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A Greek-American joint venture is being prepared in the domain of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and will likely be announced during US Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to Athens next month. Kerry dropped a hint about the plan during his meeting with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in the United States at the end of September, referring to the prospect of northern Greece evolving into an energy hub with the construction of an LNG terminal. This is based on the utilization of the licensed plan (since 2011) for the installation of an LNG terminal at Alexandroupoli by Gastrade (controlled by the Copelouzos Group), which is on the list of the European Commission’s priority projects. The utilization and management of that LNG terminal will take place through a consortium involving Gastrade, the Public Gas Corporation and a US company named Cheniere Energy. This will be the first American firm to export LNG from shale gas at the start of 2015 and it has already signed contracts with major European enterprises. From the Alexandroupoli terminal, the LNG will head to Bulgaria via the IGB Pipeline and then on to Central and Eastern Europe. |
Get the biggest politics stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email Blustering Boris Johnson has been tripped up on live radio after he attacked Jeremy Corbyn for voting against anti-terror laws. The Foreign Secretary was caught out when the BBC reminded him he also opposed a key law - putting him on the same side as the Labour leader. The mop-haired Old Etonian and Islington socialist joined forces to defeat far-reaching laws that were planned in the wake of the July 7 bombings on London. Tony Blair suffered his first House of Commons defeat as Prime Minister on 9 November 2005 when MPs voted against 90-day detention for terror suspects. Boris Johnson and many other Tories joined 49 Labour MPs, including Jeremy Corbyn , in the same voting lobby to defeat the measure. MPs later backed plans to extend detention without charge for terror suspects to 28 days, but said 90 days went too far. (Image: WPA Pool) Mr Johnson, who is crashing into the election campaign with two days to go with a speech this morning, said it was "weird" for Mr Corbyn to criticise security failings. He added: "He consecrated his parliamentary career to opposing counter-terrorism measures." But BBC Radio 4 Today host Mishal Husain shut down Mr Johnson - by saying even Theresa May had opposed some Labour anti-terror laws. And she asked how he had voted on the controversial 90-day law. He replied: "Well, er, there are, there are, of course there are measures I have, er, not supported myself." He added: "The vast majority of measures that have come before the House of Commons I have supported. (Image: newcastle chronicle) "Of course you can improve measures and make sure they are in line with our laws but Jeremy Corbyn has opposed every single one." It was a heated interview with Mr Johnson as he repeatedly tried to turn the subject back to Jeremy Corbyn , despite the BBC asking about his own policies. At one point Ms Husain - who kept being interrupted by the Tory minister - implored him: "Please stop talking". When Mr Johnson claimed Jeremy Corbyn would not authorise shoot-to-kill, Ms Husain hit back immediately with quotes from the Labour leader saying he would give "full authority for the police to use whatever force is necessary". But the Foreign Secretary admitted people are right to ask questions about how one of the London Bridge attackers "slipped through our net". Security services have come under pressure after it was revealed that Khuram Butt, 27, had appeared on Channel 4 documentary The Jihadis Next Door and had also been reported to the anti-terror hotline in 2015. Mr Johnson acknowledged the concerns as he took aim at criticism from Labour over cuts to policing, saying blaming police resources for the attacks "detracts from the responsibility of these scumbags" He told BBC Breakfast: "People are understandably right to look at photographs in today's papers of the TV show that this guy was in and to ask what happened, how did this person slip through our net in the way that he seems to have done? "I can't really comment much about that because there is a live ongoing investigation, but one point I would make for all our viewers is it is very important that we look at this issue, when we look at policing, that we don't take the focus on responsibility away from the people who did it, from the terrorists." |
New York (CNN) -- New York police said Friday they have new video showing what they called a "person of interest" in the case of a woman whose body was found in a suitcase earlier this week. Detectives from New York's 23rd precinct, in the city's Harlem neighborhood, made the video public two days after the victim's body was found. Police had earlier released a separate, grainy video showing what they believe is the same man, rolling a suitcase down a street. The new video shows a dark-skinned man, wearing a black winter hat and a heavy jacket, at a store. He appears to be carrying several items when he enters the store, takes money from his wallet, and eventually leaves after making some purchases. Police did not detail how they got the new footage, where it came from, or at what time it was shot. On Thursday, police identified the victim as Betty Williams, 28, from the Bronx. Williams was strangled and then stuffed into the dark-colored piece of luggage, authorities said. Blood was leaking from suitcase when it was found Wednesday night, police said. "The cause of death is strangulation," Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said Thursday. "We initially announced it was trauma to the back of the head -- that was the belief of the investigators at the scene." Shortly after the find, the first video was released showing a man dressed in a dark knit hat and leather jacket with light-colored pants, pulling the suitcase near a stoop in East Harlem. The man pauses as three people walk by before hauling the suitcase past a dark-colored sport utility vehicle and out of the camera's sight. The New York Police Department is seeking the public's help in identifying the suspect in the videos, according to a police statement. Those with information are encouraged to submit tips online at www.nypdcrimestoppers.com or call 800-577-TIPS. "We're talking to relatives and we hope to have more definitive information about her acquaintances that will help in the investigation," Kelly said. CNN's Julia Talanova contributed to this report |
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A former Pentagon political appointee in President George W. Bush’s administration was found dead in a Delaware landfill on New Year’s Eve, and police are treating it as a homicide. The body of John P. Wheeler III, 66, was discovered falling off a truck into a trash pile by an employee at the Cherry Island Landfill in Wilmington at about 10 a.m. local time on December 31, Lt. Mark Farrall of the Newark, Del. police said on Monday. “A spotter observed a body coming out of a truck,” Farrall said. The truck had collected trash from dumpsters in 10 locations in Newark, Farrall said. The body’s position in the trash truck suggested the dumpster containing it was emptied at the beginning of the route, police said. The Delaware medical examiner’s office has ruled the death a homicide. The cause of death was not immediately released. Wheeler, a resident of New Castle, Del., was a special assistant to the Air Force Secretary in the Bush administration from 2005 to 2008, according to Air Force spokesman Maj. Joel Harper. The position is a political appointment but did not require Senate confirmation. He also was a Vietnam War veteran and a defense contractor who worked in the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush as well. He is a past chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund which built the Washington memorial. Police are trying to trace Wheeler’s movements after December 28, when he had planned to take a train from Washington to Wilmington, Farrall said. According to Atlantic magazine writer James Fallows, whose column about his friend Wheeler was published early Monday, Wheeler was “a complicated man of very intense (and sometimes changeable) friendships, passions and causes.” |
Tell the Forest Service: DON’T FRACK THE SESPE! Photo by Kevin Corcoran Photo by Leif Dautch Photo by Leif Dautch Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images A Texas-based oil company, Seneca Resources Corporation, has submitted a proposal to the U.S. Forest Service to hydraulically fracture 8 new oil and gas wells and lay 8,000 feet of new pipeline in and around the pristine Sespe Wilderness. Unless we take action and make our voices heard now, the Sespe will become the epicenter of untested, high-risk fracking on the Central Coast! The Forest Service has requested public comment on the proposal, and I urge you to join me in opposing a project that threatens to degrade the beautiful Sespe Wilderness and potentially contaminate our environment, our watershed, and our community. For me and so many others, the Sespe was a hallmark of growing up in Ojai. Starting when I was 7, I traversed the Sespe trails countless times, exploring the mammoth boulders of Piedra Blanca, hiking from Fillmore to Rose Valley and back, marveling at meteor showers while cocooned in a sleeping bag, spotting horned toads and condors, easing into the scalding waters of Willett Hot Springs, diving through thin layers of ice atop deep, blue winter water holes, and finding refreshment at each stream crossing. All of that is threatened by the proposal to expand fracking in the Sespe Oil Field with 8 new wells and nearly 8,000 feet of new pipeline. Until oil companies disclose the harmful chemicals used in fracking and dedicate the time and resources to proving that fracking is safe, we cannot allow this to happen. There have been countless horror stories around the country about pollution and water contamination from fracking. In 2008, two families in Pennsylvania reported contamination of their well water after Seneca fracked a nearby well. Their contaminated water gave off strong fumes and burned their mouths and lungs when consumed. And just last month, a jury in Texas (hardly a bastion of environmental activism) awarded a family nearly $3 million after their air and drinking water were contaminated by fracking operations, causing their young daughter to experience nose bleeds and rashes. Do we really want to take that chance here? On top of concerns about contamination, pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and geologic ramifications, the water-intensive extraction method threatens to further deplete our dangerously low water reserves – an issue of particular concern to members of our agricultural community, including my family’s organic farm in Ojai. For all of these reasons, I urge you to join our petition opposing any new fracking in the Sespe and to offer your own reasons why the Forest Service should preserve our pristine wilderness and protect our watershed from contamination and depletion! Thanks for your support, Leif Dautch Contact: Leif.Dautch@gmail.com |
The four-star recruits keep rolling in for TCU. Two days before the season opener, Horned Frogs coach Jamie Dixon announced a four-member signing class that includes three four-star recruits from Texas and a top juniors player from New Zealand. Last spring, before Dixon coached his first game in Fort Worth, TCU had signed only one four-star player in its history. His first signee was four-star guard Jaylen Fisher, and he added four-star center Kevin Samuel in the early signing period a year ago. The 2018 class announced Wednesday is highlighted by Midlothian forward Kaden Archie, rated the No. 3 player in the state and the No. 16 player at his position nationally by Scout after averaging 18.7 points and 5.0 rebounds as a junior. Sign Up and Save Get six months of free digital access to the Star-Telegram Russell Barlow, a 6-foot-10 center from Richardson Berkner, and Kendric Davis, a point guard from Houston, also signed. Joining the class from New Zealand is Angus McWilliam, a 6-11 center/forward who played for his country’s U-19 National Team and averaged 27 points and 22 rebounds at Middleton Grange School in Christchurch, New Zealand. SHARE COPY LINK Here are the top five TCU home basketball games to attend during the 2017-2018 season, based on preseason rankings, rivalries and conference play. In a press release, Dixon described each of the signees. Of the 6-6 Archie, Dixon said: “Kaden is a versatile, physical, skilled wing that can play multiple positions. He’s very competitive and has the ability to become a great defender.” Of Barlow, rated the No. 14 center in the country and No. 14 player in Texas by 247Sports, Dixon said: “Russell has a big, strong body with very good hands and a soft touch around the basket. We expect him to improve due to his strong work ethic.” Of Davis, a 5-10 guard who averaged 23.0 points and 7.4 assists last season at Houston Sam Houston, Dixon said: “Kendric is a tough, hard-nosed point guard. He possesses good leadership skills and has great vision on the court. He has a tremendous burst of speed with the ability to change pace.” Of McWilliam, who also averaged four assists and three blocks for his school team, Dixon said: “We are excited to add a guy who is big and has good skills like Angus. He has great basketball talents, but also excels academically.” TCU opens the 2017-18 basketball season on Friday against Louisiana-Monroe with an 8 p.m. tip at Schollmaier Arena. |
Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams announces charges against 10 people for faking injuries on a SEPTA bus. (Credit: Steve Tawa) By Steve Tawa PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – The Philadelphia District Attorney’s office charged 10 people with faking injuries on a SEPTA bus. Video surveillance caught a SEPTA Route ‘C’ bus traveling north on Broad Street in April of 2010 when the bus’ side-view mirror clipped an abandoned newsstand. D.A. Seth Williams said the images show no passenger was disturbed — none made sudden reactive movements — as a result of the contact. But, Williams said the transit agency started getting personal injury claim notices from seven law firms representing 10-passengers, who are now defendants charged with insurance fraud. “Four of the individuals weren’t even on the bus,” Williams said. SEPTA General Counsel Jim Jordan originally helped develop cameras on SEPTA buses for crime detection and prevention purposes. “We never anticipated that it would prove so valuable in also catching and preventing fraudulent claims.” All of the claims included demands of money from SEPTA for medical bills, and pain and suffering. Jordan says if the claims were either settled or decided by a jury, each of them could have cost SEPTA $10,000 to $100,000. |
The so-called Cabinet House (Stjornarrad) has carried a few names since it was built as a prison during the period 1765-70. The original idea was to accommodate vagabonds who were fit enough and able to work for the pioneer woolen industies of the country. The governor of Iceland at the time, Skuli Magnusson, was an ideologist, who wanted to create employment possibilities for the agricultural population of the country by building those factories. He managed to see his dreem come true, but workers were hard to come by. The Danish government of Iceland at the time, however, decided that the house should serve as a prison, which it did until 1816. It probably stood empty for three years, until the Danish governor, count Moltke, arrived and found his lodgings uninhabitable and his office space unusable. He managed to have the government fund the reconstruction of the house and moved in with his family and officials. In 1874, the Icelanders celebrated the millenium of the inhabitancy of the country, and the Danish king, Christian IX, participated. He also brought along the country's first constitution and handed it over in the ancient Parliamentary Plains (Thingvellir). In 1904, Iceland was granted home rule by the Danish government. This announcement was read publicly on the steps of the Cabinet House and the official flag of the country was hoisted in front of it for the first time. Consequently the house was occupied by the three ministers of the Icelandic government and got its present name. In the late 19th century, vegetables were grown in the garden, and the first trees were planted there in 1834. Now the house is occupied by the offices of the prime minister. The offices of the president of the republic were moved there in 1973 and remained there until a political opponent of the prime minister was elected president in 1996. The prime minister did not waste any time and evicted the president promptly. The statues in front of the house are the work of the sculptor Einar Jonsson from the years 1915 and 1931. One depicts King Christian IX handing over the constitution in 1874, and the other Hannes Hafstein, who became the first minister of the country in 1904. SOUTHWEST ICELAND SAGA TRAILS |
Here we proceed from the fact that the mentality, traditions and way of life of the people cannot be changed overnight. Must they be changed at all? It cannot be possible to throw unprepared people into the market abyss—Alexander Lukashenko, 2002 We have once again felt ourselves a part of the sacred whole, which name is the people of Belarus. We have made sure: A healthy nation is being formed in our country. Healthy not only physically, but also spiritually–(Alexander Lukashenko, 2009) Alexander Lukashenko is probably the most maligned politician in the world today. The reasons for this are not difficult to discover. Contrary to the prattle about his alleged “tyranny,” Lukashenko is under attack due to his success. Truth be told, of course, Belarus has more important opposition parties than the U.S., and also has a press that is part state-owned, but with many legal opposition newspapers in existence, partly funded by the United States and the EU. Nevertheless, his success is not based on this. Lukashenko is victimized because he has proven the economic success of the social nationalist model, or what he calls the “social market” model as opposed to libertarian capitalism. There is no doubt this model has strong national associations, is generally pro-Russian and looks to the East, rather than the terminally ill West, for its economic future. Belarus was one of the most essential components of the old Soviet Union. She is very well educated, specializing in electronics and fuel transport and refining. This makes her highly strategic and a threat to the failing West. Belarus is terra incognita to most Americans, even most Americans who fancy themselves “experts” in international affairs. Therefore, it strains the imagination as to why the Western elite, including former presidential candidate John McCain, have made attacking Belarus a major aspect of their political life. (Here’s The Weekly Standard gushing over an Ayn Rand-style economist they want to be president of Belarus; here Michele Brand, writing in Counterpunch, exposes the Western onslaught on Belarus.) The country is the size of Kansas with little diaspora in America. It seems that the only rational reason for the constant attacks on this tiny country is that it serves as a means of attacking Russia—a neocon bogeyman if ever there was one. Russian education, gas and oil technology, scientific establishments and natural resources can be the only rational reason for this constant drumbeat of rhetorical attacks. The fact that Russia and Belarus have seen substantial economic growth and increases in financial capitalization while the West seems forever mired in debt and social decay is something that embarrasses American “free market conservatives.” Recently, McCain seemed to prove the economic subtext of his often ranting condemnations of Belarus in a recent trip to the Baltics: “We appreciate the step forward the EU took in adopting the visa ban, but, we think, it should go further to economic sanctions on energy companies within Belarus that fuel money for that regime to oppress its own people.” In fact, when any lengthy discussion of Belarus comes up in McCain’s political life, energy resources are usually lurking in the background. McCain has received tens of millions from oil firms in America, Israel, the Netherlands and Britain, and serve as at least the financial reason for this strange obsession. Elected in 1994, Lukashenko has popularity ratings that Western politicians would—and do—envy. Since 1994, Belarus’ spectacular economic growth, diversification, trade surplus and low unemployment have maintained the president’s popularity rating at very high levels, generally hovering around the 60th and 70th percentile. Recently, the London-based TNS Global Research Organization, polled 10,000 Belorussians as to their President. This shows Lukashenko with a solid popularity rating of nearly 75 percent as of the Fall of 2010. Therefore, the accusations of his rigging elections are nonsense. Even more, his opposition is highly divided, ineffectual and deeply doubtful as to their purpose. What is the basis of his popularity? It’s his sense that Belarus needs an economic policy that serves its national interests. As the Russian and Ukrainian economies were devastated and taken out of the country by the oligarchs in the early 1990s with State Department, IMF and Harvard University backing, Belarus put its privatization program on hold. The IMF was asked to leave the country, and, from that point on, Lukashenko was called “the last dictator in Europe.” It is no accident that the bulk of his U.S opposition comes from Harvard University, especially from the law school, including Yarik Kryovi, who at one point worked for the Soros-owned “Radio Liberty” and served as a lawyer for the World Bank. His CV lists his work for “private clients” he will not disclose. The power elite wants Lukashenko’s head as he continues to become popular among the hoi-polloi of the country. Lukashenko’s record is stellar. According to World Bank statistics updated in 2010, Belarus avoided the recession/depression that has the West in its grip. Belarussian banks, mostly owned by the state, outperformed all European banks in 2009. State-owned banks increased their capitalization by almost 20 percent as the Western taxpayer was forced to bail out the same banks that have condemned the Minsk government. From 2001–2008, the Belorussian economic growth average was almost 9 percent, which is roughly equal to that of China. As Western economies were contracting in 2010, the Belarussian economy grew about 6 percent, with a 10 percent increase in agricultural production and a 27 percent increase in exports. Real income, that is, inflation and cost of living adjusted income, grew by about 7 percent in 2010. According to the IMF, Belarussian unemployment was 0 percent in 1991, but rose to 4 percent in 1996 as Russian and Ukraine were liquidated from the inside. Under Lukashenko’s firm leadership in stopping privatization and arresting the bandits who tried to liquidate the economy, the IMF reports that unemployment went down to 1 percent in 2008. The United Nations says the same. Without exaggeration, these figures, all from hostile sources, show that Lukashenko’s leadership was and is a success. This is the main source of his popularity and the reason he is elected and re-elected on a regular basis. But the important question is what serves as the basis for Lukashenko’s leadership? The answer is the “social nationalist and social market” idea. The official Belarussian doctrine on Development says this: Belarus has chosen to follow the path of evolutionary development and rejected the prescriptions of the International Monetary Fund like shock therapy and landslide privatization. Over many years of creative work, the Belorussian model of socio-economic development has been put in place – the model which combines the advantages of market economy and efficient social protection. Our development concept has been elaborated in keeping with the historical continuity and people’s traditions. The Belorussian model aims to improve the existing economic basis rather than to make a revolutionary break of the former system. The Belorussian economic model contains the elements of continuity in the functioning of state institutions everywhere it has proved effective. In other words, Lukashenko’s view here is that of a “third way” between socialism and capitalism. It takes what is good from the free market but does not dispense with a strong state that makes certain economic growth is not just for the well-connected few. What Marxism and capitalism have in common is their results: total inequality in power, wealth and access. Whether it be the party or the oligarchical class, these modern, materialist systems serve as little more than massive transfers of wealth from the working man to the oligarch. Whether these oligarchs claim to be working “for the people,” “the party,” or “American freedom” makes no difference. The result is precisely the same. In a meeting with his Cabinet and other significant government and military figures in March of 2002, Lukashenko summarized his political