hours. “The Generals’ War: The Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf” (1995), by Michael R. Gordon of The New York Times and the retired general Bernard E. Trainor, portrayed a White House rushed into ending the war prematurely by unrealistic fears of being criticized for killing too many Iraqis and by ignorance of events on the ground. It cast General Schwarzkopf as a second-rate commander who took credit for allied successes, blamed others for his mistakes and shouted at, but did not effectively control, his field commanders as the Republican Guard slipped away. Advertisement Continue reading the main story He was depicted more sympathetically in other books, including “In the Eye of the Storm” (1991), by Roger Cohen and Claudio Gatti. “His swift triumph over Iraq in the 1991 gulf war came as a shock to a nation that had been battered, by failing industries and festering economic problems, into a sense that the century of its power was at an end,” they wrote. “Schwarzkopf appeared abruptly as an intensely human messenger of hope, however illusory or fragile.” Old official photographs show a medaled military mannequin, a 6-foot-3-inch 240-pounder with grim determined eyes. But they miss the gentler man who listened to Pavarotti, Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan; who loved hunting, fishing and ballet; and, like any soldier, called home twice a week from the war zone. Herbert Norman Schwarzkopf Jr. was born on Aug. 22, 1934, in Trenton, one of three children of the man whose name he shared and the former Ruth Bowman. At 18, he dropped the Jr. and his first name but kept the initial. His father, New Jersey’s first state police superintendent, investigated the 1932 Lindbergh kidnapping; he was also a West Point graduate, fought in World Wars I and II, became a major general and trained Iran’s national police in the 1940s. As a boy, General Schwarzkopf attended Bordentown Military Institute near Trenton. But from 1946 to 1950 he lived in Iran, Switzerland, Germany and Italy with his father. Fluent in French and German at 17, he enrolled at Valley Forge Military Academy in Wayne, Pa., played football and was a champion debater. Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. At West Point, he was on the football and wrestling teams and sang in the choir. He loved history and dreamed of leading men in battle. “He saw himself as Alexander the Great,” recalled Gen. Leroy Suddath, his old roommate, “and we didn’t laugh when he said it.” In 1956, he graduated 43rd in a class of 480. After infantry and airborne training at Fort Benning, Ga., he served two years with airborne units in America and Europe, took a two-year assignment in Berlin and a career-officer course at Fort Benning, then earned a master’s in guided-missile engineering in 1964 from the University of Southern California. Captain Schwarzkopf went to Vietnam as an adviser to a South Vietnamese airborne division in 1965 and once withstood a 10-day enemy siege. He returned a major in 1966, taught at West Point for two years, and as a lieutenant colonel attended the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. In 1968 he married Brenda Holsinger. They had three children: Cynthia, Jessica and Christian. A battalion commander in his second Vietnam tour, in 1969-70, he was wounded twice and won three Silver Stars for bravery. Men in his command were killed in two 1970 actions that deeply affected him. On Feb. 18, an artillery shell aimed at the enemy roared over a hill where one of his companies was dug in. It hit a treetop and exploded, killing Sgt. Michael E. Mullen. Form letters sent over the colonel’s name seemed to implicate him, and the sergeant’s parents held him partly responsible as they crusaded to expose military callousness. The case became an antiwar cause célèbre and tarnished the colonel’s record, perhaps unjustly. A 1976 book, “Friendly Fire,” by C. D. B. Bryan, called the death accidental, but a 1995 memoir by the sergeant’s mother, “Unfriendly Fire,” blamed the military. Advertisement Continue reading the main story On May 28, the colonel ordered his helicopter down to rescue troops who had wandered into a minefield. Some were airlifted out, but he stayed behind with his troops. A soldier tripped a mine, shattering his leg and wounding the colonel, who crawled atop the thrashing victim to stop him from setting off more mines. Three other troopers were killed by an exploding mine, but the colonel led the survivors to safety. The episode sealed his reputation as a commander willing to risk his life for his men. He came home dismayed at the Army’s leadership and convinced that the peace movement and the news media were prolonging the war. One of his sisters, Ms. Barenbaum, had become a peace activist, and for years they did not speak. He later concluded that politicians had lost the war, and the failure, at a cost of 58,000 American lives, left him devastated. For a time, he considered resigning his commission. His decision to stay in the service came at a military nadir for America. As historians have noted, the Army during and after Vietnam fell into decay — a conscript force rife with racial antagonisms, drug abuse and disciplinary failures. Soldiers were disillusioned, the uniform seemed tarnished in a nation that no longer cared, and once proud traditions had given way to progress measured by infamous “body counts.” But in the late ‘70s and the ‘80s, reforms in recruitment, living conditions, planning, training and leadership restored much of what had been lost: self-respect and professionalism in an all-volunteer service. He became a colonel in 1975, a brigadier general in 1978, a major general in 1982 and a lieutenant general in 1986. He moved from personnel and planning to brigade posts in Alaska and Washington State, from the Pacific Command in Hawaii to a division in Europe and back to Washington in charge of personnel. In 1983, while assigned to an elite tank division at Fort Stewart, Ga., he was tapped to coordinate the task force that invaded Grenada. Revolutionaries had staged a coup, killed the prime minister and, with Cuban aid, were building an airfield, purportedly to supply Latin American insurgents. It was also feared that American medical students on the island might become hostages. Operation Urgent Fury suppressed the rebels, restored order and brought the students home safely. In 1988, General Schwarzkopf was given his fourth star and named commander of the United States Central Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, supervising military activities in 19 countries in the Middle East, the Horn of Africa and the Persian Gulf. He developed contingency plans for war in Iraq, and two years later they were needed. On Aug. 2, 1990, Iraqi forces occupied Kuwait. General Schwarzkopf moved his headquarters to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and amassed hundreds of ships, thousands of aircraft and 765,000 allied troops, including 540,000 Americans and large Arab contingents under Prince Khaled bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia, who was co-commander in the gulf war. A trade embargo and warnings failed to force an Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait, and after a deadline passed on Jan. 15, 1991, the world’s first heavily televised war began. Audiences saw live missiles striking targets and fighters taking off from aircraft carriers. Cable news delivered continuous reports, and networks anchored newscasts from Baghdad. In Riyadh, General Schwarzkopf controlled the flow of information in briefings. Some reporters were allowed into the field, subject to military supervision and censorship. The result was a dramatic war — and a highly visible commander in fatigues. The ground war was over in a few days, thanks to what he called his “left hook” strategy, in which he placed forces behind enemy lines for a swift, decisive strike. Advertisement Continue reading the main story The general supported Mr. Bush’s presidential campaigns in 2000 and 2004 and Senator John McCain’s 2008 race against Senator Barack Obama, but he never ran for political office. |
There has been much scaremongering about the scale of job losses were the UK to leave the EU. The reality, especially in the small business sector, is very different. Nigel Moore runs a specialised technical consultancy business and has experienced considerable frustrations when competing for business within the public sector, thanks to EU legislation. Nigel writes:- Purchasing by the Public Sector and applicable privatised industry (utilities, transport and postal services) from, in Euospeak, economic operators (aka private sector etc.) has to comply with EU procurement directives (laws). These rules are intended to standardise purchasing (or procurement) practices in the EU and open up the markets; they are enacted into UK law above defined thresholds. Custom and practice, and successive UK governments have tended to ‘gold plate’ implementation with restrictive interpretations and some extension below the EU mandated thresholds. EU procurement legislation and its’ impact is a complex and somewhat esoteric field, with the lawmakers far removed from the purchasing ‘front line’ and consequently the detrimental effects go largely unreported. Also changes to the rules only occur when the EU Commission wills it and involves considerable time delay (years) as all member states are involved. The EU rules mandate the procurement process that must be followed by the buying organisation. The rules include requirements for: advertising for potential suppliers (tenderers) in the European Journal; following defined timescales; how the goods or services required are described and specified; how suppliers are pre-qualified before being invited to submit tenders; how these tenders are evaluated (for technical and commercial compliance); how contracts are awarded; and rights of appeal by unsuccessful tenderers (potential suppliers). Under the rules, purchasing is an involved, time consuming process. If an apparent mistake is made, an unsuccessful tenderer can appeal ultimately as far as the European Court of Justice, which has developed a considerable body of case law. Recent changes are in the pipeline for procurement legislation but it is too earlier to say what user and business friendly effects they will actually produce. Pity then the buyers involved with this process and the potential suppliers. Much of their time is spent carefully following the process including regulations and case law, and is unproductive because it does not improve the actual purchase; for buyers this includes processing unsuccessful potential suppliers and their tenders or, for potential suppliers, trying to bid for work that ultimately they don’t win or even pre-qualify. Buyers often reduce the number of businesses invited to tender by pre-qualification using comprehensive questionnaires. Consequently good potential suppliers, usually smaller businesses, are often excluded using somewhat arbitrary criteria not necessarily related to carrying out the contract before they know exactly what the work is. And pre-qualification tends to be in secret so potential suppliers may never know why they are not being invited to tender. Utilities can also use a pre-qualification scheme to identify potential suppliers to invite to tender instead of advertising details of the prospective purchase. Not helpful to suppliers; you don’t know what work is coming up, when or how tenderers will be selected to tender. Having been selected to tender, potential suppliers are all then deemed equally capable of carrying out the work, to the required standard, even if during tender evaluation, under greater scrutiny, the opposite is indicated. It is also common cut down how often buyers place new contracts by aggregating small purchases into single larger framework contracts or agreements that will run for several years. Sometimes the purchases have little in common. These frameworks tend to be only suitable for larger businesses offering a wide range of goods or services, and exclude the smaller, specialist or innovative businesses. Until recently trying to provide access to smaller businesses by dividing up contracts into smaller lots was prohibited. Sometimes a larger company has overall higher costs, and not the specialised skills required to cover everything required; the system then rewards some less ethical practices like exaggerating capabilities. In this country, in compliance with the EU rules, award of a contract to a compliant tenderer has tended to be based largely on lowest purchase cost. Consequently, you get the minimum of what you’ve asked for, not something better (there is no way to evaluate it) and probably some contractual arguments later. Socio-economic factors, like closure of a local factory (as happened in Derby over train manufacture) or loss of expertise or career opportunities are not considered (although actually allowed). As a small specialised technical consultancy we have direct experience of Public Sector and utility (transport) procurement over many years. We also discovered that the struggles we faced were replicated elsewhere in the Public Sector for small businesses trying to win work. And it was a fruitless task trying to get anyone interested in the difficulties. It is very disheartening after working hard on the most difficult work, having done everything the Client wanted and then to know we will never have a chance of competing to get more work; framework agreements now being place. In some cases we knew well who would be doing the work and how we could, if allowed to, have done a much better job at lower cost. Yet we could very successfully compete overseas. Obviously shutting down much of the economy to real competition and innovation carries costs, not least that many small innovative businesses struggle to be viable, or may never start in the first place; so there are knock-on effects far removed from the EU procurement legislation, which itself costs the Public Sector far more than it should in running EU compliant procurement processes. The EU procurement rules create a playing field tipped heavily towards big businesses that excludes smaller and innovative businesses from much potential work that they could carry out. Further, they are complex, esoteric, slow, time and resource wasting and create avoidable stress for all those involved. Of course we could do better in devising more streamlined mainstream Public Sector procurement, for example, taking out 70-80% of the workload, which facilitates transparency, fairness, innovation, encourages entrepreneurial businesses and reduces risks. Procurement people get excited when they see what can be done. The bureaucratic nature of EU legislation does not operate in the best interests of the UK’s vital small business sector. It is hardly surprising that many people in Nigel’s position support our withdrawal from the EU. As the recent Global Britain/Democracy Movement report “The Scaremongers” shows, remaining within the EU, rather than withdrawing from it, is the biggest threat to UK employment. Photo by Eoghan OLionnain |
