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A BITTER rival of Russian President Vladimir Putin has been caught romping with a British-raised activist in a sex sting. Married former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, 58, was tipped as one of the few opposition leaders capable of toppling Putin. But last night his career was hanging by a thread after a grainy 40-minute video of him and a female anti-Putin playwright was shown on Russian state TV. The footage showed Kasyanov, who fell out with Putin after serving as PM, in a steamy bedroom clinch with Natalya Pelevine, 39. The pair were filmed naked or wearing little, their faces fully visible. They were seen embracing, with Pelevine, who grew up in Britain, wearing a bra, knickers, stockings and suspenders. The black-and-white film did not show explicit sex acts. Pelevine accused Kasyanov’s family of stealing state assets. He replied: “I buy for five kopeks (cents) and sell for five roubles.” Kasyanov claimed he was doing the same as Russian oligarchs but “they act on a different scale”. The politician was also overheard saying how he needed to target a fellow anti-Putin candidate, Alexei Navalny, before parliamentary elections later this year. In September Russians go to the polls with wages at their lowest since Putin first came to power 16 years ago. Changes in the law mean the President can seek a fourth term in office in 2018. Yesterday Kasyanov refused to comment. Pelevine said she will sue NTV. Kasyanov, who has two children, works with Pelevine — also known as Natalya Pelevina — who acts as his aide in his RPR Parnas party. Pelevine was born in the old Soviet Union, but her parents emigrated to Britain when she was still a child. The video was billed as “Kasyanov Day” on the NTV channel. A presenter told viewers: “A man resembling Mikhail Kasyanov, the leader of RPR Parnas, is meeting a woman resembling Parnas member Natalya Pelevina, but there is no doubt that it is Kasyanov and Pelevina.” Sources last night said the sting smacked of a classic operation by Russia’s FSB, the successor to the KGB. It appeared to have been secretly filmed using a camera hidden in a dressing table inside a Moscow flat used by the couple. They were also heard talking about Kasyanov’s links to corruption. |
In 1988 memo, Agency bragged about how “for the last 40 years” they had “held the GAO and their armies of auditors at bay” Read Part 1 here The 1988 amendment was especially alarming to the CIA Director, because it included the possibility that the GAO would be able to sue over information. Their letter argued that the mere prospect of a lawsuit presented “a substantial danger of unauthorized disclosure.” While Iran-Contra provided fresh insight into the inadequacy of the situation, it nevertheless failed to produce any meaningful change in regards to GAO. At least one Iran-Contra related GAO investigation was hampered by the fact that the GAO was denied certain documents until after their report was issued. The eventual release of these materials substantially changed the GAO’s conclusions, as they provided the evidence GAO needed to conclude that lobbying statutes had been violated. The lobbying statutes that had been violated were no small matter, yet they were all but covered up by denying access to information. As a result, they’ve all but been forgotten by history. The documents, however, survive. The Senate’s final staff report concluded that the State Department’s Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean (S/LPD) “played a central role in the creation and management of the private network involved in the Iran/Contra affair.” The report also concluded that the S/LPD had been created and managed “by operations in the National Security Council who maintained close ties with Oliver North and former CIA Director Casey.” As the Congressional Iran-Contra report would note, the NSC staff member responsible for overseeing the S/LPD was also a former CIA employee. The S/LPD’s origins become especially significant in light of the S/LPD providing question no-bid contracts to International Business Communications (IBC). While being paid by the S/LPD, IBC not only served as the “conduit through which millions of dollars from the illegal sales of weapons to Iran were diverted for use by the Contras as well as other purposes” but as a source of propaganda. Gomez, one of IBC’s principals, participated in covert and illegal propaganda efforts “designed to influence the media and public support for the President’s Latin American policies.” Alarmingly, this included “sophisticated television ad campaigns that were targeted at Members of Congress” who disagreed with President Reagan. Not even GAO’s conclusion that these efforts violated anti-lobbying statutes and the Senate’s conclusion that the office funding the efforts had been created by the NSC and reported to the former CIA Director was enough to convince Congress to give the GAO real access to CIA’s records. While the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee chairman would introduce legislation to allow the GAO to evaluate the Agency, the legislation, and the more limited proposal introduced in the House, quietly died when referred to the intelligence committees. Instead, the Committee’s control was further concentrated in 1988, when their audit staff was created. Meant to be “a credible independent arm for Committee review of covert action programs and other specific Intelligence Community functions and issues,” it was meant to provide an alternative to the GAO for auditing the Intelligence Community. In effect, it created another significant bottleneck to oversight while making it further subject to politically motivated manipulation, such was when the Republicans unilaterally fired the entire audit staff in 2005. That same year, the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion that attempted to more fully exclude GAO from the Congressional oversight process. The GAO disagreed with the DOJ’s legal analysis, arguing that the exclusion was not as categorical as the DOJ said. During the 106th Congress, which operated from January 3, 1999, to January 3, 2001, the audit staff was composed of three full-time auditors. These auditors were expected to lead or support “the Committee’s review of a number of administrative and operational issues relating to the agencies of the Intelligence Community.” In comparison, the GAO had 3,275 full time employees, many of whom had or could be granted security clearances. This importance of this imbalance is highlighted in a 1985 EYES ONLY memo written by the Agency’s Executive Director, stating that the Agency had “for the last 40 years held the GAO and their armies of auditors at bay.” It was certainly easier for the Agency to deal with Congress’ three full time auditors, subject to political control, than it was to deal with the “armies of auditors” at the independent GAO. It doesn’t seem that the Senate’s audit staff expanded over time. When they suddenly replaced in 2005, the staff still consisted of only three members. The Agency would rather brazenly refuse to allow the GAO to audit the Agency “with respect to funds authorized for the Nicaraguan Resistance.” Fresh on the heels of Iran-Contra, the Agency insisted that since any such funds would break the law, there was nothing for GAO to audit, and therefore GAO’s request was being denied. Similarly, any other hypothetical assistance to the Nicaraguan Resistance would have been subject to Congressional oversight, and on which grounds the Agency would similarly deny the GAO access. A 1988 memo makes it clear that the Agency’s interest wasn’t simply in limiting the GAO’s access, but in similarly preventing any committees other than the intelligence committees from claiming any degree of oversight jurisdiction. The CIA was leery of “Congressional micromanagement” of the Agency, arguing that “Congressional intervention erodes Agency management flexibility and ties up thousands of man-hours.” The Agency apparently felt rather strongly that personnel benefits was in the jurisdiction of the intelligence committees only. They were equally leery of the GAO and the House Judiciary Committee’s interest in the drug war. According to the Agency, “all such efforts need to be turned aside lest several committees assume de facto oversight responsibilities.” That same year, Congressman Leon Panetta introduced legislation to assert GAO’s authority to audit the Agency. According to a CIA memo from their Office of Congressional Affairs, Panetta was convinced to drop the matter in favor of allowing the Congressional committee to focus on another bill which was introduced but was never passed. When he became Director of Central Intelligence in 2009, he does not appear to have taken the opportunity to significantly increase CIA’s cooperation with GAO. However, the Agency wasn’t finished limiting GAO’s ability to conduct oversight. A few years later, CIA drew what it called a “hard line” against GAO’s oversight - a hard line that continues to this day. Read the 1988 memo embedded below: Like Emma Best’s work? Support her on Patreon. Image via Wikimedia Commons |
High deductible health insurance plans were supposed to help consumers cut healthcare costs. The idea was that since consumers would have to pay a large chunk of their own money for medical care before insurance kicks in, they would shop around to get the best prices. But it hasn’t turned out that way. According to a research paper published earlier in February in JAMA Internal Medicine, people in high deductible health insurance plans are no more likely than those with traditional health insurance to look for more affordable care. The study, conducted by researchers at Harvard University and University of Southern California, surveyed 2,000 people. About half had high deductibles—more than $1,250 for an individual and $2,500 for a family. While the majority of people surveyed said they were worried about costs, just 4 percent of those in high deductible health insurance plans said they compared prices the last time they had medical treatment, versus just slightly more than the 3 percent of those in plans with low deductibles. Not a big difference. "Simply increasing a deductible, which gives enrollees skin in the game, appears insufficient to facilitate price shopping," the study concludes. Even more worrisome is research that shows that some workers with high deductible health insurance plans aren’t getting the care they need. According a National Bureau of Economic Research paper published in October 2015, researchers tracked workers at one company that moved all its workers from a plan with no deductible to one with a family deductible of $3,000 to $4,000. While average yearly spending per employee fell 13 percent, it was nearly all due to a reduction in demand for services. Workers just skipped healthcare altogether, even for preventative services that were free, such as colonoscopies and mammograms. “People don’t know what (exams) are necessary or unnecessary," says Peter Ubel, a professor of business and medicine at Duke University. “The attitude is that the doctor knows best.” Those who do try to reduce their costs report little success. A January 2016 report by the Kaiser Family Foundation and New York Times found that consumers who have difficulty paying their medical bills are more likely to try to compare costs or negotiate prices for medical treatment. But 69 percent of people struggling with medical bills say it was difficult to find out how much they would have to pay and 67 percent of those who tried to negotiate with a provider were unsuccessful. Despite these trends, employers are increasingly offering high deductible health insurance plans to their employees. This year, 86 percent of employers will offer high deductible plans as an option, up from 54 percent five years ago, according to Towers Watson, an employee benefits consulting firm. Employees who like the prospect of paying lower premiums are increasingly opting for those plans. Enrollment has more than doubled from 20 percent to 43 percent over the past five years. That trend is likely to continue. At about one-quarter of all companies, high deductible plans are the only option. And according to a PwC Health and Well-Being Touchstone Survey, 37 percent of companies are considering making it the only choice within the next three years. What You Should Do Deciding whether to get high deductible insurance requires some consideration. It starts with choosing your health insurance wisely, says Ubel. Talk to the benefits experts within your company or if you’re buying on your own, use an independent insurance broker. If you have a chronic condition or anticipate major medical care in the next year—say a knee placement—a high deductible health insurance plan may not be right for you. Understand what your existing plan covers and take advantage of free preventative services such as annual check ups, colonoscopies and mammograms. One positive trend for consumers: More insurers provide pricing tools on their websites that make it easier to compare costs within your network. You can also check out price shopping sites such as Healthcare Bluebook or Guroo from the Health Care Cost Institute. Keep in mind that if you skip or put off care you need, that could end up costing you and the health system more in the long run. More from Consumer Reports: 8 Ways to Boost Your Home Value Why your cable TV bill is going up Get the Best Cell Phone Plan for Your Family—and Save up to $1,000 a Year Consumer Reports has no relationship with any advertisers on this website. Copyright © 2006-2016 Consumers Union of U.S. |
BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s ruling Communist Party appointed a new senior official on Sunday to run Tibet, considered one of the country’s most politically sensitive positions due to periodic anti-Chinese unrest in the devoutly Buddhist Himalayan region. The official Xinhua news agency named Wu Yingjie as Tibet’s next party secretary. New leaders were also appointed in two other key provinces, part of a broad reshuffle ahead of an important party meeting next year. Wu has worked almost his entire career in Tibet, according to his official resume, having previously served as a deputy governor and propaganda chief, among other roles. Wu, like his predecessor Chen Quanguo, belongs to China’s majority Han Chinese ethnic group. Xinhua said Chen would be taking another position, without giving further details. Communist troops marched in and took control of Tibet in 1950 in what Beijing calls a “peaceful liberation”. Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959 following a failed uprising against the Chinese. China says its rule has bought prosperity and stability, rejecting claims from Tibetan exiles and rights groups of widespread repression. Xinhua said new party bosses had also been appointed to serve in the strategically located southwestern province of Yunnan and the populous southern province of Hunan. In Yunnan, which sits of the borders of Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam, Chen Hao replaced Li Jiheng, while in Hunan, Du Jiahao has assumed the party’s top job, Xinhua said. Both Chen and Du worked with President Xi Jinping when he ran China’s commercial capital, Shanghai, as its Communist Party chief for a year in 2007, according to their resumes. The party will hold a once-every-five-years congress next autumn where Xi is expected to further cement his hold on power by seeking to appoint close allies into the party’s ruling inner core, the politburo and the politburo standing committee. The year leading up to that will see Xi appoint more new people into major provincial and government positions, sources with ties to the leadership say. (Story refiles to fix typo in fourth paragraph, drops the word ‘rather’.) |
Inspired by reports that the African nation of Angola had outlawed the religion of Islam and begun dismantling mosques, Bryan Fischer called for similar steps to be taken in America. Though the claims turned out to be false, Fischer said on his radio program yesterday that under the Constitution as it was originally written, individual states have the freedom and power to declare Islam to be illegal and prohibit Muslims from practicing it or building mosques. “Angola has made Islam illegal in the country,” Fischer said, “and they are dismantling mosques. Mosques are illegal and they are dismantling the mosques that already exist; they’re taking them down … And you ask yourself the question, well, can we do that here? Could we do that in the United States? Could we make Islam illegal, could we prohibit the building of mosques, and the answer is yes!” |
codex magica mysterious monuments conspiracy of six pointed star Exclusive Intelligence Examiner Report Texe Marrs The Jewish Religion Teaches That Jews Are a Divine Species “And the serpent said... Ye shall not surely die... Ye shall be as gods; knowing good and evil.” — Genesis 3 “The Jewish people as a whole will become its own Messiah... Thus will the promise of the Talmud be fulfilled...” — Baruch Levy, Letter to Karl Marx, reprinted in La Revue de Paris, p. 574 June 1, 1928 I visited a so-called “Christian” bookstore recently for the first time in years. But “Christian” it was not! Everywhere were signs of Judaism and of a poisonous form of Judeo-Christianity. I was especially interested in the many books warning of the antichrist to come—the evil man with the prophetic identification number 666. It seems in vogue to claim that this man will be a Moslem. The books say that he will lead the Moslem hordes in killing Christians throughout the world. He shall be the Islamic antichrist. Allah is his “God,” and Mohammed is his prophet. Now the Jews must get a real kick out of seeing gullible “Christians” so easily deceived. These silly notions of an Arab antichrist are, in fact, being promoted these days by Jewish rabbis who, privately, laugh and hee-haw. Click Here to Order Your Copy Now (432 pages, Large Format, $25) In my encyclopedic book, Conspiracy of the Six-Pointed Star, I reveal the biblical truths of the antichrist. Read my book—or obtain my CD or audiotape on the antichrist—and know. [Will the Antichrist Be a Jew? Tape or CD ] Let me let you in on a big, big OPEN secret. It is a secret published widely by our Lord Jesus Christ who clearly is not impressed over the Arab future to come. This secret involves yet another group we are to watch, a terrible, inhuman, cruel sect He calls the “Synagogue of Satan” (Revelation 2:9 and 3:9). The Jews and Their Messiah Now the Jews would not be caught dead (excuse the pun) in an Islamic mosque. But the synagogue? Oh, yeah, that’s their exclusive bailiwick. Their Messiah—not Jesus, but the Jews’ Messiah—will reign and teach in the synagogue. The book of Revelation tells us about this abominable place of worship. The Jewish Messiah, according to the top rabbis, will not be an independent, external deity. He will merely represent them as king. The Jews are The Chosen—they are confident they shall be their own Messiah. This I discovered in investigating the New Age movement, which is, in fact, a satanic movement authored by the Jews. When the Jews speak of “God,” they refer to themselves. Oh sure, Messiah shall come, they teach. He will be the new “Moses,” the Davidic seed. But like Moses, like King David, he will not be God, but will, rather, serve God. And who is God but the Jews themselves? The Jewish Messiah/king will be like all the Jews. They are collectively divine beings, gods on earth. He will be one of them: a god among gods. The Jews as Collective Messiah—A Collection of Jewish Divine “Sparks” Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsbergh, author of What You Need to Know About the Kabbalah, points to the doctrine of Ba’al Shem Tov, the most famous rabbinical authority, who taught of the “immanent omnipresence of the almighty, which implies a unique equivalence between God and Creation.” Ginsbergh says this equivalence means that, “God is all and all is God.” According to Ginsbergh, the Shekinah presence, a divine spark or energy force, is found only in spiritually advanced Jews. God is an “aggregate,” or combination of these sparks, and the Messiah is made up of the divine sparks, the sanctified elite. These divine beings collectively shall usher in the Messianic Age. Rabbi David Cooper explains further that the “coming of Messiah” is actually the “coming of messianic consciousness.” Men who become divine realize their divinity and become fully conscious. Planet of God—Paradise on Earth? The “Planet of God,” a concept of Robert Mueller, former administrative head at the United Nations, is achieved when this Messianic Age is created. An elite of super-souls, conscious god-men, shall rule and reign. There is no single “God.” As Nietsche informed us, the “Super Men” shall rule. Billy Phillips, teacher at kabbalahstudent.com, says that in the Zohar, a book of the Kabbalah, we discover that the Messianic Age will result in Jews being their own Messiah: “Kabbalah explains that when the new reality arrives our planet will change its physical dimension, enlarging... The borders of the land of Israel will extend and include the entire planet and all people. However, the Messiah arrives only when individual people achieve a personal state of Messiah within themselves. Once a critical mass and specific threshold of people achieve this personal, individual state, only then will the global Messiah appear as a seal and not a savior. The Messiah is a seal that confirms that we, the people, have achieved true transformation of our own nature, and turn the planet. After this state of Messiah is achieved, there will be one thousand years of paradise on earth, according to Kabbalah... That is the true Super Earth.” Serve the Jews, or Be Beheaded Ah yes, a super Earth, with super “Masters,” will mean paradise, or Utopia, for all mankind. Well, not all mankind, but all who worship and serve their Jewish overlords. Others will be summarily executed, beheaded, says the Talmud. So, the Jews point to a “God,” but theirs is a collective “God”—the Jews of the world. They alone are the divine god-men recognized by the Kabbalah and Talmud. The Gentiles, an inferior species, will be grouped under the Jews and will serve them. Those who refuse or are not fit shall be killed. That is the cabalistic law. “The Messianic Age will be marked by the triumph of Jewish exclusiveness, in which the reign of justice means the strict observance of the Law of Yahweh... in a word, Jewish law... The nations will be converted to Judaism and obey the law or else they will be destroyed and the Jews will be masters of the world.” (La Vérite Israelite, vol. V, p.74, France) The Jewish Kabbalah explains the religious doctrine of Jewish deity. This is the cabbalistic Tree of Life with the Serpent, Leviathan, guiding the Jews to realizing their godhood. When the cycle of the Serpent is complete, the Jews will rule over the New World Order as their own Messiah. The Serpent Shall Ascend: Ordo Ab Chao The Jews, then, will be their own Messiah. The Kabbalah tells us that Jews shall rise from the depths of the abyss. First, the goddess Malkut, then her phallic consort, Hesod, shall elevate them upwards, toward the Crown of Life. Along the way, the Serpent shall watch over and guide the Jews. The Serpent is their symbol, providing chaos and destruction of the world of the Gentiles. From this chaos and destruction comes, finally, order. Order Out of Chaos. This is why the Jews, including today’s top rabbis and leaders like Netanyahu, have convinced themselves of the usefulness of nuclear bombs. Before Israel falls as a nation, she intends to resort to the “Samson Option”—the Jews will unleash their nuclear bombs on targets. Those targeted include the Arabs, European and Russian capitals, and the United States of America. Out of the ashes shall come the rising, magnificent Phoenix bird, Israel. So the Jews today are ever busy attacking and killing innocent Palestinians. Their Mossad ruthlessly operates throughout the Middle East. The Jews have provoked wars in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and elsewhere. They even poke sticks in the eyes of the Russian Bear, engineering a coup in Ukraine and stirring up trouble in nearby Georgia. The mad Jews are convinced that the world’s greatest bully and superpower, the U.S.A., will defend them against all comers, and if not, their own nuclear arsenal will suffice. Their war-like acts prove they are demonically insane, and very close to their own destruction. The Jews Are Demonically Insane Let’s face it. Any people, or race, or nation, that looks in the mirror and arrogantly proclaims, “I am Chosen... I am God... I am my own Messiah... All others are mere beasts” is, by definition, insane. God promised He would drive such prideful men insane, and He has done so. And all who support this narcissistic garbage have, themselves, become wildly insane. They have, in fact, fallen into a profoundly, intoxicating Mystery of Iniquity, a terrible revolt against God and His true Kingdom. Christian Zionist, that means you! |
More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News More From IGN News Share. G4 vet joins Fox's mutant universe. G4 vet joins Fox's mutant universe. Former G4 host-turned-actress Olivia Munn (The Newsroom, Attack of the Show!) has been cast as Psylocke in X-Men: Apocalypse. Director Bryan Singer made the announcement today via his Instagram account: "Excited to welcome @oliviamunn as Betsy Braddock! #Psylocke #XmenApocalypse #XMEN" Since making the leap to acting, Munn has starred in Deliver Us from Evil, Magic Mike, Iron Man 2, Perfect Couples, Mortdecai, and The Babymakers. X-Men: Apocalypse also stars James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, Nicholas Hoult, Rose Byrne, Sophie Turner, Tye Sheridan, Alexandra Shipp, Evan Peters, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Ben Hardy, Bingbing Fan, Lana Condor, and Oscar Isaac as Apocalypse. |
To restate the obvious, the US has a huge amount of infrastructure catch-up it needs to do. Infrastructure spending provides an estimated $3 of economic growth for every $1 of spending. That means debt worry-warts need not fear, since deficit spending on infrastructure would lower the Federal debt to GDP ratio would fall. But since the balanced budget types can’t get out of their own way and embrace MMT, budget hawks and ideologues who prefer private sector profiteering to government provision of services both tout the idea of “public private partnerships” as a scheme for what amounts to privatization of public services. These schemes are a transfer from local citizens, who wind up paying users’ fees, to financiers, design and construction firms, and investors, the overwhelming majority of which are not part of the community. So they are net transfers out….once you ignore political donations. So as opposed to adding to local growth, these privatizations amount to new taxes in the form of users’ fees, but paid to private owners. Even worse, the deals are very one sided, with “gotcha” clauses like requiring payments if the public amenity is taken out of service for pressing reasons, like an emergency. These infrastructure deals are also a lousy way to stimulate growth, since where the promoters want to do their projects is routinely not where the real economy payoff is greatest. And the process for selecting the consortium to handle the project, negotiating the deal, and for the promoters to get the funding is much more time consuming than having the government do it itself, making a mockery of the claim that the private sector is more nimble. But on top of these issues is that certain types of projects, most notably toll roads, have a record of consistent failure that the press chooses to ignore. The Wall Street Journal today, for instance, treats a toll road deal that failed under then-Governor Pence as if it were mere bad luck, as opposed to precisely what you’d expect if you knew the terrain. From the Journal: The project, a partnership between the state and private investors, was signed by Vice President Mike Pence in 2014 when he was the state’s governor. It is two years behind schedule and only 60% built. The state is in the process of taking it over and will have to issue debt to finish it… The southern Indiana project near Bloomington had a raft of setbacks early on. The state selected a consortium that included a Spanish construction company, Grupo Isolux Corsán S.A., that hadn’t worked on a road project in the U.S. Its $325 million winning bid was nearly $75 million below the next-lowest one. The company quickly ran into unrelated legal difficulties in Europe that hurt its finances…. There have been some notable public-private failures. Toll-road partnerships in Alabama, Texas and California declared bankruptcy in recent years after revenue from tolls used to finance these projects fell short of projections. Indiana’s first major public-private partnership, a deal with Ferrovial S.A.’s subsidiary Cintra to operate the Indiana Toll Road, fell into bankruptcy after revenue missed targets. It has since been bought by new owners. The article depicts this Indiana deal as a mere “black eye” and presents another Indiana project as a success: Indiana has another public-private partnership for a bridge over the Ohio River that was recently completed ahead of schedule and $200 million below the state’s estimated cost. However, mere completion is not the metric for whether these ventures have worked out. Consider the grim findings of this 2014 story in Thinking Highways by Randy Salzman: Beginning with the contracting stage, the evidence suggests toll operating public private partnerships are transportation shell companies for international financiers and contractors who blueprint future bankruptcies. Because Uncle Sam generally guarantees the bonds – by far the largest chunk of “private” money – if and when the private toll road or tunnel partner goes bankrupt, taxpayers are forced to pay off the bonds while absorbing all loans the state and federal governments gave the private shell company and any accumulated depreciation. Yet the shell company’s parent firms get to keep years of actual toll income, on top of millions in design-build cost overruns…. Of course, no executive comes forward and says, “We’re planning to go bankrupt,” but an analysis of the data is shocking. There do not appear to be any American private toll firms still in operation under the same management 15 years after construction closed. The original toll firms seem consistently to have gone bankrupt or “zeroed their assets” and walked away, leaving taxpayers a highway now needing repair and having to pay off the bonds and absorb the loans and the depreciation. The list of bankrupt firms is staggering, from Virginia’s Pocahontas Parkway to Presidio Parkway in San Francisco to Canada’s “Sea to Sky Highway” to Orange County’s Riverside Freeway to Detroit’s Windsor Tunnel to Brisbane, Australia’s Airport Link to South Carolina’s Connector 2000 to San Diego’s South Bay Expressway to Austin’s Cintra SH 130 to a couple dozen other toll facilities. We cannot find any American private toll companies, furthermore, meeting their pre-construction traffic projections. Even those shell companies not in bankruptcy court usually produce half the income they projected to bondholders and federal and state officials prior to construction. I strongly encourage you to read this article in full. A big reason these deals do poorly is that infrastructure firms have copied the model of the creator and leader in that business, Sydney’s Macquarie Bank. It’s also a world leader in rent extraction. From another 2014 article: Jim Chanos, president of the hedge fund Kynikos Associates and another famous early doubter of Enron, has been Macquarie’s most outspoken critic. In 2007, Chanos told [Fortune Magazine’s Bethany] McLean that Macquarie had ”perverse incentive to serially overpay for assets,” and compared the company to a Ponzi scheme. McLean explained: “That’s because the assets are owned not by the bank itself but by the shareholders in its funds. The shareholders pay Macquarie management fees that are based on the size of the fund, meaning that Macquarie has an incentive to add to its collection.” That’s why Macquarie had every reason to bid a full billion dollars more than the second-place bidder for the Indiana Toll Road: Every additional dollar earned fatter fees for its bankers. As an investment bank, Macquarie also earns money from transaction fees, which its infrastructure funds pay every time its banking arm rearranges investments into new corporate structures, or refinances a loan, or closes a deal. Chanos pointed out that 84 percent of the deals Macquarie advises involve its own entities. Shareholders ultimately eat the cost of these self-dealing fees. Macquarie also pays itself handsome annual fees to manage its numerous satellite entities, in an “externally managed” arrangement criticized by corporate governance advocates. McLean called the funds “fee factories” for the company, noting they generate hundreds of millions of dollars each year for the firm. Even though Atlas is just a holding company with little of its own overhead, it paid Macquarie $36.7 million in fees in 2013 — millions more than it paid out to its shareholders. The Sydney Morning Herald’s Alan Kohler shares Chanos’ skepticism. In a 2004 editorial, he wrote, “The Macquarie model is justly famous around the world. It is quite possibly the most efficient method of legally relieving investors of their money ever conceived.” In other words, privately funded infrastructure investments and privatizations should be viewed with prejudice, yet clever PR has meant they are incorrectly seen as a good deal for governments, as opposed to a good deal for everyone but governments and their constituents. As Salzman put it: |
