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ThinkProgress Editor in Chief Judd Legum sent an email to a billionaire donor bragging how the liberal blog’s environmental writer targeted a climate researcher who challenged a major Democratic talking point on global warming, according to leaked emails. The blog’s environmental arm, ClimateProgress, took issue with pollster Nate Silver’s 538 website, hiring Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr. to write about global warming issues. Pielke is no skeptic of man-made warming, but he challenged a Democratic talking point that global warming was making extreme weather more severe. ClimateProgress immediately embarked on a crusade to discredit him “[p]rior to Pielke writing anything” for 538 — based solely on the fact they didn’t like his research on extreme weather. “Pielke basically has made a career of ‘accepting’ climate change but disputing that we can really do anything about it or that it has much of an impact,” Legum wrote in a July 2014 email to hedge fund billionaire Tom Steyer thanking him for his “support.” Steyer is a major supporter of environmentalists and Democratic politicians. Steyer is a donor and bundler for the Clinton campaign, raising more than $100,000 for her campaign since 2015. He spent $73 million during the 2014 midterm elections. ClimateProgress is part of the Center for American Progress Action Fund (CAPAF), which was created by Clinton’s presidential campaign chair John Podesta. Podesta also created the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, which gave CAPAF at least $1 million in 2015. Legum’s email to Steyer was release by WikiLeaks from Podesta’s hacked Gmail account. It’s one of several emails involving the ThinkProgress blog. ClimateProgress put out two articles attacking Pielke the same day he published a post on 538 headlined “Disasters Cost More Than Ever — But Not Because of Climate Change.” Pielke’s point was that extreme weather only does more damage today because there’s more wealth to destroy when hitting shore. When economic growth is taken into account, “the overall trend in disaster costs proportional to GDP since 1990 has stayed fairly level,” Pielke wrote. “Within hours, ClimateProgress published a comprehensive debunk, with quotes from many prominent climate scientists,” Legum wrote, chronicling Pielke’s eventual being forced to leave 538. “Pielke was so upset with our piece, he called the scientists we quoted and threatened to sue them. Silver was forced to apologize,” Legum wrote. “Embarrassed, Silver was forced to publish a rebuttal to Pielke piece by an actual climate scientist, which was also devastating.” Silver asked climate scientist Kerry Emanuel to rebut Pielke’s article. Emanuel wrote that he’s “not comfortable with Pielke’s assertion that climate change has played no role in the observed increase in damages from natural hazards.” Silver never let Pielke publish any piece on global warming on 538 again — a fact Legum bragged to Steyer about in his email. “I think it’s fair say that, without Climate Progress, Pielke would still be writing on climate change for 538,” Legum wrote. “He would be providing important cover for climate deniers backed by Silver’s very respected brand,” he wrote. “But because of our work, he is not. I don’t think there is another site on the internet having this kind of impact on the climate debate.” “Thanks for your support of this work. Looking forward to doing even more in the coming months,” Legum wrote to Steyer. Update: Pielke told The Daily Caller News Foundation claims he threatened to sue his detractors was “a lie.” Reports that Pielke threatened legal action against two climate scientists came from The Huffington Post. Pielke says that’s false. In fact, it was Legum who contacted 538 claiming Pielke had made legal threats against two scientists, according to HuffPo. Follow Michael on Facebook and Twitter Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org. |
This is not an encyclopedia. My intention is for this to become a useful travel guide to shrinking towns, ghost towns, ruins, historic industrial sites, abandoned buildings, dystopian landscapes and other empty or interesting places. I've added a map of historically significant post-industrial and anachronistic places here. I have been experimenting with webmap APIs and have some other maps here: Page of Maps. Recently Added Entries Here All photo captions are links to a Google map of the location where the photo was taken. All the place marks in the map you'll find if you click on "Places on a Map" on the right, have links back to the relevant pages on this site. Thank you for visiting. I welcome any thoughts, suggestions or comments you might have about the site. You can contact me at: hedlunch@yahoo.com ------------------------------ All content on these pages Copyright Mark Hedlund 2012-2017. All rights reserved. Use in school projects and with links on social media is always okay. Please send me an email to request permission for any other use: hedlunch@yahoo.com Non-exclusive commercial publication rights for most photos is $25 per image. |
Need a fast way to create a Debian Package, RPM or Slackware package? If you need to install software from source, but don't want to take the time to learn how to create packages, there's an easier way. CheckInstall is your fast ticket to installable packages. The bad old days, when you had to compile lots of packages from source, are done and over. But you'll still find occasions when it's necessary to compile from source. When you do, it's better to create a native package to install on your system than to just use make install. This makes it easier to manage the software and to uninstall it at a later date. But creating packages isn't trivial, and if you're not adept at creating native packages (RPMs, Debian Packages or Slackware pkg) then who has the time to do all that? CheckInstall cuts out the hassle and automates package creation. Why Use CheckInstall? CheckInstall is good for two scenarios. One, it's great for installing from source when you don't have a native package handy. Why not just use make install? Because that doesn't allow you to easily manage the software at a later date. For example, what if I want to try the brand new GNOME presentation app Glide? Right now, it's only available by pulling source code from a Git repository. But it's in early development, and there's a good chance I'll want to install later versions when they're released. Using make install rather than installing from a package means I won't be able to easily upgrade later. The other reason? Let's say you have 50 Ubuntu servers and want to install the same software on all 50 that you've packaged from source. Want to compile and install that software on 50 servers, or would you rather just install from a package? I'd much rather have an RPM or Debian Package to install than compile from source 50 times. Do not use CheckInstall to create packages for widespread distribution. It's not meant to create packages to ship with distros or to be used by projects to supply packages. Want to get your software into Debian, Fedora, openSUSE, Ubuntu, and others? Work with the distributions to get your package into the repos. If you want to package for multiple distros and supply packages yourself, look at the openSUSE Build Service. You still need to understand packaging, but you can build for most major distributions from there. Getting CheckInstall CheckInstall is packaged for several major distributions. It's available in the repositories for Debian, openSUSE, Ubuntu, and others. It isn't packaged for Fedora, though, so you may need to compile from source for Fedora. The project seemed defunct for a while, but the most recent release came out in December of last year. I do hope that the project will continue to be kept up, because it's terribly handy. To install CheckInstall, just look for the checkinstall package in your distribution. On Ubuntu or Debian run sudo aptitude install checkinstall; on openSUSE run sudo zypper install checkinstall. Note that you might need other libraries or packages to compile software as well. Using CheckInstall Now that you've got CheckInstall set up, it's time to give it a test. Most software is compiled using ./configure; make; make install. You'll still need to go through the ./configure and make steps. After that, run sudo checkinstall instead. CheckInstall will go through the make install steps and then give you a few questions. You'll see output similar to this: ***************************************** **** Debian package creation selected *** ***************************************** This package will be built according to these values: 0 - Maintainer: [ root@ubuntu ] 1 - Summary: [ Red Notebook test pkg ] 2 - Name: [ rednotebook ] 3 - Version: [ 0.9.4 ] 4 - Release: [ 1 ] 5 - License: [ GPL ] 6 - Group: [ checkinstall ] 7 - Architecture: [ i386 ] 8 - Source location: [ rednotebook-0.9.4 ] 9 - Alternate source location: [ ] 10 - Requires: [ ] 11 - Provides: [ rednotebook ] Enter a number to change any of them or press ENTER to continue: If you want to change any of those settings, just enter the number for the value you wish to change. You'll answer a few more questions about excluding files from the build directory and it's OK to do this. Then CheckInstall will tell you where the package has been saved to. It will also install the package by default. If for some reason you don't want to install the package on the same system you're compiling it on, you can use the --install option: sudo checkinstall --install=no This will just create a package and tell you where it was saved. Python is becoming an increasingly popular language to write desktop software these days. And you'll usually find that the install instructions for a Python app are to run python setup.py install rather than the familiar ./configure; make; make install steps. You can also use CheckInstall with Perl modules by running sudo checkinstall after running make and make test; though, it has been a while since I needed to install Perl modules from source. Happy Packaging That should help get you started. See the checkinstall man page for further options, if you need more control over the packaging process. CheckInstall may not work with every type of package, but it will handle the bulk of software you might want to compile from source. It's a really useful utility that I've been using for many years and it's served me well every time. |
Time for another round of good news/utterly mystifying news. First up, Blizzard’s detailed Diablo III update 1.0.4, and it sounds like – at the very least – its heart is in the right place. The rather hefty patch is meant to stitch up some of the hell-themed hack ‘n’ slash’s biggest trouble spots – for instance, the snooze-inducing weakness of normal enemies, a lack of excitement in item identification, and certain wimpy, underused skills. So that’s the good. And the utterly mystifying? That award goes to the part where Blizzard’s Wyatt Cheng outright states that solo play is the “clear choice” of Diablo players, which is apparently a problem. [Note: this post has been visited by the update fairy! Go past the break for details.] This, of course, suggests that the sort of Diablo experience many players want and the one Blizzard constantly fights to provide are very, very different. And while that was fairly apparent back when Diablo’s always online requirement was announced, there are now raw numbers to back it up. To Blizzard’s credit, its solution to this un-dilemma is to make co-op more enjoyable, but the lack of a simple offline mode becomes more and more baffling by the day. [Update: Blargh, I goofed. While I still think Blizzard should consider other reasons players might prefer flying solo, Cheng’s largely referring to the high-end farming experience here. My knee has since been harshly reprimanded for jerking so irrationally, and it won’t be getting deserts for a whole week.] At any rate, here’s Cheng’s take: “While many people are playing co-op, it’s still a minority of games. Ideally we would like players who want to play solo to be able to solo, and players who want to play co-op to play co-op. At the moment though playing solo is the clear choice, even for those who would prefer co-op with some of their friends.” “The first change we’re making in 1.0.4 for co-op is to remove averaging in multiplayer games of Magic Find and Gold Find. You’ll benefit from your full Magic Find stat, independent of other players in the game…. Along the same lines as the change in 1.0.3, we’re going to be lowering the health multiplier for monsters per additional player in co-op games. This makes enemies far more manageable in co-op games, and rewards a co-ordinated group with a higher farming efficiency than playing alone.” Meanwhile, enemies will also see some big changes, mainly in regard to the gap between normal monsters and elites. In short, normals are gaining health, and elites won’t be quite as damage-spongy as they used to. On top of that, elites are losing Enrage Timers and heal-back-to-full abilities, because Blizzard deemed those bits more frustrating than fun. Next up, high-level weapons are having their damage ceilings raised, so as to give some viability back to weapon drops. As for underused skills, Blizzard plans to detail them individually on a class-by-class basis. But the general philosophy behind the tinkerings sounds, well, sound. Basically, polish and buff – don’t heap nerf-flavored rust on the good stuff to make sure the whole arsenal’s equally mediocre. So that’s nice to hear. Surely, though, most of you have left Tristram for greener pastures by now, right? I mean, if any other developer was talking about improving its game’s farming experience – well, aside from maybe Zynga or Natsume – to keep max level players from following their wanderlust, it’d be a sign that the game’s run its course. Diablo’s fun for 60-100 hours. That’s fantastic! Far more than most games. And what happens after that? Well, you move on. |
Digging up a body was a dirty, complex and very profitable exercise in the 18th and 19th century. A booming interest in human anatomy, paired with a lack of regulated cadavers - only executed criminals’ bodies were up for grabs - meant instructors at medical schools had to look elsewhere for appropriate samples to dissect, or be faced with students walking away. This situation gave rise to the phenomenon of grave-robbers, men who stocked the medical schools by pillaging graveyards of freshly-buried corpses. And for good money, too. But how did these body snatchers, or resurrectionists, do their work? A short piece in The Irish Times in 1885, taken from The Life of Sir Robert Christison, went about clearing that up. Step one: wait until evening: That much seems obvious: “The time chosen in the dark winter nights was, for the town churchyards, from six to eight o’clock, at which late hour the churchyard watch was set, and the city police also commenced their night rounds.” Step two: prepare equipment: A sheet was spread on the ground around the grave to clean up any dirt afterwards. Also, leave that shovel at home, because it’s no good for the job: “Digging was done with short, flat, dagger-shaped implements of wood, to avoid the clicking noise of iron striking stones.” Step three: get digging: A small hole was dug down, just to where the head lay: “On reaching the coffin, two broad iron hooks under the lid, pulled forcibly up with the rope, broke off a sufficient portion of the lid to allow the body to be dragged out. The body was stripped of the grave clothes, which were scrupulously buried again.” Step four: the getaway: The body was secured in a sack and the ground was left as the robbers found it. “Transference over the churchyard wall was easy in a dark evening and once in the street drew no attention at so early an hour”. The whole process took about an hour, “because the soil was loose and the digging was done impetuously by frequent relays of active men.” William Burke and William Hare, or simply Burke and Hare, are the names most quickly associated with this grim practice. In Edinburgh in 1828, the two Irish immigrants became the most “famous” of the “sack-em-up men” when they turned to performing a string of murders to keep their stock up for sale to well-known anatomist Dr Robert Knox. Meanwhile, back in Ireland, our own trade was ticking over. Dublin trade St Andrew’s Church on Suffolk Street in Dublin’s city centre was one of the grave robbers’ favourite haunts Part of the deal often had to do with paying off the church caretaker. According to a historical piece in The Irish Times in February 1954, there were a number of spots around the capital notorious for the practice. “Dublin, too, had its corps of these ‘put-em-in-a-sack men’,” says the author, named as G’OS. “Judging from the number of convictions registered against its sextons for aiding and abetting, St Andrew’s in Suffolk street was one of their favourite haunts. Other happy hunting grounds were Kilgobbin church yard and Bully’s Acre near Kilmainham. ” As those who have visited Glasnevin Cemetery may know, the watchtowers on site once served a purpose; the article mentions one newspaper report of an incident in January 1830 in which over sixty gunshots were exchanged between mourners and a group of resurrectionists. In an earlier encounter in Donnybrook in 1750, the father of a recently deceased child caught a group of “young surgeons” in the act of stealing the body. “Last Friday evening some young surgeons went in a coach to Donnybrook to take up the corpse of a child who had been buried in that churchyard the night before,” reads a Dublin Gazette report quoted in The Irish Times in 1959. “While they were digging open the grave , the father of the child got information of it, and assembling some of his neighbours, came to the place by the time they had got the body up, when they fell on them, took the corpse back again, and severely chastised the voting gentlemen for their pains.” The same piece does no favours for the reputation of medical students in the capital, who apparently went to great lengths to secure a fresh corpse to practice on. Kevin Street One method involved dressing in “shabby clothes” and filling a coffin with stones. According to the article, the students would then gather in a mob and traipse to the burial ground at The Cabbage Garden off Kevin Street, weighted casket in hand, and mingle with legitimate mourners. They would get talking to the crowd, “plying them liberally with whiskey well-laced with opium”. “When the latter were helpless the students would swap coffins or contents and head for home. “Not infrequently the body was dragged from the coffin, hastily dressed in clothes brought for the purpose, and carried along in the guise of a drunk staggering home between two friends.” The job was lucrative - one report says a former graverobber claimed his group made £1,400 in exchange for about 300 bodies in a single season. “A thriving export trade” also developed; bodies headed for London medical schools were often wrapped in canvass and labelled “cheese”. Bodysnatchers were not paid by the bag, either. They had an advance payment and regular “refreshers”, and a tip was expected at the end of the season. Plus, if a snatcher was caught, “his patron was obliged to support his wife and family and compensate him upon release”. Eventually, following the uncovering of Burke and Hare’s methods and public outcry, the Anatomy Act was published in 1832, which stipulated rules around the donation of bodies, regulated dissection licences and provided for inspections of dissection rooms. For the resurrectionist, it was the nail in the coffin. This story is part of the ‘Lost Leads’ series - a re-visiting of lesser-known stories that have made the pages of The Irish Times since 1859. What can you find? Let us know @irishtimes. For more information on subscribing to the archive, see here: www.irishtimes.com/archive |
FACT CHECK: 10 Statements From Trump's Phoenix Speech Enlarge this image toggle caption Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images At a campaign rally in Phoenix on Tuesday, President Trump made news by slamming Republican senators, praising controversial former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and blasting the news media. He also defended his initial, controversial remarks on recent violent protests in Charlottesville, Va. But in doing so, he left out the parts of the remarks that inflamed people's tempers the most, like his comment that there was violence "on many sides." That's just one of the misleading or untruthful things Trump said. We fact-checked 10 of his statements. 1. Anti-Trump protesters "And just so you know from the Secret Service, there aren't too many people outside protesting, OK? That I can tell you." It's impossible to fact-check exactly what Trump knew about protesters — if Secret Service agents spoke to Trump about protesters or what agents told him, for example. But we do have at least some context on this claim: Trump very likely did see some protesters on his way to the convention center where his rally was held. In a pool report, Washington Times reporter David Boyer wrote about the anti-Trump activists along the route as the presidential motorcade drove to the rally site: "We saw a smattering of supporters holding Trump/Pence signs and waving in the neighborhood near the hotel. As we got closer to the convention center, we saw more and more protesters. Hard to judge how many, but there were several hundred that we passed. "Several people made obscene gestures at the motorcade. Some signs included 'Fire Trump' and 'Sad!' Also, 'Love One Another.' " However, it's also possible that Trump didn't get the full scope of how many protesters were there, according to NPR's Geoff Bennett, who was traveling with the president as well. The motorcade didn't drive by the area where the overwhelming majority of protesters were gathered, Bennett reports. Those protesters numbered in the "thousands," as Fox News and the Los Angeles Times reported. 2. Charlottesville statement "I am really doing this to show you how dishonest these people are. Here is my first statement when I heard about Charlottesville. ... Here is what I said on Saturday: " 'We're closely following the terrible events unfolding in Charlottesville, Va.' This is me speaking. 'We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence.' That's me speaking on Saturday, right after the event." The key part here is this sentence: "We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence." Trump did say that, but he left out the second part of that sentence. The full sentence was: "We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides — on many sides" (per a transcript from Vox). It was that "many sides" part that angered many people — it appeared to put the KKK, neo-Nazi and other white supremacist rallygoers on the same moral footing as the counterprotesters who opposed them. He made the comparison more than once in his responses to the events in Charlottesville. The Tuesday after the protest, he said: "OK, what about the alt-left that came charging — excuse me. What about the alt-left that came charging at the, as you say, the alt-right? Do they have any semblance of guilt?" he said in response to a reporter's question. He later added, "You had some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides." 3. CNN ratings "CNN, which is so sad, so pathetic, and their ratings are going down." Early in August, CNN released new data showing that its ratings are healthy. According to the report: "Year to date, 2017 is pacing to be CNN's highest on record in Total Day among total viewers and highest among 25-54 since 2003. 2017 is also pacing to be CNN's second largest audience since 2008 in primetime among 25-54 and total viewers." In addition, Variety reported in June that CNN had its "most-watched first quarter in 14 years." Of course, CNN isn't alone in getting these ratings boosts; all three major cable news networks "saw double-digit ratings growth across the board for the second quarter of 2017," Variety also reported. Trump has made the claim before as part of his ongoing attacks on the media. He said CNN's ratings were down in July, too; PolitiFact likewise at the time found this to be "flat wrong." 4. "Racism was evil" "I said racism was evil. Did they report that I said racism was evil? No." Multiple headlines from an array of news outlets reported that Trump called racism "evil" in his Aug. 14 address — in which he also called out the KKK and neo-Nazis specifically after political pressure to do so. 5. New York Times "apology" "The New York Times essentially apologized after I won the election because their coverage was so bad, and it was so wrong, and they were losing so many subscribers that they practically apologized. I would say they did. They say, 'Well it wasn't really that much of an apology because they were losing so many people because they were misled.' " Trump has claimed multiple times that the Times "apologized," though this time he seemed to back off slightly by saying it "essentially" apologized. Either way, the New York Times did not apologize, as NPR's Jessica Taylor wrote in a fact-check of a Jan. 29 Trump tweet. "New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and executive editor Dean Baquet did write a letter to readers after the surprising election conclusion examining the paper's coverage. In the note, they acknowledged that 'after such an erratic and unpredictable election there are inevitable questions: Did Donald Trump's sheer unconventionality lead us and other news outlets to underestimate his support among American voters?' And a column from the paper's public editor (or ombudsman), Liz Spayd, pointed out problems with its data/forecasting vertical that predicted that Hillary Clinton had an 80 percent chance of winning the election. She also argued that the paper's reporters could have done a better job of tapping into 'the sentiments of Trump supporters.' "However, neither of those pieces constitutes an apology." The Times itself in a March 29 tweet responded to Trump: "False, we did not apologize. We stand by our coverage & thank our millions of subscribers for supporting our journalism." 6. Health insurance premiums "Arizona is a disaster in terms of your price increase ... 116 percent." This figure is correct. It comes from an October 2016 report from the Department of Health and Human Services. It found that among all states, Arizona would have the largest average premium hike in 2017, as measured by silver plans offered to 27-year-olds. But when talking about Affordable Care Act premium increases, it's misleading to not also mention tax credits. "The caveat is that most people don't feel that price hike because they're insulated by the tax credits under the Affordable Care Act," as Will Stone, from NPR station KJZZ in Tempe, told NPR in March. Stone added that GOP efforts to overhaul health care would very likely have made the situation in Arizona worse. "The Republican replacement ... would have lowered the tax credits relatively significantly for a place like Arizona." 7. Job numbers "Since I took the oath of office, we have added far more than 1 million jobs in the private sector. Unemployment is right now at almost a 17-year low." From February through July, U.S. firms have added 1,074,000 jobs, according to numbers from the Labor Department (with the caveat that those numbers are still subject to revision). That's solid growth, but it's not out of the norm for the last few years. And unemployment is 4.3 percent. The last time it was that low was May 2001, and the last time it was lower than that was February 2001 — so it has been 16 1/2 years since unemployment was lower than it is now. 8. Economic growth "Economic growth has surged to 2.6 percent. Remember, everybody said you will not bring it up to 1 percent." Economic growth in the second quarter was indeed 2.6 percent, up from 1.2 percent in the first quarter. One can quibble with the word "surged" here, but 2.6 percent isn't at all an unusually high economic growth number. Economic growth is often around or above that level. But as far as "everybody" saying that Trump wouldn't be able to boost economic growth above 1 percent, that's false. The Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee in its December meeting, for example, projected 2.1 percent economic growth for 2017. Economic advisory firm IHS likewise projected that in 2017, growth would be above 2 percent — 2.3 percent, to be exact. Trump himself has said he's aiming for even higher growth: 3 percent, to be exact (and that's down from a 4 percent prediction he had made before). Even sustained 3 percent growth is unlikely to happen, according to many economists. 9. Increasing wages "Wages are rising." Wages are indeed rising, but not very quickly — in fact, considering the low unemployment rate, economists continue to wonder why they aren't rising faster. "The mystery continues to be with the labour market this tight, and the level of improvement we continue to see, that wages stubbornly stay at 2% year-over-year wage growth. To me that continues to be the mystery of the jobs report," as Michael Arone, chief investment strategist at State Street Global Advisors, told the BBC after the July jobs report was released. In the last jobs report, wage growth accelerated slightly, to 2.5 percent annually, as Bloomberg reported. That's a positive development, but wage growth can bounce around from month to month; if the upward movement becomes sustained, that will be a more promising sign. As CNN reported after the last jobs report, many economists would consider wage growth around 3 to 3.5 percent to be a better sign that the job market is healthy. 10. Stock market highs "The stock market is at its all-time high in history." Trump is right: The Dow Jones industrial average — one of the most closely watched stock indexes — has posted several record highs this year, passing the 22,000 mark in early August. The S&P 500, another popular index, has likewise hit multiple highs this year. All stock index records come with the caveat that they are not adjusted for inflation. In addition, Trump can't really claim credit for that entire rally, as NPR's Jim Zarroli reported in July. While his policy agenda of deregulation and lower corporate taxes may have some in the business community feeling confident, low interest rates and faster global growth are also likely helping to push stocks higher. |
A New Jersey Superior Court judge decided that pro-Nazi parents Heath and Deborah Campbell cannot have their four kids back, three of whom were named in honor of Nazis. And you thought some celebrity kid names were bad! Adolf Hitler Campbell, 6, and his younger sisters Joycelynn Aryan Nation, 4, and Honszlynn Hinler, 4, and 6-month-old Hons Campbell will not be returned to their parents Heath and Deborah Campbell after a long battle. The father, Heath, questioned Superior Court Judge Robert Reed’s decision to keep the children in state custody. “These kids weren’t abused. Our kids weren’t taken because of abuse,” he said to nj.com on May 29. “I’m honest about who I am and what I am.” The three older kids were taken away in January 2009 when a store refused to decorate a birthday cake for Adolf Hitler, the oldest child, who was then 3-years old. Little Hons was taken just hours after he was born in November, 2011. Heath said he saw his children roughly a year ago. He is also now separated from his wife, Deborah. “If I have to give up my Nazism, then so be it. I’ll do it,” Heath said. The children are “more my heart and soul and everything than anything.” The family plans to appeal. Watch a clip from their trial from 2009: — Lorraine Chow More shocking parenting stories: |