Asylum seeker Reza Barati was killed during a riot in the Manus Island detention centre on February 17. Credit:Kate Geraghty In the brutal violence, another asylum seeker also had his throat slit, Mr Morrison confirmed, saying he was lucky to be alive today. Mr Morrison said recommendations made by the head of Operation Sovereign Borders, Lieutenant General Angus Campbell, for better fencing, CCTV footage and lighting at Manus Island's detention centre had not been implemented by February, despite the minister asking for the improvements in November. "There were actions taken over many months to try to mitigate against an event of this nature," he said. "We took every action we could as quickly as we could. But it is my great regret that some of those actions weren't able to be implemented in time. "I'm frustrated that that the lighting and the CCTV and the fencing was not in place at that time. It was in the process of being done. I'd authorised that in late November. The previous government had been advised of that and had done absolutely nothing." He added the report by former senior public servant Robert Cornall did not attribute the riots to any single cause but rather a combination of issues. Mr Morrison said there were numerous attacks on Mr Barati, 23, including him being beaten by a Salvation Army worker, before being kicked by a G4S security contractor and "other individuals" who also smashed a rock into his head. "Now these are terrible acts and there is no suggestion that this was a proportionate response to the events," he said. The report has made 13 recommendations including to support Papua New Guinea's investigations into the violence, to assist Transfield in providing welfare to asylum seekers and to better inform asylum seekers of their refugee status determination. Crucially, the report said that the two most important things to avoid such violence again were to prevent the tension from allowing to build to "a dangerous level" and to ensure the security infrastructure such as fencing was improved. The report stated that tension had been building in the centre because the asylum seekers were angry about being brought to PNG and also about the lack of information they were being given about their futures. There were also racial tensions between them and the locally-employed guards. This tension "reached a flashpoint" after a meeting between community leaders among the detainees and centre staff including immigration officials from PNG and Australia. "The transferees felt that, after waiting for 12 days, they were given no new information at the Sunday meeting and that their questions had not been satisfactorily answered," the report said. On the first night of the violence, an asylum seeker was attacked "from behind" by an unidentified local G4S guard who slashed his throat, causing a 10 to 12 centimetre "gaping wound". Mr Morrison said the man was lucky to be alive and was saved only by the fact that the blade hit no major blood vessel. On the second night of violence – the night in which Mr Barati was killed – the G4S incident response teams "worked as hard as they could". But the team holding the main line at Mike compound was forced to pull back, after which the PNG police mobile squad went in, followed by guards and locals. "After the IRT left and without any warning to or arrangement with G4S, the mobile squad pushed over the fence and entered Mike," the report states. "The review was told that PNG nationals and a few expatriates, some identified as service provider employees, followed the mobile squad into Mike compound and started bashing transferees," the report states. It says the initial attack on Mr Barati was led by a PNG local worker for the Salvation Army, according to an eyewitness who said other witnesses could corroborate his version. The identity of the Salvation Army worker is known to authorities. The witness said the worker hit Mr Barati twice from behind "with a very long stick". More than 10 other guards and workers kicked Mr Barati in the head as he lay on the ground. Then a PNG local guard hit him on the head with "a very big stone", the witness said. Loading Follow us on Twitter |
Remember Health Mello? He’s the Democrat who ran in Omaha, Nebraska’s mayoral race that voted for a sonogram bill when he was a member of the state legislature. It caused great heartburn for the Left, who are going through an identity crisis over whether to be a pure pro-abortion party, or accept that in some races—you might have to back a pro-life Democrat to win. Pro-life Democrats make up a sizable chunk, around 25 percent, of the Democratic Party. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) supported Mello’s candidacy, which irked his progressive following, though the darling of the Left said in order to protect a woman’s access to abortion—Democrats need to win again. That hasn’t happened yet. RESIST: Dems go 0/4 in special elections targeting Republicans (all in blue states) since Trump's November victory.https://t.co/MZnRBnMHf0 — Guy Benson (@guypbenson) March 3, 2017 In the era of rambunctious town halls and left wing grassroots energy, you would think the Indivisible crowd would, you know—win some elections. They haven’t. Mello lost the mayoral race Tuesday, marking zero wins Democrats have racked up so far in the Trump era. This loss is just another reminder to the left that their messaging is, well—too nutty for most of Middle America (via AP): Democrats again fell just short in a closely-watched election as Heath Mello lost the Omaha mayoral race on Tuesday after a fierce debate within the national party over his anti-abortion views. His loss was a setback for supporters who argued that the Democratic National Committee and abortion rights groups were wrong to attack the anti-abortion former state senator. It was also another near miss for Democrats fighting in typically Republican territory since Donald Trump’s presidential election victory. Democrats lost a special election for a House seat in Kansas and narrowly missed an outright win in a special election in Georgia. Mello, a 37-year-old Catholic from Omaha’s working-class south side, had become a flashpoint for the internal Democratic battle over whether a candidate’s position on reproductive rights should disqualify him from support by the national party after its crushing losses around the country last year. Tuesday, Mello acknowledged the “completely different dynamic” the campaign took on in the closing weeks, but noted what he described as unified support across ideological lines. Well, obviously not since you lost, Mello. Republican Jean Stothert was re-elected to a second term. |
Evolutionary vs. Revolutionary Belief systems in the world can clearly be classified into 3 kinds. First , are the pagan practices like Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Babylonian et al. These were eclectic and evolutionary religions with many layers and differences. Of all these evolutionary religions, none exist today. Then came the second layer of religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam. These religions had an individual agent of change – and these religions trace their birth, growth and existence to that one individual (and his followers). These were reform religions – a response to oppression and exploitation in the respective societies. I am not including Zoroastrianism and Baha’i religions as these have minor followings (mostly in India). Third is the dharmic system of India. Unlike the Desert Bloc, India did not have religions. What the West recognizes as Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism are non-unitary systems. Jains recognize 24 Tirthankaras and the Buddhists have more than a 100 Bodhisattva. These more than 100 preachers were at the forefront of anti-slavery crusade between 2000BC and 500BC. Indic rulers (like The Hittites, Mittanis and the Elamites) confronted and had to compete with slave owning Asura societies – especially in the Middle East. Religion Historically, India had no religions. Modern religions are a construct of the Middle East – and given birth to the 3 major religions of the world. Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In India, the belief structure centres around Dharma – धर्म. The difference between dharma and religion? Major! For one, religion is about worship. There are many other differences also – in method of worship (how you worship), object of worship (what you worship), frequency of worship (e.g. every Sabbath; five times a day), language of worship (what you say, in which language), etc. The cornerstones of modern religions from the Desert Bloc are One God, One Book, One Holy Day, One Prophet (Messiah), One Race, One People, One Country, One Authority, One Law, One Currency, One Set of Festival are the root of most problems in the world. From this Oneness, we get the One Currency, One Language logic – a fallacious syllogism. Once you accept One, you will accept all others. Indian worship practices are infinite. Even non-worship to is acceptable – for instance, the Charvaka school of Indian philosophy was atheistic and did not prescribe worship. Structure and deviation from worship practices are a non-issue in Indian dharmic structure. Dharma has no equivalent in the ‘Desert Bloc’ vocabulary of religions. Dharma is the path of righteousness, defined by a matrix of the contextual, existential, moral, pragmatic, professional, position, etc. Dharma is more than moral and ethics. The really big difference is the holy books – Judaism, Christianity and Islam have one Holy Book each. No deviations. Indian dharma tradition has thousands which are more than 1000 years old – at last count. The Desert Religions Judaism, Christianity, Islam were all born within 500 miles of each other and share a common culture and history. Judaism can be said to have been born when Moses led the Hebrew slaves from the Pharoah (across the Red Sea) – to ‘freedom’, that is ‘free’ to enslave other peoples. This possibly happened around 500 BC at the latest to 1500 BC at the earliest. His earliest followers were the Hebrews and they were a significant part of the Middle Eastern history all through till today. The very same Hebrews and Jews continued with slavery. The next major religious reformer in the Middle East was Jesus Christ. For the first 300 years, Roman slaves were the major believers in his teachings. Emperor Constantine earned the loyalty of his Christian troops and won the war for Roman throne by his win over Maxentius at Milvan Bridge. Prior to Maxentius, for the previous 30-40 years, Christians had been persecuted by “rule of four’ Tetrarchy reformists in Rome, headed by Diocletan. Hence, the Christian slave soldiers of Constantine were eager for victory – as the persecution under Maxentius would have been worse. Yet the biggest users of slaves in history has been the Western Christian world – especially from 1500-1900. Liberated slaves were the founders and rulers of Islamic dynasties, (in India, the Slave dynasty – builders of Qutub minar). Thus all the three “desert religions” were first adopted by the slaves and only after gaining significant numbers of adherents, these religions became mainstream and commenced militant proselytising, conversions – and enslavement. Slave Religions Promote Slavery The 3 ‘desert religions’ instead of reforming slave societies, just enabled the transfer of slave titles. Freedom meant old slaves became the new slave masters. Slavery (capture, kidnap, sequestration, transport, trade and transfer, re-capture of human beings) continued in the “desert bloc” till the 20th century. When the followers of Mani (a teacher of Buddhist and Christian teachings) were encouraging the slaves to revolt and declare themselves free, administrators of the teachings of the “Lord of lords, and King of kings.” (Revelation 17: 14) at the Council Of Gangra, 325 AD, approved of slavery. Arabs slave traders were active in Congo – till they were replaced by Europeans. Whats Going On Here ‘Caste systems’ (by different names) are prevalent all over the world, in all societies, based on colour, race, income, wealth, education, social status, political position, et al. Most such ‘caste systems’ have no force of the state behind it or are legal. They are the burakumin in Japan today and the African Americans in Europe and USA. The most ‘respected’ caste system is the British nobility which exists even today – a caste system, approved by law. In India, colonial administration encouraged and increased divisions within society. In order to ‘whitewash’ their own ‘dark’ history, the West is now (speciously) equating the Indian caste system with slavery. In 1919, under the Treaty Of Versailles, Western Nations set up the ILO – along with the League Of Nations. Post WW2, it was co-opted as a specialized agency of the UN in 1946. Western propaganda efforts using the ILO, have seen some success. This leading light of Dalit Christians blindly accepts Western propaganda that slavery was abolished 200 years ago in the West – and casteism is equal to slavery! Slavery (capture, kidnap, sequestration, transport, trade and transfer, re-capture of human beings) continued in the “desert bloc” till the 20th century with the legal backing and the full might of the of the State. In Indic territories, slavery was an inherited institution – and last seen in the Hittite rule around 1000BC. There is no record of sale and purchase of human beings in the last 3000 years in the Indic Bloc. Faced with West Asian reluctance to give up slavery, Indo Aryan rulers disengaged politically from West Asia and Middle East from around 1000 BC. Possibly, the slave revolt of Egypt by Moses itself was a result of the liberalising laws of the Hittites. Hence the fade out of the Indic rule from the Middle East – but the continuation of Buddhist influences, trade and peoples contact. Competing With Slave Societies After the slave revolts in the Middle East, India spearheaded major anti-slavery movements – like Buddhism Manicheanism, etc. More than a 100 Bodhisatvas and 24 Jain Tirthankaras were major figures in India’s anti-slavery reforms in the Middle East. Modern history, influenced by Western historiography, recognizes only the “ahimsa twins” – Gautama Buddha and Vardhamana Mahavira. Both of these were princes of royal blood – Prince Siddharth and Prince Mahavira. Their first adherents were the rulers and their methods of proselytising was also aimed at the ruling class. Ashoka, The Great, sent missions with his daughter Sanghamitra to Sri Lanka – where Buddhism was established. Guru Nanak Dev came from from the upper caste family and his focus was to end feuding on the basis of caste and creed. His first converts were from upper class families – cutting across religions (hence the opposition from some of the Mughal Kings). Gandhiji was from the upper caste and the first item on his reform agenda was end to the “bhangis” carrying faecal refuse on their heads. His initial focus was social reform and less of anti-British activities. Yet, from the time of Hittites to now, for 4000 years, Indic culture did not accept slavery. The Two Halfs There is a major difference in the Indic reform idiom compared to the Desert Bloc. Half the world today follows Indic dharmic systems and culture. The other half follows the “desert religions”. Our future lies in understanding both the halves. The development trajectories of these two halves has been significantly different. The motivations, behavioural and acceptable civilizational norms for these blocs are different – and mostly opposite. Do we understand this adequately? Advertisements |
