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ISLAMABAD: Washington welcomed General Raheel Sharif's statement on Thursday to not let Pakistan be used for terrorist activities against its neighbours. According to details, the United States welcomed the statement by General Raheel Sharif and expressed the hope that Pakistan would implement on the words of the general. Senior representatives of the White House said that General Raheel's statement was important and it remains to be seen how Pakistan would implement on his words. Senior representatives of the Obama administration said during a press briefing that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had stated the same words before that Pakistan would not let its land be used for terrorist activities against its neighbours. In response to a question, one senior representative stated that the presence of safe havens for terrorists in Pakistan was not a new thing. He however did say that during the past few years, Pakistan has acted against terrorist organisations and has also lost many lives in the process. He said there still was existence of terrorists groups in Pakistan and the United States has time and again raised this issue with Islamabad and expressed its reservations over the matter. The White House representative also said that Pakistan had guaranteed cooperation to the United States in carrying out activities against the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and the Haqqani network. He also acknowledged that Pakistan had also taken significant steps against the above stated organizations. He said that Pakistan needed to maintain the pressure on such groups since it was in its own security interest. The senior representative further stated that Pakistan needed to root out militancy by working closely with the United States. He further stated that the United States believed that Pakistan's support was vital to peacekeeping in Afghanistan. |
Rapper and all-around sports fan Drake revealed the cover for his next album, "Views from the 6," in a tweet on Sunday. To the city I love and the people in it...Thank you for everything #VIEWS pic.twitter.com/HEXHNwrWwd — Drizzy (@Drake) April 25, 2016 It didn't take long for sports teams to get in on mimicking the image of Drake atop the CN Tower, with Michigan football putting its own spin on it. Introducing: "Views from Ann Arbor." Yes, that's Jim Harbaugh atop the scoreboard at Michigan Stadium -- via the wonders of Photoshop. The Drake homage is perfect for a program that went 5-7 and finished fifth in its division a year before Harbaugh's arrival and is now No. 3 in the "Way-Too-Early Top 25" for 2016. It's almost as though the Wolverines started from the bottom, now they're here. |
A powerful truck bomb went off in Kabul early on Friday, killing eight people and injuring 400 others in the first major attack in the Afghan capital since the announcement of the death of Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar. No group claimed responsibility for the attack, which came as the Taliban stepped up their summer offensive despite a bitter power transition within the militant movement. The blast occurred in the Shah Shaheed residential area just after 1am and most of the casualties are believed to be civilians. Public health ministry spokesperson Wahidullah Mayar said eight people died and 400 civilians were injured. He said 27 women and 10 children were among the injured and the toll could rise. The massive blast rattled homes across the city, damaging buildings and shattering windows. Hospitals in Kabul were inundated with victims, Mayar said. Kabul police chief General Abdul Rahman Rahimi said officials were looking to recover anyone trapped under the debris of damaged concrete structures. "A truck packed with explosives was detonated in the crowded residential neighbourhood of Shah Shaheed (in east Kabul). Several houses in the area are badly damaged," he said. "The killed and wounded include women and children, and labourers of a nearby marble stone company are among the victims. The attack was intended to cause mass murder." It was not clear whether the real target was an Afghan National Army base close to Shah Shaheed. The Afghan security forces confirmed some personnel were injured but did not give details. Mayar said there were reports of blood shortages in hospitals and urgent appeals for donors were circulating on social media. The carnage came a day after Taliban insurgents killed nine people in multiple attacks on police targets in southern and eastern Afghanistan. The attacks highlight growing insecurity amid a faltering peace process with the Taliban as Afghan forces face their first summer fighting season without full Nato support. Watch: At least 8 dead, over 400 injured in Kabul blast Surging civilian casualties Civilian casualties in Afghanistan hit a record high in the first half of 2015, a UN report said on Wednesday, as Afghan forces struggle to contain the expanding conflict seven months after the Nato combat mission ended. The report said 1,592 civilians were killed, a 6% fall from last year, but the number of injured jumped 4% to 3,329. Overall, casualties reached their highest level since the UN began issuing its authoritative reports in 2009. The statistics are a grim indicator of the rising violence as the Taliban insurgency spreads north from its traditional southern and eastern strongholds, with Afghan forces increasingly battling the militants on their own. US-led Nato forces ended their combat mission in Afghanistan last December, but a 13,000-strong residual force remains for training and counter-terrorism operations. The Taliban face growing internal divisions after Mullah Akhtar Mansour was announced as the new head of the insurgent movement on Friday, following their confirmation of the death of Mullah Omar who led the militant movement for some 20 years. An increasingly bitter power struggle has broken out, casting a pall over a fragile peace process aimed at ending Afghanistan's long war. The Taliban distanced themselves from the second round of talks that were scheduled for last Friday but were cancelled after the announcement of Omar's death. The powerful army chief of Pakistan, the Taliban's historic sponsors, said this week that ongoing efforts at talks are the "only credible way" to achieve lasting peace in the region. First Published: Aug 07, 2015 07:19 IST |
You can look at AIDS and HIV statistics as numbers in a table, but that doesn't quite tell the story of how one of the deadliest diseases of our time spreads. Here in the United States, infection rates are intimately tied to race, education, geography, and more. So reveals a new interactive map from researchers at Emory University and the data-mappers MapLarge. Three years ago, they teamed up to create AIDSVu, an incredibly granular look at HIV and AIDS diagnoses, updated yearly based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and local health agencies. Today they released an even more detailed version, which gives a sense of HIV and AIDS infection rates in the U.S. (and the context behind them) better than digits possibly could. HIV and AIDS Rates AIDSvu The darker the colors you see here, the higher the rate of AIDS and HIV diagnoses in that county. The lightest tan color you see (in Northwest Montana, for example) on the maps indicate a rate between 0 and 40 per 100,000 people, while the deepest reds indicate a rate of 384 or more diagnoses per 100,000 people (parts of Florida and the South). The white areas contain rates not shown because the population is too small or the diagnosis rate too low to get accurate stats while still protecting privacy. The gray states, only North and South Dakota in this case, had rates so low and a population so sparse they held their data back entirely, says Patrick Sullivan, an Emory University epidemiologist who worked on gathering the data and organizing the maps. But the most revealing feature of the AIDSVu map is the option to do a side-by-side comparison of diagnosis rates with other statistics, like race, poverty, and education. The idea is to discover "what new kinds of data should we be putting up, how can we combine them, mash them up in ways that would be impactful," Sullivan says. Isolating the map for only African Americans is just one jarring view to come out of those side-by-side comparisons. There's a trend similar to the overall rates map, but the rates are even more sharply divided into certain regions of the country. HIV And AIDS Rates In Black Population AIDSvu One the most depressing national statistics is the rate of people with health insurance compared with HIV/ AIDS diagnoses. The map on the right shows the percentage of people with health insurance, by county. The darker the red, the higher the percentage of people with health insurance. You can see it's pretty close to an inversion of the diagnoses map--meaning the people most likely to face a diagnosis are often the ones left without health insurance. HIV And AIDS Rates v. Health Insurance Rates AIDSvu The map also lets you focus on individual cities. Here, for example, is New York City, which shows a dense rate of cases in Manhattan, lowering slightly into the outer boroughs. HIV And AIDS Rates In New York City AIDSvu Compare that to poverty rates in NYC, and you'll see some major overlap. HIV And AIDS Rates v. Poverty Rates In NYC AIDSvu Compare the diagnosis rates in Los Angeles to the the median income (the darker the green, the higher the income) and you see the same trend. HIV And AIDS Rates In The Southwest AIDSvu HIV And AIDS Rates v. Median Income In Los Angeles AIDSvu That's the case for most of the country: more urban, densely populated areas are generally more affected by HIV and AIDS. (The map doesn't offer reasons for this, but it's a confluence of factors, like access to testing and treatment, Sullivan says.) But in the South, the rates have reached out to rural areas as well. Head even closer to the equator, to the very tip of Florida, and the map actually falls short of visualizing the severity of the disease. The region is dark red, meaning it has a rate of 384 or more diagnoses per 100,000 people. But some counties here have reached a rate of considerably more than 1,000 diagnoses per 100,000 people. HIV and AIDS Rates In The South AIDSvu |
Preview | Recap | Notebook Warriors-Timberwolves Preview By JUSTIN EINHORN Posted Nov 05 2013 3:03PM After dealing this season's first Eastern Conference player of the week a rough night, the Golden State Warriors hope to saddle the West winner with another one. Kevin Love and the Minnesota Timberwolves try to bounce back from their first loss as they host the Warriors on Wednesday night in a matchup filled with sharpshooters. Each team is off to a 3-1 start and has two players averaging more than 21 points. Love tops that group with 26.5 per game but is coming off his worst performance, scoring 17 on 8-of-20 shooting and missing a 3-pointer with 1.9 seconds left as Minnesota fell 93-92 in Cleveland. "My team trusts me to make that shot and more often than not I believe that I'm going to make the shot," said Love, who missed all seven of his 3-point attempts. The 2012 3-point Shootout champion, who did grab 13 rebounds for his fourth straight double-double, made eight 3s during the Timberwolves' 3-0 start while averaging 29.7 points to win West player of the week honors. Golden State faced the East winner Monday at Philadelphia, limiting Michael Carter-Williams to 4 of 17 from the field and forcing him into six turnovers in an easy 110-90 victory. Stephen Curry matched Carter-Williams with 18 points but clearly outplayed the rookie en route to his second career triple-double - 18 points, 12 assists and 10 rebounds to go with five steals. "He's done everything right for me, put me in position to be a successful coach," Mark Jackson said of Curry, who has made a league-high 18 3-pointers in 36 attempts. Teammate Klay Thompson has hit 13 of 25 while averaging 22.5 points - Curry is at 22.0 - but it was offseason acquisition Andre Iguodala who had the highest-scoring game in the league Monday with 32. "We have a really great group and our offense flows really well," said Iguodala, who made a career-best seven 3s. "We share the ball. We have two of the best shooters in the league of all time, and it gives us really good spacing." Timberwolves newcomer Kevin Martin has benefited from Love and Ricky Rubio spacing the floor, averaging 21.3 points and going 12 for 20 from beyond the arc. Martin scored 23 on Monday, but Rubio was 0 for 7 from the field with five assists - he had at least 10 in each of the first three games. "It seemed like K-Mart was really the only guy that could find his legs from outside tonight but we'll get a chance to rest (Tuesday)," Love said. "I mention that short term memory – win or lose we just have to get back on that grind." Martin has gone 30 of 53 from 3-point range (56.7 percent) in his last nine matchups with the Warriors while averaging 25.3 points. However, this is his first time facing them since joining Minnesota, which has lost the last six meetings. David Lee has averaged 20.6 points and 10.8 boards during that win streak and helped Golden State outrebound the Timberwolves by an average of 12.0 in last season's four-game sweep. Love was limited to 15 points and 6-of-20 shooting in his only matchup with Golden State last season. In Minnesota's only two wins over the Warriors in the last 14 meetings, Love averaged 36.5 points and 19.5 rebounds. Copyright 2013 by STATS LLC and Associated Press. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Associated Press is strictly prohibited |
By all numbers and measures, the Detroit Lions are one of the worst franchises in the NFL. Despite being around since 1930, their lack of success has marked the team throughout the decades, as the Lions have been known mostly for their lousy rosters. Even as the franchise holds 4 NFL championships, they all came between 1935 and 1957, as Detroit followed that last title with only one playoff win over the next 55 years. In fact, the Lions are only one of four teams that haven't made a Super Bowl, while also owning the dubious distinction of being the only squad to go winless over a 16-game season. The Lions have an accumulated record of 517-620-32 over 85 regular seasons in the NFL (a .454 winning percentage), and had their last division title in 1993. Despite all this systematic failure, Detroit is the second franchise with a fierce tradition of hosting games yearly on Thanksgiving. The tradition dates all the way back to 1945, when Lions ownership decided to schedule a game on Thanksgiving as a gimmick to boost attendance. Fittingly, they lost 28-21 to the Cleveland Rams. Since the plan worked, the team went on to schedule Thanksgiving games from there on out, though it took them until 1950 to record their first win. Overall, the Lions have a 34-37-2 record on Thanksgiving, a .479 winning percentage that is well in line with their overall performance, but still quite below average for a home team. Even as the Lions have usually been relegated to the early game on Thanksgiving and don't get much respect from regular fans, they are still an important presence during this holiday. The most recent results have been even worse for the Lions, as they have gone a ghastly 1-9 over their past 10 Thanksgiving games, though their last win came last year with a 40-10 drubbing of the Packers (though it must be mentioned that Aaron Rodgers was out with an injury). What is astounding is that the Lions have barely been able to cover the spread twice in the last 10 seasons, as their average margin of defeat in their 9 losses was 19.4 points. In recent seasons, the advent of a competent QB in Matthew Stafford and the emergence of a more competitive team has given the Lions a new identity and turned them into semi-contenders, but their results in Thanksgiving games haven't been much better. Stafford has started 4 games in Thanksgiving, and has gone 1-3 straight up and 2-2 against the spread in the process. These games have averaged 50.7 points per contest, though only two of them went above the posted over/under. Again this year, the Lions will be relegated to the 12:30 ET slot, meaning that most people will either watch the game while dinner is being prepared or maybe even ignore the game altogether. However, the 2014 Lions have presented a better product and will enter this game knowing that a win is essential to keep their playoff hopes alive. Their rivals in turn, the Chicago Bears, have the fourth-most games played in Thanksgiving in history, with a 16-13-2 record accrued mostly against the Lions. From a betting standpoint, the Lions will be heavier favorites for a Thanksgiving games than they have been in more than a decade, with the books making them 7-point favorites and with an over/under set at 47 points. The Lions stand at a mediocre 5-6 record against the spread, and they haven't scored more than 24 points in any game since Week 1, and in fact the Lions have seen 9 of their 11 games go under the posted total. In a way, this week's contest may give the Lions the chance to write some new history in their troubled confluence with turkey and family gatherings. And if you plan to place some action on the game, remember that the Lions have always been hard to trust on Thanksgiving. |
CLEVELAND -- A discussion over the upcoming presidential election ended with a Cleveland man in the hospital with a gunshot wound and the gunman on the loose, police said. Paul Jones, Jr., 60, said he was at his neighborhood bar Winston's Place near E. 131st Street and Miles Avenue around 6 p.m. Monday, talking politics with a friend. "He butted in the conversation," Jones said, speaking from his hospital bed. "The conversation wasn't directed at him or to him." It escalated from there in a way no one ever imagined. The man got so upset, he went out to his car -- and came back with a gun, Jones said. Cleveland police said the man shot Jones in the thigh, then walked out -- effectively ending the debate. "I'm quite sure you have a lot of people having their own opinions. But that doesn't mean you should hurt somebody because you have your own opinion," Jones' mother, Latosca, said. Detectives are still searching for the shooter. He will be charged with felonious assault. Jones is expected to make a full recovery. |
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Protesters have been rallying outside the national police headquarters in Bangkok, as Jonathan Head reports Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has urged anti-government demonstrators to end street protests, after surviving a no-confidence vote in parliament. Speaking on television, Ms Yingluck said the rallies could hurt the economy and talks were needed. Her government is facing the biggest demonstrations to hit Thailand since the violence of 2010. UN chief Ban Ki-moon has voiced concern over the tensions and called for all sides to exercise restraint. Protests began in Bangkok on Sunday. Since then, demonstrators calling on the government to step down have marched on ministries and government bodies in an attempt to shut them down. Thailand's troubles Sept 2006: Army overthrows government of Thaksin Shinawatra, rewrites constitution Army overthrows government of Thaksin Shinawatra, rewrites constitution Dec 2007: Pro-Thaksin People Power Party wins most votes in election Pro-Thaksin People Power Party wins most votes in election Aug 2008: Mr Thaksin flees into self-imposed exile before end of corruption trial Mr Thaksin flees into self-imposed exile before end of corruption trial Dec 2008: Mass yellow-shirt protests paralyse Bangkok; Constitutional Court bans People Power Party; Abhisit Vejjajiva comes to power Mass yellow-shirt protests paralyse Bangkok; Constitutional Court bans People Power Party; Abhisit Vejjajiva comes to power Mar-May 2010: Thousands of pro-Thaksin red shirts occupy parts of Bangkok; eventually cleared by army; dozens killed Thousands of pro-Thaksin red shirts occupy parts of Bangkok; eventually cleared by army; dozens killed July 2011: Yingluck Shinawatra leads Pheu Thai party to general election win Yingluck Shinawatra leads Pheu Thai party to general election win Nov 2013: Anti-government protesters begin street demonstrations In the latest disruption, the protesters cut the electricity supply to the national police headquarters. The demonstrators, who are led by a former opposition party lawmaker, say Ms Yingluck's government is controlled by her brother - the ousted former leader Thaksin Shinawatra. Ms Yingluck has invoked special powers allowing curfews and road closures, and police have also ordered the arrest of the protest leader - but so far no move has been made to detain him. The protests have been largely peaceful and correspondents have described the mood of the rallies as friendly. On Wednesday, hundreds of protesters surrounded Thailand's top crime-fighting agency, forcing its evacuation. The UN leader Ban Ki-moon has urged all sides to "refrain from the use of violence and to show full respect for the rule of law and human rights". 'Show independence' The no-confidence motion was brought by the opposition Democrat Party, but Ms Yingluck's Pheu Thai party dominate the chamber and voted it down by 297 votes to 134 votes. Speaking on television shortly afterwards, Ms Yingluck said the two sides should negotiate. "The government doesn't want to enter into any political games because we believe it will cause the economy to deteriorate," she said. It is not clear what the protesters will do next, the BBC's Jonathan Head in Bangkok reports. So far they have succeeded only in disrupting the business of government for a few days, and the authorities have been careful not to risk violence by confronting them, our correspondent adds. Image caption Yingluck Shinawatra used her parliamentary majority to overcome the no-confidence vote against her Image caption The vote happened with protesters on the streets for a fifth day Image caption They have occupied some ministries in an attempt to shut the government down Earlier, Thai Education Minister Chaturon Chaiseng told our correspondent that the Pheu Thai party would have to find a balance and demonstrate it was not controlled by Mr Thaksin. "They will need to make it clear that whoever is going to be prime minister can show that they have independence and can make a decision on their own," he said. "The fact that some people do not believe in the government or the coalition parties anymore doesn't mean they can either overthrow the government or change the system," he added. Mr Chaturon said that he did not believe a coup was imminent, although he added that "in my experience a coup can take place any time". Mr Thaksin was ousted in a military coup in 2006 that left the country bitterly divided. In 2010, thousands of "red-shirt" Thaksin supporters occupied key parts of the capital. More than 90 people, mostly civilian protesters, died over the course of the two-month sit-in. Ms Yingluck and the Pheu Thai Party were subsequently voted into office, and Thailand's political landscape has remained largely stable since then. But a now-shelved political amnesty bill that critics said would have facilitated the return of Mr Thaksin without having to serve a jail term reignited simmering political tensions. |
Rady Ananda Activist Post In TransEvolution: The Coming Age of Human Deconstruction, Daniel Estulin crafts a cogent and frightening scenario for the end of Homo sapiens, as new technologies enable genetic changes, bionic replacements and artificial, nanosized neural connections. We’re not just evolving into a new species, we’re creating a new life form that marries materials science with biology. It’s exciting and horrifying, and its implications vast. “Transhumanism fills people’s hopes and minds with dreams of becoming superhuman,” he writes, “but the fact of the matter is that the true goal is the removal of that pesky, human free will itself.” For those that remain, that is. TransEvolution reveals the darkest of depopulation strategies. The pinnacle chapter focuses entirely on transhuman developments. Here, he highlights the potentials created by the Information Age, such as: Already over 100,000 people have cochlear implants, which have a direct neural connection. One-third of all US military missions will be unmanned by 2015. Cyborg soldiers and bipedal machine avatars will allow remote operation. Stealth bombers undetectable by radar, retina enhancement and self-replicating nanobots already exist. Author of Deconstructing Wikileaks, The Octopus Deception, and Shadow Masters, Estulin is an award-winning investigative journalist who came to global fame with his best-selling book, The True Story of the Bilderberg Group, which was translated into 53 languages. Known as Homo superior, H+ is being developed by “the convergence of the NBIC fields that can improve human performance: nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science,” from an earlier piece mentioning Ray Kurzweil. Estulin deems him the face of transhumanism. UK health authorities, as well as the US FDA have been discussing decriminalizing human germline modification for a couple years now, despite earlier catastrophes. The transhumanist movement is long underway with at least 30 genetically modified humans born by at least the year 2000, and likely others—not admitted—populate their ranks. Globalists plan to seize all of the planet’s assets, natural and otherwise. One of the ways used to achieve these aims is by collapsing the global economy, which he reminds us will not hurt the 1% (or the 30% supporting them). They’ll simply create a new monetary system that inures to their benefit. The fictional fiat monetary system we live under today is merely a Ponzi scheme for gambling debts now foisted on the world’s populace, as if “we” owe them for their failures. Its collapse is being engineered, Estulin warns, describing an economic worldview supported by the ideas raised in Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine, John Perkins’ Confessions of an Economic Hitman, and the films, The Corporation and The Idiot Cycle. The orchestrated color revolutions, austerity measures, IMF infrastructure loans, and agricultural systems that put independent farmers in debt are all part and parcel of their plans, he warns. Some of the book was dense enough to give the reader pause more than once, but given who listens to him, the material is worth digesting. In a front-page article, Wall Street Italy called Estulin “one of the few people who understands the current crisis.” He has given two press conferences at the European Parliament on the Bilderberg group and the international monetary crisis. In 2010, he met with Fidel Castro and gave a speech to the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Venezuelan armed forces. Global economic destruction supports a number of strategies to ensure the 1% seizes control of all remaining assets, natural and otherwise. Financial collapse cripples nation-states, an idea the merchant globalists deem “quaint” in light of modern economic realities where corporations write the rules via trade agreements that supersede national laws. Spending some time on trade agreements, Estulin shows how corporations rule today regardless of national borders, and how these trade agreements serve to weaken, sicken and starve humanity. From an earlier piece, the TransPacific Partnership, for instance, “forces trade in genetically modified organisms. It fast-tracks patent approval and forbids nations from banning genetically modified organisms solely on the grounds that it already bans them.” So, how does the recent rash of suicided banksters impact on the ongoing engineered economic collapse? Estulin had much to say on this in an email to me: With the global financial meltdown in its last phase of disintegration, the elite and their allies on Wall Street want to dictate to other sovereign countries the conditions that allow them to continue the plunder of their wealth in order to keep afloat its speculative cancerous system. Any country that refuses to submit to the conditions imposed by the elite is threatened with war or “regime change”, as we have seen in Ukraine and other countries. The bankers who died, be they suicides, accidents, murders or whatever, all worked in very important positions and for the corporations who formed part of the World Company Ltd. [an entity described in detail in his book]. The case of Bitcoin CEO Autumn Radtke is a bit muddy at this point, but in the intelligence world there is a saying, “Coincidences do not exist. There are well orchestrated and badly orchestrated operations.” Economic collapse also converts the one billion starving humans into fertilizer, while weakening and sickening the next couple billion who live on less than $2 a day. The following graph from the UN shows, in the green line, how numbers may actually decrease this century. (Prepared by futuretimeline.net) Given Fukushima, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and the 2,000 exploded nuclear bombs over the last 70 years, along with industrial pollution, genetically modified food laced with nanobots and toxic chemicals, and poisonous pharmaceuticals, that green line seems the most likely scenario. This is known in population dynamics as creating a “bottleneck” where, along with sheer numbers, much of the genetic diversity of a species is forever lost. This does not bother eugenicists. They plan to alter the human genome much further, to enable them to thrive under the toxic sky. Download Your First Issue Free! Do You Want to Learn How to Become Financially Independent, Make a Living Without a Traditional Job & Finally Live Free? Download Your Free Copy of Counter Markets Estulin estimates the target population is between one and two billion. If the Georgia Guidestones are any guide, the real target is half a billion remaining humans, howsoever evolved. His book is backed by acquired government plans that dare you to question the roadmap he sees when reading them. “For the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers to survive, most of us have to die,” he explains in this video interview and throughout the book: A little later in the book: Post-humanity will be a new human, which has been genetically engineered and brain-chipped for total control. Part man and part machine, the new man will no longer have a need of the sexual reproductive function. If the elite’s plan is to reduce the population, can you think of a better way to do that? Estulin predicts the planet’s rulers hope to escape the planet they destroyed, sending the new Homo superior (H+) into space to colonize new worlds. They (The Hierarchy Enslaving You) have decided that the human experiment is over, apparently. As broad as he paints the landscape – toxic agriculture and pharmaceuticals, controlled economics, mass media disinformation, NBIC technology and HAARP-like mind control—Estulin missed geoengineering as one of the methods currently employed to control and/or remove the masses. This decades-long multi-pronged program fully supports his theme of depopulation. Weather control via aerial spraying and manipulation of the jet stream allows the controllers to determine who gets drought and who gets rain. As Dane Wigington warns in Engineered Drought Catastrophe, Target California, “The climate engineers literally have California by the throat and it does not appear they are going to let go anytime soon.” Some Morgellons sufferers and key researchers like Cliff Carnicom link geoengineering with transhumanism. Unique to Morgellons disease (or syndrome) is the presence of chimera fibers that extrude from the body. They contain biological and robotic features, proving they’re engineered; they also self-replicate. These fibers were collected from patients and after they fell from the sky as spidery filaments (not to be confused with Gossamer showers, a natural arachnid phenomenon). From an earlier piece, Morgellons patient Kandy Griffin, president of Morgellons Research Group, put it right out there in 2011: Morgellons is not a disease. It is a process. It is a form of forced/directed evolution of the human genome. It is the fetal stage of transhumanism, and it is upon us. This stealth project is being carried out with the use of the daily chemtrail operations, which are happening globally. Researcher Sofia Smallstorm also explores the idea in her speech, From Chemtrails to Pseudo-Life: The Dark Agenda of Synthetic Biology. |