views. It is worth quoting at length: What are the distinctive features of our model? First. Strong and efficient state authority. To safeguard the citizens’ safety, to ensure social justice and public order, not to allow expansion of crime and corruption is indeed the role of the state. Only the strong authority managed to drag the Belorussian economy out of the economic abyss. Our nearest neighbors have in the long run realized that, if there is no strong hierarchy of authority, liberalization of the economy in the transition period brings about social instability and legal unheard-of disorder. It results in public unruliness! As for us, we had a clear idea at the very beginning that premature expansion of market relations would not allow us to radically resolve any of the existing pressing problems. On the contrary, new problems would emerge, generated by the specificity of the market relations. Public accord would break, resulting in conflicts and instability. And it is political stability that is one of the main conditions for gradual integration into the world economy. I would refer to it as one of the distinctive features or consequences (whatever you call it) of the model of development of the Belorussian economy. Here we proceed from the fact that mentality, traditions and way of life of the people cannot be changed overnight. Must they be changed at all? It cannot be possible to throw unprepared people into the market abyss. One needs decades to work out a new world outlook. The second distinctive feature of our model is in the fact that the private sector can and has to be developing alongside the public sector. But not to the detriment of national interests. I emphasize: if you are a private owner, it does not imply you should do whatever you like. National interests, the state, must be the main priority and the main goal for the work of every citizen, enterprise or entrepreneur whose production is based on private ownership. This is not campaign rhetoric, but serves as the basis of government policy since the mid 1990s. The state must be strong, honest, and competently led, because the alternative is oligarchical control and the substitution of private for public law. The state is taking a protective stance towards its people—a novel idea in an age with Western elites have systematically undermined the interests of their own people, particularly with regard to immigration. As the Soviet Union fell to pieces, only the state remained to safeguard some minimal concept of the public good. Russian under Yeltsin and IMF control was incapable of this, proving the incompetence and corruption of such multinational agencies. Only in Belarus was this economic rape stopped. The ignorance of the “free marketeers” is shown in their views on Russia. They assumed around 1991 that if the government just “got out of way” of the “invisible hand,” all would be well. What they did not count on was the radical inequalities of access to power. Those with good government jobs, black market fortunes or other forms of “gray” access to power were precisely those who were in the best position to take power. Under the weak leadership of Yeltsin and the IMF, the Russian economy almost disappeared. The work of decades of the Russian people was liquidated and sent to America, Cyprus, Israel and Latin America in the name of “freedom” and “democracy.” The “free market” is a slogan—a mode of legitimizing the already extant distribution of power. There was never a time of the pure “free market,” but rather, it existed only because of the abilities of those capable of taking over during the decay of Ancien Régime-Europe in the Enlightenment. The old social protections of the medieval peasant and townsmen were thrown by the wayside in this oligarchic rush for progress, money and power. The same thing happened in Russia and Ukraine in the early 1990s. Weak leadership meant the liquidation of the state, economy and legal system. In his 2009 New Year’s Address, Lukashenko added more detail to his basic approach: We were urgently recommended to place the economy under the command of the rules of the world exchange market. But we decided not to rely on the volatile exchange trends. We are not the ones who have provoked today’s crisis which is sending shockwaves all around the world. On the contrary, the crisis has come as a result of something that we have been always been determined to struggle against. The central words are this: “I emphasize: if you are a private owner, it does not imply you should do whatever you like.” It is the nation that comes first. The nation here is the bilingual tradition of Belarus between Russian and Belarussian. It is Slavic Orthodox and agrarian. It is based on a fundamentally egalitarian distribution of land and resources in the name of ethnic and national solidarity. Economic progress means nothing if it benefits only the few. Nationalism implies solidarity, especially in a small and vulnerable country under constant attack. In his famous essay “On the Historical Choice of Belarus,” the more “ethnic” aspects of his political theory are laid out. In general, the purpose of the state, in this realm, is to provide a safe home for the specific traditions of the peoples living within it to flourish. This includes the agrarian culture, urban life, the specific ethnic traditions of Poles, Belorussians and Russians living within Belarus. The point is not so much that the state is representative of a specific national tradition, but rather that preserving the national traditions of the peoples living within her borders becomes paramount. There are no real ethnically pure states, and therefore, the best the state can do is protect the ethical traditions and regional variations that do exist. In his April, 2002 State of the Union Address, Lukashenko stated: Rights and freedoms must be in harmony with responsibilities for violations of the state-established regulations. Development of the Belorussian economy implies not only the encouragement of small and medium-sized enterprise (although, as I said, these must and will be encouraged). Historically, the Belorussian industry means large-scale enterprises. There is only one promising way: updating and re-equipping existing major industries so as to produce competitive new generations of products. Just look, the entire world merges into transnational corporations. Why then should we crush, divide and destroy our gigantic highly cooperated enterprises? They must be relied upon. In pursuing its policy, the state will, first of all, be relying upon these giants, which have been maintaining us and feeding us. Immense investments are needed for this, which cannot be attracted without changing the form of ownership. (Translation mine, available only in Russian) His doctrine of “social right” is that there are no abstract rights. They are contextualized into a way of life—that of the national collective. You have no right, for example, to do something that harms the economic life of the country. Rights in the West are mindless slogan words without meaning. They exist to end an argument without making your case: “I have a right to do this” the American businessman might say as he outsources is jobs to China. Justifying such an alleged “right” is another matter, but the very act of claiming a “right” to do something shuts down all argument. Lukashenko asks, not what are your “rights,” but what is the “good” thing to do. No one has a “right” to undermine the public good, especially for private profit. The entire point of law is to protect labor from the arrogance and currency-fetishism of the ruling class. Only strong leadership able to go over the heads of the powerful can fashion such laws. Lukashenko and Belarus have reaped the benefits of such a policy. In confronting the onslaught of the West in his 2006 State of the Union Address, Lukashenko spared no feelings: The country’s development policy line worked out by us has proved right. High rates of economic growth, which our economy has been already demonstrating for more than 10 years, provide good evidence thereof. Just compare: our annual GDP growth over the past five–year planning period was 7.5 percent as against 3.5 percent of the world average. Western theoreticians fail to explain the reasons of such a success. They do not fit in with their “democratic” scheme. The reasons, however, are simple. We have not embezzled the people’s wealth, we have not got into burdensome debts. Relying on life itself, we have worked out our own model of development based on well–balanced and thought–out reforms. Without any sweeping privatization and shock therapy — preserving everything that was best in our economy and in our traditions. At the same time we have been learning to work under new, market conditions, taking advantage of the experience elsewhere in the world and taking into account the modern trends of the world economy. Strong state power, strong social policy and reliance on the people— that is what explains the secret behind our success. (Translation mine, available only in Russian) Liberal democracy in the West has meant, in real terms, the constant transfer of the labor of the American worker to the pockets of the banks and the multinational firms. When the banks failed, they demanded trillions from these same taxpayers to continue to lend. Much of this money just went overseas and into the pockets of the major players like Goldman-Sachs. In the 2008 elections, Goldman spent a huge amount of money on both candidates. Whoever won in 2008 saw Goldman as their primary beneficiary. This is liberal democracy, and this is a large part of the American failure. In sending the Western oligarchs packing, Lukashenko did two things: first, he assured his own popularity and political success while, second, earning the hatred of the Western establishment. It should be noted that at the 2010 Bildeberg meeting, not a single Russian or Belarussian was invited. The same was true in 2011. (Jim Tucker, personal communication) In his “Historical Choice” essay, Lukashenko condemns the form of Free Trade practiced by the EU. For him, the playing field is already slanted to the elites in the powerful states of the union. In the EU—he is writing in 2003—states like Greece or Portugal could not compete with the advanced states of Germany or England. The benefits that Greece takes from the EU exist solely in the interests of the ruling classes, while the people suffer. German or French goods flood the Greek market, putting Greek artisans out of business. When Lukashenko uses the word “independence,” it is meant not just as a campaign slogan, but as a moral reality. Independence means economic independence—the global market will be entered on our terms, not the banks’. Independence means that, while Belarus will always be an Orthodox and Slavic people, that does not mean issues of justice will be ignored in Minsk’s choice of allies. There is to be no dependence on anyone. Dependence on other states for energy, markets or industrial components automatically means that the people themselves have lost all power over their economic lives, and their well-being in that sense is solely in the hands of others, foreigners. For Belarus, the worker will be involved in all levels of economic decision making and will have some control over the economic life he enjoys. When commemorating the 60th anniversary of the massacre of Katyn in March of 2003, Lukashenko said this: We still have to analyze and learn lessons from current events. But already today it is clear: the system of the world order has been destroyed due to the war in Iraq, the role of the UN Security Council has been brought to zero, international law has been trampled underfoot, the principle of no external imposition to any people of the system of governance and power has been violated. The Belorussian people condemn the aggression by the United States of America. So do most of the peoples and states of the world, including even the closest allies of the USA. Lukashenko has consistently promoted that United Nations as a means of controlling American imperial power. Furthermore, he appreciates that the UN would include the views of poorer states throughout the world in foreign policy decisions. Lukashenko has rejected any form of global government, but still sees a constructive role for some international organizations in protecting the weak against the strong. He stresses the “principle of no external imposition” of state forms or ideology on a people. Lukashenko condemns America’s ideological crusade for oil, Israel and the oligarchic doctrine of “liberal democracy.” Lukashenko sees ideological crusades not as moral interventions or manifestations of dis-interested humanitarianism, but cloaks for raw oligarchical power. In Lukashenko’s ethical theory, oligarchy is the worst form of government. Historically, from Novgorod to Venice to New York, oligarchies have used liberalism, “republicanism,” and media manipulation as a cloak for their own power. In a similar vein, Lukashenko states in his 2006 address to the heads of Belarus’ diplomatic corps: If we are talking about respect for states, their independence and sovereignty, their rights to choose their futures, about the right of the people to elect its leaders, about respect of the right to life and free labor, worthy wages and salaries, the right to equality of all before the law, the right to freedom of opinion and expression in conformity to the law, without detriment to the rights of other people — these are our values. The U.S. and the EU do not have a monopoly on these rights. Our nation had paid a far greater price for these values than the USA and the EU. As always, Lukashenko shows the distinction between a politician and a statesman. It is concepts like these that have helped this man become one of the most popular politicians in the Slavic world. Again, the Belarussian President holds abstract “rights” as little more than cloaks for raw oligarchic power. The U.S. invades the rights and sovereignty of other states not to protect people from “human rights abuses,” but rather, to serve the interests of its overgrown and excessively wealthy private sector. While the Western press continually repeats the inaccurate statement that Belarussian media is “state-owned,” they themselves hew to a single line on most important topics, especially on foreign policy. Needless to say, the oligarchic control over Western media is too well known to deserve further comment. The very fact that the President of Belarus holds that Western hostility is due to “external influences” strongly suggests that he is referring to financial and ethnic sources of power. This is important, since it goes to the heart of his social ideas. The state, at its best, is a source of moral authority and the public good. When the state is captured by alien elements, it then becomes merely a coercive agency of oligarchy. Therefore, in a rather roundabout way, Lukashenko is making the accusation that Western states are not public, but rather private, entities. If they were to become public entities once more, they would then drop their hostility to the Belarussian political system. Conclusion In grasping the political ideas of Lukashenko outside of its media distortion, many themes come up repeatedly: A nationalism that stresses the economic security of his small country. Ethnicity and religion are important because they serve as a basis of solidarity for the basic economic concerns of the people. The continual attack on “abstractions,” such as “human rights” or “economic freedom.” Since abstractions can mean whatever the speaker wants them to mean, they are used as covers for the exercise of colonialism and economic imperialism. In cases of emergency, such as the meltdown of the Russian and Ukrainian economies in the early 1990s, the state has the responsibility to take the lead in protecting the population from oligarchy and foreign attack. This is especially the case in smaller and hence more vulnerable states. No state can function when it is penetrated by oligarchy and the “free market” ideology. These care only about private goods, while the state serves the public good only. The state serves the public good when it uses its authority against concentrated economic power and self-interested foreign interference. The state understands its role only in light of the historical experience and ethnic tradition(s) of its people. Economics exists for the whole people. If it does not serve the public good, then it has no moral legitimacy, regardless of all “rights” talk to the contrary. The state has a legitimate economic role in both media and economics. It has no right to rule these in a totalitarian fashion, but it, especially in times of stress, has a right to have its voice heard. A strong state sector is not the same as “tyranny.” There is no real moral distinction between state control and oligarchic control. The media is one of the world’s most powerful weapons. Hence, it should be regulated like any other weapon. Media elites are often oligarchical and centralized, and use their empires for the sake of controlling others. A free media, therefore, is a mixed one, with different points of view being permitted. This is far more the case in Russia and Belarus than it is in the US. No government has the right to manipulate the internal affairs of another. This is especially the case when such interference is blatantly self-interested and serves the interest only of an economic oligarchy. “The people” is another of these abstractions that mean nothing. To use the phrase “the people,” the speaker must be referring to a specific people, a specific language and historical tradition, as well as a specific social context. International justice, if it means anything, refers to a state of affairs where the world’s ethnic groups, races and religions are given the independence to develop according to their own historical tradition, not the ideological slogans of the current hegemon. International justice also implies objective and politically neutral international bodies that can mediate disputes outside of an ideological agenda. This is far from “world government,” but refers only to certain arrangements that can solve international problems in a neutral manner before they lead to mass warfare. This is especially sensitive in smaller states that have lost huge percentages of their population in wars. The fact that Belarus lost almost 30 percent of its population in the Second World War makes the average Belarussian a bit testy about the possibility of another shooting war on its soil. |
I know a girl who treats leads like they are amusement park rides. She wants the lead to entertain her with a bunch of flashy moves… lifts, dips, drops. If the dance isn’t exciting enough for her, she will throw herself into a dramatic dip or drop – and expect the guy to catch her. Not only is that incredibly dangerous, but it’s rude to the lead. It treats him like he is there solely to serve her. Leads shouldn’t feel used for the follower’s enjoyment. It amazes me how many times I hear this complaint from leaders… Feeling like his job is to give ladies a magical, exciting dance – despite the fact that she may not have the technical skills to execute it on her end. I don’t expect the lead to show me off and make me feel beautiful, sexy and talented. That is MY job – and I shouldn’t rely on a lead for that. Great followers look amazing with anyone they dance with because of their skills – not the leads. Therefore, I’m studying technique – so I can be an equal contributor. A lead doesn’t want to exhaust himself compensating for things we aren’t willing to learn to do correctly (i.e., maintaining our own balance, staying on time, or sustaining proper frame and connection). He’s there to have fun too – not just work his ass off trying to keep us upright and beaming. The most unforgettable dance I’ve witnessed was a tango couple in Denver; he led nothing but forward steps and side steps. The woman, with gorgeous footwork and brilliant musicality, spun those movements into pure magic. She showed me that with amazing technique, we can make simple dances look and feel utterly captivating. For me, partner dancing is about giving. I don’t seek out leads based on what I can get, I seek out leads based on what I feel we can give one another. I want the lead to sincerely enjoy dancing with me – and for the right reasons. Ideally, I want to give perfect balance, solid connection and flawless timing (have patience; it is a work in progress). I want to inspire him with my musicality and entertain him with beautiful, creative styling. I want him to feel that moving with me is effortless so he can be in his heart and not in his headspace. And since that is the gift I want to give my lead, I am actively building those skills. Ultimately, I want to be the follower who makes the dance fun for my lead. Because in partner dancing, it’s not all about me. It’s all about us. If you just want to “use” a lead to make you feel beautiful and talented, at least drop $20 in his pocket when the song starts and say, “Entertain me!” so he knows what hell he just entered into. He will need it for physical therapy / medical bills when you throw yourself into a dip he didn’t lead. |
As we return to the Subjectively Obscure Sci-Fi Primer, we hit upon possibly the most obscure show yet: little known 90’s show and companion to The X-Files, VR.5. Debuting in 1995 and set in 1995, it’s about as “near future” as sci-fi can get. It lasted for one 13-episode season, although several of those never even aired, since it was yet another victim of Fox and the Friday Night Death Slot. As you might guess from the title, this cyberpunk show deals with the concept of Virtual Reality–specifically a multitude of different levels of virtual reality, with the eponymous 5th level referring to perfect immersion, indistinguishable from reality. Or almost, anyway, as we’ll see in a moment. VR.5 follows Sydney Bloom, a young woman whose computer scientist father and twin sister were killed in a car accident when she was just a kid. She grows up into a tech geek of a girl, working on the phone lines and spending hours just listening to all the calls as other people live and love and fight on the phone. Her other means of vicarious living is her ultra-high-tech 1995 computer, which has a Virtual Reality program that can simulate a number of environments and experiences in glorious 90’s CGI, but it’s not quite enough. Sydney accidentally discovers she’s capable of entering another level of virtual reality, the so-called VR.5 (the other levels, in order, are: ordinary computer interface, video game, flight simulator, and “cyberspace”), which seems to operate on a more psychological/collective unconscious level. She’s one of only a handful of people who’ve been known to do this, and that ends up making her a valuable asset to the shadowy organization referred to as “The Committee.” She’s forced into working for them, and their goals are ambiguous, but she does have her trusty childhood friend Duncan around to help out. Most of VR.5‘s story arcs deal with the Bloom family and their complicated relationship to VR, while also focusing on the Committee and just what exactly they are and what goals they’re trying to achieve. The Committee’s representatives are surprisingly complex characters, and for a show that’s only 13 episodes long there’s some incredible character development going on. The VR used in the show runs on dream logic, jumping from place to place and scene to scene, sometimes even radically changing genres. It’s accessed via calling someone on the phone and hanging up the receiver on her “acoustic coupler,” which is a piece of outdated technology that I’d never even heard of before this show. Sydney can kind of control the initial setting by using the cyberspace-level VR program, but it can change easily, and elements of both peoples’ psyches influence what she sees. There must be someone else on the line, even if that person is catatonic in real life, which furthers the “collective unconscious” theory. Most people don’t remember entering VR with her, but it can influence their behavior and personality afterward, and the consequences of that are definitely one of the big things explored in the show. She mostly uses the VR to dig into peoples’ minds at the Committee’s request, although usually not exactly in the way they’d prefer. It’s actually kind of like Paprika, in that regard. VR.5 features a number of faces familiar to fans of 90’s sci-fi, or 90’s TV in general. In the first episode alone, there’s Louise Fletcher (best known to sci-fi fans as Kai Wynn from DS9), who plays Sydney’s mother; Adam Baldwin (Jayne from Firefly); Robert Picardo (Voyager‘s holo-Doc); and Penn Jillette, stage magician (who once appeared on Babylon 5), all in minor roles. And, of course, there’s Duncan, who’s played by our old friend from Total Recall 2070, Michael Easton. It’s funny to see that his Keanu Reeves-esque behaviors are already present here, although it’s more Bill & Ted than The Matrix. Duncan isn’t quite as spaced out as Ted, but more of a laid-back hippy-type with idle philosophical commentary. Last but not least, there’s Anthony Stewart Head as Oliver, who played Giles over on Buffy. He doesn’t show up for a while, though. The Good As I mentioned above, the character development is excellent. Sydney’s Committee contacts have