I Lost over 50 lbs in 5 months This may not happen for you but this is what worked for me. I want to first say that there is no such thing as a magic pill, a 30 day workout, or a special drink that is going to magically make the weight disappear. It just isn’t going to happen like that. These things may help you in your journey to becoming a healthier you but it is still going to require a lifestyle change. I lost my 50 lbs just like everyone else that loses their weight, with hard work and dedication. Here is how I lost over 50lbs. I started off back in the fall of 2015 wanting to change my life. I wanted to become healthier. I realized I was 37 about to be 38 and something just clicked. I decided I wasn’t going to continue to eat fast food, drink energy drinks and eat all these unnecessary calories just because I wanted to. I started looking around to find a quick fix. Really that was what I was looking for. I heard a lot of people talk about thrive, fit sticks, and then I heard someone mention the 21-day fix. I thought to myself 21 days, sounds perfect, I can do that. So I went ahead a bought it online from someone’s website and a few days later is showed up on my doorstep. Here is the first way I tried to loose 50 lbs The 21 day fix Diet I was excited I couldn’t wait to get home and open it. When I opened it I realized it was more than just videos and portioning your food out. It came with this book that had all the foods in it that you could choose from to eat. This meant I was going to have to go grocery shopping. I waited until the following week before I started. I picked out the easiest things that didn’t require any cooking or preparation. Remember I was looking for easy. The food wasn’t bad. There was actually a lot of food when it came down to it. See you don’t realize it but when you are eating unhealthy you are actually eating a lot of unnecessary calories. The trick is to eat smaller portions more frequently. The 21 day fix videos The videos were great. The first week I think I lost 8 lbs. I would eat right all day then do the videos when I got home and in the morning I would weigh myself. I was losing weight every day and it was awesome to see. You can’t do just one or the other, though. They work hand and hand. The first four days it was easy to stay on track. Then when Friday hit it was hard because I get home so late from work on Friday that I wouldn’t feel like doing the video. I skipped it. Then Saturday came along and I skipped it. Sunday I had to do three videos to catch up to where I was supposed to be. I was still losing weight just not as much as I should have been. I did it for 2 and half weeks and I lost 22 lbs. I gave up and went right back to the same weight I was before I started. February 2o16 I decided I was going to make a change I tried fit sticks. They didn’t work for me like they work for some people. Not everything is going to work the same for every person. For some people fit sticks work, for some people it is the 21-day fix. It is whatever works for you. My true turning point March 1, 2016, I decided it was time to make a lifestyle change. I went and got a gym membership at our local gym. I started off I was going once a day 7 days a week. I was started to lose weight. Then I decided I wanted to see a big change so I started looking into different supplements to use. To see the supplements I use click here. I also started going twice a day to the gym 5 days a week and once a day on the weekends. My diet Changed my diet dramatically. Went from eating at least 3 to 4000 calories of unhealthy food to 1500 calories of high protein foods. I eat a lot of fish, chicken, and tuna. I drink a protein shake after every workout. I stock up on high protein snacks that I can eat throughout the day. One thing I ate a lot of was watermelon this summer. Watermelon is a good food to eat if you’re trying to loose weight. Weight Loss My weight fell off pretty consistently every week. Every week I lost anywhere between 2 to 8 lbs depending on the week. My goal was to loose 50 lbs. I have accomplished that goal and am now working on losing another 26 lbs to put me at an even 200 lbs. Last time I checked I was at 17% body fat. My goal is to be at about 10% body fat. My workout If you want to be one of the first to be notified when I release my workout sign up for my newsletter. There won’t be any spam. Just for signing up I will give you my ab workout for free. Goals are important to set. If you don’t have goals set in your life you really have no starting point. the key to setting a goal is to make it obtainable. Don’t make your goal so it is impossible to reach. This does you know good because you will just give up. If you want more on goal setting listen to this video below. * Please note there is no guarantee of specific results and that the results can vary. |
A year after Brigham Young University began offering amnesty from Honor Code investigations to students who report sexual assaults, the “huge culture of fear” has eased, senior Tinesha Zandamela believes. But changing the climate on campus — including seeing a widespread understanding of consent — will take more time and more conversations, said Zandamela, a member of the Young Emerging Leaders Advisory Council for the Utah Coalition Against Sexual Assault (UCASA). “We have hundreds and hundreds of students, maybe thousands, who don’t believe that sexual assault actually even happens on this campus or that it’s just this rarity and we don’t need to talk about it,” she said. “So until we do talk about it more and be a little bit more loud and constant with our message and with more education,” she said, “I don’t think that too much is going to change.” Tiffany Turley, the school’s new full-time Title IX coordinator, said the university has received more sexual assault reports in the first few weeks of classes than it saw in fall semester last year. Her office, charged with swiftly responding to and resolving complaints of sexual violence, has provided 60 training sessions to students and faculty already this semester, Turley said. “I think people just might not have known what Title IX was before, so with all the trainings that we’re doing, the awareness campaigns … people know there is a place on campus where they can go and get help,” she said. She said the reports are “significant” but declined to provide a specific figure. “The number of reports is really what kind of helps us sleep at night,” she said, “and know that while every day we go home and wonder, ‘What more could we do?’ we know that what we’re doing now is heading in the right direction and it’s making a difference to our students.” ‘It’s getting better’ Article continues below Last October, an internal advisory council gave BYU 23 sweeping recommendations to improve its response to sexual assault reports, including an amnesty policy. The school began offering amnesty immediately and adopted a formal policy in June. The council was created after more than 50 people told The Salt Lake Tribune they were sexually assaulted while attending BYU; a majority said they did not report the assaults, citing fears they would be disciplined for conduct violations. The Honor Code at BYU, which is owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, includes a curfew and a dress code; forbids alcohol, coffee and illegal drugs; prohibits premarital sex; and regulates visits between male and female students. Mallory Matheson, a sophomore political science major, said she thinks some “cultural stigmas” associated with reporting sexual violence will “linger forever” on campus. “Victim shaming and the Honor Code has been a huge deterrent [to reporting] in the past,” she said. “It’s getting better, but it’s very slow, you know, because no one wants to say, ‘Hey, I was drinking and then I got raped.’” Turley said she recognizes the Honor Code office formerly created a “chilling effect” on reporting. But she said it’s also brought benefits. From 2012 to 2016, “about half of reports made to the Title IX office came from the Honor Code office,” she said. “It’s helped generate reports that we wouldn’t have gotten otherwise,” she said. “I think it’s created more help and ways for students to get help when dealing with some of these issues than maybe other schools [have].” But in another change, Title IX staff now must ensure information they receive from alleged victims isn’t shared with Honor Code officials without their consent. The offices now have separate workspaces. Julie Valentine, a BYU nursing professor who researches sexual assault and served on the advisory council, said new faith in the school’s Title IX process may have led more survivors to come forward. “I know we have more students reporting, which means that there’s increased trust, so to speak, of the system, and that’s what we want,” she said, noting that the increase likely doesn’t reflect an increase in sexual assaults. ‘You’ll continue to see improvement’ This year, BYU trained its first-year students on consent at orientation for the first time. Sean Martinsen, a first-year student from Ohio, said it wasn’t his first exposure to consent, but it was more comprehensive than he would have predicted. “I wouldn’t have really expected [the training] to be so in depth because this is BYU and you know the kind of standards that BYU has,” he said. “It clearly showed how important it is to BYU that the students knew the importance of Title IX.” But Zandamela said she thinks many students still don’t understand their actions — or things that have happened to them — might not be consensual. Dialogue about consent and healthy relationships may only be reaching a small group of students already interested in the topic. “Unfortunately, it is at this point a little more of a centralized conversation,” she said. After a September consent training called “Can I Kiss You?”, one BYU junior said that was his first exposure to the concept. At a workshop for family, friends and survivors of sexual assault last week, Claire, a senior linguistics major who asked not to be identified by her full name, said she didn’t have a “super firm understanding” of the issue, either. “I’m not having conversations with my peers or my roommates or my family about, you know, ‘What is the definition of consent?’” she said. “But I do think about whether or not a relationship is healthy.” Turner C. Bitton, executive director of UCASA, said fostering an understanding of consent is one of the most important strategies for preventing sexual violence. “Without a strong understanding of what consent is and what consent is not, we set ourselves up for failure,” he said. “We fall into the same old traps. We have to, as a society, create a consent-based culture and not a dismissive culture.” Turley said the university has addressed or is working on implementing each of the recommendations from the council, which suggested conducting campus climate surveys to learn more about students’ experiences. BYU is finalizing data from its first survey, which will be released sometime this semester, Turley said. At that point, Valentine said the university will likely make further changes. “The recommendations are the starting point,” she said, “but you’ll continue to see improvement that will be somewhat driven by [the] campus climate survey and feedback from students.” |
In “Case in Point,” Andrew Cohen examines a single case or character that sheds light on the criminal justice system. An audio version of Case in Point is broadcast with The Takeaway , a public radio show from WNYC, Public Radio International, The New York Times, and WGBH-Boston Public Radio. They elect local judges in Craighead County, Arkansas, and two men decided two years ago to run for the bench there with a clear mission statement: if elected they would rein in a private probation company called The Justice Network and the local judge and prosecutor they said had countenanced its work. The company, they claimed during their aggressive campaign, made its money by ensuring that the citizens of the county consigned to probation for petty crimes were trapped in a “debtors’ prison” system that forced them to pay beyond their means or face jail. The two men, David Boling and Tommy Fowler, won their elections in March 2016. They discovered on taking office that their campaign claims, if anything, were understated. There were 50,000 outstanding warrants, covering more than 8,000 people, in the misdemeanor court there; nearly one outstanding warrant for every two people in the county. Judge Boling later described what those figures looked like in his courtroom; of the 34 defendants who came before him one day in August 2016 only six were accused of crimes; the others all had run afoul of the The Justice Network. The two new judges immediately made good on their campaign promises. They moved to end the county’s relationship with The Justice Network and they initiated an “Amnesty Day” program in which they met with men and women on probation to discuss payment options. In some cases, some of the fees that were owed were waived, freeing up those caught in endless cycles of debt and fear of imprisonment. A story that illustrates how local communities, especially in the South, are fighting back against predatory private probation practices, right? Sure. A story with a happy ending, right? Not yet. This past June, The Justice Network went to federal court in Arkansas and sued the two judges, the county, and the cities within it. The amnesty program, the company alleges, violates its civil rights under the Constitution because it interferes with the contractual relationship the company had with the indigent probationers of the county. The judges, the company claims, caused it to suffer economic loss by waiving those onerous fees, and caused it to lose its “property” in the form of income from those caught in its web of fees and fines. The concept of debtors’ prisons goes back into antiquity, back to the days of slavery and servitude. The more modern version came to us, like so much of our common law, from England. The notion that you could be imprisoned for failure to pay a debt was banned in America under federal law in 1833 but the prohibition did little to stop the practice under state law or local rules. In 1983, in Bearden v. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court took a step toward limiting the practice outright when it ruled that a sentencing judge could not revoke a person’s probation and send that person to the clink for failing to pay a fine so long as that failure was not deemed “willful.” But the justices left it to lower court judges to determine how that standard should be applied. Here’s a Marshall Project primer on the history of debtors’ prisons. Most Americans probably thought debtors’ prisons had gone the way of hanging, but in truth they never really went away, in large part because of the economics of criminal justice — as we saw with predatory policing and courts in Ferguson, Missouri — and the rise of private probation companies. In over one thousand counties across the country, underfunded and overworked public officials have been willing to farm out their parole and probation work to private firms. A few years ago Human Rights Watch reported on the phenomenon, calling it a self-perpetuating “offender-funded” system marked by little public oversight or corporate accountability. Here’s how the system generally works. To reduce public expenses on probation enforcement, local officials outsource the work to private probation companies. The companies have a monopoly; there is no “public option,” you might say. When a resident gets into a little trouble with the law — say a speeding ticket — the judge orders probation and a fine, and the company takes over. The defendant signs what amounts to a one-sided contract. If that original fine isn’t paid, the contract allows the company to impose new fees and fines using the threat of jail as a cudgel to force payment. That’s essentially what happened in Craighead County, according to court documents and exhibits in the pending lawsuit. From 1997 until earlier this year The Justice Network had an exclusive deal, a very profitable one. The company, based in Tennessee, says it employed 12 people to handle the crush of business — millions of dollars in revenue over the years. The company says it charged defendants a $35 monthly fee for “probation services” and a $15 monthly fee for “the supervision of public service work.” In 2011, local media reported, the company collected $556,548 in fees. The next year it was even higher. It’s that money The Justice Network says it has a constitutional right to be repaid. To understand how the federal courts are likely to react, it’s important to get a better sense of what the company did and how its policies affected the lives of people in Craighead County. The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a civil rights organization, has filed an amicus brief in the pending lawsuit. In it, lawyers portray a county virtually under siege by The Justice Network. If defendants didn’t pay on time, for good reason or not, the company sought to have them arrested and hauled back into court, where a new order of restitution would be issued and additional fines would be levied. The additional fines would make it even less likely that a probationer would be able to pay the amount owed. The Next To Die A detailed, up-to-date schedule of upcoming executions in the United States A fine totalling a few hundred dollars could morph over time into far more. When the two reform-minded judges took office they discovered hundreds of residents of the county whose debt had grown to more than $10,000, an amount these defendants had no hope of repaying, and an amount orders of magnitude greater than the fines set forth by statute. In some ways, the system was perverse. A defendant would get docked for failing to make a required meeting or other appointment because the defendant was at work trying to earn money to pay a fine that would only get higher because of the missed appointment. Eventually these stories became too frequent to be ignored. Local journalists like Keith Inman of the Jonesboro Sun began to report on employees trying to juggle the demands of their jobs and the requirements imposed by the company. Pretty soon local clergy chimed in to protest against the conditions imposed on their flocks. Next the house editorials started appearing. “Justice Network an Oxymoron,” was the headline of one particularly poignant screed calling for reform. What Judges Boling and Fowler did upon taking office seems reasonable enough given their campaign promises. They dismissed some of the cases against the probationers, allowed some defendants to negotiate better terms, and essentially eased The Justice Network out of probation orders. There is no doubt that these actions cost the company money it otherwise would have squeezed out of those defendants. The essential question raised by the complaint is this: Does a company have a constitutional right to contracts that judges find violate public policy or the Constitution itself? And, if so, can a company sue for money damages from those officials for whatever profits it lost from losing the right to enforce those contracts? When The Justice Network filed suit in June it argued that Craighead County, the cities and judges all illegally interfered with the contracts the company had with probationers. The argument relies on a broad interpretation of the “Contracts Clause” of the Constitution, which prohibits any state from passing “any law” that “impairs” the “obligation of contracts.” The judges and the other defendants in the case say the clause does not apply to them because the probation reform came via judicial acts and not state legislation. The company says those reforms were not judicial acts but administrative or legislative ones and that the two judges violated state law in helping the probationers. The Justice Network also alleged in its federal complaint that the judges violated its rights under the “Takings Clause” of the Constitution by taking its “property” — those valuable contracts — without giving the company “just compensation” in return. The judges in their briefs responding to the complaint say they didn’t “take” anything from the company or otherwise profit from their reform efforts. A federal trial judge now has before him a series of motions to dismiss the case before it ever gets close to trial. The judges say they have “absolute judicial immunity.” The county and the cities all say they are immune from civil liability because the judges were acting within the scope of their authority. All of these procedural protections would have to be overcome for the company to get its case to trial. The story here isn’t that a private probation company engaged in predatory tactics. That’s become a commonplace feature of our justice system. The story is that a company that consigned many residents of Craighead County to hopelessness considers itself the victim. |
Last year McDonald’s introduced a new mascot, “Happy,” a crazed-looking Happy Meal box, with the intent that it would help sell burgers to humans. A lot of people made fun of Happy, to the extent that it became something of a story, at least briefly, and produced lots and lots of memes. But why would anyone buy something from a goggle-eyed junk-food golem? The answer is that a lot of us simply don’t trust our fellow humans enough. That’s the conclusion of Ann McGill, a marketing expert at the University of Chicago, who just gave a fascinating lecture to the Becker-Friedman Institute. She’s a veteran academic who writes papers like “Alignable and Nonalignable Differences in Causal Explanations” and “Is That Car Smiling at Me: Schema Congruity as a Basis for the Evaluation of Anthropomorphized Products,” but sometimes that academese translates into questions like: “do you trust talking dental floss more than an actual human being?” And really, if you think about it, talking dental floss has probably never let you down, whereas human beings let you down all the damn time. In McGill’s tests, here’s what that looks like: On the left side of the graph, people with low trust in other humans just aren’t having it when a person tells you that Max Floss dental floss is great. But the same ad, with the language tweaked so it’s Max Floss itself promising that “I am soft on gums but tough on plaque,” okay, that’s mildly believable. McGill’s theory is that anthropomorphized products fall into a weird gray area of human psychology. It’s human enough to cue you to listen—hey, I’m being talked to—but not so human that you wouldn’t trust it as far as you could throw it. Trusting, say, a talking margarine box may seem insane, but, well, people are pretty terrible. McGill’s lecture is below. If it doesn’t seem convincing, just picture it as delivered by a lectern with a mouth and googly eyes. Share |
VAL D'OR, QC, June 14, 2017 /CNW/ - Grand Chief Dr. Matthew Coon Come appeared today before the Public Inquiry Commission on Relations between Indigenous Peoples and Certain Public Services in Quebec: Listening, Reconciliation and Progress on behalf of the Grand Council of the Crees (Eeyou Istchee) / Cree Nation Government. The Commission's mandate is to look into, identify, prevent and eliminate the systemic causes of discrimination in providing public services to the Indigenous people of Quebec: police services, correctional services, justice services, health and social services as well as youth protection services. The Grand Chief noted that the mandate of this Commission could not be more important as it touches all the Indigenous people of Quebec and all the Cree of Eeyou Istchee. The Grand Chief stated: The Commission's mandate concerns, first and foremost, the most vulnerable among us: our mothers, daughters and sisters (and sometimes our fathers, sons and brothers, too), who have too often had to bear the weight of discrimination, marginalization and violence. We cannot and will not turn a blind eye to misconduct that harms our people; it must be eliminated. Grand Chief Coon Come stated that the approach of the Cree Nation will be positive and orientated toward working with the Commission and other stakeholders to find solutions. The problems are largely known, and so are their causes. What has been lacking is the will to address them. He concluded with the preliminary observations set out in the Appendix. PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS Severe poverty, lack of adequate health and social services, overcrowded and substandard housing, lack of educational and job opportunities and many other factors create health and social stresses in Indigenous communities that lead some Indigenous people to leave their communities for urban centres. There, many are at risk of homelessness, violence and abuse. These conditions are not new; they have existed for many years and, in some cases, are getting worse, not better. One of the most urgent needs in Indigenous communities is the critical shortage of social housing. Until this housing shortage is addressed through concrete action, other actions will come to nothing. Until Indigenous people are no longer living 10, 12 and 20 persons in a single house, conditions commonly encountered in Northern Quebec , they will continue to fall victim to violence and abuse. Until this single issue is resolved, Indigenous people will continue to be forced from their communities to urban centres, where many will be at risk of homelessness and violence. More social workers and shelter beds in the cities are necessary, but not enough. These measures reduce distress on the margin, but they will not solve the real problem. The Val d'Or events have led many Indigenous people to conclude that the criminal justice system, with its complex rules of evidence and procedure, simply does not work for them. Many feel that the criminal justice system has failed them. Specific and adapted mechanisms must be put in place urgently to allow Indigenous women and men to feel safe in making complaints regarding the police and criminal justice systems without fear of retaliation. Of itself, the criminal justice system is not well suited to address the underlying causes and the effects of systemic discrimination. However, a system which is more inclusive of and sensitive to Indigenous peoples and their reality, values and way of life could contribute to reducing the over-representation of Indigenous people in the criminal justice system. The lack of women's shelters and related programs and services in Indigenous communities force Indigenous women to seek shelter outside their communities. But shelter for them in urban centres is too often lacking, leading to homelessness and the risk of violence and abuse in the streets. The need for specialized facilities and services for women in Indigenous communities must be addressed. The excessive reliance on police officers as first (and sometimes only) responders in the context of social issues involving Indigenous people in urban centres has contributed to creating tension and mistrust between them. Other, better adapted resources must also be deployed to help address these issues. Police officers need better training in the culture and realities of Indigenous peoples. Experience has shown that greater exchange between Indigenous communities and police forces can foster greater understanding, and with it, greater trust and respect, while reducing tensions and the potential for abuse. More Indigenous police officers need to be recruited, trained and deployed in urban centres, without cannibalizing understaffed and underfunded police forces in Indigenous communities. These problems are well known, and so are their causes. What has been lacking to date is the will to address them. That will require concerted action between federal, provincial and Indigenous authorities, and the commitment of significant new resources. Given its human cost, inaction is not an option. The work of this Commission of Inquiry can and must lead to the action that is urgently needed. SOURCE Grand Council of the Crees (Eeyou Istchee) For further information: Melissa Saganash, Director of Cree - Quebec Relations, Tel. (514) 249-8598 Related Links www.gcc.ca |
As one quarter of Pantera, Rex Brown found himself in one of the biggest bands of the last quarter century. He continued his streak in Down, along with Phil Anselmo, until 2011. Since then, he’s played with Kill Devil Hill, another Southern metal-leaning band that’s released two albums. And while Kill Devil Hill is still a band, Brown signed a solo deal with eOne earlier this year. For his new album, Smoke On This…, for the first time in his career, he’s singing and playing guitar. Today, via Loudwire, Brown has unveiled the first taste of the album via a lyric video for “Crossing Lines.” The song is more bluesy and southern rock-leaning than even Kill Devil Hill. Here’s what Brown says about the track: “My motto these days is ‘Shake some shit up,'” Brown declares about the new LP. “I’ve had my ups and downs, like anybody in this business. I wanted to feel like a true artist again, where I can write and record songs without worrying about any of the bullshit.” Brown continues, “We’re not going to necessarily cater to metal fans, but the guys who grew up with Pantera, a lot of them love all the same stuff that I grew up on, too. This is just something else I’m doing for fun, man. And musical Freedom. Fun has to come into it or I’m not going to do it. I’ve had a tremendous career and now I feel like I’m thirty years old again. This has given me that freedom I needed.” “I’ve got so much more in me,” Brown enthuses. “I’m just getting my feet wet.” Check the song out below, and pre-order the album, which will be out on July 28th, here. |
Death Threats, Harassment, Intimidation: The Occupational Hazards of Being a Gun Violence Researcher "They’ll ask about my family... about how I protect myself, details about my home." Roughly 12 years ago at a hotel in Iowa, Stephen Teret thought he was going to be shot. The pioneering public health scientist from Johns Hopkins University was in town to host a panel discussion on gun violence research with two other experts. It was a “very, very angry crowd,” he remembers. “It didn’t take a psychiatrist to know that they were very hostile.” Suddenly, just as the event was hitting its stride, the room plunged into total darkness. Disoriented, Teret turned to his fellow panelists. They were taking cover under a table, anticipating the worst. “I thought, maybe that’s the smart thing to do,” Teret says. “Maybe I should get under the table.” But as he moved to join them, the lights flickered back on. The culprit was not a gunman. Instead, an audience member in the packed room had accidentally brushed against a light switch. Years later, Teret can laugh at the incident, but it wasn’t the last time he’s feared for his life on account of his work. Threats and harassment are part of the job for leading gun violence researchers in the United States, who, just by studying firearms, expose themselves to one of the most vitriolic national debates. Dr. Garen Wintemute, director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis, once received an explicit death threat from the owner of one of the largest handgun manufacturers in the country. The businessman was angry that Wintemute’s research on cheap, “Saturday night special” handguns had helped lead the state of California to ban their production. Dr. Daniel Webster, who heads the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, recently told an Associated Press reporter about an anonymous,“very specific” threat he received by email and voice mail as he was about to speak at a gun violence summit. “I recognize that I’m a very public figure, and that there are people who are literally obsessed with the gun issue and probably in some very twisted way could justify doing something to me,” Webster says. “But that’s not going to stop me. I’m doing what I’m going to do.” They’ll ask about my family, things like that. About how I protect myself, details about my home. Those emails are ignored. I just hit delete.” To be sure, death threats are relatively rare, but harassment is not. When major media outlets cover their studies, gun violence researchers tell The Trace, their inboxes are flooded with emails from irate readers, many of whom are convinced that the goal of the research is to confiscate privately-owned firearms. “Most of it is just really nasty words,” Webster says. “That I’m a low-life, that I’m peddling lies, that I’m a puppet.” Sometimes it can get more pointed, and more menacing. “They’ll ask about my family, things like that,” says Dr. Charles Branas, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. “About how I protect myself, details about my home. Those emails are ignored. I just hit delete.” Occasionally, it’s his job that is threatened, as gun rights advocates contact his college’s administrators and demand that he be reviewed or dismissed. Of course, negative attention doesn’t always come from within the pro-gun ranks. About seven years ago, Wintemute published several papers that challenged the efficacy of closing the “gun show loophole” by finding that gun show purchases weren’t a major problem in the context of violence prevention. Because many advocacy groups had been campaigning to regulate those private sales, Wintemute held a conference call to let them know about the research results. “There was a great deal of anger on that phone call,” he says. “There are advocates who haven’t spoken to me since.” At two other points over the course of his career, Wintemute says, he was offered work by gun safety advocacy groups who wanted his team to conduct biased studies. Both times, Wintemute turned them down. Stay Informed Subscribe to receive The Trace’s newsletters on important gun news and analysis. Email address The Canon Sent every Saturday. Our guide to the week's most revealing, must-read reporting on gun issues. The Daily Bulletin Sent weekday mornings. Get up to speed with The Trace’s latest articles and other important news of the day. Leave this field empty if you're human: “We’ve had pretty frosty relationships with those advocacy groups ever since,” he says. “But we don’t conduct research just to align with a certain policy. That’s not doing serious science.” Researchers say they do their best to foster dialogue with critics. “I don’t know what comes over me, but occasionally I will respond,” Webster says. In 2014, he replied to an email from a man who criticized his public statements as Maryland considered more gun restrictions. The exchange went well enough for the man to forward Webster’s responses to other members of his gun club. “The biggest mistake we can make is to refuse to talk to those people who disagree with us,” Teret says. “When I talk to those people, I always walk away having learned something, which has great value to me.” Ultimately, the constant contentiousness that gun violence researchers face is one of the challenges (along with a dearth of funding) that can discourages up-and-coming scientists from focusing on the subject. “When I first started researching guns, my husband and I actually had a really serious conversation about whether I really wanted to get into that,” says Cassandra Crifasi, a researcher with the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research. Crifasi has only been on faculty at Hopkins for a year, and so far she’s has not experienced the more personal threats that many of her colleagues have received. But she has already encountered angry audience members at some of her public presentations, nasty blog posts written about her research, and online commenters who claim her findings have been fabricated. Older colleagues had prepared her for those reactions to her work. But her own relationship with firearms has made the hostility vexing. “It’s particularly frustrating for me because both my husband and I are gun owners,” Crifasi says. “So when I’m giving a talk on something that’s very neutral, and I’m really just laying out the evidence for my findings, it’s discouraging to have somebody say, ‘Well obviously you hate guns and you want to take them away from me, so I’m not going to listen to what you have to say.’ That to me is the most frustrating thing.” [Photo: Shutterstock] |