The Republican National Convention is shaping up to be a full-throated endorsement of nominee Donald Trump and his brand of Republicanism. Trump’s proposal to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border was welcomed into the GOP’s platform; the structure of the convention itself is based on a set of permutations to Trump’s campaign slogan; and the Dump Trump movement, between losing key votes on the Rules Committee last week and failing to force a state-by-state approval of convention rules on Monday, is basically dead. So Trump is the official standard-bearer of the Republican Party. How do Republicans in Congress feel about that? That’s actually a somewhat complicated question. But our friends at Cook Political Report, including FiveThirtyEight contributor David Wasserman, have analyzed public statements (or noted the lack thereof) from all 301 Republicans in the House and Senate and classified each congressperson’s degree of support for Trump into one of seven categories, from “True Believer” to “Trump Snubber.” Here’s the breakdown: True Believers The True Believers endorsed Trump before the Indiana primary on May 3 (after which, a Trump nomination was all but inevitable). One of the earliest congressmen to jump on the Trump bandwagon was Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, who was reportedly on Trump’s VP shortlist and spoke at the convention on Monday. Eager Unifiers The Eager Unifiers have endorsed Trump wholeheartedly, but they didn’t do so until after Indiana. Orrin Hatch, a senator from Utah, is a prime example. In a statement in mid-May, he wrote: “Now that Donald Trump is the presumptive nominee, I will do what I can to help him run a successful campaign.” Reluctant Endorsers A Reluctant Endorser has expressed support for Donald Trump by name — with reservations. A popular quip among Reluctant Endorsers: “I’m not sure I can trust Donald Trump to always do the right thing. I am certain I can trust Mrs. Clinton to do the wrong thing.” Non-Namers Non-namers have stated support for “the Republican nominee” but balk when asked if that means they support Donald Trump. A lot of Republican senators fall into this category. Quiet Observers Quiet Observers haven’t made a public statement one way or another. Hesitant Holdouts Hesitant Holdouts are publicly undecided on whether to support Trump. Sen. Ted Cruz, for example, who ran against Trump in the Republican primary declared on May 10, “I think we need to watch and see what the candidates say and do.” We’ll see if Cruz joins with the Eager Unifiers, or maybe the Non-Namers, when he speaks at the Republicans’ convention Wednesday night. Trump Snubbers As the name suggests, Trump Snubbers have publicly said they will not be voting for Trump. The most high-profile snubber in Congress is Sen. Lindsey Graham, another of Trump’s primary opponents. “It’s not just about the 2016 race, it’s about the future of the party and I would like to support our nominee. I just can’t,” Graham said on June 7. The breakdown gets a little more interesting when you compare the two chambers of Congress. Republican senators are much more likely to have endorsed their party’s nominee without mentioning him by name than their more tea-partyish colleagues in the House. HOUSE 247 REPUBLICANS SENATE 54 REPUBLICANS True Believers 4.5% – 3.7% – Eager Unifiers 27.9 – 16.7 – Reluctant Endorsers 27.5 – 24.1 – Non-Namers 18.6 – 38.9 – Quiet Observers 8.5 – 0.0 Hesitant Holdouts 8.1 – 11.1 – Trump Snubbers 4.9 – 5.6 – Positions on Trump differ in the House and Senate Congressional Republicans’ public stances on their party’s nominee BASED ON DATA FROM COOK POLITICAL REPORT Another way of slicing this data is along party lines. If you look at the Cook partisan voting index, there’s a pretty clear difference between politicians who represent areas that lean Republican and those who lean Democratic. MORE REPUBLICAN DISTRICTS* 243 REPUBLICANS LESS REPUBLICAN DISTRICTS 58 REPUBLICANS True Believers 4.9% – 1.7% – Eager Unifiers 29.2 – 12.1 – Reluctant Endorsers 29.6 – 15.5 – Non-Namers 20.2 – 31.0 – Quiet Observers 7.8 – 3.4 – Hesitant Holdouts 5.8 – 20.7 – Trump Snubbers 2.5 – 15.5 – Positions on Trump vary by district Partisan Voting Index Congressional Republicans’ public stances on their party’s nominee *”More Republican” districts have a Partisan Voting Index of R+4 or more Republican. “Less Republican” districts have a PVI of R+3 or less Republican. A senator’s district is his or her entire state. BASED ON DATA FROM COOK POLITICAL REPORT See where your representative or senator stands in the table below: CORRECTION (July 20, 5:35 p.m.): An earlier version of the charts and tables in this article placed Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan in the wrong category of Trump support. At the convention on Monday night, he endorsed Trump, so he is now a Reluctant Endorser, not a Trump Snubber. The charts and tables have been adjusted accordingly. CORRECTION (July 20, 8:15 p.m.): An earlier version of the charts and tables in this article placed Rep. Joe Heck of Nevada in the wrong category of Trump support. He endorsed Trump by name last month, so he is now a Reluctant Endorser, not a Non-namer. The charts and tables have been adjusted accordingly. The Cook Political Report’s Ally Flinn, David Wasserman, Mac Andrews, Jack Maestri, David Cohn and Emily Kaye contributed research. |
Get the biggest What's On stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now It's not every day you spot Seal strumming his guitar under a tree in Piccadilly Gardens. But that's exactly what happened this lunchtime as the London-born superstar, in town to play a gig at the Bridgewater Hall tonight, performed an impromptu set for stunned passers by in Piccadilly Gardens this afternoon. Excited social media users were quick to post footage of the singer as he belted out his biggest hit, Kiss From a Rose. Fans couldn't believe their eyes as they sang along to the famous love song as Seal, dressed in double denim and white trainers, even had a basket for loose change collections. Video by Nick Speakman (Image: Nick Speakman) Shoppers and workers enjoying their lunch break were amazed as the Crazy star casually appeared out of the crowds to chat to a busker who was already at the well-known spot in the city centre. One person who saw Seal tweeted: "Seal just casually showed up in Manchester and made this busker's day." Not to worry Nadia, just watch the video above... |
A farm worker picks eggplant in the early morning fog on a farm in Rancho Santa Fe, California United States August 31, 2016. Reuters/Mike Blake Throughout Donald Trump's presidential campaign, there was nearly constant uncertainty among voters about how seriously to take his promises. In August, Kellyanne Conway backtracked on Trump's pledge to create a deportation force to rapidly remove undocumented immigrants, saying his plan was "to be determined"; in October, debate responses revealed that Trump and Mike Pence disagreed about military intervention in Syria; in November, Trump told the New York Times that there is "some connectivity" between human activity and climate change despite previously deeming it a Chinese hoax. That changing rhetoric likely allowed Trump supporters who approved of many of his messages to disregard the others that they didn't agree with, deeming them little more than talk. But that approach has since left Trump-supporting California farmers worried about the implications of their votes. According to the New York Times, conversations with nearly a dozen farmers revealed that while most voted for Trump, they all rely on workers who provided false documents. Many didn't believe that Trump would actually build his proposed border wall between the US and Mexico, or deport workers who lacked proper paperwork. But the series of executive orders the president signed during his first few weeks in office have already disrupted the US immigration system and put the country on a path toward severely restricting trade. Trump's actions, in other words, have suggested that his promises were literal. California's fields provide more of the nation's food than any other state — its cash farm receipts in 2015 represented nearly 13 percent of the US total, according to a report from the state's Department of Food and Agriculture. And according to the National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS), conducted by the Department of Labor, about half of all crop farm workers in the US are not legally authorized to work in the country. Other estimates put that portion as high as 70%. If Trump follows through on his promises of mass deportations, the agricultural economy in California and elsewhere would be severely damaged. "If you only have legal labor, certain parts of this industry and this region will not exist," Harold McClarty, a fourth-generation farmer in Fresno County told the Times. "If we sent all these people back, it would be a total disaster." Bruce Goldstein, the president of Farmworker Justice, a nonprofit that aims to improve farmers' living and working conditions, put the problem in even more dramatic terms at a recent summit. "If we were to engage in massive deportations, our agricultural system would collapse," he said. Other businesses that depend on farm workers as clients would also be impacted by a sudden disappearance of undocumented laborers — a gift-shop owner and an insurance agent in Madera County both told the Times that kind of change could send their businesses into severe decline. Trump's proposed changes to US trade policy have also caused growing concern among farmers. Within days of taking office, Trump withdrew the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and has vowed to renegotiate NAFTA to gain more favorable terms for the US. Press Secretary Sean Spicer also floated the idea of a 20% tax on imports from countries like Mexico to fund construction of the border wall. If the Trump administration does wind up imposing import taxes or simply pulling the US out of NAFTA, farmers run the risk that countries impacted by the policies could retaliate, a move that would hit farmers hard. According to the LA Times, many farmers have seen double-digit growth in commodities like soy beans, dairy products, grains and meat since the mid-90s (NAFTA went into effect in 1994). California farmers would have the most to lose in that scenario — approximately 26% of California's agricultural production was exported in 2015, a total of $20.69 billion. The state is the sole US exporter of almonds, dates, garlic, olives, table grapes, and more. Many farmers who remain loyal to Trump are still hopeful that his opposition to environmental regulation will prove beneficial to their operations. According to KQED, some California farmers blamed conservation-based policies for their lack of water over the last several years. At a rally in Fresno, Trump promised to "start opening up the water." Others still have faith that the president's experience as a businessman will lead him to realize the consequences of mass deportations and come up with a more nuanced approach. And there is always the possibility that a renegotiation of NAFTA could wind up in the agricultural industry's favor. For now, California farmers will have to wait and see which of Trump's policy proposals actually take root. |