By Jason Davis – WASHINGTON, DC (Mar 8, 2017) US Soccer Players - What a scene. A wall of soccer fanatics clad head-to-toe in purple, 4,000-strong, filled one end of stadium built purposely for the sport of soccer in the United States. They stood throughout the match, chanting, singing, and imploring for every second of the 90 minutes between the referee’s blows of his whistle as their beloved Lions worked to deliver them the victory they so desperately wanted. Even those not in the supporters' end were to a person draped in the club’s trademark color. They, too, cheered and chanted when the situation demanded, and they were no less invested in the happenings on the field than those in the wall. It total, 25,500 fans packed the stands, filling every seat in the place. There were never going to an empty one on the first day out at the club’s new home. It was a day of celebration, made all the sweeter by the win delivered by substitute Giles Barnes and striker Cyle Larin. That early injury to Kaka? A problem to be sure, but something to worry about later. The opening of Orlando City Stadium and the MLS match played there on Sunday represented the culmination of a process that began nine years ago and 1,000 miles away in Texas. It took an old fashioned American sports franchise relocation - orchestrated by an Englishman, no less - to set the stage for Orlando City’s entry into the elite of the sport in the United States and Canada. Back in 2007, Stoke-on-Trent native Phil Rawlins was pondering a move into American soccer after 12 years as a successful businessman in the US. Building on his experience as a board member for this hometown club, Stoke City, Rawlins decided to dive headfirst into the game at the lower division levels by starting a club in Austin, Texas. Austin just happened to be where Rawlins was living at the time. A reasonably sized city, it made sense as a place to start. A few years into his passion project, Rawlins found himself up against a harsh reality. There wasn’t much appetite for a soccer specific stadium in the Texas capital. New investment - a requirement for second division teams after the shakeup of the USL-1 split in 2010 - wasn’t coming. The investment that Rawlins was able to secure lobbied him to consider other options for markets. So Rawlins picked up his franchise and moved to Florida. His research had revealed the potential of the city for soccer. With the entire Southeast without an MLS team, there was little competition for both attention and corporate sponsorship. The Citrus Bowl was a readymade temporary home. The political landscape was favorable for getting an MLS-quality stadium project approved. Orlando delivered on its promise. Thousands showed up to support the USL version of Orlando City, creating enough momentum that MLS tapped the city for one of two expansion franchises entering the league in 2015. Rawlins had reached the first one of his goals, getting his soccer club to the big time. Although the stadium deal was in place when Orlando City got an MLS team, the club’s roots weren’t truly anchored in the Floridian soil until finishing the building. Now fans who have been supporting the team since its arrival in the region can begin the process of creating a culture unique to a venue that belongs to them. It truly is a realization of everything Rawlins dreamed about not even a decade ago. The issue of relocation aside (and no, it’s not a small issue), it’s difficult to imagine a similar story happening again. So much had to go right for Rawlins’ path to MLS and a state-of-the-art venue to reach its eventual destination. As MLS quickly fills up to what looks like its full capacity of clubs, the limited number of expansion slots means MLS is turning its eye to more strategic targets. Rawlins’s choice of Orlando proved brilliant, but as larger cities with bigger national profiles step into the competition, another Orlando becomes less likely. There are a few parallels between Orlando and some of the bidding cities. Places like Sacramento, Cincinnati, and San Antonio have used lower division soccer as a means to prove the viability of their markets for professional soccer. Big crowds to watch soccer below the MLS level is just one part of the story. None of those candidates exist and might matriculate to MLS because of the efforts of a singular individual. If and when any of those towns move up to the top league, they’ll do so on the back of a group of owners and executives. At the end of 2016, Orlando City announced that Rawlins has stepped back from his day-to-day duties as the club’s president and will maintain a more ceremonial role going forward. On the occasion of that announcement, he summed up the journey that would ultimately reach its climax with the inauguration of the club’s new home. “The opening of the stadium in March is the final piece in the jigsaw puzzle,” Rawlins said. “With the stadium complete I have accomplished all that I promised the community of Central Florida when I arrived in Orlando in 2010.” While Rawlins will likely always be around Orlando City in some role, he is no longer the driving force behind what Orlando City will be in the future. That means the end of the unique story he himself wrote. In Austin, he will always be the man who moved away for the greener pastures and the promise of MLS. In Orlando, he will always be the man who built everything Orlando City has become. Without him, there is no stadium and there is no Orlando City Soccer. It’s an “only in America” story that might never happen again. Jason Davis is the founder of MatchFitUSA.com and the host of The United States of Soccer on SiriusXM. Contact him: matchfitusa@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter:http://twitter.com/davisjsn. More From Jason Davis: |
A Texas state lawmaker has pre-filed a bill that would criminalize dismemberment abortions. If the law passes, it would be a crime for an abortion doctor to surgically dismember and extract a living baby while in the womb. The criminal penalty would be a state jail felony. Moreover, pursuant to the express provisions of Senate Bill 415, a state executive or administrative official may not decline to enforce the law, or “adopt a construction” of this law that “narrows its applicability, based on the official’s own beliefs concerning the requirements of the state or federal constitution.” The bill is authored by state Senator Charles Perry (R-Lubbock). Under the law, a woman on whom a dismemberment abortion is performed, or an employee or agent of the physician, would not be subject to criminal penalties. A dismemberment abortion performed when “necessary in a medical emergency,” would not be a crime. The bill defines “dismemberment abortion” as: an abortion in which a person, with the purpose of causing the death of an unborn child, dismembers the unborn child and extracts the unborn child one piece at a time from the uterus through the use of clamps, grasping forceps, tongs, scissors, or a similar instrument that, through the convergence of two rigid levers, slices, crushes, or grasps, or performs any combination of those actions on, a piece of the unborn child’s body to cut or rip the piece from the body. The term does not include an abortion that uses suction to dismember the body of an unborn child by sucking pieces of the unborn child into a collection container. The term includes a dismemberment abortion that is used to cause the death of an unborn child and in which suction is subsequently used to extract pieces of the unborn child after the unborn child’s death. “Each year in Texas, more than a thousand lives are ended by dismemberment abortions. As a society we should not allow a practice that literally pulls a living child apart in the womb,” said Senator Perry. “We know that children in the womb are capable of feeling pain, prohibiting this practice is long overdue.” According to a statement obtained by Breitbart Texas from Senator Perry’s office, six states have passed legislation to prohibit dismemberment abortion. Sen. Perry’s Senate Bill 415 provides that nothing in the bill can be construed to create or recognize a right to abortion, or to a particular method of abortion. If passed by the 2017 85th Texas Legislature, it would go into effect on September 1, 2017. If the law is passed and later challenged in court, the express provisions of the bill make clear that the Legislative intent is to have it construed as a matter of state law: to be enforceable to the maximum possible extent consistent with but not further than federal constitutional requirements, even if that construction is not readily apparent, as such constructions are authorized only to the extent necessary to save the subchapter from judicial invalidation. It also states that any judicial reformation of the language in the statute is “explicitly authorized only to the extent necessary to save the statutory provision from invalidity.” A state court must interpret the law in a way to avoid any constitutional vagueness problem and “shall enforce the provision to the maximum possible extent.” If a federal court later finds any provision in the law to be unconstitutionally vague, and declines to impose the saving construction of the statute, then the Supreme Court of Texas shall provide a construction that avoids a constitutional problem while enforcing the statute’s restrictions “to the maximum possible extent.” Lana Shadwick is a writer and legal analyst for Breitbart Texas. She has served as a prosecutor and associate judge in Texas. Follow her on Twitter @LanaShadwick2. Texas Senate Bill 415 by Senator Charles Perry by lanashadwick on Scribd |
The game has seen some talented 20 year old's take the competition by storm over the years. But how does Zach Merrett's 2016 compare? He won his first Crichton Medal, finishing more than 100 votes ahead of his nearest teammates. The 20 year old polled 378 votes to take out the best and fairest ahead of Joe Daniher and James Kelly who tied for second with 273 votes. Merrett also won the Best Defensive player and the John Kilby Best Clubman Award. Merrett was ranked number one at the Bombers for disposals (657 – a Club record), metres gained, contested possessions, clearances, score involvements and tackles. At 20 years and 329 days he is one of the youngest Essendon players to win the best and fairest behind Tim Watson (19 years and 50 days), Dick Reynolds (19 years and 88 days) and Neale Daniher (20 years and 189 days). By the numbers: Games: 22 Goals: 7 Ave Disposals: 29.9 Disposal Efficiency: 72.3 Ave Contested Possessions: 10.4 Ave Metres Gained: 444.1 Ave Score Involvements: 5.9 Ave Marks: 5.0 Ave Tackles: 6.2 Ave Inside 50’s: 4.9 From years gone by Peter Burns DOB: January 5, 1866 Career: South Melbourne 1885-1891 (VFA), Geelong 1892-96 (VFA) & 1897-1902 (VFL) At 20 he was … arguably the biggest name in the game. The previous year, as a 19-year-old in 1885, he'd left Ballarat Imperial to join South Melbourne, which he immediately lifted to a premiership team, prompting The Australasian to hail him as the player of the season. He became … 'Peter The Great' – the code's first superstar, its first 300-gamer and one of the greatest players of the game's first 50 years. Won four VFA flags with South and was the first captain of a VFL representative team. Dick Lee DOB: March 19, 1889 Career: Collingwood 1906-1922 At 20 he was … the best sharpshooter in the VFL, having topped the League goalkicking table in three successive seasons to draw within just 20 goals of the all-time goals record. He became … a goalkicking legend. A longtime holder of the League's goals (707) record, the three-time premiership player led the competition goalkicking a record eight times (10 if we include finals) and was later inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame. Bob Pratt DOB: August 31, 1912 Career: South Melbourne 1930-39 & 1946 At 20 he was … the most spectacular high-marking forward in the competition. Kicked 71 goals in 17 games in 1932 and, before his 21st birthday the following season, had piled on 85 in 13 games en route to his first century and a premiership. He became … a record-breaking goalkicker and an official Legend. Amassed three successive, League-topping centuries, including what remains a record of 150 in 1934, matched by only Hawthorn's Peter Hudson in 1971. Haydn Bunton DOB: July 5, 1911 Career: Fitzroy 1931-37 & 1942, Subiaco 1938-41, Port Adelaide 1945 At 20 he was … captain and well on the way to his second Brownlow Medal in just his second season. The seemingly unstoppable rover also represented Victoria in both seasons, averaging 31.5 kicks and 10.5 marks in two games. He became … the only man to win three Brownlow and three Sandover Medals, and would later achieve Legend status and a place in the AFL's Team of the Century. Jack Dyer DOB: November 15, 1913 Career: Richmond 1931-49 At 20 he was … already one of the most explosive and feared players in the competition. At 18, the ruckman/forward played just 10 games but received the equal-most Brownlow Medal votes for his team (equal-fifth overall) in the premiership year of 1932, and represented Victoria. If not for injury that year, he'd have played in Grand Finals in each of his first four seasons. He became … the famed 'Captain Blood'. Played a then-record 312 games, was a long-term captain-coach/coach, won two flags and an equal club-record five best and fairests (see table above), was selected in the AFL's Team of the Century, became a Legend in the Australian Football Hall of Fame and was also a footy media megastar. Jack Dyer, seen here at the MCG in 1999, has few equals in Richmond folklore. Picture: AFL Photos Dick Reynolds DOB: June 20, 1915 Career: Essendon 1933-51 At 20 he was … one of the VFL's best rovers, finishing equal-seventh in the Brownlow Medal in his debut season at 18, winning the medal the next year, finishing equal-fifth in his third season and in 1936 was on his way to another top-10 placing along with a second club best and fairest. He became … known as 'King Richard', played a then-League record of 320 games, won three Brownlows and an equal club record of seven best and fairests, captain-coached/coached the Bombers to 12 Grand Finals for four premierships, and earned Legend status and a spot in the AFL's Team of the Century. Des Fothergill DOB: July 15, 1920 Career: Collingwood 1937-40 and 1945-47 At 20 he was … a Brownlow medallist and a three-time club best and fairest winner, twice in teams that finished runner-up. In the 1938 finals series, the powerhouse rover/forward tallied 6.1 from 28 kicks in a semi-final, 5.0 from 26 kicks in the preliminary final, and eventual premier Carlton was relieved to keep him to 20 kicks and 4.3 in the Grand Final. He became … a shock defector to VFA club Williamstown on a lucrative deal, later returning to the Pies where he continued to star from 1945-47, topping the League goalkicking in 1946. Selected in Collingwood's Team of the Century and was inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame. John Coleman DOB: November 23, 1928 Career: Essendon 1949-54 At 20 he was … and remains the only player to kick 100 goals in his first season. The high-leaping spearhead bagged a record 12 goals on debut and was a key to Essendon's premiership side that season. He became … one of the most magical players in history, and the full-forward in the AFL's Team of the Century. The official Legend booted 537 goals in just 98 games, winning two flags and leading the League goalkicking in each of his five completed seasons, before a knee injury ended his career at 25. Later coached the Bombers to two premierships. On top of his goalkicking feats, John Coleman coached the Dons to a pair of flags. Picture: AFL Photos Ted Whitten DOB: July 27, 1933 Career: Footscray 1951-70 At 20 he was … A dynamic centre half-back who would soon be voted club champion in the Bulldogs' first premiership year. Had been their best finals player the previous season. He became … 'Mr Football' - one of the game's greatest players and ambassadors. A true utility who could play in any key position, Whitten played a then League record 321 games, won a then equal club record five best and fairests, and was recognised with official Legend status and selection in the AFL's Team of the Century. Ron Barassi DOB: February 27, 1936 Career: Melbourne 1953-64, Carlton 1965-69 At 20 he was … a unique player later described as the game's first ruck-rover. Provided a point of difference that helped Melbourne make the 1954 Grand Final and win the next two flags before he turned 21. He became … Footy's most iconic figure. An official Legend, an AFL Team of the Century member, he won six premierships (two as captain) and two best and fairests before sensationally joining Carlton as captain-coach and leading the Blues to two flags. Later took North Melbourne to its first two premierships. Tony Lockett and Ron Barassi were brought together for a brief time at the Swans. Picture: AFL Photos Bob Skilton DOB: November 8, 1938 Career: South Melbourne 1956-71 At 20 he was … a brilliant, courageous rover who'd won a Brownlow Medal, two club best and fairests, a club goalkicking award (with 60) and six Victorian selections. He became … a three-time Brownlow medallist and the winner of a record nine club best and fairests. An official Legend who selected in the AFL's Team of the Century. Also coached the Swans and Melbourne. Kevin Bartlett DOB: March 6, 1947 Career: Richmond 1965-83 At 20 he was … a flyweight rover who won a best and fairest in the Tigers' premiership year of 1967 after averaging 20.7 kicks and slotting three goals in the Grand Final against Geelong. He became … the first player to reach 400 games (403 to be precise), along with an official Legend, a five-time best and fairest, five-time premiership player and Norm Smith medallist, who finished second and third in the Brownlow Medal. Also coached Richmond. Kevin Bartlett's coaching stint at Richmond didn't come close to his playing feats. Picture: AFL Photos Leigh Matthews DOB: March 1, 1952 Career: Hawthorn 1969-85 At 20 he was … a pocket battleship who'd won back-to-back best and fairests, the first of which was in the Hawks' premiership year of 1971. Averaged 20 kicks and two goals a game in this period and also represented Victoria in both years. He became … 'Lethal' Leigh - arguably the greatest player of all time. An official Legend who was selected in the AFL's Team of the Century after a career that encompassed 332 games, 915 goals, eight best and fairests, four flags, a Coleman Medal and six club goalkicking awards. A four-time premiership coach with Collingwood and the Brisbane Lions. Tony Lockett DOB: March 9, 1966 Career: St Kilda 1983-94, Sydney 1995-99 & 2002 At 20 he was … already a hulking presence and the most promising young forward in the competition after goal tallies of 77, 79 and 60 in St Kilda's wooden-spoon teams from 1984-86. Had also represented Victoria. He became … the AFL's greatest goalkicker with 1360, including six centuries. A six-time Coleman medallist and three-time best and fairest winner, he won the 1987 Brownlow Medal at 21 and was later elevated to Legend status. Michael Voss DOB: July 7, 1975 Career: Brisbane 1992-2006 By the age of 20 he'd … become a brilliant midfield battering ram. The mature redhead was on track to tie for the 1996 Brownlow Medal and claim his second successive club best and fairest. He'd eventually … be an inspirational triple premiership captain, five-time best and fairest winner, five-time All Australian (twice as skipper), dual AFL Players' Association MVP and Australian Football Hall of Fame inductee. Also coached the Lions from 2009-13. Chris Judd DOB: September 8, 1983 Career: West Coast 2002-07, Carlton 2008-15 By the age of 20 he'd … produced a brilliant 2004 season with the Eagles that would be rewarded with a Brownlow Medal and a club best and fairest, after finishing in the top three in the two preceding years. A unique contested-ball beast who burst clear of congestion with scintillating pace and evasion. He'd eventually … become the only player to achieve captaincy, Brownlows, best and fairests, AFL Players' Association MVPs and All Australian selections (six in total) at two clubs. Won a second Brownlow at Carlton and ended up with five club best and fairests. Captained the Eagles to the 2006 premiership, a year after being the Norm Smith medallist in a losing team. |
Anna- An Exciting Morning Anna woke very well on her sister's wedding day. The sun was streaming through the blinds, and birdsong and excited chatter drifted through the open window. The Princess was in a great mood. The cheerful redhead had not been this excited for a single day since her own wedding to the man snoring beside her, his blonde mop of hair blowing back and forth in time with his long, slow breaths. She lay there for a few moments, enjoying the sun dancing and shimmering on the walls. Elsa's getting married today! I can't believe it! Excitement getting the better of her, she bounced up and ran to the window, throwing open the blinds and gazing out. The sun was resting just above the horizon, and the streets were busier than Anna had ever seen them. Not even Elsa's coronation had drawn crowds of quite this magnitude. Ships of all shapes and sizes were rotating in and out of the docks, many of them flying flags that Anna didn't even recognize. It's a good thing I'm not the Queen, Anna thought. I don't have the head for it. Continuing to peer at the ships, a flash of gold caught her eye. She gasped. Was that… The sun sigil of Corona waved at her from the mast of an enormous ship, as though the ship itself were greeting her. Rapunzel! Anna spun around. "Kristoff!" she cried. "Get up, get up! Rapunzel and Eugene are here!" Dashing to a large ornate wardrobe, she pulled her nightdress over head and stood there, considering her options with one hand on her hip. "That's a good look for you, sweetie." Kristoff was grinning at her from the bed, his brown eyes aimed at her, running up and down her slender figure with an approving gaze. "You should just go to the wedding like that." "Oh ha ha," Anna sneered. "Now get up, let's go say hi!" She pulled a simple dress out of the wardrobe (her favorite one, a comfortable, modest green dress), threw it over her head, and ran out of the room, thrilled at the thought of seeing her cousin, leaving Kristoff to roll out of bed in his own time, grumbling to himself. A phrase that sounded an awful lot like "overly excited puppy" drifted past Anna as she flung open the door and darted out, but she chose to ignore it. He's just grumpy because it's too early. Her mood was rising with every step Anna took. She bounded past some servants heading to Elsa's room, down the stairs, and out the front doors of the castle, where she paused. Elsa… is getting married… TODAY! Unable to contain it, she squealed in elation and continued her mad dash across the grounds. The guards at the gates saw her coming, and rushed to open the way for her. The gates had just opened in time for Anna to run through without breaking stride, calling out a thanks over her shoulder at the guards, who were waving at her, grinning. As she started making her way through town, cries of "Hi, Anna!" and "Your Highness!" followed her, to which she responded with great enthusiasm, calling everyone she knew by name, and making sure to pause and take the time to get them if she didn't. Anna had never seen the city so packed with people. Arendelle was a good deal larger than it had been even a few years ago. The walls had been expanded after Elsa had been safely returned to Arendelle two years ago, but already, the town had swelled to fill the new space. Anna knew that there were about 10,000 people living within the walls, but there had to be close to 50,000 filling the streets today. The entire kingdom seemed to have shown up- the entire kingdom and then some. Rounding a corner, she- BAM! "OWWW!" She had run straight into a large man with a long white beard and bespectacled eyes. She tried to steady herself, but didn't quite manage to find her feet in time, collapsing with a thud. "Ooof... my apologies, my- oh, Anna! I'm so sorry!" "Francis!" Anna cried from the ground. "How are you!" Continuing to stammer out an apology, the old painter helped her to her feet and bowed. "Hey now, how many times do I have to tell you, you do not need to bow to me, we're friends! Besides, I'm the one that ran into you! How are you?" Francis' eyes were shining, much brighter than Anna had ever seen them. "I've never been better, Anna! Ahem… allow me to introduce my wife, Berta…" He gestured to his right, where a pretty woman with very curly brown hair curtsied. Anna gasped. "Your wife? When did this happen? And why-" she swatted him on the arm with the back of her hand "- was I not invited?" Francis dropped his eyes. "My deepest apologies, Anna," he said. "I- I wasn't sure it would have been appropriate." Anna laughed. "Who cares? You helped me when I wasn't doing too well, to say the least, I'm not likely to forget that." Turning to Berta, she curtsied. "It's very nice to meet you, Berta. If either of you ever need anything, you only need to call, and I'll be there." Berta curtsied again, muttering a thanks. She's too pretty to be this shy. Oh well, she doesn't look like she's from around here, she's probably not used to a princess treating her like more than dirt. Anna continued, "I must be off, my cousin is here, and I was on my way to say hi. I'll see you at the wedding, I'm sure?" Francis nodded. "The Queen was kind enough to ask me to paint the ceremony, as I did yours, so I'll be in the back with my sketchbook." "Good decision, Elsa. I'm sure the painting will be lovely. Take care! And be sure to tell your wife my policy of my friends bowing- or curtsying- around me." Francis laughed and nodded, and Anna waved goodbye and took off again. As she jogged through the narrow streets, dodging children, shopkeepers, and nobility in equal measure, she reflected on the chance encounter. I didn't know how much I missed him. God, how long has it been? Too long, apparently. I used to stop by twice a week! I'll have to stop by his shop again soon, maybe during Elsa's honeymoon- well, no, I'll be the acting Queen for two whole weeks! The thought of running the kingdom without Elsa was too intimidating to dwell on on such a happy day, so she turned her thoughts back to the wedding. Squeezing out of an alley she took as a shortcut (a procession of incoming guests packed shoulder to shoulder in the middle of the road forced her hand), the docks loomed before her. Arendelle's dock was much smaller in years past, but the incredible expansion of the past two years meant that a round dozen full size ships could be docked at once. It still wasn't enough. Twice that number again circled the port, waiting for an opening to dart through and unload their cargo, which happened to be nobles dressed in fantastic dresses, suits, and other formal wear, as well as their respective translators, servants, and family, before returning to the mire of the port and attempting to escape back to the relative openness of the fjord. Anna's own wedding had not had even half these attendees. Anna felt a small, selfish pang of jealousy for the extravagance and sheer size of her sister's wedding, then berated herself for it at once. Anna, you idiot, Elsa doesn't care about any of these people! You may as well be jealous she's Queen. Is that a responsibility you want? Of course not, so don't be stupid! Anna's eyes were darting around the different flags, searching for Corona's Sun. She spotted it at last, sandwiched between a ship she didn't recognize and a ship from a country she didn't know the name of, but knew it was all the way across the Atlantic. Wow, what a journey for a wedding! Anna doubled her pace, bolting down the dock. Her cousin's foot had just fallen on the weathered wood, and Anna was only a few yards away, when a loose board caught her foot. She tripped, arms windmilling to try to catch her balance, and flew into Rapunzel in an impact that would have knocked them both into the water if Eugene hadn't seen Anna coming. Darting behind Rapunzel, he bore the brunt of the impact, and Rapunzel's elbow smashed into his ribs. The girls stayed upright, but Eugene lost his balance and tumbled backwards into the water. Anna was horrified. "Eugene! I'm so sorry! It was an accident!" Eugene had not surfaced. "Eugene!" Some bubbles were surfacing, but there was no sign of him. Rapunzel, having regained her bearings, started to call out his name as well. Still, Eugene did not surface. Anna dropped to her knees at the edge of the dock and peered into the water, straining her eyes for any sign of him. Within moments, a shape burst out of the water, dripping wet and grinning. A mischievous gleam was in Eugene's eyes as he seized Anna's arm with one hand and the edge of the dock with the other, holding himself halfway out of the water. "Eugene…" Anna said, unnerved by the glint in Eugene's eye. "What are you doAHHH!" With a strong pull, Eugene yanked Anna headfirst into the cool water, where she made a not so graceful entrance, arms and legs flailing as she collided with the freezing water. She returned to the surface, sputtering and shivering, to find Eugene and Rapunzel were howling in laughter. "I'm glad it's so funny to you guys!" Anna shouted, with as much anger as she could muster. "Now help me out, Rapunzel. Now!" Laughter faltering at Anna's furious expression, Rapunzel stretched out an arm to help. Too easy. Anna grabbed her cousin's hand, anger turning to glee at her brilliant deception, and pulled Rapunzel in as well. Eugene looked over at Anna, and it was evident he was impressed at her performance. "Well done," he said. Rapunzel had now surfaced as well. "I actually thought you were mad for a second. Punz, you okay sweetie?" After a brief silence, Rapunzel said in a level voice, "Wow. I really should have seen that coming." Their laughter renewed, they treaded water for a moment before realizing they now had no easy way up. Corona's ship was on the very end of the dock, and there was no one in sight. "Huh," Anna said. "Didn't think this through very well, did we?" The three considered their predicament a moment, then: "Well well well, what do we have here?" Squinting against the sun, the three looked up. Kristoff was standing on the dock, smiling and keeping his distance. "Kristoff!" Anna cried. "Help me up!" "After what I just saw?" he replied. "No thanks." "Kristoff," said Anna, an edge creeping into her voice. "You better get me out of here." "Hold your horses, Princess. Hang on." He glanced around, then moved out of sight. Seconds later, a rope descended to the water's surface. "There you go, kids. Come on up." After they were all on the dock, preceded by a brief shoving match as to who would get out of the freezing water first (which Eugene won without much trouble), Kristoff can't help but laugh at the state of them. "We better get to the castle if you guys want to be ready in time," Kristoff said. "The wedding's in four hours, and we have to be ready even before that." The four nodded in agreement and set out. Kristoff and Eugene were catching up with