As you may have heard by now, the Washington Post has broken the news that Florida officials, to wit Special Prosecutor Angela Corey, will charge George Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin killing. The charging is expected late this afternoon, but could be as late as tomorrow. Here is the key information from the Washington Post report: Florida special prosecutor Angela Corey plans to announce as early as Wednesday afternoon that she is charging neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman in the shooting of Trayvon Martin, according to a law enforcement official close to the investigation. It was not immediately clear what charge Zimmerman will face. Both the AP and CBS News have confirmed that Zimmerman will be charged and the AP is reporting the news conference announcing the charge will be at 6:00 pm EST today. Further, the Miami Herald is reporting there will be one single charge filed in the matter, although they do not report what the charge is. Now, here is why this is occurring, and it s exactly what I predicted from the moment Special Prosecutor Corey’s office let it be known that she, on behalf of the state, would not be availing herself of the grand jury process, an announcement made Monday. The bottom line is this: a direct information/complaint is a cleaner, and safer, way for Corey to proceed. The facts are muddled, and the evidence set for the case was compromised, by incompetent investigation by police from the outset. There is, at this point, no question (and, really, there may never have been) any doubt but that Zimmerman had at least at a nominal minimum, an allegeable self defense claim. That does not mean it is valid, but it does mean that it is legally cognizable. With the screwed up and compromised evidence status, combined with all the public attention and attendant lobbying of law and factual interpretation, it would be brutal for a prosecutor to take the matter to a grand jury. The first thing a good defense lawyer would do upon knowledge of a pending grand jury presentation is salt the prosecutor with every fact and argument humanly imaginable in his client’s behalf – in writing – and demand that it be presented to the grand jury along with the state’s case. You do that on a high profile case like this with a sloppily worded affirmative defense like Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, and there is every reason to believe a grand jury would decline. But, the odds are far different if a prosecutor, in this case Corey, takes the path of filing an direct information and foregoing the grand jury. A direct information, with a duly issued arrest warrant from the court of competent jurisdiction, gives the case the instant imprimatur of legitimacy, and guarantees that it will be determined by an experienced magistrate, and not lay citizens on a grand jury. This is exactly why I argued to Jeff Toobin Monday night that it was a superior path. Now, a little further depth on what is at play, and for that I will turn to an excellent, and correct, analysis by Reuters on this subject: To mix metaphors, Stand Your Ground is no Slam Dunk. The controversial 2005 Florida law grants immunity to people who use deadly force in self defense. In the days since George Zimmerman shot and killed 17-year old Trayvon Martin, critics and supporters both seem to have assumed that if Zimmerman is charged, he could easily seek and win immunity from prosecution under Stand Your Ground. But don’t be so sure. Interviews with nearly a dozen veteran defense lawyers who have experience litigating Stand Your Ground cases suggest winning immunity could be quite difficult. “Judges do not readily grant these (immunity) motions because they know they can pass it on to the jury,” said Carey Haughwout, the public defender for Palm Beach County. So far, Zimmerman has not charged with any wrongdoing. A special prosecutor, Angela Corey, is still investigating the incendiary case, which carries heavy racial overtones and has stirred a national outcry. But if charges are filed and Zimmerman does choose to seek immunity, he will face challenges at almost every stage, lawyers said. The first hurdle will be a special evidentiary hearing in front of a judge, where Zimmerman will have the opportunity to argue that he deserves immunity. But to convince the judge, Zimmerman will have to present a “preponderance of evidence” that he acted in self defense, which under the law means he has to show he had “reasonable belief” that such force was necessary. That is a high bar, and difficult to prove, criminal defense attorneys said. In cases where the facts are in dispute — and even if they don’t seem to be — the judge is likely to deny the Stand Your Ground immunity motion, said Ralph Behr, a Florida criminal defense attorney who has filed eight motions for immunity, all of which have been denied. More typically, a judge will choose to have the case go to trial, where the defendant must take his or her chance with a jury, just like other criminal defendants, he said. “Most judges, I think, are comfortable letting the adverserial system play out before a jury rather than make decisions themselves,” said Behr. Bingo! I literally could not have said it better myself. Hats off to Reuters for some fine analysis. See, filing the charge via information guarantees it gets to a court. The first step is almost certainly (and Florida criminal code is a bit, um, confusing, but seems consistent with the norm) that Zimmerman would be given an initial appearance within 48 hours of his actual physical arrest, and would be set for a preliminary hearing within ten days of the date of his initial appearance (unless he waives said time limit and requests an extension). The magistrate is going to want no part of being the final arbiter, and will want to pass this on to a jury trial level court. And, as the Reuters analysis explains, things actually favor the case getting to the jury. This is almost surely why the case is proceeding as it is. And, no, it is not, as Think Progress blithely stated, because Angela Corey definitively decided “Stand Your Ground” is inapplicable; it is about making a further court decide that issue as Reuters explained. One last thing, in addition to the above discussion, it simply is not, and never has been, that the infamous Florida “Stand Your Ground” law is the controlling boogeyman that nearly every commentator has made it out to be. David Kopel, at Volokh Conspiracy, says: Media coverage of Florida’s self-defense laws in recent weeks has often been very inaccurate. While some persons, particularly from the gun prohibition lobbies, have claimed that the Martin/Zimmerman case shows the danger of Florida’s “Stand your ground” law, that law is legally irrelevant to case. So let’s take a look at what the Florida laws actually say. I do not want to expend the space to cover all that David did again here, but do go read his lengthy piece on the full nature of Florida homicide and self defense law, it is very good. While I do not agree with every thing Kopel says it is, on the whole, spot on as to how Zimmerman/Martin is really a normal self defense/justification case. And so it is. Lastly, a prediction. As related above, it appears there will be a single count charged in Corey’s information against Zimmerman. That is certainly not unusual nor distressing in the least if you are experienced in such matters. Actually, it is predictable. I predict that charge will be a single count of manslaughter under Florida Revised Statute 782.07 and aggravated under subsection (3) because Trayvon Martin was under the age of 18 years old. So, that is why we are where we are, and my predictions for where this case is going, and why. |
Got a bunch of new OCReMix, and classics nerdcore on this show! The playlist is marked as follows: *Title* by *Artist* – *Album* (Game) Dreamer (OC ReMix) by Evan Pattison (Chrono Cross) Choose Your Character! (VERSUS) (OC ReMix) by Outset Initiative (Super Smash Bros. Melee) Ending (Super Mario Sunshine) by The Big Band of Rogues/Shigeo Nukita – Mario & Zelda Big Band Live Gates of Creation (OC ReMix) by Potshot (Ultima VI) Abstract Bond (OC ReMix) by DjjD (Mega Man 9) Laser Dance (OC ReMix) by Chuck Dodgers (Deflektor) Farore Lies in Wait (OC ReMix) by Benjamin Briggs (Zelda: A Link to the Past) Tales from Arctic Katamari Roundabouts, and You and I, in Cherry Blossom Season (OC ReMix) by Star Salzman (Katamari Forever) Still, the Road Is Full of Klezmorim (Still, the Road Is Full of Dangers) by Jeff Ball Super – Mario RPG: Window to the Stars (OC ReMix) Dungeoneering (OC ReMix) by Senescence (Sword of Vermilion) Grand Flight (OC ReMix) by OceansAndrew (Xenogears) Sanctuary by Master Sword Lvl. 9 Let’s Go! (Lemmings) by Shaun Carley – LOSER: A Sega Genesis Tribute Only Option (ft Teezy) by Soup Or Villainz – Villainz For Hire One Last Kiss by ABLE-X – Dramatis Geeksonae (CD-Version) The Dull Futility of Everything by The TroubleShooters – Lead Time BUY SOMETHING by Adam Selene This One’s For The Users Ft. Aramis by TekForce – The Bits & Bytes EP Pi(e) Day (Prod by Ohm-I) by Creative Mind Frame Pangea by My Parents Favorite Music – Win When? Five BBQs In A Row (feat. Circuit Bird) by BType Yo Illgill by Neally – Rhyme Torrents 1v1 Tournament Neally Diss by IllGill – Rhyme Torrents 1v1 Tournament 9 Wordcore Wordplay by XoC – Compendium of Knowledge Say Goodbye (with Poopyhands & DJ A to the L) by The Ranger Comin’ Out (prod by Fresh Kils) by Mega Ran Notorious – R.A.N: Ready To Live Didn’t Have To Be Here by ECOMOG – SEVENDAYS Wilson is Back by Myster Wilson (AKA Redd Hood) Mathematics (feat. Rukas, Klopfenpop, and Cosplay) by Torrentz – Nerdcore International Jams In HS by Kadesh Flow Featured Artists: Btype – btype.bandcamp.com Adam Selene – altergrounds.com Game Music 4 All – gamemusic4all.bandcamp.com Kadesh Flow – kadeshflow.com Master Sword – masterswordband.bandcamp.com My Parent’s Favorite Music – myparentsfavoritemusic.com Mega Ran – megaran.com Redd Hood (frm Mr Wilson) – mysterwilson.bandcamp.com Tekforce – tekforcecentral.com Creative Mind Frame (AKA 1-Up) – creativemindframe.bandcamp.com The TroubleShooters – thetroubleshooters.bandcamp.com Soup or Villainz – souporvillainz.bandcamp.com IllGill – illgill.bandcamp.com ECOMOG – ecomog.bandcamp.com — All songs marked “OCReMix” can be found at OverClocked ReMix (http://ocremix.org) – please show them some support! Download, donate, tell your friends! Like and follow and whatever the Press Start Socials: Twitter and Facebook Be sure to check out Popular Geekery on Youtube, Facebook, and Twitch! If you like Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator join the Terran Stellar Navy! If you want to support the show, maybe buy me a Ko-Fi? Advertisements |
First step, kiss. Second step, tell. Ladies can now share all their salacious dating details with their closest girlfriends on Luluvise.com, a social network exclusively for women. Alexandra Chong, the founder of women's only social network Luluvise. ( SUBMITTED IMAGE ) And in a gimmick that should make any man with a Facebook account sweat, women can rate the men they’ve dated on their manners, attractiveness and sexual prowess — with all results displayed publicly. The brainchild of Canadian-raised entrepreneur Alexandra Chong, 30, Luluvise (Lulu for her nickname and vise for advise) aims to mimic the patterns of close female bonds online. “Life is pretty fast paced and it’s just tougher to get together,” Chong said in an interview from London. Luluvise gives women that experience online, and in a few weeks, on a mobile app. Article Continued Below “You can have your girlfriends in your pocket,” Chong said. Dubbed a “blond bombshell” and one of London’s most eligible startup CEOs by Real Business, Chong got the idea for the network after a particularly successful Valentine’s Day date two years ago. Frustrated with the amount of effort it took to spread the scoop to her best friends (three phone calls, two Skype sessions and dozens of texts), she decided to create a platform to share gossip in one go. Chong’s network, which launched Tuesday, not only attracted $1 million in funding from high-profile venture capitalists, but also garnered her a visit from British Prime Minister David Cameron last week as part of his “tech city” initiative. The network could be an advertising goldmine if it attracts enough users. It’s targeted at 18 to 35-year-old women — the demographic deemed social networking “power users” by Pew Internet research. Chong envisions partnerships between the site and major brands such as L’Oreal, in which users would dish on mascara or lipstick. Thousands of women from 69 countries have signed up since the launch, Chong said. The average woman has just 4 to 8 friends in her “inner circle,” Chong explained. Women can send photos, texts and polls to their BFFs to get immediate advice. The most popular feature is undoubtedly Wikidate, where women rate the men in their lives and publish their opinions for all to see — without the men’s knowledge. Article Continued Below “It’s the intrigue and interest — sex sells,” Chong said. While hundreds of poor men have already been outed as bad kissers, Chong defends the tool. Such evaluations happen anyway and the questions are “lighthearted,” she said. “The balance is trying to make sure it’s not an evil tool — it’s not going to ruin anyone’s life,” she said. Men can request to have their reviews removed, Chong said, and the site does not allow for public commenting on men’s profiles. Luluvise is incorporated in the U.S. and operates within its privacy laws, Chong added. Canada’s privacy commissioner has yet to look into Luluvise, said spokeswoman Anne-Marie Hayden, but referenced the office’s high-profile tiff with Facebook. “Two significant themes that came out of the Facebook investigation were transparency and control,” Hayden said. “Does it give individuals the ability to control personal information about them on the site?” she said. Although Wikidates is the “pull” to the site, Chong believes women will stay for the meaningful and efficient interactions with their closest friends. “It’s going to catch on like fire for sure,” said John Pliniussen, associate professor of internet marketing and innovation at the Queen’s School of Business. He drew parallels between Luluvise and Facebook’s origins. Facebook was originally a site where people could vote on who was more attractive. Harvard forced Mark Zuckerberg to shut it down. But the real question, Pliniussen added, is can Luluvise can convince women to stay once the novelty wears off. Read more about: |
Please enable Javascript to watch this video SALT LAKE CITY -- Protestors rallied at Library Square in downtown Salt Lake Monday night, demanding justice for Dillon Taylor. The 20-year-old who was shot and killed by police nearly two weeks ago, in South Salt Lake at a 7-11. There were about a dozen protestors marching the streets asking why police haven't released any more information about what happened the night Taylor died. His aunt, who was more like his mother, was at the protest and said all she wants is answers. "His dreams were to be a dad, his dreams were to have a family, someone he could come home to every day, his dreams were to be normal," said his aunt Gina Thayne. Taylor had a baby on the way. Thayne said the 20-year-old was looking forward to a life with his new family, but that all came crashing down the night of Aug. 11 at a 7-11 in South Salt Lake when he was shot and killed by a Salt Lake City Police Officer. Since then, protestors, many who didn't know him, have shown up in support of his family, wanting the same thing they do, answers. "I just feel like if the cop is innocent then they would release the footage and the 911 call, why are they waiting so long to release all that information? Especially for the family -- they want to know those things," said Fatima Badran, who organized the protest. Most of those who rallied are trying to draw a parallel between what happened here and in Ferguson where Michael Brown, an unarmed teenager was killed by a police officer. "We have an unfortunate incident where Dillon Taylor lost his life but I cannot stress enough, that this is not Ferguson. This is a complete independent situation," said Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank last week. Police still aren't saying whether Taylor was armed or not but they did say he was wanted on a probation violation in connection with a felony robbery -- information some say is an attack on his character. "I don't think he deserved to die by a police officer. So often times the media likes to bring up the character of the individual involved and what that does it persuades a lot of backwards people that these were actually criminals deserving of what they got," said Chris Manor, a protestor. Taylor’s aunt said he was like a son to her and while he may have had a rough life, losing his parents six years ago, the soon-to-be dad didn't deserve to die. "Justice means they learn how to control their firearms. If the tables were turned and Dillon would have jumped the gun or hurt one of them, he'd be sitting behind bars, he would have to pay the consequence. These guys have to be responsible for their actions as well," Thayne said. |
A second blowout loss in Alberta this season has led to a partial shakeup of the Ottawa Redblacks roster. The Canadian Football League club announced the signings of punter Andy Wilder, 25, and linebacker Derrick Webb, 23, on Tuesday. Both players are from the United States. At the same time, the Redblacks announced that punter Anthony Alix, linebacker Justin Cudworth and wide receiver Michael Campbell had been released. Alix, whose family is from Mont-Tremblant, handled punting and most of the kickoff duties for the first six games of the regular season before going on the one-game injured list with a hamstring problem. He averaged 42.3 yards on 39 punts and 58.9 yards on 11 kickoffs. Backup quarterback Thomas DeMarco performed punting duties in place of Alix for Saturday’s game at Calgary, where the Redblacks were blasted 48-3 by the Stampeders. They had previously lost 46-17 in Edmonton against the Eskimos. Cudworth was on the active roster for just one game this season, spending most of his time in Ottawa on the Redblacks’ practice roster. Campbell was only on the practice roster and never appeared in a regular-season game. Wilder played U.S. college football at Northern Arizona. He signed with the National Football League’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers in March, but was waived in June. Webb played his college football at Colorado. |
If Europe were a democracy, all of its citizens would have had a say in whether the United Kingdom leaves or remains in the European Union. After all, it is not the just the fate of the British that Brexit would affect, but also the quality and longevity of the entire European project. The EU, as it turns 65, is showing grave sclerosis, and voices—nationalist, populist, and sometimes xenophobic—are calling for its dissolution. The moment has thus come, if it has not already passed, to prune the dead wood of the tree to save the trunk. The European Union’s original mission was more political than economic, as were its greatest successes. The union was designed to put an end to perpetual conflict between France and Germany. It succeeded, ending a millennium of intra-European wars in the process. The union also brilliantly helped Eastern European countries quickly transition from decades of Russian tutelage following the disintegration of the Soviet Union. In parallel to the political project, over the decades, Europeans created an integrated economic space, culminating in the adoption of a single currency at the turn of the millennium. The problem is that, over time, the economic dimension of the European project has overtaken its political and cultural aspects. Losing sight of all that Europe could be, the poorest regions and members came to see the union as a giant ATM. The richest believed it to be a money pit for their taxes. The United Kingdom, more than anyone else, has been aware of those tensions and has exploited them since the days of Margaret Thatcher. By doing so, it has reinforced public perceptions that membership in the union is a zero-sum game, especially when money is tight. Yves Herman / REUTERS British Prime Minister David Cameron with French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, and Donald Tusk, then prime minister of Poland, at a meeting of European leaders on the Ukraine crisis in Brussels, March 2014. The United Kingdom’s position in Europe was always uncomfortable. During the 1960s, its accession to the common market was repeatedly vetoed by French President Charles de Gaulle, who denounced London as a Trojan horse for Washington’s interference. In reality, de |
Duval County, Florida prosecutor Angela Corey has something to say to those who have expressed outrage over the prosecution of Marissa Alexander: they are misguided, and missing the point. Corey, the state attorney who prosecuted the 31-year-old mother of three for firing a gun near where her husband, Rico Gray, was standing with his two sons, had already gained national notoriety in the prosecution of the man who killed Trayvon Martin. Now, she is facing the backlash over a case her office put to rest in March, with many of the same people who praised her for bringing second degree murder charges against George Zimmerman in the Martin killing, condemning her for putting Alexander away. The fiery prosecutor, known for her fierce victim’s advocacy, takes issue with the protests and the outrage on Alexander’s behalf, saying the Jacksonville woman was the aggressor, not the victim, in the August 2010 incident. “Because she was not fleeing from an abuser,” Corey told theGrio in answer to why Florida’s Stand Your Ground law was not applied in Alexander’s case, even though Florida’s Supreme Court has ruled in the past that a woman being abused in her own home by her husband has no duty to flee. “A judge heard all the facts and evidence and said that this was not a case of ‘Stand Your Ground,’ Corey said. “You have to compare what [Marissa Alexander] said to what the victims said. There were two young children there as well. None of the physical evidence corroborates her story. There was the 911 call … and you can clearly hear the distress in Rico Gray’s voice. They had a verbal argument [in which] he said ‘I’m outta here,’ and she said, ‘I’ve got something for you.’” Though what happened inside that house on Woodley Creek Road remains in dispute, one thing both sides in the case agree on is that Gray and Alexander were arguing about text messages Alexander had sent to her former husband, Lincoln Alexander, including pictures of her new baby with Gray. When Gray saw the texts, a fight ensued in the home’s master bathroom, which eventually spilled out into the kitchen. At some point, Alexander went to the garage and got her semi-automatic pistol. She has claimed she went into the garage to flee, but the automatic door wasn’t working, and she realized she had left her keys and cellphone inside. For whatever reason, she went back into the house and confronted Gray, firing a single shot, which Lincoln Alexander and Marissa, on her website, maintain was a warning shot fired into the air. But Corey says that shot was fired at “adult height,” directly at Gray, who was standing in the adjacent living room with his sons, who were aged 9 and 13 at the time ”[Gray] told his boys, ‘get your clothes, we’re out of here.’ And she and went in the garage and into the glove compartment, got out a gun, got it in a ‘ready to fire’ position — it’s a semiautomatic and it had the safety off, and she had a round in the chamber,” Corey said. “And she walked back into the kitchen and fired the gun at him. He was standing the living room and it went through the wall at about adult head height, and ricocheted off the roof or the wall. And thank God it didn’t hit one of the kids.” The police report states that Alexander claimed she “fired the weapon to scare” Gray, because he was “coming towards” her. But Corey insists that “the idea that she fired a warning shot is absolutely not what the physical evidence showed.” Police retrieved a shell casing from the kitchen floor, the weapon, which was lying on the living room table, and they observed the bullet hole, which had gone through the kitchen wall and lodged in the ceiling. A victim, and a ‘monster’ The outrage over Alexander’s prosecution, swift conviction — the jury was out for just under 13 minutes — and 20-year sentence, has revolved in large part around the negative perception of Gray, a man who admitted to past incidents of domestic violence, including a 2009 incident that put Alexander in the hospital after he shoved her into a bathtub, causing her to hit her head — Corey sees him as a victim, pure and simple, on that day. “He was either prosecuted for that and there were restraining orders about that.” She emphasizes that both parties took out restraining orders against each other, and she adds, “that only becomes relevant as to whether he was endangering her at that moment.” Corey says Alexander had no injuries consistent with abuse on that day. She said if she had, they would have been visible in her booking photo, or in the booking admission report when she was taken to the Duval County jail, “and that’s after the SWAT team had to respond to the house to get her to come outside.” Lincoln Alexander has told theGrio the police never bothered to look for more evidence of Gray’s abuse, including what her family insists was a bathroom door damaged when Gray shoved Alexander into it. But Corey is unimpressed. “The bottom line is if he damaged a bathroom door … I know that my lawyers fully addressed issues such as that — and if the judge had believed that was the credible way things had happened, I believe the judge would have given that credence [in the Stand Your Ground hearing.] However, there’s no proof that that happened.” And she insists that the law doesn’t distinguish between a victim with a history of violence, and one without one. “A person’s propensity for violence is only one factor that would have allowed her to use Stand Your Ground at the moment when she fired,” Corey said of Alexander. “If that’s what you’re saying, she can walk into a room and just see him and shoot. And what does it say about her fear of Rico Gray that she disobeyed a sitting judge and went over to confront him” four months after the incident — one that led Alexander to plead no contest to a domestic battery charge of her own. In that case, Corey said, Gray called 911 again, after Alexander “gave him a black eye.” “I just don’t understand where just the one-sided story has come out,” Corey said, lashing out at both the media coverage, and the loud cries of unfairness on the radio and Internet. The facts in the Alexander case are a matter of “he said, she said” — except that Gray’s account was initially backed up by his two sons, aged 9 and 13 at the time, for whom Alexander was also charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. She was convicted of three counts — one against Gray and each son — even though Gray’s older son later changed his story, saying he was never in fear for his life as he first told police. Corey says the son never corroborated Alexander’s version of events, but she does admit that his story changed, she says, even “after he had looked me in the eye and told me he was afraid.” “And the bottom line is the other child never changed his story. So I still have a victim” who said he was in fear. Corey said the assumption that her prosecutors failed to take Gray’s violent past with Alexander into account is false. “She didn’t have to get 20 years, because I took into account their prior domestic history and her lack of a [criminal] record, and we offered her the three year mandatory minimum” in a plea bargain attempt before the trial. Corey said that offer was made last October, when she met with both Alexander and her attorney, Kevin Cobbin, and separately with Gray. As to why she never offered probation, Corey said that Alexander wasn’t a good candidate. “She disobeyed a sitting judge” by going to Gray’s house to confront him again, four months after the initial incident while she was free on bail – an incident for which Alexander was arrested again and pleaded no contest to domestic assault. In that case, Corey says Alexander went to drop off their daughter, but wound up giving Alexander a black eye. “I was using my discretion to wave the statutory maximum, and offered her a three year [sentence] with credit for time served. Three years was for two reasons: one, she fired a gun inside a home at two children and Rico Gray, and [two,] she was not a candidate for probation because of her anger problems or whatever caused her to go over there again.” And while her prosecutors handle these cases in court, Corey seems to have taken this one — and particularly the public reaction to it — personally. “I just don’t understand the interest or outrage in this case,” she said. “Where is the interest in my two young, black victims, who don’t have a choice about who their dad marries — who can’t sit down and watch TV and play video games without a woman walking Into the home and firing a gun in their direction?” And as for Gray, she said that while he may not be a sympathetic figure to the public, “neither are the drug dealers around here who get shot and killed. Whether they’re sympathetic or not, it’s not anybody’s right to take their life.” “I looked at him and said he doesn’t seem to be this monster that the defense said he was.” But Gray does, in many ways, fit the description of a monster. He outweighed Alexander by 100 pounds and is three inches taller. And besides his two arrests for domestic violence, there were his own statements in a deposition in Marissa’s case, in which he admitted, ”’I got five baby mammas, and I put my hands on every last one of them except for one,” that, “the way I was with women . . . they had to walk on eggshells around me.” Two of those woman “got hit in the mouth” by Gray because in his own words, they “just wouldn’t shut up.” On the night of August 1st, Gray admitted to prosecutors that he told Marissa he’d kill her if she ever cheated on him, and that on that night he said to her, “if I can’t have you, nobody going to have you.” He admitted he was “in a rage,” and said he told her that he knew people who could “do his dirt for him” — who could hurt her. Gray said he blocked her from leaving the bathroom, and when asked if he pushed Alexander into the bathroom door hard enough to crack it, he answered, “probably.” Asked whether he put his hands around her neck, Gray answered “not that particular day.” “I understand domestic situations are volatile, and they’re complicated,” said Corey. “But the bottom line is she fired a loaded welcome directly at a man and his two sons and we cannot allow that as a way to solve domestic disputes.” Still, there are questions about Gray’s version of events on the night that gun went off. In his November deposition, Gray said Alexander had the gun “down” when she re-entered the house from the locked garage, and that he “started walking towards her and she shot in the air.” He said she was telling him to leave the home, but that he refused, and that he called his children from the living room to “stand by him” because he wanted them to “see that she had a gun” — and he said he was so mad, that if his children weren’t there, he “couldn’t have left when she would have shot.” He said if they hadn’t been there, he probably would have tried to take the gun from her, and “put his hand on her.” He also said the gun was never pointed at him. Gray said in the deposition that he told police Alexander had threatened to kill him that night because he was angry, though he later changed his story again, saying he had lied in the deposition, in order to protect Marissa, and that he had feared for his life that day. Double standard for male, female defendants Corey remains certain about the prosecution. And she says people who are making judgments about the unfairness of the case are misguided. “Is it more fair when a 31-year-old father discharges a firearm in anger [and gets 20 years in prison]? We deal with gun cases every day where that happens. No one’s done the research on the facts of this case. I don’t understand people who don’t do this for a living, [and] who don’t have a law degree weighing in with such a firm opinion. I don’t understand that. That’s why we try cases in a courtroom. Judges only hear evidence in a courtroom and they rule based on the facts of that case.” Asked what she would say to people who lament Alexander’s children losing their mother, who won’t be there to see them grow up, the prosecutor is firm. “Do they say that about men with little kids? I mean Rico Gray has custody of his two sons. And what I will say is if Marissa Alexander had obeyed the judge and not committed this second incident, there may have been a way to work this out, but she took that out of our hands. And then she took it out of our hands when she chose to go before a jury and they ruled that she discharged that firearm at three human beings.” “If someone puts a gun to your head and takes your car, are we to forgive them because they didn’t hurt you, or are we going to deter people from committing gun crimes? Had that bullet deflected at another angle, someone could have been killed, and then who’s gonna explain that, if one of those children had been killed?” Corey dismissed speculation that the Stand Your Ground law has been applied unfairly, making it unavailable as a defense for black defendants. “We consider every case on its own merits, not on the race or gender of the defendant or the victim,” she said. “It’s not part of what we analyze when we’re filing cases. But I can tell you this, I have exercised my discretion in a number of cases for African-American defendants.” She cited one case, in which an “older African-American gentleman pulled a gun on a much younger and much bigger African-American man.” “I went ahead and asked that he be put on probation. These cases are public. They’re advertised when someone goes to trial. Where was your station when this case went to trial?” “While we were in court at sentencing, a woman shot and killed her husband and turned the gun on herself, and then next day a woman stabbed her mother’s boyfriend over a pack of cigarettes. We can’t have guns used in domestic violence incidents and we certainly can’t have guns fired at children. And we can’t have a full blown trial … and then when [Alexander] didn’t get what she wanted form a jury, her family gets to go to the press, which inflames the entire country, because they only hear her side of the story. It’s fundamentally wrong for that to happen.” While she said she couldn’t comment on the ongoing Zimmerman prosecution, Corey said she never anticipated the notoriety that would come from being associated with two such high profile cases. “I am a courtroom prosecutor. I am a 30 year veteran prosecutor,” she said. “Homicides are my specialty. I want to run my office and I want to run my cases according to the law. And there is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that says the public has a right to have a trial by internet.” Follow Joy Reid on Twitter at @thereidreport |