Alan Taylor is a brave man. To direct the sequel to a film whose original was guided by Kenneth Branagh is brave. This is also the first feature-length film Taylor has directed in a decade, and the most expensive. But sitting in a luxurious hotel inside Disneyland, Taylor is quietly at ease. Faced with a day of journalists’ questions, he manages to be eloquent and self-effacing. How does one approach picking up the baton from Branagh? “With fear and self-loathing,” he laughs. “The scariest part was talking to these actors who are so good at what they do, knowing they’d done these characters with, you know, him. Ever since Henry V he’s been a hero and he’s an actor so he speaks their language more than I ever will.” The 53-year-old Taylor cut his teeth directing television series such as Game of Thrones, Mad Men and Sex and the City, so he’s used to, in his words, “jumping onto a ship that’s already sailing”. To step into the Marvel Universe also takes courage. Thor: the Dark World is the latest in a growing number of superhero films based on characters from Marvel Comics – a 74-year-old publishing giant acquired by Disney in 2009. The first Thor film was released in 2011 and imagined that the Norse gods were a superior alien race that had made an appearance on Earth a long time ago. Thor (played by Australian Chris Hemsworth), the heir to the throne of Asgard, was banished from the kingdom and sent through to Earth when he started a fight with the Asgardians’ old enemy, the Frost Giants of Jotunnheim. In his absence, his rogue adopted brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), tried to seize his father’s throne. Thor: the Dark World star Tom Hiddleston and director Alan Taylor The story was taken up again in the superhero ensemble Avengers Assemble, when Loki escaped captivity and fled to New York, forcing secret government agency Shield to summon other superheroes, including Iron Man, Captain America and the Hulk, to recapture him. It sounds daft but comic book films always are. It certainly doesn’t make them less entertaining. “One of the most important things is to remember to be funny in these movies,” says Taylor. “I have seen a few outside the Marvel Universe – I’m scrutinising it more now – and it can be lethal if you don’t let yourself be funny. These things are absurd, frequently, and if you step back and allow the absurdity to play then it’s actually a relief for everyone.” Much like the previous films, Thor: the Dark World splits its action between Earth and the planet Asgard, which is ruled by the ageing king Odin (Anthony Hopkins). But this time most of the Earth scenes take place in London – and include a collision with St Paul’s Cathedral and the destruction of Greenwich’s Royal Naval College. “They’re very sensitive about St Paul’s,” Taylor reveals. “You can’t destroy it because it survived the Blitz so they really don’t want superheroes to smash it. So we had to negotiate how many roof tiles we could take off when something hits it.” The authorities were not so precious about Greenwich, however, much to Taylor’s joy. “I like the formality of the environment, it’s a brilliant place to shoot chaos,” he muses. “We got to blow up the Painted Hall, one of the most beautiful places in London.” Tom Hiddleston makes his return in the film. In Loki, the film-makers may well have created the most well-liked villain in cinema history (the fans go potty for him). But we also have another villain drawn from the Marvel canon. Christopher Eccleston donned heavy make-up and prosthetics to play the role of Malekith, the ruler of the Dark Elves who’s bent on exacting revenge for a lost war against the Asgardians and plunging the universe into darkness. Though Eccleston is no stranger to sci-fi and fantasy, to see him under layers of make-up is unusual. But, despite being a man who reportedly takes his craft very seriously, Taylor describes him as “a joy to work with”. “We messed with him because we gave him the role and then at the last second said we’re going to start in Iceland with you standing in a hole in a field in the middle of nowhere and, by the way, you’re speaking Elvin,” he says with a laugh. “We hired the same guy who designed Dothraki in Game of Thrones and he designed this language and we just threw it at [Eccleston], this dialogue he had to do in a tongue that hadn’t existed until that week. But he did very well.” Christopher Eccleston as Malekith A number of British and Irish actors appear in the film, including Luther’s Idris Elba, Chris O’Dowd (The IT Crowd) as well as Anthony Hopkins. Some of he new cast admit they were nervous about meeting Sir Anthony. For Taylor, he “was the only guy who was a movie star”. Natalie Portman, who plays human scientist Jane Foster, admits to having been intimidated. Though, fortunately, these nerves were quickly assuaged by Hopkins’s amiable demeanour. “He’s one of the kindest people I’ve ever met,” she says. “He gave every single person their own painting, hand painted, as a gift at the end.” For Hopkins, old age (he’s 75), has brought a willingness to say yes. When asked why he took the role he replies, “Well, because they offered it to me.” No doubt the fact Branagh was asking was an incentive. But despite never having previously heard of Marvel, and the last comic books he’d read being The Dandy and The Beano (“I loved Desperate Dan”), Hopkins was game. “You can get too fussy about things. Sometimes it’s good to not be careful and just leap. You never know how it’s going to turn out,” he says. Tom Hiddleston and Chris Hemsworth According to Taylor, the film itself will look different to Branagh’s version. He was keen for Asgard to look aged, as though it had really been there for 10,000 years. “Recently I looked at [Thor] for some specific moments and I was shocked to see the world that’s now so familiar to me but so differently conceived,” he admits. “There are some beautiful sequences in it, like when Thor’s trying to get the hammer out of the ground and when he’s being interrogated at Shield, that’s so beautifully done. And there are other scenes where I think, ‘no, the costumes are all wrong’.” He must have impressed a few people, however, as, in the weeks following our interview, Taylor was announced as the man in charge of the next Terminator film. So, now he’s a bona fide big-budget film director, does he fancy any other Marvel characters? “I do like the weirder ones,” he says. “What’s cool about them is they can now start exploring the weirder ones because they had so much success with the mainstream ones. So Ant Man is coming along, Guardians of the Galaxy, you know a raccoon is one of the main characters and that’s nuts. And then Doctor Strange. They’ve got lots of places to go.” Thor: the Dark World is released in UK cinemas on October 30 Follow @TelegraphFilm |
(Authors note: For those interested, Chuck Ross did an excellent piece of writing on this, in The Sexual Peak Myth, He approaches the subject with a good bit more scientific diligence than I am willing to do here. I have already accepted that the subject is mythical and am much more interested in posing some questions about why this is the case.) — Some years ago I was at a night club with a group of men and women. Naturally the conversation turned to sex. One woman, in her late forties, said, in a good natured way, “It’s a shame that by the time men really learn what they are doing in bed, their equipment doesn’t work like it used to.” “I understand how you feel,” I said, in an equally jovial tone, “By the time women start learning what they are doing in bed their looks start fading.” Needless to say, my response, while as truthful as hers, more or less took her out of the conversation. It was not my intent at all, but you could tell by the look in her eyes that she felt like every line on her face was magnified a thousand times, reading like a giant “use by” date from the last millennium. Fortunately for me, I didn’t have all manner of ego and identity tied up in my penis, or I might have felt the same way. There was a silver lining, though. It did spark a rather lively round of verbal sparring with the rest of the people at the table. And I am sure that it was a discussion that has been echoed millions of times at millions of night club gatherings. Why is it that men and women hit their sexual peaks at such radically different ages? And the answer is, of course, that they don’t. It is just another one of the myriad of lies we enable women to live for the sake of not disturbing their self image- and perhaps for the sake of getting in their pants in leaner times. Where else but the current gender Zeitgeist can a woman with crows feet, sagging breasts, reduced sexual hormones, a vagina that does not lubricate as it once did, more difficulty conceiving and less ability to attract sexual partners of their preference, stand up and say “I am in my sexual prime,” and have everyone in their presence nod their head in agreement? Only in a world where we tell women whatever they want to hear, no matter how ridiculous. And it admittedly fits with part of women’s experience to maintain the lie. An observation I have, one that I cannot back up with any research, is that as women’s biological clocks tick down toward the final moments, there is a tendency, in the words of Dylan Thomas, to rage against the dying of the light. It’s not sexual primacy, it’s desperate horniness. Their fantasy of being in their sexual prime when they are well past it is only the labored breathing of someone in their last moments, struggling to suck air just a little while longer. I am not knocking it. When I was 21 I had a 45 year old woman show me what fer, good and proper, for three weeks in a cabin in Oklahoma. It was an educational rite of passage and a very fond memory in my life. Wouldn’t trade it for the world. But, let’s face it, the only one in that cabin in their sexual prime was me. I was a youngster with a gold mine of a horny older woman desperate for sexual relevance. And when the experience was over, I walked away smiling, and a little better equipped to take care of business with women who were, well, who actually were in their sexual prime. And she had at least one more round of clinging to her sexual power; to her relevance in the world. The point is that without sexual viability, the power of most women in this culture is reduced to whatever is afforded by rote chivalry. And while that chivalry affords them a great deal of latitude, it doesn’t provide them with the meaningful significance of a younger woman who still turns heads- and can have babies. Being in your sexual prime is about being ready to make babies, not about how willing you are to be ridden hard and put up wet. In the pure biological sense, infertile women, even those that just appear to be, are just so much excess baggage. And since women as a group either cannot or will not draw their self worth from anything but sexual power (NAWALT stipulated), we will forever have them demanding to live lies. And in modern times, they even have the option of paying surgeons to cut, suction and inject that lie until it looks damned near the truth. Business is booming. There is a solution to this, though it is doubtful we will ever get there. Women, feminists in particular, have long lamented the male beauty standard. They claim it drives women to extremes like surgery and eating disorders, and results in damaged self esteem, all because men want women to look a certain way. But of course, once you peel back the layers of victimized drivel and get to the core of the matter, you find that women drive themselves to do these things, biology leading them by the nose, because that is their quickest route to personal power, and because they don’t rise above it and find relevance in other ways. Like the ways men do. When women collectively quit worrying about sexual primacy and start focusing on their own innate human potential, when they learn to value their own accomplishments more than they value what they can sexually manipulate out of men, the plastic surgeons will be out of business and their bad self esteem, rather than their personal significance, will be facing expiration. What’s that you say, women already are like that? They already do more on their own than they try to get men to do for them through sex and other forms of manipulation? Well, I would like to address that here, too. But I only take on one lie at a time. |
UPDATE: 12:18p Tuesday: Read the complete police report here. UPDATE 10:16a Tuesday: Suspect is identified as “Mr. HB Shea” of the 9200 block of Pecky Cypress Lane in Boca Raton. He is currently being held in the Palm Beach County Jail BOCA RATON, FL (BocaNewsNow.com) (From PBSO) — Deputies responded to a man with a gun call at the Postal Office located in the 8100 block of Via Ancho, unincorporated Boca Raton. A 90 year old male walked into the facility. He was not satisfied with the services so he pulled out a handgun, pointed it at the Postal employee and threatened to “blow his head off”. As the suspect was exiting the post office he was taken into custody without incident by the responding deputies. The firearm was recovered and placed into evidence. PBSO will be handling the Aggravated Assault with a Firearm charges, while the Federal Postal Police will file the Federal charges of bringing a firearm into a Postal Facility. The suspect was taken to West Boca Medical Center for evaluation, once cleared, he will be booked into the PBC jail for the State charges. Share this: Twitter Facebook |
[Spoiler warning: This article gives away important details about the new movie.] “For a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the Dark Times. Before the Empire.” Ben Kenobi “This is how liberty dies: with thundering applause.” Senator Padme Amidala Listen to Scott’s interview with Mark Thornton stream download mp3 Many of us grew up on Star Wars, and some of us, as 10-year-olds on rainy Saturday afternoons, even spent time trying to piece together the story before the story. What were the Clone Wars? How did the Old Republic become the Empire? How could the emperor have defeated what were presumably thousands of Jedi and taken over the galaxy? Now we know the answer: Deception. Just like in the real world. Before the movie was even released, people began making the connection between the war on terror and Vader’s declaration near the end of Revenge of the Sith, “You are either with me or you are my enemy.” Lucas, however, when asked if this was a reference to the War on Terror, said at the Cannes film festival, “When I wrote it, [the current war in] Iraq didn’t exist. We were just funding Saddam Hussein, giving him weapons of mass destruction; we didn’t think of him as an enemy at that point. We were going after Iran, using [Saddam] as our surrogate just as we were doing in Vietnam. This really came out of the Vietnam era and the parallels between what we did in Vietnam and what we’re doing in Iraq now are unbelievable.” Some neocons have expressed their dismay that the new Star Wars movie seems so antiwar, saying it was perhaps even rewritten as an anti-Bush diatribe. This cold desperation comes as no surprise, but it also strengthens my appreciation of Lucas’ decision to make episodes IV, V, and VI before I, II, and the now-completed III. This establishes first the generally agreeable premise that it’s right to overthrow oppressive government, before bringing into focus something more discomforting that the corrupt tyranny referred to is our own. The story being told this week was written over 30 years ago, as Lucas has explained. Star Wars “was really about the Vietnam War, and that was the period where Nixon was trying to run for a [second] term, which got me to thinking historically about how do democracies get turned into dictatorships? Because the democracies aren’t overthrown; they’re given away.” I suppose that explains why Supreme Chancellor Palpatine works out of an oval office, and why his aide looks so much like Henry Kissinger. According to the Chicago Tribune, “Lucas said he wrote the screenplay’s politically pointed elements before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the subsequent war on terror. So when Palpatine announces that he intends to remain at war until a certain General Grievous is captured, no parallels to the hunt for Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein were intended. “‘First of all we never thought of Bush ever becoming president,’ Star Wars producer Rick McCallum said, ‘or then 9/11, the PATRIOT Act, war, weapons of mass destruction. Then suddenly you realize, ‘Oh, my God, there’s something happening that looks like we’re almost prescient.'” In other words, it is not George Lucas’ fault that George W. Bush is acting just like the evil Sith Lords of the story, destroying forever what was