the most development, but that doesn’t mean that she and Duncan don’t get their fair share. Even the Committee itself, for a secret society, isn’t quite what you’d expect as the show goes on. The show makes great use of its premise, really seizing the opportunity to fully explore this fictional technology they’ve created and the kind of effects it would have when used. If you can call people and in the space of a few seconds, completely alter aspects of their personality, or trick them, or tear their mind apart for information, all without them ever being aware, what would the consequences be? Even unintentional damage is a possibility, in that it connects these two minds in such a way that you can’t be sure who’s conjuring forth what. Since the VR worlds run on dream logic, it lends itself to some crazy situations, which gives opportunity for a wide variety of costumes and makeups for Sydney. The images are often hyper-saturated or even recolored, but can just as easily be black and white. The CGI used in the lower levels of VR, as seen in the pilot, don’t reappear much, thankfully. But more than that, a ton of old movie and TV references pop up in the scenarios created, even obscure stuff like Sapphire & Steel. More generally, there are strong film noir influences (see Duncan above), and even a whole episode devoted to playing with those tropes. If you’re the kind of person who’s watched enough TV and movies to be looking for forgotten shows like this, then you’ll love this aspect. VR.5 also establishes early on that it’s not playing around when it comes to death, even though you might get that impression. No spoilers, so I’ll leave that here without further elaboration. There’s also not a whole lot of romance going on, which is nice. The Bad VR.5 is VERY, VERY cheesy to start with, and that never really goes away, even as it gets extremely dark. That makes for a weird combination, and I think part of it comes from this early 90’s, “technology can accomplish anything!” vibe that runs through the show. The dated technology is laughable already, so when you mix that kind of attitude with it, you’re destined to have some cheese as a result. While the show’s themes are right in the cyberpunk wheelhouse, it seemed afraid to fully embrace that aesthetic, although Sydney’s apartment can certainly get the look from time to time. They tried to keep it very close to the present, presumably for believability, but all that really did was anchor it to the past. Big white CRT monitors, dial-up modems and landlines (although we do see the occasional cell phone, they aren’t really used for VR), that sort of thing. It doesn’t even have the benefit of feeling retro, the way 80’s tech does… yet. As usual, bad 90’s CGI appears, but we don’t see much outside the pilot; it’s mostly limited to the same “warping in” animation that’s played whenever anyone enters VR. More of a problem is that extremely low quality videos seem to be the only ones that exist. It hasn’t been released on DVD, from what I can find, so you’re pretty much limited to VCR rips. How did it end? You guessed it: cliffhanger. It’s not as bad as some, and you could easily cut the last few seconds off and have a happier ending. I’d recommend doing that, personally. The show was kind of doomed from the start, with Fox only asking for 9 of the 13 episodes filmed (according to Wikipedia, the show’s creator actually gave them a 10th episode for free because the story wouldn’t have made sense without it) and setting it up as a midseason replacement. I can’t help but feel, when watching this, that had it been given more support from the network, it could’ve been nearly as successful as The X-Files. I don’t know that it would be a classic that stands the test of time; it’s far too rooted in the period it was made for that. But, I’m willing to bet that VR.5 would be fondly remembered for what it is, and that’s a character-driven show trying to emerge in a time when that wasn’t really appreciated yet. I didn’t exactly have high hopes going into this, and I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. VR was very much in the public consciousness in the early 90’s, with shows like this and VR Troopers, as well as tech toys like the Virtual Boy (which was released not long after this show was canceled) and the Power Glove that couldn’t really deliver what they promised. I imagine that this was part of the problem with the show’s perception; the title doesn’t give you much of an idea of what you’re getting into, and most people had very little positive associations with VR at the time. A quick reminder of my rating system: a 5 represents must-see–a “hidden gem,” as it were. A 4 is good, solid television. A 3 is “cult classic” stage, where the show’s appeal is likely limited to a specific group. A 2 is flawed, but fun, or even “so bad it’s good,” depending on the series and its release timeframe. A 1, of course, is avoid at all costs. I watched VR.5 on Youtube here, and that’s likely the only place you’re going to find it. It’s all in English, although there’s a few seconds of overdubbing (likely announcers, though I can’t tell) in some of the videos. You gotta take what you can get for shows this obscure. I actually considered giving this the first 5, but I don’t think it’s quite at that level. Still, it’s a show with a good level of quality to it, and I expect most sci-fi fans can find something to like in it. Have any suggestions? Or are there any little known shows you’re a fan of that you’d like me to cover? Leave them in the comments, or send a tweet to @RetroPhaseShift. 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After coming back from work, I put on some music and stood in the kitchen, peeling off an orange. But, I wasn't really there. My mind was somewhere else, wandering off into the distant world of events past and the What-Could-Haves and What-Should-Bes. Suddenly, I heard the music - really heard it for the first time. And my feet started tapping of their own accord, a smile appeared on my lips and my mind started noticing what was happening. That was such a good feeling. Mindfulness is being aware of what is happening around you in that particular moment, every moment. It means not ignoring the present in anticipation of the future or in memories of the past. 'Flow' and being 'in the zone' are the same concepts with different names. All of us have experienced it in some form or the other. Perhaps you are a coder who gets lost in his code when being in the zone. Or while playing a sport, you probably give your best when your focus is on the game and not on some altercation you had with someone. A good movie drowns you in its fantasy world. Or you are texting and it takes a couple of shouts by someone to bring your attention away from your phone. The world fades away, for a brief few moments you lose sense of what is around you. You don't notice how your mind is working but it just does. That is being mindful. WHY SHOULD YOU CARE ABOUT IT This moment is your life. The moments to come may or may not be what you imagined. But this moment, right now, will never come back again. Be mindful for the simple reason that it makes you attractive to other people - you may not know it - but I observe this for sure. I am automatically attracted towards people who seem in a flow, self assured and thus confident. Being mindful makes your relationships better - wouldn't you rather have a friend actually listening to what you are saying rather than wandering off into the distance? Some of your best work is produced when you are engrossed in it. Food tastes better, music is nicer and conversations are more enjoyable. Imagine dipping into ice cream and it melting into your mouth as you imagine the fruits it contains. You really let the tastebuds experience the true joy of feeling the ice cream caressing your tongue. This might seem like a lot at first because you have to train your mind. But, I feel it is a good way to live life. Otherwise, you might arrive at each destination and wonder what's next. I don't recommend it for the sake of finding a deep answer or anything of that sort but for the simple reason that it feels so good. Haven't you experienced it yourself - maybe you are watching a great video and someone calls your name - you totally don't hear that happen, right? Compare it with a situation where you are watching that same video or movie but your mind is somewhere else and you probably don't enjoy it as much. You know the times when the mornings seem brighter, sweets sweeter and all that, wouldn't you want to have it all the time? How to practice mindfulness The simplest way to be mindful is to actually practice it in your daily life rather than finding a time to do it. Experience the juices of the food that you eat mixing together as they fill up your mouth. Feel the food travelling down your throat drenching it with the superb taste you were craving for. Read a book and imagine the author writing those exact words, scratching, and writing again with his pen on a piece of paper. Imagine his thoughts preceding the line you are just reading. Try it out right now. Let the music fill your ears, notice each different instrument in a song and how they all sound different yet together. Imagine the earth moving down a little as you walk - it really does even though it is a very small amount. Lie down under the open sky with your arms outstretched and feel the earth rotating and revolving at the same time. Truly live each moment, be aware of what is happening around you - there is never nothing going on. Take stock of the realities and don't ruin it by imagining the possibility of a bad future. Stop looking for the next kick and try to be at ease with the OK-ness and enough-ness of now. Indulge yourself in the activity at hand completely. What you have right now is enough at this moment, isn't it? You are surviving, breathing, living life wherever you are. You can't bring time back. So why be lost in the events gone by when you can rather be in the present and enjoy what you have right now. I don't mean ignore the contemplation but choose a deliberate time for it. Bring your wandering mind back into the present, tell it to wait a little longer and finish off the task at hand. It isn't easy and probably is a lot of work but it is totally worth it. I can tell - my orange tasted so much better. Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed the post, please consider sharing it. You can also sign up to the mailing list to get updates on new posts before anyone else. Mails go out at most once a fortnight. |
Barnes & Noble may be changing its Android tablet strategy, but the company is still pushing its NOOK digital bookstore… and hardware for reading those eBooks. The company’s expected to launch a new eReader soon, and may have a few more tablets in the works as well. The next-generation NOOK showed up at the FCC website over the weekend, and while it looks a lot like the company’s existing products, there’s at least one improvement. The new NOOK appears to have 4GB of built-in storage, which is twice as much as you get with a NOOK Simple Touch or NOOK Simple Touch With GlowLight. It’s not clear if there are any other major hardware changes at this point, but if 2GB is enough space to hold about 1,000 eBooks, it looks like you’ll be able to store about 2,000 books on the new NOOK device. Of course, you probably don’t actually need to carry that many eBooks around with you. You can backup part of your book collection to your computer, and you can always re-download titles purchased from B&N (as long as the company doesn’t go out of business). And while some folks like to have very big libraries, the truth is that if you read about a book a week on average, it’d take you 38 years to read that many titles. Somehow I doubt this particular device will actually last that long, no matter how durable it is. It’s possible that B&N isn’t just upping the storage as a gimmick though. Perhaps the new NOOK will support audiobooks, comic books, or other content that takes up more space than digital books which are little more than formatted text files. Or maybe it’s just a gimmick. via Wireless Goodness |
In the doublespeak marketing world of Madison Avenue it seems that every new product introduced share a common identity. Each one is “New and Improved.” Which, if you think it raises about the question, how can something new be improved? And so it goes with mindfulness. A new and improved approach in the world of psychology or a long-hidden gem adapted to today’s clinical world? Let’s take a look. Origins of Mindfulness Mindfulness fits within the family of meditative approaches. Here the mind is trained to turn away from the distractions of everyday life and is focused on a single point of reference. Rich in tradition, mindfulness offers its users a method of synchronizing their internal world with reality. Words like harmony, well-being, and balanced come to mind. With its origins many centuries ago in the Eastern ways of Buddhism, mindfulness has come into its own in the western world of psychology in the last quarter of the 20th century. Even now, it is primarily used as one of several techniques available to the client in therapy. Among those who recommend its use are medical professionals, religious and secular spiritualists, personal coaches, and psychologists / psychotherapists. It comes with high marks for its use. Here, it hangs with the others of its ilk, like: Transcendental Meditation Guided visualization Zazen Of these meditative approaches mindfulness may well be the most popular of meditations practiced in the western world today. Most known mindful meditation is “Vipassana” and with its emphasis on being present in the moment, the person meditating actually learns how to see their mind at work. An advantage of mindfulness is that over time and through practice it becomes an active participant in one’s life, present when needed. I refer to it as an early warning system wherein it can alert you to events, situations, even people that may trigger a negative reaction from you. For some, this description has a very Pollyannaish feel to it. In its purest form it certainly is not the product of the scientific community. Among the premises of scientific study done within the western way, to validate mindfulness requires independent review, study, and testing. To date the amount of empirical study completed on mindfulness remains limited. Therapy is generally defined as treatment intended to relieve or heal a psychological disorder. There are any number of methodologies or combinations of clinical approaches used. In and of itself and for the reasons stated above, mindfulness is not broadly considered a form of psychotherapy. This article will argue that while this may be true, it does deserve consideration as such. Proponents of Mindfulness Therapy claim: Mindfulness meets the accepted definition of therapy. Mindfulness is practiced as a therapeutic intervention Mindfulness has an increasing body of empirical work attached to it. Opponents of Mindfulness Therapy claim: Mindfulness may not have enough scientific data to be taken seriously. Mindfulness is strongly identified with spirituality. Mindfulness literature focuses more on its benefits as a type of meditation rather than as a therapy. Mindfulness has a pop-psychology feel to it. The Place of Mindfulness in Treatment In my work as a therapist the place of mindfulness took on some interesting characteristics. As I thought about recent visits with a number of therapist peers, it seemed that several had a book on the power of mindfulness on their desk. Not text books, but easily read narratives focusing on getting the most out of life using mindfulness. Other than for a brief acknowledgment of the elephant in the room any discussion of mindfulness did not take place. Why, I never found out. I was left pondering the details of mindfulness among my peers. The subject of using mindfulness as a therapeutic approach didn’t come up as a part of ongoing in-house training, peer reviews, or staff meetings. Two things did surprised me with these encounters. First, when I would bring the subject of mindfulness up, my peers would not be very forthcoming about the topic. The second observation was that there were no men reading the material. I’m not sure how to evaluate these observations other than I found them interesting. As one of the post-modern treatments, the place of mindfulness has yet to be solidified. In many cases mindfulness serves as a co-partner with other therapies. A review of current literature shows that it is a strongly recommended part of a client’s treatment toolkit. Depending on how it is used mindfulness can reduce anxiety, depressive symptoms, stress, improved relaxation, and generally take the edge off. Others are put off by the lack of a scientific approach to the study of mindfulness. While they may be accepting of its use as an adjunct therapy, in no way is it sufficient unto itself. The Place of Mindfulness as Treatment Acceptance of mindfulness as an independent and valid therapeutic technique by some of the classic psychology community remains in question. In spite of resistance to gaining a larger role as a valid and independent approach, it does maintain an important role within the clinician’s therapeutic modality. This raise another question, will mindfulness become one of these options? but can it be one of those modalities? In increasing numbers relevant work directed at the place of mindfulness as therapy is being offered. The focus of much of this work is reflective of the commitment to cognition within western world psychology. One of the views where mindfulness seems to fit is integrative medicine. It is here, with its emphasis on the healing of the mind, body, community, and spirit that mindfulness as therapy seems to match well. Inherent within the current focus of treatment is the clinician/client relationship. It is more a relationship of shared responsibility and participation than ever. As such, having mindfulness as an available choice seems to make sense. Incorporating different situational techniques in treatment such as journaling, aspects of CBT, skill training and development, and dialogue the client (and therapist) has the opportunity to apply mindfulness in life. Image: flickr.com/photos/nkashirin/6174344321/ |
CONGRESS The Party Congress, the 18th since the party was founded by the fledgling Soviets in 1921, will anoint China's new generation of leaders in a week-long session beginning on November 8. Such congresses take place each five years and, according to convention, a full leadership transition takes place every 10 years. In theory, around 2200 delegates, representing 83 million party members, will ''elect'' 200 members and 170 alternate members to the new Central Committee, which will, in turn, convene its first plenum on November 15. They will then elect 25 members to the Politburo and, most crucially, an inner sanctum of (probably) seven men who will form the Politburo Standing Committee. The world won't be sure of their identities until they walk out in hierarchical order behind the new general secretary, Xi Jinping (see X). DISAPPEARED Disappeared is a word that has been given a new passive form in the satirical language of the Chinese internet - as in ''the artist Ai Weiwei has been disappeared'' - following an upsurge in extra-judicial abductions of dissidents and lawyers. In September, Xi Jinping managed to make himself disappear for a fortnight. His absence remains unexplained, with speculation ranging from health problems to political gamesmanship. ECONOMY The Chinese economy - as well as turbo-charging the Australian economy - is seen as the key to the compact that has thus far led China's 1.3 billion people to accept the party's monopoly on political power. An average GDP growth rate of 10 per cent for 30 years remains unmatched by any country at any time. While the economy has been faltering of late, where else could you report that growth has just slowed to 7.4 per cent? The party is discovering that rapidly rising incomes tend to empower individual citizens and lead them to feel more assertive about their rights. FERRARIS Ferraris are the toy of choice for the children of Communist Party leaders, but they can be dangerous if not driven with care. When a black Ferrari Spider 458 smashed into a bridge near Tsinghua University on March 18, travelling so fast that it split in two and exploded in flames, propaganda authorities tightly censored the news. But China's online community immediately concluded that the son of a senior leader must have been behind the wheel (accompanied by two semi-clad women, in the two-seater car). Six months later, it turned out they were right. The driver was the son of Ling Jihua, the most important power broker and organiser in the Chinese bureaucracy. Ling was moved sideways from his job not for the implication of gross family corruption and hypocrisy - a charge few leaders are immune from - but for covering up the fact of his own son's death. GENERAL SECRETARY The position of General Secretary of the Communist Party is the first and most important leadership title that Xi Jinping will receive in the three-stage handover from Hu Jintao that begins on November 15. He will also take a second crucial title, as chairman of the Central Military Commission, although the timing is uncertain. Xi Jinping's third title - the presidency - is largely a symbolic one, which should be bestowed in March. HU JINTAO Hu Jintao remains an enigma to analysts, the public and many of his peers, even after nearly a decade running the world's second most powerful country. His reign began with optimism that he would redress China's growing inequalities and liberalise the party's political controls. Now, senior officials are openly talking about the ''lost decade'' of the Hu-Wen administration. It seems paradoxical that Hu Jintao could steer China to a position of such sudden global importance and retire as something of a tragic figure, particularly after his own clean image was tarnished by the exploding Ferrari driven by the son of his right-hand man (see F). INTERNET The internet is being used by half a billion Chinese, including a quarter of a billion who use the powerful weibo or microblog platforms. For the first time, citizens are able to form vast communities of like-minded people and see their personal and local grievances as part of a national and systemic problem. The ascendancy of weibo, despite enormous efforts to control and patrol it, has exposed countless abuses of power and also coincided with a surge of cynicism towards the party-state. Chinese society is finding new ways to participate in politics, whether the party likes it or not. JAPAN Japan has been the subject of fierce propaganda in the Chinese media and mass protests across China since Tokyo announced it would nationalise the disputed Diaoyu Islands (Senkaku in Japanese) in early September. The protests, many of which were explicitly racist and violent, are perhaps the clearest example of a rising tide of state-sponsored nationalism that is unsettling China's neighbours. KISSINGER Henry Kissinger is everywhere in China. For decades he has been feted by Chinese leaders, advising international statesmen and profiting from multinational companies seeking access. Now his tome On China has been translated into Chinese and is prominent in local book stores, although his image has been dented by YouTube footage of him endorsing a mass red-singing rally of Bo Xilai's (see B). LI KEQIANG Li Keqiang is the vice-premier who is in line to become premier in March. In the early 1980s he was a respected student leader at Peking University, where he studied law and economics and translated a tome on constitutional law. It is difficult to judge his record over 25 years in government, given the party's insistence on collective decision-making and secrecy (see C). MILITARY The military remains a powerful political force, despite being riddled with corruption and having few channels to co-ordinate with the civilian side of the party. A series of appointments in the People's Liberation Army will provide clues on whether and how quickly Xi Jinping can consolidate power. The most important question is whether President Hu hands over the chairmanship of the (11-member) Central Military Commission at the same time as he relinquishes the keys to the party apparatus. As Chairman Mao famously put it: ''Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.'' NATIONAL PEOPLE'S CONGRESS The National People's Congress, held for 10 days in March each year, is a legislature which in theory oversees the State Council, including the premier, in China's party-government divide. The NPC is the only opportunity for Chinese and foreign journalists to mix and ask questions of senior Chinese leaders. Cynics sometimes call the NPC a rubber-stamp parliament because it has never rejected a bill before it. It is often confused with the five-yearly Party Congress and also the Chinese People's Consultative Conference, which convenes at the same time in March, but whose members are appointed by the United Front Work Department to advise policy makers. OPENING ''Opening and Reform'', the guiding slogan behind China's modern transformation, is being challenged by conservative ideologues and vested interests. Premier Wen Jiabao summed up the predicament in March this year: ''Reform has reached a critical stage. Without successful political structural reform, it is impossible for us to fully institute economic structural reform and the gains we have made in this area may be lost.'' PRINCELINGS Princelings are the children of revolutionary leaders who enjoy inherited prestige and power today. Many have made themselves fabulously rich by working the margins between political power and the market (see page 14). The incoming leadership group will be packed with princelings, led by Xi Jinping, although the Bo Xilai implosion has badly hurt the brand. QIAN Qian, Chinese for money, is fast becoming the currency of Chinese politics. So much so that the phrase ''mai guan'' - the auctioning of official positions - has now entered mainstream Chinese dictionaries. Just as politicians are increasingly engaging in business, business people are being invited into the realms of politics. This year Bloomberg reported that the top 70 members of the National People's Congress are worth a cool $90 billion. RANK Rank has always been crucial to understanding the workings of China's extraordinarily hierarchical and minutely stratified Communist Party. The problem, for visiting dignitaries and executives, is that those rankings are not publicly disclosed. The hierarchy of the Politburo Standing Committee can be discerned by the order in which they appear on television. Lower levels are more confusing. Visiting trade ministers seldom realise, for example, that Commerce Minister Chen Deming is not one of China's top 203 officials, as he does not have a seat on the Central Committee. STATE-OWNED State-owned enterprises command the strategic heights of the Chinese economy and they are subsidised by cheap capital, land and myriad regulatory concessions. They also possess great political power, beginning with the 23 SOE chairmen who have seats as members or alternate members of the Central Committee. One of the key tests of the new leadership is whether it can limit SOE privileges and thereby create more room for market-driven entrepreneurs (see Q). TIBET Tibet and Xinjiang, which together make up Western China, have been swept by unrest and blanketed by security forces since the March riots in Tibet in 2008 and the Xinjiang riots of July 2009. Many urban centres are effectively under military occupation. Since 2009 as many as 58 Tibetans have set themselves on fire in protest, according to the International Campaign for Tibet. Most have died. While many pressing political questions are being debated on the internet and in parts of the mainstream media ahead of the leadership transition, the concerns of ethnic Tibetans and Uighurs are out of bounds. UNITY Unity is the closest thing that China has to an official religion, according to David Kelly, research director at China Policy. This helps to explain why Chinese leaders must be seen to be uncompromising on sovereignty issues involving Tibet, Xinjiang, Taiwan and also the uninhabited islands in the East and South China seas. ''In Chinese political history, the heroes are those who unite the Chinese empire,'' says one veteran China watcher, Kevin Rudd. ''The villains are those who allow it to fall apart, or else make it vulnerable to foreign invasion.'' VESTED Vested interests - liyi in Chinese - are always alluded to but rarely defined when intellectuals and policy advisers debate obstacles to reform. The ''interests'' that gain from the current admixture of political and market power include real estate developers, state-owned corporations, bureaucratic empires and, of course, the Communist Party itself. WEN JIABAO China's Premier is the sole public advocate for political reform in the Politburo Standing Committee. Since 2008 he has spoken in increasingly urgent terms of the need to make officials more accountable to the people. What colleagues make of his lone crusade can be deduced from the censorship of such comments by state-run media. Wen Jiabao's most strident plea came in his final press conference, in March, in which he foreshadowed the demise of Bo Xilai and zeroed in on the urgent need for ''reform in the leadership system of our party and country''. XI JINPING Xi Jinping (left), vice-president and leader-in-waiting, is not known for any significant achievements or egregious mistakes. He is the ultimate compromise candidate who has managed to straddle factional, ideological and bureaucratic divides. From November 15, he will have to show the character and political acuity that many of his close friends believe he has and lead China into the modern era. One great advantage Xi Jinping has is that his father was a respected revolutionary hero. The exclusive princeling network he grew up within now reaches across the heights of the party, military and business. YAN'AN Yan'an on the Loess Plateau of north-west China, is the sanctuary Xi Jinping's father helped to establish and which saved Mao's bedraggled Long March survivors in 1935. Yan'an, as the local museum puts it, ''is the holy land of the Chinese revolution'' and ''birthplace of New China''. ZENG QINGHONG Zeng Qinghong is the princeling power broker whose son, Zeng Wei, purchased a $31 million house at Point Piper immediately after the 17th Party Congress. Zeng senior had just brokered the deal that installed Xi Jinping as leader-in-waiting. In the lead-up to the 18th Party Congress, friends say he has confined himself to advising his patron, former president Jiang Zemin. |
The polls were wrong. And because we are obsessed with predicting opinions rather than listening to them, we didn’t see it coming. So, the world woke up believing that Republican candidate Donald Trump had a 15% chance of winning based on polling predictions – roughly the same chance of rolling a total of six if you have two dice. Despite those odds, the next US president will be Donald Trump. I have a few ideas about what went wrong. In the four years I’ve spent as a data journalist, I’ve been concerned by how much faith the public has placed in polling. Just like you’d check the weather before getting dressed, many people checked presidential polling numbers before heading out to vote. That’s understandable. Politics can feel as unpredictable as the weather, and who wouldn’t want to eliminate uncertainty? The world is a scary and confusing place right now. But those are two very different kinds of forecasts. One is based on natural science, the other on social science. People are different from planets – they can change their minds, they can decide to not share their opinions or they can flat-out lie. And that’s before you even get to some of the statistical issues that make polling inaccurate. That’s not new information. Polling analysts like me knew the numbers were inaccurate before Brexit happened. Despite that, the polling predictions kept coming. Why? I spent almost two years working for Nate Silver’s website FiveThirtyEight, where I hoped to learn the secrets of political forecasting. I walked away totally disillusioned. It sometimes seemed as though their interpretation of the math wasn’t free from subjective bias. There was also a certain arrogance that comes from being part of an elite that “gets the numbers”, and an entrenched hierarchy meant that predictions weren’t properly scrutinised. But analysts such as Silver, a man dubbed an oracle, a soothsayer and a savant have an interest in continuing to share these predictions. Where would the man’s career be if he simply replied “don’t know” when asked what Americans would do? It’s not just FiveThirtyEight. The New York Times also got it wrong, along with Reuters, NBC news and countless others. Just about everyone did – because they couldn’t resist the temptation to try to guess human behaviour. I’m guilty too – I wrote column after column under the label “sceptical polling”, explainers and videos cautioning against the use of polls, but no one really cared. I carried on describing who was ahead because readers still wanted me to. And so you, the reader, are also complicit in this huge mistake. You probably didn’t want to hear “it’s complicated”. You probably didn’t want to have a difficult conversation with your aunt whom you knew was voting for Trump. You probably didn’t want to think too much about the fact that the United States is a country deeply divided along racial and economic lines. Instead, you’d rather hit refresh on a little web page that tells you how America will vote. Too bad the numbers were wrong. |
The San Diego Chargers' offensive line has been a pleasant surprise during the first two weeks of the season. The new-look unit has given Philip Rivers the necessary time to be a dominant quarterback again. One of the reasons for San Diego’s success on the line is first-round pick D.J. Fluker, who has stepped in and made an impact at right tackle. But the Chargers may be without him for Sunday's game at Tennessee. Fluker did not practice Thursday because of a concussion he suffered in practice the day before. Because of league protocol, it may be difficult for Fluker to pass all of the tests necessary for him to be able to play Sunday. Mike Harris, a starter at left tackle last season, would start if Fluker can’t play. Meanwhile, linebacker Donald Butler was limited in practice Thursday after sitting out Wednesday with a groin injury. The team thinks he can play Sunday. Rookie linebacker Manti Te’o practiced on limited basis for the second straight day after being out nearly six weeks with a foot injury. Still, it may be a long shot for him to play Sunday. |
ALLAHABAD, India — The pilgrims came, millions upon millions of them, in the greatest tide of humanity ever seen. Again and again, the vast crowds threatened to press too close, to trample the smallest. Then it happened. As many as 30 people were killed Sunday in a stampede at the train station here as they rushed up steps leading to one of the platforms, the police said. The stampede came at the height of the Kumbh Mela, a Hindu religious festival that occurs once every 12 years by the banks of the Ganges and Yamuna Rivers. “I can’t believe God punished us this way,” said Santos Singh, one of the pilgrims at the station. “My 15-year-old son got injured. I wish police were more responsive.” About 30 bodies covered in white sheets were visible on the train platform on Sunday evening. Several appeared to be children. |
In the wake of Tropical Storm Harvey, which has resulted in the deaths of at least 46 people, few narratives have captured the public imagination — or anger — like that of Joel Osteen and his Lakewood Church, one of the largest megachurches in the country. Osteen’s seeming hesitation in opening the church as a shelter for evacuees provoked an intense social media backlash. Lakewood’s representatives maintain that the church was opened as soon as it was safe and feasible to do so. But whether the backlash was founded or not, it reflects the profoundly ambiguous feelings Americans of different faiths have about wildly wealthy preachers like Osteen — whose net worth is estimated at over $50 million — and about the “prosperity gospel” he preaches. As Laura Turner notes in an excellent piece for BuzzFeed, no theological tradition is as rife for accusations of hypocrisy as the “prosperity gospel,” a distinctively American theological tradition. While it’s popular among many evangelical Protestants, it’s been condemned by many others. But to many of its critics, especially since the election of Donald Trump, this tradition has come to represent the worst of the conflation of American-style capitalism, religion, and Republican party politics. The prosperity gospel has its roots in an American occult tradition called New Thought The prosperity gospel is an umbrella term for a group of ideas — popular among charismatic preachers in the evangelical tradition — that equate Christian faith with material, and particularly financial, success. It has a long history in American culture, with figures like Osteen and Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, glamorous, flashily-dressed televangelists whose Disneyland-meets-Bethlehem Christian theme park, Heritage USA, was once the third-most-visited site in America. A 2006 Times poll found that 17 percent of American Christians identify explicitly with the movement, while 31 percent espouse the idea that “if you give your money to God God will bless you with more money.” A full 61 percent agree with the more general idea that “God wants people to be prosperous.” Its roots, though, don’t just lie in explicitly Christian tradition. In fact, it’s possible to trace the origins of the American prosperity gospel to the tradition of New Thought, a nineteenth-century spiritual movement popular with decidedly unorthodox thinkers like Ralph Waldo Emerson and William James. Practitioners of New Thought, not all of whom identified as Christian, generally held the divinity of the individual human being and the priority of mind over matter. In other words, if you could correctly channel your mental energy, you could harness its material results. New Thought, also known as the “mind cure,” took many forms: from interest in the occult to splinter-Christian denominations like Christian Science to the development of the “talking cure” at the root of psychotherapy. The upshot of New Thought, though, was the quintessentially American idea that the individual was responsible for his or her own happiness, health, and situation in life, and that applying mental energy in the appropriate direction was sufficient to cure any ills. Thus, New Thought thinker Ralph Waldo Trine (not to be confused with Ralph Waldo Emerson) could exhort his readers to “See yourself in a prosperous condition. Affirm that you will before long be in a prosperous condition.” In addition to influencing Christian movements like the prosperity gospel, New Thought has also made its way into many “secular" aspects of American life, including the tradition of positive-thinking self-help represented by books like The Secret, which was written by an Australian but gained popularity when promoted by Oprah. Today’s prosperity gospel was also shaped by pro-capitalist and Pentecostal thought traditions A second strand in the development of the American prosperity gospel was the valorization of the “Protestant work ethic.” Written in 1905, Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism traced what he saw as the specifically Protestant approach to labor as integral to the development of capitalism and industrialization. In Weber’s historical analysis, Protestant Calvinists — who generally believe in the idea of “predestination,” or that God has chosen some people to be saved and others damned — felt the need to justify their own sense of themselves as the saved. They looked both for outward signs of God’s favor (i.e., through material success) and for ways to express inward virtue (i.e., through hard work). While the accuracy of Weber’s analysis is still debated by scholars, it nevertheless tells us a lot about cultural attitudes at the time Weber wrote it. By 1905, at least, the idea that working hard and receiving material, financial reward for that work was integral to a certain strand of Protestant Christianity had entered the public consciousness. According to a recent Dutch study, that point of view still holds true today: Protestants and citizens of predominately Protestant countries tend to conflate labor with personal satisfaction more than those of other religious traditions. A final strand of the development of the prosperity gospel was the development of charismatic Pentecostal churches in America. An umbrella term for a decentralized group of churches — comprising over 700 denominations — Pentecostal churches are characterized by an emphasis on what is known as “spiritual gifts” (or charisms, from which the term “charismatic” is drawn). A worshipful Christian might experience, for example, the gift of healing, or might suddenly start speaking “in tongues.” This tradition of worship meant that, for a believer, the idea that God would manifest Himself to the faithful in concrete, miraculous ways in the here and now was more prevalent than it would be in, say, a mainline Episcopalian church. In addition, the decentralized nature of these churches also meant that individual leaders, many of whom practiced faith healing or similar practices, had a particularly strong effect on their congregations and could build up individual personal followings. These three strands collided throughout the twentieth century, as the prosperity gospel came into being. It started — like the “work ethic” Max Weber described — as a way to justify why, during the Gilded Age, some people were rich and others poor. (One early prosperity gospel proponent, Baptist preacher Russell H. Conwell, told his mostly-destitute congregation in 1915: “I say you ought to be rich; you have no right to be poor.”) Instead of blaming structural inequality, Conwell and those like him blamed the perceived failures of the individual. Throughout the twentieth century, proponents of this particularly American blend of theology envisaged God as a kind of banker, dispensing money to the deserving, with Jesus as a model business executive. Both of these characterizations were, at times, literal: In 1936, New Thought mystic and founder of the Unity Church Charles Fillmore rewrote Psalm 23 to read, “The Lord is my banker/my credit is good”; in 1925, advertising executive Bruce Bowler wrote The Man Nobody Knows to argue that Jesus was the first great capitalist. The literal money quote reads, “Some day ... someone will write a book about Jesus. Every businessman will read it and send it to his partners and his salesmen. For it will tell the story of the founder of modern business.” Yet it was in Pentecostal churches — with their focus on immediate spiritual gifts and the power of God to confer favor (and wellness) immediately — that the prosperity gospel as we know it today took hold. The “Word of Faith” movement — a Pentecostal version of New Thought that saw positive affirmation as central to financial and material success — became more prominent. Figures like Kenneth Hagin, his protégé Kenneth Copeland, Oral Roberts, and, of course, Osteen himself built up individual followings: followings that often grew as a result of cross-promotion (something religious historian Kate Bowler points out in her excellent Blessed, a history of the prosperity gospel movement). One preacher might, for example, feature another at his conference, or hawk his cassette tapes. Central to the prosperity gospel was the idea of tithing, or giving money to the church, ideally one's “first fruits” — or initial earnings. This money, many prosperity gospel preachers promised, was an investment. By showing faith, parishioners could have a “hundredfold” return on their investment, a reference to a verse in the Gospel of Mark about those who suffer for Christ receiving a hundredfold what they have lost. Thus could Ken Copeland write in his Laws of Prosperity, "Do you want a hundredfold return on your money? Give and let God multiply it back to you. No bank in the world offers this kind of return! Praise the Lord!” In this mentality, tithing is a financially responsible thing to do. It’s a show of faith and a shrewd investment alike, a wager on the idea that God acts in the here and now to reward those with both faith and a sufficiently developed work ethic. Many of the evangelical leaders that surround Trump are proponents of the prosperity gospel The prosperity gospel tended to ebb and flow in accordance with wider cultural trends — it flourished in the postwar boom of the 1950s, and then again (unsurprisingly) in the no less ostentatious ‘80s, when big hair and big money alike were in. Yet despite the catastrophic fall of some of the most prominent proponents of the gospel — Jim Bakker, for example, spent years in prison for fraud — the movement has persisted well into the present day. Perhaps no less unsurprisingly, two of its major proponents — Paula White and Wayne T. Jackson — were among the six faith leaders invited to pray with Donald Trump at his inauguration. Certainly Trump is, in some sense, a product of that mentality. In a recent op-ed in The New York Times, theology professor Anthea Butler argued that Donald Trump and Joel Osteen were “mirrors” of one another: Both enjoy enormous support among evangelicals, yet they lack a command of biblical scripture. Both are among the 1 percent ... Mr. Trump’s and Mr. Osteen’s brands are rooted in success, not Scripture. Believers in prosperity like winners. Hurricanes and catastrophic floods do not provide the winning narratives crucial to keep adherents chained to prosperity gospel thinking. That is why it is easy for both men to issue platitudes devoid of empathy during natural disasters. It’s difficult to say that the prosperity gospel itself led to Donald Trump’s inauguration. Again, only 17 percent of American Christians identify with it explicitly. It’s far more true, however, to say that the same cultural forces that led to the prosperity gospel’s proliferation in America — individualism, an affinity for ostentatious and charismatic leaders, the Protestant work ethic, and a cultural obsession with the power of “positive thinking” — shape how we, as a nation, approach politics. What is our collective approach to health care, after all, if not rooted in a visceral sense that the unlucky are responsible for their own misfortune? What is our willingness to vote a man like Trump into office but a collective cultural reward for those who brand themselves as successful? After all, Trump may have embraced New Thought more than anyone realized: seeing himself in the White House, affirming himself in the White House, before anyone else saw it coming. He’s gotten his investment back a hundredfold. |
About Sample of finished products 100 PAINTED CLOUDS When was the last time you took a nice break, lying on the grass, staring at the clouds looking for fun shapes in the sky? I used to do this a lot as a kid and it would always make me feel great. Now that I paint clouds, I noticed I get that same feeling when I look at them and I would like to share that good feeling with you. These paintings are nice little reminder to take some time for ourselves, even if it's just for a second. Take one or two home with you or at the office. Offer one to someone you care about. WHERE TO PUT THESE CLOUDS These clouds fit wherever you can use some inspiration and a mental break. Since where we sleep is normally when we get a bit of a break from everyday life, where we can dream, bedrooms are a great place to enhance with beautiful cloud paintings. Here are some examples of where some of the painting would enhance the space. It might also inspire you to give your bedroom a little update as well. PAINTING PROGRESS More paintings coming soon. Check out 100clouds.tumblr.com for larger images. REWARDS SHIPPING Example of packaged reward You'll be getting one (or more) original artwork, hand painted on an acid free heavy weight 245 lb (400 gsm) acrylic paper measuring 6 in. x 6 in. (15.2 x 15.2 cm). The painting will be signed in the back. You'll also be getting a personal thank you note. The artwork will be placed in a plastic sleeve and on top of a rigid board to protect it during transport. All artworks are carefully packed and shipped in a rigid photo mailer, including item tracking. THE PROCESS I am using a colour palette from the 2017 colour trends as a way to evoke the feelings of our current time. Each painting will feature a specific dominant colour for the background as well as a second colour for the clouds. Art Sponsors Art Sponsor of the project can select a colour from the palette below to sponsor (first come first serve) and will receive a thank you card featuring that colour. Selection of colours that will be used for this project Art Collectors An online gallery (100clouds.tumblr.com) will showcase the artwork as they become available so the Art Collector can make their selection as the paintings the become available. The artwork will be posted in batches of four or more on a regular basis throughout the months of February and March. Examples of paintings Gentlemen’s Gray hovercraft in an Amulet sky Amulet mouse wearing a hat in a Gentleman’s Gray Sky Cloud Cover totem in a Gentleman’s Gray sky Gentleman’s Gray flowers in a Cloud Cover THE INSPIRATION Over the years, clouds have become a muse and a teacher as I continue to grow in my art practice, daring to dream big and working on turning these dreams into reality. Painting and sharing clouds are an invitation and a reminder to be present and to never stop dreaming while keeping our feet on the ground. A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ME I've always been a dreamer. I think that's probably one of the reasons why clouds are part of my journey as an artist. I have a lot of aspiration to have a positive impact in people's live through everything that I do. I've spend the past couple years reigniting the creative spark in myself but also around me through the Toronto Urban Sketchers, meeting other artists and people who dream about becoming an artist as well, encouraging and inspiring them to follow their dreams as well. This project is part of that mission of encouraging others to live their dreams as well. You can find out more about me here. |