Toward the end of 2006, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility — "a national non-profit alliance of local, state and federal scientists, law enforcement officers, land managers and other professionals dedicated to upholding environmental laws and values" — charged the National Park Service with stalling on a promised review of a creationist book sold at the bookstores at Grand Canyon National Park. Although the park's bookstores are operated by a separate non-profit organization, the Grand Canyon Association, the National Park Service is responsible for approving the items that are sold there. In August 2003, the NPS approved the sale of Grand Canyon: A Different View , edited by Tom Vail and published by Master Books, the publishing arm of the Institute for Creation Research. A Different View expounds a young-earth creationist view of the geology of the canyon, and proclaims, "all contributions have been peer-reviewed to ensure a consistent and biblical perspective." In his review of the book ( RNCSE 2004 Jan/Feb; 24 [1]: 33-6), the geologist Wilfred Elders described it as "'Exhibit A' of a new, slick strategy by biblical literalists to proselytize using a beautifully illustrated, multi-authored book about a spectacular and world-famous geological feature," adding, "Allowing the sale of this book within the National Park was unfortunate. In the minds of some buyers, this could imply NPS approval of young-earth creationists and their religious proselytizing." After the sale of A Different View was approved, the superintendent of the park appealed to the NPS headquarters for "a review of the book in terms of its appropriateness," and the Chief of the Park Service's Geologic Resources Division recommended its removal, saying that it "does not use accurate, professional and scholarly knowledge; is not based on science but a specific religious doctrine; does not further the public's understanding of the Grand Canyon's existence; [and] does not further the mission of the National Park Service." Meanwhile, the sale of the book became a matter of public controversy (see RNCSE 2004 Jan/Feb; 24 [1]: 4-5). Elders's review appeared in Eos (the weekly newsletter of the American Geophysical Union); the presidents of the American Paleontological Society, the American Geophysical Union, the National Association of Geoscience Teachers, the Association of American State Geologists, the Society for Vertebrate Paleontology, the American Geological Institute, and the Geological Society of America signed a joint letter to the NPS, urging that A Different View be removed "from shelves where buyers are given the impression that the book is about earth science and its content endorsed by the National Park Service" (see RNCSE 2004 Jan/Feb; 24 [1]: 19); and stories about the controversy appeared in the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times . A spokesperson for the NPS repeatedly assured the press and Congress that the promised review would be forthcoming. In its December 28, 2006, press release, however, PEER charged, "Despite promising a prompt review of its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah's flood rather than by geologic forces, more than three years later no review has ever been done and the book remains on sale at the park." Jeff Ruch, executive director of PEER, commented, "As one park geologist said, this is equivalent of Yellowstone National Park selling a book entitled Geysers of Old Faithful: Nostrils of Satan ." In a December 28, 2006, letter, PEER urged the new director of NPS, Mary Bomar, to remove the book from sale at the park's bookstores and museums as well as to "[p]rovide training to the interpretive staff at Grand Canyon NP regarding how to answer questions from the public concerning the geologic age of the Canyon and related matters; and ... [a]pprove an updated version of the long-stalled pamphlet 'National Park Service Geologic Interpretive Programs: Distinguishing Science from Religion' for distribution to agency interpretive staff." It ought to be noted that PEER was not accusing the NPS of forbidding its interpretive staff to present the scientific facts about the canyon's age and geology. Unfortunately, careless wording in its press release suggested otherwise, and PEER's credibility suffered as a result, obscuring PEER's important charge that the NPS is not providing its staff with the resources it needs to present the scientific facts about the canyon's age of geology effectively, especially when faced with park visitors who have questions about, or even embrace, views that reject those facts on religious grounds. Prompted by PEER's press release, the controversy over the sale of A Different View began to attract attention again in the media, with the Arizona Daily Sun (2007 Jan 4) offering a report in which a spokesperson for the NPS was quoted as saying, "We do not use the creationist text in our teaching, nor do we endorse its content. However, it is not our place to censor alternate beliefs." The Sacramento Bee (2007 Jan 4) suggested, in a forceful and cogent editorial entitled "Don't use parks to promote creationism," "A new year and a new National Park Service director mark an opportunity for change. Here's an easy one. Settle the 3-year-old controversy about a creationist account of the Grand Canyon." The editorial argued that "Mary Bomar, the new National Park Service director, should send a message that programs and materials in national parks present the best scientific evidence and don't endorse any particular religious beliefs," and concluded by urging Bomar to do so quickly: Remove the book from sale from within the park; its proper place is for sale in private bookstores outside the public park. Equally important, finish the long-delayed pamphlet ... and distribute it to park rangers. The nation's public parks are not the place to promote religious theories about the formation and development of Earth. A spokesperson for the NPS, David Barna, told The New York Times (2007 Jan 5) that there was no formal review of whether the bookstores ought to discontinue selling A Different View in part because of differences among the NPS's specialists. According to the Times , "When officials got together to discuss the book, the geologists and natural resource specialists would say, 'Get this book out of here,' Mr. Barna said. 'But the education and interpretation people would say: 'Wait a minute. If your science is so sound, the fact that there are differences of opinion should not scare you away.'" In a written statement, the Times reported, Barna "notes that Park Service management policies require reliance on 'the best scientific evidence available' and, as a result, rangers tell visitors that "the Colorado River basin has developed in the past 40 million years." But the Times also reported, "the guidelines also say that material available from concessionaires in national parks should adhere to the standards used to evaluate Park Service materials." PEER's executive director Jeff Ruch was quoted as contending that selling the book promoted fundamentalist Christian views: "This is government establishment of religion in a fairly fundamental way, if you pardon the pun." Ronald Bailey, the science columnist for Reason , heard NCSE's executive director Eugenie C Scott speak about the controversy at the James Randi Educational Foundation's event The Amazing Meeting V, and promptly went to Grand Canyon National Park to see A Different View for himself. He reports, "As I was buying it, I asked the clerk what she thought about it. 'We're not allowed to say anything about it,' she said covering her mouth with her hand in the 'Speak No Evil' monkey fashion. 'Oh come on,' I cajoled, but the clerk refused any further comment. Later I went in search of it at the other south rim Park Service bookstore at Desert View. In this much smaller bookstore, Vail's slender Flood geology volume was mixed in among the other photo books. Again, I asked this clerk what she thought, and she smiled and replied, 'All I will say is that it's got some really beautiful photographs'" (2007 Jan 26; available on-line at http://reason.com/news/show/118334.html). Acknowledging that the NPS-overseen bookstores carry books that present and discuss the creation myths of Native Americans, Bailey nevertheless drew the crucial distinction: "unlike books on native creation myths, Vail insists that he is making scientific claims about how rock layers are laid down, fossils formed and the canyon carved." Title: Renewed Concern About Creationism at Grand Canyon National Park Author(s): Glenn Branch NCSE Deputy Director Volume: 27 Issue: 3–4 Year: 2007 Date: May–August Page(s): 15–16 |
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s recent address to a joint session of Congress was an outstanding personal success. Fifty-seven times the Congress applauded including 25 standing ovations. How sweet it was! No doubt some members were more perfunctory in their applause or slow to rise to their feet for those numerous standing ovations. In this particular Congress it isn’t politically healthy to be seen behaving too different from the masses. The atmosphere surely was something to behold, as if Winston Churchill, George Washington, Mother Theresa, and Nelson Mandela were personified in the person of the speaker. Here spoke the leader of a country with a national product comparable to that of Italy, supported consistently by legislation and political action on the part of his hosts. These include billions of dollars in monetary largess, sophisticated weaponry transfers often without cost and consistent political cover in a generally Israel-hostile United Nations. Israel must be a very special friend to be worthy of so much support and adoration. All the same, was there not one among 535 senators and representatives willing to speak out and question certain constructs of this almost mass hysteria? Perhaps scenes of this nature are the costs of a democracy? Are our representatives so lacking in recent historical perspective? Congress surely is suffering from some form of mass dementia. Have members no recollections of the 1967 attack on the USS Liberty, an American naval ship operating off the Gaza coastline monitoring the Egyptian-Israeli war? The attackers were Israeli military aircraft and naval torpedo boats. The attack lasted nearly two hours and killed 34 Americans while wounding scores more. Mistakes are part of warfare and it might be that none of the Israeli pilots flying as low as 200 feet above water saw the oversize American flag(s). But Israeli aircraft had been shadowing the Liberty for six consecutive hours prior to the attack. Perhaps the pilots were not properly trained in flag recognition? Perhaps the torpedo boat commanders also lacked training in flag recognition? More awkward to explain was the concerted and lengthy effort by the torpedo boats and planes to destroy all life saving apparatus aboard the Liberty during and after a torpedo struck the ship? Life rafts and life boats all were targeted almost as if witnesses to the unprovoked attack might later prove embarrassing. On the other hand, if these attacks were accidental as claimed by the Israeli Government, why have American investigators consistently been denied access to the pilots and boat commanders or to review communications between attackers and headquarters? This is strange behavior on the part of our special friend and trusted ally. More telling, is this not strange collective behavior by members of Congress who seem confused in recognizing just what country they are elected in and whose citizens they are paid to represent. Surely sailors killed during that 1967 unprovoked attack on the Liberty warrant congressional investigations and less applause for the leader of the country responsible for the killings. Can one imagine applause and standing ovations for the Japanese Prime Minister speaking to a joint session of Congress and denying events that occurred at Pearl Harbor? |
MOBUTU SESE SEKO, who ruled Congo for 32 years, was notorious for his “musical chairs” approach to his cabinet. His deputies were constantly shuffled around, passing unpredictably from ministerial posts to prison and exile, before once again returning to high office. Over the course of his reign Mr Mobutu burned through hundreds of ministers. High ministerial turnover is common to many dictatorships, as a study of 15 African countries shows. Why are dictators so fickle with their cabinets, and how can ministers avoid being sacked, or worse? In a working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research, Patrick Francois and Francesco Trebbi of the University of British Columbia and Ilia Rainer of George Mason University modelled the autocrat’s dilemma of choosing which ministers he should hire to run his government. Experienced ministers are better able to help manage the country, as you would expect. But time in power also allows them to develop their own political base which, if left unchecked, could give them the means to launch a coup. Thus a dictator who wishes to avoid being overthrown must fire ministers before they accumulate enough support to topple him. In turn, ministers who manage to build their own independent support bases must decide whether they are better off remaining loyal to the current regime or attempting to overthrow it. Get our daily newsletter Upgrade your inbox and get our Daily Dispatch and Editor's Picks. The time of maximum danger for ministers, it turns out, is four years into the job. In the first few years of a ministerial career they are not powerful enough to pose much of a threat. And once they have racked up lots of experience they have little incentive to rock the boat, as they would be risking a safe position for the uncertain gains from an attempted coup. But with four years under their belts they are most dangerous: just powerful enough to have a chance at the main prize, but not yet so well established as to have lost their hunger. So it is then that dictators’ ministers are most likely to find themselves bundled into jail. The authors show that those most at risk are the most senior ministers, such as those in charge of defence or finance. Those ministers’ superior powers make them especially threatening. So those posts change hands a lot—ruinously for the country’s economy and armed forces. The policy of firing ministers just as they begin to acquire experience on the job seriously degrades dictators’ ability to govern. But for a despot who values his own survival above all else, ministerial incompetence has a lot to recommend it—something worth bearing in mind if you want to get ahead under a dictatorship. Dig deeper: The last days of Mobutu Sese Seko (May 1997) With rebel fighters on the back foot, optimism is growing in Congo (March 2014) How and why lofty ideologies cohabit with rampant corruption (July 2014) Update: This blog post has been amended to remove the news peg. |
The Race for MS12-020 So if you missed our previous blog post on the MS Patch Tuesday earlier this week, or missed any of the several dozen news articles, there was a pretty serious hole patched up in the latest update from Redmond. Microsoft calls it 'critical' and numbered it MS12-020. It is a hole in RDP or the Remote Desktop Protocol, you know, what you use to see the screen of all those remote servers you have in the server room so you don't have to get up and walk across the office into that cold noisy place to tweak some minor setting on a system. Or maybe you use RDP to check on that system at home while you are in the office, or on the system at the office while you are at home, or at the other office. Pretty damn useful, and a pretty damn big hole. Now Microsoft has released a patch for this so a lot of people say, "Great, I'll just apply the patch." But the thing is, a LOT of people won't apply the patch, because they didn't hear about the hole or they don't care. So they are sitting there with their servers and workstations blowing in the breeze so to speak, just waiting for someone to come by and exploit this nice RDP hole. Ahh, but that's the other problem. While Microsoft has released a patch to fix the hole, they didn't actually tell anyone where the hole was. So now the race is on, by both good guys and bad guys alike. Some people are saying that the bad guys already now where the hole is and are exploiting it secretly. The good guys want to know where the hole is so they can scan for it, use it in penetration tests, and generally protect people. The first thing we noticed was an analysis of the patch. If you compare the patch to the original you can find out what it was that changed. This gives you a real good idea of where to start looking for the hole. And there are a whole bunch of people actively looking for this hole, a bunch of them are hanging out on IRC (Freenode #ms12-020) The race for a working exploit of MS12-020 is so dramatic there is even a bounty for the fist working Metasploit module for this hole. When we last checked it was up to $1451. The first person to create a successful proof of concept (PoC) in the popular pentesting tool, Metasploit, takes it all. But there is some other stuff out there too, as we came across a website in China talking about the vulnerability with a screenshot that looks like they might actually have a working exploit for MS12-020. However, the surrounding text makes it seem unclear. So we are unsure of what to make of this post yet. And then there was a post to pastebin that claimed to be a working exploit. If you looked closely however you could see at the top in the comments the email address was listed as sabu@fbi.gov. That makes things a little suspicious but if you actually attempted to run what was posted you could have put yourself into a world of hurt, as it did not appear to be a working exploit of MS12-020, but instead had traces to an Apache exploit from 2008. So if you haven't installed the MS12-020 yet, by all means, do so immediately! If you looking for the hole yourself, be careful and look closely at what gets posted. |
By R. Jai Krishna and Saptarishi Dutta Thomas Coex/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images The Indian government plans to launch a watch to control crime against women. Imagine you are walking. Alone. Down a dark street. A man approaches. He gets aggressive. What do you do next? Look at your watch? As part of a briefing about electronic innovations planned for this year by the department in charge of electronic innovations, the Indian government unveiled early plans for a new device it hopes will reduce crimes against women. It is a watch that can alert authorities and family members that you feel you are in danger and start filming at the same time. The initiative was unveiled by Kapil Sibal, information technology minister, earlier this week. He said the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, a unit within the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, is working on the proposed gadget. The government noted in a subsequent press release that it would be timely given “unfortunate incidents of crimes against women in particular.” This was an apparent reference to the Dec. 16 gangrape of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student on a moving bus in the center of India’s capital; she later died of her injuries. The wrist-borne device, Mr. Sibal said, would, upon the pressing of a button, send a text message to the nearest police station as well as pre-selected family members. A global positioning system within the watch would notify them of the wearer’s coordinates. Mr. Sibal said the government would come up with a prototype by mid-year and then farm the idea out to companies for production. The government has held initial talks on manufacturing the product with state-run telecom equipment maker ITI Ltd., according to the government’s release. ITI’s chairman, K.L. Dhingra, confirmed the discussions to India Real Time: “In case the government decides, we are very much interested to manufacture it.” The watch will be sold in two variants, one for $20, the other for around $50, Mr. Sibal said. It also will have an inbuilt video that, upon activation, would shoot for 30 minutes, the minister said. Of course, in an ideal world, long before then, the cavalry would have arrived -- in the form of the cops and family to save the day. But how realistic is that? Not very, say women’s safety advocates. And the government’s track record in previous electronic innovations isn’t exactly encouraging. Activists say that the device may be better than having no device at all. But the ability to alert authorities is only one tiny piece of a much larger puzzle about the responsiveness of the police to sexual assaults. For instance, many women’s advocates complain that cops are reluctant, in general, to register rape and other sexual-assault cases that are presented to them in the police station by victims. Are they likely to rush to the aid of every possible victim that sends an SMS? Perhaps a watch that changes mindsets would be more effective. “I don’t think this will make any difference in controlling rape cases,” says Sehba Farooqui, a woman’s rights activist in Delhi. Then there is the question of the government’s ability to deliver on its promises regarding both women’s safety and technology. In the wake of the Delhi rape, a new hotline was established by the local government for women to report sexual assault to the police. But, that, too, has had its share of technical glitches. The calls sometimes go unanswered or attendants are slow to pick up. The government also has struggled to deliver on a low-cost tablet, known as Aakash, that Mr. Sibal and others made much of in the prototype phase. Still, the effort may be of some value. Mr. Sibal noted that, with the same technology, parents would be able to keep tabs on their children. Corrections & Amplifications: K.L. Dhingra is the chairman of telecom equipment firm ITI Ltd. An earlier version of this post incorrectly referred to him as K.S. Dhingra. Follow India Real Time on Twitter @indiarealtime. |
An old man said: “… If anyone speaks to you on a matter of controversy, do not argue with him. If he speaks well, say ‘Yes.’ If he speaks ill, say ‘l am ignorant in the matter.’ But argue not with what he has said, and then your mind will be at peace.” ~ Sayings of the Desert Fathers Obviously “Everyday Asceticism” does not refer to frequency of publication. But as this saying reminds us, sometimes—perhaps most of the time—it is better not to speak at all. (It’s an unfortunately impossible challenge for someone like me, who has to engage in controversy from time to time in his/her work. But still worth aspiring to and being inspired by.) In that spirit, rather than offer my own reflection and risk letting my tongue get the best of me (this time), I’d like to commend a working paper by another researcher, Liza Anderson of Yale University, entitled “Gossip, Slander, and Complaining: The Control of the Tongue in Early Christian Monastic Literature.” Excerpt: Many of the sayings that are recorded in The Sayings of the Desert Fathers contain advice about how to struggle against temptation, or accounts of sins that a brother has fallen into. The category of sexual sin tends to include the most dramatic stories, but sexual temptations are only mentioned thirty-four times within the text. By way of comparison, gluttony is mentioned forty-one times, and stealing and the desire for property is discussed fifty-two times. The need to control the tongue, however, comes up in at least seventy-eight different passages of the text! These examples do not include general exhortations to silent contemplation, but only those that relate to gossip, slander, or idle talk. This emphasis should not be surprising, for, in words that are ascribed to Abba Agathon, “no passion is worse than an uncontrolled tongue, for it is the mother of all the passions” (Sayings p.20). According to her Academia.edu page, Ms. Anderson is a doctoral candidate at Yale. She gives a great and readable overview of the focus and character of early Christian ascetic teaching about the control of one’s speech. You can find her page and read her lovely little exposition here. |
Editor's Note: An earlier version of this story reported that Lt. Joseph Franklin had died, according to law enforcement sources and a post on the Jersey City Police Detective's Benevolent Association Facebook page that has since been removed. Roxbury police have said as of 8:54 p.m. Franklin is still in critical condition. FAR HILLS -- Lt. Joseph Franklin, a retired member of the Roxbury Police Department, remains in critical condition following a bicycle accident in Far Hills during the Police Unity Tour but he's not expected to recover from his injuries, law enforcement sources said. A Facebook post by the Jersey City Police Detective's Benevolent Association Tuesday evening, which has since been taken down, said Franklin had died from his injuries but Roxbury police later said he was still in critical condition. Law enforcement sources speaking to NJ Advance Media on the condition of anonymity said Franklin was not expected to recover. Franklin was critically injured Monday during the first day of the 320-mile bike ride to Washington D.C. in honor of officers killed in the line of duty. Far Hills police Chief Mike DeCarolis told NJ Advance Media borough police responded to Route 202 at Fox Hunt Court at 12:56 p.m. on Monday on a report of a downed cyclist, but by the time officers arrived on the scene the cyclist had already been taken to the hospital by an ambulance traveling with the Police Unity Tour. DeCarolis said the circumstances of the crash were still unclear and officers were still collecting witness statements. A spokeswoman for Morristown Medical Center said Tuesday evening Franklin's family has asked for privacy at this time. The Police Unity Tour was started in 1997 by Florham Park Police Officer Patrick Montuore with 18 riders and has since risen to about 1,700 officers. Justin Zaremba may be reached at jzaremba@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JustinZarembaNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook. |
During Ramadan, Careem has raised more than EGP 105,000 in donations made directly through the usage of Careem’s car service application. In collaboration with the Egyptian Food Bank to fight hunger. Career developed a dedicated new car type inside its app allows riders to choose to ride and donate EGP 10 to the cause with every trip. “We are so proud of what we have accomplished here. Within a week after we launched the initiative, we had 2000 of our riders use the option in the application, which allowed them to donate EGP 10 per ride. Now, as Ramadan ends, we have had over 9,500 rides, and raised more than EGP 105,000. I want everyone to know that through the money they raised, they’ve taken part in feeding nearly 1000 people during this holy month,” said Careem’s General Manager, Hadeer Shalaby. “The money donated by Careem’s customers through each trip has gone directly into the EGP 90 package prepared and distributed by the Egyptian Food Bank,” said Shalaby, he added “The more rides people took with Careem, the more donations they made, and the more families they have fed. It’s all about our riders we have depend on their generosity to make this initiative work.” Ahmed Youssef, Careem’s Marketing Manager, explains that “generosity is embedded deep into the company’s philosophy, and their partnership with the Egyptian Food Bank is a part of their CSR program to help and contribute to the society in which it operates. During the first week of Ramadan, Careem raised EGP 20,000, and announced that it had matched the funds it raised, donating a total of EGP 40,000 to the Egyptian Food Bank.” “What many people don’t know is that our name, Careem, originated during Ramadan and comes from the word “Karam”, which means generosity. Whatever we raised during the first week of operations, we have equally matched in funds”, says Youssef. “We wanted to stay true to our name, especially during Ramadan.” youssef said To date, Careem has provided thousands of employment opportunities to Egyptian youth, and a stable income to countless families. The job opportunities offered by Careem come at the crucial time when unemployment rates are at their highest, allowing people from all walks of life to observe an honest and alternative employment Opportunities. At the same time, the company provides an essential service to the community, where hail rides are on high demand. |
The Texas legislature reconvenes in January of 2017, and marijuana activists around the state are gearing up with advocacy training sessions in preparation for speaking with legislators at the capitol. This will not be the first time the cannabis community has shown up in Austin to press the issue of marijuana reform. In 2015 over 300 people scheduled meetings with legislators and their staffers to talk about medical cannabis, penalty reductions, hemp legalization, and full legalization of marijuana. It is the first time that such a concerted effort is being put together beforehand though. Beginning later this month and running through October, no less than eight training sessions will be held throughout the state. Texas NORML released a statement, saying “With fewer than five months until the Texas Legislature convenes, it’s important that supporters of marijuana law reform are prepared and fully engaged with the lawmakers who represent them. Now is the time for legislators to hear from Texans like you who want to see sensible marijuana policies enacted.” They add, “Training events offer activists an opportunity to identify effective arguments, learn how to dispel common myths perpetuated by prohibitionists, and prepare to connect with and effectively persuade the lawmakers who represent them in Austin.” Training sessions will be held in pairs each weekend: Amarillo: Sept 17 Lubbock: Sept 18 Tyler: Sept 24 Pantego (Dallas/Fort Worth area): Sept 25 Harlingen (South Texas): Oct 1 Corpus Christi: Oct 2 Houston: Oct 8 San Antonio: Oct 9 Other notable marijuana policy events in Texas this year include Texas NORML’s Veteran Conference on Saturday, October 15, and a Marijuana Policy Conference by El Paso NORML on Saturday, October 22. Organizers of the training sessions, both Texans for Responsible Marijuana Policy and Texas NORML, ask that attendees wear “Professional or ‘business casual’ attire only please.” Stay up to date with the latest cannabis news from a Texas perspective by following the Texas Cannabis Report social media pages. Facebook – Twitter – Tumblr – Instagram The following two tabs change content below. Bio Latest Posts Stephen Carter Stephen Carter is a journalist and information technology specialist living in Waco, Texas. He has been working with the cannabis movement since 2009 and serves on the board of directors for Texas NORML as an advisor. He founded Texas Cannabis Report in 2013 to bring Texans accurate cannabis related news. Latest posts by Stephen Carter see all) Legislative session to begin with over a dozen cannabis bills - January 7, 2019 Share this: Tweet Related Comments comments |