Actually, they have been able to legally go topless since 1992, when a New York court of appeals ruled that a law forbidding women to go topless was discriminatory. That case, People v. Ramona Santorelli and Mary Lou Schloss, was put to the test in 2005 when Jill Coccaro bared her breasts, was arrested and held in custody for 12 hours and then successfully sued the city for $29K. But apparently NYPD cops were still hassling women who took advantage of this freedom. Not anymore. The NYPD has now been instructed that if they see a topless woman who is otherwise not breaking the law, they are not to arrest her. If she draws a crowd (a likely event, one imagines), they have been told to: “… give a lawful order to disperse the entire crowd and take enforcement action” against those who do not comply. Whether the individuals are clothed is not a factor in making a determination about whether the above-mentioned crowd conditions exist.” This issue is back in the news again thanks to performance artist/photographer Holly Van Voast, who is known for doing just this quite often. She has filed a lawsuit against the city of New York for incidents in 2011 and 2012 where she was arrested in violation of the law. Ten times during that period, Van Voast was detained, arrested or issued a summons for doffing her top. After one of the incidents — outside a Hooters (oh, the irony!) — she was sent to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation. All of this in direct violation of the 1992 law. Those complaints were dropped but the fact remains that Van Voast was unlawfully detained ten times. The New York court was right: the law against women going bare-breasted was and is discriminatory. Men are allowed to go topless in public freely, save for private institutions who can, of course, have their own dress code. But everywhere else in America a woman’s bare boob is cause for alarm and humiliation up to and including arrest. Just look at how many people freak out when they see a woman breast-feeding in public – though public opinion has tipped in the right direction, 40 percent of people are still uncomfortable with it. As if that’s not what breasts were made for in the first place. As feminist writer and Anti-Coulter Kimberly Johnson points out: “Facebook considers breast-feeding pictures to be inappropriate and cause for shutting pages down, yet pages dedicated to nude women and rape are just fine, according to Mr. Zuckerberg.” Why is that? Seems that Americans have a real hang-up about sex (I know, news flash that is not) and view breasts only in that context. As if men will automatically lose control if they see one, turning into one of those animated wolves in the old Warner Brothers cartoons. This is, after all, the reason given by Islam for why women must wear a burqa: that seeing a woman’s body will make men lose control. And, to them, that is completely the woman’s fault. It’s stupid and, frankly, unfair to men. Here we are in the 21st century, yet we still view sex from the 12th. I know that we will never get our act together on this subject (thank you patriarchal religion) but its high time we started to try. That this law is being recognized in NYC is a step in the right direction. But we have a long way to go. Cue the right-wing freak out in 3…2…1… T. Steelman is a life-long Liberal. She has been writing online about politics since 2007. She lives in Western Washington with her husband, daughter, 2 cats and a small herd of alpacas. How can anybody be enlightened? Truth is, after all, so poorly lit… |
So, the Sock Exchange started out as someone of a disaster for me. I was late shipping to my Sock Giftee after getting stuck in bed longer than expected post-surgery, and then, the socks got lost. So, I ship my Sock Pal a new set of sweet socks (this time from Amazon as I'm still stuck in bed), and I am totally bummed at never receiving any Super Cool Socks myself. Fast forward to last week: BAM. A package. Inside? Two ridiculously epic pairs of socks - knee high purple wool socks - perfect for roller disco-ing in hot pants. AND - green & orange koi fish socks...super adorable! Sorry for the mediocre pictures, but I wanted to make a post either way to show what a lovely Reddit Santa / Person Carae "Caraeeezy" is - she really made my day, and has impeccable taste when it comes to fabulously fantastical footwear. Thanks again! Oh, and she had the Sock Company draw Einstein Fighting a T-Rex in Space on the Packing Slip. WIN. |
EARTH CITY, Mo. -- We're moving closer to the start of the new league year and, along with it, the start of free agency. Which means over the next few weeks, the Los Angeles Rams will be taking a long look at the players already on the roster and determining whether they're worth their projected salary cap numbers. Some teams have already begun the process of releasing high-priced veterans to create salary cap room. So this week, we'll take a look at some players who will come under the microscope for the Rams. (All numbers courtesy of ESPN Stats & Info) Originally signed to be a part of a passing offense with many targets, the Rams instead went back to focusing on the run and left Jared Cook miscast in their system. AP Photo/L.G. Patterson Player: TE Jared Cook Contract status: Signed through 2017. 2016 cap hit: $8,300,441 Potential savings: $5,699,558 Why he could go: For the most part, Cook's production as a Ram falls in line with what he did for the Tennessee Titans. That would be fine except for the fact that the production hasn't met the high price the Rams have paid him. Cook has also drawn criticism for his issues with drops and struggles as a blocker. Perhaps more than that, though, is the fact that Cook isn't really a fit for what the Rams want to be offensively. When the team signed him in 2013, it did so with the intent of spreading things out and throwing the ball all over the field. One Rams personnel executive said at the time that Cook was the perfect oversized slot receiver for what the Rams were trying to become. But that experiment only lasted four games before coach Jeff Fisher scrapped it and went back to his running game roots. In doing so, it put Cook in a spot where he was asked to perform as an inline blocker more than he had at any point in his career. It's a role that doesn't really fit Cook's skill set and has left him miscast in the Rams offense. The Rams also spent a good chunk of money to re-sign Lance Kendricks last year and have Cory Harkey set to hit free agency this year. Add all of that to a salary that makes him the 13th highest paid tight end in the league, a team that could use some extra funds to re-sign its own free agents and you have the recipe for a potential parting of ways. Why he could stay: Since Cook signed in 2013, he's been the team's most productive receiving target. He's posted 142 catches for 1,786 yards and eight touchdowns in that time, with the first two numbers representing the highest numbers on the team. While the Rams should undoubtedly be in the market for a pass-catcher or two who can put up much better numbers than those, Cook has been durable and his overall production puts him in the top half of tight ends in the league. Cook ranks 13th in receiving yards and 14th in receptions among all tight ends since 2013 (though he's also tied for second in drops). And while he's still not a consistent blocker, his coaches believe he showed improvement in that regard as 2015 wore on. If the Rams release Cook, they'll need to find a pass catching tight end to replace him, which means they'd be creating yet another need on a roster that could have many. |
File photograph of New Zealand All Blacks' Brad Thorn giving a thumbs up after receiving his gold medal, beating France to win the Rugby World Cup final at Eden Park in Auckland October 23, 2011. REUTERS/Anthony Phelps SYDNEY (Reuters) - Rugby World Cup winner Brad Thorn is expected to make his return to top-class rugby at the age of 41 on Saturday after he was named in the Queensland Country squad to play in Australia’s National Rugby Championship. New Zealand-born Thorn ended his international rugby career after the All Blacks won the 2011 World Cup, but continued to play for Irish side Leinster, the Otago Highlanders and then English club Leicester Tigers until last year. Thorn never officially retired and when he joined the Queensland Reds as an assistant coach for the Super Rugby side late last year, he hinted he would be keen to participate in the 2016 competition if needed. He did not play for the Reds but became a player-coach under former Wallabies loose forward Toutai Kefu for Queensland Country in Australia’s third tier competition and was named in the squad for Saturday’s clash against Western Sydney Rams. “It’s great to welcome a player of Brad Thorn’s calibre into the team,” Kefu said in a statement on Thursday about Thorn’s selection to the replacements’ bench. “He has been excellent in his role as assistant coach and the players are all really looking forward to having the chance to play alongside him.” Thorn earned 59 test caps for the All Blacks but also spent eight years with the Brisbane Broncos in Australia’s National Rugby League and played 200 matches for the side. He also played for the Australia national rugby league side. |
Insolvent Sears Canada Inc. has got court protection from its creditors in a last-ditch effort to slim down and shape up after years-long attempts to transform its business, leaving industry insiders now questioning the retailer's long-term viability. The money-losing retailer is preparing to close 59 of its 255 stores – including 20 of its 94 large department stores – and let go 2,900 of its 17,000 employees in its bid to continue operating and possibly sell the business. And it asked Ontario Superior Court on Thursday to allow it to get out of contributing to its underfunded pension plan and retiree medical and dental benefits. Story continues below advertisement But retail experts already are raising doubts about whether Sears's plan is sustainable in a fast-changing retail landscape in which traditional players feel the heat from emerging e-commerce and other more nimble, low-cost rivals. "I know Sears is trying to make a go of it and I wish them the best, but I don't have a lot of faith that it's going to survive," said Patrick Sullivan, chief operating officer of landlord Primaris REIT, which operates nine Sears stores, two of which are slated to close. "I think we're all in the same boat – we've just been waiting for this to happen for years. Now is this the start of the end or is this really the start of a miraculous turnaround?" Full list of Sears locations to be closed Sears Full-Line Hometown Outlet Sears Home Medicine Hat, Alta. Cold Lake, Alta. Abbotsford Retail, B.C. Calgary, Alta. Grande Prairie, Alta. St. Albert, Alta. Winnipeg Garden City, Man. Edmonton Skyview, Alta. Lloydminster, Alta. Okotoks, Alta. Halifax Outlet, N.S. Ancaster, Ont. Red Deer Relocation, Alta. Spruce Grove, Alta. Cornwall, Ont. Woodbridge, Ont. Kamloops Aberdeen Mall, B.C. Ft. McMurray, Alta. Chatham, Ont. London, Ont. Bathurst, N.B. Leduc, Alta. Cambridge, Ont. Scarborough, Ont. Saint John, N.B. Sherwood Park, Alta. Timmins, Ont. Kingston, Ont. Corner Brook, Nfld. Creston, B.C. St. Eustache, Que. Ottawa East, Ont. Truro Mall, N.S. Sechelt, B.C. Montreal Place Vertu, Que. Sudbury, Ont. Dartmouth, N.S. Grand Forks, B.C. Sorel, Que. Windsor, Ont. Brockville, Ont. Orangeville, Ont. Orillia, Ont. Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. Rimouski, Que. St. Bruno, Que. Hull, Que. Rouyn-Noranda, Que. Laval, Que. Chicoutimi, Que. Melville, Sask. Quebec City, Que. St. Georges de Beauce, Que. Ste. Foy, Que. Alma, Que. Drummondville, Que. Regina, Sask. Moose Jaw, Sask. Prince Albert, Sask. Source: Company Sears has dealt with declining financial results as it's been pummelled for years by ever-changing retail trends and leadership switches. Now it's betting on a reinvention that focuses on discounted designer fashion lines, affordable private labels and a revamped digital playbook even as many critics warn the plan is too little, too late. "It's a very challenging environment right now," said Alex Arifuzzaman, a partner at retail real estate specialist InterStratics Consultants. "I don't see how they can flip over and become an innovative superstar overnight. It's going to be tough. The Sears that was around yesterday is gone forever." Added Amanda Bourlier, senior research analyst at Euromonitor International: "It is too little too late for Sears Canada as a department store." Sears shoppers lament decline of department stores 'I like department stores. I like their policies. You can always bring [purchases] back.' But there is still some hope that Sears's effort in the past six months to become a more focused fashion and home-decor specialist "can resonate and the company can emerge as a leaner, more technology-focused company," she added. " Still, it would have been much easier to start this transition a few years ago." Story continues below advertisement And Sears's goal to find one or more buyers for its business or real estate comes after years of it having sold its most attractive assets, including leases to its best-located stores. Potential suitors have already kicked the tires and, while a few may bite if the price is low enough, the pickings may be slim, Mr. Arifuzzaman said. Landlords will be faced with vacant Sears stores even as they still grapple with empty Target outlets more than two years after that U.S. retailer closed all 133 of its stores in Canada after getting court protection from creditors in early 2015. On Thursday Sears lawyers asked the court to shield it from creditors so it could "continue operating as a going concern as it pursues restructuring options including reorganization and a potential sale of the business in order to maximize enterprise value," court documents say. It got protection for at least 30 days under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act. Sears's executives "need to complete their operational restructuring in a stable environment that will allow them to preserve the going-concern value of their business and deal with the claims that will arise from the last phase of their restructuring," court documents say. Story continues below advertisement The various Sears divisions "are facing a looming liquidity crisis and will be unable to meet their obligations as they become due without court protection." Sears Canada secured up to about $450-million of crucial debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing from its two existing lenders in two interim financing facilities, court documents say. The lenders got "a super-priority charge" on all of Sears's assets and property. Sears had scrambled this week to secure the DIP financing, without which it would have been forced to shut down. Sears also developed a "key employment retention plan" to keep senior manager and other critical staff in place for the restructuring and ensure "they are properly compensated," the filing says. The decline of Sears Canada Company’s market capitalization, in millions Company’s market capitalization, in millions $3,500 3,000 2,500 1 2 2,000 5 1,500 4 1,000 3 6 500 7 0 2015 2009 2011 2013 1. Feb. 2009: Sears cuts 300 jobs, less than 1 per cent of its work force at the time, to prepare for a “tough” year in retail. 2. June 2011: Calvin McDonald named president and CEO. Company embarks on a three-year turnaround plan as sales decline and thousands of jobs are cut. 3. 2012: Sears begins selling off leases to its stores in prime locations. 4. Sept. 2013: Mr. McDonald abruptly steps down. Former U.S. naval aviator and retail consultant Douglas C. Campbell takes over as CEO. 5. Sept. 2014: Mr. Campbell steps down as CEO, citing family matters. The following month, Ronald Boire steps in. 6. July 2015: Brandon Stranzl is named executive chairman of Sears Canada. Mr. Boire steps down as CEO the following month. 7. June 2017: The company gets court protection from its creditors and announces it will close 59 stores and let go roughly 2,900 of its 17,000 employees. THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: BLOOMBERG, CP The decline of Sears Canada Company’s market capitalization, in millions Company’s market capitalization, in millions $3,500 3,000 2,500 1 2 2,000 5 6 1,500 4 1,000 3 7 500 9 8 0 2009 2011 2013 2015 1. Feb. 2009: Sears cuts 300 jobs, less than 1 per cent of its work force at the time, to prepare for a “tough” year in retail. 2. June 2011: Calvin McDonald named president and CEO. Company embarks on a three-year turnaround plan as sales decline and thousands of jobs are cut. 3. 2012: Sears begins selling off leases to its stores in prime locations. 4. Sept. 2013: Mr. McDonald abruptly steps down. Former U.S. naval aviator and retail consultant Douglas C. Campbell takes over as CEO. 5. May 2014: U.S. parent company Sears Holdings Corp. hints that it’s looking to sell the ailing retailer. 6. Sept. 2014: Mr. Campbell steps down as CEO, citing family matters. The following month, Ronald Boire steps in. 7. July 2015: Brandon Stranzl is named executive chairman of Sears Canada. Mr. Boire steps down as CEO the following month. 8. July 2016: Sears Canada president Carrie Kirkman leaves less than a year after being in the position. 9. June 2017: The company gets court protection from its creditors and announces it will close 59 stores and let go roughly 2,900 of its 17,000 employees. THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: BLOOMBERG, CP The decline of Sears Canada Company’s market capitalization, in millions $3,500 3,000 2,500 1 2 2,000 5 6 1,500 4 1,000 3 7 500 9 8 0 2009 2011 2013 2015 1. Feb. 2009: Sears cuts 300 jobs, less than 1 per cent of its work force at the time, to prepare for a “tough” year in retail. 2. June 2011: Calvin McDonald named president and CEO. Company embarks on a three-year turnaround plan as sales decline and thousands of jobs are cut. 3. 2012: Sears begins selling off leases to its stores in prime locations. 4. Sept. 2013: Mr. McDonald abruptly steps down. Former U.S. naval aviator and retail consultant Douglas C. Campbell takes over as CEO. 5. May 2014: U.S. parent company Sears Holdings Corp. hints that it’s looking to sell the ailing retailer. 6. Sept. 2014: Mr. Campbell steps down as CEO, citing family matters. The following month, Ronald Boire steps in. 7. July 2015: Brandon Stranzl is named executive chairman of Sears Canada. Mr. Boire steps down as CEO the following month. 8. July 2016: Sears Canada president Carrie Kirkman leaves less than a year after being in the position. 9. June 2017: The company gets court protection from its creditors and announces it will close 59 stores and let go roughly 2,900 of its 17,000 employees. THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: BLOOMBERG, CP Despite its poor results over the past years, Sears has managed to increase its same-store sales in each of its last two quarters under its new strategy, the company said. "Sears Canada believes this indicates that the new brand positioning is starting to resonate with consumers," it said. As of April 29, Sears Canada had total liabilities of $1.108-billion and total assets of $1.187-billion, filings say. Sears plans soon to ask the court for approval to stop making monthly special payments under the defined benefit (DB) portion of its pension plan, Billy Wong, chief financial officer of Sears Canada, says in a filing. It "can no longer afford to make these special payments in respect to the DB component of the Sears pension plan as it attempts to restructure under the CCAA." Up until now, Sears has paid all its pension contributions, he says. The wind-up deficit of Sears's DB plan is $266,805,000, the filings indicate. To make it up, the retailer would need to make special payments of $3.7-million a month, the filing indicates. Meanwhile. Sears's post-retirement benefit liability is $196-million, with payments so far having been made through a surplus in the fund. "The Sears Canada Group is entering these proceedings with the intention of emerging as a stronger, more focused competitor in the Canadian retail industry," Mr. Wong said. "It plans to continue to operate a large number of stores, maintain significant employment, and service its customers across Canada." To do this, it needs to "right-size its business," close 59 stores, cut 2,900 jobs, reduce costs further and exit some lines of business, including ones that Sears is known for, such as tools. Sears "has experienced many years of declining sales and significant losses, with net losses beginning in 2014," he said. He attributes the decline on the overall weakening of traditional Canadian retailing; "unsustainable fixed costs from an overly broad footprint;" the decline of its catalogue business; lower than expected conversion of catalogue customers to online customers; the 2015 termination of its agreement with JPMorgan Chase & Co. to manage its credit and financial services operations; and the weakening of the Canadian dollar. Last week, Sears signalled it was in trouble when releasing its generally disappointing first-quarter results. It said at the time that its financial situation raises "significant doubt as to the company's ability to continue as a going concern." Its first-quarter loss more than doubled to $144.4-million from $63.6-million a year earlier while sales skidded 15.2 per cent to $505.5-million. The court appointed as monitor FTI Consulting Canada Inc. to oversee the restructuring. The initial CCAA court order does not apply to Sears Canada's pension assets that have previously been contributed to the pension plan, the company said. Sears Canada had hired BMO Nesbitt Burns as its financial adviser and Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLP as its legal counsel. The board of directors has retained Bennett Jones LLP as its law firm. Edward Lampert, CEO of Sears Holdings Corp., has been a key beneficiary of Sears Canada's asset sales over the years through his hedge fund, ESL Investments Inc., and other related firms, which together owned about 45 per cent of Sears Canada at the end of April. Sears Holdings owns roughly 12 per cent of Sears Canada. |
Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and 13 other GOP senators sent House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) a letter this week urging him to block $1 billion in funding for a key Obamacare provision needed to stabilize the health insurance market, Roll Call first reported. When lawmakers return to Washington after the midterms, they’ll have about a month to pass a stopgap-spending bill to keep the government afloat past December 11, when the existing continuing resolution expires. The senators want the spending measure to exclude Obamacare’s risk corridor provision, which helps insurers keep policy costs low. Related: The Two Issues That Could Bring Down Obamacare Insurers who agree to sell policies on the new exchanges are reimbursed by the federal government if they incur heavy losses during the first few years of the law’s implementation. If Republicans won’t fund the program, which is crucial to the law, it could set up another shutdown showdown – just in time for the holidays. Many GOP lawmakers have labeled the risk corridors “a bailout for insurance companies.” Sen. Rubio sponsored a bill to repeal the program earlier this year, and in the letter sent this week, he and the other senators said that they were acting “to protect Congress’ power of the purse and prohibit the Obama administration from dispersing unlawful risk corridor payments providing for an Obamacare taxpayer bailout.” The senators’ letter comes after a legal opinion by the Government Accountability Office revealed the law’s language does not give the Department of Health and Human Services legal authority to fund the program. So Congress must get involved. Related: Obamacare Risk Corridors Spur Debt Ceiling Showdown “Without that appropriation, any money spent to cover insurance company losses under the risk corridor program would be unlawful,” the Republican senators said in the letter. “Unfortunately, President Obama and his administration have exhibited their intent to disregard the law and ignore the Constitution.” Still, administration officials seem confident that the GAO’s findings won’t be a problem for the program, at least not in the near future. HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell, in a press briefing Thursday, dismissed the potential threat from Congress, saying, “We don’t have concerns in the upcoming year. I don’t think it’s a question that will need to be faced in 2015.” Top Reads from The Fiscal Times: |
Last week’s lunar eclipse was seen by a lot of people—millions, most likely. Certainly a huge number of photos and video were taken of the event as it unfolded over the course of a few hours. … but none quite like this: The eclipse was observed by the MESSENGER space probe, all the way from Mercury! Normally MESSENGER looks straight down on the tiny world, mapping the terrain that slides underneath it. But engineers saw an opportunity for something neat, so they pointed the camera toward Earth and took 31 images, each two minutes apart, to capture the dance of light: Goodnight, Moon. Animation by NASA/JHUAPL/CIW It’s not often something makes me laugh in delight, but that grainy, lumpy video did. You can see the Earth on the left, all of five pixels wide in the original images (the entire video has been expanded by a factor of two), and the Moon on the right, just barely bigger than a single pixel. The motion of the Moon is too small to detect, but as it passes into Earth’s shadow it dims considerably, disappearing. Mercury (green) was nearly between the Sun (yellow) and Earth (blue) at the time of the eclipse. Graphic by Heavens-Above.com Even then, the brightness of the Moon has been multiplied by 25 to make the change more obvious. On Oct. 8, during the eclipse, Mercury was nearly between the Earth and Sun, so to MESSENGER, the Earth and Moon were close to full. But the Earth is bigger and more reflective than the Moon, and would look 50 or so times brighter. I’m not surprised they had to enhance the Moon’s brightness. MESSENGER was 107 million kilometers (66 million miles) from Earth when it took these images. I think that may be a world universal record for the most distant (terrestrial) lunar eclipse ever seen. Tip o’ the umbra to Emily Lakdawalla. |
A group of Russian MPs have prepared a bill severely restricting imports of genetically modified agricultural produce, and completely banning its domestic production. The initiative is backed by Evgeny Fyodorov of the parliamentary majority United Russia and a group called Russian Sovereignty, which unites MPs from various parties and parliamentary factions. The politicians want to amend the existing law On Safety and Quality of Alimentary Products with a norm set for the maximum allowed content of transgenic and genetically modified components. The powers to establish that norm go to the government and products with excessive content of GMO components should be banned for turnover and imports. Currently there are no limitations on the turnover or production of GMO-containing foodstuffs in Russia. However, when the percentage of GMO exceeds 0.9 percent the producer must label such goods and warn consumers. Last autumn the government passed a resolution allowing the listing of genetically modified plants in the Unified State Register, but this resolution will come in force only in July this year. The main sponsor of the bill, Fyodorov, said in comments to Izvestia daily that he wanted to make this norm zero for all foodstuffs produced in Russia. The draft bans the production of genetically modified organisms and transgenic products of plant, animal or microbial origin for their use in human and animal foods. Fyodorov said that this measure was needed because international corporations could try to bypass the limitations on imports by launching GMO production inside Russia. He added that under the new bill businessmen still can register genetically modified organisms and conduct research, but not grow and sell them until a slightest doubt of their safety remains. Professionals perceived the initiative differently. The head of Russia’s Organic Farming Union, Yakov Lyubovedsky, holds that the passing of the bill would show if the Duma can defend the country’s independence and the interests of population. He also added that GMO was an experiment on humanity itself and that the industry could do very well without genetically-enhanced plants and animals. The president of the Grain Producers’ Union, Arkady Zlochevsky holds the opposite opinion. He told Izvestia that the suggested measure would be extremely harmful for Russian farmers as they would be deprived of modern technology and their foreign competitors would be still allowed to export their goods to Russia. If legislators decide on a ban, it should be complete, including consumption, but this is currently not possible, Zlochevsky noted. In addition the limitations would create a threat of uncontrolled and dangerous spread of illegal genetically modified crops, Zlochevsky noted. The pro-GMO businessman also pointed out that the discussion of the problem should not be limited to the agriculture and food industries. He said that 70 percent of genetically enhanced materials were used in pharmacology and medicine, 20 percent were used in industry and only 10 percent of GMOs were used in agriculture and food production. The bill will be submitted to the lower house in two weeks’ time and its authors claim that its chances of passing are very high. |
SEOUL, Jul. 24 (Korea Bizwire) — The Seoul Metropolitan Government announced plans on Sunday to launch a campaign to tackle harmful drinking culture, a prevailing problem among South Korean businesses. As part of its efforts to combat excessive drinking during business socializing sessions known as ‘hoesik’, the Seoul government is distributing simple guidelines outlining seven useful rules for workers to follow. The seven rules recommended by Seoul government officials include drinking within your means, not forcing your colleagues to consume alcohol, drinking before 9 p.m., drinking slowly, not sharing a glass, opting for low-alcohol drinks, and lastly, avoiding ‘poktanju’, which is a shot consisting of soju and beer. “Too many office workers are exposed to the excessive drinking culture such as poktanju or drinking the entire shot at one go, as it is widely considered an additional responsibility,” the Seoul government said. “It is important that all company members help establish a healthy drinking culture.” The excessive drinking culture in the South Korean business sector has been one of the biggest social issues facing the country, becoming a major factor behind a rising incidence of colorectal and liver cancer as well as driving under the influence. According to findings from a survey on traffic safety conducted by the Seoul Municipal Government that was released earlier this month, nearly one in ten men has driven a vehicle at least once while drunk during the last year. M.H.Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com) |