the happenings in each other's lives, but Anna was content to just walk in silence, enjoying the companionship. Her good mood, already bubbling near its max, felt in danger of bursting out of her and flooding the streets. She was very fond of her cousin, and Eugene was one of the best men she had ever met- well, other than Kristoff- and Anna got to see them only rarely. Side effects of running a country, she supposed. As they passed through the main square, Anna realized that the last time Rapunzel had been to Arendelle was for her own wedding, and this realization was coupled with a sudden pang of guilt that Rapunzel had not been in her wedding party, souring her mood a bit. She decided to talk to Rapunzel once they were alone. She didn't want to ruin her mood (and Elsa's big day) by being mopey. Arriving at the castle, the four split up, Anna and Rapunzel headed to Elsa's room to fulfill their bridesmaid duties, and Kristoff and Eugene headed to Heins's as groomsmen. On the way, Anna figured she might as well get it over with. "Hey Rapunzel." "Hmm?" "You know I'm really sorry about not having you in my wedding, right?" she asked. "Of course I do Anna!" she said in surprise. "Did you think I'd be mad? Kristoff's party was small, so yours was too. I understand, don't worry." Anna chuckled. "You know," she said, "I've been worrying about this for too long, ever since Elsa asked you to be in hers. I felt like I should have asked you too. I should have known this is how you'd react. I was so afraid you'd be mad at me!" "Of course not!" Rapunzel said. "You can be pretty dumb sometimes, you know." She smiled at Anna to let her know she was just playing, but there was something in the smile that put Anna off. "What is it?" she asked, but Rapunzel looked hesitant. "Well…" Rapunzel started, then, "I get why I'm in this wedding, but… why is Eugene? I know he was excited for the chance- Heins is a good man, and Eugene's very fond of him- but… the Southern Isles royal family is so big! Didn't he want some of his brothers in his party?" Anna's face fell. "He tried. All the invitations were unanswered. No one's coming." Rapunzel gasped. "That's horrible! Why? I thought Heins was still on good terms, it's just Hans that's disowned, right?" "Yeah, and that's what he thought too. He was devastated for days after he realized." They stopped outside the door to Elsa's dressing room, which was just a bedroom that had been repurposed. "We're here. Smiles on, okay? I know that's terrible, but let's just try to forget it for now, agreed?" "Agreed." Rapunzel's face broke into a grin. "She's probably so excited!" She pushed open the door. Elsa was dressed in plain clothes, without makeup, and her hair was an absolute mess. Her dress lay on the floor in front of the mirror, and small snow drifts littered the ground, being kicked up in small puffs as Elsa paced back and forth, distraught. "Or not." "Elsa!" Anna cried, rushing into the room. Rapunzel hung back, unsure of what to do. "What's wrong?" "Everything's wrong!" Elsa wailed, flapping her hands in a most un-Elsa-like manner, pushing Anna away and retreating to the corner. "I can't do this!" She slumped against the wall, head in her hands, eyes wide and anxious. "Wha… What do you mean?" Anna asked. "This!" Elsa shrieked, gesticulating around her, breathing hard. Anna hesitated to approach, and kept a safe distance. Rapunzel still waited in the back, deferring to Anna in this unexpected crisis. "I can't get married, am I crazy?" "Elsa, I don't understand," Anna said, bewildered. "You were so excited last night!" Elsa had spent the previous night exulting about everything even related to the wedding, in very specific detail, to anyone who would listen, which of course meant Anna had stayed up far too late listening to Elsa go on and on in breathless, enthusiastic tones (Kristoff had a very sudden "bad headache" and retired around forty-five minutes in). Elsa giggled, a shrill, hysterical sound. "That was last night! It wasn't today! It wasn't real last night!" "Elsa, calm down," Anna cooed. "Take a deep breath. Yeah… that's it." It took a short while, but eventually, Elsa's chest steadied, and after a few seconds, regulated to a fast but regular rhythm. "There, good. Now… explain to me what's wrong." Elsa's eyes were locked on the floor. "What if he leaves me?" she whispered. Anna had figured it was something like this. "Elsa, wha-" Elsa didn't seem to notice Anna's interjection. "What if he doesn't leave me?" she asked. Anna's mouth opened and closed, working soundlessly as she struggled to interpret this unexpected turn. "If he leaves me, then I'm alone again. If he doesn't leave me, then I'm never alone again. How do I...?" She wasn't even talking to Anna at this point. "What am I supposed to do?" A dense fog had settled over Anna's mind. How could Elsa want to be alone and not want to be alone at the same time? It made no sense. A glance back at Rapunzel confirmed that she was just as bewildered as Anna was. Half to give her body something to do, as her mind had taken a sudden leave of absence, she crept over to Elsa and sat down beside her. Elsa shrank away from the touch, wringing her hands over and over again. The motion triggered something in Anna's stalled brain- a much younger Elsa, wearing gloves, wringing her hands in much the same way as she was now. A young Elsa, unable to control her powers, in the tiny, brief, wonderful moments that Anna got to see her sister: passing each other in the halls, Anna giving a cheerful wave, Elsa wringing her hands, eyes on the floor; dinners here and there, Anna talking animatedly with her sister, Elsa wringing her hands, silent, eyes on her plate; then, Elsa in her castle on the North Mountain, Anna pleading for her to come back, Elsa shutting her out, wringing her hands. The fog cleared in an instant. Anna understood what was wrong. "Elsa… the doors were shut for so long. But they're different now. They never need to be closed, or open, again. They can be whatever you want them to be. You can choose whether the doors are open or closed today. You never need to be alone, but you never need to be with people, either. You and Heins have been together for a long time now, and this has never been an issue. What is marriage going to change? If anything, it just means that you never need to fear being alone again." It was a long time before Elsa responded, but over time, her breathing slowed, and her hands relaxed, then fell to her sides. "You're right," Elsa whispered at last. "I was lost. It felt years ago. It's not like that anymore. I'm such a fool." "Hey now, no you're not," Anna crooned, stroking her sister's hair. "You've got a lot on your plate. You're allowed a minor mental breakdown every so often before I send you off to the loony bin." Elsa chuckled. "Well, there's one for the year. How many do I get?" "Oh, I suppose… about three a year seems fair." "Deal." She took a deep, shuddering breath. "I just feel so foolish. There's no way Heins is reacting like this. He's always so calm, so collected." Author note: I'm finally back! This has been a very long time coming. The basic outline for this story was finished well over a year ago, and it has been largely done for months. However, because everyone is their own harshest critic, it went through tens of (mostly) unnecessary rewrites and revisions. Now, I'm finally at a point where I'm happy with it. That being said, I'm my own editor, so if you see any egregious errors (sentences that start but don't finish, of which there may be several from one of my half-baked rewrites) or grammar errors, please let me know in a review. I will credit you for any corrections in the author notes for the relevant chapter. Also, Part I of Darkness Among Us was published all in one giant go, chapter after chapter being put up all within an hour. I thought this time I would try publishing one chapter a day, to try to increase visibility. If this makes me a scumbag or you really just hate me for it and would prefer I publish it all at once, let me know in a review. Most of the stories on here seem to be written as they go, rather than my method of finishing the book before publishing anything, so I don't really know the etiquette here. I don't want my story to fall by the wayside, but I also don't want to be accused of spamming or anything. Finally, thank you so much to the people who are returning after a very long wait for my next part of Darkness Among Us. I hope you enjoy it. |
Fukushima changed robotics. More precisely, it changed the way the Japanese view robotics. And given the historic preeminence of the Japanese in robotic technology, that shift is resonating through the entire sector. Before the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami of 2011, the Japanese were focused on “companion” robots, says Rodney Brooks, a former Panasonic Professor of Robotics at MIT, the founder and former technical officer of IRobot, and the founder, chairman and CTO of Rethink Robotics. The goal, says Brooks, was making robots that were analogues of human beings — constructs that could engage with people on a meaningful, emotional level. Cuteness was emphasized: a cybernetic, if much smarter, equivalent of Hello Kitty, seemed the paradigm. But the multiple core meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex following the 2011 tsunami changed that focus abruptly. “Fukushima was a wake-up call for them,” says Brooks. “They needed robots that could do real work in highly radioactive environments, and instead they had robots that were focused on singing and dancing. I was with IRobot then, and they asked us for some help. They realized they needed to make a shift, and now they’re focusing on more pragmatic designs.” Pragmatism was always the guiding principle for Brooks and his companies, and is currently manifest in Baxter, Rethink’s flagship product. Baxter is a breakthrough production robot for a number of reasons. Equipped with two articulated arms, it can perform a multitude of tasks. It requires no application code to start up, and no expensive software to function. No specialists are required to program it; workers with minimal technical background can “teach” the robot right on the production line through a graphical user interface and arm manipulation. Also, Baxter requires no cage — human laborers can work safely alongside it on the assembly line. Moreover, it is cheap: about $25,000 per unit. It is thus the robotic equivalent of the Model T, and like the Model T, Baxter and its subsequent iterations will impose sweeping changes in the way people live and work. “We’re at the point with production robots where we were with mobile robots in the late 1980s and early 1990s,” says Brooks. “The advances are accelerating dramatically.” What’s the biggest selling point for this new breed of robot? Brooks sums it up in a single word: dignity. “The era of cheap labor for factory line work is coming to a close, and that’s a good thing,” he says. “It’s grueling, and it can be dangerous. It strips people of their sense of worth. China is moving beyond the human factory line — as people there become more prosperous and educated, they aspire to more meaningful work. Robots like Baxter will take up the slack out of necessity.” And not just for the assemblage of widgets and gizmos. Baxter-like robots will become essential in the health sector, opines Brooks — particularly in elder care. As the Baby Boom piglet continues its course through the demographic python, the need for attendants is outstripping supply. No wonder: the work is low-paid and demanding. Robots can fill this breach, says Brooks, doing everything from preparing and delivering meals to shuttling laundry, changing bedpans and mopping floors. “Again, the basic issue is dignity,” Brooks said. “Robots can free people from the more menial and onerous aspects of elder care, and they can deliver an extremely high level of service, providing better quality of life for seniors.” Ultimately, robots could be more app than hardware: the sexy operating system on Joaquin Phoenix’s mobile device in the recent film “Her” may not be far off the mark. Basically, you’ll carry a “robot app” on your smartphone. The phone can be docked to a compatible mechanism — say, a lawn mower, or car, or humanoid mannequin — resulting in an autonomous device ready to trim your greensward, chauffeur you to the opera, or mix your Mojitos. YDreams Robotics, a company co-founded by Brooks protégé Artur Arsenio, is actively pursuing this line of research. “It’s just a very efficient way of marketing robots to mass consumers,” says Arsenio. “Smartphones basically have everything you need, including cameras and sensors, to turn mere things into robots.” YDream has its first product coming out in April: a lamp. It’s a very fine if utterly unaware desk lamp on its own, says Artur, but when you connect it to a smartphone loaded with the requisite app, it can do everything from intelligently adjusting lighting to gauging your emotional state. “It uses its sensors to interface socially,” Artur says. “It can determine how you feel by your facial expressions and voice. In a video conference, it can tell you how other participants are feeling. Or if it senses you’re sad, it may Facebook your girlfriend that you need cheering up.” Yikes. That may be a bit more interaction than you want from a desk lamp, but get used to it. Robots could intrude in ways that may seem a little off-putting at first — but that’s a marker of any new technology. Moreover, says Paul Saffo, a consulting professor at Stanford’s School of Engineering and a technology forecaster of repute, the highest use of robots won’t be doing old things better. It will be doing new things, things that haven’t been done before, things that weren’t possible before the development of key technology. “Whenever we have new tech, we invariably try to use it to do old things in a new way — like paving cow paths,” says Saffo. “But the sooner we get over that — the sooner we look beyond the cow paths — the better off we’ll be. Right now, a lot of the thinking is, ‘Let’s have robots drive our cars, and look like people, and be physical objects.’ But the most important robots working today don’t have physical embodiments, says Saffo — think of them as ether-bots, if you will. Your credit application? It’s a disembodied robot that gets first crack at that. And the same goes for your resume when you apply for a job. In short, robots already are embedded in our lives in ways we don’t think of as “robotic.” This trend will only accelerate. At a certain point, things may start feeling a little — well Singularity-ish. Not to worry — it’s highly unlikely Skynet will rain nuclear missiles down on us anytime soon. But the melding of robotic technology with dumb things nevertheless presents some profound challenges — mainly because robots and humans react on disparate time scales. “The real questions now are authority and accountability,” says Saffo. “In other words, we have to figure out how to balance the autonomy systems need to function with the control we need to ensure safety.” Saffo cites modern passenger planes like the Airbus 330 as an example. “Essentially they’re flying robots,” he says. “And they fly beautifully, conserving fuel to the optimal degree and so forth. But the design limits are so tight — if they go too fast, they can fall apart; if they go too slow, they stall. And when something goes wrong, the pilot has perhaps 50 kilometers to respond. At typical speeds, that doesn’t add up to much reaction time.” Saffo noted the crash of Air France Flight 447 in the mid-Atlantic in 2009 involved an Airbus 330. Investigations revealed the likely cause was turbulence complicated by the icing up of the plane’s speed sensors. This caused the autopilot to disengage, and the plane began to roll. The pilots had insufficient time to compensate, and the aircraft slammed into the water at 107 knots. “The pilot figured out what was wrong — but it was 20 seconds too late,” says Saffo. “To me, it shows we need to devote real effort to defining boundary parameters on autonomous systems. We have to communicate with our robots better. Ideally, we want a human being constantly monitoring the system, so he or she can intervene when necessary. And we need to establish parameters that make intervention even possible.” Rod Brooks will be speaking at the upcoming Solid Conference in May. If you are interested in robotics and other aspects of the convergence of physical and digital worlds, subscribe to the free Solid Newsletter. |
Free Download Share There’s a new kid in the indie block and it seems that they’re ready to shine. Bad Bad Hats first EP It Hurts will surely attract a lot of indie following. Hailing from St. Paul, Minnesota, Bad Bad Hats is comprised of the songwriting duo Chris Hoge (vocals/guitars/bass/drums) and Kerry Alexander (lead vocals/guitar). Their music may be described as upbeat folk music with a touch of vintage sweetness. Title track It Hurts opens the album with saccharine female vocals blended in rhythmic beats and consistent guitar strumming reminiscent of Camera Obscura. A charming brass play-up at the mid-end is a pleasant surprise to the ears. Super America follows up with a more pop vibe. Kerry’s vocals is dangerously infectious as it flutters effortlessly in every note. Secrets Are No Fun follows the same sonic mold with the previous track. Grab a book, sip some cool drinks, and let this highly addictive piece serenade you. Closing up the album is A Bout, a stripped down track that mostly invests on gentle strings and Kerry’s stunning vocals. The subtle softness of this track makes it the perfect end to the collection as it sums up all the good qualities of the band�arrangement, taste, and vocals. It Hurts is a solid introduction to what Bad Bad Hats can offer. This band will surely go a long way. Track List: 1. It Hurts 2. Super America 3. Secrets Are No Fun 4. 9AM 5. A Bout Related Links: Bad Bad Hats’ Official Website Bad Bad Hats on Facebook Bad Bad Hats on Twitter |
This is the second in a series of occasional interviews with people I find interesting or who work on interesting projects. By now, you either recognize the name, or you’re wondering who Seetharaman Narayanan is, and the difference probably depends on what you do for a living. If, like me, you have a job where you launch Photoshop on a daily basis, then maybe, like me, you can’t stop staring at this guy’s name on the Splash Screen every time it launches. Seetharaman Narayanan. It’s hard to look away. Sure, other people worked on Photoshop. But nobody else has a name like Seetharaman Narayanan. If you too have been unable to look away from his name as you open Photoshop, you may be thinking, “I thought I was the only one!” Take comfort in knowing you’re not alone. Back in 2004, a simple comment was posted on the ConceptArt.org forum. It said, “Every time I open up photoshop I am mezmorized by this guy’s name. It’s all I can look at. Don’t know why…” Six pages of “Me, too!” responses followed. He has gone on to inspire a Seetharaman Narayanan fan club group on Flickr, and being unable to get his name out of your head has been recognized as a sign of Photoshop addiction. So I decided to find out just who this mysterious Seetharaman Narayanan is. What does he do? What does he think of his notoriety? And what’s interesting about him other than his name? Mr. Narayanan, who goes by the much shorter name “Seetha,” was nice enough to answer these questions and more. When did you become aware of the fascination with your name among Photoshop users? Jeff Schewe [Photographer] sent me an e-mail sometime in the fall of 2005 about the existence of Seetha’s fanclub thread from ConceptArt.org. What do you think about it? I thought it was funny and was amazed at the amount of free time people had at their disposal. I always thought that I was fortunate in getting hired by Adobe at the right time since any Tom, Dick or Harry would have done the same thing I did and perhaps better than what I did. They may not have become famous unless they had some weird last name that is almost un-pronouncable. How long have you been at Adobe? I have been with Adobe for 15 years to date. I joined Adobe as a peon on Photoshop 2.5 on September 23, 1991. Peter Merrill (who now works on Acrobat and is still with Adobe) was the lead engineer on the task of making Photoshop run on Windows 3.1 and I was his deputy in the early days. Peter is one of the brightest engineers I have ever worked with in my 20 year career (he may just be the smartest of all!). I still remember the interview I had with Peter before I got hired at Adobe. Peter had this toy application (that later became Photoshop) with ugly Icons and Cursors he showed me and mentioned to me that he had that code ported over from the Mac and he could even open an image (Flower.psd which by the way, shipped as a sample file with Photoshop 2.5) on Windows. I had previously worked at CrystalGraphics and we had just ported over Crystal’s TOPAS over to the Mac platform just weeks prior to my interview with Adobe and I was totally under whelmed by Peter’s demo of Photoshop on Windows. In spite of my lack of enthusiasm, Peter hired me anyway and the rest is history. |
Thomas Gilray, Steven Lyde, Michael D. Adams, Matthew Might, and David Van Horn Status: Accepted. To be published at POPL 2016 Author’s copy ArXive (slightly out of date, will be updated soon) Code Abstract Traditional control-flow analysis (CFA) for higher-order languages introduces spurious connections between callers and callees, and different invocations of a function may pollute each other’s return flows. Recently, three distinct approaches have been published that provide perfect call-stack precision in a computable manner: CFA2, PDCFA, and AAC. Unfortunately, implementing CFA2 and PDCFA requires significant engineering effort. Furthermore, all three are computationally expensive. For a monovariant analysis, CFA2 is in O(2n), PDCFA is in O(n6), and AAC is in O(n8). In this paper, we describe a new technique that builds on these but is both straightforward to implement and computationally inexpensive. The crucial insight is an unusual state-dependent allocation strategy for the addresses of continuations. Our technique imposes only a constant-factor overhead on the underlying analysis and costs only O(n3) in the monovariant case. We present the intuitions behind this development, benchmarks demonstrating its efficacy, and a proof of the precision of this analysis. Keywords Keywords Static analysis; Control-flow analysis; Abstract interpretation; Pushdown analysis; Store-allocated continuations Citation Thomas Gilray, Steven Lyde, Michael D. Adams, Matthew Might, and David Van Horn. Pushdown control-flow analysis for free. In Proceedings of the 43nd ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages, POPL ’16. ACM, New York, NY, USA, January 2016. doi: 10.1145/2837614.2837631. BibTeX Entry @inproceedings{gilray2016p4f, author = {Gilray, Thomas and Lyde, Steven and Adams, Michael D. and Might, Matthew and Van Horn, David}, title = {Pushdown Control-Flow Analysis for Free}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 43nd ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages}, year = {2016}, series = {POPL '16}, address = {New York, NY, USA}, month = jan, publisher = {ACM}, doi = {10.1145/2837614.2837631}, } Copyright Notice |
Looking for news you can trust? Subscribe to our free newsletters. Picture, if you will, the world’s strangest horror movie premise: It’s a crisp autumn in Washington, DC, Barack Obama is president, and the city’s 600,000 unsuspecting residents are going about their daily business. Suddenly, out of nowhere, hordes of hungry, rugged armadillos from the deep South start taking over the metropolitan area, savaging private property in search of nourishment and generally wreaking havoc on the nation’s capital. The horror flick would have a strong environmentalist message to boot, because armadillo-mageddon is yet another side effect of anthropogenic climate change, which has forced the creatures to colonize northward. And here’s the scariest part: this B-movie scenario is actually about to go down in the real world. So, yeah … brace yourselves. DailyClimate.org reported in June that the armadillos, which have been “moving northward since [they] arrived in Texas in the 1880s and Florida in the 1920s,” have taken the rising temperatures as a cue to migrate to previously uninhabited places like Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, and other areas that are “totally unexpected,” according to Colleen McDonough, a biology professor at Valdosta State University. Miles Grant at The Green Miles noted the story in a recent blog post, which the Washington Post then followed up on this week, noting that the armadillos are headed our way: Biologists speculate that if the trend continues, the armadillo may soon be turning up in Washington, Maryland and Virginia, and even as far north as New Jersey. … [The armadillos] “can be fairly destructive to areas in their search to dig up delicious crawly treats,” the Museum of Life and Science reported. “Basically all we can do is … sit back and measure the change as it happens,” the University of Michigan’s Philip Myers [said], “whether we like it or not.” The biggest threat the roving armadillos seem to pose is lawn damage (despite the mildly alarmist tone of the WaPo blog post). In fact, most people would probably get a kick out of watching packs of armadillos waddling down K Street. But there is a level of seriousness to the issue, as one-way animal migration caused by global warming presents real and persistent problems for ecosystems and local communities. Still, sad as it it may be for Roland Emmerich, the DC armadillo invasion is probably not going to lead to an epic showdown between man and throngs of armored, placental critters. |
The Huffington Post article focused on another aspect of the 113th Congress: How it compares year-to-date with other Congresses. And the answer is: poorly. Only the 97th and 104th Congresses have been close in terms of pace, but the 113th is still significantly lower in terms of bills signed into law. In part, that's because the Congress has been slow at introducing new bills. Below is the average number of bills and resolutions introduced each month since the 93rd Congress. The blue line shows the average per month; the red, the cumulative total. (Notice that the graph spans two years, the length of each Congress.) By the end of June, most Congresses have introduced 7,339 bills and resolutions. This one has introduced 4,510 to date. Take fewer bills introduced, multiply it by a lower percentage of passage, and you get a historic low. And now we get to the part where you take the blame. Congresses don't work in a vacuum, of course. There are two chambers that need to pass a bill and a president that needs to sign it into law. So we took a look at how the composition of a Congress compares to the laws enacted. The chart below shows three data points. The yellow is easy; it's the number of bills enacted as in the first graph. The red and blue lines, however, take some explaining. Each shows the percentage of a chamber of Congress that matched the party of the sitting president. So in 1982, the 97th Congress, there was a Republican president. The Senate had 53 Republicans, so the percentage that year was 53 percent. The theory being: if a party holds a majority in each chamber plus the presidency, more bills should be passed into law. Anytime the red (House) or blue (Senate) line climbs above the 50 percent line below, it means that the president has a majority in that chamber. |
Best Buy will price-match its products against those of online retailers like Amazon this holiday. According to The Wall Street Journal, the move is intended to halt the rising trend of "showrooming" — getting a feel for hardware before buying it online. Best Buy says that the percentage of visitors that use its stores as showrooms before searching out the best deal on the internet is now in the mid teens, up a couple of percent from last year. The company says that showrooming has been "blown out of proportion" — some 40 percent of visitors leave its stores with a product — but admits that "we need to pay attention to it." According to WSJ's sources, Best Buy will also start offering free home delivery on out-of-stock products as a further incentive to keep its customers loyal. |
