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May 13, 2017 marked the 100th Anniversary of the miraculous apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary to three shepherd children of Fatima, Portugal. On that day, Pope Francis canonised two of the little seers, Francisco and Jacinta Marto, which makes them the youngest non-martyred saints of the Catholic Church. However, what was supposed to be a joyous celebratory canonisation Mass was filled with sombre omens. (Image: AP Photo/Armando Franca) (Right image: more official images unveiled May 8 by the Sanctuary during a news conference for the canonisation 2017, which are even darker than the ones on the basilica.) The official canonisation pictures of the two children are dark, disturbingly so, and they are holding lamps, a reference to the parable of the wise virgins waiting for the Master to come, who will also “search Jerusalem with lamps” during a time of disbelief. (Sophonias 1:12) It is a passage of the coming Judgement. Is this a sign to be vigilant, a sign of Dark Days ahead when the Master visits the earth unexpected with His Justice? her right hand has turned black, (notice the close up), while the rest of the statue was perfectly white. All my years in Fatima, I've never seen the statue like this, it always stays white especially as it was cleaned not too long ago for the Anniversary. As she has said to other visionaries and mystics of the Church, she is getting tired of holding up the arm of her Son from visiting the earth with His Justice. The statue of Our Lady above the altar on the Holy Rosary Basilica never gets blackened like the other statues, (since mould is a big problem in Portugal), but at the Mass, it was clear for all to see the top and outer edge of, (notice the close up), while the rest of the statue was perfectly white. All my years in Fatima, I've never seen the statue like this, it always stays white especially as it was cleaned not too long ago for the Anniversary. As she has said to other visionaries and mystics of the Church, she is getting tired of holding up the arm of her Son from visiting the earth with His Justice. (Close up below, thank you to Tigga Wild on Twitter for use of the photo.) : a huge black /brownish stone block surrounded by six black stone candle holders and black seat for the main celebrants. The candles are set so low it appears as though black candles were burnt for the Mass. The strange thing: the original plans showed a white altar, white podium and white seats, but this was changed, a 3D model had it in gold, but this switch to a 'Black Cube' altar is startling. It was as if they were hiding what they planned to do regarding the altar itself and unleashed it on an unsuspecting public at the last minute. we cannot help but see a strange connection with the Illuminati 'Black Cube of Saturn' cult . Yes, occultists believe in such a thing. Pope Francis himself also wore a very dark pallium with black crosses, and this for the joyous occasion of the Fatima Anniversary and the canonisation of two children? The whole ceremony was so dark and sombre, compared with the outdoor canonisations that take place in Rome! (Image below: Paulo Novais/Pool Photo via AP) The most shocking element is the new outdoor altar specially built for the occasion of the Anniversarywe cannot help but see a strange connection with theYes, occultists believe in such a thing. (Read more about it here.) Pope Francis himself also wore a very dark pallium with black crosses, and this for the joyous occasion of the Fatima Anniversary and the canonisation of two children? The whole ceremony was so dark and sombre, compared with the outdoor canonisations that take place in Rome! Image below, notice again the black altar and the black candles down the sides. AP Photo/Armando Franca) The 'crucifix' above the altar has an ugly 'floating' modern figure of Christ completely detached from the cross as though He were 'resurrecting' or ascending already. Christ is not crucified on the cross, they have depicted Our Lord levitated in mid air away from the cross , and as Bishop Fulton J. Sheen so ominously predicted, one of the signs of the last times will be the rise of a 'church without a cross', a false church emptied of all Divine content, Christ's sufferings will be eliminated. ( In all, it looked like a 'Black Mass' was being offered, or at the very least, a 'Death Mass' for the Church as we once knew it. Other ominous signs in Fatima: (Picture of the 'Fleshy' Christ and the 'Match Stick' Christ.) The Trinity 'Church' ~ the 'Bull Ring' as one local disgruntled vandal described it on a poster here in the parish church. You don't need me to tell you this building looks nothing like a Catholic church. It's one huge spiritless community hall without a Tabernacle, complete with blasphemous depictions of a fleshy Christ on the cross inside, and I think a