As much as 66 percent of the web may have been compromised by a newly revealed security flaw called Heartbleed. So named by the researchers who discovered it, Heartbleed is a bug that affects an important Internet security protocol called SSL. Specifically, it affects one particular implementation of SSL called OpenSSL. For context (and to understand how bad Heartbleed is), here's how SSL and OpenSSL work: Every time you log into a website, your login credentials are sent to that website's server. But in most cases those credentials aren't simply sent to the server in plain text -- they're encrypted using a protocol called Secure Sockets Layer, or SSL. As with most protocols, different software makers have created different implementations of SSL. One of the most popular is an open-source implementation called OpenSSL, used by an estimated two thirds of currently active websites. Heartbleed is a bug in OpenSSL. Hackers can exploit Heartbleed to get raw text from emails, instant messages, passwords, even business documents -- anything a user sends to a vulnerable site's server. And the scariest part? The Heartbleed security flaw existed for nearly two years before it was discovered by legitimate researchers. That's plenty of time for black-hat hackers to have discovered and exploited the bug. So what can users do? Matthew Prince, CEO of content delivery network Cloudflare, one of the first businesses to be notified of the bug, told The Huffington Post that sadly, there's not much normal netizens can do to protect themselves. "When you finish using a website, make sure to actively log out," Prince advised -- that makes it less likely that a hacker exploiting Heartbleed will be able to take your personal information. Prince also put in a word of comfort: "Heartbleed is so serious -- it's such a big, bad event -- that almost every major service is scrambling to clean it up as quickly as possible." He estimated that most currently vulnerable websites will be "patched" by the end of the week. Though a number of major websites have already been patched, others, including OKCupid, Flickr, Imagur and Yahoo.com, reportedly remain vulnerable to Heartbleed. |
cityscape A New Transit Plan for Toronto: But How Much Will Be Built? At a consultation in Scarborough, Toronto's potential transit future is laid out. Over the past 10 years, Torontonians have been teased by many shiny transit plans and maps. Of course, many of these proposals failed to come to fruition, leaving frustrated transit riders waiting for improvements. First, there was Transit City, a light rail transit (LRT) plan proposed by then-Mayor David Miller and TTC Chair Adam Giambrone. Then Rob Ford was elected, Transit City was all but cancelled (only the Eglinton-Crosstown LRT line made it through), and there were promises of “subways, subways, subways.” Those plans did not go far. Ford’s TTC Chair Karen Stintz proposed “OneCity,” which was rejected save for a three stop Scarborough subway extension. Then John Tory put forward his own plan, SmartTrack, that was supposed to be built in just seven years. Meanwhile Metrolinx was busy with “The Big Move,” a regional transit plan that promised rapid transit in almost every corner of the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area. So far, little transit has actually been built. Since 2008, when the “Big Move” was released, only the troubled UP Express and a few kilometres of bus rapid transit lines in York Region and Mississauga have opened. But work is underway on the central portion of the Eglinton-Crosstown LRT (to open in September 2021), the Line 1 subway extension to York University and Vaughan (which has been delayed for at least another 18 months), and Union Station renovations, and various GO transit track expansion projects. In the next two years, construction will commence on the Finch West and Hurontario -Main LRTs. Over the last few weeks, the City of Toronto revised its plans for the extension of Line 2 to Scarborough Centre, the Eglinton-Crosstown LRT, and SmartTrack. And Metrolinx is currently reviewing its Regional Transportation Plan. These two transit plan reviews—Metrolinx’s and the City of Toronto’s—have resulted in a massive round of public consultations across the region. The first of 15 open house meetings held by Metrolinx was held last Tuesday, February 16, and jointly hosted by Metrolinx and Toronto, at Jean Vanier Secondary School. It’s worth noting that Jean Vanier, near the corner of Eglinton and Midland Avenues, is a stone’s throw from Kennedy Station, where four proposed transit lines meet: SmartTrack, GO RER, the subway extension, and the Eglinton-Crosstown LRT. The school’s hallways, auditorium, and library were jammed with display boards for no fewer than 10 transit projects and initiatives; it was at times claustrophobic and overwhelming, and felt a whole lot like the TTC. The nine items presented that night were: City of Toronto: SmartTrack Scarborough Subway Extension Relief Line Subway Eglinton-Crosstown LRT Waterfront LRT “Reset” Sheppard East Rapid Transit Metrolinx: GO Transit Station Study GO Transit Electrification (both relating to GO RER) Metrolinx Fare Integration Strategy Also depicted on the maps was a King Streetcar right-of-way, a Jane LRT (a throwback to the original Transit City plan), and an unspecified Steeles Avenue rapid transit line. However, these were not discussed in any detail. While Metrolinx representatives opted to hold an open house where members of the public could view display boards and speak to staff and consultants on its initiatives, staff from the City of Toronto also chose to make a brief PowerPoint presentation on its revised plans. They focused on the new Scarborough transit proposals, particularly the revised plans for SmartTrack and GO Regional Express Rail (RER), the one-stop Line 2 Subway extension to Scarborough Centre, the Eglinton-Crosstown LRT extension to the University of Toronto’s Scarborough Campus, and the Relief Line. It seems clear that the Relief Line (following Queen Street) and the Scarborough subway extension are routed to avoid the SmartTrack route as much as possible. The audience was given an opportunity near the end to ask questions, and for the most part, these were well-informed queries. Topics included ridership (a report on projected ridership is coming out soon, likely this week), timing of construction, the decision to drop subway stops at Lawrence and Sheppard Avenues, and station locations. Several speakers supported the eastern extension of the Eglinton-Crosstown line, and there were no cries for more subways. Mayor John Tory was present during the presentation, but remained inconspicuous until near the end. After the presentation he spoke to a few residents and then headed back out, almost as quietly as he arrived. But there are still many questions left answered. For example, what form of rapid transit will eventually be built on Sheppard Avenue East? From discussions Torontoist had with staff last Tuesday, it could very well be an improved express bus service, rather than the LRT planned and deferred during the Ford mayoralty. We don’t know if SmartTrack will be frequent enough to draw sufficient ridership to provide relief to the subway. And we certainly don’t know how we’re going to pay for all this new transit. As for Metrolinx’s fare integration strategy, it remains to be seen what changes to the fare structure will be proposed, and how it will affect commuters. There are three more opportunities to attend one of the Metrolinx/City of Toronto open houses; there are also two more meetings held solely by the City of Toronto on its projects. The first will be this Wednesday evening at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Meetings still to come in Toronto include: Wednesday, February 24 – Toronto (Metrolinx/City of Toronto) Metro Toronto Convention Centre, North Building, Room 203 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Thursday February 25 (City of Toronto only) Riverdale Collegiate – 1094 Gerrard St East 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm Saturday February 27 – Scarborough (City of Toronto only) Scarborough Civic Centre – 150 Borough Drive 9:30 am to 11:30 am Wednesday, March 9 – Etobicoke (Metrolinx/City of Toronto) Lakeshore Collegiate Institute – 350 Kipling Avenue 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 22 – Toronto (Metrolinx/City of Toronto) Nelson Mandela Park Public School – 440 Shuter Street 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Metrolinx is also holding open houses in the suburbs of Markham, Innisfil, Whitby, Oakville, Brampton, Barrie, Vaughan, Pickering, and Burlington, focusing on its plans for regional rail, GO Transit electrification, new station opportunities, and fare integration. |
The Russian tycoon Alexander Lebedev fears that a Moscow court will hand down a guilty verdict in his trial on hooliganism charges despite the fact that the case appears to be falling apart. Only two prosecution witnesses appeared at a court hearing on Monday, where Lebedev pleaded not guilty to charges of battery and "hooliganism motivated by political hatred" for punching a fellow businessman during the filming of a television show in 2011. The prosecution had called more than a dozen witnesses, but most refused to show up. The recipient of the punch, Sergei Polonsky, a disgraced property magnate, has not lived in Russia for many months and has not attended a single court hearing. Earlier this year he spent time in a Cambodian prison for allegedly assaulting a group of local boatmen. He is now believed to be in Europe or Israel. Lebedev insists the trial is politically motivated, designed to punish him for carrying out corruption investigations into top Russian officials, including those inside the powerful Federal Security Service (FSB), and for his ownership of Novaya Gazeta, the country's chief investigative newspaper. "It doesn't mean anything," he said, commenting on the lack of witnesses and Polonsky's failure to appear in court. "It just means that the case is completely trumped up, fabricated, invented from A to Z." Lebedev was charged last September, a year after he punched Polonsky during the filming of a chatshow about the global financial crisis on NTV, a state-run television channel. He has apologised for inappropriate behaviour but says he was acting in self-defence. He remains baffled by the charge that he was motivated by "political hatred", since the chatshow did not touch on political themes. "I do not recognise my guilt and I do not understand the charges," Lebedev told the court on Monday. One witness called by the prosecution, Anna Savina, who was in the studio audience, appeared to support Lebedev in her testimony. "Polonsky was like a bad child," she told the court. "He was unhappy with something during the whole programme, was always saying something, interrupting. Most of his unhappiness was focused on Lebedev." Asked by Lebedev's lawyer whether Polonsky had threatened to hit someone in the face, Savina answered: "Yes. That phrase was uttered not long before the conflict." The second witness, a camera operator, testified that he had not witnessed the punch. "There is nothing real about the case," Lebedev said. "Luckily it's not 1937," he said, referring to the height of Stalin's purges. "They don't bring up evidence that looks suspicious and don't kill anyone." The trial is due to resume on Thursday. "It seems like the judge wants to do everything quickly," Lebedev said. Lebedev's lawyers demanded that Polonsky appear at the trial, but the judge replied that court bailiffs had no jurisdiction outside of Russia's borders. "He is the most important witness of the prosecution," Lebedev said. "We will demand they not issue a verdict without having him in the box. But I have my doubts." |
A senior Police Scotland officer was given £67,000 of public money to move house and £53,000 to settle a personal tax bill, according to a damning audit that lambasted the “unacceptable” spending. Deputy Chief Constable Rose Fitzpatrick was given the sums after they were authorised by John Foley, the former chief executive of the Scottish Police Authority (SPA), who stood down from the force watchdog last month. Auditor General Caroline Gardner published a report stating that large relocation payments "do not represent a good use of public money" and called the SPA's spending "unacceptable". She added they were not properly disclosed in the organisation's annual report and accounts. She also singled out the decision to appoint three temporary senior staff at a cost of more than £344,000 as one that "did not demonstrate value for money in the use of public funds". Although the officer given the payments was not identified in the report, the SPA confirmed she was Rose Fitzpatrick, one of three deputy chief constables who each earn £175,000 per year. She is responsible for local policing. The SPA said Mrs Fitzpatrick had acted in “good faith” and payments were made in line with her appointment and regulations. However, it is the latest in a series of scandals to envelop the national force and its watchdog, which overspent its budget by £16.9 million last year. |
Last Wednesday, the world's largest stock exchange went down for half a day, the world's fifth-largest airline grounded its planes for a few hours, and The Wall Street Journal's home page went missing, all within a few hours of each other. No wonder speculation was rife that a large-scale cyber attack was under way. But by the end of the day the Department of Homeland Security had declared unequivocally that this triple threat was merely a coincidence -- random outages that happened to fall on the same day. I believe it. Part of the reason I accept this explanation is because the damage was so minimal. A coordinated, widespread cyber attack that went far beyond last week's mini-debacle could be executed at will by any hackers seeking to make a great big point. It would not take uber-skilled hackers to accomplish. A few kids could do it using readily available hacking tools to target the abundant vulnerabilities nearly every company decides to live with as a part of the cost of doing business. Our state of insecurity When you read a news headline about a company that was hacked on a particular day, don't think that company was the only one. In fact, nearly every company is either currently hacked and owned or could easily be hacked and owned with minimal effort. The headline should always read, "X company was hacked today, along with every other company." Yes, I mean every company -- except for (literally) one or two that have implemented proper defenses. Even companies that have been thoroughly and publicly owned and have spent millions of dollars on security in response are still easily hackable. Few companies are doing what they need to do fast enough. Worse, few companies are concentrating on the right elements. Prompt and consistent patching of all software and educating employees against social engineering would remove the majority of security risk in almost all organizations. When I share this view with the executives at the companies I consult for, I'm often told, for example, it's not that simple. True, patching can be complex. But many companies don't even own software that can patch the most exploited software programs -- which today appear to be unpatched Java and Adobe software. Alternatively, they have the right patch management software, but fail to patch the most abused programs, which can be found on nearly every computer. Moreover, I can tell you from experience that nearly every company has weak passwords that haven't been changed since the system was installed. Nearly every company has employees that can easily be socially engineered out of their logon credentials. Nearly every company allows all employees to install anything they want. As long as this lax state of affairs persists, almost any group can cause a digital Armageddon. It may not have happened last week, but it can still easily come to pass. The big security fix How do we remedy this ridiculous state of affairs? For starters, we need to restructure the Internet so that anonymity is replaced with high-assurance, pervasive identities. As long as cyber criminals can get away with their transgressions, we will never decrease Internet crime. We need to enforce new requirements on the existing Internet. We don't need new protocols or technologies to make this happen. We already have all the tools and technology we need for pervasive identity to become a reality. But we need agreement on the bare minimum requirements for all Internet transactions -- and to enforce those requirements. Some folks reject the idea of pervasive identity becoming the rule on the Internet. I get that. Personally, I think the solution is to fork the Internet into sections that require or don't require pervasive identity. If you don't want to use pervasive identity, that's fine. But don't interact with me or all the other people who want to work and play on a more secure Internet. You have your place and we'll have ours. Ours will be a lot less stressful. We'll spend far less time getting rid of malware and ignoring the constant onslaught of spam and other malicious or bothersome problems that currently plague the Internet today. Lastly, whether or not pervasive identity takes hold, all companies should look at the ways they've been successfully attacked and fix these issues first. This sounds self-evident, but most companies don't do it. Instead, they spend money to fix bugs that sound like severe risks but aren't. Improving security doesn't take more money, only a shift in resources to the appropriate items. I'm going to do my part. Here and in every other place where I have a voice I'll continue to raise the alarm. We can make the Internet a significantly safer place to compute. We simply have to do it. |
SUNN O)))'s most recent studio album, 2009's Monoliths and Dimensions, and ULVER's 2013 album, Messe I.X-VI.X, found both evolving and longstanding groups venturing into the world of acoustic arrangement and contemporary orchestration. Besides arriving at this seeming parallel in vision, the pair's long standing camaraderie was initiated during SUNN O)))'s 2003's White1 sessions with the track "CutWOODED" which was produced by ULVER, in tribute to the deceased film director Ed Wood. ULVER's decision to emerge from the shadows into live performance, in 2009, unveiled a new facet of showmanship, presentation and the grandiose which took their audiences to an unforeseen level. SUNN O)))'s presence has always been felt, whether in the prospect of their hundreds of legendary live concerts, the reissue of out of print albums in devotion to their loyal fanbase, or the recent unveiling of their new website - and the anticipation of something new was heightened beyond belief recently when the label posted online the words, "SUNN O))) & ULVER 2014". Yes. At long last they have come together for a more developed collaborative work. Today it comes with great pleasure to confirm that these words, SUNN O))) and Ulver, together, represent an astonishing yet somehow totally tenable matrimony of these two earthshakingly powerful forces, coming together like tectonic plates. The result of this union is a three-track recording entitled Terrestrials ; three movements which are fluid like the flow of magma beneath the Earth's crust, sonically uninhibited, unpredictably cosmic, haunting and stirring yet simultaneously ceremonious and beautiful. Southern Lord shall release Terrestrials in February 2014. Over the course of the next month we shall be revealing the story of how this alliance and recording came to be, revealing the insight of the musicians involved, attempting to answer some of the burning questions which we have, for now, left hanging in the air. |
Verizon customers may be fuming over the recent revelation that the company is dutifully turning over customer phone records in compliance with government orders -- but that news didn't seem to hurt the company's stock performance on Thursday. Verizon's stock price rose 3.46 percent Thursday, making it the best-performing stock in the Dow Jones Industrial Average for the day. Overall, the Dow rose 80 points Thursday, ending back over 15,000 after tumbling more than 200 points Wednesday. Verizon was at the center of one of Thursday's biggest news stories after the Guardian reported that the National Security Agency is collecting the phone records of millions of Verizon Communications customers as a result of a top-secret court order that was issued in April. But Verizon may not be the only company involved in the government's surveillance efforts. The Huffington Post's Gerry Smith reported Thursday that switching phone carriers may not do the trick for customers looking to protect their privacy. "I think it's quite probable, given the breadth of the Verizon order, that similar orders have been granted for all major telephone companies," said Sascha Meinrath, the vice president of the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank. "We are likely looking at a nationwide fishing expedition of everyone's phone records and geolocation, updated daily and covering nearly every call originating in the U.S." |
Not to be confused with Mithraism Mithridatism is the practice of protecting oneself against a poison by gradually self-administering non-lethal amounts. The word is derived from Mithridates VI, the King of Pontus, who so feared being poisoned that he regularly ingested small doses, aiming to develop immunity. Background [ edit ] Mithridates VI's father, Mithridates V, was assassinated by poisoning, said to be at his mother's orders. After this, Mithridates VI's mother held regency over Pontus until a male heir came of age. Mithridates was in competition with his brother for the throne and his mother began to favor his brother.[1]:68 Supposedly, during his youth, he began to suspect plots against him at his own mother's orders and was aware of her possible connection with his father's death. He then began to notice pains in his stomach during his meals and suspected his mother had ordered small amounts of poison to be added to his food to slowly kill him off. With other assassination attempts, he fled into the wild.[1]:69 While in the wild, it is said that he began ingesting non-lethal amounts of poisons and mixing many into a universal remedy to make him immune to all known poisons. After Mithridates' death, many Roman physicians claimed to possess and improve the formula. In keeping with most medical practices of his era, Mithridates' anti-poison routines included a religious component, supervised by the Agari; a group of Scythian shamans derived from Indian Aghoris who never left him.[3] It has been suggested that Russian mystic Rasputin's survival of a poisoning attempt was due to mithridatism, but this has not been proven.[4] Indian epics talk about this practice too. It has been said that, during the rule of the king Chandragupta Maurya (320–298 BC), there was a practice of selecting beautiful girls and administering poison in small amounts until they grew up, thus making them insensitive to poison. These maidens were called vishakanyas (visha = poison, kanya = maiden). It was believed that making love with vishakanyas could result in the death of their partners, hence they were employed to kill enemies. The emperor Bindusara was the son of the first Mauryan emperor Chandragupta Maurya and his queen Durdhara. According to the Rajavalikatha, a Jain work, the original name of this emperor was Simhasena. According to a legend mentioned in the Jain texts, Chandragupta's Guru and advisor Chanakya used to feed the emperor with small doses of poison to build his immunity against possible poisoning attempts by the enemies.[5] One day, Chandragupta, not knowing about the poison, shared his food with his pregnant wife, Queen Durdhara, who was seven days away from delivery. The queen not immune to the poison collapsed and died within a few minutes. Chanakya entered the room the very time she collapsed, and in order to save the child in the womb, he immediately cut open the dead queen's belly and took the baby out, by that time a drop of poison had already reached the baby and touched its head due to which the child got a permanent blueish spot (a "bindu") on his forehead. Thus, the newborn was named "Bindusara".[6] In practice [ edit ] It is important to note that mithridatism is not effective against all types of poison (immunity generally is only possible with biologically complex types which the immune system can respond to) and, depending on the toxin, the practice can lead to the lethal accumulation of a poison in the body. Results depend on how each poison is processed by the body, ie, on how the toxic compound is metabolized or passed out of the body. In some cases, it is possible to build up tolerance against specific non-biological poisons. This involves conditioning the liver to produce more of the particular enzymes that metabolize these poisons (for example alcohol).[7] However, this method (metabolic tolerance) isn't very reliable as too much generally causes accumulation of the reduced toxicity compound that the original poison was metabolized into, slowly damaging the liver. With alcohol this generally leads to conditions such as alcoholic fatty liver disease.[8] These methods do not work for all non-biological poisons. Exposure to certain toxic substances, such as hydrofluoric acid and heavy metals, is either lethal or has little to no effect, and thus cannot be used in this way at all. Arsenic is a notable exception with some people actually having a genetic adaptation granting them higher resistance which can be replicated with mithridatism.[9] In addition, simple toxins that work through chemical processes that bypass the immune system generally cannot be dealt with. One interesting minor subversion is cyanide, which bypasses the immune system, but can be metabolized by the liver. The enzyme rhodanese converts the cyanide into the much less toxic thiocyanate.[10] This process allows humans to intake small amounts of cyanide in food like apple seeds and survive small amounts of cyanide gas from fires and cigarettes. However, unlike alcohol, you cannot effectively condition your liver against cyanide. Relatively larger amounts of cyanide are still highly lethal because while the body can produce more rhodanese the process also requires large amounts of sulfur-containing substrates.[11] Due to all these reasons, there are only a few, if any, practical uses of mithridatism. Venomous snake handler Bill Haast used this method. Snake handlers from Burma are said to tattoo themselves with snake venom for the same reason.[12] In fiction [ edit ] Mithridatism has been used as a plot device in novels, films, video games, and television shows, including Nirja Guleri's Shiv Dutt in Chandrakanta, Alexandre Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo, Holly Black's "The Cruel Prince", Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Rappaccini's Daughter", Yoshiaki Kawajiri's Ninja Scroll, Dorothy Sayers's Strong Poison, Agatha Christie's Curtain, William Goldman's The Princess Bride (and the film of the same name), The Borgias, Babylon 5, Riddick, a Japanese manga called Dokuhime (Poison Princess) by Mihara Mitsukazu, Ekta Kapoor's Jodha Akbar, and the Zoldyck family in Hunter X Hunter. In Michael Curtis Ford's novel The Last King, on the life and conquests of Mithridates VI, the author clearly depicts Mithridates' efforts to use this technique to protect himself and ensure his safety. In poetry [ edit ] A.E. Housman's "Terence, this is stupid stuff" (originally published in A Shropshire Lad) invokes mithridatism as a metaphor for the benefit that serious poetry brings to the reader. The final section is a poetic rendition of the Mithridates legend. See also [ edit ] Arsenikesser ("arsenic eater"; German Wikipedia) Hormesis Mithridate Vaccination |