Team of Shadows Episode 3 - GW 31 Wrap-up, Now With Even More Self-Loathing! Greetings, all! How’s it going, y’all? Ready for another installation of my experiment in public embarrassment? This is the reverse demonstration of that guy who says “Dude, I almost brought in Lukaku to cap him right up until the deadline and then I changed away before his haul. And I almost brought in Mkhitaryan that week too!” And then he tells you how many points he would have had but ignores all the other knock-on effects that might have happened in the following weeks. Yeah, whatevs. This parallel universe shows what happens down each fork in the road, even if one fork leads into a really bad neighborhood. If you missed the previous two find Episode 1 with an explanation as to WTF is going on here, here, and from last GW - Episode 2 - is here. The Moves The Early WC team decided that they just had to have a piece of that delicious tasty morsel named Wilf Zaha. He had dazzled against Chelsea and no longer seems to be a prancing show pony. Two goals and an assist in his previous three matches was good enough to be a replacement for Barkley, who has no doubles coming up and who had an away match at United on deck. They still had a marginal Gabbiadini injury, but had depth to let that ride. The armband went to Alexis, the best of the home options at hand. The Late WC team had two moves banked and used them both to bring in Alexis for the rest of the run. They ditched the injured Mane and used an Azpilicueta to Sakho move to pay for it. The Gabbi injury was going to have to get covered up by Baines. The Teams The Early Wildcard team is in the table below, as is the Shadow Team that is currently kicking my ass and that will play a Late Wildcard in GW36. The prices are at the deadline going into GW31 and the points in parentheses were on the bench. The Verdict Did the Self-Loathing Express continue? Sure as hell did. This week it was Alli who stuck the knife in with his 12-pointer. He came into the Shadow Team back in GW29 when this thing started, and has produced 7, 6, and now 12 points since that point for a total of 25. Holdover Coutinho also titted along again and now has 22 points in three weeks since his stay of execution. Those two led the Shadow Team to a 47-36 margin over the Early WC Team. The only ones of my brilliant WC purchases who can come close to those totals are Ward-Prowse, with 20, and Yoshida, with 19. And given the fixtures, those guys had been sitting on the bench. Some of the points have come in for injured Gabbiadini, but not nearly enough of them. As for this week, I could moan and groan about the Yoshida 11-pointer sitting on my bench, but was I really going to start him against a newly-energized Palace side, especially when I had a couple of Spurs defenders facing Swansea, plus Alonso and Valencia’s attacking potential ahead of him? Nah, sometimes you just end up with points on the bench. Don’t whine about it. Newcomer Wilf Zaha did squat for my real team, while newcomers Sakho and Alexis did equal squat for the Team of Shadows. Except that Alexis’ presence probably kept me from giving the armband to somebody who would have scored better. Well done Princess Alexis, well done indeed! Before I started this experiment, my overall rank was 19,971 Early WC team: 36 points, overall points 1730, overall rank 24,249 Late WC team: 47 points, overall points 1751, overall rank 13,433 Real team gets a red arrow; Shadows get a green. Coming Up Quick turnaround again with games this weekend right upon us. The Shadow Team just has one FT in hand and 0.3 ITB. They are mulling over the timing of a Siggy to Mane move. Both have appealing fixtures in 32. The Early WC team has two FT and 2.0 ITB and needs to take a long hard look at the people who came in on WC, and also see what is going to happen with this Gabbiadini nonsense. Can’t leave your roster with a dead striker very long, even if he is allowing his higher scoring Soton mates to come in off the bench. Good luck everybody! Let’s hope this parade of public embarrassment takes a turn for the better. Scott (@tempebug) |
North America Has Hope for 2017 Worlds Semifinals Izento Blocked Unblock Follow Following Sep 13, 2017 * Courtesy of Riot Games Many will look at the beast that is South Korea, with Longzhu Gaming, Samsung Galaxy and of course SK Telecom T1, the reigning champions, and through all of this, realize that there is little hope to win the championship. I’m not going to pledge that North America have a chance to win Worlds, we might be a year too early for that, but I’d like to entertain how NA can make it to semifinals. There are a couple of conditions that NA need to construct before a semifinals run is possible. * Courtesy of Riot Games Immortals: - Mid Must Suit Up for NA Eugene “Pobelter” Park has had a fantastic split and it would be a misnomer to say that he’s a bad player. There have been questions of Pobelter being a top tier player in the past and now after a phenomenal split, he must prove he can stand up to world class talent in order to secure his team victories. He has been able to show up against Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg and Nicolaj “Jensen” Jensen, some of the best NA has to offer, but Pobelter has always been seen as the stoic laner, never quite losing but not quite gaining significant advantages either. - The Jungle and Mid Synergy is Palpable Jake “Xmithie” Puchero has once again shown that he can be a top tier jungler. He’s shown a new aggression that wasn’t previously there during his Counter Logic Gaming days. This allows for IMT to possibly get early leads, but more importantly, both Xmithie and Kim “Olleh” Joo-sung have shown to be able to work together in setting up vision in the enemy jungle, which then extends into a map-wide pressure to shut down the enemy jungler. - Closing Out Might be a Concern With IMT’s games during the NA LCS finals, it brings up the question of whether IMT are competent enough to close out efficiently with their leads. They hadn’t had much problems during the regular season, but when met against a tough opponent such as TSM, they faltered heavily in using their gold lead. IMT have strong early leads during most of their games throughout the split, but that might not be the case when they are facing against stronger laners. IMT have Longzhu Gaming to face off against during the group stages and with such a mismatch in sheer skill and teamwork, they should look to focusing on the other teams in their group to secure a 2nd place finish. IMT have a lot to prove in terms of displaying consistency and to show their rookies have the ability to play on the international stage. Adversely, the veterans of this squad need to display that they still have what it takes to dominate a game. * Courtesy of Riot Games Cloud 9: - Mid Lane isn’t the Only Lane that Exists C9 have shown that they play strictly through Jensen. There have only been few instances where C9 have been willing to place everything onto Zachery “Sneaky” Scuderi with little to no other contingency plans to win games and this might be the biggest fault of C9. Along with this sentiment, Jensen has shown to get advantages by himself, but on the Worlds stage, the competition is much better and could spell C9’s doom in relying on Jensen to outplay world class players. - Top Lane Only Knows One Style With the absence of Jeon “Ray” Ji-won, C9 have been steadily reliant upon Jung “Impact” Eon-yeong to play tanks for the preferred team fight playstyle that C9 have opted for. This crutch shows its weakness through limited draft compositions of Impact only playing tanks and the enemy can use this to their advantage to put a stranglehold on tanks and either ban them out or force Impact onto either a carry or simply subjugate him onto a sub-optimal tank. Along with this, C9 have left Impact alone on his top lane island once more, which shows that C9 are only willing to play towards mid or bot lane. This makes the top lane an area for enemies to snowball and allow a split-pusher to wreak havoc onto C9, as they seem to have difficulty counteracting such strategies. If Impact is able to get more champions mastered, maybe C9 can reconfigure their game plan to allow Impact to carry from the top lane. Realistically speaking, I don’t see C9 making it out of groups, as the only groups remaining for them to join are Group A and Group C. With Group A looking incredibly strong, Group C seem to be their only glimmer of hope, which still isn’t much due to the strong teams of Samsung Galaxy, the team to take SKT to 5 games in the finals of Worlds 2016 and Royal Never Give Up, having the best record in the LPL Summer Split. Not only do these beasts exist, but Europe’s temperamental G2 Esports are on the rise and dominated the EU finals to prove once again they deserve to be champions. This group isn’t the group of death, but it certainly won’t foster life for C9. * Courtesy of Riot Games TSM: - Laning Phase TSM have shown dominance with their win against Immortals in the NA finals match. Their big weakness seemed to be the laning phase, with IMT gaining advantages in multiple games during the early game. I’d like to think that many teams at Worlds won’t succumb to playing with their food and will systematically close out the game in textbook fashion without taking many chances. Both Vincent “Biofrost” Wang and Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng have played better in the past, so it’s up to them in coming back to fighting form to ensure TSM can make it through the group stages. - The Jungle Must Prove Himself Dennis “Svenskeren” Johnsen is at a similar place he was last year, an upper tier jungler which plays around Bjergsen getting an advantage in lane to then extend his jungle pressure into the enemy jungle. Svenskeren needs to pressure other lanes and the other lanes need to take more risks in order to gain dominance and extend jungle pressure. Svenskeren’s tendency last Worlds was to invade without having lane advantages and hopefully TSM can fix this problem or prove they have learned from their past mistakes. - Slow to Adaptation TSM aren’t known to be the fastest applicators of the new meta, with having games taken off them from Team Dignitas during the Summer Split, which was touted to be a team that boosted higher into the standings due to an early grasp on the meta. TSM at the past Worlds was also no different, with a lack of understanding the all-important Worlds meta of mage supports and picking winning top lane matchups. I hope that the boot camp can alleviate some of this concern. - Multiple Playstyles mean Multiple Plans TSM are able to play through almost any lane, which allows them the flexibility to plan out which person they want to force the game through. They are unpredictable in that sense, of switching from game to game playing through a different lane. This is probably the biggest strength of TSM and should be abused fully to extend their lead through a series, but the group stage is Bo1, so this strength is not pronounced. NA’s hope this year hinges on TSM to do well, as they objectively have the easiest group out of any NA team. Everyone in NA has prayed for a scenario without a Korean team in a NA group and this year they have their prayers answered. NA has no more excuses to not make it out of groups and not only that, but since Riot has intentionally made the Worlds patch lighter this year, TSM shouldn’t have trouble adapting to the international stage like before. All of this should give NA hope. In the end, there are many strengths and weaknesses in these NA teams and they have been blessed with at least one good group to escape the group stages. Now comes the time where NA must scrutinize themselves and apply the knowledge gained in order to attain synergy, regain confidence and reimagine strategies to overcome their opposition. |
If somebody wears a shirt with a racially offensive graphic or slogan on it, is it anti-free speech to ridicule him or her for it? Or, if an authority attempts to forcibly remove the shirt, is it pro-racism to support the person’s right to wear the shirt? For many libertarians, “freedom” is a principle that holds intrinsic value, similar to how “equality” or “diversity” is treated by the modern left. However, what is it that makes freedom reasonable political bedrock? Fundamentally, politics strives to find structures that are sustainably the most conducive to well-being for as many of a society’s inhabitants as possible. Freedom of expression is an often misunderstood, but indispensable element of any society. For this reason, it will be the focus of this article, and will be used to illustrate the underlying logic behind all freedoms and their importance. So, what are the positive consequences of freedom? Including, specifically, freedom of expression? The common reason given in support of freedom of expression is just that: freedom. However, for many people, the ultimate goal of eliminating intolerance and falsehoods is of higher importance. Furthermore, another subset of these people finds freedom of expression to be at direct odds with this goal. Surely, if one wishes to eliminate any given opinion from a society, and one’s wish is credible – the opinion in question being truly despicable – then the root that needs to be pulled from the equation is their right to say it in the first place. That has to be the most efficient way of doing things, right? Putting a large swath of other issues this sentiment has aside, and the goal being assumed to be even possible, the supposed conflict between free speech and anti-X opinion is a complete myth. In fact, the desire to eliminate views one disagrees with is the most compelling reason to support the right for those views to be shared. The true benefit of intellectual freedom is not that no ideas are guaranteed to be killed, but that no ideas are even possible of being protected. Ideas are constantly and continuously accountable, none are safe from competition, and are thereby pushed forward by the same principles of selection that produced biological life on Earth. When censorship is used, there is one judge, and one judgement; bad ideas are proven bad and then they are jailed, good ideas are proven good and then they are crowned. In a world of constantly shifting levels of understanding new information, different circumstances, and different motivations, it is imperative that everything – even the most fundamental beliefs and opinions – always have the possibility to succeed and fail. It is for this reason that opinions one finds most offensive and false should be the opinions one most supports the right for others to have, so that it can be criticized, ridiculed, and fought until its death. Freedom of expression functions like a light switch, whereas censorship functions like a lantern. In a room of diverse gifts and dangers, ever changing in its architecture, the most effective way to both fight the rodents in the corners, and find the jewelry in the drawer, is to cast as much light on as much of the room as possible. Only that which cannot stand on its own merits desires an authority’s intervention and suppression of competition, and that which can stand on its own merits would never trust an authority’s protection. Whether it is in the case of an idea, or a product, service, or institution, freedom is always the most efficient tool for finding the best, and losing the worst – something that we can surely all agree on as a valuable consequence. * Lucas Stoten is a young philosophy and science enthusiast with a political leaning towards smaller governments and free market economies, for their practicality and theoretical moral superiority. He is specifically interested in finding rational bedrock and the fundamental logic behind beliefs and systems. |
“He’s the most dangerous man in the galaxy“ – Superman, telling some Martians about Batman A special edition of Badass of the Week by Ben Thompson Batman is a crime-fighting vigilante ninja detective who dresses up in bullet-proof armor, wears a gigantic black cape, hides in the darkest corners of the city, and then sneak-attack face-kicks the world’s most sadistic criminal douchebags until every felon in the tri-state area is passed out unconscious in a Gotham City Prison complaining about how they’ve got concussions so bad that their brains are leaking out their noses. He’s one of comics’ most beloved, longest-running, and badass superheroes, an ultra-genius master of stealth and hand-to-hand combat, and a man so over-the-top hardcore that the mere mention of his name has been known to cause incontinence among the seedier members of human society. For starters, Batman is the one of the world’s most successful superheroes – a fact that is especially notable in that he’s managed to somehow attain that lofty status despite the notable handicap that he does not seem to possess any kind of superhuman power whatsoever (unless of course you count being insanely rich as a superpower, but I would argue that having a lot of money doesn’t always necessarily mean that you are inherently awesome – for examples to illustrate this point, please watch ten minutes of any reality television program). He doesn’t leap tall buildings in a single bound. He doesn’t morph into Truck Mode. He can’t fold F-14s in half with his mind or shoot magic fireball cupcakes out of his crotch whenever he opens the fly of his custom-fitted quartz codpiece. Hell, I don’t even think he can do that shit where David Copperfield saws some chick in half and then puts her back together again with magic/surgery. He’s just a regular guy who as a child, saw his parents get violently out-of-control murdered by street trash right in front of him, and who logically decided that the appropriate response to this was to devote the rest of his life to becoming a one-man wrecking ball of vigilante fucking justice. Without the assistance of Gamma Rays or Radioactive Spider bites, the larynx-collapsing, darkly-troubled billionaire known as Bruce Wayne honed his body into the ultimate instrument of criminal mutilation – and even though he’s been uncomfortably successful in his endless quest for revenge against Gotham City’s criminal element, in the end all this regular Joe has to go on is his own innate skill, whatever crazy motherfucking gadgets he can come up with, and the knowledge that no matter what happens to him he can always find solace in his infinite number of Italian sports cars, private jets, hot women, and Olympic-sized swimming pools his limitless funds can afford (i.e. all of them). Now, this lack of mutant healing factor, X-ray heat vision, and go-go-Gadget legs is impressive not only because it means that Batman is the only member admitted into the Justice League of America who can’t bench press an automobile or rip concrete in half with his fists, but because this guy also routinely goes up against super-powered mega-freaks like Man-Bat, Killer Croc, and Clayface and pummels their skank asses into hair, mud, and/or scale-covered fail-sludge on a fairly regular basis using only his badass ninja face-punch skills and his innate ability to turn basically invisible any time there’s a shadow within three miles of his location. Sure, there are plenty of ordinary, run-of-the-mill homicidal, mostly-human insane criminal psychopaths like the Joker, Two-Face, and the Penguin in Batman’s rogues’ gallery of “people I’ve beaten the fuck out of like a hundred times”, but then again there’s also that time that the entire Justice League of America was kidnapped and tortured by shape-shifting Martians and Batman had to travel to Mars and single-handedly kick the holy living shit balls out of every living thing on the planet in order to rescue his friends. Honestly, in the end it really doesn’t matter what sadistic intergalactic hellspawn you throw at this guy – if that mandible-laden green demonkin monster doesn’t abide by the Gotham City Municipal Penal Code the God Damned Batman is going to drop down from the roof and flying roundhouse kick that motherfucker in the back of the head until its skull explodes out whatever orifice it uses for a mouth, and when he’s finished with that he’s going to go off and hook up with a vast assortment of beautiful women in the backseat of an armor-plated rocket car without giving the mostly-dead monster’s incarcerated ass a second thought. Oh, and it’s worth noting that in the cases where the horrible evil villain happens to be a woman (such as the Catwoman or Poison Ivy), Batman first makes out with them (because it’s required for him to make out with every hot babe that appears in his comics), and THEN beats them to a pulp and throws them into a fucking Asylum so they can sit around in a straight jacket all day thinking about how dreamy the Batman is and how they can’t wait to get kicked in the head by him again. But it’s not just super-villains this guy goes out and pummels/bangs. He’s also been known to take down a superhero or two during his day. Like, for instance one time there was this alternate universe where the Green Lantern was being a fucking jackoff, so the Batman bitch-slapped him like a red-headed orphan girl and then took pictures of himself teabagging the unconscious corpse. If you’re wondering how a regular dude can beat down a man who possesses the “Most Powerful Weapon in the Universe” (the Green Lantern’s definition of his ring, not Batman’s), it’s because the Green Lantern’s weakness used to be the color yellow, and Batman took advantage of that idiotic weakness by building a yellow room, feeding the Lantern some lemonade, and then caving his face in with a quirky-yet-stylish set of neon yellow Kevlar Bat-Gloves. Shit, even the mighty Superman knows to respect the fucking Dark Knight – the most impossibly-overpowered hero in comics entrusted Batman (and Batman alone) with a special Kryptonite ring, which is designed specifically to keep him Superman in check if he ever freaked out on Red Kryptonite/LSD, and beating down the “world’s strongest man” is a task Batman has somehow accomplished on more than one occasion. As if that’s not emasculating enough, Batman has not only figured out Superman’s secret identity, but he also once managed to hide from Superman in Gotham City – a feat that is made more impressive by the fact that Supes has that whole X-Ray vision / Super-Hearing / I’m Pretty Much Invincible thing going on all the time. Off the top of my head I don’t think Batman ever beat down Wonder Woman, but he did hook up with her a couple times, which is, of course, awesome. Despite being one of history’s longest-running numbered comics, going through more costume changes than Stevie Nicks (all of which are pretty badass, by the way… with the sole exception of that one version with the rubber nipples, which was just weird/uncomfortably erotic), and being portrayed by roughly every single actor in Hollywood, Batman continues to be one of the single most universally-loved superheroes ever created. I guess there’s just something about a ninja super-spy detective who dresses up like a bat and karate kicks motherfuckers with bullet-proof boots that really drives fanboys nuts. Maybe it’s how he’s all tortured by his dark past. Maybe it’s because he has more cool gadgets than James Bond without the whole “Being British” thing. Maybe it’s just because he can cave in anyone’s skull, anywhere, anytime, without warning, like right when they’re in the middle of making some speech about how they’ve just escaped with a dickload of money and Batman is a fucking idiot and POW WHAT THE FUCK I JUST GOT MY FACE SMASHED. Who knows. Whatever the case may be, this guy has been featured in roughly infinity plus one different comic books, TV series, movies, trading cards, and god-knows what else throughout the years, and with the exception of the Batman and Robin movie from the late 90s I would say that roughly every single fucking one of them was a towering work of literary/screenwriting genius writing that should be studied by future generations as a guidelines for how to be badass while still wearing a cape. Sure, people like to talk shit about that 1960s television series where Batman wore purple and spent a lot of time hanging out at the beach, but whenever I was home sick from school as a kid I’d watch that shit on TV Land, and it fucking rocked the ass of anything else on TV, so I refuse to hear any shit about Adam West, his sweet convertible, his BIFF-ing the fuck out of the Riddler’s cronies, or the hot beehive-haired babes in bikinis that seemed to appear with conspicuous regularity. I will hear no further discussion on the subject. Batman’s powers not only come from his uncanny ability to essentially turn invisible at a moment’s notice (only to reappear seconds later with his fist exploding through the torso of some poor douchebag street thug like the monster from Alien), but from an endless arsenal of seemingly-useless gadgets that always find a way to be relevant at the exact right moments. He scales walls with a grappling hook gun, has ultralight wings that help him glide safely while BASE jumping off skyscrapers or throwing himself out of Batcopters, and has any number of smoke bombs, EMP weapons, Batarangs, ninja stars, lassos, handcuffs, tracking devices, ziplines, electronic countermeasures, tranquilizer darts, blowtorches, hand grenades, jet fighter aircraft, machinegun-equipped automobiles, and badass motorcycles readily available to him at any given time under nearly any circumstances. I’m not even kidding – this guy comes up with the most random bullshit at the most opportune times. Like, say Mr. Freeze busts out a Freeze Gun that encases the Commissioner in a block of ice. Well all of a sudden Batman shows up out of nowhere, whips out his fucking utility belt and pulls out a Bat-Space-Heater that’s able to immediately unfreeze the Commish in a matter of seconds. Why the hell does he carry the Bat-Heater around with him all the time? Because when you’re fighting the world’s deadliest assortment of sociopathic mega-arch-criminals, you’ve got to be prepared for shit like having to cut your buddy out of a six-inch block of Carbonite at a moment’s notice. It’s not like packing pepper spray and a nightstick here, folks. You’re not a friggin’ beat cop. You’re the World’s Greatest Detective. And in the end, that’s why you call in the Caped Crusader to solve a case – any time horrible shit is going down in Gotham you just have to fucking shine a huge light in the air and POW – the next thing you know Batman is jumping around dishing out asskickings like parking tickets to any masked criminal scumbag in his general vicinity. In order to help him on his quest to become the ultimate one-man freight train of unstoppable heroic justice, Batman occasionally recruits some sidekicks – and even though none of them come close to Batman’s powers of sternum-collapsing awesomeness, we still kind of love them anyways. Bats’ main homedog Alfred is an English butler who knows the Batman’s secret identity and maintains the Batcave when Master Wayne is out kicking goons teeth-first into prison cells, and even though he can be a pretentious old bastard everybody is on board with him because they all secretly wish they had their own personal English butlers to follow them around and do menial bullshit tasks. The Boy Wonder, Robin, sleeps over a lot and wears shorts that are a little too high above the knee for my tastes, but that guy can still carry himself in a fight, and he rides a pretty sweet motorcycle, so he’s OK in my book. And even though Batgirl can be a little obnoxious and it’s vaguely incestuous when Batman makes out with her, we of course still put up with her because there are a lot of teenage boys out there who have a difficult time closing a comic book when the page it’s currently opened to features a disproportionately-large-breasted woman in a tight-fitting spandex costume. Seriously, that’s just how Batman runs shit. He doesn’t ever back down from a battle, uses whatever he has at his disposal to rock evil a new asshole or two, and he doesn’t let anything slow him down, no matter what. Like one time he broke his fucking spine in half battling an evil Roid-raging musclehead professional wrestler, but when the man he appointed to succeed him as Batman started fucking it up big time, the O.G. Batman got his girlfriend to use her psychic powers to heal him from his incurable paralysis (a feat that cost the poor girl her sanity and ended up with Batman having to lock her in an asylum) and then kicked the shit out of him and took the Batman armor back. I guess there’s really only room in this universe for one Batman. “Master Bruce, you need an escape plan.” “Can’t have a back door. Might be tempted to use it.” Links/Sources: I wrote this piece while sitting at my booth at San Diego Comic-Con after realizing that I had forgotten to pack my laptop charger and had only ~45 minutes of battery life on my crappy old computer. As such, I had to use my pitifully low battery time solely to type this article into Word and email it to Boomtron.com, and did not have adequate time to perform any kind of Internet research on Batman. The entire piece was written from my own personal memory of Batman TV, movies, and comics (which is subject to error) and that of Mr. Thom Zahler, my booth-mate and the creator/writer/illustrator of IDW’s “Love and Capes” and Mr. Chris Sims, the resident Batman-ologist for Comics Alliance While some of the exact details of the piece might potentially be marginally incorrect, we are all firmly in agreement that Batman is fucking badass.. |