More than 100 items of public art have been sprinkled around Cardiff during the last 20 years, most courtesy of the Cardiff Bay Arts Trust (CBAT) and successor body Cywaith Cymru, quangos led by Dutchman Wiard Sterk. A lot of time and money has been spent, so of course some pearls have been cast before us swine, but there are far more pig’s ears on display: the random, the inexplicable and the half-baked; the cynical and patronising ploy to garner cuddly cultural kudos for utterly uncultured venal corporations; the fancy window-dressing to cloak money-grubbing motives; the Orwellian indoctrination turning truth inside out; the creepy crawling to the high and mighty; the self-satisfied trumpeting of local government lackies; or else just the meaningless gesture trying far too hard. Overkill has rendered blasé what might have been affecting, and overcompensation has turned civic pride into a corny posture. As a result Cardiffians have developed a blind spot to the strange effigies all about them – a pity, because there is much to see. Now that the frenzied arty aggregating has largely ceased, I’ve been taking stock. Here, in alphabetical order, is a selection of some of the more noteworthy installations. 3 Ellipses For 3 Locks (2007) Barrage. An optical illusion by Swiss manipulator of perspective Felice Varini. What seem like haphazard splodges of yellow paint magically mutate into three perfect ellipses when looked at from a precise spot. The location is given away by a yellow cross on the ground, thus ruining any fun there might be in searching for it. All Hands (2001) Custom House Street. Close to where the Glamorganshire Canal once ran, this 3m high sculpture in galvanised steel of two fists clutching a rope is a clunky but potent tribute to the toils of the canal boatmen by Brian Fell. Alliance (2009) The Hayes. A 25m tall stainless steel arrow and hoop by Jean-Bernard Métais that manages to be both intrusive and insipid at the same time. Its crass symbols, presumably signifying thrust and unity or something, overwhelm The Hayes for no better reason than property developers demanded a feel-good ‘icon’. Antarctic 100 (2003) Waterfront Park. It’s another Scott Memorial! Let’s see now; there’s Roath Park lighthouse, a tablet in City Hall, the Scott Room in the Royal Hotel, the ‘binnacle’ in the Pierhead Building, two pubs, a whole neighbourhood and this white-tiled effort by Jonathon Williams (white = ice, see?). Cardiff’s connection to the arrogant English amateur? Er, his ship stopped here to fill up with fuel. How embarrassing. A Private View (1995) Butetown Link. Kevin Atherton’s witty sculpture, featuring telescopes looking out over the Bay through a steel sphere, viewable via a hole in the back of the head of a bronze cast of Atherton himself, deserves to be better known. Motorists miss it hurtling past, while few pedestrians ever brave these token pavements. Atlantic (1991) Tyndall Street. One of the very first CBAT commissions and an early work of now-renowned Scottish sculptor Doug Cocker, this giant abstraction suffers from being lost in an ugly urban mess and marooned outside a vacant office block. Atlantic Echo (2001) Ocean Way. Michael Dan Archer’s four wavy oxidised steel frames inserted into a slab of slate strive valiantly to improve the soft landscaping along one of Cardiff’s least attractive roads. The Bay Panels (1993) Harbour Drive. A sequence of carvings in red stone depicting aspects of Welsh life by Martin Williams of Swansea. Perhaps we really are this tame. Beastie Benches (1994) Britannia Quay. Welshpool-based ceramicist Gwen Heeney has become a leading exponent of working in brick. These are nine satisfying terracotta seats shaped like mythical creatures, while her Rhiannon Seating of 1999 at Atlantic Wharf extended the concept into Welsh mythology. Billy The Seal (1997) Victoria Park. At ‘his’ (he was a she) old home, a sleek, life-size replica of Cardiff’s star inter-war semi-aquatic mammal by David Petersen, Welsh republican blacksmith from Sanclêr and son of boxer Jack Petersen (1911-1990). The Black Bridge (2004) Kames Place/Adamsdown Place. Bradley Woods and Andrew Hartford blocked a great Cardiff view up and down the mainline railway with undulating boards plastered in specious, box-ticking graffiti. Blue Flash (1993) Tyndall Street. Ah-ha…a jagged bolt…I get it – electricity! Thudding literalism at an electricity sub-station from John Gingell, with his bright red Power Box below. The yellow arc of Mesh Chip, added in 1995, hammers home the theme in case it eluded anyone. Bowline Knot (2000) Havannah Street. One of umpteen protest-too-much reminders of Cardiff’s maritime past; a big fat bronze by Andrew Rowe, who designs metalwork at Meidrim in Carmarthenshire. Bute Street Works (2000) Bute Street. Paving slabs scratched with piddling, perfunctory and fast-fading images of Tiger Bay by David Mackie, Heather Parnell and Andrew Rowe. Cadair Idris (1999) Hamadryad Park. William Pye’s sandstone mass stood outside Cardiff Central station for years but got such a thrashing from passers-by it had to be moved out of harm’s way to the Wetlands Reserve. Reed Buntings have more respect. Cargoes (2000) Mermaid Quay. Brian Fell’s 22 barely noticeable individual steel sculptures, attached to the exterior of buildings in the Bay’s eat’n’excrete zone, are based on the well-known poem by English poet laureate John Masefield (1878-1967) – a piece of schoolboy doggerel of no literary merit which can be read on a hoarding on the boardwalk. Masefield’s relevance to Cardiff is infinitesimal; he passed through here just the once, taking a ship to Chile in 1894. The fact that such a big deal is made of him in the capital of Wales, a country overflowing with exceptional poets in a 1,500-year-old bardic tradition, speaks volumes about the conservatism and Philistinism of Cardiff’s cultural curators. Celtic Ring (1993) Roald Dahl Plass. Marking the start of the Taff Trail to Brecon, Harvey Hood’s tactile bronze has engravings of tidal charts and nautical instruments within its enticing circle. C-Interludes (2003) Lloyd George Avenue. Fiddly and fatuous maritime-themed bits and bobs by Philip Bews and Diane Gorvin, strung along a slapdash, sinister and superfluous road to nowhere. Compass Rose (1997) Scott Harbour. A 9m wide mosaic of polished granite with inlaid bronze compass points on the floor of a courtyard, by Sebastien Boyesen. Guess what? It’s another Scott Memorial. Imagine if his expedition had succeeded! Deep Navigation (2001) Roald Dahl Plass. Stefan Gec’s pair of steel pillars pay homage to the coal that built Cardiff. On one pillar, made from scrap from Wales’ last deep pit Tower Colliery in Hirwaun, is a list of all the south Wales mines as of 1964; on the other, made from salvage from the filled-in Bute West Dock, a list of the ports where Cardiff sent the coal. Gec’s accompanying book, charting the secret history of the Oval Basin, is a riveting read. Drift Of Curlews (2000) Havannah Street. Sally Matthews’ sculpture of three Curlews, one of many bird species expelled from Cardiff when the inter-tidal mudflats were eliminated by the Barrage, can be no substitute for the real thing. Inauspiciously, they look like they’re coated in oil-spill. From Pit To Port (2005) Roath Basin. A 7ft bronze of a collier with pick-axe next to a steel dram and a wrought-iron tableau designed by John Clinch (1934-2001) of Tregaron (completed by John Buck when Clinch died). The statue looks more like a pumped-up male model than a raw-boned Welsh miner – must have been working out at the pit-head gym. Funnel And Smoke (2004) Hemingway Road. Andrew Hazell’s visual representation of, er, a smoking funnel sits apologetically in a vortex of roundabouts, tunnels, dual carriageways and vestigial space. Gren (2008) Park Street. The real purpose of Nia Wyn Jones’ incoherent memorial to Grenfell Jones (1934-2007), the Echo‘s long-serving cartoonist, seems to be to seal off the staff car park at Media Wales HQ. Lampstandards (1994) Britannia Quay. Even mundane street lights are required to double as maritime references in Cardiff Bay. Tess Jaray and Tom Lomax tried, pointlessly, to make them look like cranes and masts. Landsea Square (2000) Bute Crescent. An unprepossessing water-feature by Jo Johnson, adding more jarring jumble to the bleak, left-over zone outside the WMC. Lighthouse (2009) Clarence Road. A stainless steel thingy by Mark Renn and Mick Thacker plonked outside the new police station for reasons nobody but they understand and featuring a Peter Finch poem. Finch’s words are everywhere in Cardiff: embedded in paving slabs, carved onto buildings and raised high above rubbish tips – yet the only person I know who can quote a single line he’s written is me! Looking Both Ways (2001) Lloyd George Avenue. David Kemp’s sinuous, wrap-around metalwork is deceptive: how was I to know it wasn’t a Parisian-style urinal? Magic Roundabout (1992) Windsor Road/Tyndall Street/Ocean Way. Pierre Vivant ransacked the Highway Code and covered large geometric shapes with road signs at a busy traffic intersection. He sure created a landmark known across the city, but also set the template of heavy-handed obviousness that would mar too many CBAT commissions. Are Cardiffians considered too unsophisticated to grasp a metaphor? Merchant Seafarers War Memorial (1996) Pierhead. A spectacular black steel upturned face formed into a ship’s hull by busy Brian Fell, seemingly sinking into the marble mosaic base designed by Louise Shenstone and Adrian Butler. Somehow poignant and powerful, alone against its watery backdrop. Natural Selection (2006) Rover Way. Adrian Moakes’ bold oblongs spiralling into the sky only perplex and irritate the stunted synapses of sheepish shoppers at Tesco Extra. People Like Us (1993) Mermaid Quay. Another John Clinch bronze of a couple and a dog relaxing on the boardwark, supposedly representative of local people. The fact that all the locals were turfed out by developments like Mermaid Quay renders this sculpture profoundly offensive: inanimate they’re the salt of the earth; in flesh and bone they impede economic development. Pierhead Clock (2011) St Mary Street. The 1897 clock of the Pierhead Building sits in a glass case at Cardiff’s alcohol epicentre, disconnected, deracinated and derisory. However, the working mechanism is fascinating and artist Marianne Forrest has put little monkeys swinging from the pendulums to make some point about the 3rd Marquis of Bute’s opposition to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. Ooh, Cardiff mocking a Bute…well, better late than never. Post Secrets (2010) The Hayes. A series of dull vignettes created by Jane Edden, only visible if spied through peepholes set in the side of bollards. Bollocks. Quaystones (2001) Red Dragon Centre. 22 massive granite coping stones, excavated from the walls of the Bute West Dock, stand sentry in a design by Howard Bowcott and inadvertently emphasise the surrounding squalor. Secrets Of Cardiff (2009) St David’s Centre. Lesley Kerman’s 13 resin blocks up on the 2nd floor of the shopping precinct that devoured Cardiff are appropriately trite, twee and trashy. Secret Station (1992) Rover Way. A pair of 12m high bronze cones joined at the top by steel girders, the work of sculptor Ellis O’Connell. Originally they were lit by fibre-optics and released steam – but now they merely rust silently. Ship In A Bottle (2004) Windsor Esplanade. More simulated sea-doggery alongside the freshwater lagoon – a cute galvanised-steel bottle doubling as a bench by Melissa Gibbs. Silent Link (2000) Grangemoor Park. Chunky rusting chains interlocking like a Celtic knot by Ian Randall. While in this airy open space on the site of an old waste tip, it is worth examining another CBAT commission – Jeremy Waygood’s brilliant modern take on the ancient craft of dry stone-walling. Tasker Watkins (2009) Westgate Street. New figurative statues of specific individuals are rare in Cardiff, what with heroes being so thin on the ground, so Roger Andrews’ attempt to capture the self-effacing decency of WW2 VC and long-serving WRU president Tasker Watkins (1918-2007) made a change from the usual fuzzy abstractions. Tidemark Seatwall (1992) Waterfront Park. Intriguing fossil-like markings in sandstone dock coping-stones by Meic Watts. Now more than 20 years old, they have been worn away to near invisibility – a clue as to how long most of these ‘permanent’ artworks will last. Y Twr Dwr (2000) Roald Dahl Plass. The work of Nicholas Hare Architects, this 22m high tower reflects and refracts light in a constant stream of running water. A stunning addition to Cardiff which should stand the test of time (as long as we pay the water bill). Water Towers (2005) Callaghan Square. Welsh workers in structural glass Amber Hiscott and David Pearl collaborated to produce a pair of 10m high curved towers clad in rolled sheets of turquoise-blue anodized aluminium with water-jets spurting from a reflective pool, adding much-needed substance to a hostile traffic roundabout. The aluminium is guaranteed for 25 years, by which time the young trees nearby will have matured enough to take over architectural duties – assuming they’ve not been felled by then. Wife On The Ocean Wave (1993) Graving Docks. A Graham Ibbeson humorous bronze depicting three life-size figures in a bath, summoning up a collective Welsh memory of tin baths in front of the fire. Wind Hedge (2006) Senedd. These 32 transparent, tinted, blast-proof glass pieces by American Danny Lane bring compelling shapes, angles and perspectives to the public sphere outside the Senedd. Without Place (2011) Charles Street. A horrible and unenlightening piece by Sculptureworks in the form of a giant chair, a film reel and a pestle & mortar, purporting to “trace Charles Street’s past cultural history.” Trees were removed to make way for it and Queen Street’s crowds rightly don’t give it a second glance. |
Avon, Mary Kay, Estée Lauder (and Subsidiary MAC Cosmetics), and Revlon Are Paying for Tests on Animals UN INT Intro Text w/ Responsive Image - *Important Note* You must UNLINK this shared library component before making page-specific customizations. For more than two decades, Avon, Mary Kay, Estée Lauder, and Revlon were among the largest mainstream international companies on PETA's cruelty-free lists. Avon banned all tests on animals following PETA's massive "Avon Killing" campaign, and Mary Kay pledged to go cruelty-free after cartoonist Berkeley Breathed mocked the company in his popular Bloom County comic strip. Since then, all four companies have enjoyed the support of PETA and millions of consumers who choose to buy cosmetics from companies that don't harm animals. But now we have learned that all four companies have been paying for tests on animals in order to sell their products in China—and they did not inform PETA or consumers that their policies had changed. We have no choice but to downgrade them by placing them on our list of companies that test on animals. When we learned that the Chinese government requires tests on animals for many cosmetics products before they can be marketed in China, we immediately contacted the companies. While we understand that China is an enormous market that these companies aren't willing to ignore, we had hoped they would take action to eliminate this requirement or push for non-animal testing methods to be accepted. Mary Kay took some steps to work toward this with officials in China and, at our urging, promised to continue this effort—but Avon, Estée Lauder (including its subsidiaries MAC Cosmetics and Clinique), and Revlon appear to have gone along with the painful animal tests without objection. Since PETA first exposed the Chinese government's requirements for animal tests for cosmetics in 2012, we have provided the scientists at the Institute for In Vitro Sciences with funding both to educate scientists in China on superior, non-animal testing methods and to provide government officials there with guidance on accepting non-animal testing methods and developing a five-year plan for accepting the tests currently used in the U.S. and Europe. Fortunately, there are still more than 3,700 companies on our global "Don't Test" list whose products consumers can buy with a clear conscience. |
CLOSE Adam LaRoche announced his retirement from the Chicago White Sox because club president Kenny Williams asked that he cut back on bringing his 14-year-old son into the clubhouse, Williams confirmed to USA TODAY Sports. USA TODAY Sports Chris Sale took offense at the White Sox curtailing clubhouse time after it was promised to Adam LaRoche's son. (Photo11: Joe Camporeale, USA TODAY Sports) PHOENIX - Chicago White Sox ace Chris Sale accused executive vice president Ken Williams of lying to players Friday, and says they have demanded a meeting with chairman Jerry Reinsdorf over the sudden retirement of teammate Adam LaRoche. “We got bold-faced lied to,’’ said Sale, “by someone we were supposed to trust. “This isn’t us rebelling against the rules. This is us rebelling against B.S., plain and simple.’’ Sale, who walked into the clubhouse Friday to find autographed jerseys with personal messages inscribed by LaRoche and the first baseman's 14-year-old son, Drake, says players have an issue with only member of the White Sox organization: Williams. “Somebody walked out of those doors the other day,’’ Sale said, “and it was the wrong guy. Plain and simple.’’ And LaRoche is not coming back. LaRoche’s locker and his son’s locker, complete with the nameplates, still remain in the White Sox clubhouse. Yet, LaRoche told his teammates that he’s not changing his mind and is quitting baseball, White Sox outfielder and union representative Adam Eaton said, walking away from the $13 million remaining in his contract LaRoche left the team Tuesday after Williams informed him that he must limit Drake's clubhouse access. In a statement released Friday afternoon, Reinsdorf said: "While we appreciate everyone’s attention and interest, we continue to feel that it would be premature to comment at this time. This is an internal issue and we are in the process of holding a number of discussions with the players, staff and the front office. As a result, we do not want to comment until that process is completed. I have instructed members of the organization not to talk about this issue and get our focus back on the field and winning baseball games." Said Eaton: "You see the reach a lot of people have made. Adam sees that as God put me into this position to make a decision. I made the decision I made. And it’s sending shock waves through not only the sports world, but so many different media channels. “I think a lot of people have stepped back and said, 'If a man can step away from $13 million for his family and his son, what does it take for me to spend a little more time with my kid, or take a little more responsibility for my family situation.'’’ The White Sox players have asked for the Major League Baseball Players Association's involvement, with Eaton and Sale each saying that LaRoche had a clause in his contract permitting his son to be with him as much as possible. Yet, it appears it was only a handshake agreement, and there would be no basis for the union to step in and permit LaRoche’s son to continue being with the team. “The question becomes when a player makes a decision to retire, that means one thing,” union chief Tony Clark said Thursday. “If there is discipline involved, that means something different.’’ Chris sale paying tribute to LaRoche family #whitesoxpic.twitter.com/iz9pWDioC8 — Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) March 18, 2016 The White Sox players say they were hoping to change Williams’ mind during Tuesday's contentious two-hour meeting, but instead, became infuriated, even threatening to boycott Wednesday’s spring-training game. “Kenny said quite a few things,’’ Sale said, “contradicting statements a couple of times. "We've been told three different stories, so we don't know who to believe, or even who to believe it originated from. First, he said it was the players (who complained about LaRoche’s son). Then went to the coaches. Then came in here and told us it was the owner. I think if the right person had handled it, it would have been completely different. “We have a much bigger problem on our hands than Kenny coming in here and kicking out a kid, and 'Roche retiring. That's the unfortunate part of all this. But at the end of the day, it wasn't the right thing. “We're still missing a teammate, plain and simple. There was no issue before, and we're still trying to find out what the truth is and where it's coming from.’’ Williams, in a statement, said: “While I disagree with Chris’ assertions today, I certainly have always appreciated his passion.’’ Drake LaRoche, who is home-schooled, has been by his dad’s side for the last five years, a welcome presence in the Washington Nationals' spring training and regular season activities before his father signed a two-year, $26 million contract with the White Sox before the 2015 season. He was a staple in the clubhouse, complete with his own locker and uniform. He participated in drills with the players, and helped out clubhouse attendants. “Drake is honestly one of the best kids I've ever met,’’ Sale said. “You can ask anybody, anybody, that's ever played with Adam. I think that's another part of the issue. We're not talking about some guy and his kid. We're talking about Adam LaRoche. Same thing with Drake. “This kid is wise beyond his years. He's mature beyond his years. And quite honestly, he was a blast to have around. For lack of a better term, he was our team mascot. “He brought just as much energy to this clubhouse as anybody. And it's a hard pill to swallow for someone outside the clubhouse to tell us what's going to happen. We don't go up to his office and tell him how to do his job. “I don't see that in return.’’ The White Sox players insist it won’t affect their chemistry inside the clubhouse, and perhaps will even bring them closer together, but concede it’s a huge distraction. "We were rolling,’’ Sale said. “We had positive energy in here. Nobody saw anything as a distraction until all this happened. “There was no problem in here. We were a steam engine going ahead. We had some positive energy going. There was absolutely no problem in here whatsoever with anyone. And (Williams) kind of created a problem. “We're missing two big pieces to our puzzle, plain and simple. I'm not going to sit here and say it's going to be the main reason (if the team struggles), or anything like that, but he's definitely going to be missed, and we're not going to get him back.’’ Sale plans to treasure the jerseys that the LaRoche family left him. He hung them up on each side of his locker, and likely will keep them up during the regular season, too. To his left was from Drake: “Chris, thank you for taking care of me.’’ To his right was from Adam: “Thanks for everything. I’ll never forget you.’’ “Would I love to have him back?’’ Sale said. “Absolutely. And I think anybody in here would take him back in a heartbeat. But at the same time you have to respect a man that stands by his word and is not afraid to stand up for what he believes in.’’ The White Sox players hope to have more answers when they meet with Reinsdorf, but no matter what transpires, they realize LaRoche likely played his final baseball game. He already signed his retirement papers, and the White Sox are expected to soon submit them to the league office. "I think the ultimate goal is to talk to (Reinsdorf),’’ Sale said. “Jerry's a very understanding person, and I think if we can get to him and speak to him and actually have an adult conversation, I think we'll be able to figure things out and iron out all the creases. “My concern is this team and the well-being of this team. I have a lot of time invested in this team, and the whole blood sweat and tears thing. I want to win. And with the things going on, that's going to be a lot harder to accomplish. “I think if we're truly trying to win a championship, there's no room for this kind of stuff.’’ GALLERY: FATHERS AND SONS, AT THE BALLPARK |
Welcome to A Psychonaut's Journey! A Psychonaut by Wikipedia's definition is: Psychonautics (from the Greek ψυχή psychē ["soul", "spirit" or "mind"] and ναύτης naútēs ["sailor" or "navigator"] – "a sailor of the soul"[) refers both to a methodology for describing and explaining the subjective effects of altered states of consciousness, especially an important subgroup called holotropic states, including those induced by meditation or mind-altering substances, and to a research paradigm in which the researcher voluntarily immerses himself or herself into an altered mental state in order to explore the accompanying experiences. I am a Psychonaut. My goal with this blog is to help educate people on the workings of their own mind, The Law of Attraction, occult knowledge, and how to be happy. For years I myself have struggled with reoccurring depression, and I would like to share my findings on how to break out of that, with the world! It makes me sad to see the state of the world today with so much pain and suffering. My goal is to better your mental well being! Enjoy your stay! |
@MikeKillam — [email protected] This is going to be incredibly long, so please hang in there with me. I've got three hours of Raw, the impending and far-off future to talk about, and my thoughts on why weekly 3-hour Raw isn't such a terrible idea. I believe this is actually my longest article yet… Raw 1,000 Review Vince McMahon and His Merry Men The first five minutes of this very special night started things off perfectly. The opening video package put WWE's biggest strength – their video production team – on display and provoked some pretty strong emotions right off the bat. To this day I still can't see a video of Eddie Guerrero or a clip of "Nature Boy" Ric Flair's retirement ceremony without tearing up a little… Only Vince McMahon had the right and authority to kick off the 1,000th episode of a show that is truly his baby. In fact, he probably loved it more than he ever did Stephanie or Shane (the verdict is still out on Hunter). That being said, there is something inherently wrong with Vince introducing Degeneration X. It's the same reason Shawn Michaels didn't induct Bret Hart into the Hall of Fame, or why Jack Swagger isn't introduced by a guy wearing a giant "S" costume – your greatest rival should never be your biggest promoter. The DX reunion was a great feel-good moment, but it started to drag about half-way through. I've had a decent amount of contact with Kipp (Billy Gunn), so any time he gets the call I'm more than happy to see him on my television screen. Great worker, great guy – a lot of talents in the back could learn a thing or two from the way he and D-O-Double-G carried themselves back in the day. Sean "X-Pac" Waltman didn't have a speaking part in this play; probably for the best. That may very well be the last time we get to see a DX reunion in a WWE ring. That's a good thing. While I enjoyed this segment for the nostalgia (not to mention how well it put over the young Damien Sandow), these guys are getting too old and mean too much to wrestling's past to be dancing around, pushing WWE merch and telling people to "suck it". |
He remained underwater for the full 15 meters that swimmers are permitted from a start or a turn. When he emerged, ahead of the field, rising into the lunging motion of the butterfly stroke, his face looked a bit too relaxed for someone who had been exerting himself in an atmosphere that is 800 times denser than the one the rest of us move through. He seemed positively peaceful. His strokes were long and smooth, he kept close to the water to breathe — a sign of exquisite control and efficiency — and he seemed oblivious to Lochte’s presence, one lane over, level with his thighs, within striking distance. Phelps’s overall superiority may qualify him as a generalist in the pool, but he is also among the world’s best in several individual disciplines, including butterfly, and he could easily have pulled far ahead of the other swimmers. He didn’t. After 50 desultory meters in the lead, he was six-tenths of a second off his world-record pace, and even as he kept a small margin over Lochte, he continued to look as if he were warming up. Phelps is known to be an extraordinarily disciplined tactician. He opens races at a sustainable pace, and his strokes remain uniform, almost mechanically so, from beginning to end. There is nothing spontaneous, unruly or desperate about the figure he cuts in the pool. When other swimmers, battling fatigue, begin to lapse technically, Phelps looks as if he is swimming downhill. The second 100 meters were backstroke. Phelps’s form remained consistent and exact: hips and legs close to the surface, arms moving through the water with the sureness and steadiness of a pair of scissor blades. It was as if his shoulders had no problem letting his arms whirl through 360 degrees. He appeared to be at leisure, though he couldn’t have been, any more than a miler could be said to be jogging when halfway through his race. At 150 meters, Phelps was suddenly ahead of world-record pace. Several of the swimmers began to fall back, and for a moment it seemed that Lochte might fade, too, leaving Phelps to race only himself. Lochte rallied, though, and once more pulled alongside Phelps. He was less than a second back at the 200-meter mark. This meant trouble for Phelps. The next leg of the race was breaststroke, Phelps’s version of a weakness — during the preliminaries, Lochte’s time for the breaststroke portion of the race was more than three seconds faster than that of Phelps. For the first time, Phelps did not seem at ease. He and Lochte bobbed beside each other, like a pair of horses on a muddy track, neither able to break away from the other. At the turn, Phelps’s lead was down to a tenth of a second. Rising out of the water, his face was tense and his mouth hung open. By the time the breaststroke laps were over, his lead over Lochte had dwindled to two-hundredths of a second. Now he was fighting. The final leg of the race was freestyle. The swimmers matched each other stroke for stroke. Whatever his level of exhaustion, Phelps maintained his form. His body position stayed constant in the water throughout the stroke, even when he turned his head for breath. As he approached the final turn, Phelps drew his legs in, somersaulted, thrust himself off the wall and headed underwater. It was at this point that something unusual happened. Turning, Phelps seemed to glance toward Lochte, take stock of his position and plow deeper into the pool. As Lochte rose to the surface, Phelps was still underwater, surging with each dolphin kick. When Phelps finally broke through, he had left Lochte behind. Phelps is renowned for finishing his races in overpowering fashion, and often he will hold back from taking a decisive lead until his last lap. His competitors invariably find that there is no such thing as a comfortable margin over Phelps, and on this occasion he made it seem as if he had been toying with Lochte. With the end of the race in sight, he kept his head down. When he looked up, he had set a new world record. Lochte was eight-tenths of a second back; the third-place swimmer finished nearly eight seconds later. “People aren’t made to move like that,” says Russell Mark, the biomechanics manager for USA Swimming, the sport’s national governing body. Mark has a background in jet-engine design and a connoisseur’s eye for aquatic technique, but he assures me that the language of fluid dynamics barely describes the specific magic of a swimmer like Phelps. Human beings, Mark says, are simply not designed to balance themselves horizontally in a moving, unstable medium in which they have only intermittent access to oxygen. How, then, did Phelps manage so persuasively to make the unnatural seem natural? “The biomechanics of swimming is more theory than science,” Mark admits. “When water is surrounding someone, it’s really hard to measure what’s going on.” The pool, it turns out, is a place of vast ambiguity. The seemingly straightforward question of what transpires when Phelps swims gets very complicated very quickly and speaks to the mysterious nature of athletic achievement at its peak. According to Mark, a great debate has divided swim theorists for decades, centering on whether propulsion is generated, airplanelike, by the forces of lift, which operate in a direction perpendicular to the motion of the object (see: Bernoulli), or by a more direct relationship between action and reaction (recall: Newton). The practical implications of one’s position on the debate have to do with the design of a swimmer’s strokes. A Bernoullian might favor S-shaped strokes, pulling in and pulling out, to launch the body through the water. A Newtonian relies on a less-oblique application of strength: push the water toward your feet — as much water as you can, as efficiently as possible, avoiding the wasted effort involved in pushing water toward the bottom of the pool or away from your body (which is not as easy as it sounds) — and you will surge in the opposite direction. Phelps is a Newtonian of a high order. His hands and arms slice through the pool in such a way that they grab lots of water, as if he were wielding a pair of buckets, and shove it backward. It might be a stretch to describe the Newtonian swimmer as conventionally “beautiful” in the water, unless you were willing to concede the beauty of a machine, or of a weapon. Photo Phelps’s most fundamental victory is not over Lochte or other swimmers, but the one he achieves over an inhospitable element. Fish don’t have to work at it. They don’t have arms and legs. Their backbones extend the entire length of their bodies. They have gills. “Humans have to adapt our bodies to the swimming environment,” Mark says. “The difference between normal people and Olympians is that the Olympians have made the adaptation to water really, really, really well.” Indeed, Phelps’s new world-record time in Omaha, 4:05.25, was nearly six seconds faster than his world-record time set in 2002 — and more than 100 seconds, or roughly 30 percent, faster than the first records set in the event some 55 years ago. Human perfectability is an evolving concept. 