Race Monitor Available for these platforms: @ Mike Pero Motor Sport Park R22 - Toyota Racing Series - Lady Wigram Trophy Race - 20 Laps Results are not official 1 #9 Jehan Daruvala Toyota Racing Series Laps Total Time Best Lap Best Time Diff Gap 20 37:01.402 7 01:19.499 2 #65 Enaam Ahmed Toyota Racing Series Laps Total Time Best Lap Best Time Diff Gap 20 37:02.317 6 01:19.670 0.915 0.915 3 #5 Pedro Piquet Toyota Racing Series Laps Total Time Best Lap Best Time Diff Gap 20 37:02.803 16 01:19.885 1.401 0.486 4 #22 Richard Verschoor Toyota Racing Series Laps Total Time Best Lap Best Time Diff Gap 20 37:03.105 6 01:20.000 1.703 0.302 5 #49 Thomas Randle Toyota Racing Series Laps Total Time Best Lap Best Time Diff Gap 20 37:03.526 8 01:19.857 2.124 0.421 6 #62 Ferdinand Habsburg Toyota Racing Series Laps Total Time Best Lap Best Time Diff Gap 20 37:04.096 4 01:20.203 2.694 0.570 7 #3 Brendon Leitch Toyota Racing Series Laps Total Time Best Lap Best Time Diff Gap 20 37:04.328 16 01:20.265 2.926 0.232 8 #12 Christian Hahn Toyota Racing Series Laps Total Time Best Lap Best Time Diff Gap 20 37:04.570 7 01:21.040 3.168 0.242 9 #33 Kory Enders Toyota Racing Series Laps Total Time Best Lap Best Time Diff Gap 20 37:05.583 7 01:20.310 4.181 1.013 10 #26 Harry Hayek Toyota Racing Series Laps Total Time Best Lap Best Time Diff Gap 20 37:06.447 8 01:20.471 5.045 0.864 11 #83 Kami Laliberte Toyota Racing Series Laps Total Time Best Lap Best Time Diff Gap 20 37:07.325 7 01:20.203 5.923 0.878 12 #11 Taylor Cockerton Toyota Racing Series Laps Total Time Best Lap Best Time Diff Gap 20 37:09.547 8 01:20.515 8.145 2.222 13 #96 Luis Leeds Toyota Racing Series Laps Total Time Best Lap Best Time Diff Gap 20 37:11.050 7 01:20.298 9.648 1.503 14 #10 Thomas Neubauer Toyota Racing Series Laps Total Time Best Lap Best Time Diff Gap 20 37:15.328 8 01:21.289 13.926 4.278 15 #51 Shelby Blackstock Toyota Racing Series Laps Total Time Best Lap Best Time Diff Gap 18 37:05.104 7 01:20.204 3.702 16 #8 Marcus Armstrong Toyota Racing Series Laps Total Time Best Lap Best Time Diff Gap 16 30:07.253 4 01:20.780 17 #24 Ameya Vaidyanathan Toyota Racing Series Laps Total Time Best Lap Best Time Diff Gap 11 16:46.202 5 01:21.343 18 #27 Jean Baptiste Simmenauer Toyota Racing Series Laps Total Time Best Lap Best Time Diff Gap 11 16:46.728 7 01:21.487 0.526 19 #47 Keyvan Andres Toyota Racing Series Laps Total Time Best Lap Best Time Diff Gap 10 14:25.860 8 01:20.298 20 #80 Nikita Lastochkin Toyota Racing Series Laps Total Time Best Lap Best Time Diff Gap 8 11:11.077 8 01:21.149 Results are not official |
Tis the season to be choosing the Australian Whinger of the Year for 2011. As I wrote in January, no country has so little to complain about yet so many people who whinge about the lousy hand life has dealt them. From a star-studded field, my nominations are: Tony Abbott. As everyone knows, the argopelter (Anthrocephalus craniofractensis) is a fearsome beast which lurks in hollow trees and hurls rocks and rotten branches at unwary passers-by. Wikipedia, fount of all knowledge, says the argopelter has ''a slender, wiry body, the villainous face of an ape and arms like muscular whiplashes, with which it can snap off dead branches and hurl them through the air like shells from a six-inch gun''. That's Abbott and his politics to the essence. He lies in wait, seething with frustrated ambition but without policies or ideas; only relentless attack. You name it, he's agin it. Whinge, complain, nag, whack, biff, thump. The argopelter strikes again. Gerry Harvey. All year the billionaire boss of Harvey Norman has been bellyaching that we've let him down by buying cheaper stuff elsewhere or, worse, not buying at all. When his campaign for a GST on overseas internet purchases fell in a heap, he oozed self-pity, grizzling that: ''Because of my profile, I then get all these threats and people hone in on me. It becomes me, Gerry Harvey, and Solomon Lew - billionaires, greedy, ugly, old, out-of-date c---s. '' |
In his Five Wonders series, ESPN's Todd Archer wonders this week whether the recently benched DeMarco Murray could find his way back to Dallas. Here's Archer's rationale: The Philadelphia Eagles demoted DeMarco Murray last week, which is stunning considering the $21 million they guaranteed the running back last March. That’s how bad the season has gone for Murray, who has 163 carries for 569 yards and four touchdowns. Could the Eagles do the unthinkable and part ways with Murray after the season? The salary cap makes it almost impossible to even think about. His 2016 $7 million base salary is guaranteed. But let’s say the Eagles choose to do it. I wonder if the Cowboys would jump on the chance to re-sign him. Actually, I more than wonder it. I would expect the Cowboys to get involved in the mix. The Cowboys miss Murray badly, and it’s clear Murray misses the Cowboys. The Eagles’ offense is just not a good fit for Murray. The Cowboys’ offense is a perfect fit. Now, what kind of contract would you give Murray, who would be a year older, although not with the wear of a big-carry season? The Cowboys offered Murray $6 million per year with $12 million guaranteed after he led the NFL with 1,845 yards rushing. There's an unlimited list of things not to like about the Eagles, but one thing they've done well in the past is their cap management. Sure, GM Chip Kelly has done his darndest to get rid of any excess cap space, but he hasn't succeeded yet, so the Eagles look to be carrying at least $20 M in free cap space into 2016. Yes, they'll probably need to sign an NFL-quality QB with that money (they currently don't have such a player on their roster), but that still leaves a lot of wiggle room, and that's without restructuring any of the big contracts on their roster. If the Eagles want to cut Murray, they can do it without blinking an eye. For the Cowboys, re-signing Murray could have multiple benefits: As Archer writes, Murray is a "perfect fit" for the Cowboys offense. And even though Murray is not getting any younger, he'll still be a good between-the-tackles runner. Depending on what kind of offset language Murray's contract in Philly contains, the Cowboys might essentially be getting Murray for free in 2016, as the Eagles will be on the hook for his $7 million salary. The Cowboys got a similar "deal" on Brandon Weeden, though in that specific case they overpaid, regardless of how much money they saved. The Cowboys paid Weeden the NFL minimum salary for two years and the Browns continued to pay the difference between the minimum salary and the guaranteed part of his original contract. Imagine that: Murray plays for the Cowboys for $7 million in 2016 and the Eagles will pay about $6 million of that. Sweetness. Regardless of what you think of Darren McFadden and/or Robert Turbin, the Cowboys will probably have to go out in free agency for an extra running back in 2016 - even if they take a running back in the draft. The advantage of signing Murray, if he is indeed released by the Eagles, is that players released by their orginal team won't count as compensatory free agents and won't impact your comp pick totals. For the Cowboys, re-signing Murray makes so much sense they should "jump on the chance to re-sign him," as Archer writes. The real question here is how badly do the Eagles want to get rid of Murray? Are they willing to swallow $13 million in dead money just because things didn't work out as hoped in year one? And imagine the amount of clownface cake they'd have to eat for letting Murray get back to Dallas. Taken together, that may simply be too much even for that organization. |
VENICE — “You guys, just say ‘skooozy’ and walk through,” a young American woman commanded her friends, caught in one of the bottlenecks of tourist traffic that clog Venice’s narrow streets, choke its glorious squares and push the locals of this enchanting floating city out and onto drab, dry land. “We don’t have time!” Neither, the Italian government worries, does Venice. Don’t look now, but Venice, once a great maritime and mercantile power, risks being conquered by day-trippers. The soundtrack of the city is now the wheels of rolling luggage thumping up against the steps of footbridges as phalanxes of tourists march over the city’s canals. Snippets of Venetian dialect can still be heard between the gondoliers rowing selfie-snapping couples. But the lingua franca is a foreign mash-up of English, Chinese and whatever other tongue the mega cruise ships and low-cost flights have delivered that morning. Hotels have replaced homes. |
ANALYSIS/OPINION: North Korean leader Kim Jong-un executed five security officials by anti-aircraft gun recently due to “false statements” which were given to the North’s leader and caused him to be enraged. The event was disclosed by the South Korean spy agency, the National Intelligence Service, and discussed in a private meeting with South Korean lawmakers, reported the Associated Press. The more likely explanation of the executions is that the North Korean dictator is feeling insecure in his position, hence the shootings and the execution of his half-brother by VX nerve gas in Kuala Lumpur. The security officials were members of recently purged state security chief Kim Won Hong. He was fired due to reports of corruption and torture in his agency. The Seoul government has called recent events, a ‘reign of terror.’ The take-away from these incidents is that obviously the hermit leader of the Stalinist regime has no problem using weapons of mass destruction against its perceived enemies. Kim Jong-un may think he has nothing to lose as his ally China recently cut half of its coal imports from People’s Republic of China. This makes his quest to obtain ballistic missiles which can hit U.S. territory all the more threatening and worrisome. Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission. |
THE truce that has held between the A-League owners and Football Federation Australia since David Gallop's appointment is poised to fracture as the club chiefs seek far greater influence in the way the game is run. Six of the club owners have formed a legal entity to represent themselves, and will meet on Friday morning before presenting Gallop with a series of demands later that day. These are being described as "micro and macro", from concern at the level of financial support to seeking a seat on the FFA board, and also a further overhaul of how the game is run. Round 21 Visit Match Centre Visit Match Centre Visit Match Centre Visit Match Centre Visit Match Centre Several sources have emphasised there is an unprecedented level of determination among the owners, with many of the demands described as "non-negotiable" and calls for the owners to be shown "greater respect". The committee that was established last year to give the owners a voice, known as JALSC, is described as "dead in the water" with all three club representatives having walked away from it. Instead, the owners will meet Gallop and A-League boss Damien DeBohun on Friday to tell them that the success of last season came in large part from club-funded signings such as Alessandro Del Piero and Emile Heskey, and that the teams deserve a far greater say in how the competition builds on its recent halo. Though the new TV deal will see the clubs all receive a grant to cover the salary cap, set next season at $2.5 million, the owners claim they were promised further money on top of that from the deal struck by FFA with the government to forgo all alcohol sponsorship, plus a share of the income generated by Manchester United's game with the All-Stars. They claim FFA has reneged on that promise, saying only the $2.5 million was guaranteed. But beyond that the owners are demanding broad changes in the way the sport is run, willing to fund a fresh review of the game's corporate governance on condition all parties agree to its findings. They also want their licences to be unlimited barring any misconduct, as opposed to the five-year terms granted now. Ultimately the owners still want the A-League to be run independently of FFA but in the meantime want a seat on the board with full voting powers. The degree of unanimity is shown by the fact only Melbourne Heart, Victory and Adelaide have so far not joined the owners' association, with Wanderers excluded as they are owned by FFA. Gallop is "looking forward to the meeting and hearing their concerns. The owners have invested a lot and the rewards are now there in last season's outstanding stats around crowds, TV ratings and membership. We will be presenting them some contextual facts: the cap now matches the grant, and the CBA result is very reasonable." Gallop indicated that the clubs would be given greater revenue from the All Stars game, "but we are yet to find where and by whom any promise to add (a share of the no-alcohol deal) to the grant was made." He promised to consider the licence terms issue, but added: "A separate entity will blow costs at this point." |
With Brandon Jennings now in Detroit, and no longer having to deal with Monta Ellis, Larry Sanders says he’s ready and excited to lead the young Milwaukee Bucks into the future (shaky as it may seem.) Sanders is looking forward to teaming up with new point guard Brandon Knight. Per the Journal Sentinel: “Sanders said he learned a few things during his time with the U.S. team that can translate to the upcoming season. ‘It’s not really putting their egos aside but joining egos for the USA ego,’ Sanders said. ‘How they all had the same goal in mind, the USA team, they just won gold (in the 2012 Olympics). I think that’s something we can definitely bring to the Bucks, just everybody pointing in the same direction.’ Sanders was asked his reaction to Tuesday’s trade sending Brandon Jennings to Detroit and bringing 21-year-old point guard Brandon Knight to Milwaukee. ‘Well, Brandon Knight is a tough player, man,’ Sanders said. ‘He plays extremely hard. Every time I’ve had a chance to play against him, he’s been a tough competitor. Sometimes he was out of position, jumping for blocks and stuff, but he don’t have to do that no more. He can focus all of his energy up top. I just see me and him having a heck of a pick-and-roll game. Just hounding guys, he’s a good defender, so he’s going to add an element to our team as far as guard defense up top. And he can shoot the ball well, too, push the ball. A lot of speed. I think he’s a great addition to the team.’ Sanders said it will be important that the Bucks stay unified and he likes the players management has signed or acquired through trades this summer. A divided locker room contributed heavily to a poor regular-season finish and a four-game sweep at the hands of Miami in the first round of the playoffs last season. ‘From the gate, too, from the beginning,’ Sanders said. ‘It’s not an issue we should have to address in April in the playoffs. It’s something that should be addressed in preseason, before we even play a regular-season game. Everything will be ironed out. You go through situations and you learn from them. You learn how not to do things and how to handle things better.’ Sanders will be entering just his fourth season but is one of the young players the Bucks are building around, along with 22-year-old John Henson, Knight and even 18-year-old rookie Giannis Antetokounmpo.” |
President Barack Obama, accompanied by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, speaks during the Transfer of Remains Ceremony, Friday, Sept. 14, 2012, at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., marking the return to the United States of the remains of the four Americans killed this week in Benghazi, Libya. Obama said in a Rose Garden statement after the attack that those responsible would be brought to justice. That may not be swift. Building a clearer picture of what happened will take more time, and possibly more people, U.S. officials said Friday. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. is sending more spies, Marines and drones to Libya, trying to speed the search for those who killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans, but the investigation is complicated by a chaotic security picture in the post-revolutionary country and limited American and Libyan intelligence resources. The CIA has fewer people available to send, stretched thin from tracking conflicts across the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Much of the team dispatched to Libya during the revolution had been sent onward to the Syrian border, U.S. officials say. And the Libyans have barely re-established full control of their country, much less rebuilt their intelligence service, less than a year after the overthrow of dictator Moammar Gadhafi. The U.S. has already deployed an FBI investigation team, trying to track al-Qaida sympathizers thought to be responsible for turning a demonstration over an anti-Islamic video into a violent, coordinated militant attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other embassy employees were killed after a barrage of small arms, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars tore into the consulate buildings in Benghazi on Tuesday, the 11th anniversary of 9/11, setting the buildings on fire. President Barack Obama said in a Rose Garden statement the morning after the attack that those responsible would be brought to justice. That may not be swift. Building a clearer picture of what happened will take more time and possibly more people, U.S. officials said Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation publicly. In a statement posted Saturday on Islamic militant websites, Al-Qaida's branch in Yemen praised the killings and called for more attacks to expel American embassies from Muslim nations, suggesting the terrorist organization is trying to co-opt the angry protests over a film produced in the United States denigrating the Prophet Muhammad. Intelligence officials are reviewing telephone and radio intercepts, computer traffic, satellite images and other clues from the days before the attacks — the kinds of material routinely gathered in a conflict zone where al-Qaida affiliates are known to operate — and Libyan law enforcement has made some arrests. But investigators have found no evidence pointing conclusively to a particular group or to indicate the attack was planned, White House spokesman Jay Carney said, adding, "This is obviously under investigation." Early indications suggest the attack was carried out not by the main al-Qaida terror group but "al-Qaida sympathizers," said a U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly. One of the leading suspects is the Libyan-based Islamic militant group Ansar al-Shariah, led by former Guantanamo detainee Sufyan bin Qumu. The group denied responsibility in a video Friday but did acknowledge its fighters were in the area during what it called a "popular protest" at the consulate, according to Ben Venzke of the IntelCenter, a private analysis firm that monitors Jihadist media for the U.S. intelligence community. The U.S. had been watching threat assessments from Libya for months but none offered warnings of the Benghazi attack, according to another intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about U.S. intelligence matters. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, questioned whether the consulate had taken sufficient security measures, given an attempt to attack the consulate in Benghazi a few months ago. Carney said that given the 9/11 anniversary, security had been heightened. "It was, unfortunately, not enough," he said. That paucity of resources also applies to the intelligence officers available to monitor Libya on the ground. With ongoing counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, as well as the civil war in Syria, the CIA's clandestine and paramilitary officer corps is simply running out of trained officers to send, U.S. officials say, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the deployment of intelligence personnel publicly. The clandestine service is roughly 5,000 officers strong, and the paramilitary corps sent to war zones is only in the hundreds, the officials said. |
The Bianconeri chief has suggested Roberto Mancini's men will be his side's top Serie A opposition and says negotiations for Julian Draxler are over Juventus CEO Giuseppe Marotta has highlighted Inter as the Scudetto holders' main rivals to top Serie A in 2015-16. Roberto Mancini's men finished a whopping 32 points behind Massimiliano Allegri's Italian champions last season and the last time they topped the table was when Jose Mourinho guided them to the treble in 2010. However, that has not deterred the Turin club chief from tipping the Nerazzurri - ahead of the likes of Roma, Lazio, AC Milan, Napoli and Fiorentina - to return to the top of Serie A in this campaign. "I would say our big rivals are Inter - I'm impressed with them," he told reporters. "Considering their investments, they absolutely should be considered a real competitor for the Scudetto." The Bianconeri, who have won four consecutive Italian titles, are scheduled to kick off their season at home to Udinese on August 23. Rumoured targets Mario Gotze and Julian Draxler are not set to play a part in that fixture after Marotta confirmed Juve failed in their attempts at signing the Bayern Munich and Schalke stars. "We are looking for a midfielder," he added. "He doesn't necessarily have to be unique, but his profile must be of the right calibre to play with Juventus. "We probed for Gotze and Draxler, but we never got to the real negotiations." Prior to the start of the new league campaign, Juventus face Lazio in the Supercoppa Italiana on Saturday, with kick-off at 13:00BST. |