once a limited republic in the name of protecting it. Perhaps Bush is a Star Wars fan, and truly believing that power denied is power wasted, he is deliberately following the example of the Sith. There can be no doubt that the Star Wars saga is about humanity’s, especially America’s, history and future. The historical analogies clearly go much further than just Vietnam and Iraq. In the old movies, there were references to various episodes in American history. For example, the battle on the ice planet Hoth alludes to the long winter at Valley Forge during the American Revolution. Throughout episodes IV, V, and VI, the leaders of the Rebel Alliance are all portrayed by American actors (or are aliens in rubber masks), while the Empire’s forces are all played by Brits. And as Lucas has said, the Ewoks of Return of the Jedi represent the Vietnamese who, though lacking industry and technology, help to bring the Empire to its knees. Ludwig von Mises Institute scholar Mark Thornton has written a few articles on the politics of the Star Wars prequels, so I invited him on my radio show Saturday May 14 to talk about the historical references [stream] [download]. As Thornton has written, Episode I: The Phantom Menace draws heavily on the history of British domination of India and Jamaica in the 19th century. (Jar Jar Binks isn’t Stepin Fetchit, just a terribly annoying depiction of an outcast Rastaman who makes good.) The rise of the Evil Galactic Empire begins with a blockade by Lucas’ version of the British East India Company, the Galactic Trade Federation. Acting on an official “franchise” from the central government, the viceroy of the Trade Federation is frustrated in his attempts to collect taxes from the planet of Naboo. At the instruction of a cloaked Sith lord named Darth Sidious who turns out to be Augustus Palpatine, Naboo’s representative to the Galactic Senate the Trade Federation invades and occupies the planet. Using the crisis he created as an excuse, Palpatine then tricks the trusting young queen of Naboo into calling for a vote of no-confidence in the current supreme chancellor of the Galactic Republic. Explaining to her that the Senate has become corrupt and that the current chancellor has been weakened by accusations of corruption, he tells her that their best option is to push for his replacement by a strong chief executive who can “get things done.” Palpatine, of course, framed up the old supreme chancellor, and is elected the new one. “I feel confident that our situation will create a strong sympathy vote for us,” he cheerfully reports to the queen before the vote. One of the movie’s main points seems lost on many reviewers. The story is not only about each man’s ability to choose good or evil, or how wars destroy limited republics and empires alike; it is also about how the subtle manipulation of power behind the scenes helps make it all possible. By fooling all of the various characters into thinking they are doing the right thing, or at least acting in their own interests, Darth Sidious (AKA Palpatine) implements the final phase of the Sith Lords’ long-term plan to take revenge on the Jedi and total power for themselves. Between the events of The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, a decade goes by in which Palpatine recruits as his apprentice a former Jedi master named Count Dooku taken from doku, a Buddhist term meaning to govern or poison to prepare the galaxy for a civil war. Dooku first hires the bounty hunter Jango Fett to be the genetic basis for the clone army of the Republic. In the time it takes them to reach fighting age (10 years, as they are engineered to age twice as fast as regular folks), he goes off and creates a separatist movement of the planets allied with mercantilist groups who have fallen into disfavor with the central government, the Confederacy of Independent Systems. He also creates an army of droids for them. Though some have criticized Lucas for being anticapitalist in his portrayal of the commercial interests in Attack of the Clones, the names of these organizations Trade Federation, Commerce Guild, Corporate Alliance and Banking Clan suggest that they are greedy and corrupt crony capitalists, not free marketeers. Because antiwar factions in the Senate refuse to allow the creation of a standing army unless they are attacked, Darth Sidious arranges events so that the separatists are seen as the aggressors, and manipulates the dumbest character of the new movies, Jar Jar Binks, into proposing to the Senate that he be granted emergency powers over the galaxy. He then announces the creation of a “Grand Army of the Republic” to “counter the increasing threats of the separatists.” The Jedi then lead the massive clone army into battle across the galaxy to “save” the Republic. These clones, of course, become the Imperial Stormtroopers of the later chapters. The name “Grand Army of the Republic” is a direct reference to the Union Army during America’s war over secession. For many, that war marked a major shift in their conception of the country from one in which a limited central government presided over a union of ultimately sovereign states toward one in which a strong central government exercised ultimate authority over these now weakened and dependent states. Though Lincoln didn’t control the leadership of the Confederacy, goading them into firing the first shots at Fort Sumter certainly provided the same sort of pretext for his dirty work. By the time of Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, a tremendous amount of power has been concentrated in the hands of the supreme chancellor, and the Jedi Knights have used up the good will of the people of the galaxy with all the destruction caused by the Clone Wars, making it simple to set them up as responsible for all the galaxy’s problems. In a final act of treachery, Palpatine, in a magnificent, simultaneous, galaxy-wide Night of the Long Knives, issues Order 66 to the clone armies, ordering them to slay their Jedi generals. (It is hard to see the Jedi as the S.A. Perhaps this is borrowed from the Pope’s betrayal of the Knights Templar in 1307?) Once safe in office, Darth Sidious declares himself emperor for life and introduces his “New Order” to roaring ovations in the Senate. Lucas says this scene of the final surrender of liberty to power was inspired by the dictatorships of Augustus Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Adolph Hitler: “It’s not the first time a politician has created a war to try to stay in office.” Indeed it isn’t the first time. The American government regularly lies us into wars and “minor” interventions, and each one has cost individual liberty and helped to destroy the separation of powers formerly ingrained in the Constitution. It was the aggression of American soldiers that started the war against Mexico, contrary to the U.S. government’s claims at the time. The accidental destruction of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor in 1898 led to a war against Spain that would become the first in a continuous series of violent overseas missions masquerading as liberations, in this case Cuba’s. Darth Wilson had his “surprise attack” on the Lusitania and the Zimmerman telegram’s fanciful promise of German help for a Mexican invasion of the Southwest as his pretext. FDR deliberately provoked Japan and had the commanders at Pearl Harbor cut out of the intelligence loop in order to precipitate the attack that led to American participation in the greatest catastrophe in history, and our inheritance of all the former Western empires as our own. In order to justify the continued existence of our grand army and its imperial domain, every president between Truman and Bush Sr. lied like the Sith about the threat posed by the U.S.S.R. in order to to divide the world in thirds: one for them, two for us. The American people were told that “we have to accept Big Government for the duration,” of the emergency, and that “a totalitarian bureaucracy within our shores,” was absolutely necessary, but only temporarily. In the meantime, the government lied us into more violent conflicts than one could possibly recite. Since the Cold War ended, we have had 16 years’ worth of consolidation of American police power at home and abroad under every pretext from drugs to terror to nonproliferation and each consolidation has brought about new restrictions of liberty. One may be justified to wonder whether what are at this point little but the forms of our old republic can survive the onslaught. Now that Revenge of the Sith is out and the circle is complete, and we know how the Old Republic becomes the Empire and how it is destroyed in the end, it becomes apparent that the prophecy that Anakin Skywalker would destroy the Sith and bring the Force back into balance was true; it just turns out that he and the galaxy were tricked into going through a period of total statism before getting back to liberty. Let us hope that we can learn a little from the history played upon by Lucas in his movies and restore our Old Republic before it is truly an evil empire that can only be destroyed by more war. (If you got this far, and still want to hear me say most of this same stuff again, click here.) Read more by Scott Horton |
Game Journalism and Structural Reconsideration By now, anyone familiar with the sorry state of games journalism --- or, for that matter, just about any form of "niche" journalism --- is also familiar with the double-edged sword of its economic structure. Keeping it short and to the point, Internet publication is extremely cheap and easy compared to classic print publication, with the trade-off being that it's so accessible, anyone can do it from the comfort of their bedroom. Result: huge marketplace of competition. Normally, this is good. What's not normal, here, is that the marketplace has long outgrown the size of its consumer base. Limited readership (in this case from gamers) is split between content providers so numerous that only a relative few are able to subsist on their share of the pie. Normally, this would mean the lowest-value providers would drop out of the market for lack of profitability. But in the case of journalism, providing ever-shoddier goods can keep one's head above water. Tabloid journalism remains profitable, after all, for a reason. What this has done is create a push amongst most online news outfits to produce tabloid material in order to stay afloat. Well, we pretty much all knew that, right? So how do we fix it? One suggestion I've been thinking of is Consolidation via site-aggregators. Reducing the overall number of websites which provide content, by having multiple producers of similar content band together under single sites. This is essentially what many sites already do as their standard business model: The Escapist and Channel Awesome being examples. Umbrella "go-to" sites for gaming journalism as a whole would allow readers to select from a menu, and give every content producer a fair chance for their work to be seen while sharing each other's audience organically. Essentially, co-operative cross-pollination, developing a more cosmopolitan audience through sharing than can be achieved by what currently amounts to "audience hoarding". Such an audience is more likely to, as individuals, consume more content because they find more variety more interesting. As per-capita consumption rises, there should be a commensurate on-average increase in the value of each producer's pie slice. Of course, we're still stuck with the basic problem that the audience itself has only so many hours in the day to indulge an interest in any of this. But I think we are more likely to grow an audience through co-operation, than by sensationalism and aggravation. Just a thought. Reply · Report Post |
next Image 1 of 2 prev Image 2 of 2 Pope Francis temporarily expelled a German bishop from his diocese on Wednesday because of a scandal over a $42 million project to build a new residence complex, which reportedly cost at least six times more than planned. The Vatican didn't say how long Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst would spend away from the diocese of Limburg. But it said Limburg's newly named vicar general, the Rev. Wolfgang Roesch, would run the diocese during Tebartz-van Elst's "period of time away." Roesch had been due to take up his duties as Tebartz-van Elst's deputy on Jan. 1, but will start running the diocese immediately, the Vatican said. At the center of the scandal is the $42 million price tag for the construction of a new bishop's residence complex and related renovations. An initial audit of the spending ordered after a Vatican monitor visited Limburg last month revealed that there were huge cost overruns in the project, leading German media to call Tebartz-van Elst “the luxury bishop” and “bishop bling,” Reuters reports. Tebartz-van Elst has said the bill was actually for 10 projects and there were additional costs because of regulations on buildings under historical protection. He apologized for any “carelessness or misjudgment,” but said he did nothing wrong, according to Reuters. In a statement, the Vatican said the situation in the diocese had become such that Tebartz-van Elst "could no longer exercise his episcopal ministry." The Limburg scandal has been front-page news for weeks in the country where Martin Luther launched the Reformation five centuries ago in response to what he said were excesses and abuses within the church. The issue over transparency in church finances has also struck a chord among German Catholics since a church tax in Germany brings in billions of dollars a year to the German church. The head of the German bishops' conference, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, had been particularly blunt in his criticism of the expenditures and the credibility problem it was causing the church. He has said the church commission would investigate the costs of the renovation, the financing and how decisions about the restoration evolved. Canon lawyers are to determine if Tebartz-van Elst violated church law regarding the use of church money, he said. The decision on the expulsion was taken after Francis met in the past week with Zollitsch and Tebartz-van Elst. The Vatican stressed that Francis took the decision based on continuous and "objective" information, suggesting that the Vatican wasn't being swayed by the popular outcry over the scandal. At the same time, though, Francis has made clear he expects his bishops to live simply, setting as an example his own humble lifestyle. The Associated Press contributed to this report. |