The Mediæval Bæbes are a British musical ensemble founded in 1996 by Dorothy Carter and Katharine Blake.[1] It included some of Blake's colleagues from the band Miranda Sex Garden, as well as other friends who shared her love of medieval music. The lineup often rotates from album to album, and ranges from six to twelve members. As of 2010, the group had sold some 500,000 records worldwide,[2] their most successful being Worldes Blysse with 250,000 copies purchased.[3] Music [ edit ] The Bæbes' first album, Salva Nos (1997), reached number two on the UK specialist classical charts,[4] and was certified silver 15 May 1998.[5] Subsequent albums include Worldes Blysse (which went to No. 1[citation needed]), Undrentide, (co-produced by John Cale), The Rose, (produced by Toby Wood), and the Christmas-themed album Mistletoe and Wine. Mirabilis (2005), was launched at a concert and party in London, August 2005. A self-titled DVD was released in July 2006. The first 300 preorders were autographed by the band and received a special mention in the DVD credits. A live album was released on 25 November 2006 and features two new studio tracks. Each album features traditional medieval songs and poetry set to music, mostly arranged by Blake specifically for the ensemble, alongside varying numbers of original compositions. They sing in a variety of languages, including Latin, Middle English, French, Italian, Russian, Swedish, Scottish English, German, Manx Gaelic, Spanish, Welsh, Bavarian, Provençal, Irish, modern English and Cornish. Their vocals are backed by medieval instruments, including the recorder and cittern, played by the singers or fellow musicians. The Bæbes' musical pieces run the gamut from extremely traditional, such as their version of the "Coventry Carol" on Salva Nos, to songs that feel traditional but are much more modern, such as their rendition of "Summerisle", a song written for Robin Hardy's 1973 cult film, The Wicker Man. John Cale added non-medieval instruments, including saxophone and electric guitar, to some of the arrangements on Undrentide, although with subsequent albums the band returned to more traditional instruments. Even with these instruments, however, the band's current style is quite different from medieval authentic performance groups, as it displays significant modern influence - this juxtaposition is apparent in the album Illumination (2009) produced by KK (Kevin Kerrigan). Collaborations [ edit ] In 2005, the Bæbes contributed Mediæval Bæbes music to the soundtrack of the BBC period drama The Virgin Queen, which portrays the life of Elizabeth I of England, including the title music, which is a poem written by Elizabeth set to music by Blake. The Bæbes provided the vocal track for and starred in the video of the Delerium track "Aria"; the vocals are an adapted version of the vocals from "All Turns to Yesterday" from Worldes Blysse. They are also featured on two tracks from Delerium's 2006 album, Nuages du Monde: "Extollere" and "Sister Sojourn Ghost". In 2016, the group performed the theme song to the ITV TV series Victoria, performing the composition by Martin Phipps. Members [ edit ] One of the group's founding musicians, Dorothy Carter, died of a stroke in 2003 at the age of 68.[6] In addition to playing autoharp, hurdy-gurdy, and dulcimer with the group, she performed the lead vocals on "So Spricht Das Leben" (Worldes Blysse) and "L'Amour de Moi" (The Rose). Emily Ovenden is the daughter of artists Graham Ovenden and Annie Ovenden. She was born and raised in Cornwall and now lives in London. She performed backing vocals on Dragonforce's The Power Within[7] and Reaching into Infinity.[8] She is also a founding member and former lead vocalist of English gothic metal band Pythia. Emily left the group at the beginning of 2016. Marie Findley is also a film reviewer and television script writer for programmes such as Smack the Pony and The Ant & Dec Show. She was the lead (using the name Tulip Junkie) in the Ken Russell film The Fall of the Louse of Usher. Marie left the group in March 2007. Member Maple Bee (aka Melanie Garside) is the singer in electronic duo Huski and the younger sister of KatieJane Garside, singer of London-based rock band Queenadreena. 16 May 2007 – Audrey Evans and Maple Bee resigned due to family and professional commitments and Cylindra Sapphire resigned in order to follow a different musical path. 22 July 2009 – Claire Rabbitt left the Bæbes. Sarah Kayte Foster came on to replace her. On 19 December 2016, the Mediæval Bæbes performed a concert at the Tabernacle, Notting Hill in London to celebrate their 20th anniversary as a band. Seventeen of the past and present members were reunited on stage for a few songs. Discography [ edit ] Studio [ edit ] 1997 Salva Nos 1998 Worldes Blysse 2000 Undrentide 2002 The Rose 2005 Mirabilis 2008 Illumination 2012 The Huntress 2013 Of Kings and Angels Live [ edit ] 2006 Live (includes two new studio tracks; sold only on the official website and at concerts) (includes two new studio tracks; sold only on the official website and at concerts) 2010 Temptation Compilations and soundtracks [ edit ] 1999 The Best of the Mediæval Bæbes (this title is absent from the Mediæval Bæbes' website, and they comment that Mistletoe and Wine is 'the only compilation endorsed by the Mediæval Bæbes') (this title is absent from the Mediæval Bæbes' website, and they comment that is 'the only compilation endorsed by the Mediæval Bæbes') 2003 Mistletoe and Wine (a collection of Christmas-related music from previous albums, plus two new songs and two re-recorded songs) (a collection of Christmas-related music from previous albums, plus two new songs and two re-recorded songs) 2006 The Virgin Queen - Music from the Original Television Series (soundtrack album by Martin Phipps, featuring Mediæval Bæbes) (soundtrack album by Martin Phipps, featuring Mediæval Bæbes) 2012 Devotion (a collection of devotional tracks from previous albums remixed and remastered, plus one new song; sold only on the official website and at concerts) (a collection of devotional tracks from previous albums remixed and remastered, plus one new song; sold only on the official website and at concerts) 2017 Victoria (soundtrack album by Martin Phipps and Ruth Barrett, featuring Mediæval Bæbes; digital-only release) (soundtrack album by Martin Phipps and Ruth Barrett, featuring Mediæval Bæbes; digital-only release) 2017 "Victoriana" Video [ edit ] 2000 Live at The Rehearsal Hall (VHS) (VHS) 2006 Mediæval Bæbes (DVD) (DVD) 2009 Live at Gloucester Cathedral (DVD) (DVD) 2015 In Concert At Berkeley Castle (DVD) |
Based in an isolated northern B.C. town, the obstetrician-gynecologist learned early on that his willingness to perform abortions would not go unnoticed in the tight-knit community. Shortly after the doctor enrolled his children in the local Catholic school — which colleagues had said was the best around — the town’s priest told him his kids were not welcome. “He said ‘We can’t take any money from you … We can’t be associated with you in any way,’ “ recalled the physician, who asked that his name and home town be withheld. The school expulsion was later overturned by the area’s Catholic bishop and the doctor says he has grown to love the community. Elsewhere, however, the challenges of providing abortion outside Canada’s largest cities appear to be taking a toll. The number of rural and small-town doctors offering the service has dropped dramatically over the last several years, B.C. research suggests. And a new study concludes that those who remain face a raft of obstacles, from difficulty getting operating time, to hostility from some medical colleagues and the perceived need to keep a low profile. The pool of health workers in a rural community is small, so if even a portion of them refuse to help the abortion doctor for philosophical reasons, it can have a significant impact, said Wendy Norman, the University of British Columbia professor behind the studies. “What we were seeing is that it was inter-professional relations that were wearing [abortion providers] down, or making it harder for them to go about their day-to-day work,” said Dr. Norman. “They essentially had to have the collaboration and co-operation of the whole medical staff, where not everyone is on side.” She and other pro-choice advocates say the dwindling number of rural abortion doctors can force women to travel hundreds of kilometres to end unwanted pregnancies. They essentially had to have the collaboration and co-operation of the whole medical staff, where not everyone is on side Anti-abortion activists, though, call the trend welcome news. It is likely happening because of advances in ultrasound technology that have led to clearer images inside the womb, argued Jack Fonseca, a spokesman for the Campaign Life Coalition. “It allows us to see, without a doubt, that the fetus is a little human being, a person, and not some blob of tissue as the abortion industry has portrayed,” he said. “This technology is making it impossible for young doctors to lie to themselves and say, ‘I’m not killing anybody. I’m just removing a clump of cells.’ ” Mr. Fonseca also said he believes that young people the age of newly trained physicians are increasingly on the anti-abortion side, especially in rural areas that he said are more socially conservative and religious. In larger Canadian cities, there is no shortage of doctors performing abortions, particularly in stand-alone clinics, said Joyce Arthur, executive director of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada. A study published by Dr. Norman in 2011, however, found that the number of physicians providing the service in hospitals in rural British Columbia had dropped 62% between 1998 and 2005. Dr. Norman said reliable data are not available to analyze changes in the rest of Canada, but Ms. Arthur said anecdotal evidence suggests a similar trend is occurring in most other provinces. Some of the reasons for shrinking rural numbers seem relatively mundane, including a general trend toward abortions being performed in independent clinics — most of which are located in cities — rather than hospitals, and a shortage of all types of rural physicians, experts said. But a follow-up study published by Dr. Norman last month, based on interviews with just under half of the 46 rural B.C. doctors who still do abortions, concluded there are other challenges, too. I think that people hear the stories about providers being shot or stabbed or otherwise assaulted The country physicians listed logistical obstacles such as abortion being given low priority for operating room time, and scheduling problems from having to accommodate anti-abortion staff, said the paper in the journal PLOS One. They also complained of isolation, being their community’s only abortion provider despite long wait lists. On a personal level, many told researchers they felt they had to “stay below the radar” to avoid negative repercussions. Unlike the relative anonymity of big cities, everyone in a small community tends to know the identity of the abortion doctor, said the physician who fills the role — part time — in Prince George, B.C. She said in an interview that she finds the work rewarding, with the opportunity to counsel patients on future contraception use, but acknowledged it is not a popular career choice these days, especially after a string of shootings of abortion doctors in the late 1990s. “I think that people hear the stories about providers being shot or stabbed or otherwise assaulted,” said the family physician, who asked not to be named. “My own family expressed concern: ‘Would I be safe? Would I be OK?’ ” When she arrived about three years ago, the two physicians who had been providing the service earlier in Prince George had both stopped doing so, leaving no one to perform abortions for a year. About half of the area’s eight or nine anesthetists still refuse to assist in pregnancy terminations because of personal objections, the doctor said. The gynecologist from another small B.C. city said he does abortions partly because of experiences years ago in his native South Africa, where poor women would get seriously ill or even die after back-alley terminations. He said the work is important, but understands why other small-town physicians are shying away from it. “I cannot think of anybody who’s doing it for the money,” said the specialist. “A lot of them would just say: ‘It’s controversial. I might lose one or two patients, I’m going to get in trouble with a certain section of the population. Why would I bother to do that?’” National Post tblackwell@nationalpost.com |
DeLAND, Fla. - Volusia County deputies arrested the man on Wednesday who they say stole their red nose pit bull from a 7-year-old boy who was walking the dog Sunday morning. Anthony Hill has been charged with grand theft after deputies say he took the dog, named Red, while boy was walking around the block Sunday at around 10:30 a.m. near the intersection of South Montgomery Street and West Taylor Road. The family only had Red for three days before the incident. A neighbor who could no longer keep her with their newborn gave Red to them but since she lived just down the street, the family has known the dog since she was a puppy. Red was reunited with her owners Wednesday, deputies said. Copyright 2014 by ClickOrlando.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
Screen shot of B'Tselem video on increased demolitions of Palestinian homes in the West Bank and Jerusalem. More units were razed in the first half of 2016 than in all of 2016. More Palestinian homes were demolished in the occupied territories in the first half of 2016 than in all of 2015, according to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. According to B’Tselem, the group presented a report to lawmakers in July during a parliamentary conference on Israeli “efforts to expel” Palestinian villagers, including the use of “repeated demolition of the homes of the same families.” The increased demolitions and displacement have also been accompanied by a rising number of new settler homes under construction. This past week Israel announced hundreds more settlements planned for East Jerusalem, prompting the U.S. State Department to issue an atypical condemnation of the Jewish state. Record year of home demolitions The B’Tselem report found from January to the end of June of 2016, Israeli forces razed 168 Palestinian units in the West Bank and Jerusalem, which left 740 homeless, nearly 250 more than the previous year when 125 houses were bulldozed. The United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov said in February, demolitions this year are “three times the weekly average for 2015. These actions run directly counter to the idea of peace.” Most of the homes razed were located in Area C of the West Bank, rural regions under full Israeli civil and security control where Palestinians are required to apply for construction permits. “Israel has full control of planning and building matters in these locations,” B’Tselem said in the report, “and refuses to recognize these communities,” In addition to demolitions, B’Tselem says Israel forces confiscated “water tanks and solar panels from communities that are not hooked up to the water or power grids, as well as vehicles used for farming and other equipment. In doing so, the Civil Administration not only leaves these residents homeless but also severely lacking basic services and the ability to earn a living.” A high concentration of bulldozing took place in the Jerusalem area. In the last week of July the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) recorded 20 demolitions in Qalandia village in East Jerusalem, 15 of which were carried out on July 26th. “This brings the number of Palestinian-owned structures demolished in East Jerusalem since the beginning of 2016 to 114, an over 40 per cent increase compared to the entire 2015 (80),” said OCHA. B’Tselem’s figures do not include homes demolished for punitive reasons, the practice where Israeli forces knock down the living quarters, or entire buildings of Palestinians who killed Israelis in attacks. Rather, their statistics refers only to homes that are demolished because they were constructed in areas that require permits from Israel, and no permits were issued. B’Tselem noted an “absence of any real possibility for Palestinians to build legally in the area. Furthermore, this separation of Area C from the areas transferred to the Palestinian Authority is artificial and ignores the geo-economic reality of life in the West Bank.” Last year Haaretz reported Palestinians make up 40 percent of Jerusalem’s population but only received seven percent of the licenses to build. A decade of increased demolitions From 2006 to June 30th of this year B’Tselem found Israel demolished more than 1,113 Palestinian homes in the West Bank, making homeless 5,199, of whom 2,602 are children. Within that period, the number of demolitions carried out so far this year is the second highest annual rate with the exception of 2013. Throughout the decade the highest number of demolitions were found to have taken place in the Jordan Valley region of the West Bank, and in East Jerusalem and the outlying areas within the West Bank. Settlement construction on the rise in demolition zones These regions of increased demolitions and displacement are also locations experiencing a rising number of new settler homes under construction. In the spring the Israeli settler watchdog Peace Now reported a 250 percent increase in approval for settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory. In hard numbers, this means Israel sanctioned 674 settlement houses this year, compared to 194 units in the first quarter of 2015. Of the buildings approved this year, 180 were retroactively legalized outposts where Israel gave permits to structures that violated Israeli construction laws. The U.S. government is on the record as saying Israeli settlements in the occupied territory hinder the possibility of an independent Palestinian state, and the U.S. State Department recently issued a special statement addressing concern over Israeli settlement building and the “risk [of] entrenching a one-state reality of perpetual occupation and conflict.” State Department Spokesperson John Kirby said the latest announcement of 770 settlement units in Gilo, a neighborhood of East Jerusalem, is “part of an ongoing process of land seizures, settlement expansion, legalizations of outposts, and denial of Palestinian development that risk entrenching a one-state reality of perpetual occupation and conflict.” “We remain troubled that Israel continues this pattern of provocative and counterproductive action, which raises serious questions about Israel’s ultimate commitment to a peaceful, negotiated settlement with the Palestinians,” Kirby added. Yet Kirby’s stark announcement came the same week as the Democratic National Convention where the issue of settlements was removed from the party’s platform. |
Instagram is ready to make some serious money. After a year and half of format experiments and basic targeting, Instagram is giving advertisers much more powerful tools. Those include “Shop Now”, “Install Now”, and “Sign up” buttons, interest and demographic targeting, and an API for efficiently managing huge campaigns. Since their launch in October 2013, Instagram’s ads were best for big brands who just wanted you to remember them. Now they’ll work much better for direct marketers who want you to do or buy something. The API will let ad agencies easily spend more, and interest targeting based on who you follow on Instagram and Like on Facebook could let the photo network compete with Twitter’s Interest Graph for ad dollars. For Instagram users, the most obvious change will be the new formats. They’re called “action-oriented” formats, and they’ll appear as buttons below an image. As you can see in the mock-ups above, they’ll give you the option to buy a product, install an app or sign up for a service. This builds on the multi-photo carousel ads that Instagram unveiled earlier this year, which also included a “Learn More” button — the first time that Instagram ads became clickable. It’s worth noting that the buttons don’t take you away from Instagram completely. Instead, they open a mini-browser within the app, so once you’re done buying or downloading or what have you, you’ll be returned to Instagram. Instagram has historically tried to keep users in its app, which is why it won’t allow its photos to appear in-line on Twitter. Its Global Head of Business and Brand Development James Quarles tells me it’s trying to uphold that philosophy of a smooth, straightforward browsing experience. “Instagram is not an index or collection of the web where syndicated links matter, it’s about photos people take. You’re not retweeting, regramming, or passing a link on” Quarles tells us. “In these cases where there are businesses…we think that it’s a very lightweight experience to go into an in-app browser…and then come back to the app. We’re staying true to the values of simplicity.” What about Instagram actually processing ecommerce payments inside its app the way Facebook is testing? “We’re not announcing in-app commerce today” Quarles says. Still, he admits “we’re watching the space closely. We want to help reduce the friction from the point of inspiration to transaction.” As with all of today’s announcements, Instagram plans roll the new formats out gradually, starting with a test later this week in Spain. The new targeting, meanwhile, also expands on the existing connection between Instagram ads and the user data in Facebook (which owns Instagram). Previously, Instagram advertisers could target ads based on age, gender and country. Over time, they’ll be able to tap into a wider range of demographic and interest data, plus target based on “information businesses have about their own customers”. That last part sounds a lot like Facebook’s Custom Audiences ads, that can be targeted to people corresponding with a list of email address provided by the business. In case the ads are getting a bit creepy or annoying, Facebook says “We will also improve the feedback mechanisms within Instagram to give people greater control and improve the relevance of the ads they see. Lastly, Instagram says it wants to make its advertising available to businesses large or small. That means integrating Instagram with Facebook’s ad-buying tools, as well as launching an Instagram Ads API. The API will plug Instagram into the broader ecosystem of social ad platforms. This way, heavy advertisers can programatically control tons of ad variants and targeting options to optimize for what works best, rather than having to manually manage them. The API could foster an ecosystem of third-party Instagram ads management tools designed specifically around optimizing the visual creative aspect of the campaigns. The initial API partners include 4C, Brand Networks, Ampush, Kenshoo, Laundry Service, MediaVest (Publicis), Nanigans, Olapic, Resolution Media (OMG), Salesforce, SocialCode, Social Moov and Unified. So how big a deal is all of this? “The most important part of this announcement is that Facebook is now ready to scale Instagram ads, and they have the playbook to do so from their success scaling people-based ads across their existing products and the web” says Michael Lazerow, co-founder of Buddy Media and now Salesforce.com’s chief strategy officer. Facebook’s first ads were bought by Apple, but with time, it built out tools for a wide array of businesses. Now Instagram is doing the same. Quarles says “A big part of this strategy is to move from the few hundred of the biggest advertisers to many thousands more.” Developers could be the cash cow, just as they’ve become for Instagram’s parent company. App Install ads helped Facebook earn $2.4 billion on mobile last quarter, and now they’re coming to Instagram. Lazerow concludes “This is the most significant development in Facebook advertising since Facebook opened up its mobile Audience Network in October 2014.” |
The NDP almost got through the Stampede Parade without being forced to duck a fiscal cow pie. Not quite, though. The Dominion Bond Rating Service chose Friday morning to downgrade the outlook on Alberta’s long-term debt from stable to negative. The agency also said last year’s 2016-17 deficit was not $10.8 billion, as the government claims, but $12.8 billion. While the parade was still on, Finance Minister Joe Ceci fired out a press release noting that DBRS at least held the province’s basic credit rating at AA, or high. Ceci also listed a string of positives, from jobs growth to falling unemployment and rising exports. That much was accurate, but he entirely neglected to mention the change in long-term status from stable to negative. Nor did he deal with the higher deficit number. Ceci declined to be interviewed Friday. His statement would speak for itself, an aide said. It’s always puzzled me why politicians do that — endlessly parrot their talking points without admitting why they’re talking in the first place. It eats away at credibility. The DBRS statement comes with many dire warnings, starting with the fact that Alberta “is continuing to erode its low debt advantage through sustained deficit spending.” “Moreover, the province has yet to provide a credible plan to restore balance. “While Alberta’s debt burden is low and the economy is showing signs of recovery, the fiscal plan demonstrates a lack of willingness to contain debt growth, which is likely to lead to a one-notch downgrade of the long-term ratings.” Downgrades, or even the threat of them, always tend to raise borrowing costs. DBRS actually expected the deficit to be higher than $12.8 billion. It was “somewhat better than expected because of lower-than-anticipated capital spending.” Even so, it was “sizable at 4.2 per cent of gross domestic product.” The agency says “the economy appears to have turned a corner and has been supported by the modest recovery in oil prices.” DBRS doesn’t mention that this year’s price forecast — $55 US per barrel for West Texas crude — is $10 higher than the current market. In some areas, the report is almost gentle. But the new 2017-18 budget, says DBRS, “fails to demonstrate meaningful action by the government to address its substantial budgetary gap.” The province forecasts a deficit of $10.3 billion in the current fiscal year. DBRS calculates that shortfall at $13.6 billion. Debt is expected to reach 24 per cent of provincial GDP by 2019-20. DBRS believes “the debt burden could exceed this level, given the uncertain outlook for oil prices and Alberta’s track record of weak fiscal discipline.” The final judgment is worrisome: “The government has articulated a desire to return to balance by 2024. However, given their reluctance to use additional tax room and the continued focus on maintaining services and funding growth, this objective is highly uncertain, since it relies on a sustained recovery in economic activity buoyed by higher oil prices.” Ratings agencies are talking to lenders. They tend to dislike spending and like taxes. They take no account of social needs, infrastructure gaps, public health, tax burdens, or anything else that doesn’t start with a dollar sign. But still, DBRS is close to the truth of what’s going on. The NDP’s path simply isn’t sustainable. Premier Rachel Notley and her ministers seem to know that. Time after time, I hear that the government will move toward restraint by next year, hoping to show serious progress on cutting deficits and reducing debt. But they aren’t talking about that yet. For now they ride in the parade, and duck when necessary. Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald dbraid@calgaryherald.com Twitter: @DonBraid |
Lazar, 18, was the Senators’ first-round pick (17th overall) in the 2013 NHL Draft, which was held in June in Newark. A native of Salmon Arm, B.C., Lazar will enter his third full season of major junior hockey with the Western Hockey League’s Edmonton Oil Kings in 2013-14. He led the Oil Kings with 38 goals in 2012-13 while helping the club reach the Ed Chynoweth Cup (WHL Final) against Portland. The 6-0, 196-pound centre has recorded 93 points (58 goals, 35 assists) and 103 penalty minutes over 141 career WHL contests, all of which have occurred with the Oil Kings. He has also registered 18 goals and 13 assists over 46 career WHL post-season games. Lazar recently attended Team Canada’s national junior development camp which was held in early August in Montreal and Lake Placid, N.Y. He has previous international experience in having helped Canada win the Ivan Hlinka tournament after recording three goals and one assist over five games in the summer of 2012. Visit the Senators website: www.ottawasenators.com Follow the Senators on Twitter: @Senators Like the Senators on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ottawasenators - end - |
Are you a writer, who wants to leave everything and focus on your big book? Are you a surfer, who wants to live on the beach? Or are you a wildlife photographer, who spend most of the time hunting for perfect shots? I am sure, that you miss the comfort of your home. In Bratislava, capital city of Slovakia, there is an architectonic studio – Nice Architects. They did something that may interest you. They developed the concept of mobile unit, in which you can of course live. It is called Ecocapsule. This idea is around from 2009, when designers from Nice Architecs enrolled them into US competition. The main goal of this competition was to design fully mobile unit. However, they didn’t win, the response of the Internet make them continue to work on Ecocapsule. “Ecocapsule is mobile and energy self-sufficient residential unit, that can be transported to place you want and live in it for some time to be away from civilization,” said one of the designers Tomáš Žáček. The interior of this capsule is 8m² and has living space for two people. Inside you can find bed and table, both can fold, two chairs, bathroom with shower, small kitchen and fireplace as another option of cooking. Central element of this mobile unit is its energy system. The rain water nicely flows down the outside “shell” and then it is collected and purified in tanks at the bottom. The water, which was made like this, is used in shower, toilet and in the kitchen. Electricity is provided by a solar membrane with photovoltaic cells on the body of the Ecocapsule and extended propeller. This means, that self-sufficiency is not just a fancy vision of architects. “We know, that we have bulletproof numbers. It has never even come to our minds to present something that just “might work,” said another designer, who was working on this project, Soňa Pohlová. Nice Architects are very well oriented in the world of mobile units, in which you can live. They also know, that potential investors are, as well, interested in competitors so they always have to be one step in front of everyone. They always say, why is their product the best. Some competitors have big problem with transportation in design of such unit. Another competitor doesn’t have a self-sufficient model or, a good old one , it is too expensive. 14+1 reasons why Ecocapsule is unique: If offers a long off-grid stay It brings civilization’s standards into the wilderness It has an energy sustainable shape It has low energy consumption It is easily transportable around the globe It can be connected with other capsules into a shared system Its performance can be evaluated already before the deployment It does not require any supporting infrastructure It has very short deployment time It is adaptable to any climate conditions It has customizable interior design and technical equipment It serves as both a living and a work unit It has a beautiful design It has an affordable price It is just awesome! Ecocapsule interior (Interactive presentation): Source: Ecocapsule.sk Have you seen another awesome slovak project: The flying car? If you haven’t, check out this article: Flying Car in 2015. Is It Possible? |
The Kurdish Democratic Union Party demanded an immediate withdrawal of Turkish forces from Syria after Ankara had launched an operation to liberate the city of Jarablus from Daesh. MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) demands that Turkey immediately withdraws its forces from the territory of Syria, a representative for PYD in France, Khaled Isa, told Sputnik on Wednesday. Earlier in the day, Turkish tanks entered Syria as part of an operation to free the border town of Jarablus from militants. "Turkey is trying to turn its indirect occupation of Syria into a direct one," Isa said. "We demand that Turkey immediately withdraws from the territory of Syria, stops supporting terrorist groups in Syria, otherwise we will force them out of our territory." © AFP 2018 / BULENT KILIC Turkish Operation to Free Syria's Jarablus From Daesh Can Take Two Weeks Ankara announced early on Wednesday that Turkish forces, reinforced by US-led coalition aircraft, had begun a military operation dubbed "Euphrates Shield" to clear the Syrian border town of Jarablus of Daesh militants Turkey's operation in northern Syria is aimed at stopping the threats posed by Daesh (banned in Russia) and Kurdish militants, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said. Ankara considers PYD an affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militant organization outlawed in Turkey. |
I bought this scope for a S&W M&P Sport and I really like it. I don't have experience with more expensive scopes so maybe I don't know what I'm missing, but I think the optics are very clear and bright on this one. I like the parallax adjustment and the method for resetting the zero on the turrets. This scope looks good on an AR 15. Some people may think a scope with this range of power is overkill for an AR 15, but my eyes are old so it really helps me even at 100 yards. I previously used a cheap 4x scope. At around 8 power I have no problem seeing the bullet holes in my targets on a 100 yard shooting range. I'm looking forward to trying out the BDC reticle at longer distances as soon as I can find a place to shoot beyond 100 yards. I've only been to the range once with it so it's probably too soon to comment on how well it holds zero, but so far so good with 120 rounds of ammo. I have a very old pair of Bushnell bincoculars that I have had for close to 50 years and they still are as good as new...I hope this scope turns out to be as durable. |