statue of Our Lady, no one seems to know what it is. Outside, there is a huge, featureless 'matchstick Christ', while the traditional Penitential Pathway that pilgrims make on their knees was also cut exactly in half when this 'church' was built, it is half the length it once was. Remember, Bishop Sheen warned of church without a suffering Cross or penance, a sign of the last days. I bet most people don't know that the Sanctuary Committee had planned to knock down the original Holy Rosary Basilica after the Trinity Church monstrosity was built, but the people complained and that was dropped. They also had planned to move the children's bodies to a modern chapel underground at the Trinity Church, but the people also protested and this too was dropped for now. but the people complained and that was dropped. They also had planned to move the children's bodies to a modern chapel underground at the Trinity Church, but the people also protested and this too was dropped for now. (Images: the steel square monstrance in the modern Adoration Chapel. All the underground chapels look like this, white and clinical.) The underground chapels connected with the Trinity Church are a scandal, completely devoid of edifying decorations save a tiny modern crucifix, a statue of Our Lady of Fatima (the only pretty holy object there), and a box in the corner for a Tabernacle. The walls are dead plain, these chapels are more clinical than a hospital ward, and let's not get into the horrible monstrance used in the Perpetual Adoration chapel ~ a steel square suspended from the ceiling, while the giant jewelled monstrance donated by the Irish is stuck in a museum along with all the other beautiful chalices and ornaments for the altar donated from around the world. They've all become museum pieces while the most plain insipid chalices I wouldn't stick on my kitchen table are used for all the Masses. And here is the paganish plain silver modern monstrance that was used at the Blessing of the Sick and Benediction during the Canonisation Mass May 13, 2017 compared with the giant solid gold and jewelled Irish Monstrance now in a museum, (image below): It seems they cannot find enough ways to introduce as much ugly modern art into the Sanctuary as they can, the perpetual Nativity scene is horrific, and so is the one they trot out for Christmas at the Trinity Church. (Image Right: Trinity Church nativity scene. Image below, perpetual Nativity scene in the outdoor Sanctuary). UPDATE: This is the most recent 'Nativity Scene' in the Holy Rosary basilica (December 2017): giant stick figures carved from tree trunks that look like something out of a primative pagan cult. On top of that, the basilica was practically left undecorated! You would never know it was Christmas in there. Before, they used to do 'something', hang a few curtains over the doors and a large 'photograph nativity' with the baby Jesus that looked slightly more traditional, but this year was a right flop. This is the most recent 'Nativity Scene' in the Holy Rosary basilica (December 2017): giant stick figures carved from tree trunks that look like something out of a primative pagan cult. On top of that, the basilica was practically left undecorated! You would never know it was Christmas in there. Before, they used to do 'something', hang a few curtains over the doors and a large 'photograph nativity' with the baby Jesus that looked slightly more traditional, but this year was a right flop. the beautiful mosaic Stations of the Cross were removed from inside, and they have not been returned. We have no idea where they are, or if they will be put back. The marble altar rails were also taken out last year and a red string was put in its place, not even a decent looking 'theatre rope' was used. The modern altar featuring the Last Supper was taken out, now there is nothing but another stone block. At least it's not black, but dark brown, close enough. UPDATE: (Images, the Holy Rosary Basilica before and after the restoration process. The stations of the Cross are now missing. UPDATE. Dec. 2017: they're still missing, see the new nativity scene above.) Another shocker, after the Holy Rosary Basilica was restored for the Anniversary,We have no idea where they are, or if they will be put back. The marble altar rails were also taken out last year and a red string was put in its place, not even a decent looking 'theatre rope' was used. The modern altar featuring the Last Supper was taken out, now there is nothing but another stone block. At least it's not black, but dark brown, close enough. UPDATE: Thanks to Catholic Sat on Twitter who reminded me that two original altars of the fifteen dedicated to the Holy Rosary have been removed, also, in order to put new name plaques near the seers' burial places, they have covered over the CHI-RHO of Constantine on the old altars, those extra name plaques were not necessary as