Some of facts of history, science, geography, and math are so crazy that they sound bogus — but they're actually completely true. In a recent Quora thread, a user asked, "What are some of the most mind-blowing facts that sound like 'BS,' but are actually true?" Below are some of our (verified) favorites, complete with explanations and source materials. 1. A Banyan Tree near Kolkata, India is bigger than the average Walmart.-Submitted by Avirup Maukherjee The Great Banyan Tree in Kolkata, India. Mike Nudelman/Business Insider The 250-year-old Great Banyan tree has aerial roots that cover 3.5 square acres of land, which equals roughly 156,000 square feet, or 14,400 square meters. Compare that to data from the most recent unit count and square footage report from Wal-Mart, which says that the average store size (that's not a Supercenter) is just under 105,000 square feet or 9,750 square meters. Wikipedia 2. The city of Chicago was raised by over a foot during the 1850s and '60s without disrupting daily life.-Submitted by Arun Shroff Wikimedia Commons Actually, it was more like 10 feet in some parts of the city. Chicago had a serious mud problem in the middle of the 19th century. Because of its proximity to a lake shore marsh, roads and sidewalks were submerged in mud, spreading illnesses like typhoid fever, dysentery, and even a deadly outbreak of cholera. After a few failed attempts at a solution, the newly created Chicago Board of Sewerage Commissioners came up with a plan in 1855. They hired engineer E. Chesbrough of Boston, who recommended storm-sewers, but said this would require increasing the level of the city. After deliberation, the board decided to lift the streets, sidewalks, and buildings up onto higher foundations between four to 14 feet tall to increase drainage from the city surface. The massive undertaking took more than two decades to complete, but did not disturb daily life and attracted tourists from all over the world. 3. Bangladesh has more people than Russia.-Submitted by Varun Kumar Quora Russia may span 9 time zones and cover more surface area than Pluto as the world's largest country, but tiny Bangladesh (slightly bigger than the size of New York state) has a population of 156.6 million people. Russia has 143.5 million. 4. A con man sold the Eiffel Tower (almost twice).-Submitted by Prateek Singh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Lustig#mediaviewer/File:Victor_Lustig.jpg and http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_Tower#mediaviewer/File:Eiffel_Tower,_full-view_looking_toward_the_Trocadero,_Exposition_Universal,_1900,_Paris,_France.jpg "Count" Victor Lustig was famous for being one of the smoothest con men in history, but his most impressive stunt was when he convinced six scrap metal dealers to bid on the Eiffel Tower. The story goes that Lustig got the idea when he read an article about how the Eiffel Tower was rusting, and the high cost of its maintenance and repairs. Since the tower was only supposed to stand for 20 years, some Parisians were saying it should be taken down entirely. Not one to miss an opportunity, Lustig devised a plan to convince the city's biggest scrap-metal dealers that he was a government director charged with the discreet task of selling off the Eiffel Tower's scrap metal. He rented limousines and gave tours of the landmark, and insinuated not only that this was very hush-hush government business, but that he could be bribed into accepting the winning bid. One dealer was convinced, and paid Lustig $20,000 in cash plus an additional $50,000 to make sure his was the winning bid. Once he had the money, Lustig raced off to Austria to lay low while the story broke — but it never did since the dealer was too embarrassed to report Lustig's scam. Lustig later returned to Paris and gave it another try, but was worried one of the scrap dealers had notified the police. He fled to the U.S. where he was ultimately caught. Read more about Lustig's life here. 5. There are more synapses (nerve connections) in your brain than there are stars in our galaxy.-Submitted by Jim Preston Business Insider and Shutterstock Astronomers estimate that there are more than 200 billion stars present in the Milky Way Galaxy. That's a lot of stars. But neuroscientists estimate the number of synaptic connections in the average 3-year-old is close to 1 quadrillion. After that, a refining process occurs, leaving the average adult with about half that many, or roughly 500 trillion synapses. 6. There's a nuclear bomb lost somewhere off the coast of Georgia.-Submitted by Christopher Reiss https://www.google.com/maps/place/Wassaw+Sound,+Georgia+31410/@31.9359197,-80.9472227,15z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x88fb7a2e0d5cad8f:0xb4844fea748773bc and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_15_nuclear_bomb#mediaviewer/File:Mk15.jpg On February 5, 1958, an Air Force jet crashed into a B-47 bomber carrying a 7,000-pound nuclear bomb. The pilot, worried the bomb might break loose from the damaged plane, dropped it into the water outside of Savannah, Ga. near Wassaw Sound. The Navy searched for the bomb for months, but were never able to recover it. Though the Air Force and former pilot of the plane deny that the bomb contained any plutonium, congressional testimony from the assistant to the Secretary of Defense in 1966 indicated the bomb was a "complete weapon," with a nuclear capsule containing both uranium and plutonium. The Air Force does say that if the bomb is still intact, the risk of heavy metals spreading is low, and that if left undisturbed, the bomb should pose no hazard. 7. Cleopatra lived closer in time to the building of the first Pizza Hut than to the building of the pyramids.-Submitted by Anonymous Robert Johnson/Business Insider and http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cleopatra#mediaviewer/File:Michelangelo,_Cleopatra.jpg and Shutterstock Construction on the pyramids of Giza took place roughly from 2550 B.C. to 2490 B.C., while Cleopatra, the last active Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt, was born in 69 B.C. and died in 30 B.C. The first Pizza Hut opened in Wichita, Kansas on June 15, 1958. That means that the chain's opening is about 500 years closer to Cleopatra's lifetime than the construction of the Giza pyramids. 8. And on that note… The woolly mammoth still roamed the earth while the pyramids were being built.-Submitted by Anubhav Das Robert Johnson/Business Insider and http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Woolly_mammoth_%28Mammuthus_primigenius%29_-_Mauricio_Ant%C3%B3n.jpg The last woolly mammoths died as late as 1650 B.C. on Russia's Wrangle Island (from what scientists can tell, anyway— most populations of woolly mammoths disappeared long ago during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene periods, but some still survived on islands in Alaska and Russia). By this time, the Egyptian Empire was already extremely advanced and building pyramids. In fact, the Great Pyramid of Giza had existed for 1,000 years by the time the last woolly mammoth died. 9. North Korea and Finland are technically separated by only one country.-Submitted by Mira Zaslove Megan Willett/Business Insider and Reporters Without Borders Russia shares a 10.5-mile border along the Tumen River with North Korea, and a 833-mile border with Finland. 10. In 1986, two people died during a charity event in Cleveland, Ohio because 1.5 million balloons were launched into the sky.-Submitted by Sarang Kawade Balloonfest 1986 was a fundraising stunt by United Way of Cleveland that was meant to be a harmless world record for the simultaneous release of balloons. Unfortunately, the balloons drifted back down over the city, falling on Lake Erie, Burke Lakefront Airport, and the surrounding area, causing massive city-wide problems. Most tragically, the balloons hampered the United States Coast Guard search for two boaters who were later found drowned. The organizers and the city faced lawsuits from people seeking millions of dollars in damages, and cost overruns put the event in the red. 11. Heroin was once used to treat children's coughs.-Submitted by Garwin Kim Sing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin#mediaviewer/File:Bayer_Heroin_bottle.jpg and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin#mediaviewer/File:BayerHeroin.png Bayer, the German pharmaceutical company that produces aspirin, commercialized heroin in the 1890s as a cough, cold, and pain remedy. What's really shocking, however, is that Bayer marketed heroin for use in children as late as 1912, years after reports began to surface that it could be a dangerous drug. In 1914, heroin was restricted to prescription-only use in the U.S. and eventually banned by the FDA altogether in 1924. See more incredible ads of Bayer marketing heroin for children here. 12. A man received the highest honor of service from both the Allies and Axis in World War II.-Submitted by Aviral Bhatnagar http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ek17bf.jpg and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Pujol_Garcia#mediaviewer/File:Joan_Pujol_7th_Light_Infantry.jpg and http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Member_of_the_Order_of_the_British_Empire_MBE_MOD_45147520.jpg His name was Joan Pujol Garcia, and he was a Spanish spy working as a double agent for both the Allies and Nazis. He originally approached the Allies to work for them but was denied, so he instead created a fake identity and began "working" for the Nazis, supplying them with false information. Soon thereafter, Garcia was accepted as a double agent for the Allies. Throughout his time as a double agent, Garcia gave the Nazis a mixture of false reports, true but nonessential information, and high-value info that had arrived a little too late. He and his British MI5 handler even created a network of 27 fictitious subordinate agents who all received salaries from the Nazis and submitted expense reports. Garcia was eventually given both the Iron Cross by the Germans and the Most Excellent Order by the British Empire. 13. Harvard University was founded before calculus was discovered.-Submitted by Anonymous Wikimedia Commons and Shutterstock Harvard is the oldest institution of higher education in the U.S., established in 1636. Calculus wasn't discovered until roughly 50 years later, thanks to Gottfried Leibniz's 1684 "Nova Methodus" and Isaac Newton's 1687 "Principia" (and the countless refinements that followed from subsequent mathematicians). Also, Galileo Galilei — the famous European physicist, mathematician, engineer, astronomer, and philosopher — was still alive during Harvard's early years. He died in 1642. 14. Alaska is the most eastern, western, and northern state in the United States. -Submitted by Curtis C. Chan World Atlas Alaska is obviously the most northern state in the U.S., but thanks to its Aleutian Islands, Alaska stretches right up to the edge of the Western Hemisphere at the 180º line of longitude and across into the Eastern Hemisphere (all the way up the edge of the Russian Federation). This makes it the most northern, western, and eastern state in the United States. Hawaii is the most southern state. 15. There is more time separating Stegosaurus and Tyrannosaurus Rex than Tyrannosaurus Rex and us.-Submitted by Shelley Chang Shutterstock and https://www.flickr.com/photos/timparkinson/3542903169/in/photolist-d3LMrq-9az5XC-8V8tAB-aye1Xi-6WHwgj-7FtCkm-e2oNf3-fFsRgr-8JDPCZ-4npC-acwVMJ-aCBtW6-6p5iFp-HWhF7-Mhfi9-7sWQBK-bMJVu-8RY7W5-6RyMSK-guNwXN-6p5moi-6fCBrP-cKsCHw-629ZFc-5HSrhc-98Jsgc-6EsL28-8HR9JE-6p5kGr-rayf3-rayfc-6dvfry-a2RReD-3bLnqA-8TZg4D-iEDtsS-7ztVjs-6CctM5-2oiwkz-4dgMja-b5nnN-9LFXXN-ftnZd-e9EcFQ-LNE-9pHV9g-CiS32-7bVdSf-j97ZVu-3dxrTr Contrary to what some cartoons, movies, and books would have us believe, not all dinosaurs lived together. In fact, they were vastly separated by time and geography. The "age of dinosaurs," or Mesozoic Era, had three distinct time periods (the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous Periods). The Jurassic-period dinosaur Stegosaurus already had been extinct for approximately 80-90 million years before the appearance of the Cretaceous dinosaur Tyrannosaurus, making the Tyrannosaurus much closer in time to us (we're separated by about 65.5 million years). And by "us" that doesn't mean the human race, but you, reading this article right now at your computer. Dinosaurs were around for a long time. 16. A park in Austria becomes totally submerged in 30 feet of water every spring.-Submitted by Rishav Anand A submerged bench at Grüner See in Austria. Wolf-Ulf Wulfrolf/Flickr The park, in Styria, Austria, is called Grüner See (Green Lake) and during the winter, it has lovely trails, benches, and a small lake that is three to six feet deep. Every spring, however, the snow and ice melt from the nearby Hochschwab mountains, and the area becomes submerged in 30 feet of water. Benches, trees, and footpaths are all found beneath the surface, and scuba divers come to the area to see the amazing spectacle. 17. THE MONTY HALL PROBLEM: George is on a game show, and he has to pick one of three doors. There's a car behind one of them and goats behind the other two. He picks door number one. The host, who knows what's behind all the doors, opens door number two, revealing a goat. He then says to George, "I'll let you switch doors if you want." Should George stick with door number one or switch to door number three? The correct answer is to switch to door number three.-Submitted by Andrew Stein To the average person (and many academics, originally), it seems obvious that switching should make no difference for George's odds. The car is equally likely to be behind door one or three, so whichever door George picks, he has a 50-50 chance of getting the car…right? That's wrong, though. Switching will give him an advantage statistically because now there's a 2/3 probability that the car is behind door number 2. Check out our explanation below: Still not convinced? Play this online game and see how the odds stack up in your favor when you switch. Browse the rest of the amazing facts in the Quora thread here. |
narendra modi meets infrastructure ministries secretaries to set target for current fiscal New Delhi: Aiming to spruce up growth, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday met secretaries of nine infrastructure ministries to set targets for 2014-15 and identify key projects in sectors like road, power and railways. According to sources, Planning Commission Secretary Sindhushree Khullar made a 15-page presentation on the performance of core infrastructure ministries in 2013-14 and deliberated on the targets suggested by the ministries for the current fiscal.Infrastructure sector is a focus area for the Modi-led government.The Centre is keen to speed up infrastructure development and investment to boost economic growth which remained at sub 5 per cent level during the previous two fiscals.Secretaries and senior officials from nine infrastructure ministries - power, road transport, shipping, civil aviation, coal, petroleum, railways, telecom and renewable energy – were present in the meeting. Besides, top officials from Rural Development Ministry and Environment and Forest Ministry also attended the meeting.Source said the Commission has proposed laying of 300 km new railway track during the current fiscal. Indian Railways laid 450 kms of new track in 2013-14, which was short of the targeted 500 km.Similarly, the Plan panel, proposed to set a target of 700 km for doubling of rail tracks in the current fiscal against 900 km targeted in 2013-14. Indian railways achieved doubling of around 700 km of rail track in previous fiscal.For the civil aviation sector, the Commission has proposed to lower the investment target from Rs 1,008 crore in previous fiscal to Rs 934 crore in the current fiscal. The investment realisation was about 55 per cent of the target in 2013-14.The plan to develop airports in non-metro cities was also discussed at the meeting.Problems being faced by road and transport ministries were also deliberated upon.As many as 189 highway projects involving a cost of Rs 1,80,000 crore are stuck due to problems of land acquisition, delays in forest and environment clearances, non-transfer of defence land and hurdles in rail over bridges, among other things. |
An estimated 1 out of every 25 patients will get an infection on any given day while being treated in a U.S. hospital, and 1 out of 9 of those infected will die, according to new data released today from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Though there has been progress made to improve patient safety efforts, the agency said more work is needed.“This is probably the best quality of data we've had a in a long time,” said Dr. Michael Bell, deputy director of the CDC's Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, regarding two new reports. They sound the alarm, he said, about the specific threats that require national attention.Nearly 722,000 hospital-acquired infections occurred in acute-care hospitals in the U.S. in 2011, and about 75,000 patients with the infections died during their hospital stays, according to a report published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine . More than half of all these infections occurred outside of the intensive-care unit. The findings were based on 2011 data from 183 U.S. hospitals and looked at a wide range of hospital infections. The most common included pneumonia, which accounted for 22%; surgical-site infections, accounting for another 22%; gastrointestinal infections represented 17%; urinary tract infections, 13%; and bloodstream infections, 10%.It's not all bad news, Bell noted, citing a second report showing nationwide progress.Between 2008 and 2001, there was a 44% decrease in central line-associated bloodstream infections and a 20% decrease in infections related to 10 surgical procedures, including colon surgery, cardiac surgery, hip and knee replacements, and abdominal and vaginal hysterectomies. Between 2011 and 2012, there was also a 4% decrease in hospital-acquired MRSA and a 2% decrease in hospital-onset C. difficile infections.Though the declines are promising, Bell noted that everyone is likely to become a patient at some point, and looking at the results through that lens might paint a different picture.“I don't want to lose sight of the fact that every number you see in the report is a person,” said Bell, noting that each of these individuals went to the hospital with the hopes of getting better.And though most infections were decreasing nationwide, some, such as catheter associated urinary tract infections, have increased. There was also a “mixed picture” among states, where there was tremendous variability. One state might be at the bottom for one infection type, but might be leading the pack for another, Bell said. The CDC provides a state-by-state comparison within the report.In a call to action, the agency says that preventing hospital infections is possible, but it will take a conscious effort by clinicians, healthcare facilities and systems, public health workers and quality improvement groups, among others, to make it happen.That sentiment was shared this week during a session at the American College of Healthcare Executives meeting in Chicago. Leadership involvement is the key to making evidence-based changes in hospital systems a priority, conference speakers agreed.Follow Sabriya Rice on Twitter: @MHSRice |
Editor's note: Change the List aims to bring attention to places that need it most. Follow the project on Tumblr. Lahaina, Hawaii (CNN) -- Elle Cochran grew up far too enchanted by Maui's rocky coastline and beach-bum lifestyle to care a thing about politics and voting. "You get up, work, go to the beach, sleep -- and do it again," she said of life on this Hawaiian island, which, of course, is known for its surf. "It's just this routine." But after a real estate project was proposed on Honolua Bay -- a cliff-lined cove near her home that's known for its ruler-straight waves -- she decided to do something that's bizarre for a non-voter. She ran for county council. "I never voted until I ran for office," she said. In other words: The first ballot she cast was for herself. In what state but Hawaii would that even be possible? I came to the Aloha State not for the beaches, volcanoes and helicopter tours but because Hawaii has the lowest voter turnout rate in the nation. In the 2008 presidential race, when Barack Obama -- Hawaii's body-surfing, shaka-throwing native son -- was at the top of the ticket, fewer than half of eligible Hawaii residents voted. Compare that with the No. 1 civic-minded state, Minnesota, where 78% cast ballots. We can all agree that's a problem, right? Tumblr: See how your state ranks No matter how little you care for politics, it seems unhealthy -- criminal, some people in Hawaii told me -- that such a small slice of the electorate makes decisions that affect the quality of life for everyone in the state, including the majority that doesn't vote. This is all the more shocking when you consider that more than 90% of registered voters in Hawaii participated in elections for several years after statehood in 1959. People cared about what their newborn state would turn into. Somewhere along the way, enthusiasm died. Before I came to Hawaii, it was tempting to blame the state's low turnout on apathetic surfers -- and on stereotypes of people who bum their way through life. But eight days, seven flights, three islands (one luau) and dozens of interviews later, I realized there are much-less-obvious forces at play on this island state, too. I met people like Nani Teruya, a fiery 51-year-old who throws her head back like Kermit the Frog when she laughs. She says the U.S. is illegally occupying Hawaii, and she doesn't vote on principle. Then there's Sam Slom, Hawaii's one and only Republican state senator, who says voters don't care because it seems like the Democratic Party controls everything in the state. Or Nanci Munroe, 55, who was driving to her polling place during one presidential election when she learned that it didn't matter how she voted: The winner was announced on her car radio. (Because Hawaii is six hours behind the East Coast, national elections often are called by the news media, and Twitter, before Hawaii finishes voting.) All of these factors lead people here to feel disconnected from the other 49 states and from politics in general. This place of smoldering volcanoes, house-sized ferns and melt-the-horizon sunsets is just very different from the rest. "We have nothing in common: language, culture," said Tama Kaleleiki, whom I met after a church service on Maui where the hymns are sung in Hawaiian and accompanied by a ukulele. The U.S. and Hawaii, he said, are like "apples and bananas." This little election-minded romp through paradise was part of a new CNN effort called Change the List. Our tagline: "Bringing change to places that need it most." We start with a list and then tackle the place at the bottom of the ranks, with the hope not of shaming that place but of starting a conversation that could boost it into higher standings. That's a lot of pressure, right? On the trip, I definitely felt it. Throughout the journey -- and, let's be honest, pretty much life -- I was plagued with doubt: Is our money-hungry, attack-heavy, non-responsive democracy too far gone? Is apathy too entrenched? What if the choice of candidates isn't good enough? Does one vote out of millions actually matter? And isn't surfing more fun than voting, anyway? I wasn't sure change was even possible. 'Stop doing nothing?!' It didn't help that the first person I met laughed in my face Against all logic and modern airplane etiquette, I decided to strike up a conversation with the woman seated next to me on the 9-hour, 40-minute flight from Atlanta to Honolulu. There are (at least) two reasons I should have known better: 1. She had stuffed three bags, one of them a cooler full of food, under the seat in front of her. 2. When I was returning from the bathroom, I saw all 10 of her toes floating in the air above her headrest. She was doing some sort of meditative yoga. Knees in face. Shoes off, wearing pink-and-white-striped socks, the kind that separate toes into creepy foot-fingers. When she finished the routine, I asked whether she was from Hawaii. She said yes and asked me why I was headed to the Aloha State. For work, I said, being intentionally generic. "F*** you, maaaaan!" she said. Me: "What?" (Internal: "What!!") Toe lady: "You're taking some local's job!" No, no. I tried to explain this project to her: Change the List. Encourage voting. Atlanta resident. Non-surfer. Get it? Her response was no more comforting. "You think people are going to stop doing nothing to vote!?" That's when she laughed in my face. It was one of those cackles so loud and belly-felt that you can see the person's gums. Time froze briefly in that moment: me staring at the tartar on her gumline, thinking the whole project was doomed before it began. 'You could eat a sea urchin' The Maui where Elle Cochran grew up is exactly like the one you picture in your mind, especially if, like me before this trip, you've seen "Lilo & Stitch" but never been to Hawaii. "As a Hawaiian, we are always connected to our environment: to our streams, to the aquatic life, to the mountains," Cochran said. "Growing up, we could live off the land. You could pick a fruit off the tree. You could go in the ocean and get a fish. You could pick limu, or seaweed, off of rocks. You could eat a sea urchin." (Sea urchin!) Cochran, the non-voter who decided to run for the County Council, learned to swim by age 2 or 3. The beach on the west side of Maui, near Lahaina, was her life. She swam and snorkeled, canoed competitively. Drive up and down the coast today, and you see packs of surfers, looking like seals as they bob up and down on the waves. With so much else to do, Cochran never enjoyed school. It certainly didn't prepare her to run for the County Council -- or to vote. "It wasn't part of my upbringing," she said of elections and politics. Eventually, she left for boarding school in a less-idyllic location: "up-country," as she says, near a cattle farm. Partly because of the distance, she quit school at 16. The call of the water was too strong, and she didn't want to be "cooped up in a classroom." She went to work as a bartender in a touristy hotel -- the one that's now the Westin Maui -- and, over the course of about a decade, got tangled up with drug abuse and the law. She came out of that experience stronger, she said, and more confident. When she left rehab, she took up a new aquatic hobby: surfing. The ocean again became her refuge. 'We're stuck in a vicious cycle' On my first night in Honolulu, a surprisingly tall, dense city of computer-server-looking buildings backed by misty mountains, I met with a group called Kanu Hawaii. Kanu, which means "to plant" in Hawaiian, was founded about five years ago by a group of about 40 young people. They'd read a 1970s book called "Hawaii 2000." That year had come and gone, and modern Hawaii -- with its traffic, poverty and low civic engagement -- looked nothing like the island paradise outlined there. They started Kanu Hawaii to try to plant seeds of nonpartisan change. If anyone knows how to get Hawaii to vote, I thought, it's surely them. And if nothing else, they had to be more enthusiastic than the woman on the plane. A group of mostly young, T-shirt-wearing Kanu volunteers gathered in a community center to discuss strategy. Several pecked at laptops as Kanu's executive director, James Koshiba, gave a slideshow presentation about the dismal state of voting in Hawaii. "We're stuck in a vicious cycle of people who are disappointed in government and politics, and they don't vote," he said, pulling up a chart to illustrate this point. The only way to break this cycle, for politics to be responsive again, he said, is to get people back into politics -- and to take money and special interest groups out. "When people's voices aren't there to shape democracy, other forces fill the void." To that point, Kanu is trying to increase voter turnout in the state in two ways: by registering people to vote and by going door to door, telling people why voting matters. The group's goal was to register 900 new voters by November; as of this meeting in late September, they had hit 800. Clipboard-toting volunteers had knocked on 312 doors. Listening to the presentation, I couldn't help but be inspired. The numbers do get in the way, though. How can knocking on 312 doors matter in a state of 1.4 million people? As if reading my mind, Koshiba addressed this point. When volunteers go door to door, asking people what issues matter to them as well as asking them to vote, they're "re-knitting" the fabric of communities in Hawaii, he said, some of which has long been fraying. They're giving anonymous residents a voice. It seems to be working. Kanu didn't start working on voter turnout until this year. During the primary, the group targeted House District 48 on Oahu. While voter turnout dropped 1% for the state as a whole, it increased more than 4% in that district, where volunteers canvassed 980 homes, sent 1,000 e-mails and registered 621 new voters. Still, I wanted to see them in action before I would believe that going up to a random person's door and asking them to vote would work. Can you imagine if someone knocked on your door, unannounced, and told you it was important to them that you voted? I wasn't sure how I would react. 'I thought they were crazy' It was 2006 when Cochran first heard about the development project. The pitchmen took her and other surfers out to lunch; they wanted that community's buy-in. They showed her blueprints for new showers and picnic tables that would benefit the surfers. "They just dangle the cherry in front of you so you buy what they're trying to sell." At first, the proposed development at Honolua Bay -- the pristine, world-renowned surf spot near Cochran's home on Maui -- seemed benign enough. But after doing some research, Cochran and other surfers discovered further plans, not just for showers and tables, she said, but for a golf course and gated community. She was outraged. For Cochran, the seeds of civic engagement had been planted when a friend asked her to volunteer with a group that conducts surveys of marine life in protected bays. During those surveys, she felt like she was making a difference, protecting something she loved. There was little she loved more than Honolua Bay. She and her husband, surf shop owner Wayno Cochran, who moved to Maui as a teenager because of the surf at Honolua Bay, started the Save Honolua Coalition. When their efforts to protect the bay seemed to stall out, a friend suggested that Elle run for office. "I thought they were crazy," she said. She was 45 and had never cast a ballot. From 1984 (Reagan-Mondale) all the way through Obama's election in 2008, the opportunity passed her by. She wasn't the kind of person who was into politics -- or who had a cause. But she felt strongly that the bay needed to be protected. So she ran. Maybe this would be the new her? The surfer turned politician. Into the voting desert The Saturday after I met with Kanu's keyboard-tapping volunteers, I decided to go canvassing with them. We met in the parking lot of a Safeway in downtown Honolulu, near the windward side of the island, which catches most of the rain and, therefore, looks like something out of "Lost" or "Jurassic Park." Edythe McNamee, the videographer who traveled with me on this trip, kept looking up into the craggy, jungle-covered peaks near the capital and joking that a pterodactyl might swoop out at any moment. As we crossed a ridge on a two-lane highway, we saw a part of Oahu that most tourists don't: the leeward side. It's so dry that it looks like Tucson or suburban L.A. Joe Heaukulani, 36, one of Kanu's volunteers, would later explain to me that this desert image also applies to voter turnout rates in the area, known as the Waianae Coast. Kanu tried to make maps of this area showing voters and non-voters by house. But data sets identified only voting households. All of the maps of Waianae, Heaukulani said, were "pretty much blank." All non-voters. Our crew regrouped at a picnic table in the neighborhood we were going to canvass, a place of bland, khaki-colored homes with plastic siding. Kanu's executive director passed out clipboards and colorful folders containing voter registration forms. He also doled out instructions: "A lot of times, it helps to call out away from the door or from the sidewalk -- like, 'Aloha!' -- and people will come meet you halfway." You don't want to startle anyone, he said. And you don't want to attract angry dogs. I headed out into the neighborhood with Heaukulani, who looks like a Hawaiian Santa, and Kelsey Amos, 23, who doesn't. Heaukulani was wearing jeans and shoes because of the dogs. Last time he was in this neighborhood, he said, one chased down his teammate. I, of course, was wearing shorts and sandals. The first person we met wasn't very excited to talk with us. "I don't vote. I never did," said John Mole, a 59-year-old man in a black tank top and flip-flops. He doesn't register because he doesn't want to get jury duty. "I know some of the representatives," he said. "They don't want to listen to me, because I don't vote." It was a sobering moment, made sadder by the fact that Mole made the connection. 