Pin Pinterest ⋆ Rec Recommend this Post 8 Four black helmets gleam in a neat row as four young men dig in their cleats and claw at the grass. If there is one sure thing in all of football, it is their talent and potential. Muscles twitch with each motion, forearms bulging, thighs rippling under the black uniform of Hargrave Military Academy. Each is too fast for his size, too strong to move with such agility. They say the game is won or lost in the trenches, and on this Tuesday evening in October 2005, it rings true. Nobody can stop what might be the strongest, fastest, angriest defensive line ever to play outside the National Football League. Beasts in the middle and missiles off the edge, each was ranked among the top four prospects at his position in the Class of 2005. End to end, they count 19 stars on Rivals.com, the college football recruiting site. Rivals named only 28 five-star recruits, and three play on this line. Each has a scholarship waiting at a major college program, but academic failures took them to Hargrave on a one-season detour. Now they glare across the line at Kenan Stadium in Chapel Hill, eyes on the future. The boys in white — the University of North Carolina junior varsity — brace themselves for the impact. The quarterback barks, the ball moves, and they fire off the line, an 1,180-pound wall of muscle and wrath. Five-star defensive tackle Callahan Bright leads the charge, wedging himself under the pads of two blockers. At 6'2 and 320 pounds, with a power-lifting physique and an unreal first step, he was the second-rated defensive tackle in his class — and might have been the top defensive lineman if he were more emotionally stable. He is committed to Florida State. Fueled by rage, ambition, and fast-twitch muscle, he drives the double-team backward. Perhaps hundredths of seconds later, Ole Miss commit Jerrell Powe takes on a double-team of his own. By keeping so many players in to block, the Tarheels can hardly muster an offense, but they don't have much of a choice. Even bigger at 6'3 and 340 pounds, Powe moves like a cat. A five-star prospect and the nation's third-rated DT, he shoves the guard aside with his right arm, swims over the center with his left, and meets Bright in the backfield. They stop the running back on a dime, standing him up, only to find his hands empty. He rates five stars only because the sixth does not exist. Justin Mincey burns off the left end. The four-star prospect, a 6'5, 240-pound slasher with 4.65 speed in the 40-yard dash, is the line's weakest link - only the fourth-best prep defensive end in America. Still, Florida State can't wait to line him up next to Bright. He catches the quarterback bootlegging right, patting an open throwing hand and looking downfield, as if a man were about to come open. But there is no man, just a desperate attempt to create space. Reading the ruse, Mincey still drops the passer with a distracted paw to the chest, just to be sure, and then looks around for the ball. A murmur rises from the stands as the double-fake reverse isolates a sprinting wide out against Melvin Alaeze, a 6'3, 280-pound right end waiting in the flat. It only looks like a mismatch. The nation's top DE, a consensus top-20 prospect overall, Alaeze is the fastest man on the line, even faster than Mincey, with an absurd 4.64 40-yard dash. He rates five stars only because the sixth does not exist. With 55 formal scholarship offers from every school that mattered, he chose Maryland. Now he beats the receiver to the turn, twists him into the grass, then uses the inert body to push himself back to his feet. Nothing could stand in their way, no obstacle and certainly no other player. Coveted by coaches, anointed by the media, the Hargrave Four were destined for collegiate glory, professional cash, and all the trappings that fame would bring. Until something odd happened: nothing. None of it happened. Today, in 2014, football has forgotten the most talented defensive line in amateur history, even as the last man standing battles for an NFL roster spot. Rock Star Tour One by one, in the summer of 2005, the new cadets rolled into Chatham, a drowsy little town that straddles a two-lane highway near Virginia's southern boundary. Hargrave Military Academy sits among green hills at the top of a curved, tree-lined drive, looking over a broad swale. Parents from poor backwoods and distant cities must have gawked at the brick colonial architecture as cadets as young as 12 years old marched past, impassive to the newcomers and their goodbyes. Power was cut off to the elevators, so the Hargrave Four hiked five flights of stairs to their barracks, each hauling his own baggage. In order to claim their college scholarship offers, each would have to meet the NCAA's confusing, arcane and sometimes heartless academic standards for student-athletes, regulations that reduce GPA, standardized test scores and performance in core classes to an algorithm. Bright's grades were OK, but his SAT score was too low. Mincey missed the GPA cut-off and failed some core classes. Alaeze was a smart kid, but lost credits in a school transfer. Powe simply did not graduate from high school. "You had a bunch of superstars who can't take tests," Mincey says, summing up the way many top recruits feel. College coaches referred them all to Hargrave, a private, Baptist-affiliated boarding school for grades 7-12, catering to wealthy families — annual tuition is $30,800 in 2014. Non-qualifiers today must burn two years of eligibility in junior college, but until 2008, when the NCAA limited athletes to one make-up class after high school, a year at prep school allowed athletes to make the grade without losing a minute of their four-year college eligibility. At Hargrave, the postgraduate football program — which ceased to exist in 2014 — offered full scholarships to top recruits who struggled with academics. With a year of discipline and personal attention, even a failed student could rebuild his transcript. Cadets called the school "The Grave," because it felt like being buried alive. Reveille sounded each morning at 5:45 a.m., giving the cadets 15 minutes to dress, make their beds, conduct personal hygiene, and hoof it a half-mile uphill to the landing strip and back before standing in formation while the flag was raised. Some would sleep in their uniforms to save time. Days were structured around academics, leaving no alternative but to focus. They moved directly from class to personal tutoring sessions and mandatory study hall. Football was the lone outlet, and anybody who missed a scheduled activity was not allowed to participate. Back in the barracks, where two security guards kept watch, the lights went out at 10 p.m. every night. "Man, this is jail," Bright told Hargrave head coach Robert Prunty. Still, he earned sergeant stripes, becoming perhaps the largest platoon leader in military history, and ran the yard like a Philadelphia street tough. His teammates were afraid to go near him, unsure when he might lash out to reinforce the lessons in intimidation he dished out in practice. "Hargrave could really tear you down," says Jonathan Meldrum, who later played offensive tackle for Syracuse. "It was like a prison movie without the shower scenes." Cadets called the school "The Grave," because it felt like being buried alive. Even if they could sneak off campus, the whole town would recognize a cadet on the lam. Like soldiers, the cadets found comfort in camaraderie. Some nights the barracks would echo with music while postgrads played cards and drank ice-cold sodas. Sometimes Alaeze and Bright would debate which city was tougher, Philadelphia or Baltimore, and Alaeze would quietly brag that his friends ran with the Bloods. More often, the guys would lie still and listen as Powe told Mississippi stories and Mincey rumbled with the deep, easy laughter of a kindred spirit. Chatham offered few temptations, but road games were another story, and Hargrave was the visitor 10 times that year. Bright would shout in the locker room, pumping up his teammates before leading them out of the tunnel. Hargrave beat Fork Union Military Academy, Louisburg Junior College, and twice destroyed Bridgewater College, a top-20 D-III team. They played junior varsity squads from Army, Navy, and West Virginia. Kentucky formed a JV team from the bench, just to bring Hargrave to town. Head coach Rich Brooks stalked the sidelines during the game, and Mincey thought he recognized some starters among the Wildcats' offensive linemen. Afterwards, Brooks crossed the field to shake the hands of the Hargrave Four, like every other coach that season. "All these cats wanted me," Bright says. But the best part came after the games, when the courtship overran the confines of the field. Somebody bought the Four a gallon of gin in Morgantown. At Virginia Tech — where the varsity kicker sealed a one-point Hokies victory with a late 51-yard field goal — several home team starters invited Mincey and Alaeze to a party. Fans were even more persistent, tracking the Four down at the hotel, banging on their doors just begging them to switch college teams. And there were girls, lots of them. Groupies would sneak in and stalk the halls, calling out for each by name. "They thought they had made it. Some of the guys already thought they were in the NFL." A sincerely religious man, Coach Prunty tried to keep things under control, but it was like trying to steer a river. "They were like rock stars," Prunty says. "They thought they had made it. Some of the guys already thought they were in the NFL." His staff would stay up all night, fending off the interlopers, and sending disappointed young women home. On a brisk Tuesday that December, about 400 college coaches came to the Hargrave combine, a popular recruiting stop. They drooled watching the four young messiahs work out — prospects with the talent to save a defense, turn a program around, maybe earn the coach a raise. Mincey ran the 40 in 4.65 seconds. Alaeze tossed up 26 reps on the 225-pound bench press. Powe flashed a 26-inch vertical leap, while Bright busted a feline-quick 4.54-second shuttle. Back in the barracks, Bright and Powe talked about how easy life would be once they got to the NFL. "I just knew for sure," Powe says, "we all were going to be there one day." A few days later, Bright walked away from Hargrave and never came back. He was the first, but less than two years later, only one of the Hargrave Four was on a college football roster. The Good Soldier Justin Mincey hits Tim Tebow during a 2008 game. (Getty Images) Justin Mincey hits Tim Tebow during a 2008 game. (Getty Images) Outside the stadium in Tallahassee, a bronze Bobby Bowden statue points into some vague distance — the future, maybe. Upstairs, in July 2007, Justin Mincey walks into a plush conference room, cool with air conditioning. He is muscular, but not strikingly so. Wearing shorts and a Seminoles T-shirt, he settles into a soft chair overlooking the practice field. Every few minutes, an assistant SID stops at the door to make sure my questions cause his player no discomfort. FSU runs a serious football program. They take good care of you, I say, asking. Yes sir, Mincey says, with a broad grin. He is a young man who says yes sir and no sir, even to reporters, and follows directions. He has no idea how much trouble that will get him into. Mincey grew up in Folkston, Ga., a town of 2,178 near the Okefenokee Swamp. Sixty trains pass through every day, and the median household income is under $22,000. Somehow, that makes it a football town. NFL players Boss and Champ Bailey, who just signed with the New Orleans Saints, both came from Folkston. Still, back at Charlton County High School, Mincey says his older brother was even better than Champ was. No kidding? No sir. Before long, Justin became the big name. Fast off the edge and 6'5, he earned a reputation for batting down passes. Opposing fans chanted his name, begging him to choose Georgia, but he didn't even feel like the big dog on his own team. He was still the little brother. At Hargrave, he blended in, getting along with everybody. "That was the best line," he says. "I wish we could've stayed together in college. We would've won the national championship." Mincey kept his head down at Hargrave, passed his classes, improved his SAT score, and in 2006 went on to FSU, just as he was supposed to. Bowden's former dynasty had faded, from spectacular to merely solid. The recruiting class of 2005 offered hope, with Bright and two other five-star recruits as well as Mincey, who was rated 65th overall. Bright's personal havoc could anchor an aggressive defense, freeing speed players like Mincey to rush off the edge. But after leaving Hargrave, Bright never made it to FSU, and nobody seemed to know where he had gone. I asked Mincey if he had heard anything. No sir, he said. When Bright didn't show up, that changed everything. It left the roster thin at defensive tackle, so the coaches asked Mincey to move inside. Money was tight back home. His father did tractor work, and his mother built sewing machines, or she had until the factory closed down. He was grateful for his scholarship, which covered $16,439 in annual out-of-state tuition along with other fees and expenses, like books, housing, and meals. "Paying school," he says, "I wouldn't be in school." Yes sir, he said. The coaches asked Mincey to gain weight, sacrificing his greatest asset, his speed and agility. The leaders of the FSU coaching staff in 2007: Jimbo Fisher, Bobby Bowden, Mickey Andrews. (Getty Images) The coaches asked Mincey to gain weight, sacrificing his greatest asset, his speed and agility. His target was 30 pounds of new muscle, and by the summer of 2007 he was about halfway there. There was no telling how the weight would affect his play or what stresses it might put on his body, but he trusted his coaches. Yes sir, he said. Now a sophomore, Mincey was ready to fight for some playing time. More important, he was carrying a 3.2 GPA. He beamed as he announced it, proud as a little kid. His favorite class, he said, was Music Cultures of the World, a course an academic adviser strongly suggested he take. Yes sir, he said. Later, the tutor handed him a binder containing test answers. Yes sir. That September, the school conducted an internal investigation into the music course and found proof of cheating. Three football players were suspended for at least one game, including a sophomore defensive end who missed the entire season. That made room for Mincey to get on the field, but that year the Seminoles played under a dark cloud. They managed a 6-6 record, just good enough for the Music City Bowl, before the scandal broke wide open. According to the NCAA Infractions Committee, three FSU staff members — an academic adviser, a learning specialist, and a tutor — caused 61 student-athletes to cheat between 2004 and 2007. Citing the school for "failure to monitor" its employees, the NCAA imposed four years of probation, vacated victories, and cut scholarships in baseball, softball, football, basketball, swimming, track and golf. "Everybody knew what was going on," Mincey says. "The academic adviser signed us up. They put you in and nothing was said, just go do the class. It was the same thing, freshman and sophomore year. Our department had everybody in that one class." Mincey paid the penalty. He was suspended from the bowl game, which FSU lost to Kentucky, 35-28, along with about two dozen teammates, and from four more games in 2008. His name was tainted, but he kept working and returned as a 270-pound nose guard. Starting four games, he forced a fumble and got a few tackles behind the line, but his performance never lived up to his promise. Then, as a senior, carrying all that added weight, he blew out his left knee — "tore everything around the ACL," he says. This was his last chance, so he accelerated his rehab and returned for five pedestrian games before re-injuring the same knee. Mincey, the fourth-best defensive end prospect in America entering college, was not invited to the 2010 NFL Scouting Combine. The Hype Man Callahan Bright tosses aside future first-round pick Eugene Monroe at a football camp in 2005. Callahan Bright tosses aside future first-round pick Eugene Monroe at a football camp in 2005. For Callahan Bright, the future was written in dollar signs. Before his senior year at Harriton High School in Lower Merion, Pa., ESPN called him the nation's top prospect, a young Warren Sapp who could also play offensive guard. At age 17, he and others at Harriton High saw his name projected as the top overall pick in the 2009 NFL draft. "These guys see something in me that they don't see in a lot of people," he remembers thinking. "I got to take advantage of it." Bright was the second son of a working-class single mom in Bryn Mawr, Pa., a Philadelphia suburb surrounded by manor estates. Home was a rented duplex on Warner Avenue, a patch of affordable housing along the main drag, but with friends like the sons of then-Eagles head coach Andy Reid, he knew what money looked like. Posting on urbandictionary.com, he sarcastically wrote that in order to attend Harriton, "one must own an Abercrombie and Fitch store." Brash and rebellious, he spoke too loud in class, lied about his age to get summer jobs, and took a stolen golf cart on a joyride. "He played the game as intense as you can play it. He played like he wanted to hurt somebody." Whatever got him sent to Glen Mills, a court-adjudicated reform school, is sealed in his juvenile records, but in two years there he made the power-lifting team and wrestled in the state tournament. After transferring to Harriton as a junior, he lifted every weight in the gym at once — he could reportedly bench 400 pounds and squat 700 — so the school bought more weights. He paid them back, playing lacrosse and football, taking turns at halfback, fullback, linebacker, long snapper, kicker, and on both lines of scrimmage — whatever it took to win. "He played the game as intense as you can play it," said former Harriton coach Harold Smith. "He played like he wanted to hurt somebody." Bright's aggression, as much as his athleticism, carried him up the recruiting charts. At the Elite College Combine, he tore through offensive tackle Eugene Monroe, who later became a first-round NFL draft pick and recently signed a $37.5 million deal with the Baltimore Ravens. "Words don't do justice just how impressive Bright looks from a physical standpoint," Rivals wrote after that summer's NIKE Camp in Virginia, where he went unblocked in drills. More than 50 schools offered him football scholarships. To make sure nothing got in the way, Bright met with Smith every morning at 6:30 to practice for the SAT. School was slow and frustrating. Struggling with ADD and ADHD, Bright learned best in the resource room, a smaller class that allowed hands-on interaction with the teacher. In any case, he didn't have much taste for it. School was simply an obstacle to overcome so he could play football. College looked like more of the same, but that was the system, so he tried to play along. "We want to play football for a living," Bright says. "That's how you make it." Despite the presence of Bright, Harriton lost every game that fall by an average of 28 points. Ejected from the second game and suspended for another after an altercation with an opposing player, Bright seethed. There had long been rumors of violence: that he broke a kid's back in wrestling; that he threw a punch at a park, putting the other guy in a coma; that he fought with fans after a football game. When he sat the last four games, new rumors kicked up — something about choking a teammate. Bright says some of his teammates threatened to quit if Smith let him play. "He had to sit me down," Bright says. "I probably got mad and cracked somebody at practice. Typical. Cause if I get mad, I'm just going to hurt somebody on the field." ESPN reported that he had been expelled. The Army All-American Bowl rescinded Bright's invitation, but he only dropped a few spots in the rankings. Then his SAT score came back: 750. Not good enough for the algorithm. With only a 2.5 GPA, he would have to improve his SAT to 820. Coaches at Florida State suggested he spend the next year at Hargrave. They didn't expect him to walk away and fall off the map. A few years after Bright left, I walked the streets of Bryn Mawr and called dead phone numbers. I interviewed officials at Harriton High School. I found Smith at another school. He gave me a number. Either it didn't work or Bright refused to call back. I even tried the Eagles, hoping Reid could give me a lead, but heard nothing. I checked local court records and discovered Bright had been charged with attempting to sell marijuana. On the promise of a rumor in the spring of 2008, I called the dorms at Shaw University, a traditionally black college in Raleigh, N.C., with a D-II football program, and asked for him. The phone went silent for several minutes, then a booming voice came on. "This is Cal," he said. A few weeks later, Bright lumbered into the resident assistant's office and sprawled over a plastic chair. His thighs were trees under gray sweats, his belly bulging against a white T-shirt. He spoke of new study techniques that were making school easier — like reading a chapter two weeks before the test, instead of just skimming it the night before — but his purpose was clear. "I'm not furthering my education," he said. "I'm here to get tape, to play football, to go to the league." "I'm not furthering my education. I'm here to get tape, to play football, to go to the league." Bright filled in the blanks. After a semester at Hargrave, he repeated the SAT, but his score jumped so high, it was red-flagged for further review by the NCAA. He could have waited to see the results. If the NCAA refused to accept the score, he could have taken the test again. But he had no time for such nonsense. The "league" was waiting, and if he couldn't get to Tallahassee by January, he didn't see the point of trying again. So he went home, looking for the quickest way around the system. First, he tried junior college. With an associate's degree, he could transfer anywhere, and he'd never have to see a lousy SAT booklet again. In 2006, he played spring ball at Butler Community College, a football factory on the Kansas plains, then quit school before the semester ended. He flirted with the Canadian Football League, then turned to Arena Football. "The NFL? Screw it," he says. "I'll go out and make 40 grand, 'cause I don't have a dollar right now." He impressed in workouts for the New York Dragons and Philadelphia Soul, but wasn't signed. The coaches told him to go back to school. So Bright enrolled at Delaware County Community College, just to prove he was serious. The school had no football program, so he joined the Conshohocken Steelers, a team of weekend warriors in a pay-to-play league. Most games, he got penalized for at least one late hit. But again, something went wrong, and he quit school before the semester ended. "Who would do anything that's not working for them?" he asks. "Why keep robbing a bank if you get caught every time?" Even as Bright rode the back of a garbage truck — earning $24 an hour, with full benefits for him and his infant son, Xavier — junior college coaches kept calling Harriton, looking for him. His Conshohocken teammates pushed him to revive his career, if only for their sake. One suggested Shaw University, said he knew a coach there. In July 2007, Bright sold an unspecified amount of marijuana to an undercover cop, who later told me about an unusual condition of bail, based on Bright's troublesome history. The judge ordered him to stay at Shaw, except for holiday visits home. That year, even after he didn't qualify to play or practice, Bright did not quit. Now, his booming voice fills the drab dorm office. The bare white walls need painting but Bright is still optimistic about the future, promising six sacks in a game that fall, and 30 or 40 on the year. His palms sweat as he talks, getting amped for the upcoming 2009 NFL draft. "If I can't get into the first [round], I'll get into the second," he says. "I can walk into the third. Right now, after (LSU's) Glenn Dorsey, I'm the best D-tackle in the nation." Then he walks out, moving like a caged, exhausted tiger. His bluster falls flat against cold white tile. Bright finally qualified to play in 2009, recording 48 tackles, 7.5 for loss, and exactly one half-sack — good enough to make the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association All-Rookie team, but not the kind of dominant performance he expected. He needed more time to train, to get back in shape and practice against top competition. But Shaw University was not like FSU. Sometimes, the gym was closed, and Bright found the food and the coaching subpar. "Not making it to Florida State made everything twice as hard," he says. "I would've been getting top-of-the line training, nutrition [at FSU]. It's structured for you to be successful. A school like Shaw, they don't have the means." Again, Bright walked away. He hired an agent, spent a few months training for the 2010 NFL Draft, and told a thumbnail version of his story to Sports Illustrated. At NC State's pro day, he put up first-round numbers, benching 41 reps at 225 pounds, flashing 5.02 speed, with superior splits at 10 and 20 yards, all at 343 pounds. Still, he faced long odds. The NFL drafts only one in 50 FBS players — about 1.7 percent — and even fewer from smaller schools. Football is a buyer's market, and NFL teams can afford to be selective. Bright's phone didn't ring, not during the draft, and not after. "A couple background checks came back not too clean," he says. "Legal was extra strict this year, is the kind of feedback I was getting." He wasn't the only one bucking against the system and coming up short. The Beautiful Mind Jerrell Powe chases after LSU QB Jordan Jefferson during a 2009 game. (Getty Images) Jerrell Powe chases after LSU QB Jordan Jefferson during a 2009 game. (Getty Images) The decision came down without a name attached to it after some desk worker at an office in Iowa City or Indianapolis reviewed the file. In 2006, Jerrell Powe had the numbers to meet NCAA academic standards, with a 2.54 GPA and a score of 18 on the ACT. But his transcript didn't look right, not to that desk worker. His scores and grades had improved too much, too fast. There is no presumption of innocence at the NCAA Clearinghouse, no constitutional guarantee of due process. A letter came telling Powe his eligibility was denied. That's not how folks do business down in Waynesboro, Miss., a town of 5,000 near the Alabama border where Powe was raised. That's not to say things are perfect. His father was not around. His mother, who worked 12-hour shifts at the hospital, barely had the time to question whether the third of her four children belonged in special education. As reported by Bruce Feldman in "Meat Market," his chronicle about a college football recruiting season, the Wayne County School District dropped Powe into that category when he was in second grade, then let him pass for 10 years on D's and F's. There's no telling where Powe would be today if a teammate's father, Joe Barnett, a real estate appraiser, had never intervened. Powe was already on his way to becoming a Parade All-American when Barnett walked him from coaches to teachers, asking why has this boy been forgotten? Doctors diagnosed Powe with mild dyslexia, ADHD, and difficulty processing information in group settings. Yet his memory tested at the 92nd percentile. There was no excuse for a child with these attributes to get lost in the system. With meds and individual attention, they determined he could learn just fine. Barnett pushed for a tutor to help Powe to catch up. Ginny Crager, a 65-year-old teacher of gifted students, volunteered, only to discover that Powe, a senior, was reading on a second-grade level. Crager helped Powe become a fifth-grade reader within a year, but qualifying with the NCAA was another matter. The learning disability entitled him to have a reader during the ACT, and his score jumped 50 percent, from 12 to 18. Still, he had too many D's and F's on his transcript to qualify. Ed Orgeron, head coach at Ole Miss, suggested he take online courses from Brigham Young University to make up the difference. First at Wayne County High, and later at Hargrave, Powe signed up for 14 courses from BYU, scoring four A's and nine B's. It was too late for him to graduate with his class, but it would compensate for the nine classroom courses he had failed. "I found new techniques," he says. "I became a more efficient note taker. I felt comfortable going into tests. I felt like any other student." Confident, Powe joined Ole Miss for voluntary workouts in summer 2006. One day, Feldman wrote, he ran 16 straight 110-yard sprints in that southern heat, passing guys who were 100 pounds smaller. Then, on Aug. 25, the NCAA Clearinghouse turned Powe down, citing the difference between classes and his online work. "It was devastating," he says. "So many [other] guys took those same correspondence courses. Not one got declined." Powe sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act, causing a media firestorm that burned his family. A reporter quoted his mother saying Powe was "a good child, but he just can't read." The statement wasn't true — not exactly, and certainly not anymore — but it made a perfect sound bite, depicting Powe as an athlete out to fleece the system. Changing tack, he dropped the suit and decided to try again, re-enrolling at Wayne County High. "It all made me a better person," he says. "Just to humble myself, to handle my business, and be more serious, school-wise." "I knew what I wanted in life. This was what I had to do to get there." Barnett helped Powe get a job at the county jail, eight bucks an hour to feed the inmates, clean the occasional mess, and man the reception desk, where he did homework on the office computer. By spring 2007, he had retaken every class once ruled unacceptable. His attorney kept Ole Miss and the NCAA informed at each step. "I didn't think I was wasting my time," he says. "I knew what I wanted in life. This was what I had to do to get there." This time, Powe's application didn't even reach the Clearinghouse. After all that negative publicity, Ole Miss wanted to be sure before risking a scholarship — and possible NCAA sanctions down the road. So they offered to let Powe attend school on financial aid, but not join the team until he had proven he could perform in class. "It was a moral slap in the face to Jerrell," Barnett says. "Misunderstandings about his intellectual abilities had to cast a long shadow. Those decisions were made far on the side of caution." In fall 2007, Powe attended every home game as a student and a fan, but it was hard to watch. The Rebels struggled to win three games, as opposing offenses averaged 423 yards. "I got sad on game day," Powe says. "I wanted to be out there." Orgeron's vision for a swarming defense, built around Powe, his prototype D-tackle, never took shape. He had gambled on Powe's academics, and lost. He was fired that November. Shortly after Houston Nutt was introduced as Orgeron's replacement, he sat in his new office with Powe and Barnett. Nutt was a straight shooter. He wanted Powe, but not at the 384 pounds he now weighed. After two years without a camp, without two-a-days or summer workouts, he couldn't do 10 push-ups or 10 sit-ups. Nutt put him on a workout regime, three times a day, working him down to 312, and called Barnett five times a week to keep tabs on him, checking in so often the two men stopped bothering with formalities. One afternoon in July 2008, Barnett answered the phone and snarled, "Now what?" A few minutes later, he was driving at full speed to the Wayne County High School gym where Powe was playing pick-up basketball. "Jerrell," Barnett said, "you need to get on the phone." Powe wiped away sweat, expecting to hear some TV reporter, not his new coach. "Done deal," Nutt said. "Nobody deserves this more than you." Powe was back on the team. Tears welled in the big man's eyes. He wrapped Barnett in a bear hug. "I felt like the world had been lifted off my back," Powe says. He went to Oxford that night, just to be around the team. Football shape doesn't happen overnight, in a gym, or on a hardwood floor. Powe brought back that old Hargrave discipline, going to the gym every morning at 5:30 for 20 solitary minutes on the elliptical machine, then back for another 20 minutes after team workouts. "It's hard to work as hard on your own," he says. "Just look at Muhammad Ali, when he went to jail. He couldn't dance no more when he came back. It takes a toll on your body." He played 12 games that fall, learning from SEC competition and finding his legs. Jerrell Powe participates in drills during the 2011 Combine, where he ran a disappointing 5.25 40-yard dash. (Getty Images) As a junior in 2009, Powe started 10 games at nose tackle, fronting a ferocious defense that spent more time in the offensive backfield than any other in the SEC. He notched 12 tackles-for-loss, earning second-team All-SEC honors as Ole Miss went 9-4 overall. The Rebels forced seven turnovers in the Cotton Bowl, holding Oklahoma State to 259 yards on offense, and Powe even took a turn in the offensive backfield. Football was fun again. Fans called him "The Land Shark." He felt like he could dance. With a year to go, Mel Kiper called Powe the second-best defensive tackle in the 2011 draft. Mocks placed him in the top 15. If the stories felt familiar, Powe didn't give them much weight. "Every time I hit a stumbling block, I knew there was going to be another one." He was right. The Rebels were awful in 2010, finishing 4-8, just 2-6 in the SEC. The defense was worse, ranked 81st in the country and 11th of 12 in the conference. Often double-teamed, Powe still posted 8.5 TFLs and 2.5 sacks as team captain, but his stock fell. Then, at the NFL Scouting Combine, he ran the 40-yard dash in 5.25 seconds - two tenths slower than his younger self. Suddenly, Powe looked like a third-round talent. It came three years late, when he was almost 25 — another strike against him. The Chiefs picked him in the sixth round of the 2011 draft, six long years after Hargrave, then discovered a long-broken bone in his wrist, an injury he suffered while at the military school. "They said it was sprained," Powe says. "We only had one trainer. Imagine that little helper trying to take care of 60 guys." Two surgeries repaired the wrist, but Powe rarely saw the field in Kansas City. He was released and re-signed twice by the Chiefs in 2013, but played only sparingly before being cut loose at the end of his third season. The Inner Child Melvin Alaeze (Scout.com) Melvin Alaeze (Scout.com) The bedroom waits in Baltimore, unchanged. A dark television stares down a silent stereo. Musty walls hold family photos, news articles, and a flyer from Maryland. Terps: Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking. In the basement of a quiet brick home on a cul-de-sac in Parkville, a quiet suburb, it feels like a museum, or a monument. On the queen bed, two boxes spill out greeting cards, personal notes, and countless scholarship offers from schools like USC, Florida and Penn State. "I was ready for the big time," Melvin Alaeze writes, in tight, controlled letters. "I just had a monkey or two on my back that slowed me down." He hasn't slept here since he was arrested on Jan. 12, 2007. The arrest confused Dinma and Theresa Alaeze. Each had left Nigeria seeking education. They met in Baltimore, where both earned multiple graduate degrees. They wanted the same for their American son, and Melvin was a good boy, a smart kid who treated adults with respect. When basketball coaches recruited him out of junior high, athletics seemed like his ticket to college. Angling for the perfect situation, the Alaezes moved him from public to private school and back again, crisscrossing the city. He ended