If "exciting place to eat" doesn't come to mind when you hear the word "Newark," you haven't been paying very close attention. The New Jersey city that, for many, is just the place where their planes land has developed a beautifully rich restaurant scene over the past few years, albeit one devoid of big names—until now. Celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson will be opening a restaurant in downtown Newark in mid-November, the New York Post reports. Called Marcus B and P, the restaurant draws inspiration from the city's history and immigrant identities. "We are addressing Newark’s current need and preparing for what is coming,” Samuelsson told the Post. "We will mirror the culture and history here, that is similar to Harlem, and we have a chance to be more ‘farm to table’ here than we can be in Manhattan. We are 15 minutes away from the source of our incredible hazelnuts and honey, for example.” Samuelsson opened his iconic Harlem restaurant, Red Rooster, in 2010, in large part centering the neighborhood as a hot place to eat. We imagine the chef's new spot will help bolster Newark's food scene, as well, drawing even more big New York names to start projects across the river. "I am inspired by the Atlantic history and diverse culture of Newark. It’s a port town, and I come from a port town as well,” Samuelsson said, adding that the new restaurant will feature handmade pizzas and pastas. Newark is already worth the PATH commuter rail ride from Manhattan, for breakfast, lunch or dinner. If you're feeling casual but also inordinately hungry, Tops Diner in East Newark (dubbed one of the "most famous" restaurants in New Jersey) draws hour-long lines for a reason: their Monte Cristo French toast, ribs, benedicts and extensive menu of somewhat reimagined diner fare are immaculately executed. Alternatively, stroll Newark's four-square-mile Ironbound district for a slew of old-school Portuguese, Spanish and Brazilian eateries. (Iberia Peninsula, an institution since 1924, serves spectacular Spanish and Portuguese dishes, heavy on seafood and barbecued meats. Fernandes Steakhouse is the place for Brazilian. Krug's Tavern is the only dive bar that serves hamburgers we dream about.) Not irrelevant: In March of this year, Newark's first Whole Foods opened. Marcus B and P, which will also have a bar serving (you guessed it) craft cocktails, is set to open in mid-November at 56 Halsey St. |
CLOSE An end of an era at Delsea Drive and Landis Avenue in Vineland as iconic Sears sign came down Tuesday. Deborah M. Marko “The Protector,” a bronze statue of a police officer holding the hand of a small child, is at the entrance of the Vineland Police Department. (Photo: File photo) BRIDGETON - A Vineland police officer who allegedly helped himself to drugs from the Project Medicine Drop box while on duty has been authorized to enter the Cumberland County Pretrial Intervention Program. Back in June, Officer Richard Janasiak, 30, of Vineland, was charged with unlawful possession of prescription legend drugs after accessing the medicine drop box “while on duty, on numerous dates,” according to the Cumberland County Prosecutor’s Office. A consent order, approved in Cumberland County Superior Court on Aug. 28, permits Janasiak to participate in the discretionary court program that, if completed, will not result in a criminal record. More: Gunman holds up Crown Chicken, flees with cash More: Crash claims life of Millville man, Vineland man injured More: Vineland Historical Society wants Landis sculpture back The consent order set four conditions for Janasiak to enter and participate in the program. He must “forfeit any present and future public employment in the State of New Jersey” and resign as a Vineland Police Officer. Janasiak is required to submit to urine screening, drug evaluation and treatment as recommended by the Cumberland County Probation Department. While under PTI supervision, he must surrender or divest himself of any firearms in his possession, including any off-duty gun, as well as his Firearms ID Purchase Card. He is prohibited from possessing any firearms during his PTI supervision. This condition will expire if Janasiak successfully completes PTI and the charge against him is dismissed. Janasiak was a three-and-a-half-year veteran of the police force when he was implicated during an internal audit by the Vineland Police Department in March 2016. “It is an unfortunate event, and we regret that it occurred,” Police Chief Rudy Beu told The Daily Journal on Wednesday. “We discovered potential wrongdoing by one of our officers, and in this case, referred it to the Cumberland County Prosecutors Office for an independent investigation.” When that investigation concluded, the prosecutor’s office confirmed the charge was warranted. Janasiak was suspended with pay in March 2016, but that was later updated to suspension without pay, according to the chief. The Vineland Police Department continues to participate in the Project Medicine Drop program that offers the public a safe and secure way to dispose of medication and prevent drug abuse. It is also an alternative to tossing medication in the trash or flushing it down the toilet, which can pose a health risk. Project Medicine Drop debuted at the Vineland Police Department in 2011, when it was selected as one of three collection sites under a new state Division of Consumer Affairs pilot program, which is now offered statewide. Medications, collected in the locked box, are regularly collected and safely destroyed. Deborah M. Marko: (856) 563-5256; dmarko@thedailyjournal.com Read or Share this story: http://vineland.dj/2xPSFcH |
You cannot make this shit up. Cops HATE cameras and that is LARGELY because they KNOW they intend to do bad, unacceptable, and illegal things BEFORE they do them. here we have them on one video trying to disable other cameras. So they can do bad shit. Like bully the disabled and consume products from the marijuana dispensary, when they'd be arresting people for the same thing if they could. So, yeah: they have actually filed some appeal to suggest their video recording violates their privacy (!!) and they have accused the dispensary owner of 'altering the video": “The attorney representing the drug dispensary intentionally has misrepresented what happened,” said Corey W. Glave, a Hermosa Beach, California, attorney representing the Santa Ana Police Officers Association and the officers. Pappas said he has released two versions of the video to Santa Ana police -- a "highlight reel" and a version that he said is the full, unedited footage. Cops lie constantly. CONSTANTLY. They have no credibility and they have pissed all over what "honor" they may have once had. Cops are pretty much scumbags who feel entitled to do as they wish, bully people, intimidate people, lie, cheat and steal. Where are the good cops? Hmmm? None of this will change AT ALL until cops go to jail for their actions. Period. |
by Brett Stevens on July 19, 2017 I remember being in history class at school and thinking, “I wonder what it was like to experience the Fall of Rome, or the last days of Nazi Germany.” My only conclusion was that it must have felt terrible, mediated only by the confusion as to what was going on. We live in those days now. Our institutions are failing like organs in a diseased body. Our leadership, like someone with a mental health problem, pursues non-solutions pathologically while systematically denying even the existence of actual problems. Our people are withdrawn, suspicious and retributive, if not following their leadership into insanity. And no one will talk about civilization decline. They will talk about just about anything else, but when you mention it, people get nervous and play the “kill the messenger” game. Today’s example of ongoing crumbling decay is the shooting of Justine Ruszczyk by a decorated Somali police officer: Noor, 31, has offered his ‘condolences’ but demanded everyone respect his privacy after opening fire on the 40-year-old yoga instructor. He has hired an attorney. …Noor, who joined the Minneapolis Police in March 2015, has reportedly had three complaints made against him in two years – including a lawsuit. …He also holds a degree in administration and economics. Human beings are a collection of characteristics. Some are inborn, some are acquired. Many are internal, such as moral character and degree of perceptiveness. But they are multiple. Affirmative action, and the related need to virtue signal by displaying minority “pets” in any department, rewards only one trait: membership in a minority group. Because that is what it selects for, all other traits are ignored. In their rush to get shining black faces on the streets, Minneapolis officials promoted a man with clear problems, just as his professors gave him the affirmative action grade inflation that allows them to defend their careers — and the feeding of their families — against the accusations of racism which seem to hit every white professor but few non-whites. Now we see the results of this disaster. It will be resolved semi-amicably. The city will be sued, and will pay out Monopoly money for having by negligence destroyed a life, then get more free money from higher taxes to pay their insurance, which will have gone up in price. The officer will be retired with full pension. Five or ten million dollars, everyone is happy, especially the lawyers and politicians. At the same time the real damage here, in addition to the loss of the life of this young woman, is the lack of faith people can have in their community. Would you bother to call the police after this to report a rape, as Justine Ruszczyk did? Heck, no. The affirmative action cops might shoot you and, while your family will get millions, you will still be dead. So let that rape happen in the alley behind your house. Watch this spread like cancer through the population. People will avoid interaction with the police. The police will be reduced to policing ghettos and issuing speeding tickets, making them entirely parasitic. Everyone else is going to hire private security to prevent crimes before they happen, since they now have zero reason to have faith in this police department. As always, the greatest damage is to civilization, which always occurs when people are allowed to be individualistic — “me first,” like the “Me Generation” — instead of thinking with a tribal or transcendental mentality. Affirmative action is just one facet of this colossus of failure. Tags: affirmative action, police, police shooting Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. |
Metra's board will soon grapple with whether customers will face a fare increase in 2015 – three years after the biggest hike in the agency's history, the commuter rail chairman said today. Although officials say a fare increase hasn't been proposed yet, Metra is being squeezed by $49 million in higher costs next year as well as by $9.7 billion worth of unmet capital needs for equipment, infrastructure and maintenance, according to agency financial data. Revenue from ridership is flat and additional federal funding is unlikely, forecasts show. Yet, Metra riders pay hundreds of dollars a month less than what riders pay in metropolitan areas such as New York, Boston and Philadelphia, officials say. All these figures could add up to a pitch for a fare increase next year as the agency starts to crunch the numbers in its 2015 budget, a draft of which is due in August. Chairman Martin Oberman said he hopes Metra's board will have a thorough airing of the agency's financial situation over the next few months. At Friday's board meeting Metra staffers are scheduled to outline some of the key data to be included in the preliminary budget and show where Metra stands financially. The meeting is being held at the Will County Office Building in Joliet for the benefit of local residents. A fare increase is not currently on the table, Oberman and a Metra spokesman said. “My view is we ought to get the homework done and have a public discussion about fare increases that's meaningful, whichever way we decide to go,” said Oberman, who was elected Metra chairman in February. “I would not want to go through my first real budget season without confronting this issue head-on.” Metra should evaluate its fare structure annually so as to not “surprise people every few years” with a major increase, he said. Metra's fares increased modestly over the years but skyrocketed as much as 35 percent on Feb. 1, 2012. Then-CEO Alex Clifford blamed previous management for “kicking the can down the road” and diverting money for infrastructure and equipment to pay for day-to-day needs. Since then, the Regional Transportation Authority has estimated that Metra's capital investment needs over the next 10 years total $9.7 billion. Of this, $6.6 billion represents a backlog. According to data being presented Friday, Metra estimates that expected sources of capital funds from the state and federal government will total $2.6 billion through 2020. More than 60 percent of Metra's operating expenses go toward labor costs. Salary and benefit costs for Metra's contract employees and BNSF Railway and Union Pacific Railroad workers, who staff some Metra lines, are expected to rise by $16 million in 2015, the data show. Passenger revenues, however, are up only 0.9 percent systemwide for the first five months of 2014, compared to the same period last year, the data show. Fares on Metra, the nation's second-busiest commuter rail agency, continue to lag behind fares charged by agencies in other big cities, officials say. A Metra BNSF Line rider to Naperville, for example, pays $163 for a monthly pass, while equivalent customers of other large systems pay over $260 on average, officials say. Meanwhile, riders on the BNSF, Metra's busiest line with 67,400 passengers each weekday, continue to suffer through delays, according to data being presented Friday. Rush-hour BNSF trains were on-time only 84 percent of the time in June, the worst performance of Metra's 11 lines, records show. Systemwide, the on-time rate was 94.1 percent, just under Metra's goal of 95 percent. The BNSF Line managed to better its dismal performance in May, when it met its schedule only about 79 percent of the time during peak periods. rwronski@tribune.com |