the graves already had clear markings right on them. So yes, another set of traditional crosses removed! Here is a comparison of the Former versus the New altar inside the Holy Rosary Basillica. Does this look like an 'improvement'? UPDATE: the most worrying thing I've seen about this brown altar in the Holy Rosary Basilica: Currently there are only three candlesticks shaped out in a triangle pattern around the altar (see the picture above): which looks almost exactly like the arrangement around a Masonic Altar. Three candles are Masonic symbolic imagery. Compare with the pictures of a Masonic Lodges below: What are the bishops thinking?! When the Holy Rosary Basilica in Fatima begins to look more like a Masonic Lodge than a Catholic church, you know the chastisements are coming soon. Elsewhere, the red Sanctuary lamps have been taken away, the red candle outside the Chapel of Apparitions has been gone for several years now. There is one inside where the Tabernacle is closed away, but nobody sees it, so there is no public indication the Blessed Sacrament is present at the Apparition Chapel. In the Holy Rosary Basilica, little white tea light candles are now next to the Tabernacle, but that is not a clear indicator to visitors that the Blessed Sacrament is present. People wander past and don't genuflect. Lack of proper Sanctuary lamps leaves the Sanctuary open to more blasphemous disrespect, which was bad enough to begin with. (See the Before and After pictures.) There is one inside where the Tabernacle is closed away, but nobody sees it, so there is no public indication the Blessed Sacrament is present at the Apparition Chapel. In the Holy Rosary Basilica, little white tea light candles are now next to the Tabernacle, but that is not a clear indicator to visitors that the Blessed Sacrament is present. People wander past and don't genuflect. Lack of proper Sanctuary lamps leaves the Sanctuary open to more blasphemous disrespect, which was bad enough to begin with. ( People are no longer respectful in the Sanctuary grounds like they used to be way back in 1997 when I first visited Fatima. People were quiet once they entered the Sanctuary let alone one of the churches, but that is long gone. As I type this, I have been living here for fourteen years now, and things have steadily become much worse. Talking, yakking, shouting, walking about, even when Mass is going on the the Chapel of Apparitions. People answer a call on their mobile phones during Mass and run out! Others sit and send texts waiting for Mass. Prayer? What is that? I remember seeing a young woman reading the 'Da Vinci Code' by Dan Brown during the Blessed Sacrament Procession. Yes. I did. Apparently, ignorance of the faithful has now also deprived us of the Blessing of the Candles before the nightly Rosary procession. As the candles are lit, the priest used to bless them before the procession began, but we discovered people were throwing their candles into the garbage when the procession was over! I don't know how many blessed candles we fished out of trash cans after the night processions. Now, the last few times we've been to the processions, no blessings were done on the candles. Perhaps that has been removed, or the priests forget, BUT if it was stopped to prevent a sacramental being thrown out, a blessing has been deprived because of indifference to holy objects. (UPDATE August 15 2018 - the priest blessed the candles for the evening Rosary procession, so, it can be hit and miss. Hopefully enough people compalined and they've started doing it again, but the Shrine shouldn't be managed on a 'hit or miss' basis!) Still ongoing, in the Holy Rosary Basilica and the Trinity Church, the ignornace on how to act in a church and the complete lack of respect is appalling. All the code of conduct signs around the Sanctuary are ignored. People dress half naked as though they were at the beach, or wear see-through or skin tight clothes, and no one corrects them or keeps them from entering like they do in Rome. Rarely any genuflections before the Blessed Sacrament when people enter the church, they troop right on through. No calm or order when receiving Communion, people pile out of pews on top of each other like a cattle drive, which is a complete nightmare in the huge open air Masses, you have to elbow your way for Communion, and then pray you don't get skipped by the priests or that a Host is dropped. (And yes, hosts have been dropped. No act of reparation done.) Visitors may not be able to see all the changes that have been done gradually bit by bit, but living here and watching as it happened these last fourteen years, it's one heartbreak after another. The Austrian mystic Maria Simma, who allegedly had visitations from the souls of Purgatory, said they revealed to her that Heaven does not approve of modern images in churches for they are a mockery of what they're supposed to