Las Vegas (CNN) Jeb Bush just gave the political equivalent of an "I told you so" to President Donald Trump. "When I ran for office, I said he is a chaos candidate and would be a chaos president," Bush said on Friday. "Unfortunately, so far chaos organizes the presidency right now," he said, speaking at the annual SALT hedge fund conference, which is headlined by bigwigs from the world of politics, finance, sports and entertainment. Bush said it appears the Trump administration is "living in the tyranny of the moment" instead of "executing on a clear agenda." Even though Bush acknowledged he's not on Trump's "speed dial," the former 2016 GOP rival of the president offered some unsolicited advice for calming things down in the White House. "Stop tweeting," Bush said. The former Florida governor and Republican presidential candidate acknowledged there are benefits to Trump's Twitter habit, including bypassing the media to get his message directly to millions of people. But Bush warned that Trump's tweetstorms give "our enemies all sorts of nuances and insights" into the mind of the commander in chief. The other problem he says is that the administration lacks discipline when it comes to speaking to the press. "I've never seen a White House as leaky as this one," Bush said. "People should be fired if they're disloyal to the president of the United States and leaking." Bush did give Trump some credit, saying he made some "really good appointments," including Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. He also thinks the appointment of former FBI Director Robert Mueller as a special counsel on the Russia investigation could be a "good thing" for Trump by allowing the White House to get back to business. (Bush praised Mueller as a "person of incredible integrity" and appointing a special counsel was necessary.) One area of business Trump wants to refocus on is repealing and replacing Obamacare. But Bush said he doesn't believe Trump will get health care reform through Congress this year. Sitting next to Bush on stage, former top White House adviser to President Barack Obama, Valerie Jarrett, criticized the all-male working group writing the health care reform bill in the Senate. Bush agreed, saying his experience shows that having diverse input can help avoid "really stupid mistakes." "When you have 10 overage white guys looking at things, there's better than a 50/50 chance it's going to be a screw-up," Bush said to laughter. Trump's early stumbles are already turning attention to 2020. Jarrett surprised the audience by saying she believes former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick will be the next Democratic nominee for president. Bush picked Joe Biden, citing the former vice president's Thursday night appearance at SALT where he didn't rule out a run. Asked if Trump will face a Republican challenger in 2020, Bush said: "It's hard to tell. It's too early." |
The African Development Bank just launched the Africa Visa Openness Report 2016, and it highlights a huge problem: as Africans, we cannot move easily between our countries. On average, Africans need visas to travel to 55% of other African countries and can only get visas on arrival in 25% of other countries. This means they can only travel to 20% of the countries without a visa. Even though countries such as Seychelles, Mauritius, Rwanda, Ghanaand Kenya have tried to reduce visa restrictions, other countries are not reciprocating. This revelation is in sharp contrast to the African Union’s goal to introduce an African passport and abolish visa requirements for all African citizens in all African countries by 2018. It’s appalling that it is easier for Europeans or Americans to travel within Africa than for many Africans themselves. What is really appalling is that it is easier for Europeans or Americans to travel within Africa than for many Africans themselves. In 2015, holders of a United States of America passport, for example, could travel to 172 countries and territories visa-free or with visa on arrival, including at least 20 African countries. Ultimately, the visa restrictions mean that African countries are losing out. One of the benefits of free movement of people that visa restrictions inhibit is increased tourism. Tourism contributes to one in every 11 jobsand 9% of gross domestic product worldwide. With high youth unemployment, improved tourism could create thousands of jobs and help reduce inequality. More visitors mean more hotels, restaurants, shopping malls, and a growth in transport and entertainment sectors. The impact could be felt in both urban areas and rural areas. Currently, according to the Africa Tourism Monitor report, while Africa accounts for about 15% of the world population, it receives only about 3% of world tourism receipts and 5% of tourist arrivals. The report further says that visa requirements imply missed economic opportunities for intra-regional trade, and the local service economy (such as cross-country medical services or education). Visa policies are among the most important governmental formalities negatively influencing international tourism. Image: World Economic Forum This is not just about non-Africans visiting our continent. As the new generation of middle class is ushered into Africa, spending on holidays and shopping is increasing, but African countries may not fully benefit. Many of my friends opt to travel to Europe for holidays and shopping as opposed to other African countries. They cite as major reasons the ease of travelling in the Schengen area, which allows a visitor access to 26 countries within Europe, with one visa. Combined with the cost-effective and easy interconnectivity through rail, air and road transport, it is no surprise that Europe receives the highest number of tourists globally. Businesses beyond tourism are affected, too. As an entrepreneur, when choosing a new country to venture into, I consider the openness and ease of doing business, with free movement of labor, goods and services as key indicators. I’m not alone. The ongoing integration in the East African community has seen many businesses that were initially based in one country expand into the others. For instance, a number of Kenyan based banks have expanded into Rwanda, Uganda and South Sudan because of the improved ease of doing business within the region. Easier movement could help unemployment. European or Chinese ‘expatriates’ are doing jobs that could be done by highly skilled Africans. According to the paper Economics and Emigration: Trillion-Dollar Bills on the Sidewalk? open borders could lead to a one-time boost in world gross domestic product by about 50-150%. Hence, African countries should strive to make the dreams of the founders of the then Organization of African unity (OAU) true by allowing Africans to move easily and encourage intra Africa trade and investments. Easier movement could also help the unemployment rates. I have often found European or Chinese ‘expatriates’ doing jobs that could be done by highly skilled Africans, some of whom lack opportunities in their home countries, if only they could more easily move between countries for work. Movement of people can also be a driver of technological change and a fresh source of entrepreneurs. Much innovation comes from the work of teams of people who have different perspectives and experiences. This can also make countries within Africa to be more attractive to foreign direct investment. While some have argued that strict travel regulations, including visa requirements, are necessary for security purposes, there has been no direct link showing how free movement of people has perpetuated terrorism. President Paul Kagame of Rwanda has been on the forefront saying that a few bad elements should not be used to restrict millions of good citizens who want to travel for leisure or business. Political executive editor of the Telegraph James Kirkup recently arguedtoo that “Simply, all the border checks in the world will not keep us safe. Passport controls can’t stop the spread of ideas, and it is ideas, not people, that are the essence of the terrorism that has just killed so many in Paris and Beirut and Baghdad.” I agree. Ultimately, there are many more reasons to remove visa restrictions for Africans traveling in Africa than keeping them. I hope that by 2018, that truly is a reality. |
If you have or have had a problem with cockroaches in your home, it’s likely that your first step (after squashing the few visible ones with a slipper or rolled up newspaper of course) was to search the Internet for the best ways to remove cockroaches from your house. You would then have been presented with information, a LOT of information, actually ranging from conventional things you have definitely heard of, such as the use of insecticidal baits and ‘roach motels’ to unconventional ‘natural’ methods such as cucumbers and lemons that may have left you scratching your head in puzzlement. With such a wide variety of methods to choose from, which actually get the job done? Sure, no one actually LIKES the idea of spraying their home full of insecticidal chemicals, which explains the popularity of all these natural methods, but the question is: do they actually work? In this article we break down some of the most popular roach control methods, and explain whether you should actually consider them or whether they are nothing but a waste of your time. Citrus and Cucumbers If you’ve never heard of this one, the idea is this: roaches (as well as other pests such as ants and fleas) are apparently so repelled by citrus and cucumbers that these items form an effective ‘natural barrier’ to prevent their entry into your home. Suggestions for using these methods include mixing citrus essential oils or squeezing some lemons into your mop bucket, ensuring that your floor is now a natural insect repellent, to placing cucumber and lemon slices at common roach entry points. Conclusion: Let’s just end it right here. Don’t even bother with this one; you’re literally just throwing food away. Use cucumbers and lemons for what they were really made for: in your cooking. Diatomaceous Earth Despite its ‘chemical’ sounding name, diatomaceous earth is actually an all-natural compound, being the fossilized remains of a prehistoric single-celled creature known as diatoms. These fossilized cells are silicates and they kill roaches and other insects usually within 48 hours of contact by cutting their waxy exoskeletons and draining their oils and lipids. Basically they’re little blades of death to insects. To use them, sprinkle the earth in a fine layer (and we mean fine layer!) in areas where the roaches travel. Conclusion: Probably the only ‘natural’ method that we endorse. Nevertheless, note that diatomaceous earth can only kill roaches it comes into contact with, unlike poisons, meaning that it may take a significant amount of time to see an appreciable reduction in the roach population. We do however recommend it for outdoor use, especially if you have pets running around. Boric Acid Ooooh, acid, scary! Fear not, boric acid is actually quite harmless to humans (it’s even used in eye medication for God’s sake!) but lethal to insects, disrupting their metabolic system resulting in death within 2 to 5 days. You should use it in a similar manner to diatomaceous earth, however it is best used indoors and should be kept away from plants (unless you like brown and wilted ones), food preparation surfaces (duh!) and areas where small children and animals could potentially access it (also duh!). Conclusion: Boric acid is the least toxic among all the pesticide formulations and thus is a great option for those who are worried about using the stronger formulations. We would also like to emphasize that in the case of roaches, poisons are the MOST effective way of reducing their population as roaches have a tendency to eat both other dead roaches, as well as the feces of other roaches, both of which can be poison transmission vectors. This means that for every one poisoned roach, it could potentially lead to 3 or 4 dead roaches. An awesome multiplier effect! Insecticides / Pesticides Here are some of the active ingredients you should keep a look out for in the labels: abermectin, hydramethylnon, fipronil, pyrethrin. These are the most common pesticides available, easily found and bought commercially and often packaged together with various roach baits and traps. When using these pesticides please be aware that they also come with the highest level of risk (while the absolute level of risk is very low, relatively speaking this is the riskiest option), so READ THE LABELS CAREFULLY. For instance some pesticides (such as pyrethrin) can be quite hazardous to cats. Conclusion: If you have a severe roach issue, follow this to get rid of roaches. Always make sure to read package directions carefully. We also recommend the newer pesticide formulations such as fipronil and recommend avoiding pyrethroids, which are the oldest and most common form as studies have shown that some roaches have already developed significant resistance. If you find a certain pesticide is not effective, you should also switch it up for a different active ingredient as insects can develop localized resistance in a surprisingly short amount of time. |
IBM has launched the public beta of Watson Analytics, its set of cloud-based predictive and analytics tools. The move to public beta for Watson Analytics on Thursday follows its private beta launch this September. IBM said at the time of the beta release the service will be made available under a freemium model through iOS, Android mobile devices and the web. Watson Analytics is a cognitive service that's meant to bear some of the load executives face when preparing data, while making it easier to run predictive analyses and use "visual storytelling", such as using graphs, maps and infographics to illustrate a point. Watson Analytics is one piece of IBM's $1bn gamble that it can commercialise Watson. The company claims it has 22,000 registrations for Watson Analytics since launching in September. Users of Watson Analytics feed in their own raw data, say, in the form of a spreadsheet, which the service then crunches with its own statistical analysis to highlight associations between different variables. It saves execs from needing to know how to write their own scripts or understand statistics in order to derive meaning from their data. Read this IBM, Apple forge enterprise app pact: Watson, meet iPad Apple gets a big leg up in the enterprise courtesy of IBM's vast army. IBM gets to show off its analytics and industry specific apps running exclusively on iOS. Read More Currently, the beta lets users look at visualisations of their data to find patterns and relationships, and experiment with its Watson's predictive capabilities. Soon, it will let users create their own dashboards and infographics. Watson Analytics will also eventually let users connect directly to other data sources such as Salesforce, Google Docs, Oracle, Box, and IBM's own services like Cognos and SPSS. The new public beta follows a new alliance between IBM and Twitter that includes letting users integrate Twitter data into Watson Analytics. Watson Analytics runs on IBM's SoftLayer cloud infrastructure and is available through its own IBM cloud marketplace. IBM is yet to reveal its packages beyond premium but that may become clearer once it begins enabling connectors to third-party systems. Read more on this story |
We don’t fully know whether smoking weed in moderation will hurt anyone. But prohibiting it has done more harm than good. A great number of libertarians are celebrating the end of the war on drugs too early. In fact, they have been doing so since 2012. That fall, Washington state and Colorado made politics briefly matter when their citizens voted yes on legalized recreational marijuana. That bizarre step was the first one in reversing a 40-year—or century-old, depending on definitions—policy that has spawned violence, broken families, and a shredded Fourth Amendment. But the war on drugs isn’t over. We’ve barely begun discussing the potential legalization of substances other than marijuana. Stephen Colbert interviewed Ohio Gov. John Kasich recently in his capacity as new host of “The Late Show.” Colbert discussed the now-failed (and controversial, even among legalization advocates) recreational marijuana bill lawmakers in Kasich’s state voted on. In the interview, Colbert made some salient points about the nastiness of the war on drugs and the relative mildness of marijuana. Then he and Kasich agreed that nobody was considering anything as wacky as legalizing heroin. The war on drugs is hanging on hard. We haven’t begun to consider abolishing the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), legalizing all drugs for adults, and concentrating on real crime. So what, in his Federalist piece, is Patrick Fletchall complaining about? Basically, weed is bad for people, so it’s bad that Oregon legalized it, but it’s good because someday Fletchall’s brand new son (congrats!) will be a better employee by comparison. That’s all. A Brief Libertarian Card-Check I try to check my own tendencies to play the game of who is a true libertarian (perhaps it’s mandatory for that political philosophy, but nobody’s perfect). However, Fletchall makes this impulse impossible. When writing about his boy, Fletchall writes that someday they’ll have a chat about “whether something is morally right just because it’s legal.” Legality and morality are often miles apart. That’s an important point too often brushed over by people who teach their kids that one is the same as the other. Legality and morality are often miles apart, after all. More promisingly still, Fletchall also writes “As a libertarian, I’m not a fan of government dictating the personal choices in my life. Most of the time, I just want them to keep me safe, pave my roads, and leave me alone.” Fantastic. Then in the next breath, this self-proclaimed libertarian writes that he was “disappointed” about the recent weed legalization in Oregon. What Fletchall means, unfortunately, is that he’s a libertarian in theory and in no way in practice. He’d like to think of himself as one, but he isn’t. The War on Drugs Isn’t Just about Drugs The war on drugs was the worst domestic policy decision since Jim Crow. Liberals are correct that it also had a racist origin, but it expanded beyond that into a mechanism for fueling militarized, paranoid police. The principles of prohibition’s failures have reached Washington state, Colorado, and Oregon. Twenty-three states and Washington DC have legalized medical marijuana. We do, however, still have DEA. We have a DEA head who says medical marijuana is a fraud. The war on drugs was the worst domestic policy decision since Jim Crow. The Fourth Amendment’s current status is bruised and battered, and the drug war has a great deal to do with that. Exigent circumstances make it easier for cops to quickly break down a door. Civil asset forfeiture makes policing profitable. Hovering 300 feet over a property in a helicopter is legal, according to the Supreme Court. Even post-PATRIOT Act, supposed terrorism powers such as sneak and peek warrants—where the object of investigation doesn’t know he is being targeted—end up being used for drug investigations. We also have parallel construction where a National Security Agency investigation leads to potential drug crime, so the DEA is tipped off, with defendants never knowing the source of the case against them. AT&T and the DEA stored phone numbers for decades. The war on drugs has leaked into Afghanistan and permeated Latin America, where DEA agents sometimes seemingly act as commando squads. In the 40-odd years since Richard Nixon first uttered the phrase “war on drugs,” it has cost more than $1 trillion. Americans have died because of the war on drugs, more of them than anybody has bothered to count. The scores of thousands of Mexicans who died in that nation’s particularly literal drug war also have American prohibition to blame in part for fueling cartel’s profits. Ill Effects Aren’t a Sure Thing But why bother with the trail of casualties when it’s easier to be snarky? Or mention the myriad studies that suggest weed has some health benefits after all? There is a potential correlation between weed and smaller waist size, and weed and shrunken tumors. Marijuana appears to definitely help with seizures. It is, however, difficult to be certain about marijuana’s precise health benefits, in part due to the decades of restrictions on studies put into place by the federal government. Myriad studies suggest weed has some health benefits. Fletchall is dead wrong that weed is worse than alcohol. Again, you cannot overdose on marijuana. If you ingest too much of it, you’re in for an unpleasant 45 minutes, perhaps, and then you’re likely to calm down. Of course people should use caution when ingesting this substance, or any, especially for the first time. And yes, teenage brains are particularly malleable. Drug use is more dangerous for them, and should be discouraged by their parents. But, realistically, trying marijuana or alcohol at that age is still not a sign that a teen is one step away from sitting homeless in the gutter. People are, thankfully, much more resilient than that. Ignoring Markets Doesn’t End Them Fletchall seems happy, though. After expressing his disappointment in Oregon voters, he is now okay seeing these horrible pot heads lining up in front of newly-legal dispensaries, because his son will someday have a better chance at a good job. But alcohol can and does ruin someone’s son’s chances at a good job, too, and alcohol prohibition was also a disaster. Millions of people enjoy alcohol in moderation, even if hundreds of years ago people swooned in outrage over its ruinous powers. So why is weed such a horror? Alcohol can and does ruin someone’s son’s chances at a good job, too, and alcohol prohibition was also a disaster. Why does Fletchall think this is the end times because in one state one leg of the exceedingly unlibertarian drug war has ended? Why does he believe he’s a libertarian when he mourns this progress? Is his strange condescension towards not just his infant son (who will seemingly need empty-headed morons to compete against in order to rise in the working world), but every one of the 100 million Americans who has smoked marijuana something he confuses for insight? Would just a list of the successful Americans who have smoked pot in their lives have been a better answer to Fletchall’s piece? His jovial-fearmongering-cynical attitude is bizarre. Regardless of his concern over a world gone idiocracy thanks to potheads, the drug war is ending. It is ending at a painfully slow pace and its legacy cannot be erased. Perhaps there will be a slight upswing in marijuana use as this horrible policy crumbles, perhaps not. If so, it will be undramatic. After all, the best lesson of the drug war continues to be how little effect the law had on the habits of people who always knew it was their choice what to put in their bodies, and that markets go on no matter how confidently the men and women in Washington DC believe they can stamp them out. |
It's been a busy fortnight. First the publication of two major peer-reviewed research papers about magic mushrooms that attracted worldwide publicity. Then off to Prague for an international drugs policy symposium. And just last week, news of a large grant for our next collaborative study with Imperial College. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I established the Beckley Foundation some 14 years ago as a think tank on drugs policy. It was apparent even then that the "war on drugs" had failed. A 1997 report by the United Nations Drugs Control Programme put the value of the global trade in illicit drugs at around $400bn. Recent UN figures show that global production of opium (used mostly to make heroin) rose by almost 80% between 1998 and 2009. The market in illicit drugs is the third largest market in the world, after food and oil. The health statistics are equally grim. In some countries – including some within the EU – more than three-quarters of intravenous drug users are infected with hepatitis C. Worldwide, there are several million non-fatal drug overdoses each year. Drug wars themselves also claim a dreadful toll: more than 47,000 deaths in the past five years for Mexico alone, according to the latest estimates. However, while it is clear that existing policies are crying out for reform, what is less clear is how to foster the required political will. The Beckley Foundation is the only organisation to combine rigorous scientific research with detailed policy analysis in an attempt to address that question. Our premise is simple: drugs policies should focus on health, harm reduction and cost-effectiveness, and should be based on the best available scientific evidence. That means trying out and evaluating a variety of policy ideas, as well as researching the physical effects of drugs. Drugs policies around the world are based on three UN conventions, dating from 1961, 1971 and 1988. The conventions allow limited production and possession of drugs, but only for scientific and therapeutic use. In particular, parties to the 1988 Convention (which include the vast majority of UN member states) are obliged to criminalise the production, distribution, sale, purchase and possession of listed drugs other than for approved scientific and medical purposes. The result is the criminalisation of millions of people guilty of nothing other than personal drug use. It is important to realise that an illegal market is a completely unregulated market. The evidence indicates that decriminalising personal possession and use saves valuable police time and criminal justice resources, and does not increase the prevalence of drug use. Moreover, because users are no longer regarded as criminals, their access to education and treatment is improved and the harm caused by problem drug use is reduced. That is why, together with the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Drug Policy Reform, we organised a meeting of government leaders, policy makers and experts at the House of Lords in November at which we launched a Global Initiative for Drug Policy Reform. At that meeting, we presented a report commissioned by the Beckley Foundation into how the UN conventions could be amended to allow countries more freedom to create national policies based on their individual needs. We heard fascinating evidence from the Czech Republic, Portugal and elsewhere about their experiences of moving – within the "wiggle room" permitted by the UN conventions – towards policies based on public health, education and harm reduction rather than criminal enforcement. At the symposium in Prague last week, a group of international experts again discussed possible reform mechanisms: partial decriminalisation under the existing conventions, and explicit decriminalisation or strict government regulation under amended conventions. We also considered problems caused by the current legal regime, such as the difficulty Bolivia faces in trying to get an exemption to permit the millennia-old indigenous tradition of chewing coca leaves. The Beckley Foundation's focus on health-oriented policies demands a research programme to gather relevant evidence. That evidence also affords profound insights into how the brain works and potential therapeutic uses of psychoactive drugs. Which brings me back to those recent scientific papers, products of a collaboration between the Beckley Foundation and Professor David Nutt's department at Imperial College London. Using the latest functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques, the team looked at the brains of subjects as they received an intravenous dose of psilocybin, a psychedelic drug found in magic mushrooms. The papers were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and the British Journal of Psychiatry. Many users of psychedelics report the experience as a consciousness-expanding one, and conventional wisdom suggests that such drugs should increase brain activity and blood flow to the brain. Instead, the research in PNAS showed that psilocybin decreased blood flow to specific regions of the brain that act as "connector hubs", where information converges and from where it is disseminated. In the paper, we suggest that these hubs normally facilitate efficient communication between brain regions by filtering out the majority of input in order to avoid over-stimulation and confusion. But the hubs also constrain brain activity by forcing traffic to use a limited number of well-worn routes. Psilocybin appears to lift some of these constraints, allowing a freer and more fluid state of consciousness. In the second study, subjects were given cues to recall positive events in their lives. With psilocybin, their memories were extremely vivid, almost as if they were reliving the events rather than just imagining them. The findings suggest potential uses for psilocybin in the treatment of depression, a condition characterised by rigidly pessimistic thinking patterns. These fixated patterns are associated with overactivity in the medial prefrontal cortex – one of the same connector hubs deactivated by psilocybin. Psilocybin may also be a useful adjunct to psychotherapy, helping patients who are stuck in negative thought patterns to access distant memories and work through them. The newly published results are exciting enough to have generated funding for a major study into psilocybin and depression, which will begin shortly. Watch this space. Amanda Feilding is director of the Beckley Foundation, a think tank working for health-oriented drug policies based on scientific research |