Britain could have financed the Olympic Games out of the VAT it is losing on the sales of digital services, new research shows, heaping more pressure on George Osborne to close tax loopholes enjoyed by multinational companies in Wednesday's autumn statement. As Britons splashed out millions on Christmas gifts on the busiest online shopping day of the year, a report by a leading telecoms and digital consultancy suggests the UK is losing over €2bn (£1.6bn) a year in VAT on digital services bought by British consumers from suppliers such as Amazon which are based overseas. Greenwich Consulting estimates the UK will lose £10bn between 2008 and 2014. Ministers say the London Games cost taxpayers £9bn. The chancellor is expected to find more cash in the autumn statement to fund a drive by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs to raise an additional £10bn in tax revenues. But the revelation that Britain is losing so much revenue through tax loopholes will intensify demands at Westminster and beyond for tougher action on multinationals, such as Google and Starbucks, paying small amounts of tax. The anti-tax avoidance pressure group Uncut said that it was planning protests in Starbucks cafes this Saturday, involving "creative civil disobedience", and follows stinging criticism of tax avoidance MPs on the public accounts committee who accused the coffee chain, Google and Amazon of "immoral" use of secretive jurisdictions, royalties and complex company structures to avoid paying tax on British profits. Margaret Hodge, the committee's chair, said she had already stopped buying coffee at Starbucks and ceased using Amazon. "I think actually the government can do things like … we buy a lot of stuff, we can say we won't buy from companies. I think it's good citizenship." Asked whether David Cameron would back calls for a consumer boycott of firms which avoid tax, the prime minister's official spokesman said: "The issue for government is how we tackle that tax avoidance … What we have to do in government is make sure we are tackling that kind of aggressive tax avoidance. We are doing that in a number of ways. We are bringing in a general anti-avoidance rule, we are working with other countries." The question of a boycott was "an issue for individuals", said the spokesman. Sainsbury's chief executive, Justin King, recently urged consumers to vote with their wallets, boycotting those companies that avoid tax. King said: "If you send a clear message as a consumer to any business that you don't think it pays its dues in the UK you can bet your bottom dollar that they'll make a change very quickly." John Lewis boss, Andy Street, has also criticised the tax avoiders, pointing out that British companies paying corporation tax were at a disadvantage to those that channel their income abroad: "You have got less money to invest if you are giving 27% of your profits to the exchequer than if you are domiciled in a tax haven." Under the EU's VAT rules, digital supplies to non-business customers – such as ebooks, music downloads and online apps – are classified as services rather than products. VAT on electronic services is imposed at the rate applying to the country in which a company is headquartered rather than the rate applied by the country in which it is bought. Amazon, for example, is based in Luxembourg and therefore charges its customers 3% VAT for ebooks, compared with the 20% levied in the UK. Charlie Elphicke, a Conservative MP and a former tax lawyer, believes that the EU should accelerate plans to change the way VAT is charged on digital services, which is due to be phased in between 2015 and 2019. "This is yet another example of industrial scale tax avoidance by foreign owned multinational corporations. Their behaviour is irresponsible, unethical and unacceptable," he said. "Billions of VAT is being lost that is needed to fund schools and hospitals or cut the deficit. I welcome the action that has been taken by the government so far – yet we need urgently to close this loophole and enable British businesses to compete on a level playing field." The Greenwich report was commissioned by Philippe Marini, chairman of the French senate's finance committee and was prepared for a private meeting of pan-European politicians, civil servants and tax specialists in Brussels. Marini supports an earlier date for bringing into line with other goods the rules for charging EU VAT on digital services. "At the European level we need to renegotiate the schedule for implementing the VAT directive on electronic services in order to bring its application deadline nearer than 2015 or 2019, the term of the transition phase," Marini said. An HMRC spokesman said: "It is a natural consequence of the VAT rules rather than any lack of compliance that a business in say, Germany, supplying such services to UK customers will account for VAT in Germany and not in the UK. "Businesses have the freedom to establish themselves in whichever member state they wish. However, some UK businesses claimed to have moved their operations to other member states in order to benefit from lower VAT rates where in reality the supplies were still made from the UK. HMRC has successfully challenged such arrangements." Richard Asquith, an indirect tax specialist and head of VAT at TMF, the international compliance consultancy group, believes the €2bn a year loss may be a conservative estimate. "What they may not be figuring in is sales of computer games and apps over the internet from outside of the EU. Many non-EU traders simply ignore EU VAT since it is close to impossible to track down." The crucial business to consumer (B2C) market in Europe for electronic business services was worth €124bn in 2009, according to Greenwich. The UK was by far the biggest market, accounting for over one third of total sales. The wider internet economy contributed £121bn to the British economy in 2010 according to a report by The Boston Consulting Group. The report, published earlier this year, said the UK's internet economy is growing at a rate of 10.9%, and is expected to be contributing £225 billion to the overall economy by 2016. But the Greenwich report says the UK was the least successful country at converting B2C sales into tax revenue. Based on the highest estimates, its combined VAT and corporation tax income from B2C business was generated at a rate of 15% of total sales. France and Germany secured conversion rates of 19% and 21% respectively while Benelux countries converted 50% of their €3bn B2C trade into tax revenue. Marini is a longstanding campaigner for fair and neutral taxation of the digital economy. He has drafted a law to allow the French government to capture a greater proportion of revenues generated by the sale of digital services. François Hollande's government says it will look at proposals next year which will restrict the ability of online companies to pay taxes on revenues earned in France in European countries with lower tax rates. Marini is trying to encourage a pan-European response to the imbalance between sales revenue generated in a particular economy and the taxation generated for the host country. While the UK is the biggest loser from lost VAT revenues, France, Germany, Spain and Italy are also identified by the report as countries suffering from diversion of VAT to other countries. • This article was amended on 4 December 2012 to remove repetition in the final paragraph. |
A lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court says Westminster police illegally detained a protester in violation of his constitutional right of free speech when he displayed a sign that profanely disparaged police. Eric Brandt’s attorneys, David Lane and Andy McNulty, filed the civil rights lawsuit on his behalf Monday against the city of Westminster and two police officers, Charles Rush and Ray Esslinger. Brandt, who has filed two prior civil lawsuits against the city for violation of his free-speech rights, seeks compensatory and punitive damages, attorneys’ fees and “consequential” damages including for emotional distress, loss of reputation and humiliation for the latest suit. The lawsuit says that at 8 a.m. on June 6, 2014, Brandt was holding a “very large,” homemade sign saying “(obscenity) cops” at the corner of West 76th Avenue and Sheridan Boulevard when several bystanders called him a moron and told him to go home. Other bystanders expressed solidarity with Brandt, the lawsuit says. Brandt’s intent was to spread awareness about police brutality and misconduct, the lawsuit says. A Westminster police officer turned on the emergency lights of a city patrol car and drove through a red light to stop Brandt while he was standing on a public sidewalk even though he was not breaking any laws, the lawsuit says. Officers Rush and Esslinger got out of their car and told Brandt their superiors had ordered them to arrest Brandt. The officers patted Brandt down and detained him for 45 minutes while trying to determine which law Brandt had violated, the lawsuit says. At Brandt’s suggestion, the officers issued a citation to Brandt charging him with disorderly conduct rather than arresting him, the lawsuit says. Brandt then left the area, it says. “Mr. Brandt has refrained from displaying his sign at the corner of West 76th Avenue and Sheridan for fear of arrest or additional citations, and has therefore been chilled from engaging in First Amendment activity,” the lawsuit says. Brandt pleaded not guilty to the the disorderly conduct charge and a judge dismissed the case during a jury trial, the lawsuit says. The lawsuit says Westminster has a custom of arresting Brandt for carrying the sign. He had been arrested previously two times in England and Irving parks. The charges were all dismissed, the lawsuit says. Brandt was arrested pursuant to an “unconstitutional” ordinance that criminalized “boisterous, threatening, abusive, insulting or indecent language, or … any disorderly conduct or behavior tending to a breach of the public peace and enjoyment.” The city of Westminster agreed to a judgment June 2 in which it will pay Brandt $50,000 and the Denver lawfirm of Killmer, Lane & Newman about $30,000, according to court records. “This is not like a normal settlement where there is no admission of wrongdoing. This is the equivalent of a guilty plea to all charges in a criminal case and Westminster is admitting they violated the Constitution,” Lane said Tuesday. On Aug. 11, 2014, Westminster Mayor Herb Atchison ordered Brandt out of a city council meeting after Brandt made what the mayor considered offensive remarks, according to the lawsuit. That case is pending. These actions against Brandt violated his Constitutional right of free speech, the lawsuit says. |
The White House has shut down its public comment line some time in the past few weeks, instead telling callers, with an automated message, that they should contact the administration via Facebook Messenger instead. There’s only one problem: Neither the new White House administration nor President Donald Trump seem to currently maintain an active Facebook Messenger account. The White House had long kept a public comment line, which in recent years had been staffed by volunteers of the Obama administration. In addition, it also offered a number to reach the White House switchboard, where paid staffers would pick up the phone and take messages for the administration. It’s unclear when exactly the comment line was turned off; Twitter users first reported Monday that both the switchboard and the comment line had been disabled, but news reports suggest that at least the comment line may have been turned off earlier this month as the Obama administration wound down operations. Callers are instead asked to use a form on the White House website, or contact the administration via Facebook Messenger. The switchboard was subsequently turned on again, but the comment line remains unavailable. Related Ken Burns on Why He Would Make a Trump Documentary Key Antitrust Lawmaker Sees 'Reawakening' in Congress to Perils of Big Tech The message doesn’t clarify whether callers should use the official White House Facebook page or President Trump’s Facebook page to do so — but then again, that distinction doesn’t really matter: Neither of the two pages currently offers any messaging capabilities. Trying to find the White House or the President directly from within Facebook’s Messenger app also proved unsuccessful. Facebook has long offered businesses and other operators of Facebook pages the ability to directly communicate with their consumers via Messenger, including via messages sent directly from the Facebook website. The company added the ability to use bots that can engage in simple conversations via Messenger last April. It doesn’t seem like the White House is currently using any of those technologies. To add insult to injury, there are currently a number of third-party Facebook accounts that operate under user names wrongfully suggesting an affiliation with the White House. Some of these accounts, including Facebook.com/POTUSDonaldTrump, do use Messenger. However, anyone messaging that particular account actually sends messages to the operator of dormant pro-Trump blog Pundit Today. Facebook didn’t respond to a request for comment. Variety wasn’t able to reach the White House for comment. Correction: 1/24: An initial version of this story suggested that reports about the shut-down of the comment line first surfaced on Monday. Variety has since been made aware of reports that suggest the line may have been inoperable since earlier in January. The article was changed throughout to account for this. |
A two-week old infant died last fall in a Brooklyn hospital from herpes contracted from a religious circumcision. According to the Daily News, the unidentified infant died last September at Maimonides Hospital—the cause of death was listed as “disseminated herpes simplex virus Type 1, complicating ritual circumcision with oral suction.” The case sounds eerily similar to that of Rabbi Yitzchok Fischer, a Rockland County mohel who was found to have given three babies herpes through the ritual. Fisher specialized in the ultra-Orthodox ritual known as metzizah b’ peh, in which a rabbi or mohel removes blood from the wound with his mouth. One of those three babies infected with herpes by Fisher died, and the city Health Department filed a restraining order stopping Fisher from performing the procedure. But the city ultimately caved and handed the matter over onto a Jewish religious court. Last year, a Queens toddler who went into Beth Israel Hospital for a routine circumcision died after he was given a general anesthetic instead of a local one. There has also been an active intactivist movement working in San Francisco, who believe in the right of baby boys to keep their foreskins intact. The last we heard of them, their reach may have exceeded their grasp: the group was roundly criticized for a series of online comic books featuring "Foreskin Man" fighting the "Monster Mohel," which many called anti-Semitic. |