represent. UPDATE: For those who think these observations about Fatima are over the top, that I'm making a 'big deal about nothing', I'm including below only PART of a vision Blessed Catherine Emmerich received about Our Lord's terrible Agony in the Garden showing one manner of torment He received from the devil: For those who think these observations about Fatima are over the top, that I'm making a 'big deal about nothing', I'm including below only PART of a vision Blessed Catherine Emmerich received about Our Lord's terrible Agony in the Garden showing one manner of torment He received from the devil: “Among the throng of apparitions typical of the outrages offered to Divine Mercy, I saw Satan under various abominable forms, each bearing reference to the guilt then exhibited. (From sin committed.) … At first I saw the serpent but seldom, but towards the last I beheld it in gigantic form, a crown upon its head. With terrible might and leading after it immense legions of humans prepared to attack Jesus. … Upon this I received an instruction that these multitudes that were thus tearing Jesus to pieces represented the countless number of those that in divers ways ill-treat Him who, in His Divinity and Humanity, Body and Soul, Flesh and Blood under the forms of bread and wine in the Most Blessed Sacrament, dwells ever present in that Mystery as their Redeemer. Among these enemies of Jesus, I recognized offences of all kinds committed against the Blessed Sacrament, that living Pledge of His uninterrupted presence with the Catholic Church. I saw with horror all the outrages springing from neglect, irreverence, and omission, as also those of abuse and the most awful sacrilege. … … I notice in particular many badly instructed, badly reared, and irreverent acolytes, (altar servers) who do not honour Christ in the Holy Mass. Their guilt falls partly upon their teachers and the careless sacristans. But with terror I saw that many of the priests themselves, both of high and low degree – yes, even some that esteem themselves full of faith and piety – contribute their share toward outraging Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Of the many whom, to my great sorrow, I thus saw, I shall say a word of warning to one class in particular, and it is this : I saw numbers that believe, adore, and teach the Presence of the Living God in the Most Blessed Sacrament, yet who do not sufficiently take it to heart. They forget, they neglect, the palace, the throne, the canopy, the seat, the royal adornments of the King of Heaven and Earth, that is, the church, the altar, the tabernacle, with all its vessels, the furniture, the decorations, the festal robes, and all that is used in His worship, or the adornment of His house. All things were ignominiously covered with dust and rust, mouldering away, and through long years of neglect, falling to ruin. The service of the living God was shamefully neglected, and where it was not inwardly profaned, it was outwardly dishonoured . Nor did all this arise from real poverty, but indifference and sloth ... from preoccupation of mind with vain, worldly affairs, and often too from self-seeking and spiritual death . I saw neglect of this kind in rich churches and in other tolerably well off. Yes, I saw many in which a worldly love of splendour and tinselled finery had replaced the magnificent and appropriate adornments of a more devout age. What the rich in ostentatious arrogance do, the poor foolishly aim at in their poverty and simplicity. This recalls to me our poor convent chapel in which the beautiful old stone altar had been covered with wood veined to imitate marble, a fact that always gave me sorrow. (I.e. a real stone altar had been covered with a cheap 'tinselled finery' of fake marble veneer. ) These visions of the outrages offered to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament I saw multiplied by innumerable church wardens who were totally deficient in their sense of equity, who failed to share at least what they had with their Redeemer present upon the altar, although He had delivered Himself to death for them, although He remains (Extracts from The Life of Jesus Christ and Biblical Revelations from the Vision of Venerable Ann Catherine Emmerich, Vol 4, Tan Publishers, 1986, pp. 96-99) Blessed Emmerich does say God does not need riches, but considering she has warned priests in particular to take care to give the best at the Altar, it shows Christ, who died for us and continues to remains on earth for us inthe Blessed Sacrament, demands respect and deserves the very best ~ "magnificent and appropriate adornments of a more devout age" ~ not showy tinsel, the mocking modernity of the world that is an outrage. *** UPDATE NUMBER TWO: It seems that in Fatima they know when to bring out the 'good stuff' when it suits them, so it is not alway completely downhill here -- last week at the public