'Get out the vote' Before I left for Hawaii, I read three books: • "Get Out the Vote" by Donald Green and Alan Gerber • "Mobilizing Inclusion" by Lisa Garcia Bedolla and Melissa Michelson • "The Victory Lab" by Sasha Issenberg All speak to the power of this idea: Asking someone to vote works. "In thirty-six of forty-five experiments, canvassing was found to increase turnout," write Green and Gerber, political science professors at Columbia and Yale, respectively. "Putting all of the evidence together suggests that, as a rule of thumb, one additional vote is produced for every fourteen people who are successfully contacted by canvassers." Michelson, from Menlo College in California, told me that some groups -- racial minorities, recent immigrants and residents of low-income neighborhoods -- don't feel like people who are supposed to vote in U.S. elections. But if you ask them to participate, she said, that can all change. "It doesn't really matter what you say. It doesn't really matter who asks you," she said. "The important thing is the personal invitation to participate." 'Oh, you're one of us!' Cochran knew that she would need to court people who never had voted before to win the election for County Council in Maui. She was new. She had to find new voters. "It was the surfers" who carried me, she said. "I got a few of the surfers to want to vote just because they knew me and I surf with them. That's definitely a demographic that doesn't care about that kind of stuff. That was rewarding in itself, just to get someone who didn't even think to want to vote or care to want to vote. But because they knew me, and they said 'Oh, you're one of us! You're a surfer like us! And you're going to vote -- you're going to run for office!? I'm going to vote for you. At least I can relate to you.' "And I'm like, 'Right on!' " Cochran lives in the district of Hawaii with the lowest turnout rate in the state. In the primary election this year, fewer than 15% of registered voters cast ballots in House District 10, which encompasses Lahaina and a moon-shaped slice of West Maui. That's only 1,961 of 13,254 people, according to numbers compiled for CNN by local data hound Jared Kuroiwa. Elections in a place like that can easily be swayed if a candidate turns out voters who never have participated. Friends helped Cochran hold campaign events. They passed out stickers that show a silhouette of Cochran "hanging ten" on the end of a surfboard: an impossibly hard move in which the surfer walks to the front end of the board and hangs all 10 toes over the edge. They hoped the campaign would defy the laws of physics, too. One friend who helped Cochran with these efforts was Nani Teruya, a big-laughing, fast-talking woman who wears a flower above her ear. Teruya went so far as to stand on the highway with Cochran, holding her council signs and waving at commuters. But when Cochran asked for her vote, Teruya said absolutely not. To vote, she said, would defy her Hawaiian heritage. She wouldn't budge. 'I'll probably mail it out tomorrow' "Aloha!" Heaukulani hollered from the street. "Hui!" "Hui" means conversation or meeting. A union. Heaukulani called it out in a high-pitched, sing-song voice, waiting for someone to respond. "Hoooo-EEEEEY." No answer. A chain-link fence blocked the volunteers from knocking on the door. That was the seventh house we visited without much luck. House eight: No one's home. Nine: nothing. "Somebody's definitely home at the next one," Amos said, a packet of voter info in hand. But a minivan pulled out of house 10 just as she approached. "Sorry, we're on our way out," said a person in white sunglasses. A door shut, and the van drove away. Feeling dejected, we trudged onward, the mid-morning sun stinging our necks. A woman wearing a shirt with a Thai beer logo on the front was sitting in the garage at house 11. The door was open. At least she'd have to look at us before saying no. Do you vote? No. Would you like to register? No. Last-ditch effort: Is there an issue important to you? The volunteers explained that Kanu is asking candidates questions based on the issues identified by the people they meet while canvassing. If the candidates addressed her concern, they told her, they'd report back. "Oh!" the woman said. I could almost hear her tongue loosening. She launched into her life story. Her mom, she said, is 86 and lives here. Her mom's husband was Hawaiian, and that's why he was able to get a house in this neighborhood, which is reserved for native Hawaiians. But her mother's husband died recently, and the group that oversees the land wants to throw her mother out. "Can't they let her stay until she passes on? It would be so much better," the woman said. "She knows all the neighbors. She feels safe enough." The volunteers asked again. Wouldn't you like to vote? Your voice could be heard. After some discussion, the woman, Marlene Joshua, 58, said yes. Heaukulani handed her a registration form and a stamped envelope. "I'll probably mail it out tomorrow," the woman said, sounding sincere. That seemed like a real victory. Again, though, I started thinking big picture. By the end of the morning, we had been to 18 houses. Joshua, sitting in her garage, was the only one who agreed to sign up to vote for the first time. I asked Heaukulani whether that low success rate leaves him feeling dejected, as it had me. "Even if you convince one person," he said, "that means you did make a difference." I would have to hear his personal story before that was something I could actually believe. The prince and his cargo shorts Elle Cochran's friend greeted me with a sweaty kiss on the cheek. We were standing on the lawn of a white, pitched-roof church surrounded by longneck palm trees. Nani Teruya hurried me inside and into a pew near the back of the small, open-air sanctuary, ceiling fans whirring above. I was excited to meet her because she seemed like such a contradiction: She knocks on doors for her friend, holds signs with Cochran's name on them. But she won't go through with the act of casting a ballot. I wanted to understand why. We settled into the back of the church as piano and ukulele music started to play. People sang in Hawaiian. "E ho'omaika'I kakou ia Ke Akua," the minister said. "Come, let us worship God," the congregation echoed in English. It wasn't until about 20 minutes into the service that I realized I was seated right behind a prince -- one wearing cargo shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. After the service, I tapped Prince Michael Kauhiokalani on the shoulder and asked if he had a minute to talk. He took me to a field beside the church where an ancient king and queen of the Hawaiian Kingdom, his distant relatives, are buried and entombed. His sister, Princess Owana Ka'ohelelani, came with us. She brought up an ugly piece of Hawaii's history: the part when U.S. business interests essentially took over the island nation without the consent of its ruling monarchy. This thread of Hawaii's story was new to me when I set off for the islands, but when I landed in Honolulu, the first place I went was Iolani Palace, now a museum. For $12, you can see the upstairs chamber where Queen Lili'uokalani, the last monarch of the Hawaiian Kingdom, was held on charges of treason, brought by local businessmen. A judge named Sanford Dole basically forced the queen to abdicate the throne in 1895 by promising pardons for her supporters. The queen's chamber is haunting. In the center is a bright-colored, ornately stitched quilt Lili'uokalani made during the time she spent as a prisoner in her own home. A palace library also holds the sheet music for songs she wrote, including "Aloha 'Oe," which, as Sarah Vowell points out in her smart history of the takeover, was played at the inauguration of Obama, the first U.S. president from Hawaii. (Vowell wonders what the queen would have thought of that moment.) "It was just a very, very evil thing -- an act of war," Princess Ka'ohelelani told me of the annexation of Hawaii by the United States. "And what does the queen do? She writes a song. She chose to forgive. ... She chose a path of peace, love and acceptance." That history looms over the present here like morning fog on the mountains. It's the reason Teruya doesn't vote. She and others are so upset about the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom -- which the United States didn't apologize for until 1993 -- that they don't participate in U.S. elections. They don't recognize the government. Hawaii only became a state in 1959. Memories are fresh. The prince and princess invited me to stay for lunch at the church. After grabbing a plate of rice, cabbage and fried chicken -- typically international fare -- we sat at a table with Teruya. I brought up the subject of voting to see where everyone stood on the topic. "I can voice myself in many, many different ways," Teruya said, defending her decision not to vote. She later would tell me that if she cast a ballot, she would feel like she lost part of her Hawaiian identity. "I don't need to sign that piece of paper." I felt silly and small in that moment. Who was I to come to Hawaii to encourage people to vote when at least some chunk of the population feels voting is morally wrong? Maybe the most appropriate political statement, in this case, is to withhold a vote. But the prince made a strong rebuttal. If you don't vote, he said, then how could the Hawaiian Kingdom be restored? 'I think I got 12 votes' Personal experience taught Joe Heaukulani that asking a person to vote works. The evening after we went canvassing in Oahu's voter desert, I met Heaukulani at his brother's high-rise apartment building in Waikiki, the ritzy, touristy area of Honolulu. He never cast a ballot himself until age 34. No one had ever asked him to, he said, and politics just wasn't something he thought much about. He was more into video games. But then, in 2010, he saw a link to Kanu's website shared via Twitter. He clicked it and found a page that asked him to make a pledge to vote for the first time. For whatever reason, he said yes. That decision was the start of an incredible transformation. It led to his current hobby: spending weekends convincing other people that their votes matter. And, like Cochran, he eventually ran for office. I didn't find out about this side of Heaukulani from him; he was too modest to bring it up. Another volunteer ratted him out. Heaukulani ran this year as a nonpartisan candidate for Hawaii House District 20. He had no money to fund his campaign, so he walked door to door in his district, asking his would-be constituents about the issues that mattered most. "I think I got 12 votes," he told me. But, as I wrote on the "Change the List" Tumblr, that's not the point. He joined the democratic process. He helped close the loop. He proved, to me if no one else, that one person could make a considerable difference. The 'silent majority' Portraits of the Maui County Council members hang on the wall in the county office building in Wailuku, on the northwest part of the island. The nine photographs are presented in a grid, like "Hollywood Squares." Elle Cochran is in the center square, wearing a pink blazer. She's the only one in the bunch not wearing black or blue. She's different. She knows that. She's the surfer politician. It's how she won: by mobilizing that "silent majority," as she calls it. That, of course, included herself. She cast her first ballot in the 2010 primary election and her second in the general, both by mail. She's never been to a polling place. Cochran and her husband had put their lives on the line for the election by tossing in $40,000 to fund her campaign. Now they want to see it pay off. But being in office doesn't mean Cochran can accomplish anything she wants. The council she sits on recently voted against putting preservation status on a tract of land along Honolua Bay, the body of water that inspired her to run for office. "Many times, I am on the losing end of the votes," she said. "Yeah, it's frustrating, yeah, it's heartbreaking, but, you know, you move on." The positive outcome, even when she loses a vote, she said, is that the community becomes aware of the issues. Maui Land & Pineapple Co., which owns that piece of land, declined to comment for this story. Angus McKelvey, the state representative from the area, said giving the bay conservation status would have the unintended consequence of lowering its market value, and therefore devaluing pensions for people from Maui Land & Pineapple. The smarter move would be for the state or federal government to purchase the land with cash, so that the pensions would be protected, he said. Despite his disagreements with Cochran on these issues, he praised her ability to interest new people in politics. Turnout will likely be higher because of it, he said. "Hopefully the surf won't be breaking" on Election Day, McKelvey said, otherwise people might not show up at the polls in West Maui. Another reason Save Honolua has been so effective: Facebook. Online campaigns have been so successful that Wayno Cochran, Elle's headband-and-ponytail-wearing surfer husband, says online or text-message-based elections would revive the political system in West Maui. Fewer than a third of young voters in Hawaii, ages 18 to 29, cast ballots in the 2008 election, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. That's compared with 51% for young voters in the country as a whole. Digital tools would change that, he said. "Texting would work. Everybody would vote. It would change everything. You would have young politicians. You wouldn't have 88-year-old senators." I asked Wayno Cochran what West Maui would be like if everybody voted, not just the older people and those with money. He had a John Lennon sort of moment. "One hundred percent different world," he said. "We wouldn't have wars; we would be self-sustaining. ... If everybody voted, you'd have great candidates. You'd have great choices." The subtext: More people like Elle Cochran might care, and they might discover that they do sooner. 'We're just very one-sided in Hawaii' After hearing Heaukulani's transformation from non-voter to political candidate, I was convinced that asking a person to vote -- just putting out the invitation -- was the key to increasing voter participation in Hawaii and maybe in the rest of the country, too. But then I encountered another roadblock: people who register to vote but then, for a variety of reasons, stop participating after a certain number of years. Here are five of the most common, based on my unscientific wanderings: • People are fed up with the Electoral College. Hawaii has only four votes, which makes people feel like they don't matter on the national scene. (An average American vote has a one in 60 million chance of determining a national election, says Columbia University. Hawaii's odds are "nearly zero.") • Locals are sick of hearing who will be the next president of the United States before their polls close. That happens at 6 p.m. local time, or midnight in Washington. The state feels like a complete afterthought on the national scene. • They're good at statistics. By that I mean they realize their one vote rarely would decide the outcome of an election. (Counterpoint: The Hawaii House District 4 primary was decided by three votes; make two friends, and you could swing it.) • They don't trust the polls. Michael Remen, from the Big Island of Hawaii, loved voting and talking politics until he spent an hour and a half just trying to cast a ballot in the primary this year. There was such confusion that he left, and he is so frustrated he doesn't plan to vote in November. Several polling places on the Big Island also opened as much as 90 minutes late, causing voters to be turned away. The whole thing was such a mess that the state has stepped in to help run the elections in November. That's great, but it's not enough to sway Remen. • Finally, they're sick of the Democratic Party's dominance in the state. Of these, No. 5 is the excuse I heard most often and most passionately. "We're just very one-sided in Hawaii, and it has been that way for close to four decades now," said Nacia Blom, executive director of the Republican Party of Hawaii. Essentially, Hawaii is a one-party state. Around the time of statehood, Democrats and labor unions rose to power by standing up for the rights of pineapple and sugar plantation workers. That historical clout has lasted decades. With few exceptions -- Linda Lingle's 2002 election as governor is one, and she's running this year for a U.S. Senate seat -- Democrats have dominated all levels of government ever since. In 2008, 72% of Hawaii's voters picked Obama for president. Only District of Columbia voters chose him by a wider margin. The state has given its electoral votes to Republicans only twice in its history: in 1984 and 1972. There's a general sense in Hawaii that the Democratic Party, and the unions that support it, decide elections behind the scenes, before people vote. It's hard not to find some truth to that when you talk to people like Laura Thielen, whom I met one morning on the side of a highway. She was waving to commuters and smiling while holding a sign with her name on it. This sign-waving tradition, as it's called here, emerged in part because Hawaii bans billboard advertisements. Thielen told me the Democrats didn't want her to run on their party ticket because she hadn't been a member of the organization long enough. That seems suspect because her mother is a prominent Republican, and Thielen worked under a Republican governor. She says she's always espoused Democratic values, she just hadn't registered with the organization, since Hawaii has an open primary voting system. The Republicans, meanwhile, have lots of trouble finding candidates who want to sign up. Seventeen of 51 state House races and 10 of 25 Senate races are uncontested because the Republicans did not put up a challenger, said Blom, from the Republican Party. The state party's goal is to triple the number of Republicans in Hawaii's Senate. That sounds ambitious. But right now, there's only one Republican in the state Senate: Sam Slom, one of the feistiest politicians in the state. "The lesson in all this is one party, whether it be Republican or Democrat, is not good for any living being," said Slom, whom I described on the "Change the List" blog as the likeable, less-bat-like version of Ross Perot. He is on every state Senate committee -- and he's the minority leader, obviously. He's the only dissenting voice. "We've got Republicans who are scared of being Republicans," he said, adding that many Republicans don't put their party affiliation on their campaign signs. Without real choices between people with conflicting ideas, what's the point in voting? 'But I vote!' Edythe and I slid down to the edge of Honolua Bay at sunset. We wanted to see the place that had turned a 40-something non-voter into a candidate. It was certainly a sight to take in. The air smelled of salt and pine. The sky swirled with pinks and oranges. Far on the horizon, you could see the neighbor islands of Lana'i and Moloka'i, purple humpbacks that looked to be painted on the sky. From the road, high above, we had spotted two young women surfing. We followed a gently used trail down the cliffs and to the water's edge, the rocks changing from coarse sandpaper to something with the texture of ice. It was difficult to keep our footing, but eventually we made it, camera in tow. It's easy to see why this bay is beloved: It's hard for tourists to scamper down. At the volcanic shoreline, I stood on a black rock, waves crashing at my feet, and called out to the surfers. It felt like a scene out of a bad romantic comedy. "We're doing a story ... (Crash!) ... about voting!" "Could you talk to us for just a min ... (Crash) ... ute?" "It's for CNN!" One of the women yelled back, asking more about the story. I told her we were in West Maui because so few people vote. "But I vote!" All the more reason to talk. Alice Woodrow and Christine Brennan, both 27, told us they had heard about the Save Honolua campaign on Facebook and through friends. The issue is so hotly debated among surfers and young people, they said, that people talk about the preservation status of the bay while they're floating out in its waters, waiting to catch a wave. Thank you, Internet. The other person who got tagged in this Honolua Facebook campaign was Nani Teruya's daughter. Teruya, remember, is the woman who campaigned for Elle Cochran but won't vote because she says the U.S. government is illegitimate here. Her daughter, however, approached her mom one day and asked whether she could register to vote. She had heard about the Honolua campaign on the social network and wanted to participate. To my surprise, Teruya told her daughter yes. She wanted her daughter to have her own voice and to make her own decision about politics and the United States. Cochran considers this to be one of her greatest accomplishments. She brought up this story when I asked her whether the turnout would be higher in November. Teruya's daughter, she said, passed out 30 or 40 voter registration forms to friends. This is the daughter of a woman who refuses to vote -- who never has participated. "I think that alone says something," Cochran said. 'Boozy' on ballot day When I started doing research on what makes people vote, I came across what at first seemed like an awesome idea: shaming them into it. Hear me out. In the 1800s, voting was a "boozy, men's only" event "where men packed onto courthouse steps to select their leaders with raised hands or words bellowed over the din," as Sasha Issenberg writes in "The Victory Lab." The important part is not the booze, which no doubt would be out of place in our sterile, modern polling locations. It's that voting was public. All of your neighbors could see whether you showed up at those courthouse steps and raised your hand. If you didn't, you'd be embarrassed in front of friends and family. Today, whether a person votes is public record. While we were in West Maui, Edythe and I actually used those public records to do a scavenger hunt of sorts, tracking down non-voters. But my guess is that most people don't even know that info exists. Academics do. Two Yale researchers and one from the University of Northern Iowa conducted an experiment in 2006 to prove the power of these records. They sent mailers out to homes before the Michigan primary that included bits of scary information: whether they had voted in the past and whether their neighbors had, too. The mailers suggested that another letter would come after the election, telling all of the person's neighbors whether he or she made it to the polls for the primary. Public shaming worked. Those people were 8% more likely to vote, which may not sound like much but is a huge and significant number in the world of voter turnout rates. This year, The Atlantic used this information to argue for the United States to "abolish the secret ballot." It's a compelling argument and a sexy one. But, after going to Hawaii, I don't think it would work. The public backlash would be too strong. And who wants to vote simply because they're afraid of looking bad in front of their neighbors? Instead, serious efforts to boost voter participation must be hard-fought over the long term. As many people in the state told me, there's no silver bullet. But there are some winning solutions, no matter how difficult. They include: • Improving the education system. Hawaii should require students to learn about civics and voting. A report from the National Center for Education Statistics found that 32% of U.S. high school seniors did not learn about voting, political parties or elections. Those lessons are being taught in some Hawaii classrooms, like that of Jason Duncan at Mililani High School. I watched him engage students in a lively conversation about the importance of voting; 16-year-old Demaleena Long left the class determined to vote when she's able. Before that, she "didn't think it mattered." She is one of the lucky ones, however. Many students don't get that message -- and they risk turning into non-voting, checked-out adults. • Eliminating the Electoral College. People in Hawaii are right when they say their votes don't matter in presidential elections. A true popular vote would help fix that, and it would reduce the degree to which Hawaii's time zone matters. • Moving toward online elections. It sounds crazy, but it has worked elsewhere. Markham, Ontario, has used online voting since 2003. As my colleague Doug Gross wrote, one report says turnout has increased after the switch. Security is a concern, but it's no reason not to push forward, and quickly. • Implementing same-day voter registration. As long as people are going to have to schlep down to the polls, they should be able to register on Election Day as well. As a Wellesley College professor wrote in The New York Times: "Minnesota implemented same-day registration, and its 2008 presidential turnout rate topped the nation at 78%." A similar move could help Hawaii. • Moving voter registration online. Hawaii, thankfully, plans to take this step in 2016. For now, however, Hawaii's mail-in forms are needlessly cumbersome. They require full Social Security numbers, for example, which citizens rightly are wary of giving out to volunteers who might help them with the applications. Eleven states support online voter registration, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. There's no compelling reason that number shouldn't be 50. None of these is as easy as shaming a person into voting. But they could be as effective. 'It's not something that we're ignoring' The pickup kicked gravel at our shins as the two young surfers pulled away. Edythe and I left Honolua Bay after dark and drove back into Lahaina. Our last stop for the day would be a mayor's budget meeting in a local community center. I expected to find only a handful of people. But we walked into a packed meeting with more than 100 people. It became immediately clear that nearly all of them had come to talk about Honolua Bay. "Why don't you guys come up here so we can kind of talk story, because I know this is a major issue," the mayor of Maui said, inviting the crowd to gather at the front. "It's not something that we're ignoring," he said before giving an update about how the county is trying to come up with the money to buy back the land. Dozens of people gave impassioned pleas about why they want to save the bay. I couldn't help thinking that this is what democracy in Hawaii should look like: everyday people caring so much about an issue that they give up an evening to talk about it. That's so much more difficult than voting. Curious, I asked one man who looked like he was almost moved to tears by the debate whether he voted. "Of course," he said. The scene made me think how close non-voters are to this kind of action -- and the power that one person like Elle Cochran has had to mobilize them. It was only two short years ago that she was in her mid-40s and had never participated in politics in any way. That night, she was called upon, wearing a band of flowers around her head, to give technical updates about the disputed land's agricultural status and what that means. I also thought back to all of the non-voters I met on this trip. They're people like Kuulei Davis, 28, who was sitting beneath a shade tree on a beach near Lahaina. You could see paddle boarders and sailboats in the distance. She told me voting and civic engagement don't mesh with the laid-back lifestyle in Hawaii. "We just kind of keep it real simple," she told me. "Politics and all that stuff, on an island like this? It doesn't flow very well." That's not true, of course. Many non-voters I met cared deeply about political issues, but there were barriers to their participation or no one had asked them to join the conversation. When I asked Davis whether she wanted to sign up to vote for the first time -- after all, she's concerned about over-development of Maui and about her friends who have to work three jobs to pay the high rent rates here -- she said yes. Why did you cave in so easily? "Well," she said. "You asked." How to help If you want to be part of the solution, here are four small ways to help: • Participate in "Convince Me to Vote!" Send messages to these five-non voters I met in Hawaii and ask them to vote for the first time. • Are you a first-time voter? Make a public pledge to vote by uploading a photo of yourself to Instagram or Twitter with the hashtag #changethelist. It will show up on this auto-updating photo wall, powered by Chute. • Make a pledge to vote with CNN's "I'm voting" Facebook app. Research shows that if Facebook friends see you're voting, it encourages them to do so, too. • Know someone in Hawaii? Share this "Mahalo for Voting!" image on social media. Send it to five of your friends and ask them to pass it on. Together, we can change the list. |
Jul 31, 2016; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Chicago White Sox relief pitcher Carson Fulmer (51) pitches to the Minnesota Twins in the game at Target Field. The Twins win 6-4. Mandatory Credit: Bruce Kluckhohn-USA TODAY Sports White Sox fifth ranked prospect records eight strikeouts for Triple-A Charlotte in win over Louisville. South Siders could use starter in their rotation. Chicago White Sox fifth ranked prospect Carson Fulmer picked up his fifth win of the season for Triple-A Charlotte on Friday. The 2015 first round pick (eighth overall) helped the Knights pick up a road win against the Louisville Bats 5-2. Fulmer, pitching in his seventh start of the season lasted 5.1 innings while recording eight strikeouts and giving up just one earned run. The 23-year-old pitcher gave up seven hits and allowed just one walk on Friday against Louisville. Although he didn’t post another quality start, Fulmer lowered his ERA on the season to 2.72. Fulmer is 5-1 for Charlotte in 2017 and could be a candidate for a promotion back to the Sox. Another top prospect, Yoan Moncada had a solid game for the Knights as well on Friday. Moncada, the top prospect in the minors went 2-for-4 with a walk and a run scored. The 21-year-old has been impressive thus far for Charlotte and is hitting .352 through 31 games played for the Knights. Although the Knights were able to record a victory on Friday, the Double-A Birmingham Barons were shutout and Class A Advanced Winston-Salem lost on the road. The Barons were shutout 6-0 by the Pensacola Blue Wahoos. Eddy Alvarez, Mason Robbins and Keon Barnum each had two hits for the Barons in a losing effort. Despite jumping out to a quick 3-0 lead over the Carolina Mudcats on Friday, Winston-Salem was unable to record its 13th victory of the season. The Dash recorded five hits against Carolina, with Sox sixth ranked prospect Zack Collins going 1-for-5 with a RBI single, two strikeouts and a walk. The Kannapolis Intimidators of Class A had its road game cancelled on Friday against the Augusta GreenJackets due to a power outage. Click on link for box scores below: Charlotte Knights 5-Louisville Bats 2 Pensacola Blue Wahoos 6-Birmingham Barons 0 Carolina Mudcats 8-Winston-Salem Dash 5 Kannapolis Intimidators-Augusta GreenJackets-Cancelled |