BHOPAL: Toilets seem to be the latest flashpoint of caste divide in rural Madhya Pradesh despite the glare of the Swachh Bharat campaign.The privileged members of a dusty hamlet in Bundelkhand are accused of breaking toilets built by Scheduled Caste villagers, apparently incensed that the Swachh loos came as a great leveller.The tussle is between the downtrodden Prajapatis and influential Patels in Barakhera village, about 50km from the district headquarters of Chhattarpur. Women of the SC community have alleged that some Patels smashed the toilets because their doors opened in front of their houses and narrowed down the road. “We are now forced to go out to relieve ourselves,” they rued. For some Prajapatis, it’s even worse. “To add to our woes, the Patel community has threatened to beat us if we go out to defecate. Neither are we allowed to go to our toilets, nor are we allowed to go in the open. What can we do now,” asked Champa.The conflict is intense enough to worry the administration. On Saturday, a team of officials visited the village to ensure that the toilets are constructed again. The Prajapati community in Barakhera village numbers half a dozen families. The Patels belong to the OBC community, but are affluent and politically influential in the region.When the bickering started, construction of two toilets had finished and they were to be opened on Saturday, and four more were near completion — all that was left was to put a tin sheet as the roof. The government had provided Rs 13,000 for their construction.“But all our efforts are likely to go to waste. Now, we will have to go out for defecation,” said Mithila Prajapati, a local. The SC families are now using earthen pots in their backyard, said Mukesh Prajapati. “We are suffering because the village sarpanch also belongs to the Patel community. The only reason why our toilets were broken is that they were built in front of the houses of Patels.”Bhagwan Das Patel, one of those bothered by the toilets in front of his house, said: “The whole day we are forced to see people moving in and out of the toilets. Moreover, the toilets have narrowed the road. We have lodged a complaint with the panchayat.”CEO of the district panchayat Harsh Dixit said: “I have sent a team to find out why the toilets were demolished. I will comment only after the team submits its report.”Needless to say, Chhattarpur lags way behind in achieving open-defecationfree (ODF) tag. |
Selma refunds $100,000 in tickets its police weren’t authorized to write The city of Selma, long known for tough traffic enforcement, has stopped its police from ticketing trucks for being overweight — and has refunded nearly $100,000 in fines. “We were not allowed to do what we were doing, so we gave them all their money back,” said City Administrator Ken Roberts, satung he signed 125 refund checks that were mailed in late October. Two Selma officers had obtained certification last year through the Texas Department of Public Safety to cite overweight commercial vehicles using portable scales. But in August, city officials concluded the town in northeast Bexar County is too small for its officers to enforce that provision of the state transportation code. “It was a mistake and it was corrected,” said Municipal Judge John Hrncir, adding, “I really think Selma police have a bad rap from years ago and they're doing a good job these days.” Area truckers cheered the move. Some operators said Selma’s decades-old reputation as a speed trap was well-deserved. “You’d better slow down here,” said Pearl Sanchez, manager of Bob White Express, a Selma trucking firm, said she had complained because several suppliers stopped delivering goods after their drivers were cited by local officers. “They could’ve put us out of business because we couldn’t receive deliveries,” Sanchez said. Read more in Thursday’s Express-News or at ExpressNews.com. zeke@express-news.net |
It is ten years ago we rescued Chhouk from the Srepok Wilderness Area in Mondulkiri, as an orphaned elephant calf. One never knows where these things will lead and in the wake of recent events and in remembrance of Chhouk’s 10 year anniversary at PTWRC, it seems now might be an appropriate time to revisit the story… In March 2007 I was requested by His Excellency Ty Sokun, DG of FA, to accompany FA head vet, Dr Nhim Thy, to Mondulkiri to inspect an injured elephant calf. We were told it had been wandering alone in the forest and came across a WWF patrol elephant. Happy to find company of its own kind, the calf followed the big bull back to Trapeang Chhouk, a WWF patrol station in the area. As requested, Nhim Thy and I left with WRRT members, Prom Nol and Lai Chaidet to check it out. As soon as I saw the little elephant I wished I was somewhere else. He was in a bad way and seemed sure to die. He was badly injured and so very thin. It seemed only his fighting spirit was keeping him upright. The WWF team had captured Chhouk, meaning Lotus, named after their patrol station and had tethered him around the neck to a tree – a sensible decision to stop him wandering off. They were feeding him whatever forest food the little one would eat. The guys were doing their best, but out in the forest they had neither the facilities, the medicine, nor the expertise to cope with such a serious problem. We sedated Chhouk, treated and bandaged his injured leg, following which Nhim Thy returned to Phnom Penh to report to his boss, leaving me to look after Chhouk. I was sure we would be asked to transport the elephant to Phnom Tamao and the track we would take out of the forest was treacherous. We needed Chhouk to be as calm as possible if he was to survive the journey. I slept in a hammock beside the little elephant, hand feeding him everything he ate. He was very aggressive for such a small chap, but quickly quietened down, allowing me to handle him. The correct decision was made by the authorities and around one week later Nhim Thy returned with other members from the WRRT, who would act as security for the move. We sedated Chhouk, bandaged the injured leg again and lifted him into the cage of branches and banana trees we had built in the back of his transport truck. I was extremely worried for the track was rocky and undulating. If Chhouk fell he could injure himself further. I had words with the truck driver, indicating to him what would befall him if I felt he was not driving with sufficient care. We set off on March 8th, 2007 and in the event my worries were unfounded. The truck driver was excellent and Chhouk lay sleeping off the effects of the sedation during most of the journey out of the forest, which although it was only 16km, took over three hours to complete. We hit the main road and after a brief rest in Sen Monoron to feed and rest Chhouk, we started on the long drive south, through Phnom Penh and on to Phnom Tamao. We took it very slowly, stopping at intervals to give Chhouk a rest. I travelled in the back with the elephant, feeding him throughout the journey. We would sleep once Chhouk was safely installed at PTWRC. 26 hours later, on March 10th, we arrived and lifted the small elephant into one of our stalls in our elephant house. Chhouk had arrived in one piece, but we now had to heal his wounds. He had lost the bottom part of his leg to a snare, the constriction cutting off the blood sufficiently to kill the flesh below. We sedated him each week, his wound was cleaned, small fragments of bone and damaged tissue were removed and the leg was re‐bandaged. I had asked Mr Tham, one of the general keepers at the Centre, if he would like to join our team and care for the new arrival. At that time Tham might not have been everyone’s choice as the candidate to administer love and care to a sick baby. He is about as wide as he is tall and in the early days I used to refer to him as the “Loutish One”. There are stories of his thuggery – to his fellow keepers, never to animals! Tham agreed to join us and immediately proved that I had made the correct decision. He cared for his new charge diligently, sleeping beside Chhouk each night, for like any baby, elephants need love. Tham bought bananas and two chickens as an offering to his Gods and a request they look after Chhouk. His gift seems to have worked…although when I asked Tham later if his Gods had enjoyed their meal he replied that actually they had eaten only a little, but that his friend, head keeper Sitheng, had found the chicken particularly good! The healing powers of wild animals can be amazing and each week when we undressed the leg with Nhim Thy we could almost see the skin re‐growing down the leg and around the under side of the remaining stump until it was completely healed, with the skin finally covering the entire area once again. However the job was only part‐done, as unfortunately we could not “re‐grow” the missing limb. Then fate took a hand. In November, while I was in the United States raising funds for our work, we received information that the Cambodian Forestry Administration had “ceased cooperation with Nick Marx”. There is no need to dwell on the uncomfortable twelve months that followed. Suffice to say that in November, exactly one year later, the FA invited me to return and we have all learned from this experience. Wildlife Alliance continues with the task we have set ourselves, to rescue and care for illegally traded wildlife and relations with FA are currently excellent. When I got back to PTWRC my priority was to do something about Chhouk’s leg, for he was clearly struggling. He used to walk in the forest with elephant, Lucky, who had taken on the role of big sister, but he was very sore and tired quickly, needing frequent rests. I contacted several prosthetics organizations, of which there are many in Cambodia. Some volunteered their best wishes, but none offered to help… until I spoke to Cathy McConnell of the Cambodian School of Prosthetics and Orthotics (CSPO), under the auspices of the Cambodia Trust, now Exceed‐Worldwide. Cathy made no promises, but said she would give it a go. Early in 2009 my friend, vet Paolo Martelli, came over to help and x‐rayed Chhouk’s leg to see if there was anything undesirable inside that we should look out for. CSPO took the first cast of the leg, while I fed a steady stream of treats to keep Chhouk occupied. The first prosthesis arrived a few weeks later and Chhouk took to it immediately, happily walking into the forest like he had worn it all his life! He no longer got tired and was clearly enjoying life more. Sisary has now taken over from Cathy, but things are mostly the same. The team continues to make Chhouk’s shoes and we are now on number 14! CSPO also conducts the repairs that are needed more frequently nowadays as Chhouk grows and we would have been lost without this great organisation! Chhouk is a big lad now and we can only handle him using the protected contact system, from behind the safety of steel – I am responsible for the welfare of my staff as well as our animals! However we must still care for his disability and under the directions of head keeper, Try Sitheng, Chhouk has been trained using reward based, positive reinforcement training, using food to get him to allow us to change his shoe, check his leg twice daily, administer medical treatment, create new shoes and anything else we may need to do. We manage perfectly! Chhouk has become a bit of a celebrity and often we are asked to tell his story in different ways. Contracts have not yet been signed and I cannot give details, but I have been contacted by an author who expressed a desire to write a book on Chhouk’s story. I have given all the help I can in the hope that this might be another opportunity to tell people about the terrible damage indiscriminate use of snares does. Let’s hope for a best seller! Last year, in 2016, I was contacted by The Elephant Valley Project, in Mondulkiri, requesting assistance with another elephant calf that had been snared and was wandering without its mother, badly injured. I left with Buntheoun and vets Chenda and Nhim Thy and we drove through the night, arriving at Keo Seima around midnight to the news that we were too late. The little chap had died of infection caused by constriction from the snare. He was very small and must have suffered greatly. I promised him that I would not let his short life go unmarked. I called all the other big conservation NGOs working in Cambodia together in an attempt to address the problem of snares collectively, which I felt would carry more weight. The “meeting” over lunch on a Friday did not seem to help much. I did not eat and I discussed our next moves with my friend, wildlife photographer, Jeremy Holden and Tom Gray, our Director of Science at Wildlife Alliance, who pushed things further. We decided we should hold exhibitions with graphic photographs illustrating the problem and Tom contacted Cambodian make‐up artist, Apple Love, whose imagination led to models imitating the positions of the snared animals in our photographs. I contacted my friend Sopheap, our mad artist/constructor, asking if he could create a model of Chhouk made entirely of snares. Only a deranged mind could have done such a thing and Sopheap was perfect for the job! At first Bunthoeun and I wondered if we had done the right thing and whether the model would be ready in time for the first “Capture” exhibition at Felix Café in Phnom Penh, but we need not have worried. The model is a replica of our elephant, prosthesis and all. It would be impossible to improve upon! There are changes to the Environmental Laws in Cambodia currently being contemplated by the Cambodian government and our campaign is timely. Although senior politicians in the relevant Ministries were invited, none have turned up to the events so far. However the head of the Ministry of the Environment, who is ultimately responsible for the changes in the law, saw photos of the snare model and loved it, requesting it be placed in the entrance of the MoE offices, which is where it now is, with the proviso that we can “borrow” it back for any events in the future. Maybe we are getting somewhere… The story of Chhouk has been a winding road and is a tribute to everyone involved: To those who have helped with financial assistance, without which none of it would have been possible. To our vets and keepers for their dedicated care, particularly through the difficult early days when we were uncertain whether Chhouk would survive. To CSPO for their ability and professionalism – there are many things to consider when making a prosthetic leg for an elephant! And of course to Chhouk himself, whose fighting spirit kept him going in the early days. Who would have thought, ten years later, that the frail elephant calf I first met in the Srepok Wilderness Area in Mondulkiri province might be an ambassador and perhaps the catalyst that helped to get the conservation law in Cambodia changed? So the story is not over yet. We will see what the future holds… Wildlife Rescue E‐Newsletter 2017, Issue 3 |
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