Benediction at 5:30 PM in the Chapel of Apparitions (Sept. 24, 2017) they used a gorgeous gold and silver adoration monstrance in the statue-shape of Our Lady of Grace, the Sacred Host placed directly where her heart is, then, the Host was reverently taken out and placed in a proper 'Blessing' monstrance when the time of the public blessing was to occur. If they have items like this for the service of the altar in such a special place like Fatima, why don't they use them instead of the blasphemous trash we see all the time? Of course, a visiting bishop was present, so this beautiful monstrance may have been a concession for him. Still, it was good to see this, there's hope yet. ****** UPDATE NUMBER THREE : (November 10, 2017) Then, we have bright moments, like when a Latin Mass Society visits, or a pilgrim group from a society that upholds Roman Catholic orthodoxy arrives, and somehow receive permisson to decorate the modern altars into something befitting the Sacrifice of the Mass, like this, which just happened recently: BEFORE: AFTER: YES! What a difference! I love it when this happens! Too bad they couldn't do something about the ugly crucifix, but the properly decorated altar is a breath of fresh air. This particular group also did the same with one of the altars in the little ugly bare white underground 'nothing' chapels and it made such a big difference. You can see it on the site at: Too bad this doesn't happen more often. :::::::: ******: (November 10, 2017) Then, we have bright moments, like when a Latin Mass Society visits, or a pilgrim group from a society that upholds Roman Catholic orthodoxy arrives, and somehow receive permisson to decorate the modern altars into something befitting the Sacrifice of the Mass, like this, which just happened recently:YES! What a difference! I love it when this happens! Too bad they couldn't do something about the ugly crucifix, but the properly decorated altar is a breath of fresh air. This particular group also did the same with one of the altars in the little ugly bare white underground 'nothing' chapels and it made such a big difference. You can see it on the site at: http://blog.messainlatino.it/2017/11/pellegrinaggio-dellicrss-per-il_23.html Too bad this doesn't happen more often.:::::::: What an ominous warning. It appears Fatima, the Altar of the World, has become one giant blasphemous mockery, and as we all know, God will not be mocked. Truly the lack of CATHOLIC celebration displayed for the canonisation and Anniversary of Our Lady's apparitions in Fatima is a frightening revelation of the sign of our times. |
The Brotherhood, if anything, has mirrored the rhetoric of Egypt's military rulers, who reflexively blame dissent on nefarious "hidden hands." In a statement this week that sounded almost plagiarized from the propaganda of the military junta, the Muslim Brotherhood decried the "hysteria" over their electoral success, calling it a "treacherous" and "heinous plot against the stability and security of Egypt." It's too early in the game to predict the alliances and policy agendas that will flow from the high-performing Islamist parties. Moreover, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces still holds all the cards. It alone appoints the government. The next parliament's job will be to help draft the next constitution, nothing more. As things currently stand, the elected parliament will select about 20 percent of the drafters of the next constitution. The military will appoint the rest. For the time being, the elected parliament will yield scant power, and the same would have been true had secular liberals won in a landslide. The first-round election results are also creating a sort of moment of truth for secular liberal nationalists. The Egyptian Bloc, which included the two most popular and dynamic liberal parties, the Social Democrats and the Free Egyptians, bankrolled by Christian magnate Naguib Sawiris, won about 14 percent of the vote. The secular but hardly liberal Wafd Party, which thrived as a corrupt, sanctioned opposition party under Mubarak, won about another 10 percent. So, at a stretch, a quarter of the voters in round one went for secular parties -- and this in Cairo, Alexandria, and the Red Sea, all the most liberal urban districts in the country. Subsequent rounds will take place in areas that are more rural and religious demographically. Secular liberals have made clear in the past that they're just as suspicious of the Muslim Brotherhood as they are of the military, perhaps even more so. Followers of Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei were willing to accept new constitutional principles, issued undemocratically by military fiat, in advance of elections, so long as those principles safeguarded minority rights and rule of law -- in effect, liberal ends through illiberal means. That mistrust has broken out into the open now. "We're