02 AT ELEVATION: The United States Olympic Training Center occupies a former military installation not far from the center of Colorado Springs, some 6,000 feet above sea level. With its eclectic assortment of blocky, glassy and pointy buildings, housing such things as a velodrome and an indoor shooting range, it looks like a community college for the very buff. When I caught my first glimpse of Michael Phelps, ambling down a corridor in a gray hooded sweatshirt and rumpled track pants, shaggy hair over his brow and with a beard in some indeterminate state of grooming, it was easy to mistake him for any ordinary sleep-deprived collegian. Advertisement Continue reading the main story A half-hour later, he was standing, swimsuited, on the deck of the Training Center’s 810,000-gallon pool, and he seemed an altogether different class of physical specimen. It wasn’t simply the utter lack of body fat, the elegantly articulated muscles, the blend of leanness and strength — features he shares with any number of top athletes. It was, rather, the double-take-inducing peculiarity of his proportions, which mimic the effect of a distorting lens. Predictably enough, his shoulders and chest were broad, his waist slender. But his arms, ending in mitt-size hands, seemed to dangle to his knees, and, most disconcertingly, his frame appeared to incorporate the upper and lower bodies of two different people: his legs would have suited a man 5-foot-10, perhaps even shorter; his torso went on and on, and his height stretched to 6-foot-4. “I’ve never seen another swimmer built like Michael,” says Bob Bowman, who has coached Phelps continuously since 1997. “You knew it as soon as you saw the body. At 11, he had everything he has now — only smaller.” In Phelps’s case, anthropometry — his dimensions, his proportions — was, at least in part, destiny. Bowman could size him up at a glance and know that he was born to be adapted to the water. “He had the boat,” Bowman says. Phelps’s upper body rode high and fast on the water, and his relatively short legs — whose kicking was greatly assisted by his prominent “flippers,” which would grow to size 14 — didn’t drag him down in back. Since most of a swimmer’s force is generated from the body’s core, Phelps’s disproportionately long torso was a gift. So, too, was his enormous “wingspan,” which would reach 6-foot-7 at maturity and which could shunt great volumes of water behind him, allowing him to save energy by using fewer strokes than other swimmers to cover the same distance. Da Vinci might have faulted Phelps’s form for its deviation from classical proportions; but for Bowman’s purposes, Phelps was made to order. Phelps had other attributes, too, that would help him develop into the rare amphibious creature he would become. His joints were unusually flexible. Lying on his back, he could stretch his legs and point his toes far enough so that they would brush the ground. His shoulders had a similarly outsize range of motion, giving him the potential for great power and fluidity in his strokes. Even his spine proved particularly amenable to balancing in, and slithering through, water. “Michael,” Bowman says, “had everything.” Bowman, who is 43, wears wire-rimmed glasses over squinting eyes, carries a touch of softness around the midsection and has the mild features of a social worker. But he is a notorious taskmaster. He has been known to scream, scold, glare, cajole and otherwise manipulate his swimmers to bend them to his will. Phelps has been Bowman’s consuming project ever since he determined, in his words, “to build the perfect machine.” Bowman studied music in college and likes to speak of himself in terms of an old-school, authoritarian orchestra conductor, refining the raw gifts of his players. (He has also developed an interest, more recently, in raising thoroughbreds; coaching Phelps, he has remarked, is like training Secretariat.) He started the preteen Phelps on six-days-a-week practice regimens, often making him swim more than once a day, to work systematically on his mechanics, his endurance and his strength. He recognized Phelps’s predisposition to develop gargantuan aerobic capacity and exploited it, ultimately pushing him to swim at least 50 miles each week. He knew that prepubescent children can, through training, increase the size of their hearts and lungs in ways that are no longer possible later on. “The larger the heart and lungs,” he has noted, “the bigger the aerobic engine.” Beginning when Phelps was 12, he worked the swimmer seven days a week, guided by the assumption that competitors who rested on Sundays were at least one-seventh less conditioned. “Michael has a pretty easy life,” he would joke, “if you don’t count the five hours a day of torture I put him through.” When I visited Colorado Springs in mid-May, Bowman was wrapping up a three-week high-altitude training stint with Club Wolverine, the elite Ann Arbor, Mich., swimming organization at which he bears the title High Performance Coach and whose members include Phelps. (From 2004 until his resignation earlier this year, Bowman was also the head coach of the University of Michigan’s swim team; Phelps followed Bowman to Ann Arbor from his native Baltimore.) Training in thin air is a proven and perfectly legal means of boosting an athlete’s red-blood-cell count, which increases the oxygen delivered to muscles. The trip also afforded Bowman, who prefers to start his day at around 4 a.m., the opportunity to lead his crew through a final pre-Olympic-trials boot camp. The schedule for the Colorado sojourn featured three sessions in the pool per day and an additional hour of “dry land” activities like weight training or Pilates, for a total of 70 workouts in three weeks. Although Bowman was dedicated to mixing up the training regimen to keep his swimmers from getting comfortable, he followed certain patterns: the early session featured 90 minutes of low-key, continuous aerobic exertion — three or four miles of wake-up laps. Midday practice was an intense two-hour affair, putting the swimmers through their paces at top speeds or at the very threshold of their endurance; dry-land work followed for an hour. Later in the afternoon, the day’s final workout focused on muscle power rather than lung power, featuring drills with parachutes, fins, paddles, kick boards, floats, limb-disabling bands, snorkels and other accouterments designed to isolate particular skills. Bowman could be sure that his swimmers had little time or energy left at the end of the day for anything but eating, sleeping and occasionally slumping in front of the television. Phelps, who is said to require 8,000 to 10,000 calories a day to sustain his efforts, spent much of his free time napping or in pursuit, as he puts it, of “whatever I want to eat, whenever I want it, however much I want.” 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. The practice I attended was what Bowman termed a farewell swim: the two dozen team members would be packing their bags afterward and heading to Santa Clara, Calif., before dawn the next morning for a meet. Consequently, Bowman had designed a feel-good wind-down session, featuring lap after lap at what he called a low-intensity “white pace,” at which swimmers maintain heart rates of around 130 beats per minute. (Trained swimmers have heart rates that are much lower both at rest and at maximum exertion than those of ordinary fit people.) The swimmers seemed to drift by in slow motion, plying their backstroke with languid windmill motions, then moving on to freestyle, bending their elbows and dropping their forearms through the water’s surface, hatchet-style, then rising and falling from the pool with their breaststroke and butterfly. Music played over a loudspeaker, but the sound bounced off the water and the walls so haphazardly that it registered as an indistinct blare. Phelps blended into the mix with the others — he was surrounded by other prospective Olympians, including Erik Vendt, Peter Vanderkaay and Allison Schmitt — and wore the kind of detached expression befitting someone who had done much the same thing most of the days of his life. “You’ve got to understand how monotonous and boring our training is,” Bowman told me. “And hard.” On several occasions, I watched as Phelps tried to irk Bowman — as Bowman predicted he would — by tugging on the lane divider during kicking exercises. “Michael knows it’s one of the things I absolutely hate most,” Bowman said. “When he first started doing it, I went nuts, and it wasted our time. It’s just a way he has of asserting his independence from me — a stupid way. I’ve decided that for now I’m going to pick my battles and ignore it.” After 40 minutes, Bowman had his swimmers increase their intensity to a “pink pace,” their heart rates rising to around 150 beats per minute. The swimmers grew more serious, and it was clear that many were focused on racing their teammates in adjacent lanes. Phelps seemed indifferent to the contest and allowed others to beat him to the wall. It wasn’t until Bowman called for a “red pace” — around 165 beats per minute — that Phelps, swimming freestyle, poured on his power and broke away from surrounding swimmers by several lengths. Afterward, he climbed out of the pool, grabbed his phone and, I surmised, began sending text messages. He looked no more winded than if he had been skimming the pool’s surface on an inflatable raft. The crux of Phelps’s superiority — the quality that allows him to maintain the power and efficiency of his strokes when other swimmers begin to falter and that allows him to overpower competitors in the final lap of a race — is his endurance. Years of Bowman’s drills have developed and refined Phelps’s capacity to endure, but from the outset Phelps brought to the pool physiological attributes that place him at the limit for his species. Under aerobic strain, Phelps produces far less lactic acid than other athletes. There is considerable controversy over whether lactic acid itself is detrimental to athletic performace, but it is known that elevated levels of lactic acid are accompanied by a suite of other metabolic products — hydrogen ions, inorganic phosphates — that interfere with muscle contraction and are the stuff of ruinous fatigue. Phelps and other swimmers are continually tested to measure their blood lactate levels (the lower they are, the better a body’s state of aerobic conditioning) and to determine the rate at which they clear lactate from their systems, which indicates their ability to recover. Bowman, who is unapologetically secretive, won’t reveal Phelps’s results, but some data have leaked out over the years, and they have become the stuff of swimming lore. After he set a world record in the 100-meter butterfly in 2003, Phelps’s blood lactate level was an absurdly low 5.6 millimoles per liter of blood, one-half to one-third that of other elite swimmers. At competitions during which Phelps has raced multiple events in quick succession, he has been known to clear lactate from his blood while racing. He also has the ability to tolerate high levels of blood lactate — to swim at full strength and speed while carrying a load of lactate that would bring other athletes to a relative crawl. It’s part of Phelps’s recipe for flourishing beyond all reasonable expectations in water. Genadijus Sokolovas, an intense former pentathlete from Lithuania who is the sports-science director for USA Swimming, explained to me how important this is: “I recently calculated how much Michael is going to swim in Beijing. We don’t know his final schedule yet, but if it’s similar to Athens, the total time he’ll spend in the water — preliminaries, semifinals, finals, warm-ups, cool-downs — will be the equivalent of running eight or nine marathons over the course of the Olympic Games.” Photo The next morning, I returned to the pool, where I found Sokolovas standing on the deck in front of a bank of electronic equipment, administering what he called a “swim-power test” to a specialist in the butterfly from Indiana University. The swimmer wore a belt around his waist from which a fishing line transmitted measurements of velocity and force 60 times each second; at the same time, a camera mounted on a track on the pool wall followed him down the lane and another camera filmed him from below. The apparatus, which Sokolovas developed, analyzes a swimmer’s effectiveness according to 25 to 30 different parameters and gives coaches a way to quantify the costs of a swimmer’s mechanical flaws. “Before this,” Sokolovas said, “we were just guessing — high elbow position is better than low elbow position, or pulling in the middle is better than pulling from the side. Now we can test any hypothesis.” (Bowman does not allow Sokolovas to share specific results of any testing he has performed on Phelps.) Sokolovas is a sporting objectivist and regards Phelps and other members of the mystical vanguard of athletes with an unsentimental gaze. “Working on his technique with Coach Bowman for so many years,” Sokolovas said, “definitely helped Phelps develop a very efficient way to generate his velocity curve on these graphs, and years of high-volume swimming really developed his aerobic conditioning. But,” he continued, “I’m pretty sure we have many more Michael Phelpses in this country.” Sokolovas noted, with some frustration, that the United States lacks the kind of organized system of talent identification that other countries use to start developing athletes in early childhood. “There are plenty of methods we can use to evaluate a child,” he said. “We can look at their biological parents and project their anthropometric parameters; we can evaluate their aerobic ability by testing their maximum oxygen output or measuring their aortas. We can test how fast they adapt to long-term training. It’s easy to evaluate, but instead we rely on the athlete coming to us, the way Michael Phelps came to Bob Bowman.” In that case, I asked, how likely are we ever to see the likes of Phelps again? Sokolovas brushed aside my question. “I’m pretty sure his records will be broken in 5 to 10 years. The swimmers who are going to do this are already in the system.” Doesn’t human potential eventually hit a wall? “No,” he replied. “There is no point at which athletes can’t continue to improve. You can always do higher-intensity training, or maybe higher volumes. A swimmer can do more training on land; or more strength training in water, like swimming against resistances. You can improve your technique. You can improve your nutrition. Basically, I don’t see any limits in swim performance. We’ll never build the perfect swimmer. The records will go up and up.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story Bowman had a slightly different take on the matter. “Do you reach a point where you can’t go any faster? Probably. But,” he added, “I don’t think Michael is there yet.” 03 ON LAND: For years, Phelps has been trailed by the notion that his superiority in water is offset by his ordinariness on land. He is, in part, the author of this fish story, having offered himself to the media, repeatedly, as “the klutziest person on earth.” It’s as though the anomaly of his dominance in the pool — the fact that no one can remember the last time he failed to win races in his primary events, the 200- and 400-meter individual medleys; the fact that his willing submission to the long-term, single-minded tedium and hardship of training seems to belong to another era (Cold War) and another culture (Eastern Bloc) — begged to be explained by some deficiency that made him, well, more like the rest of us. Bowman long ago stopped requiring Phelps to run, we are told, because Phelps tripped and fell with alarming frequency. (The flexibility in Phelps’s ankles, which enhances his training in the pool, results in some loss of stability on land.) His ungainliness is such, the story goes, that he nearly cost himself the Olympics last October when he tumbled getting out of a car and broke a bone in his wrist. (It was dark, it was icy, it was Michigan; Phelps returned to the pool the day after undergoing surgery.) It’s true that before Athens, Phelps was nearly alone among top swimmers in having eschewed weight training, but it turns out that Bowman, far-sighted and ever in touch with his charge’s capacities, was waiting for Phelps’s body to mature before adding bulk to it. (Since then, Phelps has added 15 pounds of muscle and not an ounce of fat.) Bowman acknowledged that as a child Phelps tried soccer, lacrosse and baseball too and that he was far and away the best athlete on those playing fields before giving himself over to his true calling, after which all other athletic endeavors ceased. Indeed, while it is tempting to regard Phelps’s thoroughgoing immersion in chlorinated waters as inevitable — akin to Tiger Woods picking up a golf club or Roger Federer a racquet — his route to success in the pool was, Bowman says, “the confluence of a lot of happy things.” Out on the accidental frontiers of human possibility, the best athletes are produced by a perfect storm of circumstance: rare natural talents; state-of-the-art training; and a deep wash in the murk of psychology, where, perhaps most mysterious of all, ferocious ambition, discipline and capacity for self-sacrifice reside. The genetic boons of Phelps’s physique and physiology were preconditions to his success, to be sure, but he also was fortunate to come from a family that was intimate with pool culture and understood the brutal routines of the committed swimmer. (Two older sisters, including one who was a likely Olympian before injuring her back, preceded him through the ranks of the prestigious North Baltimore Aquatic Club, where Bowman was a coach.) Phelps had abundant native gifts, but Bowman also saw in him an uncommon knack for responding to the kinds of pressure that make most children miserable, coupled with an absolute distaste for losing and a full-blown, true-to-life embodiment of swimming’s flakiest and most vaunted concept: a feel for the water. Phelps had a heightened and detailed awareness of his body in water — how it moved, how it balanced, what helped him go fast and what hindered the effort. He didn’t fight the water. He was at home in it. By the time Phelps was 11, the pool was his world, and it was one that offered more calm and certainty than he found elsewhere. (His parents divorced when Phelps was 9; at school, Phelps received a diagnosis of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.) He was already used to winning easy praise in the pool; Bowman made him work for it, rebuilding what he regarded as sloppy technique and offering Phelps scathing criticism even when he won races by 20 meters. “A coach has to know what he’s trying to accomplish in practice,” Bowman told me, “but once those things are in place, it’s my job to work on the swimmer’s head. I can look in Michael’s eyes in the morning and tell you how he’s going to swim. I can look at the way he’s moving and tell you his physical and mental state.” Bowman managed to turn Phelps into what the swimmer called “the robot I was at 11, 12, 13, 14, 15.” Leading up to Athens, Bowman’s control over his prodigy was nearly total. He knew when Phelps slept and when he ate; he persuaded Phelps to put his social life on hold in order to concentrate on the Games. After Athens, Bowman loosened the reins somewhat — seven-days-a-week practices became more the exception than the rule — but Phelps remains something of a paradox: a person who has traveled the world but experienced little of it, a grown man whose maturation, even by Bowman’s account, has been put on hold. He has yet to venture far from the water, the habitat he knows best. I met Phelps, out of his element, in a lounge at the United States Olympic Training Center, following swim practice. He was not an eager conversationalist. He fidgeted, resisted eye contact and responded to my questions briefly and with little enthusiasm. After 20 minutes, there was a pronounced silence between us. I’d like to think I understood the discomfort of the meeting. Yes, he was probably tired after practice; no doubt he was run down by endless obligations to the media. Above all, though, it seemed that Phelps was signaling the basic difference between his world and mine, between swimming and talking about it. In his medium, language is secondary; self-reflection can cost hundredths or tenths of a second. “My job is to be in the water and swim,” he told me. “That’s about it.” I asked him what went through his mind during a race. “Nothing. I just get in the water and race.” Phelps was telling it like it was, without any land-based need for elaboration, analysis or metaphor. “I’ve spent a lot of time around the water,” he said. “Without it, I don’t know what I’d be doing with myself.” I was tempted to tell Phelps what Pindar, the Greek poet, wrote long ago in an ode composed, aptly enough, for an ancient Olympiad: “Water is best.” Phelps, I thought, might share the sentiment. But he didn’t need to hear it from me. He knows the water in ways few others could. “I guess the water just fits me,” he offered, “and fits what I love.” |
KP Podcast Episode 05: Jenna Grillo, Racing for Fibromyalgia Tune in below to hear Jenna’s story. Jenna suffers from fibromyalgia, a debilitating disease that causes severe fatigue and chronic pain, but she hasn’t let that stop her from pursuing racing. She’s an F2000 driver, active kart racer and past SKUSA Midwest Champion. In this podcast she tells us more about how “fibro” affects her in racing, how she is raising awareness for the disease and provides inspiration for other female racers and those suffering from fibro To Find out more about Jenna and Fibromyalgia: www.fmaware.org (National Fibromyalgia Association site) www.ourcpc.com (Community Pain Center) www.jennagrilloracing.com facebook.com Jenna Grillo Racing: Team AWARE Jenna Grillo Racing: Team AWARE. 3.2K likes. My name is Jenna Grillo, I am a race car driver who suffers from Fibromyalgia. I am using my racing career to bring awareness to Fibromyalgia and Pain Rate this show! |
With the release of the dual-GPU AMD Radeon HD 6990, closely followed by the competing Nvidia GeForce GTX 590 we saw graphics card performance reach new heights. With bandwidth throughput in excess of 300GB/s, these cards can consume more power than entire computer systems. Moreover, the two GPUs on board of either product are so complex that combined make up for 11,000 million transistors. Generally speaking this type of graphics card is designed for the most demanding of PC gamers as they enable ultra high resolutions without even thinking about compromising visual quality. As of recent the only problem faced by gamers is that we haven't seen a great deal of computer games that really push the envelope, like the original Crysis game did, for example. Many had expected Crysis 2 to be the game that would bring even the most power hungry gaming systems to their knees. Sadly the reality was far from it as Crysis 2 in its current condition is nothing more than a well polished DirectX 9 engine port. What we describe has become a widespread practice in the industry with a majority of new PC game releases being console ports to one extent or another — in the worst of scenarios to an overwhelming degree. Given the limited horsepower of today’s console, which are now up to 5 years old, games designed with them in mind fail to stress modern PC hardware. AMD and Nvidia have seen this coming and decided to get a little creative. AMD was the first to aggressively push multi-monitor support with their Eyefinity technology. Announced along the Radeon HD 5000 series, Eyefinity allows you to connect 3 or 6 monitors to a single graphics card. By supporting SLS (Single Large Surface) the technology is able to group together multiple monitors which the operating system recognizes as a single ultra high resolution screen. Nvidia responded with Vision Surround when they launched the GeForce GTX 400 series. Vision Surround has been adopted by the GeForce GTX 590 and it's been a driving force behind this graphics card offering. By utilizing three monitors games can become roughly 3x more demanding as the graphics card is required to render an overwhelmingly higher number of pixels. Whereas we commonly test graphics cards at single monitor resolutions of 1680x1050 (22”), 1920x1200 (24”) and 2560x1600 (30”), today we are taking these and adding two more LCD monitors for effective resolutions of 5040x1050, 5760x1200 and 7680x1600. We'll show you the kind of performance you can expect when playing nearly a dozen popular games using triple 22”, 24” or 30” monitor configurations. |
Will Ed Miliband's lead over David Cameron last? YouGov President Peter Kellner looks to history to judge our latest results It may not last. Short-term blips should not be confused with long-term trends. In polling, as with gravity, what zooms up generally drops back down. Nevertheless, something noteworthy happened last week, and it might portend a closer battle at the next general election than I expected just a few weeks ago. In YouGov’s latest survey for the Sunday Times, Ed Miliband has overtaken David Cameron as the most liked – or, more accurately, least disliked – of Britain’s three main party leaders. Thirty-two per cent now say he is doing well, while 55% say he is doing badly. In net terms (% saying ‘well’ minus % saying ‘badly’) his rating his now minus 23. Cameron’s rating is now minus 29, and Nick Clegg’s minus 54. This is the first time since the height of the phone-hacking row last summer that Miliband has been ahead; and his lead over Cameron is his highest since his first few honeymoon weeks as party leader. Want to receive Peter Kellner's commentaries by email? Subscribe here How different things are to when I last assessed the party leaders back in January. Then, Miliband was trailing Cameron badly. I pointed out that no opposition leader with such dire poll ratings in the past forty years had ever gone on to become Prime Minister. That position remained much the same up to the March Budget. But since then, we have had spats over the granny tax, pasty tax, cut in top tax rate, threatened fuel strike, return to recession, ministers' relations with the Murdoch empire, the bungle over the extradition of Abu Qatada, the return to recession, and rumbles among some Conservative MPs and Tory-supporting papers that Cameron is not promoting his party’s basic values forcefully enough. We have also had the local elections, which, with the exception of Ken Livingstone’s defeat in London, brought good news for Labour in every corner of Britain. This is how the net ratings of the three leaders have moved since the start of the year: Cameron Miliband Clegg January 5-6 -7 -46 -49 March 15-16 (just before Budget) -5 -45 -46 March 30-31 (at height of post-Budget rows) -27 -41 -53 April 26-27 -31 -38 -58 May 10-11 -29 -23 -54 As those figures show, nothing much moved until the Budget. Since then, there have been three distinct phases to the change in fortunes. Phase one: In the days after the Budget, Cameron’s ratings declined sharply while there were only minor changes to the ratings of Miliband (up a bit) or Clegg (down a bit). Phase two: Through April, little changed: Cameron’s and Clegg’s ratings got fractionally worse, and Miliband’s fractionally better. Phase three: In the past fortnight, Cameron’s and Clegg’s ratings have stayed down, while Miliband’s have moved sharply up. What will happen now? The next few weeks could be decisive. Cameron should be worried that the post-Budget dive in his ratings has now lasted six weeks. He has reason to fear that he is suffering not a short-term lovers’ tiff with the electorate but a more serious fracture in that relationship. The longer his poor ratings persist, the harder he will find it to regain voters’ respect. As for Miliband, the sharp rise in his rating is too new for us, or him, to be sure it will persist. In the past, mid-term electoral success, in local or by-elections, has frequently produced short-term bounces for the winning party and its leader. I should not be surprised if Miliband’s rating slips at least part of the way back in the weeks ahead. However, it is no longer hard to imagine that Cameron has lost his huge advantage over Miliband and that both men will attract broadly similar ratings in the months ahead. This could change the dynamics of the current Parliament and the prospects for the next election. Lessons from history? To see why, we need to revisit the central point I made in January, that, since 1970, opposition leaders as unpopular as Miliband have never before gone on to win the next general election. One reason for that is that, with just one exception, every unpopular opposition leader has faced a Prime Minister with either positive, or only fractionally negative, ratings. It was not just the unpopularity of the opposition leader, but the gulf between his reputation and the person he was trying to depose. The exception was 1981. According to Gallup, Labour’s Michael Foot had dire ratings, dropping at one point to minus 51; he faced Margaret Thatcher whose own lowest rating that year, minus 45, was little better than Foot’s. However, Thatcher had some colossal advantages: a hopelessly fractious Labour Party, a new centre party, the Social Democrats, dividing the progressive vote, and, in the year leading up to the 1983 election, victory in the Falklands and a rapidly recovering economy which made room for tax cuts. In the year leading up to that election, Thatcher was far more popular than Foot, and her party went on to win a landslide victory. Cameron has little reason to expect rescue to appear in the shape of Labour infighting, military triumph or economic buoyancy, let alone all three. However, he does enjoy one big advantage: Labour still attracts much of the blame for Britain’s economic problems, and Cameron and George Osborne are still more trusted to safeguard the nation’s finances than Miliband and Ed Balls. If the Tories maintain that advantage, it could be crucial in a tight election. But suppose the economy remains sluggish, and allows Labour to fight this particular issue to a draw in 2015. And suppose Cameron and Miliband have similar ratings for the next year or two. History provides just one parallel, but we have to look further back into the mists of time, to the late Sixties. Harold Wilson’s Labour government was in all sorts of trouble. It suffered the humiliation of having to devalue the pound. Wilson’s ratings were on the floor. Strikes were rife and the Cabinet often divided. But Edward Heath, the opposition Tory leader, was just as unpopular. In the months leading up to the 1970 election, Wilson’s ratings improved. By election day he was much better liked than Heath. Yet Heath won: Wilson’s mid-term travails had been too profound, and his late surge too fragile, to give him the victory he expected. History seldom repeats itself in a tidy manner; so I am not yet predicting that David Cameron will end up like a Tory Harold Wilson, or Ed Miliband a Labour Edward Heath. I still think a Conservative victory is the likeliest outcome in 2015. However, if the post-Budget shifts in sentiment do persist through the summer, that judgement may change. See the survey details and full results here Want to receive Peter Kellner's commentaries by email? Subscribe here |