Through widespread industrial action, Australian union CFMEU is pushing back against mining giant Glencore’s increasing use of contract labour and refusal to negotiate fair enterprise agreements at multiple sites across Australia. At rallies around the country earlier this week, union members showed their resolve to fight against Glencore’s attack on working conditions, job security and local communities. On 11 July, a support rally for workers at Glencore’s Oaky North mine was held in the Central Queensland town of Tieri. The mineworkers have been on strike since May, when negotiations for a fair agreement broke down after two years. The rally was attended by hundreds of locals, as well as supporters who flew in to show solidarity with the Oaky North workers. Tony Maher, CFMEU National President, said: “Glencore wants to impose a whole raft of conditions on these workers that would reduce their pay, provide less security and increase their costs. “This is just not on. These workers have been fighting this unfair agreement for two months and now it’s time for the rest of the country to join with them in taking a stand.“ Australian Council of Trade Unions Secretary Sally McManus attended the rally, calling the striking workers “an inspiration to the country, leading the fight against our broken industrial system and against corporate greed”. CFMEU Queensland District President Stephen Smyth expressed the significance of the dispute: “It’s not just a fight for Tieri but a fight for all workers across the country, where we are all fighting to fix a broken system that is failing to deliver fairness to workers. It’s the fight of our lives, one we will win by acting collectively.” The proposed workplace agreement for Oaky North put forward by Glencore would: Limit workers’ access to workplace representation Allow them to unilaterally change rosters against the wishes of employees Pay workers based on profit, not hours and work Increase the cost of company’s accommodation for workers Limit the ability of employees to have some matters determined by arbitration A mass meeting at Singleton in the New South Wales Hunter Valley on 10 July, saw more than 1,000 miners from seven Glencore operations in the area, resolved to continue a co-ordinated campaign of stoppages. Addressing the crowds, CFMEU Northern District President Peter Jordan, recalled the words of a member who talked about this fight not only being about current members, but about future ones. “It’s about us standing up and making a principled fight now, not leaving it until later. Let’s take on Glencore and protect local jobs and the local economy.” The use of contract labour, around 40 per cent according to the CFMEU, and inadequate redundancy and pay increases are central to the resolution of the dispute. CFMEU National Secretary Michael O’Connor, told the meeting that companies like Glencore have been attacking workers’ rights for decades: “… slowly chipping away at a system we believed protected us. So what we are seeing is a massive mobilization of workers across the country to restore fairness to the industrial system.” General Secretary of IndustriALL Global Union, Valter Sanches, condemns Glencore’s behaviour: “We are appalled at Glencore’s unreasonable approach, devoid of any good-faith intentions in collective bargaining and undermining sound industrial relations. We call on Glencore to return the negotiating table and negotiate in good faith.” |
By MC, Globetrotting in Europe: On Friday, there came the announcement that two Greek banks filed requests with the Bank of Greece for hard cash through the Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) system. The ECB and associated national banks have so far been cryptic about what ELA truly is. But from what I have been able to piece together, it’s an emergency scheme aimed at obtaining immediate cash reserves. Not credit, but cash. Banks can obtain credit at ridiculously low interest rates (0.05%) straight from the ECB by presenting government bonds as collateral, while the ELA system allows for a much wider range of collaterals but carries a “punitive” 1.55% interest rate. Apart from collaterals, the difference seems to be that ELA allows the bank to access funds far faster than by using conventional channels. On Saturday, it was revealed that all four Greek “systemic” banks have filed ELA requests. “Systemic” is another word for “the country’s largest banks.” What’s happening is easy to imagine: faced with the uncertainty of an election that’s been drummed up to as the most formidable threat to Europe since the Red Army stood ready to pour through the Fulda Gap at a moment’s notice, Greek citizens are making a run to the banks. Why are they so scared? Personally, I don’t believe that many people buy into a return to the drachma. What most fear, and rightly so, are capital controls. Greeks remember very well what happened in Cyprus in 2013, when local banks were given a big thumbs-up from Europe to help themselves to their depositors’ accounts. Cyprus and Greece are very closely tied, and many Greeks consider the island a “sister-nation.” What little trust remained in banks in Greece died that day. People have been nervously looking for signs something similar may happen again in their home country. And they resolved to act at the first sign of danger: banks cannot confiscate money you have under your mattress. Cash can be hidden away. There are also rumors afoot that negotiations between the Troika and the new Greek government that will emerge from the elections may stretch for six months or more. Six months is an awfully long time, and many fear that capital controls may come into being to block capital flight from Greece during that long time. Finally, there’s a lesson from Italy: to meet goals set by the Schengen Treaty, that country’s government had absolutely no qualms raiding deposits to get a one-time fiscal shot in the arm. It can happen again: populist leaders all over Europe have been making vague but threatening references at similar moves for over a year now. In short the Greek people are scared about the future and are scrambling for the exit door. It didn’t help one tiny bit that powerful EU officials have been acting like mafia dons, threatening exactly what people have been fearing all along. I mean no disrespect to the Greek people, who have been suffering, and will continue suffering whatever the outcome, from the political delusion of maintaining the illusion of an eternal European Union even in face of disaster – but I personally believe they have been recruited as unwilling actors in a theatrical piece. As Wolf Richter reported, the ECB is a prisoner of financial markets. By pledging to do “whatever it takes,” Mario Draghi effectively handed the keys to the monetary arsenal of mass destruction over to speculators and politicians. Both expect nothing less than full cooperation from the ECB in propping up financial bubbles, especially the most egregious of them all: sovereign debt. And they expect nothing less than “whatever it takes.” The ECB has been attempting to walk the tightrope: on one side, they are appeasing German, Dutch, and other North European voters by promising not to include Greek bonds in the long-announced QE scheme. On the other, the panic over the Swiss National Bank being the first casualty in the currency war is forcing their hand to deliver on the promise of “whatever it takes.” How will things go down? As usual, I make no claims to future knowledge, but I always keep Hemingway’s quote from The Sun Also Rises in mind: “How did you go bankrupt? Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.” By MC. Now even a French Megabank admits it: the ECB is “a prisoner of financial markets’ expectations.” Read… Without QE, “Eurozone Financial Markets Would Collapse” Enjoy reading WOLF STREET and want to support it? Using ad blockers – I totally get why – but want to support the site? You can donate “beer money.” I appreciate it immensely. Click on the beer mug to find out how: Would you like to be notified via email when WOLF STREET publishes a new article? Sign up here. |
After staying up until 1:30am, getting five hours of sleep, and being treated to a delicious Dutch taco filled with chunky peanut butter and raspberry jam from Flavour Spot this morning, I knocked the first exam out of the park. I definitely attribute the win to the waffle. It certainly wasn’t the mediocre falafel sandwich I had at lunch. So this cake I mentioned yesterday, it came from the beautiful Brown Eyed Baker [another Michelle!]. I’m convinced everything she makes is amazing. I thought this cake would be the perfect accompaniment to a BBQ [and it was]. I brought the real deal in terms of ice cream to garnish it, but I didn’t have any of that–just the moist, delectable cake. It didn’t taste overly rootbeer-y, but it might have been because I used a generic brand and didn’t remember to buy enough for the frosting. I made regular fudge frosting. It wasn’t a bummer. The cake was seriously some of the most moist and fudge-y I’ve had in awhile. We ended up leaving the rest of it at our friend’s house. I would have been compelled to eat the rest of it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I also went rogue and used a regular baking pan, not a bundt cake. Rebel! The only thing I can say is this clumped hardcore for me. I think next time I would make sure to allow the chocolate mixture to cool longer. I think between that, the egg, and the folding of the dry mixture, it left clumps of perfectly white flour that baked to the top of the cake. I might have sat with a toothpick picking them out before frosting the cake [did]. Inspiration: Brown Eyed Baker Ingredients Cake 2 cups of root beer [use good stuff–no diet!] 1 cup cocoa powder 1/2 cup Earth Balance, cut into small pieces 1 1/4 cups sugar 1/2 cup brown sugar 2 cups all-purpose flour 1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda 1 teaspoon salt 2 eggs Fudge Frosting 2 oz dark chocolate, melted 1/2 cup Earth Balance, softened 1 teaspoon salt 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar Preparation Preheat oven to 325º. Spray/grease a 13×9″ baking pan In a saucepan on medium heat, stir together the root beer, butter, and cocoa powder until the butter is melted. Whisk in the sugars and stir until dissolved. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Don’t be impatient like me. In another bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Lightly beat the eggs in a separate bowl. Once the root beer mixture has cooled, whisk in the eggs until combined. Fold in the flour. Don’t over mix. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 35-40 minutes. A toothpick should come clean when the cake is done. Allow to cool completely before frosting. Fudge Frosting Put all of the ingredients in a stand mixer and go to town. Try not to eat it all before frosting. That stuff is good. Advertisements |
He got sozzled at the party last night. reportedly, the legendary actor John Barrymore was sozzled when he gave his most memorable performances Recent Examples on the Web Fancy restaurants might lay on luxury AVs to ferry sozzled customers home, as part of the cost of a meal. The Economist, "A different worldSelf-driving cars will profoundly change the way people live," 1 Mar. 2018 But these kinds of remarks don’t do much for readers who might be more interested in a scene of Ray at that Atlanta boardinghouse, with its sozzled proprietor, than a description of the author discovering this information. Jacob Silverman, New Republic, "Can A Historical Novel Be Too Deeply Researched?," 16 Aug. 2017 Three beautiful, sozzled men with flowers in their turbans walked with us for about half an hour, before our paths diverged. Parul Seghal, The Atlantic, "Arundhati Roy’s Fascinating Mess," 17 June 2017 Neither does his awkward incursion into the dismal marriage of his lover (Katharina Schüttler) and her sozzled husband. Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times, "Review: From Wooing Women to Plotting Hitler’s Murder in ‘13 Minutes’," 29 June 2017 These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'sozzled.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback. |
Nairobi - Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta on Wednesday urged striking medical workers to return to the job, saying nearly 20 people have died three days into the strike because of lack of care. All doctors and nurses from public hospitals across the country have gone on strike, leading to a crisis in the health sector. "Let us be human and be mindful of the lives of the patients. I am confident that we will find a solution to the problem," Kenyatta said. But even as the president spoke, the chairman of the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union, Samuel Oroko, stormed out of a meeting with health ministry officials saying the talks had collapsed after union officials learned that the government was seeking court orders to arrest them. "We shall not negotiate until the government withdraws any court issues in good faith," Oroko said. The majority of people in this East African country cannot afford private health care, and the strike has put emergency cases at higher risk of death. On first day of the strike, 87 patients escaped from the country's sole psychiatric hospital. Doctors and nurses have complained for a decade about low pay, and thousands have taken jobs abroad. Kenyans often criticize politicians for seeking treatment abroad, saying they show no faith in the health care system at home. On social media, health care workers and the public have accused the government of being slow to raise salaries while being quick to pay inflated contracts from suspect companies doing business with the health ministry, which is being investigated for corruption. |
Image copyright PAcemaker Image caption Paul Quinn was lured to farm buildings in County Monaghan and beaten to death The Northern Ireland Assembly has called on republicans to provide more information to the police about the murder of Paul Quinn seven years ago. A motion, proposed by the SDLP, was passed by 64 votes to 24 votes. It condemned Sinn Féin leaders for what it called "false accusations against Paul Quinn" and demanded an apology from the party to the Quinn family. Mr Quinn, from Cullyhanna, County Armagh, was 21 when he was beaten to death. His family blames IRA members. The family said Mr Quinn had been involved in a dispute with individual members of the IRA. He was found beaten at farm buildings in Tullycoora, near Castleblaney, County Monaghan, in the Republic of Ireland, in October 2007. He died in hospital several weeks later. Sinn Féin has denied republican involvement in Mr Quinn's death. His mother Briege said she hoped the fact that republicans have reportedly passed information to the police service in the Republic of Ireland (An Garda Siochana) about suspected sex abusers would set a precedent in relation to her son's case. She called on those with information about her son's murder to visit their local garda station. SDLP assembly member Dominic Bradley said he had tabled the motion in the assembly to support the Quinn family in their search for answers. "I felt very strongly that it was important to keep the very brutal murder of Paul Quinn high on the public agenda, as it is still a live and unsolved case," he said. Speaking at Stormont, Mr Quinn's mother was asked if she knew who had murdered her son. "I've a good idea," she said. No-one has been convicted of killing him. She added: "I would ask Sinn Féin to go to the garda stations in Carrickmacross and Castleblaney where this investigation is taking place and give the names of those that murdered my son." Mr Bradley said his motion noted that a paramilitary activity watchdog, the Independent Monitoring Commission, had stated "that current and former members of the Provisional IRA were responsible for Paul's murder". |
So-called pro-life Democrats are learning the hard way that when anti-choice activists say they're against "abortion," their using code for a whole lot of things beyond the right to terminate a pregnancy. The number one mistake anyone can make when dealing with anti-choice activists is to take them at their word. Believing that they’re in this strictly because abortion itself offends them, and seeking ways to reduce access to abortion? Reproductive rights activists would be the first in line to tell you that’s never going to work. And if you stick around and listen to reproductive rights activists dispensing advice, the second thing we’d tell you is that people who enjoy going to clinics to yell at patients live for opportunities to harass people, and you’d be much better off avoiding them in the first place. If anti-abortion House Democrats had actually listened to this advice, they wouldn’t be facing the situation they’re in now. Politico is reporting that a cadre of anti-choice groups, led by the misnamed Susan B. Anthony List, have taken to dumping millions of dollars into advertisements and a bus tour opposing anti-choice House Democrats who voted for health care reform after restrictions were attached that dramatically reduced women’s access to insurance coverage for abortion. Naturally, said Democrats are feeling betrayed. Politico quoted Rep. Kathy Delkamper, an anti-abortion Democrat who voted for the health care reform bill: “It’s been extremely frustrating at times,” Dahlkemper told POLITICO. “All along, I have donated. I have marched. I have been an unmarried pregnant woman who chose life. I have lived this. Now I’m 52, and in the last six months, all of a sudden, people are questioning who I am.” I imagine that it’s doubly frustrating because the anti-abortion Democrats gave the anti-choice movement what they said they wanted: a federal rule that makes it impossible for a single red cent of taxpayer money to go towards elective abortion. They even did them one better, by getting an executive order that will make it likely that insurance companies that currently offer abortion coverage will simply drop it. They gave the anti-choice movement what they said they wanted, and the anti-choice movement is still crying foul! It turned out they were always against the health care reform bill in its entirety, and abortion was simply a cover story to give moral weight to their opposition to universal health care. And, as Politico demonstrated, folks like Charmaine Yoest have no problem lying about abortion and health care reform, if it suits their goal of resisting health care reform: Get the facts, direct to your inbox. Subscribe to our daily or weekly digest. SUBSCRIBE “That being said, the fact that [the] Democratic Party advanced the biggest expansion of abortion with health care is something they have to answer for.” How does drastically cutting off women’s access to insurance coverage for abortion constitute “the biggest expansion of abortion”? Answer: it doesn’t. But it’s politically useful to say so if you’re hijacking people’s anxieties about abortion to oppose health care reform. A cynic might suggest the anti-choice movement is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Republican party, but I would actually say that partisanship isn’t the issue in this case. What anti-abortion Democrats have failed to do is understand the cardinal rule when dealing with the anti-choice movement: It’s never about abortion. It’s about sex and it’s about reinforcing their belief about women’s roles. But it’s never really about abortion. Opposing abortion rights is simply their best weapon in achieving their larger goals. Health care reform may have reduced women’s access to abortion, but social conservatives still have reasons to believe that the new health care system will run against their goals of punishing women for sexual choices they don’t like and keeping women dependent on men. That the first concern—that expanded access to health care will allow women to have sex with fewer negative consequences—is somewhat true. On one hand, women won’t have insurance funding for abortion. But on the other hand, health care reform has the potential to greatly improve women’s access to contraception, STD testing and treatment, general gynecological care, and the HPV vaccine. (And the herpes vaccine, when it’s released.) So when you hear anti-choicers complain about “abortion” being covered, even though it’s not covered, it isn’t a leap to realize that by “abortion” they mean “prevention of cervical cancer and unintended pregnancy.” It’s just less politically popular to run to the press and complain that this health care reform bill will mean fewer deaths from cervical cancer. The second concern is a bit more of a logical leap, but nonetheless still an article of faith for social conservatives: that a social safety net undermines the patriarchy by making it easier for women to leave bad marriages. Phyllis Schlafly outlined this argument at a Michigan fundraiser, saying, “And this is because when you kick your husband out, you’ve got to have Big Brother Government to be your provider.” And there is some truth to this. When women don’t have to rely on their husbands for food, shelter, and health care, then those husbands lose a lot of leverage. But you can see why anti-choice groups realize that it’s a bad idea to argue in public that they oppose a bill that would allow an abused wife to walk away from her husband without losing her insurance. Thus, that gets swept into the catch-all scare term “abortion” as well. Anti-abortion Democrats made the mistake of thinking that anti-choice activists use the term “abortion” to mean “terminating a pregnancy”, and that mistake is coming back to haunt them. Hopefully, in the future, they will start to see that anti-choice groups use “abortion” as a catch-all term to condemn any choices women make that give them more power to control their own lives. And if you doubt that, I recommend reading this story about Senators Coburn and DeMint are blocking a women’s history museum because of “abortion.” The fact that there is nothing about abortion or reproductive rights in general is irrelevant to this argument. Under the new right wing definition of “abortion”, it’s millennia of male dominance that is being aborted, and it is this abortion more than any actual medical abortion that they object to. |
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