The last super tournament of 2017 ended with American grand master Fabiano Caruana edging out Russian Ian Nepomniachtchi in a tiebreak to claim victory at the London Chess Classic, ahead of World Champion Magnus Carlsen. This is a significant victory for Caruana, who struggled in tournaments at the beginning of the year. Caruana’s main rivals who also eye the chess throne started the year in much better form. For example, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, known as “MVL,” won the Sharjah Grand Prix in Azerbaijan, and more notably his first place finish was ahead of the top three, Carlsen, Armenian Grandmaster Levon Aronian, and Caruana. Meanwhile, Aronian — who the BBC dubbed “the David Beckham of chess” — won almost everything: The Grenke Classic in Germany, Norway Chess and the World Cup. The long time world number two, Aronian, has had great opportunities to become the World Champion in past years, but he will get his best chance to date in March 2018 at the Candidates tournament. The Candidates Tournament will be held in Berlin starting March 10, 2018. The best of eight players will be competing for first place, as the winner gets the right to challenge reigning World Champion, Magnus Carlsen, for the ultimate chess title. The big favorites, Aronian and Caruana qualified for the Candidates; Aronian qualified by winning the World Cup, while Caruana qualified for the Candidates with high rankings on the FIDE rating list. Sadly though, everyone’s favorite, Frenchmen MVL, won’t make his appearance at the Candidates, because he lost a crucial match against Aronian in the World Cup. It was his last chance to qualify. Therefore, his only hope was to receive a wild card. Alas, the invitation was given to former World Champion, Vladimir Kramnik, who hopes to clash with Magnus Carlsen to become a World Champion for the fourth time. MVL will be a greatly missed at the tournament as he played wonderful chess throughout 2017. At the last tournament of the year, the London Chess Classic, however, some tendencies shifted. Aronian wasn’t as efficient as in the previous tournaments he played this year. On the other hand, the American Caruana showed steady improvement. He played, stellar chess in the London Chess Classic, and won a clutch rapid game against Ian Nepomniachtchi in an intense playoff match to claim the title. Caruana played aggressive chess, and he reaped the benefits for his efforts. He achieved a level of accuracy that could potentially be a big threat to Magnus Carlsen in the World Championships. Compared to Caruana, Aronian played with more inaccuracies than usual and that was one of the reasons he lost his last round game against Magnus Carlsen. MVL showed brilliant chess, but, as mentioned above, he is not going play in the Candidates Tournament in Berlin. The landscape has changed since the beginning of 2017. The London Classic showed that an accurate player with an aggressive style can potentially challenge the reigning champion. Rounding out the eight player Candidates field will be Wesley So of the United States; Sergey Karjakin from Russia; Ding Liren from China; Alexander Grischuk from Russia; and Shakhiyar Mamedyrov of Azerbaijan. The question is: Who will have the needed accuracy level to challenge Magnus Carlsen? We shall see! |
After nearly a year without a permanent president, the Ball State Board of Trustees will name and introduce the university's incoming president Tuesday. According to a campus-wide email sent by trustee Richard Hall, the public is invited to attend the announcement at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday in Sursa Hall. The event will include a short board meeting, remarks from the incoming president and a reception immediately following in the lobby. Those attending should plan to be seated in Sursa Hall by 1:15 p.m. Trustee Matt Momper, chairman of the search committee, said he's excited about the person chosen for the position. Although the search took a while, Momper said he was glad the committee was collaborative and enthusiastic and let the process move at the pace it needed to. "They were deep in the woods, devil in the detail, researching questions," Momper said. "They all provided what the process needed, which was great." Keep up with Ball State Unified Media's coverage of the announcement as it happens, as well as see a live stream of the meeting, by visiting this page after 1:30 p.m. |
Linking physical traits to criminality may sound like a throwback to the biological determinism advocated by 19th-century social Darwinists who believed that there was a genetic predisposition for wrongdoing. Practitioners are quick to distance themselves from such ideas. Mr. Price, for example, argues that crime can be viewed, at least partly, as an “alternative labor market.” If individuals with certain physical attributes are disadvantaged in the labor force, they may find crime more attractive, he said. H. Naci Mocan, an economist at Louisiana State University and an author of a paper on crime and attractiveness, explained that theories about the relationship between weight, height or beauty and the labor force emerged because “economists looking at standard determinants — like education, experience, productivity, human capital — found that they could only explain some of the variation in wages.” “This is very new,” Mr. Mocan said of the research into crime. “It opens up our horizons a little more.” A link between a physical attribute and salary, or crime, does not necessarily mean cause and effect. Mr. Mocan pointed out that we do not know why someone who is overweight, unattractive or short is at a disadvantage in the labor market or more likely to commit a crime. It could be employer discrimination, customer preference or that the physical attribute may make the worker less productive. If a job involves carrying heavy loads, for instance, brawn would be an advantage. That is what both Howard Bodenhorn, an economist at Clemson University, and Mr. Price concluded from 19th-century prison records. In that era increased body weight was associated with a lower risk of crime. In the 21st century, though, in which service jobs are much more common, Mr. Price found that being overweight was linked to a higher risk of crime. Mr. Mocan and Erdal Tekin, an economist at Georgia State University, analyzed data from a national survey of adolescent health that involved 15,000 high school students who were interviewed in 1994, 1996 and 2002. They found that being unattractive in high school was correlated with a lower grade point average, more problems with teachers and suspensions. Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. Other studies have found that shorter students tend to participate less frequently in clubs and sports. As a result these students may suffer a drop in self-esteem or not develop certain kinds of social skills that are useful later in life, the two economists theorized. Advertisement Continue reading the main story According to their study, both men and women who were rated unattractive (as rated on a five-point scale) in high school were more likely to commit — or at least more likely to be caught while committing — one of seven crimes, including burglary and selling drugs, than those rated average or attractive. Mr. Price said anthropometric economics was based on the work of economic historians — including the Nobel Prize-winner Robert Fogel, John Komlos at the University of Munich and Richard H. Steckel at Ohio State University — who have used height and weight to assess changing social conditions. Since biologists believe that 80 percent of height is determined by genetics and 20 percent by environmental conditions, height — and sometimes weight — can be an index of childhood nutrition, health care and exposure to disease. Thus smaller stature may be a sign of an impoverished upbringing. Mr. Komlos, for example, wrote a 2007 paper with Benjamin E. Lauderdale that found that Americans were the “tallest in the world between colonial times and the middle of the 20th century,” but have since “become shorter (and fatter) than Western and Northern Europeans. In fact, the United States population is currently at the bottom end of the height distribution in advanced industrial countries.” “We conjecture,” they concluded, “that the United States health-care system, as well as the relatively weak welfare safety net, might be why human growth in the United States has not performed as well in relative terms as one would expect on the basis of income alone.” Though beauty would superficially seem to be in the same category as weight and height, studies that assess the economic advantage of being attractive are actually quite different, said Christina Paxson, an economist at Princeton who has studied the relationship between stature and status. While height is a sign of health and social conditions, the impact of beauty is more psychological, she said. There the question is how someone’s perception of a worker’s productivity, skill and talent is influenced by looks. Mr. Price has suggested that there may be policy implications in his work, saying, “Public health policies successful at reducing obesity among individuals in the population will not only make society healthier, but also safer.” At the moment, Mr. Mankiw is skeptical of any real-world utility. “Economists love quantifying things,” he said, “but there are so many possible interpretations, it doesn’t settle debates as much as it opens up questions.” He did note that his students at Harvard have been particularly fascinated by the research that shows quantifiable economic advantages of beauty. The benefit of these “weird facts,” he said, is that it “forces you to think about the world in ways you didn’t before.” |
Please enable Javascript to watch this video SALT LAKE CITY -- A three-day nationwide human trafficking sting operation concluded with the arrest of 239 pimps and other individuals and the rescue of 82 juveniles, including a girl found in Utah. This is the fourth time the Utah FBI office has participated in Operation Cross County along with Utah’s Child Exploitation Task Force. During a press conference Monday, Special Agent in Charge Eric Barnhart called those pimping out children evil incarnate. He said Operation Cross Country is a three-day sting that rescues victims from slavery and in some cases sexual slavery. Operation Cross Country has conducted 10 stings, however, Barnhart said, this is only the fourth time the Utah FBI office has participated in a sting. “First we need to recognize that the problem exists,” Barnhart said. He added the entire FBI is constantly working on cases of human trafficking. He says it is a problem that continues to grow, not only here in the U.S. but around the world as well. Operation Cross Country has expanded to become an international enforcement effort with Canada, Cambodia, the Philippines and Thailand. |
Looking for news you can trust? Subscribe to our free newsletters. White nationalists gathered in downtown Washington, DC, on Saturday to celebrate the election of Donald Trump as a victory for their movement. As protesters outside carried signs decrying racism, the mood among the approximately 250 white nationalists inside the Ronald Reagan Building was jubilant. “The alt-right is here, the alt-right is not going anywhere, and the alt-right is going to change the world,” Richard Spencer, a white nationalist who popularized the term “alt-right” to describe the ascendant right-wing movement centered on xenophobia and often racism and white supremacy, told reporters at a press conference during an all-day conference hosted by his group, the National Policy Institute. “And you all need to pay attention to this.” White nationalists and white supremacists have cheered Trump’s election and rejoiced in the appointments he has made so far in his administration, including former Breitbart News chairman Steve Bannon as chief strategist and Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama as attorney general. Spencer called Bannon’s appointment a “wonderful thing.” In July, Bannon, who was still running Breitbart, bragged to Mother Jones that his website had become the “platform for the alt-right.” Spencer said he largely agreed with that statement. “It’s clearly moved away from the conservative movement, it was pro-Trump, and it was also a site that tons of people on the alt-right liked, they get their news from, they share.” Spencer also spoke approvingly of Sessions, who made a name for himself as the top foe of immigration in Congress. Sessions is also known for allegations that he made racist comments when he was an attorney in Alabama—charges that derailed his 1986 nomination for a federal judgeship and will come up again in his confirmation hearings to become attorney general. When Mother Jones asked at the press conference whether Spencer agreed with the neo-Nazi writer Andrew Anglin, who on Friday said the appointments of Sessions and Bannon meant that he was getting everything he wanted from Trump, the crowd at the conference began to cheer at the mention of Sessions. “It’s getting what is realistically possible,” said Spencer. “Jeff Sessions, again, is someone who is not alt-right but who seems to see eye to eye with us on the immigration question. I think Jeff Sessions might very well resonate with something like a long-term dramatic slowdown of immigration.” Spencer said Sessions would roll back the Obama administration’s enforcement of civil rights laws as the head of the Justice Department. “The fact that he is going to be at such a high level, I think, is a wonderful thing,” he said. “What he is not going to do in terms of federally prosecuting diversity and fair housing and so on I think is just as powerful as what he might do. So it’s about Jeff Sessions setting a new tone in Washington. I think that’s a good thing.” Spencer’s top priority for the Trump administration is to change the country’s immigration laws to stop not just undocumented immigration but also legal immigration, with the goal of making sure the United States remains a majority-white country. “I think a goal would be net-neutral immigration with a primary emphasis on Europeans who want to immigrate to the country,” he said. Peter Brimelow of the anti-immigrant website VDare.com later explained that the policy would mean removing immigrants currently in the country and allowing Europeans to take their place. Spencer said he believed passing such a policy through Congress would be easier than the press might think. When a reporter asked what the movement’s top priority for Trump was, the room began to chant “build the wall.” Spencer agreed that immigration should be Trump’s “primary objective.” “This is why he was elected,” Spencer said, “because he was the identity president.” Controversial media personality Tila Tequila, who has identified with Nazis, tweeted from inside the conference. An estimated 200 to 300 protesters gathered outside the conference, organized by a group called the DC Anti-Fascist Coalition. At about 1 p.m., a conference attendee who exited the conference got into a violent confrontation with protesters. Fight breaks out outside National Policy Institute after neo-Nazi who was recording lunges at protester #StopNPI pic.twitter.com/h1GdqNOCye — Alexander Rubinstein (@AlexR_DC) November 19, 2016 On Friday night in DC, protesters followed Spencer, and one sprayed him with a foul-smelling liquid as he dined with supporters at a restaurant. |
The media’s shameful, cruel obsession with those awaiting the rapture. The trumpets have sounded. Judgment Day is upon us. At least in theory. Harold Camping—an 89-year-old former civil engineer turned radio mogul who seems to command a number of followers—has predicted today, Saturday, May 21, as the day of the Rapture. And the media, as well as the people who consume it, have responded with barely contained glee. Yesterday, references to Judgment Day made up the entire top five of Google’s Hot Searches. At The Washington Post, a story about Family Radio—the Christian broadcast network that Camping owns—was the site’s most popular item. Another piece, on the group’s followers, was the most-emailed from The New York Times. Meanwhile, Huffington Post has devoted an entire webpage to doomsday coverage, under its standard heading: “Some news is so big that it needs its own page.” Here at TNR, we thought about joining the circus. Last week, when we learned that Camping was predicting the apocalypse, I was tasked with spending May 21—the day of the Rapture—with a few of his true-believing followers, who have been filling websites, billboards, and city squares, handing out pamphlets, and generally warning the world to repent. What an amazing story, I thought. I’ll spend time with people who believe the world is going to end, and then be able to watch their reactions when it doesn’t. But before long, I had second thoughts. First, I ran into some accessibility snags. While the media-friendly end-timers wanted to warn heathens beforehand, they really just wanted to spend their last day on earth surrounded by loved ones, in quiet preparation. Their response to me was something like: Why would you want to follow us around on Saturday? We’re not going to be here anymore. Yes, there was a certain humor to this. But the more I looked into the story, the more it began to turn my stomach to think of spending my Saturday evening in someone’s living room, waiting for that gotcha moment when they realized it was all a lie—leaving me to file a story the next day, poking fun at their gullibility. I decided I couldn’t do it. Yet the media coverage has continued, and now to me, the schadenfreude has turned sinister. Based on the high traffic the articles are garnering, it would seem as if many of us are intrigued voyeurs, gleeful in knowing the exact day when these people will experience their life’s greatest disappointment. We feel superior, knowing that even though they told us we were heading for death and destruction, now, they get theirs. |
Posted on 03 May 2011 by Joe Okkervil River’s last two albums The Stage Names (2007) and The Stand-Ins (2008) had the odd orchestral flourish, trumpet part and epic moment but at their core they were two albums of guitar based indie rock. With I Am Very Far they have adopted a far more ambitious sound. There’s still an alternative rock band there but on this evidence mainstream success surely is not far away. As with the Texas band’s previous two albums it too features a range of instruments, but with the band’s frontman Will Sheff and fellow Texan John Congleton on production duties they’ve brought out a cinematic quality to the band’s music. Another feature is that not one of the 11 tracks is skippable. While the Stage Names and The Stand Ins were good albums, their real strength lay in the pop savvy quality of a few tracks such as ‘Lost Coastlines’ and ‘Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe’. I Am Very Far is an old fashioned album, that demands to be listened to from start to finish rather than to be dipped into for some select songs. Opener ‘The Valley’ is as good an opening track to an album as you will hear with its pounding drums and a string arrangement that is part ‘Bellbottoms’ by Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, part Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Among other highlights are ‘We Need a Myth’, which has one of the best melodies of the album and the Wilco-esque ‘Lay of the Last Survivor’. Another is ‘Hanging from a Hit’ with its ragtime pub piano that harks back to classic British late 60s music from the likes of The Hollies or The Kinks. The influence of this era is perhaps unsurprising given Okkervil River were the backing band on 1960’s psychedelia legend Roky Erickon’s 2010 album True Love Cast Out All Evil. I am Very Far could just be their best album to date and has the potential to take them from alternative indie rock status to mainstream rock without losing credibility. It also owes a lot in influence to former band member Jonathan Meiburg and his band Shearwater, which started as a folkish side project that included Sheff but like Okkervil River has learnt over time that big can be better. 9/10 by Joe Lepper Related Posts |
We often, and quite rightly, complain about the way device makers customize the "stock" build of Android to suit their own needs. Customizing software is not inherently bad, but Samsung, LG, and others are usually doing it to push their apps and services. These companies frequently make unnecessary aesthetic changes for the sake of being different. You don't have to put up with the look and feel of Android on your phone, though. You can customize things to better suit your own style and usage patterns—all it takes is a little legwork. The more time you want to spend on it, the more extensive the customization can be. It all starts with the right tools. Wallpapers This is a very basic step, but it's an important one. You want the wallpaper on your phone to match the style you're going for with the rest of your customizations. In fact, you can take inspiration from wallpapers to inform the decisions you make regarding icons and widgets. OEMs usually only include a handful of device wallpapers that are, to be frank, lacking. Some of the wallpaper apps on Android aren't much better, and they often have spammy ads all over. Finding other options is easy. Backdrops is free to download, and you have full access to almost the entire catalog. The developers are frequently adding new original content to the app, and there are a good number of user-uploaded wallpapers as well. If you want to download wallpapers to save them offline, you'll need to upgrade to the full version for $1.99. That includes access to a few premium wallpaper sets as well. The other app to check out is Google's own Wallpapers app. This gives you access to many of the same backgrounds that ship on the Pixel (like all those great satellite photos). It doesn't have as much content built-in as Backdrops, but it's all very high-quality. These wallpapers work on the home screen of all devices, but don't forget most phones let you set the lock screen wallpaper, too. What about live wallpapers? Those are still a thing, but you need to be cautious of the potential battery impact. Some are well-optimized, though, and you might be fine with the small additional drain. The wallpapers from Maxelus have always been great looking and surprisingly easy on the battery. Developer Joko Interactive also has some geometric live wallpapers that would look great with the right icons. Home screens The part of your phone or tablet that you interact with most is the home screen. Almost any action starts on the home screen, but very few Android devices come with a completely unmodified version of the launcher from the Android Open Source Project. Even Google's devices come with the Pixel Launcher or Google Now Launcher. Other OEMs have their own heavily modified launchers, so for maximum customization, you'll need to grab a more powerful home screen app. The most popular third-party home screen is Nova Launcher. There's a free version to try out, but it'll cost you $4.99 to unlock the Prime version with all the features. This is definitely not a purchase you'll regret if customization is the goal. With Nova, you can control the number of home screens, position of the main screen panel, and also the size of the icon grid. This will all be very important as you get deeper into customizing the interface. You can have multiple screens with densely packed icons and widgets or stick to a single screen with themed folders. Nova isn't the only game in town, of course. The other top launcher you will not regret picking up is Action Launcher 3. Again, this app has a trial version with a full unlock for $4.99. While Nova is a bit of a chameleon that becomes whatever you want it to be, Action Launcher 3 has slightly fewer features with a more distinctive style. Action Launcher includes basic things like gestures and grid size adjustments, but it also has a slide-out app drawer and widget panel, pop-up widgets (known as Shutters), automated UI theming, and more. It even has a few features of the Pixel Launcher like the swipe-up app drawer and revamped Google Widget. No matter which home screen you pick, there are some general features you ought to be aware of when customizing. If you're going for a sleek minimalist look, you'll definitely want to remove the text labels from your app icons. Gestures are available in both launchers, offering a way to remove many of the unnecessary visual clutter. For example, you can use a multitouch swipe to pull up the app list or search your installed apps. At that point, you don't even need to have an app drawer button on the screen. One of the most important features supported by third-party home screens is backup and restore. Both Action Launcher and Nova have that, and you'll make frequent use of it as you play around with customizing your phone. Make frequent backups so you can restore the backup if you screw something up. It's much faster than rebuilding a carefully crafted layout. There are, of course, other home screen replacements in the Play Store, but these are the top ones. They have excellent update support and a ton of customization features. One of the most popular features supported by third-party home screens is icon packs. That's something you'll want to look into. Icon packs There are untold heaps of icon packs in the Play Store, but most of them are not very good. They might look alright at first, but either the selection of icons they offer is very shallow or many of the designs are simply low-effort. You'll have to hunt around for the best ones. Icon packs can be applied in your custom launcher settings, replacing the stock icons on your device. Some OEMs choose extraordinarily unattractive icons, so almost any icon pack is an improvement. Icon packs are about getting a consistent look to go with your custom home screen's aesthetic. The designers usually have a certain look for each pack like dark material, circular icons, vintage, and even Apple-esque squircles. In general, you want to find an icon pack that has a lot of icons—it's usually one of the top bullet points in the description. You probably don't have 5,000 apps on your phone to go with all those icons, but that means a higher chance the icon pack has icons for all the apps you do have installed. If you are missing icons for apps you use often, you may ruin the vibe with a non-matching icon. Many packs include generic icons that can be manually applied if something you use isn't supported, but that's a pain to do and has to be redone every time you switch to a different icon pack. Most icon packs cost a few dollars—at least the good ones do. Don't be afraid to give some of them a shot. You can always return the app if the icons don't look as good on your phone as they do in the screenshots. You should also keep in mind that many icon packs come with a selection of wallpapers that match the style of the icons. So, you might not even need to go hunting for a matching image in one of the above apps. Some of the best icon packs to get you started are Cryten (pastel circles), Materialistik (a highly stylized take on material design), Rifon (clean, bold squares), and Lines (white wire frame icons). The icon pack rabbit hole is extraordinarily deep and can get expensive. |
Tom Herman entered the 2018 class with hopes of taking two quarterbacks and secured a pair of April commitments from Casey Thompson and Cameron Rising, but the ‘Horns first year head coach is still gauging the market as Corona Centennial (Calif.) product Tanner McKee will visit Austin next Saturday, McKee told Burnt Orange Nation. A four-star prospect, McKee’s recruitment as it pertains to Texas will essentially have no impact on the current commitments of Thompson and Rising. As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, McKee will take a two-year mission trip following his high school graduation, essentially making him a member of the 2020 class. Herman and his staff offered McKee on March 9 and next weekend will mark his first trip from California to the Forty Acres. McKee recently visited Alabama and Georgia, as well. To date, McKee holds 20 offers from programs including BYU, Stanford, Alabama, Georgia, Houston, Louisville, Nebraska, UCLA and North Carolina. At 6’6, 220 pounds, McKee ranks as the nation’s No. 74 player, No. 5 pro-style quarterback and the No. 9 player in California, per 247Sports Composite. |
Earlier this month Goldeneye 007 celebrated its 20th Birthday and we shared our memories on the game. We wanted to go one step further and find someone to talk to about the game who actually worked on it. Karl Hilton was the Lead Environment Artist on GoldenEye 007, he’s still in the industry and now works for Sumo Digital in the UK. We spoke to him about what it was like to work on the game, his favourite parts and what he is working on right now. Vooks: What did you work on with GoldenEye and what else more recently would we have seen your work in? Karl: I was the Lead Environment Artist on GoldenEye and built almost all of the levels for the main game and the Multiplayer game. I also designed several of the MP maps and worked on most of the weapons and 2D UI. After GoldenEye I was the Lead Artist on Perfect Dark (N64). At Free Radical Design I was Lead Art/ Art Director for TimeSplitters 1,2 and Future Perfect as well as Art Director for Second Sight. Those were the last games I contributed any art content to. Vooks: When you started on Goldeneye you were by your own admission new at game development, how did working at Rare help you? Karl: Rare was very trusting of the team and left us alone to develop the game we wanted to make. It was done very much on a ‘feel’ basis with the whole team playing the game continually as it was developed and trying to make something we all enjoyed. We also took a lot of inspiration from playing Doom, Virtua Cop and Bomberman and watching a lot of Jon Woo movies. Rare (and the Stamper brothers specifically) gave us the time and space to experiment and try things out. Mario Club at Nintendo gave us a lot of support too with lots of early gameplay testing. Both of these things were incredibly important to the final outcome of GoldenEye. Vooks: What was your favourite level in Goldeneye multiplayer or single player? Karl: In multiplayer it was the Complex. It was the first bespoke MP level I had ever made and I just threw all of my ideas into it. I also really liked the Aztec Moonraker base as it was just so much fun to make. Vooks: What’s the biggest difference now working in the industry compared to back in the day? Karl: The size of the teams needed to make AAA console games is massively different now. The core GoldenEye team was 9-10 people and we all worked closely together with a clear common goal of making something fun. It’s a very different challenge. with the very large teams now generally required to make AAA games, to have that close community of developers with a shared common vision. The goal now is to break big teams into small agile teams that can own individual elements of a game. This can very satisfying way to have ownership of the games we make while having a different dynamic to teams a few years ago. Vooks: What do you think about Goldeneye never getting an official re-release of any type, considering the market for remasters right now. Karl: I think GoldenEye was ‘of its time’ and rests happily in a lot of people’s memories. There is no need to re-visit the past too much. It’s a game that changed my life but you can’t rely on former glories (too much 😉 Vooks: What are you working on right now? I’m Studio Director for Sumo’s Nottingham studio which was set up in March of 2016. A lot of my time is taken up growing the new studio to be able to make lots of new games for the current generation of consoles and PC. In the studio we are working on two exciting AAA projects with big established IP’s that haven’t been announced yet. They are both very different from each other and are a lot of fun to work on. We are looking forward to showing them both off at some point in the future! |
F-35 program officials have set aside a single aircraft for testing only of the Vision Systems International helmet that has plagued the program for more than a year owing to jitter, latency and other operational problems discovered in testing. The aircraft will be flown on these special helmet missions at NAS Patuxent River, Md., says Maj. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, deputy F-35 program director. Bogdan has been nominated to take the top F-35 post once approved by the Senate, and he made his remarks Sept. 17 at the Air Force Assn. conference here. The testing will take up to 90 days, he says. After helmet problems were discovered at least a year ago, program officials established a backup plan by contracting with BAE Systems. Helmet operation is critical because the F-35 design calls for the pilot to operate many of the systems, including weapons, through the visor system. There is no head-up display in the aircraft. Earmarking an entire aircraft solely for helmet testing demonstrates how important this system is to the eventual fielding of the F-35. The U.S. Marine Corps hopes to declare initial operational capability as soon as 2015, and it cannot do so without a functional and reliable helmet system. Bogdan says that some features may not be ready for that 2015 date, but emphasizes that the helmet must be able to perform at night, in weather and allow for weapons operations for the Marine Corps to declare IOC. Though he sees some “glimmers of hope” that production processes are improving, Bogdan notes that F-35 software is up to four months behind schedule. “There is an awful lot of software on this program. It scares the heck out of me,” Bogdan says. The flight test program is ahead of schedule in terms of planned flights and test points, he says. “From my perspective with the test programs. We are making progress… . I’m not sure we are creating the right progress,” Bogdan says. |