“THIS IS IMPORTANT, MISTER SNIPPY. IT IS YOU WHO MUST STAY FOCUSED. NOW, THIS LITTLE GIRL ONLY WANTED WHAT WAS BEST FOR EVERYONE. IT WAS HER ONE TRUE WISH.BUT HER WISH ENDED IN CATASTROPHE. THE STARS WENT OUT. THE UNIVERSE SHATTERED. SHE LOST HER BESTEST FRIEND IN THE WHOLE WORLD.SHE STOOD THERE ALL ALONE AT THE END OF ALL THINGS, LOST IN ABSOLUTE DARKNESS... IN HER DESIRE TO UNDO HER WISH, SHE HERSELF BECAME A STAR.IMAGINE, IF YOU WILL, A SHOOTING STAR SOARING THROUGH THE SKY IN REVERSE, ABSORBING ITS TRAILS OF POWDER AS IT TRAVELS BACKWARDS IN TIME, FOREVER AND EVER.YOU SEE, SHE WAS DETERMINED TO MEET HER BEST FRIEND AGAIN. SHE WOULD FIX EVERYTHING, NO MATTER HOW LONG IT TOOK. IMAGINE, IF YOU WILL, BLINDLY THROWING A SPOON OVER YOUR LEFT SHOULDER IN AN ATTEMPT TO MAKE IT LAND INTO YOUR TEACUP.IT’S NOT POSSIBLE ON THE FIRST TRY… BUT WITH INFINITE ATTEMPTS, ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN-- EVEN IF YOU BECOME TERRIBLY BORED IN THE PROCESS, EVEN IF YOU BECOME SOMEONE ELSE ENTIRELY. INFINITY DOESN’T CARE ABOUT YOU. IT CONSUMES YOU. IT CHANGES YOU INTO ITSELF." |
MANILA, Philippines—Given his knowledge of the pork barrel scam, Dennis Cunanan should expect his credibility to be questioned, otherwise, he should be allowed to tell his story, Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III said on Sunday. Cunanan, the latest provisional witness of the Department of Justice (DOJ) to accuse senators of funneling their pork barrel funds to dubious nongovernment organizations, is testifying before the Senate blue ribbon committee on Thursday. ADVERTISEMENT But ahead of his testimony, the head of the government corporation Technology Resource Center (TRC), who is on leave, has gotten calls that he come clean on his possible kickbacks from the P10-billion scam, if not on his lifestyle. “The witness should be credible. I’m sure the preliminary questions for Mr. Cunanan would be focused on his credibility,” Pimentel said in an interview over radio station dzBB. To test Cunanan’s credibility, the veracity of his sworn statement—including his claim that he didn’t pocket kickbacks from the scam—could be checked against that of the lawmakers and records of public and private entities, Pimentel said. The senator said the earlier whistle-blowers, Benhur Luy and Ruby Tuason, were subjected to the same questioning. “But once cleared, let him tell his story. Let’s give him time. That’s the importance of the hearing on Thursday,” Pimentel said. Cunanan, 42, said at least P600 million in lawmakers’ Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) allocations was coursed through the TRC when he was its deputy head. The funds were funneled to the TRC by Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Ramon Revilla Jr. from their PDAF allocations from 2007 to early 2009, he said. The TRC was used as an implementing agency for PDAF-funded ghost projects proposed by dummy organizations set up by Janet Lim-Napoles, the alleged brains behind the pork barrel scam. The senators have denied wrongdoing. ADVERTISEMENT Lifestyle checks Cunanan said he had personally talked with Estrada, Revilla and Enrile’s chief of staff, Jessica Lucila “Gigi” Reyes, to verify the authorization for the use of their PDAF allocations. While he didn’t know how much kickbacks they got, Cunanan said the lawmakers exerted pressure on him to release their PDAF funds to preselected organizations. And contrary to the claims of Revilla and others, Cunanan said their signatures on their letters of endorsement submitted to the TRC were genuine. At the time, the TRC was headed by Antonio Ortiz. Both Ortiz and Cunanan are respondents in the plunder complaints filed by the National Bureau of Investigation in the Office of the Ombudsman in connection with the scam. In response to calls for a lifestyle check on him, Cunanan authorized his lawyer to disclose his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth. “If there’s no other witness, whistle-blower or storyteller with a better story, it’s time to stop the hearing on the alleged PDAF scam so that the blue ribbon committee could write a report or make a recommendation,” Pimentel said. And given its many witnesses, it is time the DOJ make a pronouncement that it is “confident about its evidence,” the senator said. “So far, there’s no such categorical statement from the DOJ. Haven’t they built up a strong case?” Proposed daily trial Pimentel deferred to the Sandiganbayan to decide whether to hold a daily trial on the case should the Ombudsman file plunder charges against the three senators, Napoles and 34 others implicated in the racket. “The Sandiganbayan is already a special court. Let’s leave the Sandiganbayan alone; otherwise it would just confuse the system. If we go ahead with that, it’s as if we’re saying we don’t trust the Sandiganbayan,” he said. “It’s a special court mentioned in the Constitution specifically for cases like this.” Senators Antonio Trillanes IV and Grace Poe agreed that Cunanan would face more scrutiny. “I believe everyone would be more scrutinizing of the incoming witnesses after Ruby Tuason’s testimony,” Trillanes said in a text message, referring to the former Malacañang social secretary who said last month she delivered kickbacks to Estrada personally and to Enrile’s top aide. Poe said it was the role of any senator “to listen to all resource persons’ sworn statements and check for possible inconsistencies to be able to objectively decide on the validity of their assertions.” De Venecia connection On Sunday, Karina Constantino-David, a former chair of the Civil Service Commission, said Cunanan’s appointment as executive director of the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) under the Arroyo administration after the May 2004 election raised a ruckus because he allegedly passed himself off as a graduate of the University of the Philippines. “I received a complaint from the agency’s top officials and union about how a college undergraduate was able to get appointed as a top official of the CHEd,” David said in a phone interview. “We investigated and true enough, he did not graduate from college, a basic requirement for almost all government posts. He was told to leave,” she added. Cunanan, who hails from Magalang town, Pampanga province, was not out of a job for long. In December 2004, Cunanan was appointed by then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as deputy director general of the TRC. In both the CHEd and the TRC, David said, Cunanan was endorsed by former House Speaker Jose de Venecia, for whom Cunanan worked as House executive assistant between 2001 and 2003. Cunanan’s lawyer, Odessa Bernabe, denied her client misrepresented himself but admitted he did not have a college degree when he was appointed to the CHEd and that he resigned after this was pointed out to him. “He was not kicked out. He was even thankful then because he found out his educational status and started attending to it accordingly,” Bernabe said. Cunanan received a diploma from Lacson College in 2005, she said.—With reports from Gil C. Cabacungan and Nancy C. Carvajal Originally posted: 10:30 pm | Sunday, March 2nd, 2014 RELATED STORIES Witness Dennis Cunanan’s appeal: I’m here; spare my children Dennis Cunanan’s family being harassed, says lawyer Read Next LATEST STORIES MOST READ |
The sport of surfing has been officially confirmed as an Olympic sport. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) made the final decision to include surfing in the Tokyo 2020 sports program. It has been a very long battle but, after years of lobbying and meetings, Fernando Aguerre and the International Surfing Association (ISA) have finally convinced the IOC that surfing is the perfect addition to the Olympic movement. Surfers will remember the 3rd August 2016 for the rest of their lives. Men and women will ride waves for gold, silver, and bronze medals under the image of the five interlocking rings designed by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, in 1912. "After decades of hard work and dedication we are absolutely thrilled that surfing will officially join the Olympic sports program at Tokyo 2020," underlined Fernando Aguerre, president of ISA. "Our Olympic dream has now become a reality and on behalf of the entire surfing family I would like to express our sincere thanks to the IOC and Tokyo 2020 for their pioneering vision in making this historic decision possible." "We are especially stoked for the athletes who now have their own dream to shoot for - to compete for their countries on the greatest sporting stage. We can't wait to see the world's best going head to head on the waves in Tokyo and millions of surfing fans revelling in the competition and the fantastic festival atmosphere of the beach party," expressed Aguerre. Tokyo 2020 will welcome 40 Olympic surfing athletes, and Chiba is the selected region for the competition. The 129th IOC Session also announced the inclusion of baseball/softball, sport climbing, skateboarding, and karate in the 2020 Summer Olympics. "Congratulations to ISA President, Fernando Aguerre, and the ISA on their successful bid to have the sport included in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games," added Paul Speaker, CEO of the World Surf League (WSL). "The WSL looks forward to working with the ISA to ensure that the sport is showcased in the best possible manner and with the world’s best athletes. It is awesome that our incredible athletes will have the opportunity to showcase their talents and skills to the global Olympic audience and compete for their countries." Surfing's route to the Olympic Games has not pleased everyone. The purists note that politics and industry interests will threaten the sport's soul, but the majority of surfers is backing up the experience. "For the sport, being accepted onto the Olympic stage is a great step forward. Surfing continues to grow and seeing it reach the Olympic level is really exciting. I'm looking forward to the opportunity of representing our country if I'm fortunate enough to make the U.S. team," concluded John John Florence. Japan has great waves and fantastic surfers. However, it is not clear yet if the Olympic surfing competition will take place in a natural environment, i.e., the Pacific Ocean. In September 2015, the Tokyo 2020 organizers said there would be no artificial waves in the event but, with the latest developments, the possibility can't be ruled out. Will Kelly Slater Wave Company and Wavegarden lobby to build a surf pool featuring Olympic, man-made waves? Or can the Japanese coast deliver consistent swells all year round? The final decision will be made in the next four years. And, who knows, we might see Kelly Slater carrying the US flag when the first Olympic surfboards hit the Sea of Japan between 24th July and 9th August 2020. Are you new to surfing? Discover the most important dates in the history of surfing. The Chronology of Surfing in the Olympic Games August 2016 The International Olympic Committee confirms surfing in the Tokyo 2020 sports program. June 2016 The Executive Board of the International Olympic Committee supported the proposal to add surfing - and four new individual and team sports - to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. September 2015 The Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee proposed surfing in Olympic Games. July 2011 Surfing is not included in the 2020 Olympic Games. Only a board sport - wakeboard - is listed. October 2009 ISA President Fernando Aguerre officially participates in the Olympic Congress. October 2008 Surfing is included in the first annual, OAC-sanctioned Asian Beach Games, in Bali, Indonesia. August 2008 ISA President publishes "Surfing in the Olympics," a key piece in the ISA's path towards the Olympic Games. June 2008 ISA President attends SportAccord, where he makes the case for inclusion of Surfing in the Cultural, Education and/or Cultural Programs of the 2010 Singapore Youth Olympic Games, and 2012 London Olympic Games. December 2003 ISA signs the contract with WADA, conforming to the IOC's Anti-Doping Charter. November 2003 ISA submits a re-evaluation document for the IOC records. December 2002 Surfing was officially put on the South Pacific Games Program. August 2002 ISA receives a letter saying that surfing will not be considered for the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008 because it has not yet fulfilled the requirement of having 75 national governing bodies. November 1997 IOC requests two ISA flags, one for the IOC Headquarters and one for the IOC Museum. September 1997 IOC grants "outright recognition" to the ISA as a "Recognized Federation." January 1997 ISA produces a promotional video about the 1996 World Surfing Games and sends a copy of it to all IOC Members. October 1996 SA holds its World Surfing Games 1996, in Huntington Beach, California. It was the world's largest surfing contest, featuring almost 600 competitors from 36 nations. August 1996 The Olympic "Questionnaire for Admission" is completed and sent back to the IOC. June 1996 IOC President Samaranch, at the conclusion of his June meeting with ISA Chairman Aguerre, unexpectedly announced the creation of a special "IOC President's Trophy" to be given to the team winner at the ISA World Surfing Games. May 1996 Mr. Joao Havelange, President of FIFA (Federation Internationale Football Association), the world's largest sporting federation, becomes an ambassador for surfing. September 1995 ISA decides to make a special donation to the IOC museum in honor of becoming a recognized federation. June 1995 The IOC's Annual Congress ratifies the Executive Committee's decision, officially recognizing the ISA as the International Federation for surfing and bodyboarding, thus formally welcoming the sports to the Olympic movement. April 1995 IOC Executive Committee grants provisional recognition to the International Surfing Association (ISA). March 1995 Aguerre rallies support of the US surf industry and brings the ISA World Surfing Games to Huntington Beach, USA. August 1994 ISA files application for recognition by the IOC. May 1994 Fernando Aguerre is elected Chairman of the ISA, and includes Olympic surfing as part of the ISA's plan for the inclusion in the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. April 1994 Lobbying continues for surfing to become an Olympic sport. Jacques Hele attends several international sports meetings. November 1992 International Surfing Association (ISA) President Jacques Hele lobbies for surfing in the Olympic movement. September 1920 Duke Kahanamoku wins the 100 meters Freestyle Olympic gold medal at Antwerp 1920. The "father of surfing" wins another gold medal with the USA 4x200m Men's Relay team. |
Gun rights advocates rally in Salem at the Oregon State Capitol 13 Gallery: Gun rights advocates rally in Salem at the Oregon State Capitol SALEM -- Some gun-toting demonstrators have taken their protest and their weapons inside the Capitol building. Oregon law allows people who have concealed handgun licenses to openly carry weapons inside public buildings, including the Capitol. Among those who ventured inside from a pro-gun rally across the street was a man who would only give a first name, Warren. "I'm supporting my fellow patriots," he said. He was carrying an AR-15 slung across his back. "It's technically loaded," he said, meaning a full magazine was in place, but no round was chambered. He was approached by a state police officer -- about a half dozen were posted directly inside the Capitol rotunda -- who asked to see Warren's concealed handgun permit. The trooper looked at the permit and walked away, while Warren took photos of the Rotunda art work. in the Capitol Mall to support the Second Amendment and to protest efforts to restrict gun ownership. "Everything's going exactly as planned," state police Lt. Terri Davie said. There are people walking through the building with weapons, but "there's been no concerns." She wouldn't say how many state troopers are on hand, but said they always beef up security whenever there's a large rally. She estimated the crowd at 300 to 400 demonstrators. – |
Jake Arrieta was one strike from his second no-hitter in as many seasons, one strike from the 15th no-hitter in Chicago Cubs history, one strike from being the first pitcher to no-hit the Cincinnati Reds in the regular season since 1971, one strike from giving the Cubs fans in attendance at Great American Ballpark the thrill of a lifetime. Truth was, it wasn't an easy ride for Arrieta to get here. After the game, he said on the Cubs broadcast that, "It felt sloppy from the get-go. The pregame pen was as sloppy as the pregame pen [in] L.A. before that no-hitter. ... Pitching to contact was the goal today, and I did that." He'd walked four batters, including Scott Schebler leading off the ninth. He had just six strikeouts (he had 12 in his no-hitter Aug. 30 against the Los Angeles Dodgers) and was closing in on 120 pitches. Jake Arrieta reacts to completing his second no-hitter in less than two seasons Thursday night in Cincinnati. David Kohl/USA TODAY Sports The Cubs fans had all moved down behind the Chicago dugout. Most of the Reds fans had long since gone home, more dispirited by a 16-0 rout than waiting to witness history. The count was 0-2 on Eugenio Suarez, and what chance did he have? Arrieta might throw his fastball. He might throw that unhittable slider. He might throw his changeup -- he does that every so often. Arrieta threw a curveball. It was a beautiful pitch, a big, old-school bender. Suarez didn't swing. He wouldn't have hit it if he had. It caught the corner. Except plate umpire Dana DeMuth called it a ball. Arrieta didn't blink. If he twitched, I missed it. Maybe he gave a bit of an extra stare. For a split second, it was easy to think that was the pitch, that was the second life Suarez needed. But Arrieta isn't a guy who is going to lose focus. That's not how he became a Cy Young winner, a man who has continued his historic run of dominance from last season. Two pitches later, Suarez popped up to right field. Arrieta was most happy for his catcher, David Ross, who had homered in Cubs' blitz. Everyone loves Ross, who is considered one of the best teammates in the game. He'd never caught a no-hitter. Arrieta was glad to "give him that in his last season. We were hugging at the end and he just kept saying, 'Thank you, thank you.'" So this what a no-hitter feels like: Earlier in the day, Arrieta had tweeted this: Prince, thank you for 3+ decades of brilliant music. #gameblouses — Jake Arrieta (@JArrieta34) April 21, 2016 Tonight, we can thank him for giving baseball fans a moment of joy on a sad day. Amazingly, Arrieta has thrown 24 consecutive quality starts in the regular season. He's 20-1 in those games, with an 0.84 ERA and 173 strikeouts against just 33 walks. He's 4-0 in four starts in 2016 with an 0.87 ERA. That's right, he's in a slump. So, this is fun. Jake Arrieta's heat map since June 21, 2015 (his 24 straight quality starts): pic.twitter.com/YIzJeMTbta — David Schoenfield (@dschoenfield) April 22, 2016 I think of all the great pitchers in my lifetime -- Ron Guidry in 1978 and Dwight Gooden in 1985 and the peaks of Hall of Famers like Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson and Greg Maddux -- but it's fair to ask: Have we seen a pitcher dominate like this over an extended period of time? Here's one way to understand it: In his past 119⅓ innings, Arrieta has allowed seven earned runs. David Price, not exactly chopped liver, allowed eight earned runs earlier Thursday. You know, we spent all week talking about the impressive start to 2016 for Noah Syndergaard. We've seen the talk on Twitter, I've seen the articles. Is Syndergaard ready to surpass Clayton Kershaw as the game's best pitcher? Maybe we need to back up, because Arrieta doesn't appear ready to relinquish his claim that he's as good as Kershaw. (Of course, on some level, it's like every young, talented center fielder of the past 50 years who gets compared to Willie Mays. If everyone is compared to Mays, it means he's still the best.) With all due respect to Syndergaard, it has been only three starts. We have to give him more time and more starts before we can definitively compare him to the best (although there's obviously a good chance he gets there). A good formula to answer this question is the one Bill James uses at Bill James Online in his starting pitching rankings, which gives a lot of weight to a pitcher's most recent starts but also factors in long-term performance. James had just made a note that Arrieta had jumped to No. 2 in his rankings behind Kershaw, passing Max Scherzer. Syndergaard is at 45, but he'll move up the list quickly if he keeps pitching like this. So that sounds right: 1. Kershaw 2. Arrieta I don't know, though. I'm curious to see how this looks in a couple months. Maybe Arrieta will actually have a bad game by then. I mean, it's going to happen at some point. ... Right? |
The US victory lap on job creation is in full swing, with just 5.8% of American workers who want jobs unable to find one. But as that number falls, there is looming specter behind it: The number of Americans who want to work—who are participating in the labor force—has been on a steady downward plunge to levels not seen since the seventies. This is a significant change in the economy, but it’s not entirely clear yet why it’s happening—while the large Baby Boom generation is retiring, demographers say that isn’t the reason we’re seeing a reduction in the labor force participation rate. That suggests the culprit is other social and cultural trends, and that maybe the shrinking participation rate actually isn’t a bad thing. “What is our socially desirable rate of participation?” Nicolas Petrosky-Nadeau, a Carnegie Mellon economist currently on leave at the San Francisco Federal Reserve bank, asks. ”The truth is, we don’t know. There’s an immediate reaction to think that a decline in participation is necessarily a bad thing, [but] you can imagine it as an improvement of society’s organization of work, and individuals desire not to work, and that is the best outcome.” Bottom’s up, top’s down Petrosky-Nadeau and Stanford economist Robert Hall are trying to come up with an answer to this question by figuring out exactly who is leaving the labor force. Using a survey of Americans that asks whether and how much they work, how much they earn and how frequently they use government programs, they are able to break out labor force participation by income, with some interesting results: When Hall testified about this research before the Senate finance committee last week, his primary conclusion was that the government safety net is not leading the poorest Americans to avoid work: Households making an average of less than $935 a month, or $11,220 a year, between 1996 and 2013, have seen their participation in the labor force rise steadily over the last two decades. The lowest quartile of American earners, earning an average of $1,740 a month, or $20,880 annually, have seen their participation rate rise as well. One probable reason: Declining real wages at the bottom mean that more work must be done in each household to maintain the same standard of living. Between the bottom quartile and the median income—$3,360 a month or $40,032 annually—the trend starts to diverge. The lower middle-income households have seen a small reduction in labor force participation, but that’s nothing compared to households in the high middle-income quartile, who earn up to $5,920 a month or $71,000 a year. Since 1996, the share of workers in those households has fallen by 7.2 percentage points, the highest of all. As notable: The top 10 percent of American earning households have seen their participation fall 3.6 percentage points. What it means: The richest Americans don’t have to work as much as they used to, but the poor are working more to maintain their standard of living. Factory workers and chilled-out teens Take a look at the way labor force participation has changed between 1998-2000 and 2011-2013: Age Men, low-income Men, high-income Women, low-income Women, high-income Teenagers -7.1 -15.6 -8.8 -15.9 20 to 34 -4.4 -4.7 -1.9 -3.8 35 to 59 1.4 -1.7 0.4 -0.9 60+ 4.7 2.8 3.9 8.9 The first thing you note is that a lot of high-income teens aren’t working. They don’t have to: Their parents are probably prioritizing education over employment. Petrosky-Nadeau says teens make up 40% of the overall drop in labor force participation, and Hall notes that the bulk of the reduction comes from teens and young people in their early twenties. Because so much of the drop occurs on the high-income side, Hall suggests that a government policy reaction—and particularly attempts to cut the social safety net—isn’t necessary.”A study of the data on the decline does not suggest the desirability of policy changes focusing on reversing the decline,” Hall told the Senate. Hall suggests that maybe we are approaching that “improvement of society’s organization of work” Petrosky-Nadeau talked about earlier: Less work, more (screen-oriented) leisure. “Entertainment is a lot cheaper than it was 20 years ago,” Petrosky-Nadeau notes. Take a look at changes in American time usage: Unequal organization But several problems arise from this analysis. One is that there is some non-trivial number of working-age Americans who have left the workforce not because they can spend more time watching TV but because they have trouble finding a job they want: This hollowing-out of middle class jobs, often cited as manufacturing work replaced by trade or automation, that could be behind the plunge in labor force participation for upper middle-income Americans. The second question is about those chilled-out teens: Are they going to school, or just fooling around? With time spent on education not rising significantly and a dearth of early job experience, there is a fear that those teens may not be ready to work—or have the same earnings opportunities as their parents—when they hit prime age. Petrosky-Nadeau suggests that this may lead policymakers to think more about jobs training and apprenticeship programs. The final problem is the opposite of the entitlements and social safety net question we’ve been focused on: Should society be worried about low-income people, and particularly low-income people over 60, having to work increasing hours to make ends meet? Shouldn’t everyone get to share in the new economy of leisure? More to learn Hall and Petrosky-Nadeau still have more to learn about how people make their decision to join the labor force, and how various combinations of household income and size, access to government programs, age and skill-level lead people to enter or exit the labor force. But just in their preliminary work, you can see both the promise of the new global economy—the chance that we’ll be able to spend less time working and more time doing other things—as well as its peril—that those opportunities will be restricted to a highly-skilled minority. |
At night, the same playgrounds become their place to sleep, curled up in the play structures wrapped in blankets. Lisa Roberts and her 15-month-old son, Liam, spend their days at the Whitby library or walking around parks and playgrounds. Roberts, 38 — who is nearly eight months pregnant with a girl — and her son have been homeless since the beginning of May, when she had to leave her basement apartment in Whitby because her landlord’s son was returning from university. Living off welfare, she has been unable to find a one-bedroom apartment for less than $800 in Durham Region. Roberts has doctors in Ajax but is having trouble getting to them, and missed her last prenatal care appointment. Liam is healthy for now, she says. “I was told there is a 12-year waiting list (for affordable housing),” she says. And when a rental apartment is listed online, she says, landlords just don’t want to rent to people with children “because they can be destructive.” Roberts is one among a growing number of women who are having to wait longer and longer to find homes in Durham Region, says Atiya Siddiquei, manager of the Muslim Welfare Centre, the region’s only shelter that caters specifically to women and children who are homeless but not fleeing abuse (there are separate shelters for that in Oshawa and Ajax). “Honestly speaking, it’s really getting tougher and tougher every day,” she sighs. The 40-bed shelter is usually filled to capacity. “Most landlords don’t want to rent to people from shelters. Bad credit is another problem; many people have been evicted in the past. It makes it very hard to find places for these women. It’s a long process (to get into affordable housing). If they are not abused, just homeless, they have to wait years and years, with no other option than rental properties.” However, she says, even though women are now spending three months or more at the shelter while seeking housing, instead of six to eight weeks, it’s even worse in Toronto. “We’re really finding women are getting stuck,” agrees Ruth Crammond, director of shelter and clinical services at the YWCA, which runs shelters in Toronto for women who are homeless or are fleeing violence. “Women are staying in Toronto shelters longer.” The number of women and children entering the mainstream shelter system is also on the rise, according to a study noted in the first ever national report card on homelessness, released this week. “It’s difficult to say why, but it could be a product of the pressure on low-income families, whose earning power is decreasing … as housing costs are increasing, which squeezes you out of the housing market and leaves you one crisis away from homelessness,” says Tim Richter, president and CEO of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness. The report card called for all levels of government to contribute to building affordable housing. Ontario’s problem with affordable rental housing was recently described in an Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association report as “staggering and worsening.” Women with children, in particular, want to find housing that is both affordable and in an area where they feel safe, notes Crammond. But after months in a shelter, they often accept substandard housing that can put them at risk of violence or further violence, she says. “In rare cases we see women returning to their abusers … or entering relationships quickly to secure a place to live.” Cases of homeless parents and children are investigated and dealt with based on severity, said Caroline Newton, spokesperson for the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies. A child will only be taken away from a homeless parent if there’s “an immediate risk of safety,” Newton said, adding that efforts are always made to get in touch with other family members who may be able to help temporarily take care of the child, or place the parent and child in a proper shelter. If a child is taken into CAS care, the aim is to eventually reunite that child with his or her family, said Newton. “The protection and the well-being of the child is paramount, but the goal is not to just scoop as many kids as possible,” she said. “The goal is to be as least disruptive as possible.” Back in Whitby, Roberts is frantically continuing her search for a home, poring over online listings provided by her social worker at the library every day. She takes breaks to collect batteries, which she exchanges for cash to help her feed her son. She says that after spending one night in a shelter, that just isn’t an option — “it didn’t feel safe for my son. He stayed awake all night shaking,” she says. Though her father lives in Whitby, living with him isn’t on the table. She says their relationship is strained — documented in passionate poetry and prose Roberts has penned over the years and one day hopes to publish. And she is no longer with the father of Liam and her as-yet-unborn daughter. “I’m hoping to find something soon, before my baby is born,” she says. She has name picked out for the girl: Ailey. “After that, I don’t know what I’m going to do.” |