up at Randallstown High, a public school in what seemed a quiet corner of Baltimore County. Physically, Alaeze blossomed, with unfathomable speed for his size. As a senior playing wherever the coach put him, he racked up 110 tackles, 18.5 sacks, 30.5 TFLs, 351 rushing yards, 17 catches for 257 yards, eight touchdowns, and a 40-yard punting average. The Rams went 6-5, but he saved one victory with four straight sacks to run out the clock. His coach, Albert Howard, worried about some of his "questionable associations," but the recruiters that came every day met a polite young man who said all the right things. Alaeze favored USC or Virginia Tech until his father, Dinma, chose Maryland for him. But first, he had to recover some core credits. The NCAA defines its own core, which often differs from high school graduation requirements or college admissions standards, confounding students and counselors alike. For Alaeze, transferring between schools made it even more complicated and he came up short. At Hargrave, he stayed mostly on the sidelines of the rock-star tour. "He didn't get caught up in all that," Coach Prunty says. Prunty would often wake after road games to find Alaeze reading the newspaper over a hotel breakfast, dwelling on finance or international news. Privately, the coach wondered if Alaeze loved the game. "Melvin was kind of to himself. He didn't socialize. He didn't talk about sports." Even the other cadets found Alaeze hard to read, almost gentle yet with something mysterious, even a little menacing, under the surface. He would buck the rules in practice, knowing the whole team would have to run for it. "I don't know why he wasn't as focused as he needed to be, or if the system got to him first," Powe wonders. "Maybe he had issues with regimentation." Meldrum found Alaeze kind and respectful, until he flashed a different side during a trip to Virginia Tech. "[There] he was more thug," he says. "Maybe he felt like he had something to prove. Like he wasn't soft." Football couldn't stop his downward spiral. The student medical center diagnosed him with clinical depression. Alaeze had no trouble qualifying for college after Hargrave, but by then academics weren't his issue. Back in Maryland in January 2006, he was arrested on marijuana possession and charged with five related crimes following a traffic stop. A passenger took the blame and Alaeze walked, but the damage to his career was done. The Terrapins pulled his scholarship. Maybe they also saw the Facebook photos that startled Coach Howard, Alaeze flashing gang signs for the world. Few wanted him now, so when second-year Illinois head coach Ron Zook took a chance and offered a scholarship, Alaeze jumped at it. He went to camp in August 2006, enrolled in school, and played in two games — enough to start his four-year eligibility clock — but football couldn't stop his downward spiral. He missed class. He showed up late for practice and meetings. The student medical center diagnosed him with clinical depression. What happened next is a matter of discrepancy. Either Alaeze left the team or Zook sent him home to seek treatment. Neither Zook nor his relevant assistants have responded to interview requests. Either way, Alaeze was in no condition to help on the field, so Illinois had no use for him. He was discarded. Back home in Baltimore, Alaeze went through intensive outpatient care, nine hours each day his first week home. The doctor prescribed Wellbutrin, then doubled the dose when it did not help. Then he doubled it again, to 300 mg. Alaeze spent entire days in that basement bedroom, staring at walls with no windows. It didn't seem healthy, so Dinma suggested he get out of the house. In that condition, Alaeze got inked into the 79 Swan Bloods that November. He also started running with Caleese Thomas, a violent criminal who swore no known gang allegiance. On Dec. 24, Alaeze arranged a meeting with Princeton Macer, an alleged drug dealer, two miles from the high school where they became friends. He introduced Thomas at 3 a.m. on a cracked asphalt basketball court at the Brookhaven Estates apartment complex. Alaeze says he waited outside while Thomas and Macer entered an empty unit through the sliding glass door. Hearing two gunshots, he ran inside to find Macer facedown on the floor. He saw Thomas fire the .22 revolver again, then again, leaving Macer with a bullet in the face, one in the back, and two in the back of his head. According to court documents, Thomas handed Alaeze the gun and told him to watch the victim. "Baltimore's street life can get real gritty at times," Alaeze wrote later, "real chaotic." While Thomas went for Macer's car, a 1998 Buick, Macer was somehow able to stand. He told police that he fought himself free from Alaeze's grasp, then outran him, barefoot — robbed of two cell phones, $400 cash, and the blue Air Jordans he had been wearing. Anybody who has seen Alaeze play football can safely question that statement. A more plausible theory, and the lone redemptive point, is that Alaeze let Macer go, and probably saved the man's life to his own detriment. Survivors make good witnesses. Officers from the Baltimore County Police Department arrested Alaeze after a traffic stop on Jan. 13, 2007. He was driving a rental car with Thomas in the passenger seat and the gun on the floor behind him. Charged with attempted first-degree murder, first-degree assault, armed robbery, and eight other counts, Alaeze faced 25 years to life in prison. Under a plea bargain, he pleaded to assault and testified for the state, which dropped the remaining charges. He was hoping to get off with time served, but the judge handed down eight years. In Maryland, felons must serve at least half of their sentence without parole — enough to eclipse Alaeze's college football eligibility. Charged with attempted first-degree murder, Alaeze faced 25 years to life in prison. In 2009, there was still a sliver of hope that Alaeze might yet fulfill the promise that seemed so obvious at Hargrave. His parents, certain their son had been wronged, had already gone into debt and burned $50,000 on lawyers trying to find a way to appeal the sentence. Now they had found a believer, an ambitious rookie attorney, Andrew Ucheomumu, who filed a petition for post-conviction relief, asking an appeals judge to vacate the guilty plea. "I've been out of the loop for quite some time now and am anxious to make a major comeback," Alaeze wrote. "Not just in the sports world, but educationally as well, but most importantly, as an avid member of 'True Society.'" Branded a snitch after he testified against Thomas — who got 18 years for attempted murder — Alaeze faced retaliation in jail. Over and over, he defended himself in the yard. The fights got him moved from work camp to prison and finally to a supermax facility in rural Cumberland. That's where the letters came from, each written on a single sheet of paper. The handwriting was elegant, the language formal and almost florid, dotted with phrases from the street. After we began a correspondence, he asked about my career, my life, my favorite foods. His were pizza, pastas, and burgers. His favorite pastimes were "traveling, social gatherings, playing videogames, working out, and hanging out with beautiful women." Other letters were almost guarded. One day he sent two, the first one writing me off, the second apologizing for it. "Please disregard that most recent letter you have just received," he wrote. "My mind is everywhere and it's hard to receive professional help on the mental level in here. I'm lost and slowly still losing my mind." He ignored most of my questions, promising to tell all if we could ever meet in person. The warden's office denied a request for an interview, but when Alaeze appeared in court in July 2010, I booked a flight to Baltimore, eager to meet the last of the Hargrave Four. He shuffled into a modest courtroom. A smart charcoal suit hung loose at the shoulders. His hair was trim. With hands and feet shackled, he took slow, tiny steps toward the defense table, glancing back for a stolen moment. His parents watched with eyes wide, sure in the rightness of his cause, but Alaeze looked gaunt and vacant. At age 23, he stood before a Baltimore County judge, 50 pounds under his playing weight, believing that his attorney would prevail, and he would go home tonight, in time for one last theoretical season of football. Small colleges were still sending letters to his house. Ucheomumu, a Nigerian ex-pat hoping to one day run for his country's presidency, argued that Alaeze's original lawyer duped him into taking an unfavorable deal, and that the original judge failed to apprise him of the appeal rights he was waiving with a guilty plea. The objective of this hearing was a new day in court, but when the judge asked Alaeze if he understood the risk — that the attempted murder charge would be reinstated — he looked around the room, lost. When his attorney told him to say yes, he did. Soon the one-hour hearing devolved into a circus. Rather than focus on the legal technicalities in question, Ucheomumu attacked witnesses and ranted about corruption and injustice until the judge, visibly annoyed, called for a recess. She took ill over lunch, and then postponed her decision. Alaeze went back to prison. Later that night, in the Alaeze's basement, Theresa, his mother, stands in the doorway to Melvin's bedroom. Exhausted, she recalls an incident and wonders if it might explain something. Melvin played two sports as a freshman at Calvert Hall, a high school his parents could never afford without a scholarship. The football coach told him to bulk up, then the basketball coach turned on the boy, mocking his weight and calling him fat in front of his teammates. After school, Melvin would curl up on this bed and cry. Theresa didn't know what to do then, and now tears well up in her big, dark eyes as she looks into the past for some kind of answer. That November, halfway through Alaeze's last college-eligible football season, the judge finally denied the appeal. A month later, the letters stopped coming. Last Man Standing Jerrell Powe records a sack during a preseason game in 2013. (USA Today Images) Jerrell Powe records a sack during a preseason game in 2013. (USA Today Images) Sometime this summer, The Land Shark, Jerrell Powe, will plant a beefy fist into the turf at the Houston Texans' training camp and glare across the line. There will be no intimidation, no aura of destiny about him. There will be no books to read, papers to write, or tests to take, and no bureaucrats judging him from afar. There will be just the next play and a chance to prove that he belongs here, getting paid to play the sport his body was built for, and receive a fair wage for it. He knows that body is no longer enough. The competition is too fierce. He signed a one-year contract worth $645,000 last spring, with no bonuses and no guarantees. If he makes it, he'll line up next to Jadeveon Clowney, but there are others eager to take his place if he does not. Now, just to hang on, Powe needs sound technique and infinite persistence. He hears from Bright now and then, whenever the old platoon leader gets a new phone. Bright worked construction and spent a few years in arena football, bouncing from one team to another, still sure he'd find a way to prove he could be the best nose tackle in the NFL. "Write that down," he told me in 2011. This spring, in a brief phone conversation, he promised a story so amazing it would become a movie. But I could never get him on the phone again. Mincey played arena football, too, between gigs at a Folkston car wash. He recently announced his engagement on Facebook. He accepted a friend request, but then ignored messages and invitations to talk. I guess he's over it. None of them writes Alaeze, who is still imprisoned at the North Branch Correctional Institution, three years after he first became eligible for parole. I wonder if Powe or any of them remembers that play so long ago against North Carolina, or the murmur that rose from the crowd as fans recognized the deception, or the ease with which the Hargrave Four snuffed it out. Crowds came out for every game, shouting those four names. Scouts took notes in the stands, and even coaches on opposing sidelines leered in hope or envy. All shared the same unspoken prayer: Save me. Save my job. Save my career. Save the throwback jersey on which I have staked my self-respect. Back then, they all believed in the system. I wonder if they know just how common their stories are. At camp, when the ball moves, Powe will fire off the line, carrying his own weight and aware of his surroundings, eye on his opponent. He's the first kid from Wayne County ever drafted into the NFL, and he wants to make it home with tales of glory, stories he can tell on the porch into his old age, making the locals laugh. One mistake could end it all. He knows that now. Producer: Chris Mottram | Editor: Glenn Stout | Copy Editor: Kevin Fixler | Title Photo: Getty Images Getty Images |
For the past 16 years, the Japan-America Society of Washington has hosted a street festival for tens of thousands of people along Pennsylvania Avenue NW, coinciding with the National Cherry Blossom Festival each spring. But now that Trump International Hotel is preparing to open in the middle of the renowned corridor that connects the White House and U.S. Capitol, festival organizers say they need to relocate to the Capitol Riverfront in the Navy Yard neighborhood. Festivals, such as the Japanese culture street festival and Taste of D.C., have long blocked off all six lanes of the street in front of what was once the quiet Old Post Office Pavilion on the 1100 block of Pennsylvania Avenue NW. The Trump Organization, which plans to open the luxury hotel in September, arranged with the city to keep one lane open at all times so the hotel can operate its valet service. The all-valet-service hotel has a garage at 11th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW. The Trump Organization wants to ensure that during festivals, guests will still be able to drive to the hotel and a valet employee will be able to move their vehicles to the garage. Pennsylvania Avenue is closed to vehicles in this Sept. 24 photo as people walk to get through security to see Pope Francis. (Susan Walsh/AP) According to the deal it struck with the city, during street festivals, a 20-foot lane must be open in front of the hotel to allow for the flow of traffic. A barricade will separate festival-goers from cars entering the hotel property. One exception is during presidential inaugural parades, when all lanes will likely be closed to traffic. “The District has specific safety requirements for events and they have devised a plan with our input that is intended to keep event goers safe and allow the hotel to operate in a first class manner for our guests,” a Trump Hotels spokesman wrote in an email. Michael Czin, a spokesman for D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), said the administration of former mayor Vincent C. Gray negotiated the public usage space. Czin said Bowser’s Special Event Task Force Group would ensure safety at events along Pennsylvania Avenue. Most of the half-dozen or so events that shut down parts of Pennsylvania Avenue could still be held a few blocks away so they can use all six lanes for events. But April 16 — the day of the Japan-America Society of Washington’s street festival — is also the D.C. Emancipation Day parade, which plans to occupy part of Pennsylvania Avenue NW closer to the Capitol. [Trump’s ‘Coming 2016’ sign stays on federal building near White House] Organizers of the Japanese festival say it attracted 45,000 people last year, and the loss of 20 feet to the Trump Hotel would make it too small a space to accommodate vendors and attendees. Although the Trump International Hotel won’t be open in time for this year’s festival, Marc Hitzig, the executive director of the Japan-America Society, said he had to plan the event long before the hotel’s opening date was known. Hitzig says he thinks the new location will suit the festival, but he wants to ensure that people know to travel to the Navy Yard area for this year’s event. “Where we were on Pennsylvania Avenue was right next to the [National Cherry Blossom Festival Parade]. It was an energy that we both worked together to develop and having the parade and street festival near each other really helped a lot,” Hitzig said. “It would be nice to be near the parade, however, if you jump on the Metro, the new location is only three Metro stops.” Read more: Protesters want Trump’s name removed from D.C. building How the Trumps landed the Old Post Office Pavilion |
Everyone wants to know whether Jeb Bush can survive his support for Common Core and comprehensive immigration reform in today's Republican Party. One deal-breaker that might surprise people, though: His opposition to gay marriage. NBC News and Marist College are out with a batch of new 2016 primary polls. And as you might expect, Common Core, immigration reform, belief in man-made climate change and support for raising taxes on the wealthy are among those with the potential to alienate lots of conservatives. But according to the polls, so does opposition to gay marriage -- an issue on which Bush agrees with basically every other candidate. The polls, in fact, show that about half of likely GOP caucus and primary voters in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina said they find opposition to gay marriage either "mostly" or "totally" unacceptable in a candidate. Fifty-two percent of likely Republican primary voters in New Hampshire and South Carolina said opposing gay marriage is either mostly or totally unacceptable, while 47 percent of likely Iowa caucus voters agree. By comparison, 63 percent of Iowa voters say belief in man-made climate change (and fighting it) is unacceptable, 56 percent of New Hampshire voters say raising taxes on the wealthy is a non-starter, and 52 percent of South Carolina voters say support for comprehensive immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship is a deal-breaker on one level or another. Voters in all three states find a candidate who supports gay marriage to be about as amenable as one who doesn't toe the party line on any of these issues. And while the numbers are surprising, they make some sense. A Pew poll conducted in March 2014 showed 39 percent of Republicans and Republican leaners supported gay marriage. Add the passage of time and the fact that non-Republicans can vote in New Hampshire and South Carolina, and you've got a potentially less anti-gay marriage electorate come next year. There's also the possibility that the poll question confused some people. Asking people about gay marriage opposition rather than support for it brings double-negatives into the picture, possibly confusing some poll respondents. And people are more apt to respond in the negative when in doubt. But it's also pretty clear from this and other polls that there are a growing number of Republicans who support gay marriage. So does it all mean we'll see a GOP presidential candidate in 2016 come out in support of gay marriage? Probably not. While there are some supporters of immigration reform (see: Bush and Marco Rubio) and Common Core (Bush) in the group, the name of the game is alienating as few people as possible. You also have to wonder just how much of a deal-breaker gay marriage support is. The poll asked about opposition to gay marriage -- not support -- so it's a little harder to suss out just how many people would vote against a candidate who supports gay marriage. We're guessing it's still more of a voting issue for those who oppose gay marriage than those who support it -- at least on the GOP side. (For what it's worth, though, between 25 and 31 percent of likely GOP voters in each state say opposing gay marriage is "totally unacceptable" -- a number that is on-par with all of these other issues.) And then there's the matter of nobody wanting to be the first candidate to stick his or her neck out. But regardless, it's fascinating that this many likely Republican primary and caucus voters in the earliest states (especially socially conservative ones like Iowa and South Carolina) say they find opposition to gay marriage being unacceptable. And it's a sign of just how quickly this country -- and even the GOP -- is moving toward embracing it. Updated at 8:03 a.m. |
ROUGH CUT (NO REPORTER NARRATION) STORY: U..S. President Donald Trump assailed a woman TV news host in highly personal terms on Thursday, calling her "crazy" and alleging she had been bleeding at one point from a facelift, in a Twitter attack that drew strong criticism including from fellow Republicans. Trump, who often decries what he calls "fake news" in the American media and who this week attacked CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post, took fierce aim on Thursday at the hosts of the MSNBC program "Morning Joe," Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. The Republican president called Brzezinski, a journalist and daughter of former White House national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, "low I.Q. Crazy Mika" and said she was "bleeding badly from a face-lift" when she visited one of his properties around New Year's Eve. He referred to former Republican U.S. congressman Scarborough as "Psycho Joe." Trump is known for his prolific Twitter habit, which includes mocking attacks on critics and rivals, but his tweets on Thursday drew a particularly strong response. "It's a sad day for America when the president spends his time bullying, lying and spewing petty personal attacks instead of doing his job," MSNBC's communications office said on Twitter. The "Morning Joe" program aired live telephone interviews with Trump during the 2016 presidential race, but its hosts have turned increasingly critical of him since he took office in January. On Thursday morning's show, Brzezinski excoriated the Trump administration and said its officials should not act "lobotomized" because they are so scared of the president. Comcast Corp owns NBCUniversal, MSNBC's parent company. Republican lawmakers and others sharply rebuked Trump. The tweets "represents what is wrong with American politics, not the greatness of America," said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, while another Republican senator, Ben Sasse, called Trump's remarks "beneath the dignity of your office." "I don't see that as an appropriate comment," Republican House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said of Trump's tweets. |
Last Friday the National Catholic Reporter reported that Cardinal Blase Cupich had invited Fr. James Martin, S.J. to offer two nights of Lenten reflections at Chicago’s Holy Name Cathedral. This is news? It’s news because, as many of you will know, a week earlier Martin was disinvited from speaking at Catholic University’s Theological College and a couple of other places, thanks to a campaign by what we might call the Catholic Alt-Right — specifically the websites Church Militant and Father Z. “Homosexualist James Martin to Address DC Seminary Alumni,” ran the headline on Church Militant’s August 18 story. Martin (“known for his advocacy of same-sex genital acts and transgender ideology”) put himself in the crosshairs by daring to publish a book that urges a nicer, more accepting relationship between the Catholic Church and the LGBT community. The horror, the horror! So Theological College decided to pull the plug on the lecture, not because it agreed with Martin’s critics but because “increasing negative feedback from various social media sites” might mar the school’s centennial celebration with “distraction and controversy.” Score: Alt-Right Vigilantes 1, Catholic University 0. Except maybe not exactly Catholic University 0. In its account of the disinvitation, America, the venerable Jesuit magazine for which Martin has long worked, noted — with a subtlety some might call Jesuitical — that Theological College “originally said the decision was made ‘after consulting with [Catholic] University and archdiocesan advisers.'” It then proceeded to quote from a statement from the university throwing the seminary under the bus. After pointing out that Martin had spoken on campus the year before, the statement said, “We regret the implication that Catholic University supported yesterday’s decision.” There followed a quote from University president John Garvey that began by lamenting pressure on universities “from the left” to withdraw speaker invitations. “It is problematic,” said Garvey, “that individuals and groups within our Church demonstrate this same inability to make distinctions and to exercise charity.” It could be asked why Garvey, as head of the whole Catholic U. operation, didn’t simply arrange for the invitation to be reinstated. Likewise, the disappearance of any mention of an implied go-ahead from “archdiocesan advisers” fell well short of the Archdiocese of Washington or its cardinal archbishop weighing in directly. Perhaps this should be put down to the hallowed Catholic principle of subsidiarity. In any event, a full-blown teapot tempest ensued, with news coverage in the New York Times and Washington Post, plus defenses of Martin from San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy on the left and Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput on the right. Cupich’s pointed invitation was merely the icing on a cake of some fairly serious pushback. But such religious vigilantism will not stop, neither in the Catholic Church nor elsewhere. And in every case, there’s a family resemblance. Take Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Commission, nearly lost his job for angering Trump enthusiasts in his denomination by presuming to criticize the Republican presidential nominee during last year’s presidential campaign. His board stood up for him but, it appears, not without his agreeing never to criticize Trump again by name. Then there’s David Myers, a UCLA historian recently named president and CEO of the Center for Jewish History in New York City, who’s been attacked by alt-right Jewish vigilantes for being too left-wing on Israel. The pushback on behalf of a first-rate scholar has been substantial, but as my RNS colleague Jeffrey Salkin bitterly puts it, the war is only the most recent example of “McCarthyism with a smear of cream cheese” in the American Jewish community. Meanwhile, on Sunday, a bunch of traditionalist Catholics, including no less than the head of the schismatic Saint Pius X Society, issued a “filial correction” of Pope Francis, charging him with seven counts of heresy relating to his readiness to permit divorced and remarried Catholics access to the Eucharist. Call it McCarthyism with a smear of holy oil. |
This article is over 2 years old Supporters of jailed opposition leader Zhirair Sefilyan are holed up after storming police building in capital Yerevan Pro-opposition gunmen locked in a protracted standoff with police in the Armenian capital Yerevan have taken four medical staff hostage, officials said, after a shootout left five people wounded. Two doctors and two nurses were held after entering a police compound seized by the assailants 10 days ago to treat two gunmen injured in clashes. “The doctors who went into the captured territory to assist two members of the armed group who refused to go to hospital have been taken hostage,” police spokesman Ashot Aharonyan said. “The police are taking steps to free the doctors through negotiations.” Facebook Twitter Pinterest Supporters of the opposition demand the resignation of Armenia’s president, Serzh Sarkisian. Photograph: Hayk Baghdasaryan/EPA A health ministry spokesman said later that one of the nurses had been freed. “Three other health professionals, two doctors and a nurse, are still being held,” he said. Gunmen – supporters of jailed opposition leader Zhirair Sefilyan – stormed a police building in Yerevan on 17 July, killing one officer, taking several more hostage and seizing a store of weapons. Over the weekend they released the final four police officers being held captive but remained holed up inside the police building surrounded by law enforcement officers. The group has demanded the resignation of the ex-Soviet nation’s President Serzh Sarkisian and the release of Sefilyan. The lengthy standoff has shaken the tiny Caucasus republic and sparked clashes between police and protesters furious over the handling of the incident. Sefilyan – the leader of a small opposition group named the New Armenia Public Salvation Front – and six of his supporters were arrested in June accused of preparing to seize government buildings and telecoms facilities in Yerevan. Armenian police clash with demonstrators as hostage stand-off continues Read more A fierce critic of the government, he was previously arrested in 2006 over calls for “a violent overthrow of the government” and jailed for 18 months. He was released in 2008. Sarkisian, a pro-Russian former military officer, has been president of the country of 2.9 million people since winning a vote in 2008 that saw clashes between police and supporters of the defeated opposition candidate in which 10 people died. |
Star Trek actor Wil Wheaton was harassed by the TSA yesterday, after taking a flight from LAX. He tweeted about his misery yesterday, saying, “I got groped so aggressively by TSA at LAX just now, I never want to fly again. Not even my doctor touches my junk that much. Fuck you, TSA.” Afterward, he said, “I’m so angry right now, I could punch someone. I don’t feel safer. I feel violated and humiliated. Fuck you, TSA.” He added, “Dear travelers: today, you are safe from my deadly, dangerous, sinister balls. You’re welcome.” Ugh, these people. Stop touching our junk! Update by Stephen VanDyke. @wilw has a further announcement: “Let me stop this rumor before it gets out of control: I’m not suing the TSA. I’m going to talk to a lawyer about my experience. That is all.” The rubber glove has been slapped across Wil’s junk, will he be a champion for the fourth amendment or will he take his tender testicles and stay out of the anti-TSA fight? I’m sure he’ll keep you posted. |
The Canadian government has mapped out the specific process for creating a so-called “bail-in” regime for the country’s biggest banks aimed at keeping taxpayers off the hook in the unlikely event of a bank failure. The bail-in structure, framed by the Department of Finance and complemented by new loss-absorbency guidelines from Canada’s main bank regulator, is part of a global response to the financial crisis of 2008. The banks will have to begin making changes next year but they will have until November of 2021 to reorganize their balance sheets to accommodate the new rules. Analysts expect the impact on bank earnings and the cost of capital to be minor. Converting debt As opposed to a bailout, in which an outside agency such as the government provides financial assistance to a bank that is deemed non-viable, a bail-in involves automatically converting certain debt securities into regulatory capital to stabilize the financial institution. Beginning in 2018, all unsecured long-term senior debt issued by Canada’s largest banks — those that are deemed systemically important domestically — will be convertible into equity should a bank need to be “resolved” or unwound, according to David Beattie, a senior vice-president in the financial institutions group at Moody’s Investors Service. “There is no requirement for incremental capital,” he said. “There may be a slight spread premium for the new bail-in debt when issued.” On Friday, about a year after the government passed bail-in legislation, the proposed bail-in regulations were released for a 30-day comment period. At the same time, and open to the same comment period, Canada’s main banking regulator, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI), proposed a total loss absorbing capacity (TLAC) guideline for the banks. The latter is intended to ensure banks are prepared — through a combination of regulatory capital and the new convertible debt — to absorb losses and minimize any spread to the rest of the financial sector if they need to be recapitalized. Guidelines in place According to Beattie, the big banks should be able to meet OSFI’s new loss absorbency guidelines by 2021 “through an orderly rolling over of existing senior debt as it matures.” Brian Klock, an analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, said he believes Canada’s banks will go beyond the regulatory requirements and maintain buffers of 100 basis points above the minimum total loss absorbency ratio of 21.5 per cent, and 50 basis points above the minimum leverage ratio of 6.75 per cent. According to his analysis, the banks will have to increase their total loss absorbency capacity by $138.8 billion, and will do the bulk of that through refinancing current senior debt with what is known as non-viable contingent capital — another form of convertible securities. The balance would be done through issuing new senior debt that qualifies under the bail-in regime. “We assume the newly refinanced and newly issued qualifying debt could carry a rate 50 bps (basis points) above current rates for similar debt,” Klock wrote in a note to clients, adding that this could dilute the banks’ estimated earnings per share in fiscal 2018 by 1.3 per cent to 1.5 per cent. The federal government previously stated that bank deposits would be protected from any bank recapitalization and would not be subject to the bail-in regime. In a note to clients, lawyers at Torys LLP said holders of bail-in debt would receive more common shares per dollar of claim than holders of subordinated debt and preferred shares in the unlikely event of an actual bail-in. This would be consistent with prior claims in the hierarchy of claims, according to the note. Meanwhile, any shareholder or creditor who wound up in a worse financial position as a result of a bail-in than they would have been in if the major bank had instead been subject to a “resolution power” of the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation (CDIC) would be entitled to compensation from the CDIC, the lawyers wrote. |