We were in a Patiala House court waiting for arrested JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar to be produced when everything suddenly went wrong. I was speaking to a staffer in the court of Metropolitan Magistrate Lovleen when I heard someone sprint out and scream: “People from JNU are here. Throw them out, throw them out!” Read more: Academicians, lawyers take out march against ‘anti-national’ event on campus In retrospect, it seems others were waiting for that signal. A bunch of lawyers told everyone from the Jawaharlal Nehru University to leave the courtroom. They gave no reason for their conduct. Sensing that things were getting ugly, some JNU professors decided to leave. As they were doing so, some lawyers got into a scuffle with them. I sensed something was seriously amiss. Read more: Boycotting classes: JNU won’t relent till Kanhaiya is set free That is when someone in lawyer’s attires turned his attention to me and asked me to get out. I decided to obey. As I was leaving, I heard someone -- I did not see who -- shout “Yeh kaun hai?” (Who is he?) The next moment, someone shoved me. Before I could recover, I was slapped -- and then again slapped. Read more: JNU boils but baffling silence prevails in DU I just couldn’t understand what was going on. There was no provocation, nothing to deserve all this. Fortunately for me, a few lawyers at the spot recognized me and came to my rescue. They dragged me out, and took me then towards Gate No. 2 of the Patiala House Court. The situation there was far worse. Several journalists had been attacked there, including my former colleague and now Indian Express reporter Alok Singh. Alok Singh told me that he and a group of journalists were standing outside the courtroom when some lawyers pounced on JNU students there and began thrashing them. “As I started speaking to my chief reporter, the lawyers attacked me too. I kept telling them I was a journalist but they wouldn’t listen,” Alok Singh said. “They slapped me, they kicked me, they snatched my mobile and broke it. And I saw others also being attacked for no apparent reason.” Among the journalists who were assaulted were Amit Pandey of IBN7 and Manu Shankar of Kairali TV. When Azaan Javed from DNA showed his media credentials, he was accused of being a JNU student and flashing a fake media card. Women journalists who were in the Metropolitan Magistrate’s room with me were threatened and asked to leave. They were Ritika Jain from DNA, Ankita Upadhyaya of Pioneer, Sana Shakil from the Times of India and Sneha Agarwal of Mail Today. Other journalists also told me later that they saw O.P. Sharma, one of the three BJP legislators in Delhi, chase and attack a JNU student outside the court premises. Sharma kicked him even as the student fell on the road. Surprisingly, despite all the mayhem, apart from escorting the JNU professors from the courtroom I was in, the Delhi Police did nothing to restrain the rampaging lawyers. As they indulged in violence, the lawyers kept shouting slogans like “Bharat Mata ki Jai”. The violence happened before Kanhaiya Kumar, president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union, was to be brought to the court after being arrested on February 9 on sedition charges. First Published: Feb 16, 2016 08:52 IST |
What does the world care about a violent uprising in Burkina Faso? What's so interesting about this "land of upright people"? In Germany, the ambitious Opera Village project in Burkina Faso, which was created by German film director Christoph Schlingensief, is talked about more often than the country's falling president. Who's heard of Compaoré before? It's worth taking a closer look at the former French colony. Compaoré himself came to power in 1987 as the result of a coup. He eliminated the widely popular leader Thomas Sankara, who had conquered hearts with humility and his revolutionary style. His official state car was legendary - a Renault 5, Burkina Faso's cheapest car. Constitutional coup was unsuccessful After Sankara and other so-called "traitors" were killed, Compaoré stylized himself as the true guardian of the "democratic people's revolution." But despite his 27 years in office, he remained a suspicious autocrat, even though, after a decade of military rule, he allowed political parties and media diversity. In 2000, he had the constitution amended for the first time, in order to be able to stay in power. Again and again he mercilessly struck down political and social protests, most recently in 2011. Since last year, Compaoré has also simultaneously been head of state and minister of defense. But his attempt to change the constitution again, in order to allow him two more terms in office, has failed. This clumsy takeover of parliament has riled the country's people, the "Burkinabé." Compaorés' "constitutional coup" - as critics have named the attempt - was the spark to a flame. And the parliament building in Ouagadougou really did go up in flames. Claus Stäcker: head of DW's Africa department In the uprising there is hope - and a clear signal. Blaise Compaorés time is up and the period of everlasting old men in Africa is over. The people are fighting back against long-standing leaders like Compaoré, if necessary with violence. In more and more African countries, after an election defeat or two terms in office, presidents are resigning in line with the constitution. It was in Benin, an even smaller country than Burkina Faso, that in 1991 Mathieu Kérékou set an example and was the first leader in Africa to stand down after an election defeat. In Zambia, Kenneth Kaunda showed how it was done and in Mozambique, two presidents have stepped down, each after two terms in office. In Ghana, even coup leader Jerry Rawlings led a transition to democracy. Nelson Mandela in South Africa sat for a single term and his successor, Thabo Mbeki, also didn't stay for long. South Africa's current president, Jacob Zuma, won't be daring to infringe the constitution either. Sea of change in Africa Africans are no longer allowing themselves to be taken for fools. They're mostly young, self-confident people who, through the Internet and social media, are informed and well-connected. For them, the stories of past heroes from the time of liberation struggles have expired. Post-colonial long-term leaders like Robert Mugabe (90) in Zimbabwe, Paul Biya (81) in Cameroon, José Eduardo dos Santos in Angola (72) or Teodoro Obiang Nguema (72) in Equatorial-Guinea are discontinued models. And yet some, like Congolese Joseph Kabila, have apparently still not heard the signals. Kabila has been in power since 2001 and his time in office should end for good in 2016. But still his allies are working on a constitutional amendment. In Burundi, President Pierre Nkurunziza is tinkering with the constition so he can stay in office for a third term. By 2019 he will have been in power for 14 years. Men like him are playing with fire! Africa has changed. The era of smug, ancient politicians is over. Today, Burkina Faso's name which means "land of upright people" represents not only a country, but an entire continent. Compaoré may succeed one more time in in lining up the army behind him, but certainly not the people. |
Germany have returned to the summit of the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking, continuing this year’s ongoing tug-of-war with Brazil for top spot. The reigning world champions edged ahead of* A Seleção* following two impressive FIFA World Cup™ qualifying victories over Czech Republic and Norway, and head a table much changed after the recent Russia 2018 preliminaries. Belgium, for example, have climbed four places to enter the top five on the back of qualifying for next year’s finals. Portugal, for their part, are up three to third and, further down, no fewer than 23 teams jumped ten places or more. Among the most notable climbers are the Cape Verde Islands (67, up 47), Luxembourg (101, up 35), Bolivia (46, up 22) and Denmark (26, up 20), this on the back of stunning results in qualifying against South Africa, France, Chile and Poland respectively. Luxembourg are also one of four teams to have reached an all-time high position in the latest Ranking, along with Peru (12, up 3), Northern Ireland (20, up 3) and Syria (75, up 5). The Bolivians, meanwhile, number among five new entries to the top 50, where they are joined by Montenegro (37, up 15), Bulgaria (38, up 14), Scotland (43, up 15) and Haiti (48, up 7). *The next FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking will be published on 16 October 2017. * |
A few weeks ago, I was approached by fellow project management blogger Geoff Crane. Long-time readers of my weekly round-ups will recognize the name immediately – Geoff is the man behind PaperCut PM, and one of the funniest guys in our business. He’s also a new college professor, and his first project management class just graduated. To commemorate their milestone (and his), Geoff wanted to give them a going-away present – good advice from practicing project managers on how to get into the field, and how to manage your career once you get in. He’d compile the advice into an e-book, give it to them, and share it with the world. Would I contribute? Of course – I sent him my 300 words the same day! The class has now graduated, and Geoff has published the e-book. As a testament to his influence in the industry, fifty-two of us stepped up to provide content. Looking at the list, I see a lot of very accomplished, well-known names, as well as a few I haven’t heard from before. Never mind; I’ll be following them from now on. Reading their contributions makes me proud to be part of this project management community. I’m honored to be in their company, and grateful to Geoff for including me in this monumental, quick-turnaround effort. I urge you to take a few minutes to read some of these short notes, and pass along the advice in them to project management students, practitioners, and managers – it’s that widely applicable. You might even find a few things for yourself in this treasure chest. Once again: thanks, Professor Crane. You’re all right, in my book. Share this: Tumblr Pinterest Print |
UNDATED: In this handout from the Center for Disease Control (CDC), a colorized transmission electron micrograph (TEM) of a Ebola virus virion is seen. As the Ebola virus continues to spread across parts of Africa, a second doctor infected with the disease has arrived in the U.S. for treatment. (Photo by Center for Disease Control (CDC) via Getty Images) The Ebola virus may be getting closer to Americans than ever, but don't expect big American drug companies to come to the rescue. Instead, small biotech firms, academics and government agencies are leading the search for an Ebola cure. Over the past few weeks, an Ebola outbreak in Africa has resulted in over 1,600 cases of the disease, including more than 880 deaths, according to the World Health Organization. Two American relief workers became the first people treated for Ebola in the United States, and New York City is suffering its own (hopefully unfounded) Ebola scare. But as Ebola spreads, pharmaceutical giants are sitting this one out. That's mainly because treating a disease that affects a relatively small number of people who typically don’t have a lot of money doesn’t offer a great return on investment for profit-driven companies, experts told The Huffington Post Tuesday. It's unclear how much profit it would take to get Big Pharma interested in finding an Ebola cure, but right now such a project could well be a money-loser, they said. “You’re just talking a small number of cases,” said Thomas Geisbert, a professor at the University of Texas medical branch at Galveston whose lab is researching possible treatments for Ebola. Geisbert noted that the number of Ebola patients right now pales in comparison to the number of people suffering from diseases like malaria and cancer. “Who are they going to sell it to?” he said of an Ebola treatment. Smaller biotech firms are more likely to be drawn to the project of finding a cure or vaccine thanks to the lure of government funding, good PR and the chance to make an impact, Geisbert said. ZMapp, the experimental treatment reportedly given to the American patients, has only been tested on animals and isn’t approved by the Food & Drug Administration for broad use, Bloomberg reported. The drug, which helps the immune system fight the disease, is the result of a collaboration of small biotech firms -- some with fewer than 10 employees -- U.S. Army funding and Canadian public health research. A tiny San Diego company called Mapp Biopharmaceutical came up with the chemical structure for the treatment. And Kentucky BioProcessing, which was acquired by tobacco giant Reynolds American earlier this year, produced the drug using tobacco plants. A handful of other companies are also working with government funding to develop a cure for the deadly disease, according to CNNMoney. The government typically gets involved in these efforts with national defense in mind: Without a cure stockpile, a bioterrorist could possibly wreak havoc using Ebola, smallpox or other diseases, said Jason Kolbert, the head of health care equity research at the Maxim Group, an investment banking firm. Geisbert said he isn’t sure if increased awareness of Ebola will push Big Pharma to develop a cure, but he’s already seen a “flurry of activity” by the government trying to advance the development of treatments. If the ZMapp treatment is a consistent success, then that might spur bigger companies to invest more money in finding a cure, said Charles Arntzen, a professor of infectious disease at Arizona State University. Arntzen received government funding to research an Ebola vaccine through the same grant that offered money to the scientists behind Mapp Biopharmaceutical. Arntzen said he's gotten pretty far along in his research -- all the way to animal testing -- but hasn't been able to move to clinical human trials to test side effects because he needs "the big money" from a larger company. |
GLENDALE, Ariz. -- The night Arizona Cardinals right tackle Bobby Massie was arrested on two charges of DUI and DUI BAC over .08, he drove to the team's practice facility in the early hours of Jan. 31, the day before Super Bowl XLIX, in search of his tickets for the game. Massie has been suspended three games for violating the league's substance abuse policy, but he is appealing the suspension. According to a report released by the Tempe Police Department, Massie's blood alcohol concentration that night was .136 after a night of drinking at Sandbar, a restaurant and bar with a location in Chandler, Arizona, about 1.7 miles from the Cardinals' facility. When officers arrived, the report stated Massie had watery and bloodshot eyes, and his speech was slurred. He was also "unsteady" during field sobriety tests, which he ultimately failed, according to the report. Cardinals right tackle Bobby Massie had a blood alcohol content level of .136, according to the Tempe Police Department. Ross D. Franklin/AP He told officers he was at the facility to pick up his Super Bowl tickets. The Cardinals did not have a comment about Massie's arrest. Throughout the night, Massie was confused about where he was, making comments and asking questions about being in Virginia, his home state, according to the report. An officer said he repeatedly reminded Massie he was in Arizona. According to the report, a team security officer called police at 2:58 a.m. about a suspicious vehicle after Massie drove his 2015 white BMW into the team's secure parking lot and did not get out of the car. The security guard did not recognize Massie's car, which at the time had temporary plates, and "was unsure who" Massie was, according to statements in the report from officers on the scene. When officer Michael McCormick arrived on the scene, he noticed what looked like tears on Massie's face, according to the report. Massie said they were "because his college roommate was going to play in the Super Bowl." Massie admitted to McCormick that "I mean, I am a little f----d up." Over the course of the arrest, Massie told officers "I know I f----d up," the report said. At 3:43 a.m., Massie was arrested for DUI and transported to Tempe City Jail. According to the report, Massie told officers that he had been "f----d up" every day for the past 10 years. The report said that comment referred to alcohol but Massie told officers he does not have a drinking problem. He told officers he smoked marijuana but couldn't recall the last time he did. According to the report, Massie grew increasingly angered during processing, at one point yelling at an officer about "playing football" and asking that officer if he wanted to "play football." Massie was released around 5:40 a.m. in front of the Tempe City Jail to wait for a cab, the report said. |
In the past, to build a web application, you required the skills to code in your business logic language and your database language. More recently, however, back-end frameworks are leaning toward using Object-Relational Mapping (ORM); this is a technique that lets you manage your database in the business logic language that you're most comfortable with. Rails uses an ORM in the form of Active Record. In this tutorial, we'll dive into Active Record and see what it can do for us! What Active Record Is, Exactly Like I said, Active Record is an ORM. This means it's a layer of Ruby code that runs between your database and your logic code. When you need to make changes to the database, you'll write Ruby code, and then run migrations, which we'll review soon. These migrations make the actual changes to the database. The cool part is that it doesn't matter what database you're using: Rails can handle pretty much all of 'em. For example, Rails uses SQLite locally when you're developing. However, let's say you're deploying to Heroku, which uses PostreSQL. All you have to do is add this to your Gemfile : Now, when you deploy, Heroku will run those same migrations (using the PostgreSQL adapter). Same code, different database, which is pretty cool, in my opinion. So, that's what Active Record is; let's dig deeper and see how it all works. Getting Started While it is technically possible to use Active Record outside of a Rails app, nine times out of ten you'll be using it within a Rails app, so that's what we'll do here. I'm using Rails 3.2.12, the latest version as I type this. If you've got that installed, you can start by creating a new Rails app. Now, we can start by creating a model. Creating Models and Migrations As you might expect, since Active Record interacts with the database, it is the M in Rails' MVC: models. From the command line, we'll create a model for, say, a Person. Actually, the rails generate command is pretty flexible: all the following commands work: The first two lines here do the same thing; rails g is just a shortcut for rails generate . The third one gives Rails a little more information, so it can do a little more work for us. We're saying we want this model to have three fields: first_name , last_name , and age . For first_name and last_name , we don't specify a type, so it defaults to a string. For age , we say that it should be an integer. So, what's this actually do? You should see some output, explaining that. The important bits are this: The first file is your migration file (of course, the timestamp will be different); the second is your Ruby class. You should be comfortable with the migration file syntax, because you'll often want to adjust the code. Let's check it out. Each migration is a class; this one has a single method: change . If you're familiar with Ruby, this should be pretty self explanatory: this migration creates a table named "people" in the database. This table has six columns. That's right, six. There's the first_name , last_name , and age fields we added from the command line; in the create_table block, we use methods named after the data type and pass them a symbol with the column name. Then, there's t.timestamps . This creates two more columns in our table: created_at and updated_at . Of course, these are of type datetime (more on your type options later). Active Record takes care of these fields throughout the lifetime of your records, setting and updating them when appropriate. The sixth and final column is id , which isn't listed here because it's added by default. That's the unique primary key for the table. Creating tables is just one use for a migration class; they're your method of tweaking the database, remember, so they can do any database job you might ever need do. But one of the important ideas with migrations is that you can roll them back, or undo their effects. This means that each migration class needs to have enough information to undo its effects. Several methods can "undo themselves"; for example, the opposite of adding a table is removing it, which doesn't take any extra information. This is why we can use the change method here. However, if we were doing something that can't be automatically undone, we have to specify the actions for doing and undoing our migration. In these cases, our migration class should have two methods: up and down . The up method will detail what to do when running the migration, and the down method will explain how to roll back the migration. Let's write our own migration from scratch to give this rollback feature a try. We start by generating a blank migration: (Normally, you'll give your migration a sensible name.) Now, we can open db/migrate/<timestamp>_do_stuff.rb . It will have the up / down methods by default, but do ahead and replace that with a single change method. We start by creating a useless table, with similar syntax to our people table above. Then, we use the add_column method to add a column to the people table: specifically, a job column of type string. Both of these actions can easily be undone, by dropping the table and removing the column. Now, let's run our two migrations. We do this via a rake task: You should see output like this: You can see from the output exactly what was done. The first migration created the people table; the second created the nothing table and added the column. Now, let's undo the last migration we ran. We can do this by running the following: Again, the output confirms: And now, the migration we wrote from scratch has been undone. An important note here: if you're relatively new to Rails, you might forget that migrations aren't run automatically when you create a new model. You have to run them manually. Yes, I've forgotten this my fair share of times, and wondered what was going on, only to realize that the table I was trying to work with didn't even exist yet. Besides create_table and add_column , there are a bunch of other methods that you can use in your migration files. We can't go into them all in this tutorial, but if they look like something you'll need, check out the migration docs. add_column add_index add_timestamps change_column change_table create_table drop_table remove_column remove_index remove_timestamps rename_column rename_index rename_table Last note on migrations: here's a list of the supported types that you can use in your migration classes: binary boolean date datetime decimal float integer primary_key string text time timestamp Looking at the Active Record Class Now that we've set up the database, we're ready to look at the other part of our model: the Active Record class. This is the piece that you'll actually interact with from your Rails controllers. When we created the Person model, a file app/models/person.rb was created; it looks like this: If you've worked with Ruby before, you might be familiar with the attr_accessor method, which makes the getter and setter methods for the attributes in question. Well, the attr_accessible method is different; it's actually Rails-specific. Any properties that are attr_accessible -ized can be set via mass assignment. This just means setting a bunch of properties on an object at once; this is often done when creating an object, like so: Each of the properties defined with attr_accessible must be one of the fields we defined in our database tables, in our migrations (there are a few exceptions to this). But this doesn't mean that all our properties should be defined as accessible; there may be some properties that you want to be set more intentionally; for example, an admin property that gives administration privileges to a user record should probably not be allowed in mass assignment, where it could be set accidentally / maliciously. For simple Active Record classes, just that line of attr_accessible properties will suffice. There's actually a lot more we can add to our model class to make it more robust, but let's first take this Person model round-trip, and see how to create model instances. Creating Records In "A Normal Day in the Life of a Rails app," all the database records will be created in the controller. However, we'll be using the Rails console in this tutorial. In the terminal, you can open the Rails console by running one of the following: This opens a Ruby console in which you can use all your Model classes. As you saw above, we can create new database records by creating a class instance: The second line is the value of our variable p : a new Person object. Notice that three of the six properties have been set, while the other three haven't. Those will be set when the record is saved to the database, which it currently isn't (if you typed exit right now, nothing will have been stored in the database). You can confirm that it isn't saved by running To save the record to the database, you can call the save method: Notice this part of the output: Yes, that's an SQL statement. Remember, Active Record is using the database API underneath, so the SQL still does need to be executed. That's one of the features of the Rails console: you can experiment with different Active Record methods and see exactly how they're touching the database. This will be helpful when you're running methods that pull a lot of data, perhaps from several tables: you can choose the right methods to get the most efficient SQL query. But now, check out our record The id , created_at , and updated_at fields have been set. If you'd like, you can create and save a new record all at once, with the create method: When working with individual records, you can set or change any properties by using their individual methods; just remember that setting a property doesn't save it to the database; that requires the save call. If you want to update multiple attributes at a time, you can use the update_attributes , which takes a hash of all the attribute you want to change: An important difference about update_attributes is that save is run inside that method; no need to save the changes on your own. Like I said, though, there's more that we can do in the model class. So let's go back and look at some of those other features. Validations Validations are an important part of any web app; this is where we make sure that the data we're putting into the database is clean and correct. Before we begin, it's important to realize that validation rules created in your model classes don't change the actually database. For example, saying a given property is required in your model class doesn't make it required at the database level (that kind of thing you would set in your—wait for it—migrations). This isn't really something you have to worry about, I just want to make sure you understand the big picture here. So. Validations. In current versions of Rails, we use the validates method to set up all our validations (it was otherwise in the past). First, we pass it the field or fields we are validating. Then, we can pass it a hash will the validation properties. There are a bunch of these validation helper (as they are called) we can use; here are several that you'll use all the time. Probably the most common one is just validating that a given field has been filled; for this, we do a presence validation: Here, we've validating on the first_name and last_name attributes. In our validation properties hash, we set presence to true, which means that those attributes must not be left nil when the record is saved. Another common validation is making sure a field is unique. We can do this with the uniqueness helper. Several validation helpers don't just take true or false ; they need a few more options. Actually, the uniqueness helper is one of them; when we just set it to true , as above, case sensitivity is on. Really, though, with usernames, bob and BOB should be the same. So, we should do this: Now, bob and BOB would be considered the same. Sometimes you'll want a property to be one of a given set of options. Try inclusion , which takes an array (or any other enumerable object). The opposite of inclusion is exclusion , which makes sure the field value is not in the given set: If you want to make sure a field is of a given length? Enter length . There are a bunch of ways to use this one. Here are a couple of examples: You can even set thresholds: You might want to confirm that a value is a number. For this, use numericality : numericality can also handle a "no decimals" policy: The last one I'll show you is format , which let's you set a regular expression for the field to match: There are a few others, but that'll get you started. A last tidbit: you can create your own validation helper classes. Check out the documentation for the details on that. There are several common options that go with almost all the validation helpers. First, we can set allow_nil to, well, allow a property to be unfilled. If a blank string is acceptable, you can use the allow_blank instead. A more common one is message ; if a validation fails, a message will be attached to the object (more on this later). Of course, all the validation helpers have default messages, but you can set your own with message . The last one I'll mention is on , which decides on what conditions the validation will be run. The values can be :create (the validation is only run when saving new records). :update (it's only run when saving previously saved records), or :save (it's run in both cases). Of course, it defaults to :save . Validation Errors A model instance's save method returns true if it was successfully saved and false if it wasn't. If you do get a false back, you'll want to know what the errors were, right? Your model instance has an error property, which is an ActiveModel::Errors instance. After the validations are run, this object is populated with all the error message for failed validations; these are kept in its own messages proptery. Observe: Usually, you'll want to display these errors to the user, probably next to a form that they submitted. One of the easiest ways to do it is to loop over the full_messages property from inside your form_for block, and print them in a list or something. Even easier is to let Rails handle all that markup by running form.error_messages . Callbacks Callbacks are another cool part of Active Record; they let you run custom methods at given times. If you read my Building Ribbit in Rails tutorial, you might remember that we used the before_save callback to set the avatar_hash property on users before saving them. We first create the method we want to run: And then we just register the callback: This means that when we call save , our method will be run just before the save is actually done. We also used a before_validation callback to strip and downcase the email address. While these are only two of the callbacks you can use, they're good examples of these callbacks can be handy. Here are the others: before_validation / after_validation / before_save / around_save / after_save / / before_create / around_create / after_create / / before_update / around_update / after_update / / before_destroy / around_destroy / after_destroy Wondering about the around_* callbacks? These are pretty cool. They are called before the action is done, but then you can perform the action from within the method by calling yield . Once the action is done, the reset of the callback