In a perfect convergence of two separate news events from this summer, former Hawaii Five-O star Daniel Dae Kim is in talks to replace Ed Skrein in the Hellboy reboot. Kim, who is Korean-American, left CBS’ Hawaii Five-O back in July along with co-star Grace Park because the network wouldn’t pay them the same amount of money as their white co-stars, and a little more than a month later, Skrein decided to drop out of Hellboy after discovering that the character he would’ve played—Major Ben Daimio—is half-Japanese in the Hellboy comics. Skrein released a statement at the time, saying that keeping the role would “continue a worrying tendency to obscure ethnic minority stories and voices in the Arts,” and now it looks like him turning down the role is actually having the effect he intended it to. Plus, Kim is getting what sounds like a relatively big role in a fairly high-profile comic book movie to make up for his old CBS job. Advertisement [via The Hollywood Reporter] |
Ever start an important video call, only to find yourself agonizing over your ghostly pallor instead of listening? You’re not alone. Office workers who embrace the flexibility and productivity of working from home frequently rely on videoconferencing services to ”call in” to meetings—only to be distracted by their own physical flaws, bad hair days and under-eye circles, which appear with awful clarity onscreen. For the designers trying to fix it, this nagging distraction even has a name: the appearance barrier. According to a 2014 survey by US furniture maker Steelcase, 72% of people felt self-conscious about their image on video and 58% obsessed over the fact that they appeared washed out or tired.“People tend to behave in a very forced and formal way during telepresence meetings,” senior design researcher Ritu Bajaj wrote in the report. ”They sit up very straight as if they’re TV news anchors and are reluctant to move.” Something as seemingly trivial as wild hair can have a significant impact. In the US alone, the number of regular work-at-home employees has increased by 103% since 2005, according to the latest Global Workplace Analytics data. About a quarter of the US workforce telecommutes with some frequency. And as geographically-separated teams meet through realtime video, something as seemingly trivial as wild hair can have a significant impact: People who are distracted or embarrassed by their appearance on camera can lose focus on the discussion, and miss fully engaging with colleagues or interviewers. Reuters/Eric Feferberg Are you listening, Mr. Sarkozy? Designing away the “appearance barrier” Steelcase, which once owned the design innovation firm IDEO, has been using the same “human-centered design” mantra in its search to find the perfect room configuration for long-distance collaboration. It believes that it can design spaces that not only mimic the feeling of being collocated, but even foster camaraderie and trust between colleagues who have never even met in person. The daunting creative brief for Steelcase designers: “Make distance disappear.” “We think about collaboration from a social, spatial and information perspective,” says Scott Sadler a manager at their integrated technology division in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Sadler tells Quartz that their own global operations base—with over 11,000 employees in 80 countries—has been fertile ground for trying out and tweaking their video-conferencing design solutions over the past ten years. Steelcase Steelcase’s designers have come up with a sci-fi sounding set-up called “The Wormhole,” an all-day video connection with colleagues for spontaneous exchanges and a mobile kiosk for one-on-one chats. At their showroom in New York City, Steelcase representatives showed Quartz a glass-enclosed conference room in their media:scape product line designed to soothe all the “appearance barrier” pain points: The rectangular video calling space space is equipped with strategically positioned chairs, face-flattering lights, discreet microphones, and fabric-wrapped walls for better sound quality and privacy. But even without investing thousands in a proprietary, fully-integrated Steelcase suite, companies and teleworkers can still set themselves up for success by making small adjustments to their existing video set-up, says Sadler: Mind the camera height The placement, height, and angle of the video camera is essential to good meetings, explains Sadler. When the camera is positioned too low, it shoots up the nostrils, a phenomenon familiar to laptop users who plop their computers on a low coffee table. When positioned too high, a camera can project a distorted picture or even expose one’s receding hairline. Look at the camera, not yourself Paying attention to the ”sightline” for better eye contact is key, says Sadler. In Steelcase’s survey of 2,022 participants, researchers noted that telecommuters struggled to make eye contact because their instinct was to look at the screen rather than into computer’s camera lens. Good eye contact enables participants to be more engaged and get into the flow of a meeting. Find the light Drawing lessons from professional TV broadcast lighting scenarios, Steelcase engineers found that light directed towards the speaker at around a 45-degree angle and bounced on a wood desk helped to fill out the contours of one’s face and de-emphasize dark circles around the eyes. It also prevented that dreaded under-the-chin flashlight effect, best reserved for horror movies. Clear the background Clutter in the background can be distracting, if not outright embarrassing. Some work-at-home employees go as far as ordering professional-looking backdrops to hide the laundry in the background. Simply clearing the background wall can also help simplify the visual information onscreen, and encourage colleagues to focus on your ideas instead of on personal photographs in the room. |
Just when you think the chatter between the Patriots and Jets couldn’t get any sillier, Patriots wide receiver Wes Welker stepped to the podium Thursday as if dared to see how many “foot” references he could cram in to a single media session. Behold: 1. On this week of preparation: “Everybody’s putting their best foot forward.” 2. On young players in the playoffs: “You can’t just stick your toe in the water. You gotta jump right in.” 3. On playing this year as opposed to last year: “It’s definitely different. You know, you’ve got your foot up in the air trying to get the swelling to go down. Definitely excited about the opportunity to get out there and have some fun.” 4. On the opportunity this week: “These are the games you play for. What you spend all year getting ready for and you just want to put your best foot forward.” 5. On Revis: “He’s got great feet.” 6. On Revis again: “He’s very patient, has good feet.” 7. On Deion Branch: “He runs some really good routes out there . . . He’s another guy with great feet and can really move around.” 8. On practice: “You want to make sure you’re putting your best foot forward out there and making it happen.” 9. More on practice: “Us going out there and being good little foot soliders and making sure we’re going out there and doing everything coach asks us to do.” 10. On seeing new things in the playoffs: “You definitely have to be on your toes and make sure you’re ready to go.” Genius. Since this is clearly the most important post I’ll ever write at PFT, let’s analyze further. Welker is deadpan as ever with his delivery, so there’s no way he can really be called out for it. A few clues indicate that it’s not just a coincidence. Jackie MacMullan of ESPNBoston.com wrote a great feature on Welker. Part of it is about what a huge prankster he is. “Put Wes, Matt [Cassel] and Larry Izzo in a room, and they are ‘The Three Stooges,'” Tom Brady said. Welker got his first “foot” reference in on his first question and rarely let up in his ten minutes of talking. He also appears to be stifling a smile and/or laugh after his two most ridiculous references — No. 2 and No. 9. Maybe it’s all a coincidence, but we really doubt it. And that would be no fun. We’ll continue to update you on this vitally important breaking story here at PFT. UPDATE: Since we’ve posted, Deadspin compiled all the references into a 20 second video. Nicely done. |
slightlypretentious: Aww, that’s so cute! Except those property rights you’re deriding are often the only thing keeping lgbt seniors in their homes after the death of their partners. That “capitalist crap” you mention includes shared pensions and access to partner 401(k) rights, which often means the barrier between destitution and relative comfort in old age. It means access to your partner’s healthcare programmes. It’s the ability to adopt your partner’s children so that you can do something as mundane as pick them up from school, and as important as file a missing person’s report. It’s the ability to make medical decisions in extremis for your partner, and for them to be notified if you get hurt. It means if you die, your body isn’t turned over to homophobic relatives against your wishes. It means immigration rights, school access, right-to-life powers. It means being seen as equal citizens under the law. If you don’t want to get married, by all means don’t, but don’t you dare subject the rest of us to your bullshit white suburban reject anarchism. (via practicallypurple-blog) |
Adeleine, the adorable little artist from Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, is becoming a bit of an obscure character as time goes on. The N64 title was a big hit and people easily became attached to the character, but unfortunately Nintendo seems to have left Adeleine behind a bit. Certainly not the most well known or important of characters out there, we do have to say that a place on the roster will probably not be open for the little painter this time around. But an assist trophy….? Maybe you’re onto something there, Anon. It’s generally agreed upon that Adeleine is a girl, but there are some that will disagree just because she looks rather androgynous. For the purpose of this entry, we’re going to go with the consensus and call her female JUST so we don’t have to avoid using pronouns any longer. :P So what exactly does Adeleine do? Why, she paints! And we’re all very proud of her excellent artistic talent. D'aww, lookit ‘er go. Adeleine possesses the strange and intriguing ability to make her paintings come to life right before your eyes! Literally. And that was bad news for Kirby when the two of them first met. When Kirby encountered Adeleine, she was possessed by an evil being referred to as Dark Matter. She used her powers against him and created a couple of tough foes for you to fight while she cackled in the background. By the time the fight was over, Adeleine was back to normal and she felt that she had to make it up to her new friends. So she tagged along, lending Kirby her powers (Typically by creating items for him to use) Along his journey. (Image here.) We have to admit one thing: It would be VERY easy to come up with a moveset for Adeleine. Her ability to form whatever she wishes out of thin air is one NEAT power, and a very versatile one at that. But as it is….she’s really not important enough for the roster. Just like many others on this blog though, if she were to make a couple more important appearances in the Kirby series then we could possibly see her making her way onto the roster in a later installment of the Smash series. As an Assist, Adeleine would be COMPLETELY random. She could help you by giving you items right next to you, or appear in her possessed form and send a barrage of enemies raining down on your foes. And maybe YOU too. Who knows what would go through her crazy mind in that state. As or the likelihood of her appearance….We’re on the fence. On the one hand, there’s been TWO installments in the Smash series since she was last relevant, but on the OTHER hand, she’s pretty well liked and this concept is pretty dang neat, not to mention the fact that her inclusion in the Smash series would remind people how neat of a character she is and prompt them to request her in more Kirby games. She may not be our NUMBER 1 most likely assist trophy….but it’d sure be cool as hell, eh? An excellent suggestion if ever we heard one….Do come by again, anon! |
Fan Question: Do you hand draw every scene? Answer: South Park is not quite traditionally animated show, and the “drawing” is only done in the very early phases of productions. Instead we use the same construction paper we’ve used since the pilot episode “Cartman Gets an Anal Probe. Fun side note, the very first episode took over 3 months to complete and was hand animated by a very small team, including Matt and Trey. Now we use a number of programs to make the finished product, but most of the animation is done in Maya (an industry standard 3D animation program). It should be noted, however, that the construction paper used in the pilot episode was scanned into a computer database, which the technical directors and animators now use to create the show. This allows us to continue to animate with construction paper textures, even though we are using computers. We’ve used those SAME TEXTURES for the past 19 years. The images below show some of the steps in production… Check out this storyboard drawing of Cartman and his mom from last season’s finale “PC Principal Final Justice”. Storyboards are drawn after we have script. This is what the scene looks like in the animation software, Maya. Here’s the final image from the episode. Check out a few examples of the paper textures. You can see the ridges and shadows in the paper scans. All the animation is done by our team of animators (about 10 people) and they move the characters and props every 2 frames (we animate at 24 frames per second), just like most other animated shows. Pretty cool, huh? |
Appearing on Fox News’ Special Report with Bret Baier, presumptive Republican presidential candidate Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker gave Americans their first preview on where a President Walker would stand on civil liberties issues such as NSA spying authorized by the highly controversial Patriot Act. Baier pushed Walker to give a “yes” or “no” on whether or not he would reauthorize the controversial NSA spying program by asking him whether or not he would vote for it if he were currently a sitting Senator. Walker, responding with typical political rhetoric, never actually answering Baier’s question, but instead said, that the meta-data collected was necessary and access to it was needed. Earlier in the month, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the NSA spy program is illegal. This puts Walker at odds with declared conservative candidates Senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz. Although Cruz did once vote to re-authorize the Patriot Act, he now seems prepared to stand against the upcoming re-authorization vote. Paul, the most staunch opponent of NSA spying in the Senate, is preparing to filibuster the upcoming Patriot Act re-authorization vote. Walker’s comments on the Patriot Act and NSA begin at minute 5. Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com |
Do you think that the machine you are reading this story on, right now, has a feeling of “what it is like” to be in its state? What about a pet dog? Does it have a sense of what it’s like to be in its state? It may pine for attention, and appear to have a unique subjective experience, but what separates the two cases? These are by no means simple questions. How and why particular circumstances may give rise to our experience of consciousness remain some of the most puzzling questions of our time. Newborn babies, brain-damaged patients, complicated machines and animals may display signs of consciousness. However, the extent or nature of their experience remains a hotbed of intellectual enquiry. Being able to quantify consciousness would go a long way toward answering some of these problems. From a clinical perspective, any theory that might serve this purpose also needs to be able to account for why certain areas of the brain appear critical to consciousness, and why the damage or removal of other regions appears to have relatively little impact. One such theory has been gaining support in the scientific community. It’s called Integrated Information Theory (IIT), and was proposed in 2008 by Guilio Tononi, a US-based neuroscientist. It also has one rather surprising implication: consciousness can, in principle, be found anywhere where there is the right kind of information processing going on, whether that’s in a brain or a computer. Information and consciousness The theory says that a physical system can give rise to consciousness if two physical postulates are met. The first is that the physical system must be very rich in information. If a system is conscious of an enormous number of things, like every frame in a film, but if each frame is clearly distinct, then we’d say conscious experience is highly differentiated. Both your brain and your hard drive are capable of containing such highly differentiated information. But one is conscious and the other is not. So what is the difference between your hard drive and your brain? For one, the human brain is also highly integrated. There are many billions of cross links between individual inputs that far exceed any (current) computer. This brings us to the second postulate, which is that for consciousness to emerge, the physical system must also be highly integrated. Whatever information you are conscious of is wholly and completely presented to your mind. For, try as you might, you are unable to segregate the frames of a film into a series of static images. Nor can you completely isolate the information you receive from each of your senses. The implication is that integration is a measure of what differentiates our brains from other highly complex systems. Integrated information and the brain By borrowing from the language of mathematics, IIT attempts to generate a single number as a measure of this integrated information, known as phi (Φ, pronounced “fi”). Something with a low phi, such as a hard drive, won’t be conscious. Whereas something with a high enough phi, like a mammalian brain, will be. What makes phi interesting is that a number of its predictions can be empirically tested: if consciousness corresponds to the amount of integrated information in a system, then measures that approximate phi should differ during altered states of consciousness. Recently, a team of researchers developed an instrument capable of measuring a related quantity to integrated information in the human brain, and tested this idea. They used electromagnetic pulses to stimulate the brain, and were able to distinguish awake and anaesthetised brains from the complexity of the resulting neural activity. The same measure was even capable of discriminating between brain injured patients in vegetative compared to minimally conscious states. It also increased when patients went from non-dream to the dream-filled states of sleep. IIT also predicts why the cerebellum, an area at the rear of the human brain, seems to contribute only minimally to consciousness. This is despite it containing four times more neurons than the rest of the cerebral cortex, which appears to be the seat of consciousness. The cerebellum has a comparatively simple crystalline arrangement of neurons. So IIT would suggest this area is information rich, or highly differentiated, but it fails IIT’s second requirement of integration. Although there’s a lot more work to be done, some striking implications remain for this theory of consciousness. If consciousness is indeed an emergent feature of a highly integrated network, as IIT suggests, then probably all complex systems – certainly all creatures with brains – have some minimal form of consciousness. By extension, if consciousness is defined by the amount of integrated information in a system, then we may also need to move away from any form of human exceptionalism that says consciousness is exclusive to us. |
Bobsleigh is a winter sport invented by the Swiss in the late 1860s in which teams make timed runs down narrow, twisting, banked, iced tracks in a gravity-powered sled. 19th century beginnings The sport of bobsleigh didn't begin until the late 19th century when the Swiss attached two skeleton sleds together and added a steering mechanism to make a toboggan. A chassis was added to give protection to wealthy tourists and the world's first bobsleigh club was founded in St Moritz, Switzerland in 1897. Super heavy By the 1950s, the critical importance of the start had been recognized and athletes with explosive strength from other sports were drawn to bobsledding. In 1952, a critical rule change limiting the total weight of crew and sled ended the era of the super heavyweight bobsledder and rebalanced the sport as an athletic contest. |
In one important way, the recipient of a heart transplant ignores its new organ: Its nervous system usually doesn’t rewire to communicate with it. The 40,000 neurons controlling a heart operate so perfectly, and are so self-contained, that a heart can be cut out of one body, placed into another, and continue to function perfectly, even in the absence of external control, for a decade or more. This seems necessary: The parts of our nervous system managing our most essential functions behave like a Swiss watch, precisely timed and impervious to perturbations. Chaotic behavior has been throttled out. Or has it? Two simple pendulums that swing with perfect regularity can, when yoked together, move in a chaotic trajectory. Given that the billions of neurons in our brain are each like a pendulum, oscillating back and forth between resting and firing, and connected to 10,000 other neurons, isn’t chaos in our nervous system unavoidable? The prospect is terrifying to imagine. Chaos is extremely sensitive to initial conditions—just think of the butterfly effect. What if the wrong perturbation plunged us into irrevocable madness? Among many scientists, too, there is a great deal of resistance to the idea that chaos is at work in biological systems. Many intentionally preclude it from their models. It subverts computationalism, which is the idea that the brain is nothing more than a complicated, but fundamentally rule-based, computer. Chaos seems unqualified as a mechanism of biological information processing, as it allows noise to propagate without bounds, corrupting information transmission and storage. The brain’s main function is to protect us, like an umbrella, from chaos. At the same time, chaos has its advantages. On a behavioral level, the arms race between predator and prey has wired erratic strategies into our nervous system.1 A moth sensing an echolocating bat, for example, immediately directs itself away from the ultrasound source. The neurons controlling its flight fire in an increasingly erratic manner as the bat draws closer, until the moth, darting in fits, appears to be nothing but a tumble of wings and legs. More generally, chaos could grant our brains a great deal of computational power, by exploring many possibilities at great speed. Also in Neuroscience “We Are Visual Animals, Driven By Images” By John Steele Dr. Peter Gruss is the President of the Max Planck Society, one of the largest and most successful scientific research institutions in the world. If you wonder if the Earth is the only inhabited place in the universe, how complex...READ MORE Motivated by these and other potential advantages, and with an accumulation of evidence in hand, neuroscientists are gradually accepting the potential importance of chaos in the brain. Chaos is not the same as disorder. While disordered systems cannot be predicted, chaos is actually deterministic: The present state of the system determines its future. Yet even so, its behavior is only predictable on short time scales: Tiny differences in inputs result in vastly different outcomes. Chaotic systems can also exhibit stable patterns called “attractors” that emerge to the patient observer. Over time, chaotic trajectories will gravitate toward them. Because chaos can be controlled, it strikes a fine balance between reliability and exploration. Yet because it’s unpredictable, it’s a strong candidate for the dynamical substrate of free will. The similarity to random disorder (or stochasticity) has been a thorn in the side of formal studies of chaos. It can be mathematically tricky to distinguish between the two—especially in biological systems. There are no definite tests for chaos when dealing with multi-dimensional, fluctuating biological data. Walter Freeman and his colleagues spearheaded some of the earliest studies attempting to prove the existence of chaos in the brain, but came to extreme conclusions on limited data. He’s argued, for example, that neuropil, the extracellular mix of axons and dendrites, is the organ of consciousness—a strong assertion in any light. Philosophers soon latched onto these ideas, taking even the earliest studies at face value. Articles by philosophers and scientists alike can be as apt to quote Jiddu Krishnamurti as Henri Poincaré, and chaos is often handled with a semi-mystical reverence.2, 3 As a result, researchers must tread carefully to be taken seriously. But the search for chaos is not purely poetic. The strongest current evidence comes from single cells. The squid giant axon, for example, operates in a resting mode or a repetitive firing mode, depending on the external sodium concentration. Between these extremes, it exhibits unpredictable bursting that resembles the wandering behavior of a chaotic trajectory before it settles into an attractor. When a periodic input is applied, the squid giant axon responds with a mixture of both oscillating and chaotic activity.4 There is chaos in networks of cells, too. The neurons in a patch of rat skin can distinguish between chaotic and disordered patterns of skin stretching.5 More evidence for chaos in the nervous system can be found at the level of global brain activity. Bizarrely, an apt metaphor for this behavior is an iron slab.6 The electrons it contains can each point in different directions (more precisely, their spins can point). Like tiny magnets, neighboring spins influence each other. When the slab is cold, there is not enough energy to overcome the influence of neighboring spins, and all spins align in the same direction, forming one solid magnet. When the slab is hot, each spin has so much energy that it can shrug off the influence of its neighbor, and the slab’s spins are disordered. When the slab is halfway between hot and cold, it is in the so-called “critical regime.” This is characterized by fluctuating domains of same-spin regions which exhibit the highest possible dynamic correlations—that is, the best balance between a spin’s ability to influence its neighbors, and its ability to be changed. The critical state can be quite useful for the brain, allowing it to exploit both order and disorder in its computations—employing a redundant network with rich, rapid chaotic dynamics, and an orderly readout function to stably map the network state to outputs. The critical state would be maintained not by temperature, but the balance of neural excitation and inhibition. If the balance is tipped in favor of more inhibition, the brain is “frozen” and nothing happens. If there is too much excitation, it will descend into chaos. The critical point is analogous to an attractor. But how can we tell whether the brain operates at the critical point? One clue is the structure of the signals generated by the activity of its billions of neurons. We can measure the power of the brain’s electrical activity at different oscillation frequencies. It turns out that the power of activity falls off as the inverse of the frequency of that activity. Once referred to as 1/f “noise,” this relationship is actually a hallmark of systems balanced at their critical point.7 The spatial extent of regions of coordinated neuronal activity also depend inversely on frequency, another hallmark of criticality. When the brain is pushed away from its usual operating regime using pharmacological agents, it usually loses both these hallmarks,8, 9 and the efficiency of its information encoding and transmission is reduced.10 The philosopher Gilles Deleuze and psychiatrist Felix Guattari contended that the brain’s main function is to protect us, like an umbrella, from chaos. It seems to have done so by exploiting chaos itself. At the same time, neural networks are also capable of near-perfect reliability, as with the beating heart. Order and disorder enjoy a symbiotic relationship, and a neuron’s firing may wander chaotically until a memory or perception propels it into an attractor. Sensory input would then serve to “stabilize” chaos. Indeed, the presentation of a stimulus reduces variability in neuronal firing across a surprising number of different species and systems,11 as if a high-dimensional chaotic trajectory fell into an attractor. By “taming” chaos, attractors may represent a strategy for maintaining reliability in a sensitive system.12 Recent theoretical and experimental studies of large networks of independent oscillators have also shown that order and chaos can co-exist in surprising harmony, in so-called chimera states.13 The current research paradigm in neuroscience, which considers neurons in a snapshot of time as stationary computational units, and not as members of a shifting dynamical entity, might be missing the mark entirely. If chaos plays an important role in the brain, then neural computations do not operate as a static read-out, a lockstep march from the transduction of photons to the experience of light, but a high-dimensional dynamic trajectory as spikes dance across the brain in self-choreographed cadence. While hundreds of millions of dollars are being funneled into building the connectome—a neuron-by-neuron map of the brain—scientists like Eve Marder have argued that, due to the complexity of these circuits, a structural map alone will not get us very far. Functional connections can flicker in and out of existence in milliseconds. Individual neurons appear to change their tuning properties over time14, 15 and thus may not be “byte-addressable”—that is, stably represent some piece of information—but instead operate within a dynamic dictionary that constantly shifts to make room for new meaning. Chaos encourages us to think of certain disorders as dynamical diseases, epileptic seizures being the most dramatic example of the potential failure of chaos.16 Chaos might also serve as a signature of brain health: For example, researchers reported less chaotic dynamics in the dopamine-producing cells of rodents with brain lesions, as opposed to healthy rodents, which could have implications in diagnosing and treating Parkinson’s and other dopamine-related disorders.17 Economist Murray Rothbard described chaos theory as “destroying math from within.” It usurps the human impulse to simplify, replacing the clear linear relationships we seek in nature with the messy and unpredictable. Similarly, chaos in the brain undermines glib caricatures of human behavior. Economists often model humans as “rational agents”: hedonistic calculators who act for their future good. But we can’t really act out of self-interest—though that would be a reasonable thing to do—because we are terrible at predicting what that is. After all, how could we? It’s precisely this failure that makes us what we are. Kelly Clancy studied physics at MIT, then worked as an itinerant astronomer for several years before serving with the Peace Corps in Turkmenistan. As a National Science Foundation fellow, she recently finished her PhD in biophysics at the University of California, Berkeley. She will begin her postdoctoral research at Biozentrum in Switzerland this fall. References 1. Humphries, D.A. & Driver, P.M. Protean defence by prey animals. Oecologia 5, 285–302 (1970). 2. Abraham, F.D. Chaos, bifurcations, and self-organization: dynamical extensions of neurological positivism. Psychoscience 1, 85-118 (1992). 3. O’Nuallain, S. Zero power and selflessness: what meditation and conscious perception have in common. Cognitive Science 4, 49-64 (2008). 4. Korn, H. & Faure, P. Is there chaos in the brain? II. Experimental evidence and related models. Comptes Rendus Biologies 326, 787–840 (2003). 5. Richardson, K.A., Imhoff, T.T., Grigg, P. & Collins, J.J. Encoding chaos in neural spike trains. Physical Review Letters 80, 2485–2488 (1998). 6. Beggs, J.M. & Timme, N. Being critical of criticality in the brain. Frontiers in Physiology 3, 1–14 (2012). 7. Bak, P., Tang, C. & Wiesenfeld, K. Self-organized criticality: an explanation of 1/f noise. Physical Review Letters 59, 381–384 (1987). 8. Mazzoni, A. et al. On the dynamics of the spontaneous activity in neuronal networks. PLoS ONE 2 e439 (2007). 9. Beggs, J.M. & Plenz, D. Neuronal avalanches in neocortical circuits. Journal of Neuroscience 23, 11167–11177 (2003). 10. Shew, W.L., Yang, H., Yu, S., Roy, R. & Plenz, D. Information capacity and transmission are maximized in balanced cortical networks with neuronal avalanches. Journal of Neuroscience 31, 55–63 (2011). 11. Churchland, M.M. et al. Stimulus onset quenches neural variability: a widespread cortical phenomenon. Nature Neuroscience 13, 369–378 (2010). 12. Laje, R. & Buonomano, D.V. Robust timing and motor patterns by taming chaos in recurrent neural networks. Nature Neuroscience 16, 925–933 (2013). 13. Kuramoto, Y. & Battogtokh, D. Coexistence of coherence and incoherence in nonlocally coupled phase oscillators: a soluble case. Nonlinearity 26, 2469-2498 (2002). 14. Margolis, D.J. et al. Reorganization of cortical population activity imaged throughout long-term sensory deprivation. Nature Neuroscience 15, 1539–1546 (2012). 15. Ziv, Y. et al. Long-term dynamics of CA1 hippocampal place codes. Nature Neuroscience 16, 264–266 (2013). 16. Schiff, S.J. et al. Controlling chaos in the brain. Nature 370, 615–620 (1994). 17. di Mascio, M., di Giovanni, G., di Matteo, V. & Esposito, E. Decreased chaos of midbrain dopaminergic neurons after serotonin denervation. Neuroscience 92, 237–243 (1999). |