all trapped between the Islamists and the army," said Hala Mostafa, an activist and spokeswoman for the Social Democratic Party. She fears that Islamists will take away her social freedom and her rights as a woman, while the military has already eroded her civil liberties and legal rights. "Even I think the Islamists are a bigger threat than the army. Nobody likes the SCAF, but I we have to choose between Islamist rule and the SCAF, I would choose military rule." Perhaps the heat of the moment factored into Mostafa's glum assessment, but it suggests a shallow commitment to liberal ideas like representative democracy. Certainly, leading members of the Social Democratic Party have philosophically accepted the Islamists predominant role, and feel confident about their long-term chances. But they'll have to contend with a shrinking liberal constituency that values short-term security for the liberal lifestyle over long-term guarantees of liberal political principles. And perhaps that's a best-case scenario for Egypt's military rulers, who historically have goaded the elite opposition (and patrons in Washington) into silence by threatening that the only alternative to military dictatorship is Islamic rule. Egypt is the Arab world's political center of gravity, and the time will come when it will experiment will authentic representative politics. As these election results indicate, those politics will be imbued with Islamic values and dominated by self-professed Islamist movements. Fear and expedient coalitions can forestall the rise of the Islamists but they can't put it off forever. We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com. |
The Last Two Veterans Of WWI by Evan Fleischer 1. There are two veterans of the First World War left in the world. Of all the parts of the world that move on without you, of all the borders beyond the horizon, of all the varying speeds and trajectories and characters and stories colluding together in giant waves of “now,” “yet-to-come,” “once was,” and then it boils down to two. It’s not even the whole hand. Nine years ago, there were 700 left alive. With the recent deaths of Frank Buckles, John Babcock and Harry Patch, we are left with Claude Choules and Florence Green. (Upon learning this, Claude remarked: “Everything comes to those who wait and wait.”) Nearly 10,000,000 men were killed in the conflict, 65 million participated, and now we are left with two. Think about that. Think about those numbers. What are you supposed to do when an era is inches away from disappearing? And one answer is — insofar as I can tell — you catch. Which is to say, the past isn’t a bequeathal. No sword taps our shoulders and bids us rise. The past is monumental, filled with all the majesty, joy, horror, heartbreak and surprise one can imagine — and it’s also a pass, a literal pass. It’s Xavi to anybody, even people in stands at Camp Nou, I bet. It’s Rajon Rondo to anyone on the Garden floor. (Or Scottie Pippen to Michael Jordan, if you haven’t been following sports for, you know, a while.) We are speaking, writing and reading in a language whose current form has lit up the field for the past 600 years — and even with that lingua historia, we are still left with recurring questions: How do generations meet? How do they talk about each other? How do they get along? How do they say goodbye in a way that befits their intelligence and their times? And then there’s the aching impulse that haunts us and says, “It’s your story. You tell it. You, you, you.” 2. Lemuel Cook — the last living veteran of the American Revolution — seemed to glow at the end of his life. His grandkids would come running up to him on the porch of his farmhouse in upstate New York and say, “Tell us about George Washington. What did he look like?” and Lemuel’s voice — noted for its “volume and strength” — would say, “Let me think about it,” and, after a moment, he would begin, telling of Washington having the “kindest look in the eyes I’ve ever seen” and how the General complimented his horse once and remembered meeting him and his horse years later. Cook was proud that he could mount his horse “as quick as a squirrel.” In interviews, he makes note of Washington forbidding laughter at the British, noting that it was “bad enough to surrender without being insulted,” and said that Cornwallis’ surrendering men had “a pint of lice on them.” After the war, Cook moved to Utica, where — as reported in a 1905 edition of The Sunday Vindicator — he “had an encounter with an Indian,” who (according to the limited details) ended up being smashed over the head with a chair. When it came to what happened as the Revolution’s numbers dwindled, the evidence suggests this: when 12 were left, The New York Times praised them as “The Apostles of Liberty,” and Congress voted to give each a pension. That seems to be it. It’s believed that, in all, ten men from the American