method is run. Cool, eh? Associations Most relational databases will have multiple tables that are related in some way, so it's only natural that Active Record will be able to handle this: it does so through Active Record Associations. Let's say we want to have an Order table in our database, and that each Person can have multiple orders. How do get this set up? We have to start by creating our Order model: The important part here is the person_id field; as you might expect, this will be our foreign key, the connection between the two classes. We're calling it person_id because, once we tell our model classes about the relationship, the Order class will look for a field by that name by default. If we wanted to call it something else, like orderer_identifier , we'd have to tell Order that the field isn't named after the class it's connecting to. It's easier to go with the defaults. The migration created by this command will be everything we need, so I'll migrate now: Now, we need to inform the classes about the relationship. Inside the app/model/person.rb , add this line: Now, in app/model/order.rb , add this: In Person , we're saying there can be many orders for each person record; put differently, each person has_many orders. Conversely, each order belongs_to a person instance. These just add a few handy methods to our Person and Order instances, which we'll see in a bit. So, let's test this relationship, shall we? In the Rails console: The interesting lines here are 3 and 5. We could have done o.person_id = p.id , but because of our additions to the model classes, o.person = p is a shorter way of doing the same thing. Then, line 5: this is another one of those added methods: it returns an array of all the orders that our person has. Handy, no? This is a good summary of the kind of things you can do with Active Record Associations; there's a ton more, and it can get pretty complex. Check out the Associations documentation for all the goodness. Selecting Records All this time we've been building Active Record classes or creating model records. However, a big part of working with an Active Record class is getting those records back out. As you might expect, there are a dozen or so methods we can use. First, and simplest, is the methods that returns all the records: The all method returns an array of all the records. There's also find , which takes the id as a parameter, and returns the record with that id; it can also take an array of id s and return the matching records: If you just want the first or last record in the collection, there are specific methods for that: One of Active Record's coolest feature is the custom find methods; underneath, this is just using method_missing , but from the top it looks like pure magic. Here's how it works: use the method name find_by_<property> and pass the value for that property as a parameter. For example: You can even chain properties; this command will return the same record: If you look at the SQL queries for those last two methods, you'll see that we're only returning the first result ( LIMIT 1 ). To find all records that match, use the find_all_by prefix instead. So: It gets even better: you can use the find_or_create_by prefix to create a record if no matching one is found: Yes, this actually works. However, realize that if no record is found, this is just like running Person.create , which does run the validations. So, for example, since last_name and age are required, running this will result in an unsaved record will errors atttached: If you don't want the new record to be saved right away, use the find_or_initialize_by prefix. There are a few other methods you might find useful when selecting records. A really useful one is where which takes a WHERE clause from an SQL statement. If you're taking values from the user for use in where , you shouldn't interpolate them, for fear of SQL injections. You should use question marks in place of them, and then pass the values as other parameters: . . . or something similar. All these methods we've looked at so far return all the fields of the returned records. You can use the select method before any of them to only return model instances with a few selected properties: Other common SQL statement activities include limiting and offsetting; a great use case for these is paging results. The limit and offset methods take a single number parameter each. If you use them alone, they work on the whole collection; for example, this returns five records, skipping the first two: But you can choose the records to limit and offset with one of the other functions: There are a few other query methods, but we've covered the ones you're going to be using 90% of the time. If you're doing complex queries like this, it would be a good idea to create a query method of your own, in your model classes. Let's say we let people search for other users by their last name, and we page the results with 10 users per page. The query might look something like this: Besides this being rather long for the controller, that offset has to change for each page; 0 only works for the first page. So, we write a method in our Person class: This returns the set we want, and we can choose which page and how many results per page we'd like (or leave them to their sensible defaults. And even better, it's a nice neat method that we can call from our controller like this: For more on querying, check the Active Record querying documentation. Conclusion If you're just getting into Rails, you've just learned nearly everything you'll need to know about Active Record for a while. Of course, like every other part of Rails, Active Record is deep and rich; there are a lot of pieces that I haven't mentioned in this tutorial. For more on those, look at the Rails Guides for models. Thanks for reading! |
In her email announcing the release of Fedora 16, codenamed "Verne", Bergeron adds a touching tribute to Dennis Ritchie, "A humble man, not well-known outside his field, Dennis will always be remembered by those of us who practice the craft. Thank you, Dennis." Fedora 16 focuses on the cloud. Bergeron tells NetworkWorld, "I might be biased as being part of the Cloud SIG, but I think that the presence of multiple IaaS platforms (Aeolus and OpenStack), along with cloud-ready storage (HekaFS, which is an extension of GlusterFS), and a tech preview of application-service high-availability for the cloud (in Pacemaker-cloud) gives us a nice, broad range of cloud technologies. And I'm hoping — but not promising — to see that extended into Fedora 17 with the addition of Eucalyptus and Cloudstack, along with perhaps getting into big data fun." What else is new in the latest Fedora? Gnome 3.2 features, including new contact management application integrated with Empathy, Evolution, and the new Online Accounts settings panel, a new document management application for local and in-cloud documents, and KDE 4.7 are a few of the highlights. DigiKam 2.0 adds face recognition and geotagging, and a new shutdown dialog lets users with multiple operating systems choose which OS to boot next. Bergeron's list email says, "For developers: Twenty thousand lines in C...". The latest Perl, Perl 5.14, which includes Unicode 6.0 support, is included. She adds: Fedora 16 is the first Linux distribution to include the newest version of D, a systems programming language combining the power and high performance of C and C++ with the programmer productivity of modern languages such as Ruby and Python. Sys admins will find GRUB2, a new system account ID numbering (with user IDs starting at 1000), and improved virtualization tools. Don't worry — Fedora takes care of business, but it still likes to party. Or at least, play games. Fedora 16 includes new games such as Naev, a 2D space trading and combat game; Golly, an open source, cross-platform application for exploring Conway's Game of Life and other cellular automata; and Sudoku Savant, a GUI-driven sudoku puzzle game. Check out the release notes to see what else is inside the latest Fedora. |
EDIT Ron Paul now claims he isn't the author of racist comments published under his byline in his Texas newsletter in the mid-1990's. The problem with these denials is, back in the 1990's, he wasn't denying authorship of those articles, he was admitting to it and in fact DEFENDING the remarks. Let's take a look at some news excerpts from press reports at that time, including quotes from the articles under Ron Paul's byline and quotes from Ron Paul himself when asked about those articles... (1.) Dallas Morning News, 5-22-96: Dr. Ron Paul, a Republican congressional candidate from Texas, wrote in his political newsletter in 1992 that 95 percent of the black men in Washington, D.C., are "semi-criminal or entirely criminal." He also wrote that black teenagers can be "unbelievably fleet of foot." [...] Dr. Paul, who is running in Texas' 14th Congressional District, defended his writings in an interview Tuesday. He said they were being taken out of context. "It's typical political demagoguery," he said. "If people are interested in my character ... come and talk to my neighbors." [...] According to a Dallas Morning News review of documents circulating among Texas Democrats, Dr. Paul wrote in a 1992 issue of the Ron Paul Political Report: "If you have ever been robbed by a black teenaged male, you know how unbelievably fleet of foot they can be." Dr. Paul, who served in Congress in the late 1970s and early 1980s, said Tuesday that he has produced the newsletter since 1985 and distributes it to an estimated 7,000 to 8,000 subscribers. A phone call to the newsletter's toll-free number was answered by his campaign staff. [...] Dr. Paul denied suggestions that he was a racist and said he was not evoking stereotypes when he wrote the columns. He said they should be read and quoted in their entirety to avoid misrepresentation. [...] "If someone challenges your character and takes the interpretation of the NAACP as proof of a man's character, what kind of a world do you live in?" Dr. Paul asked. In the interview, he did not deny he made the statement about the swiftness of black men. "If you try to catch someone that has stolen a purse from you, there is no chance to catch them," Dr. Paul said. He also said the comment about black men in the nation's capital was made while writing about a 1992 study produced by the National Center on Incarceration and Alternatives, a criminal justice think tank based in Virginia. Citing statistics from the study, Dr. Paul then concluded in his column: "Given the inefficiencies of what DC laughingly calls the criminal justice system, I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal." "These aren't my figures," Dr. Paul said Tuesday [when interviewed about the column's comments]. "That is the assumption you can gather from" the report. (2.) Houston Chronicle, 5-23-96: Paul, a Republican obstetrician from Surfside, said Wednesday he opposes racism and that his written commentaries about blacks came in the context of "current events and statistical reports of the time." [...] Paul also wrote that although "we are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, it is hardly irrational. Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings and burglaries all out of proportion to their numbers." A campaign spokesman for Paul said statements about the fear of black males mirror pronouncements by black leaders such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who has decried the spread of urban crime. Paul continues to write the newsletter for an undisclosed number of subscribers, the spokesman said. Writing in the same 1992 edition, Paul expressed the popular idea that government should lower the age at which accused juvenile criminals can be prosecuted as adults. He added, "We don't think a child of 13 should be held responsible as a man of 23. That's true for most people, but black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such." Paul also asserted that "complex embezzling" is conducted exclusively by non-blacks. "What else do we need to know about the political establishment than that it refuses to discuss the crimes that terrify Americans on grounds that doing so is racist? Why isn't that true of complex embezzling, which is 100 percent white and Asian?" he wrote. (3.) Austin American-Statesman, 5-23-96: "Dr. Paul is being quoted out of context," [Paul spokesman Michael] Sullivan said. "It's like picking up War and Peace and reading the fourth paragraph on Page 481 and thinking you can understand what's going on." [...] Also in 1992, Paul wrote, "Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions." Sullivan said Paul does not consider people who disagree with him to be sensible. And most blacks, Sullivan said, do not share Paul's views. The issue is political philosophy, not race, Sullivan said. "Polls show that only about 5 percent of people with dark-colored skin support the free market, a laissez faire economy, an end to welfare and to affirmative action," Sullivan said. [...] "You have to understand what he is writing. Democrats in Texas are trying to stir things up by using half-quotes to impugn his character," Sullivan said. "His writings are intellectual. He assumes people will do their own research, get their own statistics, think for themselves and make informed judgments." (4.) Washington Post, 5-26-96: Paul, an obstetrician from Surfside, Tex., denied he is a racist and charged Austin lawyer Charles "Lefty" Morris, his Democratic opponent, with taking his 1992 writings out of context. "Instead of talking about the issues, our opponent has chosen to lie and try to deceive the people of the 14th District," said Paul spokesman Michael Sullivan, who added that the excerpts were written during the Los Angeles riots when "Jesse Jackson was making the same comments." "Ron knows our society and our nation has done some horrible things to the black community, which has pushed a majority of young black men in some areas, in Washington, D.C., for example, into criminal activities," Sullivan said. (5.) Dallas Morning News, 7-25-96: Dr. Paul, who faces Mr. Morris in the 14th District race for the U.S. House, dismissed the criticism as "name-calling and race-baiting." [...] In a written statement, Dr. Paul said, "Repeated attempts by my liberal opponent to reduce the campaign to name-calling and race-baiting is just more of the same old garbage we expect from his camp and will not deter me from continuing to address the real issues." Dr. Paul said his opinions about Ms. Jordan, who died earlier this year, "represented our clear philosophical difference." (6.) Roll Call, 7-29-96: In a statement, Paul said he had "labored to conduct a campaign based upon the issues that are vital to our nation" and charged Morris with "repeated attempts...to reduce the campaign to name calling and race-baiting." He called Morris's request that he release all back issues of the newsletter "not only impractical, but...equivalent to asking him to provide documents for every lawsuit he has been involved in during his lengthy legal career." Of his statements about Jordan, Paul said that "such opinions represented our clear philosophical difference. The causes she so strongly advocated were for more government, more and more regulations, and more and more taxes. My cause has been almost exactly the opposite, and I believe her positions to have been fundamentally wrong: I've fought for less and less intrusive government, fewer regulations, and lower taxes." (7.) San Antonio Express-News, 9-30-96: Paul's spokesman Michael Quinn Sullivan said the candidate does not want to "rehash" old issues. [...] Paul has said he opposes racism and accused Morris of reducing the campaign to "name-calling and race-baiting." (8.) Houston Chronicle, 10-11-96: Paul, who earlier this week said he still wrote the newsletter for subscribers, was unavailable for comment Thursday. But his spokesman, Michael Quinn Sullivan, accused Morris of "gutter-level politics." Sullivan said it was "silly" to try to make a political issue of something written in an "abstract" sense. [...] NOW, how about a list of some other lousy things Ron Paul believes and has done? 1. Ron Paul explains his opposition to “forced integration” and to affirmative action are the reasons he gives for his vote AGAINST reauthorizing the Civil Rights Act of 1964… http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/... 2. Ron Paul voted AGAINST renewing the Voting Rights Act … http://civilliberty.about.com/od... 3. Ron Paul also voted against reopening the unsolved murder investigations into race-related killings during the Civil Rights Movement… http://killfile.newsvine.com/_ne... 4. Some more of Ron Paul’s comments from his newsletter regarding black men: * “If you’ve ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be,” * "Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty and the end of welfare and affirmative action," * “We are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, it is hardly irrational. Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings and burglaries all out of proportion to their numbers," * "Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the `criminal justice system,' I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal," http://64.233.169.104/search?q=c... [One of the primary sources for Paul's "information" above about black crime was Jared Taylor, who writes for and runs American Renaissance magazine, a white nationalist magazine that also hosts a biannual conference of white nationalist and outright white supremacist groups and neo-Nazi organizations. Paul got much of his data directly from the June and August1992 issues of the magazine.] 5. Ron Paul supports lowering the age at which children can be charged and prosecuted as adults, saying (see the above link), “[B]lack males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such." 6. Ron Paul’s positions on minorities and civil rights legislation MIGHT be why Ron Paul gets the endorsement of “White Civil Rights – European American Unity and Rights Organization: The Website for Europeans and Americans Wherever They May Live”, the white supremacist group run by David Duke: http://www.whitecivilrights.com/... … and more support on David Duke’s site in support of Ron Paul’s candidacy… http://www.davidduke.com/general... [Not that a person should strictly be judged based on who might peripherally endorse them, but takenalongside his comments and votes on racial issues and immigration, I think the endorsements from white supremacists does in fact inform and educate regarding the implications of his positions.] 7. Ron Paul voted in favor of banning gay adoptions in D.C., in favor of continuing ban on gays in the military, in favor of “protecting” the Pledge of Allegiance in schools by forbidding federal courts from hearing cases on the issue, in favor of ending affirmative action in college admissions… http://senate.ontheissues.org/20... 8. Ron Paul voted against allowing any federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research, against federal funding for any abortions and contraception, against restrictions on employer interference in union organizing, against minimum wage increase, and voted to abolish federal Medicare… http://www.ontheissues.org/TX/Ro... 9. Ron Paul voted to amend the Constitution to revoke citizenship to infants of undocumented immigrants (even if the children are born on U.S. soil), voted against all federal affirmative action programs, voted against any citizenship path for undocumented immigrants inside the U.S. … http://civilliberty.about.com/od... 10. Ron Paul voted to keep “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, was one of the sponsors of the school prayer amendment, and supported keeping the Ten Commandments on the courthouse lawn… http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bd... http://www.congress.org/congress... 11. Ron Paul is on the national board of Christian Voice, which calls for mandatory AIDS testing and advocates banning homosexuality and pornography. He regularly argues that there should be no real separation of church and state. Quote from Ron Paul's article "War on Religion", Dec. 2003, at Lew Rockwell site online: "The notion of a rigid separation between church and state has no basis in either the text of the Constitution or the writings of our Founding Fathers. On the contrary, our Founders’ political views were strongly informed by their religious beliefs. Certainly the drafters of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, both replete with references to God, would be aghast at the federal government’s hostility to religion. The establishment clause of the First Amendment was simply intended to forbid the creation of an official state church like the Church of England, not to drive religion out of public life." http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/... http://www.christianvoiceonline.... 12. Ron Paul signed a fundraising letter for a Republican Senate candidate attacking George McGovern for supporting gay rights, women's rights, and minority rights. Ron Paul signed a letter that ran as a full-page ad in the New York Times and called for the overthrow of the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, and Paul asked Reagan to use military force to stop the "spread" of Communism in Central America. Ron Paul also argued on the floor of Congress against any and all negotiations with the Soviet Union for the reduction of nuclear weapons. And sponsored legislation requiring the U.S. to withdraw from the ABM Treaty: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bd... http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bd... http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bd... 13. Ron Paul opposes the International Criminal Court, which prosecutes war-crimes, and sponsored bills to declare the ICC invalid and unrecognized by the U.S. Ron Paul : http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bd... http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bd... http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bd... http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bd... http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bd... 14. Ron Paul opposed the Panama Canal Treaty that returned control of the territory back over to Panama, and he pushed for the U.S. to retain "sovereignty" over the Canal: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bd... http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bd... http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bd... 15. Ron Paul sent a recent fundraising letter (link to pdf below) that included claims that a "world elite" is forming a "North American Union", that the UN is planning to "confiscate our firearms" and to "impose a global tax", and the "elites" also plan on taking "control [of] the world's oceans" and use the U.S. military "to police the world", code-words that directly appeal to the right-wing white supremacist militia movement (the letter also includes claims of a government plan "to give amnesty to illegal immigrantsand erase our national borders", and that "our American way of life is under attack"): http://www.brendan-nyhan.com/pho... 16. Ron Paul has been regularly linked to the "patriot movement", including a 2004 banquet held in Ron Paul's honor thrown by The Patriot Network, and Ron Paul's frequent writings for the neo-Confederate site Dixie Daily News (for which he also appeared at their "FreedomFest" in Las Vegas this past summer). Ron Paul spoke at the Robert A. Taft Club in Oct. 2007 – this group is a white nationalist organization, headed by Marcus Epstein, an advocate for white supremacist groups and frequent attendee at the white supremacist biannual conference American Renaissance. http://www.patriotnetwork.info/ http://www.southerncaucus.org/ http://roberttaft.org/paul.htm http://www.amren.com/ 17. Ron Paul voted for the so-called "DeLay rule" that changed House ethics rules to allow Tom DeLay to remain in office after he was indicted (Ron Paul received $6,000 from DeLay's ARMPAC). 18. Ron Paul has long been obsessed with a particular theory about the Federal Reserve and gold. His early links to Gary North (son-in-law of R.J. Rushdoony, founder of Christian Reconstructionism), including North serving on Ron Paul's staff, led to Paul attending a seminar by North at the LA Hyatt in 1985, and the seminar was filled with far-right conspiracy theories (and featuring such luminaries as Constitution Party founder Howard Phillips (the Constitution Party is a white nationalist party). Ron Paul slowly came to embrace the notion that the Federal Reserve is secretly a false entity with no real authority, that federal money should only exist as a currency for paying our taxes, and that the U.S. should return to the gold standard and abolish the Federal Reserve. http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bd... http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bd... http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bd... http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bd... http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bd... http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bd... http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bd... http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bd... http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bd... http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bd... http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bd... http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bd... http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bd... http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bd... http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bd... http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bd... 19. Ron Paul explains his views on the conspiracy involving the Federal Reserve in his book "The Case for Gold", which he doesn't mention much during his campaign appearances but which is full of the most bizarre aspects of the theory (but has removed or used code-words for a lot of the anti-Semitism and notions of Jewish conspirators at the heart of the Federal Reserve): http://www.mises.org/store/Case-... 20. Ron Paul discussed the New World Order and other secret society global conspiracies in an interview with "Conspiracy Planet", which included back-and-forth discussions about the "banking elites" that is code for "Jews” in the discussion: http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/... Ron Paul has, for roughly 30 years or more, had strong ties to key extremely right-wing beliefs and the groups – often white nationalists – who espouse these theories and ideas. He is strongly tied to certain far-right religious conservative groups and has consistently championed social conservative ideologies on gay marriage, abortion, and women's rights. He has championed U.S. military intervention in Central America, has been staunchly in favor of military action to confront the supposed threat of Communism, and opposed efforts to reduce nuclear weapons. His economic and general governing philosophy is rooted in specific bizarre and extremist conspiracy theories that Paul has adhered to for decades, and he has recently openly discussed his fear of secret U.N. plans to take over the U.S., merge it with Mexico and Canada, impose a global tax, and confiscate citizens' guns, as part of a New World Order plot for global domination by "certain elites" at the U.N. and in "international banking". Ron Paul has a history of opposing desegregation in the South, voting rights legislation for minorities, and his newsletter frequently featured openly racist remarks and claims about African-Americans. In short, Ron Paul pretends to be a just an anti-war civil libertarian voice of reason, when in fact he’s a far-right extremist tied to fringe racist theories and is only “anti-war” sometimes when he doesn’t like a particular military action, when acting anti-war will gain him followers and donations. Too many civil libertarians have been fooled by his dishonest misrepresentation of his true nature and views, and it’s important to expose these things to the public and to prevent Ron Paul from developing a following among people who simply aren’t aware of his true history and nature. ADDITIONAL INFO No, Ron Paul should absolutely NOT be President. And I urge you to read the following in order to see why he shouldn't be president.Too few people know that Ron Paul has in the last several years "remade" himself into this supposedly moderate civil libertarian. Too few people are aware of his very real, and very bad, links to all manner of white nationalists and very fringe, irrational, and frankly paranoid groups and conspiracy theories (I use the term to mean the common-use understanding of the phrase, because it absolutely applies here) about secret international cabals plotting to take over the USA, be it a Mexican invasion to seize the southern U.S. or U.N. troops commanded by "international/European bankers" (very transparent and common anti-Semitic code for "Jews") who will seize our guns and create a one-world religion and government, a big race war that will seek to enslave white citizens, and other such dangerous, far-right extremist ramblings.Here is a sampling of information about Ron Paul that I like to share, to make the factual and undeniable case that he is indeed a racist who embraces many seriously delusional, dangerous, and hateful views.There are some of the more fanatical and extreme supporters who will refuse to even look at or believe the documentation about Ron Paul's views, his past, his votes, his links to extremist white nationalist groups and conspiracy theories, etc, and who will just not even address any of it but instead outright dismiss it as "lies/slander/whatever" or claim it's a conspiracy against him (that apparently includes a clone of him who went back in time to give interviews taking credit for writing those inflamatory newsletters and even went into detail to defend them and explain the "research" he did to "prove" his remarks about black people etc). But hopefully the vast majority of folks, who are rational and intelligent supporters of progressive policies and support civil liberties, will realize they simply weren't aware of these facts because these things rarely get covered in the media and Ron Paul's campaign and most vocal supporters have just been very good at shouting it down and denying it.Anyway, here is the text from a document I keep on hand to send to friends and family and others when they ask for information/evidence/whatever about Ron Paul's true nature...If you are a Ron Paul supporter who is now unhappy and doesn't know who to support anymore, I will note for the record that there is actually a candidate who really is everything Ron Paul pretends to be --. I'm merely noting that if that's the kind of candidate you wanted to support, a real-life version exists who can stand up to any intensive "background check" like the one above, and who will remain precisely what you thought he was. Johnson is a case of "what you see is what you get" as a civil libertarian and "real" fiscal small-government conservative. Johnson ran for the GOP nomination, but has now dropped out of that race and is going to run for (and probably easily walk away with) the Libertarian nomination instead. So just hypothetically, there's a candidate for all the Ron Paul supporters, for libertarians and Libertarians, for moderate conservatives who feel the GOP has left them behind, and for a lot of liberal/progressives who are unhappy with Obama but refuse to support the GOP and don't feel that the Green Party or others are adequate representatives of your range of views and focus of concerns etc.That's NOT an endorsement, by the way, It's just to say that I hope all of the folks who previously supported Ron Paul will stop and will instead look elsewhere, and if they insist on needing a candidate very close to the public persona Ron Paul tries to project, then Johnson is pretty much exactly what they want. So in that way, then, it's another part of the answer to "should Ron Paul be president" because besides all of the other information explaining why Paul shouldn't be president, another reason is that there exists a far better and honest example of what Paul claims to be, and thus the reasons one might give for supporting/voting for Ron Paul would instead make far more sense as reasons to support this other alternative instead, if that's what you want to support.I want to also link over to some extra information that's very relevant and worth looking at if you're seriously interested in finding out about Ron Paul and his links to these sorts of far-right, racist, paranoid beliefs/people/groups/etc. |
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