Slack is an instant messaging app used by millions of daily users. Contrary to its verbiage, Slacking is actually the act of using the cloud-based collaboration tool, which stands for Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge. But Slack is more than a simple messaging app. Since its launch in 2013, Slack’s app directory has grown to over 150 integrations that users can install, including apps for marketing, communications, file management, productivity, etc. For the everyday Slacker, here are 21 hacks, shortcuts and tricks to help you get the most out of Slack. 1. Advanced searching tips When you click on the search bar in Slack, you have a couple of options for narrowing down your search criteria, including from:,in:, has:, after:, before: and on:. But there are a lot more shortcuts you can use to fine-tune your search that you might not know about: you can exclude channels from your search, look for messages that have links, starred items, and emoji reactions in them, filter messages from a specific user, search by day by using a built-in calendar, etc. 2. Use slackbot to set important reminders Message yourself or slackbot to set and schedule reminders. The format to set a reminder is as follows: Slackbot is smart, so you can write your reminders out pretty casually, like this: Once you set a reminder, slackbot would confirm it: And if you want to see a list of all your to-do’s or reminders, just type and submit /remind list: 3. Access an infinite pool of GIFs A picture is worth a thousand words, and a gif has probably an even higher word value.? The /giphy command is one of the funniest to use. Simply type /giphy [text] with a word, phrase or emotion and hit enter, like this: 4. Collapse and expand your conversations Did you know you can collapse all inline images and videos in your slack conversations? It makes it easier to scroll through it if you’re looking for a specific message. To do that, simply type/collapse and hit enter: To make them reappear, write/expand and hit enter: 5. Apply all kinds of formatting to text Use the following commands to format your messages: Try them out with slackbot or in a convo with yourself to see how it would look. 6. Change your status with shortcuts One of the ways to change your Slack status is to click on your name, like this: However, there are also keyboard shortcuts you can use to instantly change your status, and these are only visible to you. Simply type and enter /away or /active to toggle between statuses. 7. Get notified when people say certain things Any messaging app allows you to turn notifications off, but in Slack you can choose to be notified of particular keywords or phrases. Click on your name and then go to ‘Preferences.’ Open your notifications settings and scroll down to “Highlighted words” where you can enter the words or phrases, for which you want to be notified. 8. Send private messages If you want to message a single person in your public channel, type /msg @user [your message] and it’ll open up a separate window for just the two of you. This is perfect for following up with someone in a group discussion, or if you want to respond to a comment privately. 9. Instantly edit the last message you sent You could edit or delete any message you send on Slack by clicking the three dots next to the message: But a faster way to edit the last message you sent it by clicking the ↑ arrow key, making your edit and hitting enter. It looks like this: It’s especially convenient when you want to fix an embarrassing typo before anyone sees it. 10. Edit or customize your Slack theme It’s always nice to have the freedom to customize your apps. Whether you’re doing it for organizational purposes, or you spend so much time on Slack that a change of color scheme is refreshing to the eye, Slack’s theme editing options are endless. To edit, click on your name > Preferences > Sidebar theme and choose amongst the premade ones: Or you can also build a custom theme and share it with others: 11. Make your own emojis Slack already has hundreds of emojis available, but sometimes they’re just not enough. You can make your own custom emojis and it’s extremely easy. First, click your name on the top left corner and then choose “Customize Slack” from the dropdown menu. Fill out the form to make your emoji, by giving it a name and an image. Slack’s dimension requirements for emojis are a maximum of 64K. 12. Use keyboard shortcuts to jump between conversations Slack is all about productivity and time efficiency. Jumping between convos can be time consuming and sometimes confusing. The shortcut is⌘ + K (Mac) or Ctrl + K (Windows/Linux). Here’s what it looks like: Simply start typing someone’s name or a different channel and select it to open it instantly. 13. Send messages on behalf of a celebrity or cartoon character Sign in to your Slack group on Slacker, an app that uses the Incoming Webhook Integration and has over 50 built-in characters and catchphrases to send funny replies. Choose between Erlich Bachman from Silicon Valley, Kanye and even Consuela from Family Guy. Can’t find your favorite? Easily add missing characters and default messages. 14. Easily send color swatches with color codes Slack has a lot of great features for designers and web developers. You can send tiny color swatches by simply typing out the HTML color code and hitting enter, like this: 15. Keep tabs on messages using stars Want to save a message before your team’s messages reach capacity and they all disappear? Simply star a message and access it later on your list of Starred Items. 16. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Sometimes there are no words. Use the /shrug command to express your confusion/bewilderment. 17. Use the 30+ keyboard shortcuts to increase productivity You can do pretty much anything on Slack without ever touching your mouse or trackpad. There are over 30 keyboard shortcuts ranging from uploading a file, to creating a code snippet. Use command + / on slack to open the full list of shortcuts: 18. Enable desktop notifications If you’re using Slack on your desktop, you can enable notifications in the form of clickable messages that pop up on the corner of your screen, no matter what you’re doing. Access your notification settings by clicking on your name > preferences > notifications. You can turn them off or choose to only be notified for direct messages and your highlighted words. 19. Customize your load screen You can customize pretty much everything on Slack. Now that you’ve already seen how to create your own theme and customize the preset ones, here’s how to customize your loading screen. Sign in to your Slack group here and type in the text you want to see. 20. Program slackbot to answer questions for you Tired of answering the same questions every day? Like what the wifi password is or what’s the new guy’s name? You can set up slackbot to answer frequently asked questions. Sign in to your team’s Slack here to set it up. 21. See a list of your most recent mentions Remember seeing someone mention your name, but got caught up and lost track of it? Click the @symbol next to the Search bar to open a list of every time someone has mentioned your name. 22. Send files directly for the Cloud As you may know, pCloud Drive mounts to your Computer like a Virtual Drive (files are actually in the cloud but you can access them anytime you want). What this means is that you can increase the storage of your computer with up to 2 TB. Best thing about this is that you can use those files in Slack and share them in a snap. Check the screenshot below: |
Microsoft's big bet on paid subscriptions for Office appears to be seeing some early signs of success. The software giant announced on Wednesday that it has now passed one million subscribers for its Office 365 Home Premium service, in just over 100 days. Office 365 Home Premium is Microsoft's cloud offering for access to Office software and services at $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year. Aside from raw numbers, Microsoft says overall this version of Office is the "best-selling Office edition yet," without expanding on specifics. According to Microsoft, "more than one" copy is "sold every second on average" since its launch earlier this year. Microsoft's Office 365 Home Premium numbers are small compared to the overall Office sales that include enterprise licenses, but it shows consumers are willing to pay for Office in the cloud. The company's approach mirrors similar efforts by Adobe to bring Photoshop to the cloud. Adobe reached one million subscribers after seven months, with most of its 326,000 paid subscribers opting for an annual payment structure. It's too early to say whether either company is succeeding in their transformation from traditional software to the cloud, but there's clearly still a demand for these standalone apps that web-based versions aren't close to fulfilling. |
Welcome to the Home page of� Hot Maqil.com. Your source for information about Maqil tribes of Arab Origin Who is Maqil? The Maqil are a collection of Arab Bedouin tribes of Yemeni origin who migrated westwards via Egypt during the 13th century. The Beni Hassan tribes claim to be descendants of Maqil, who was an arab once living in Tunisia. One of the largest Maqil tribes was the Beni Hassan, a tribe that came forward to form the ruling nomad warrior class in the Saharan regions of Mauritania and also in Western Sahara. They had a great cultural impact upon the ruled people. These tribes, ( Moors and Sahrawis) still speak Hassaniya, which is the Arabic dialect characteristic of the Beni Hassan tribes. Almost all of these tribes, after the war of Char Bouba (1644-74), consider themselves descendants of the Maqil. A few of the ancient Maqil tribes (such as the Oulad Delim, which is a subtribe of the Beni Hassan), still exist under their proper name in the area. How and where to meet Maqils? Maqil tribesmen are friendly people whoi are famous for their cultural Heritage. Although Maqils live in various areas of Middle East, but you can easily meet them in Yemen. This country is also a nice tourist destination. Hot Maqil - So what makes a Maqil Hot? Funny question? May be not. We actually consider a maqil hot when he is active in cultural and sports activities, particularly horse riding and bird hunting through tammed eagles. Check back soon for further information about Maqils at HotMaqil.com Want to meet Maqil Arabs in� Middle East? Check back soon for information about the Middle East Tourism � |
CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt confirmed on Sunday that it had arrested an Al Jazeera news producer, accusing him of “provoking sedition” on behalf of the Qatar-based broadcaster that it considers a mouthpiece of the banned Muslim Brotherhood. Judicial sources said Mahmoud Hussain, who was detained on Friday, was being held on charges of disturbing public security and spreading false news. The Interior Ministry said in a statement that Al Jazeera officials “had ordered some individuals collaborating with the channel inside the country to continue implementing its media plan of provoking sedition, incitement against the state, and spreading chaos through broadcasting false news”. It identified Hussain as a person implementing that plan for the channel which is not allowed to operate inside Egypt. Al Jazeera issued a statement later on Sunday denying the “fabricated charges” brought against Hussain and demanding his immediate release, adding that he was in Egypt on vacation and not for work. “(Hussain) is a news producer in the Al Jazeera Arabic newsroom and not a correspondent supervisor as alleged by the statement ... (he) would not have traveled through the airport at Egypt if he was undertaking any illegal activities as alleged by the MOI statement,” the statement said. The broadcaster expressed concerns over Hussain’s safety. “Al Jazeera holds the Egyptian authorities against subjecting Mahmoud to torture or extracting any information from him by force,” it said. Egypt has arrested several Al Jazeera reporters over the past two years, raising concerns over the freedom of journalists working in the country. In May, a Cairo court recommended the death penalty against two of them, charged in absentia with endangering national security by leaking state secrets to Qatar. The Brotherhood is a Qatar-backed movement that President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has cracked down on since an army takeover in 2013 stripped former president Mohammed Mursi - a prominent member of the group - of power following mass protests against his rule. Thousands of Brotherhood supporters including Mursi are in jail and Egypt has designated the group, which says it is non-violent, a terrorist organization. |
(Photo: Chris Kelopnis via AP Images) Governor Scott Walker (Republican of Wisconsin) makes remarks during the announcement of the creation of a Foxconn Factory to be built in Wisconsin to build LCD flat screen monitors at The White House in Washington, DC, July 26, 2017. In late July, President Donald Trump joined with Vice President Mike Pence, House Speaker Paul Ryan, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, and Foxconn CEO Terry Gou at the White House in a bid to validate Trump’s economic stewardship. Gou’s company, a Taiwanese electronics manufacturer, best known as an iPhone supplier for Apple, was entering into an agreement with Walker’s state to invest $10 billion in a gigantic 20 million-square-foot LCD television factory in southeastern Wisconsin. With promises of as many as 13,000 new middle-class jobs, the event was supposed to be seen as proof that Trump and the Republicans were making good on their promise to resurrect American manufacturing. “This is a great day for America, a great day for Wisconsin, and it’s a great day for Foxconn,” Walker said, calling the deal the “single largest economic development in the history of the state of Wisconsin and one of the largest in the history of this country.” And as everyone, including Trump, was sure to point out, this development was due solely to the bold leadership of the new president. "If I didn’t get elected, [Guo] definitely would not be spending $10 billion," Trump said at the White House event. But the Foxconn deal is not a triumph for Trumponomics. Rather, it’s just the latest instance of Trump and the Republican Party’s rigged approach to economic development: using taxpayer-funded subsidies to prop up boondoggles that enrich corporations, squeeze state and municipal budgets, and generally fail to generate long-term, good-paying jobs. In the preliminary deal to which Walker and Foxconn agreed, the state of Wisconsin will pony up $3 billion in taxpayer-funded economic incentives to the company, making it the fourth-largest corporate-welfare deal in U.S. history. That means if the deal actually does fulfill its promise of 13,000 new jobs, it would come at the cost of more than $230,000 per job in public money. According to an estimate by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, Wisconsin’s nonpartisan budget office, the state wouldn’t break even on its $3 billion incentive package until 2043—and that’s only if the deal actually does create 13,000 jobs, which is uncertain to say the least. This week, Walker will try to jam the Foxconn agreement through Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled legislature, which must approve it. But the deal has come under a great deal of scrutiny, thanks to both Foxconn and Walker’s troubling histories with labor and economic development deals. "The possibility of a tax-break package worth between $1 [billion] and $3 billion for just one project—and for an employer so controversial as Foxconn—raises many profound policy questions for the United States,” Greg LeRoy, executive director of Good Jobs First, an organization that researches economic development deals, said in a statement when the initial agreement was announced. Trump and state Republicans are following the “buffalo hunting” approach to economic development, Leroy explains, in which they seek big-game “mega-deals” that generate favorable headlines while cutting funding for government programs that support more small and medium-sized manufacturers. Foxconn, best known for assembling iPhones for Apple in China, has a long and troubling track record of labor violations and worker exploitation. As Wired reported in 2011, the company was compelled to put nets up beneath the windows of its Chinese factories to prevent its workers from committing suicide. Seventeen workers had killed themselves during the previous half a decade. The company has also broken previous promises to set up shop in the United States. In 2013, Foxconn announced to great fanfare that it would build a $30 million high-tech factory in central Pennsylvania and bring on 500 employees. Today, the factory remains unbuilt, the manufacturing jobs non-existent. Walker, meanwhile, sees the Foxconn deal as the foundation on which to base his upcoming 2018 re-election campaign. The governor has made his bones as the most aggressive union-buster in the country. After winning election in 2010, he immediately went after public workers’ collective-bargaining rights. And then he survived a recall election in 2012, won re-election in 2014, and promptly got right-to-work signed into law. The governor’s economic development policies haven’t exactly put workers first, either. In 2011, he privatized the state’s economic development agency, creating the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, which is charged with administering more than $500 million in grants, bonds, tax credits, and loans to companies. Since then, the WEDC has become notorious for dealing out lucrative tax breaks to companies that make big job-creation promises, only to come up way short. As Los Angeles Times columnist Michael Hiltzik has reported, the WEDC doled out a $6 million grant to Ashley Furniture without any type of job-creation requirements; indeed, Ashley was allowed to lay off half of its 3,800-employee workforce in the state. Two other companies received millions of dollars in tax credits, whereupon it moved hundreds of jobs abroad. “No one should ever believe that massive subsidy deals to corporations that pit states and cities against each other is part of any good economic development strategy,” says Peter Rickman, who heads the Alliance for Good Jobs, a coalition of progressive organizations advocating for high-paying union jobs in Wisconsin. “The Foxconn approach is the worst of corporate subsidies on steroids.” The WEDC has served to subsidize the growth of Walker’s low-wage economy in the state, Rickman says, pointing to, for instance, the $10 million in tax credits offered to Amazon for opening a warehouse facility in Kenosha back in 2013. The company, which is currently in the midst of a nationwide hiring spree, has been criticized for its low wages (a quick Google search for a full-time warehouse associate position in Kenosha advertises pay of “Up to $13.25/hr + $500 Referral Bonuses!”) and grueling working conditions. This time, Rickman adds, legislators should condition their approval on strengthening the language in the memorandum of understanding (MOU) between Walker and Foxconn to guarantee good-paying, long-term jobs. For instance, the agreement claims that the average pay for employees will be about $53,000 a year, plus benefits. On the face of it, that’s a good-paying middle-class job in the region. But it’s also an average that will likely be skewed by a large number of high-paying executive and engineering positions. Without clearer guarantees in the MOU, jobs on the factory floor could end up paying far less. “Foxconn keeps saying these will be good jobs. Our approach is [to] put it in writing,” Rickman says. The Alliance for Good Jobs did exactly that in another recent development project: the construction of a new basketball arena for the Milwaukee Bucks. Organizers got the NBA team to enter a project labor agreement that secures a $12 minimum wage (and $15 by 2023) and the right to unionize for the arena’s permanent service employees, and the creation of a local union hiring hall to staff it. Rickman says he expects some Democratic legislators to introduce amendments when the Foxconn deal comes to the Assembly floor later this week that would stipulate that all jobs created would pay at least $15 an hour and would grant workers a clear path to unionization. That would set a floor not just for jobs in the factory, but also for other jobs throughout the Foxconn facility, including those of the drivers who transport workers from the parking lot to the plant, the cafeteria workers, and the janitors. It would also apply to all suppliers and subcontractors for the Foxconn plant, which would include a glass-manufacturing plant that is likely to be built nearby. “What’s good for the Bucks is good for Foxconn,” Rickman says. “Fifteen dollars and a union is what Foxconn needs to rebuild this eroded middle class.” The likelihood of such amendments passing in the Assembly or Senate, where Republicans have majorities, are slim. But Rickman says that regardless, the Alliance for Good Jobs will continue to press Foxconn to enter a private agreement, much like the Bucks did. Meanwhile, Wisconsin Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald says that he wants more concrete job creation benchmarks to be included in the agreement but otherwise expects it to pass by the end of the month. Foxconn is just the latest in a long line of multinational corporations that play desperate states against each other in hopes of landing more jobs. Now, in addition to reaping a mega-subsidy from the winning state, they can also bask in the warmth of a publicity-hungry president. And the game rolls on. Toyota and Mazda recently announced their intention to jointly build a $1.6 billion factory that could create 4,000 jobs. Eleven states are currently courting the auto manufacturers. |
by John Durand and Peter Moyle Returning open tidal exchange to diked lands is a primary goal of Delta restoration, driven by the 2008 Biological Opinion from USFWS. This document requires 8000 acres of tidal and subtidal habitat to be created. California EcoRestore is coordinating with state and federal agencies to restore at least 30,000 acres, much of which will be tidal or subtidal. Evidence from newly created tidal wetlands, however, does not support the basic concept behind these restoration actions: that dikes can be breached and then left alone, to create tidal habitat with high benefits to endangered fishes. Our research shows that simply re-creating tidal flow alone will not provide habitat and food for delta smelt, juvenile salmon or other native fishes. An example of an early tidal wetland project in Suisun Marsh is the Blacklock Restoring Marsh, a former duck club located in Suisun Marsh, which was opened to full tidal exchange in 2006, when its dikes were breached. We studied the water quality, food production and fish community at Blacklock from October 2013 to June 2015. During that period, Blacklock consistently underperformed adjacent tidal sloughs and managed wetlands. For example, its chlorophyll production, a measure of potential food web supply for native fishes, was generally low. In contrast, we found much higher high chlorophyll production in a nearby managed wetland (Luco Pond) and dead-end sloughs that were sampled concurrently. Likewise, zooplankton, the main food source for pelagic fishes like smelt, or larval fishes of all species, were in low abundance in Blacklock Marsh but high in our other sites, particularly Luco Pond. Fish community composition and abundance was also poor for Blacklock when compared to adjacent sites. Catch in Blacklock was dominated by non-native fishes, including Mississippi Silversides, an invasive fish that feeds on eggs and larvae of native species. Adjacent sites had larger catches of native Sacramento Splittail (a species of special concern) and Tule Perch. Why does a recommended restoration action not work on Blacklock Marsh? Likely, the biological opinion overstates the importance of tidal restoration to Delta Smelt. There remains no direct evidence that wetlands will directly benefit smelt. Although the San Francisco Estuary was dominated by tidal wetlands before the mid-1800s, today’s Bay-Delta is a very different place. Restoration based upon historical conditions will not provide the same benefits as they did over 100 years ago. For more insight as to why this might be the case, please refer to our earlier blog, Reconciling conservation and human use in the Delta. In order to reap the benefits of tidal restoration, active management is required. Just as we actively manage the flow of water across the Delta for water supply, so we need to manage for desired ecosystem benefits. Managed wetlands, like Luco Pond, Wings Landing, and many others throughout Suisun Marsh, often provide important benefits to aquatic species, in addition to providing food and habitat for waterfowl. In order to make Blacklock Restoring Marsh more beneficial for desirable aquatic organisms, it must be re-engineered. Currently a warm shallow pond sits in the middle of the site, providing silverside habitat. This should be removed by grading or aggrading, combined with emergent vegetation replanting. The two breaches that allow tidal exchange should be hydrodynamically separated by a levee, and the perimeter ditch should be made continuous to allow water circulation. Although this recommendation contradicts the USFWS biological opinion, our research supports gating at least one of the breaches (and preferably both) to control the flow of water across the site, allowing management of phytoplankton and zooplankton production rates, as well as access by invasive organisms. Such control would allow two additional benefits: 1) experimental manipulation to understand how the site responds to different flow strategies; and 2) the ability to drain the site if it becomes infested with undesirable organisms, an ongoing problem to restoration in the San Francisco Estuary. Finally, connecting the perimeter ditch with slough channels to the southwest of Blacklock would increase the slough length relative to the tidal excursion ratio and would also allow upslope ephemeral creeks to periodically introduce sediment, nutrients and organic carbon, all of which promote native fish habitat and food production. The Department of Water Resources has already purchased the property; we look forward to working with them to integrate the landscape in a more integrated and functional way. Breach-and-leave is no panacea for real, thoughtful restoration. While we do not fully understand the novel ecosystem that has been inadvertently created in the San Francisco Estuary over the last 150 years, we know enough to realize that a collection of small tidal marshes with breached levees, sprinkled across the landscape, will not create desirable outcomes. We should implement restoration in a careful way, using experimental practices that allow us to study, reverse, and redesign as needed to create the habitats that are demanded by various stakeholders, whether to benefit fish, water delivery, elevation reversal, water quality, or recreational opportunities. In a complex estuary, one size does not fit all. John Durand is a researcher specializing in estuarine ecology and restoration at the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences. He oversees projects in the north Delta Arc of habitat including the Cache Lindsey complex and Suisun Marsh. Peter Moyle is a UC Davis Professor Emeritus of fish biology and an associate director of the Center for Watershed Sciences. Further reading Hobbs RJ, Arico S, Aronson J, Baron JS, Bridgewater P, Cramer VA, Epstein PR, Ewel JJ, Klink CA, Lugo AE, et al. 2006. Novel ecosystems: theoretical and management aspects of the new ecological world order. Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr. 15:1–7. Mount J, Bennett W, Durand J, Fleenor W, Hanak E, Lund J, Moyle P. 2012. Aquatic ecosystem stressors in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta. Public Policy Inst. Calif. Moyle PB, Light T. 1996. Fish invasions in California: do abiotic factors determine success? Ecology 77:1666–16670. Nichols FH, Cloern JE, Luoma SN, Peterson DH. 1986. The modification of an estuary. Science 231:567–567. Rosenzweig ML. 2003. Reconciliation ecology and the future of species diversity. Oryx 37:194–205. Whipple A, Grossinger RM, Rankin D, Stanford B, Askevold R. 2012. Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta historical ecology investigation: Exploring pattern and process. Richmond, CA: San Francisco Estuary Institute-Aquatic Science Center Historical Ecology Program Report No.: 672. |
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