Revolution lived long enough to have their pictures taken. Elias Brewster Hillard tracked down many of them — including Samuel Downing, Adam Link, Daniel Waldo, William Hutchings and Alexander Milliner — and published the photographs and interviews in a book titled, fittingly, The Last Men of the American Revolution. The coats they wore, the composition of their hair: all of this gives us something. In the interviews, it’s clear that the men remained as loyal and as stalwart as ever. When Brewster Hillard asked Sam Downing, “What do you think [General Washington] would say if he were here now?” you can almost see the jerk of surprise Downing must have given at the question. “Say! … I don’t know. But he’d be mad to see me sitting here. I tell ’em if they’ll give me a horse I’ll go as it is.” (When interviewed, Sam Downing was 102, looked like Christopher Lloyd and kept beehives. A bolero would not have been out of place on him either.) 3. So, not only do you catch, you catch and weave. Take Lincoln. Take America’s 50th Jubilee, which celebrated those who were left of the Revolutionary Era. Take the 50th and 75 anniversaries of the Battle of Gettysburg, where one speaker hailed those “who first met upon this field to vie with each other in doing hurt … now meet here to outvie each other in deeds of kindness and friendship and love.” (Or just open up The Upanishads: “We are like the spider. / We weave our life and / then move along it.”) When Lincoln looked at the argument Stephen Douglas was making about states’ rights, he said this: That perfect liberty they sigh for — the liberty of making slaves of other people — Jefferson never thought of … When the white man governs himself that is self-government; but when he governs himself, and also governs another man, that is more than self-government — that is despotism. If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that “all men are created equal;’’ and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man’s making a slave of another. Judge Douglas frequently, with bitter irony and sarcasm, paraphrases our argument by saying “The white people of Nebraska are good enough to govern themselves, but they are not good enough to govern a few miserable negroes!’’ Well, I doubt not that the people of Nebraska are, and will continue to be as good as the average of people elsewhere. I do not say the contrary. What I do say is, that no man is good enough to govern another man, without that other’s consent. It’s worth noting that Lemuel Cook, the last of the Revolution, hated the Civil War, calling the South’s rebellion “terrible,” insisting that it should be put down and stomping his cane on the ground for emphasis. Alexander Milliner, who had been Washington’s drummer boy, hated it, too. (Of the other last seven, Waldo wished Lincoln had been harsher on the rebels, while Link kept forgetting the war was even occurring.) Milliner even considered heading down to Rochester to literally drum up volunteers. The thought of a country “so hardly got, should be destroyed by its own people” was gutting. And as the war came to its close in 1865 and Lincoln was vindicated in his belief that ballots and the union were the Revolution’s true inheritance, not bullets: as the South rebuilt their cities, bridges and roads and set to tending their burnt land: as investors set their sights on railroads and lumber and businesses that made turpentine: as the age drifted towards the future: as the transcontinental railroad tied coast to coast together and 23 million foreigners arrived with variations on the rucksack over their shoulder: as Twain, London and Crane took that piñata of blank paper and — with a swing — cracked out confetti and candy of the highest order: the men and women marked for WWI entered the world. Harry Patch was born (1898), Frank Buckles was born (1901), John Babcock was born (1900), Florence Green was born (1901), and Claude Choules was born (1901). As they are born, two of the last of the Civil War, James Hard and Albert Woolson, continue to age. Hard — the last Civil War combat veteran — lived to 111, fought at Bull Run, Antietam, Chancellorsville, and met Lincoln at the White House. He thought Lincoln was “a comical looking fellow on horseback” and was frequently referred to in his obituary as a “salty fellow,” although whether that meant George Burns material or cough-until-you-turn-red-from-embarrassment stuff, I can’t say. (Oh, how I hope the latter. Lincoln’s own jokes, rejoinders, and off-color bits — most of which were collected here — are terrific, i.e., telling an unfortunate aspirational lawyer in the middle of court, “If that’s Latin, you’d better call another witness.” One hopes Hard had similar stuff in him.) Albert Woolson was a drummer boy who lived in Duluth, Minnesota. Like Hard, Woolson loved cigars, puffing through one after the other as he shuffled through hundreds