The X Files‘ Dana Scully is officially back to work, but she almost slept through her alarm clock. “It feels like it’s been a long time since I’ve played her,” says Gillian Anderson of her role in Fox’s hotly anticipated, six-episode revival of the sci-fi franchise. “I can’t remember what year the movie was, but it felt like [Scully] was further away from me than I’d thought she would be. But I’ve also worked really hard at putting her entirely to sleep, so that was successful; she’s just taken longer to wake up.” Anderson has only seen the first two revival scripts — the third is sitting in her inbox, she admits — and while the experience has been a good one, it’s also “strange to be back here,” she says. “This is a lot of flashbacks, a lot of deja vu, a lot of remembering dynamics — and it’s… a thicker substance to wade through than I’d thought.” Asked to describe the season premiere in three words, Anderson takes a long pause. “‘Slow.’ ‘Intense.’ And it’s setting groundwork, so it’s got a particular role to play. It does exactly what it needs to do. What’s a single word for fulfilling that requirement? ‘Functional’? ‘Appropriate’? ‘Functional’ works,” she says with a hearty laugh. “Slow, intense and functional!” As for Agent Scully herself, Anderson — who is a regular on NBC’s Hannibal this season — giggles that “She’s older! She aged!” since we last saw her. Beyond that, though, it’s “tricky” to pinpoint how the iconic woman of science has evolved. “Anything I say is going to sound like something you’re not going to want to watch. But that’s not the case,” the actress promises. “It’s just… I don’t even know. That’s a hard one. I appreciate the question, but I can’t answer it.” The X-Files returns to Fox on Sunday, Jan. 24, 2016. In addition to Anderson and David Duchovny (as Fox Mulder), cast members Mitch Pileggi and William B. Davis, series creator Chris Carter, and writers-producers Glen Morgan, James Wong and Darin Morgan will be on hand for the event series. Do Anderson’s teases have you more excited to discover whether the truth is out there? Sound off in the comments! |
Look, maybe it’s nothing. Maybe, when Justin Trudeau told Le Devoir that “if we’re going to change the electoral system, people have to be open to it,” he meant to suggest nothing more than respect for the public’s wishes — no bad thing, in a democracy. Maybe when he explained how he was “not going to prejudge” what level of support would be required — how a small change would require less support, while “a bigger change, that would take more support” — he was only articulating standard democratic principle: the bigger the change, the broader the consensus that is needed. That’s why, for example, constitutional amendments require not just the support of Parliament, but also the provincial legislatures. And maybe, when he offered the observation that the public’s appetite for reform seems to have waned since the election — how “under Mr. Harper, there were so many people who were upset with the government and his approach that people were saying ‘it takes electoral reform to no longer have a government we dislike,’ ” whereas “now that they have a government with which they are more satisfied … the motivation to want to change the system is less compelling” — maybe he was simply stating a fact. On the other hand, maybe he’s up to something. Politicians, the successful ones at any rate, are not often in the habit of saying things without a reason. Even if — especially if — what comes out of their mouths is the most anodyne truism (children are our future … the Earth is our home …), there’s usually a point. And the point many people are taking from Trudeau’s comments is that he is backing away from his promise to reform the electoral system. If, after all, you were preparing to renege on one of the central promises in your platform, a black-letter pledge (“2015 will be the last federal election conducted under the first-past-the-post voting system”) that allowed no possible room for weaselling, would you not begin by suggesting it was not your own support for the idea that had wavered, but the public’s? Or, if you were trying to steer the discussion towards some less-than-real reform, something that could be presented as change but that did not begin to meet your oft-stated commitment to “make every vote count” — something like ranked ballots, Trudeau’s original preference and the option widely held to be most favourable to the Liberals — would you not try to plant the idea that this was the only reform that could pass muster with the public? Or, if you had decided to kill reform outright, but did not want your fingerprints to be found at the scene, would it not be convenient to hand the murder weapon to the public? Would you not discover a desire for some tangible expression of the “substantial support” for reform Trudeau now regards as essential, his own election on precisely that platform no longer being sufficient? Might you then reluctantly accede to demands for, say, a referendum? Who can say? Trudeau’s intentions are as opaque as his comments were ambiguous. But if he wants to allay suspicions that he is trying to pull a fast one, he should at least say as much; that he has thus far declined to do so — in question period, he did not directly respond to Tom Mulcair’s accusation that he was “backing away from his solemn promise to Canadians” — is alarming, to say the least. Understand that this was no ordinary promise, not only because of the unusually forthright language in which it was expressed, but because junking one electoral system for another is, by definition, a big change. Trudeau has, it is true, no mandate for any particular model of reform, but he absolutely has a mandate for reform. He should clarify whether, in musing about the “motivation” for reform being “less compelling” now that his blessed self is in power, he is describing the public’s opinion or his own I say mandate, not in the sense of a majority — for the Liberals, like the Conservatives before them, like every majority government but one since 1958, took a majority of the seats with the support of a minority of the voters — but in the sense that that was the offer they made to the public. Regardless of how many people voted for the Liberals expressly on that basis, it was part of the deal, a pitch to NDP-leaning voters, a display of the Liberals’ progressive credentials: that’s why it was in the platform. The prime minister should immediately make clear, then, whether the promise is still in effect, or whether, having safely delivered the Liberals into power, the status quo is now back on the table, if not the only item on it. Otherwise many voters may conclude that they have once again, as they have on so many previous occasions, been had; that “this will be the last election under FPTP” was only the new “zap, you’re frozen.” At the same time, he should clarify whether, in musing about the “motivation” for reform being “less compelling” now that his blessed self is in power, he is describing the public’s opinion or his own. For to argue, as the Liberals have done, that the system that elected Stephen Harper with the support of just 39 per cent of the voters was unfair and unrepresentative, only to argue that the same system was made miraculously fair and representative by virtue of having elected the Liberals — with the same support — is the kind of hypocrisy that would be fully deserving of former NDP leader Ed Broadbent’s description of it: outrageous. |
Oil! Our secret god, our secret sharer, our magic wand, fulfiller of our every desire, our co-conspirator! Can't live with it, can't – right at this moment – live without it. But it's on everyone's mind. Back in 2009, as fracking and the mining of the oil/tar sands in Alberta ramped up – when people were talking about Peak Oil and the dangers of the supply giving out – I wrote a piece called "The Future Without Oil." It went like this... The future without oil! For optimists, a pleasant picture: let's call it Picture One. There we are, driving around in our cars fuelled by hydrogen, or methane, or solar, or something else we have yet to dream up. Goods from afar come to us by solar-and-sail-driven ship, or else by new versions of the airship, which can lift and carry a huge amount of freight with minimal pollution and no ear-slitting noise. Trains have made a comeback. So have bicycles, when it isn't snowing (but maybe there won't be any more winter). We've gone back to small-scale hydropower, using fish-friendly dams. We're eating locally, and even growing organic vegetables on our erstwhile front lawns, watering them with grey-water and rainwater, and with the water saved from using low-flush toilets. We're using low-draw lightbulbs and energy-efficient heating systems, including pellet stoves, radiant panels, and long underwear. "Heat yourself, not the room," is no longer a slogan for nutty eccentrics: it's the way we all live now. Join Independent Minds For exclusive articles, events and an advertising-free read for just £5.99 €6.99 $9.99 a month Get the best of The Independent With an Independent Minds subscription for just £5.99 €6.99 $9.99 a month Get the best of The Independent Without the ads – for just £5.99 €6.99 $9.99 a month Shape Created with Sketch. In pictures: Changing climate around the world Show all 15 left Created with Sketch. right Created with Sketch. Shape Created with Sketch. In pictures: Changing climate around the world 1/15 Greenland Calved icebergs from the nearby Twin Glaciers are seen floating on the water in Qaqortoq, Greenland 2/15 Iran Oroumieh, one of the biggest saltwater lakes on Earth, has shrunk more than 80 percent to 1,000 square kilometers in the past decade. It shrinks mainly because of climate change, expanded irrigation for surrounding farms and the damming of rivers that feed the body of water 3/15 Greenland A boat navigates among calved icebergs from the nearby Twin Glaciers in Qaqortoq, Greenland. Boats are a crucial mode of transportation in the country that has few roads. As cities like Miami, New York and other vulnerable spots around the world strategize about how to respond to climate change, many Greenlanders simply do what theyve always done: adapt. 'Were used to change, said Greenlander Pilu Neilsen. 'We learn to adapt to whatever comes. If all the glaciers melt, well just get more land 4/15 Norway The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is seen after being inaugurated in Longyearbyen, Norway. The 'doomsday' seed vault built to protect millions of food crops from climate change, wars and natural disasters opened deep within an Arctic mountain in the remote Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard 5/15 France A technician preparing to drain a vast underground lake at the Tete Rousse glacier on the Mont Blanc Alpine mountain, to avert a potentially disatrous flood. Some 65,000 cubic metres (2.3 million cubic feet) of water have gathered in a cavity, dangerously raising the pressure beneath the mountain, a favourite spot for holiday makers in Saint-Gervais-les-Bains 6/15 Switzerland Cracked mud is picture at sunrise in the dried shores of Lake Gruyere affected by continuous drought near the western Switzerland village of Avry-devant-Pont. A leading climate scientist warned that Europe should take action over increasing drought and floods, stressing that some climate change trends were clear despite variations in predictions 7/15 USA Cattle graze on grassland that remains dry and brown at the height of the rainy season in south of Bakersfield, California. Its third straight year of unprecedented drought, California is experiencing its driest year on record, dating back 119 years, and dating back as far as 500 years, according to some scientists who study tree rings 8/15 Pakistan An aerial view shows tents of flood-displaced people surrounded by water in southern Sehwan town. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) executive secretary Christiana Figueres met with people displaced by last year's devastating floods. Catastrophic monsoon rains that swept through the country in 2010 and affected some 20 million people, destroyed 1.7 million homes and damaged 5.4 million acres of arable land 9/15 Australia An aerial view of flooding in North Wagga Wagga. Climate change is amplifying risks from drought, floods, storm and rising seas, threatening all countries but small island states, poor nations and arid regions in particular, UN experts warned 10/15 Honduras Damages caused by a landslide on the Pan-American highway near La Moramulca, 55 Km south of Tegucigalpa. International highways have been washed out, villages isolated and thousands of families have lost homes and crops in a region that the United Nations has classified as one of the most affected by climate change 11/15 Indonesia A resident sprays water on a peatland fire in Pekanbaru district in Riau province on Indonesia's Sumatra island. Indonesia, an archipelago of 17,000 islands, is one of the world's biggest carbon emitters because of rampant deforestation. US Secretary of State John Kerry Sunday issued a clarion call for nations to do to more to combat climate change, calling it 'the world's largest weapon of mass destruction' 12/15 Indonesia An excavator clearing a peatland forest area for a palm oil plantations in Trumon subdistrict, Aceh province, on Indonesia's Sumatra island. As Southeast Asia's largest economy grows rapidly, swathes of biodiverse forests across the archipelago of 17,000 islands have been cleared to make way for paper and palm oil plantations, as well as for mining and agriculture. The destruction has ravaged biodiversity, placing animals such as orangutans and Sumatran tigers in danger of extinction, while also leading to the release of vast amounts of climate change-causing carbon dioxide 13/15 Bangladesh Stagnant rain water with tannery waste make the Hazaribagh area in Old Dhaka as well as Buriganga River the most polluted. Each year during the seven-month long dry season between October and April the Buriganga River becomes totally stagnant with its upstream region drying up and becoming polluted from toxic waste from city industries 14/15 Bangladesh Waste water from Dhaka city drained to the River Buriganga contributes to its pollutions. On the World Water Day observed in 2007 under the theme Coping with Water Scarcity, under the leadership of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, DrikNEWS explores some of the images of the river. UN-Water has identified coping with water scarcity as part of the strategic issues and priorities requiring joint UN action. The theme highlights the significance of cooperation and importance of an integrated approach to water resource management of water at international, national and local levels 15/15 China Heavy smog has been lingering in northern and eastern parts of China, disturbing the traffic, worsening air pollution and forcing the closure of schools. China's Environment Ministry said it will send inspection teams to provinces and cities most seriously affected by smog to ensure rules on fighting air pollution are being enforced 1/15 Greenland Calved icebergs from the nearby Twin Glaciers are seen floating on the water in Qaqortoq, Greenland 2/15 Iran Oroumieh, one of the biggest saltwater lakes on Earth, has shrunk more than 80 percent to 1,000 square kilometers in the past decade. It shrinks mainly because of climate change, expanded irrigation for surrounding farms and the damming of rivers that feed the body of water 3/15 Greenland A boat navigates among calved icebergs from the nearby Twin Glaciers in Qaqortoq, Greenland. Boats are a crucial mode of transportation in the country that has few roads. As cities like Miami, New York and other vulnerable spots around the world strategize about how to respond to climate change, many Greenlanders simply do what theyve always done: adapt. 'Were used to change, said Greenlander Pilu Neilsen. 'We learn to adapt to whatever comes. If all the glaciers melt, well just get more land 4/15 Norway The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is seen after being inaugurated in Longyearbyen, Norway. The 'doomsday' seed vault built to protect millions of food crops from climate change, wars and natural disasters opened deep within an Arctic mountain in the remote Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard 5/15 France A technician preparing to drain a vast underground lake at the Tete Rousse glacier on the Mont Blanc Alpine mountain, to avert a potentially disatrous flood. Some 65,000 cubic metres (2.3 million cubic feet) of water have gathered in a cavity, dangerously raising the pressure beneath the mountain, a favourite spot for holiday makers in Saint-Gervais-les-Bains 6/15 Switzerland Cracked mud is picture at sunrise in the dried shores of Lake Gruyere affected by continuous drought near the western Switzerland village of Avry-devant-Pont. A leading climate scientist warned that Europe should take action over increasing drought and floods, stressing that some climate change trends were clear despite variations in predictions 7/15 USA Cattle graze on grassland that remains dry and brown at the height of the rainy season in south of Bakersfield, California. Its third straight year of unprecedented drought, California is experiencing its driest year on record, dating back 119 years, and dating back as far as 500 years, according to some scientists who study tree rings 8/15 Pakistan An aerial view shows tents of flood-displaced people surrounded by water in southern Sehwan town. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) executive secretary Christiana Figueres met with people displaced by last year's devastating floods. Catastrophic monsoon rains that swept through the country in 2010 and affected some 20 million people, destroyed 1.7 million homes and damaged 5.4 million acres of arable land 9/15 Australia An aerial view of flooding in North Wagga Wagga. Climate change is amplifying risks from drought, floods, storm and rising seas, threatening all countries but small island states, poor nations and arid regions in particular, UN experts warned 10/15 Honduras Damages caused by a landslide on the Pan-American highway near La Moramulca, 55 Km south of Tegucigalpa. International highways have been washed out, villages isolated and thousands of families have lost homes and crops in a region that the United Nations has classified as one of the most affected by climate change 11/15 Indonesia A resident sprays water on a peatland fire in Pekanbaru district in Riau province on Indonesia's Sumatra island. Indonesia, an archipelago of 17,000 islands, is one of the world's biggest carbon emitters because of rampant deforestation. US Secretary of State John Kerry Sunday issued a clarion call for nations to do to more to combat climate change, calling it 'the world's largest weapon of mass destruction' 12/15 Indonesia An excavator clearing a peatland forest area for a palm oil plantations in Trumon subdistrict, Aceh province, on Indonesia's Sumatra island. As Southeast Asia's largest economy grows rapidly, swathes of biodiverse forests across the archipelago of 17,000 islands have been cleared to make way for paper and palm oil plantations, as well as for mining and agriculture. The destruction has ravaged biodiversity, placing animals such as orangutans and Sumatran tigers in danger of extinction, while also leading to the release of vast amounts of climate change-causing carbon dioxide 13/15 Bangladesh Stagnant rain water with tannery waste make the Hazaribagh area in Old Dhaka as well as Buriganga River the most polluted. Each year during the seven-month long dry season between October and April the Buriganga River becomes totally stagnant with its upstream region drying up and becoming polluted from toxic waste from city industries 14/15 Bangladesh Waste water from Dhaka city drained to the River Buriganga contributes to its pollutions. On the World Water Day observed in 2007 under the theme Coping with Water Scarcity, under the leadership of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, DrikNEWS explores some of the images of the river. UN-Water has identified coping with water scarcity as part of the strategic issues and priorities requiring joint UN action. The theme highlights the significance of cooperation and importance of an integrated approach to water resource management of water at international, national and local levels 15/15 China Heavy smog has been lingering in northern and eastern parts of China, disturbing the traffic, worsening air pollution and forcing the closure of schools. China's Environment Ministry said it will send inspection teams to provinces and cities most seriously affected by smog to ensure rules on fighting air pollution are being enforced What will we wear? A lot of hemp, I expect: hemp is a hardy fibre source with few pesticide requirements, and cotton will have proven too costly and destructive to grow. We might also be wearing a lot of recycled tin foil – keeps the heat in – and garments made from the recycled plastic we've harvested from the island of it twice the size of Texas currently floating in the Pacific Ocean. What will we eat, besides our front-lawn vegetables? That may be a problem – we're coming to the end of cheap fish and there are other shortages looming. Abundant animal protein in large hunks may have had its day. However, we're an inventive species. When push comes to shove we don't have a lot of fastidiousness: we'll eat anything as long as there's ketchup. And looking on the bright side: obesity due to over-eating will no longer be a crisis, and diet plans will not only be free, but mandatory. That's Picture One. I like it. It's comforting. Under certain conditions, it might even come true. Sort of. Then there's Picture Two. Suppose the future without oil arrives very quickly. Suppose a bad fairy waves his wand, and poof! Suddenly there's no oil, anywhere, at all. Everything would immediately come to a halt. No cars, no planes; a few trains still running on hydroelectric, and some bicycles, but that wouldn't take very many people very far. Food would cease to flow into the cities, water would cease to flow out of the taps. Within hours, panic would set in. The first result would be the disappearance of the word "we": except in areas with exceptional organisation and leadership, the word "I" would replace it, as the war of all against all sets in. There would be a run on the supermarkets, followed immediately by food riots and looting. There would also be a run on the banks – people would want their money out for black market purchasing, although all currencies would quickly lose value, replaced by bartering. In any case the banks would close: their electronic systems would shut down, and they'd run out of cash. Having looted and hoarded some food and filled their bathtubs with water, people would hunker down in their houses, creeping out into the backyards if they dared because their toilets would no longer flush. The lights would go out. Communication systems would break down. What next? Open a can of dog food, eat it, then eat the dog. Then wait for the authorities to restore order. But the authorities — lacking transport — would be unable to do this. Other authorities would take over. These would at first be known as thugs and street gangs, then as warlords. They'd attack the barricaded houses, raping, pillaging and murdering. But soon even they would run out of stolen food. It wouldn't take long for pandemic disease to break out. It will quickly become apparent that the present world population of six and a half billion people is not only dependent on oil, but was created by it: humanity has expanded to fill the space made possible to it by oil, and without it would shrink with astounding rapidity. As for "the economy", there won't be one. Money will vanish: the only items of exchange will be food, water, and most likely – before everyone topples over – sex. Picture Two is extreme, and also unlikely, but it exposes the truth: we're hooked on oil, and without it we can't do much. And since it's bound to run out eventually, and since cheap oil is already a thing of the past, we ought to be investing a lot of time, effort and money in ways to replace it. Unfortunately, like every other species on the planet, we don't change our ways unless necessity forces us. We're also self-interested: unless there are laws mandating conservation of energy, most won't do it, because why make sacrifices if others don't? In business, the laws of competition mean most corporations will extract maximum riches from available resources with not much thought to the consequences. Why expect any human being or institution to behave otherwise unless they can see clear benefits? In addition to Pictures One and Two, there's Picture Three. In Picture Three, some countries plan for the future of diminished oil, some don't. Those planning now include – not strangely – those that don't have any, or don't need any. Iceland generates over half its power from abundant geothermal sources. Germany is rapidly converting, as are a number of other oil-poor European countries. They are preparing to weather the coming storm. Then there are the oil-rich countries. Of these, those who were poor in the past, who got rich quick, and who have no resources other than oil are investing the oil wealth they know to be temporary in technologies they hope will work for them when the oil runs out. But in countries that have oil, but have other resources too, such foresight is lacking – though it does exist in one form. As a Pentagon report of 2003 put it, "Nations with the resources to do so may build virtual fortresses around their countries, preserving resources for themselves." (That's already happening: the walls grow higher and stronger every day.) Still, long-term planning is mostly lacking. Biofuel is largely delusional: the amount of oil required to make it is larger than the payout. Some oil companies are exploring other energy sources, but by and large they're simply lobbying against anything and anyone that might cause a decrease in consumption and thus their profits. It's gold-rush time, and oil is the gold, and short-term gain outweighs long-term pain, and madness is afoot. My own country, Canada, is rich in oil, a lot of it in the Athabasca oil sands, where mining licences are sold to anyone with the cash, and CO2 is poured into the atmosphere, not only from the end product but in the course of its manufacture. Also used in its manufacture is an enormous amount of water – mostly from the Athabasca River, which is fed by a glacier. But due to global warming, glaciers are melting fast. When they're gone, no more water, and thus no more oil from oil sands. Maybe we'll be saved – partially – by our own ineptness. But we'll leave much destruction in our wake. First stop, the oil sands. Next stop, the planet. If we don't start aiming for Picture One, we'll end up with some version of Picture Two. So hoard some dog food, because you may be needing it. It's interesting to look back on what I wrote about oil in 2009, and to reflect on how the conversation has changed in a mere six years. Much of what most people took for granted back then is no longer universally accepted, including the idea that we could just go on and on the way we were living then, with no consequences. There was already some alarm, but those voicing it were seen as extreme. Now their concerns have moved to the centre of the conversation. Here are some of the main worries. Planet Earth – the Goldilocks planet we've taken for granted, neither too hot or too cold, neither too wet or too dry, with fertile soils that accumulated for millennia before we started to farm them – is altering. The shift towards the warmer end of the thermometer – once predicted to happen much later, when the generations now alive had had lots of fun, made lots of money, gobbled up lots of resources, burned lots of fossil fuels and then died – are happening much sooner than anticipated. In fact, now – and here are three top warning signs. First, the transformation of the oceans. Not only are these harmed by the warming of their waters, there is also increased acidification due to CO2 absorption; the ever-increasing amount of oil-based plastic trash and toxic pollutants pouring in; and the overfishing and destruction of marine ecosystems and spawning grounds by bottom-dragging trawlers. Most lethal to us – and affected by all of these – would be the destruction of the blue-green marine algae that created our present oxygen-rich atmosphere 2.45 billion years ago, and that continue to make the majority of the oxygen we breathe. If the algae die, that would put an end to us, as we would gasp to death like fish out of water. A second sign is the drought in California, said to be the worst for 1,200 years. This is now in its fourth year and mirrored by droughts in other western US states, such as Utah and Idaho. The snowpack in the mountains that usually feeds the water supplies in these states was only three per cent of the norm this winter. It's going to be a long, hot, dry summer. The knock-on effect on such things as the price of fruit and vegetables has yet to be calculated, but it will be extensive. As drought conditions spread elsewhere, we may expect water wars as the world's fresh supply is exhausted. A third sign is the rise in ocean levels. There have already been some noteworthy flooding events, the most expensive in North America being Hurricane Katrina, and the inundation of lower Manhattan at the time of Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Should the predicted rise of one to two feet take place, Florida stands to lose most of its beaches, and the city of Miami will be wading. Many other low lying cities around the world will be affected. This result, however, is not accepted by some of the politicians who are supposed to be alert to the welfare of their constituents. The present governor of Florida, Rick Scott, is said to have issued a memo to all state employees forbidding them to use the terms "climate change" and "global warming," because he doesn't believe in them (though Scott has denied this to the press). I myself would like to disbelieve in gravitational forces, because then I could fly. Makes sense: you can't see gravity, seeing is believing – and when you've got your head stuck in the sand, you can't see a thing, right? This trick originates in worries about the future, and the bad things that may happen in that future; also the desire to deny these things or sweep them under the carpet so business can go on as usual, leaving the young folks and future generations to deal with the mess and chaos that will result, and then pay the bill. Because there will be a bill: in money and human lives. The laws of science are unrelenting, and they don't give second chances. In fact, that bill is already coming due. There are many other effects, from species extinction to the spread of diseases to a decline in overall food production, but the main point is that these effects are not happening in some dim, distant future. They are happening now. And in response to our growing awareness, there have been some changes in public and political attitudes (though not universal). Some acknowledge the situation, but shrug and go about their lives taking a "What can I do?" position. Some merely despair. But only those with their heads stuck so firmly into the sand that they're talking through their nether ends are still denying that reality has changed. For everything to stay the same, everything has to change," says a character in Giuseppe di Lampedusa's 1963 novel, The Leopard. What do we need to change to keep our world stable? One way is to devise more efficient ways of turning sunlight into electrical energy. Another is to make oil itself – and the CO2 it emits – part of a cyclical process rather than a linear one. Oil, it seems, does not have to come out of the ground, or to have pollution as its end product. There are many smart people applying themselves to these problems, and many new technologies emerging. On my desk right now is a list of 15 of them. Some take carbon directly out of the air and turn it into other materials, such as cement. Others capture carbon by regenerating degraded tropical rainforests – a fast and cheap method – or sequestering carbon in the soil by means of biochar, which has the added benefit of increasing soil fertility. Some use algae, which can also be used to make biofuel. One makes a carbon-sequestering asphalt. Carbon has been recycled ever since plant life emerged on earth; these technologies and enterprises are enhancing that process. And meanwhile, courage! Homo sapiens sapiens sometimes deserves his double plus for intelligence. Let's hope we are about to start living in one of those times... This is an edited version of an article originally published in English in Matter, a publication on Medium |
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