of cards wishing him a happy birthday and roared out the lyrics to “Just before the Battle, Mother” during a radio interview the same day. From an article in Life magazine: “The townspeople know him as a deaf but high-spirited centenarian who romps with his 3-year-old grandchild, tramps up-stairs and down several times a day and still insists” — at 106 — “on doing his own snow shoveling.” There is a wonderful home video showing him in a chair with his grandchild in his lap, running her hands through her hair in front of a set of flowers that line the house. He’s wearing a blue, Mr. Rogers-styled cardigan over a shirt and tie. 4. What if I died a hundred years away from the year I was born? Where would I be? 5. Ferdinand is shot. Belgrade is cleared and evacuated. The German navy mobilizes. The price of wheat jumps. Belgium is invaded. England’s proposed peace conference is rejected. The newspapers clear the front pages and wheel out the big type from the cargo hangars because it has arrived: WAR. Henry Adams famously describes the new age as being filled with “Prosperity never before imagined, power never yet wielded by man, speed never reached by anything but a meteor…” But, for some, that meteor has yet to land and make itself known. Ford only perfected their assembly lines in 1913, long before Chaplin would be slurped spaghetti-like into the cogs. Infrared photographs appeared in 1910. The Vatican thought it was worthwhile to have their priests take an oath against modernization. It takes a second for the world to become the world, so when the Poilus-to-be (“poilus” being France’s nickname for their soldiers) and the Tommies-in-training (“Tommies,” the UK’s nickname) set to their early work, it wasn’t necessarily out of character to see them bayonet dummies amid hawthorns and horse chestnuts, thinking that that was all there was to it. They were — as Gerald Brenan, an early conscript notes — practicing for “the Boer War … we were not taught how to fight in trenches. This, we were told, was merely a temporary phase.” Another conscript, Vivian de Sola Pinto, writes of the “nebulous, but fundamentally generous and humane enthusiasm” that was in the air. To keep abreast of the latest, he picked up “the numerous editions of the morning and evening papers which appeared at all sorts of odd times.” In the midst of this, John Maynard Keynes rushed across King’s College Green in Cambridge to borrow his brother’s motorcycle and headed up to London to give his advice. Harking back to the optimism that brought picnics and revelers to the First Battle of Bull Run during the Civil War, it’s thought that everyone off to the war would be home for Christmas. As Paul Fussell notes in The Great War and Modern Memory: At the beginning of the war, a volunteer had to stand five feet eight to get into the army. By October 11, the need for men was such that the standard was lowered to five feet five. And on November 5, after the thirty thousand casualties of October, one had to be only five foot three to get in. The center of gravity, though, the thing that pulled men of ever decreasing height to it and became more permanent than what conscripts like Gerald Brenan could ever have imagined: The front. The visceral thereness of it. The shelling. The use of the dead as firing steps because the trench had been dug too deep to see out of. The burning petrol, the chlorine that blew back into your own lines, and the mortar fire. Unending din, unending mud. Gas masks for dogs. Water two feet high in the trench. Rats. Enough lice and dirt to cause men to weep. The dead, everywhere. A newfound fondness for the sky, its colors, iterations, and shadings — the straight and simple blue, glowing its ineffable glow. The machine guns. Douglas Haig — nicknamed “Butcher Haig” for the two million men who died under his command — was the commander of the British Expeditionary Forces and the commander at the Battle of the Somme, referred to by soldiers of the time as “The Great Fuck-Up.” Haig thought that the effect of machine guns on horses had been “greatly exaggerated.” He makes Theodore Roosevelt’s and Kipling’s romantic illusions about the war and their subsequent heartbreak (Roosevelt lost his son Quentin, Kipling lost his son John) seem tame by comparison. The flame-throwers. In German, it’s Trommelfeuer, as in, “Drum-roll fire.” A land crammed with corpses. Soldiers try to explode the flame-throwers’ fuel tanks by lobbing grenades. It doesn’t work. The writer Henry de Montherlant claims that one could “walk on the ground of Verdun as though on the face of the Country.” (Grant said something similar after Shiloh.) Extraordinary civilians who refuse to budge. Brenan (whose account of the war resides alongside other soldiers in the anthology Promise of Greatness) writes of a cottage “occupied by an old woman who could not go out by day without being sniped. Her cows lay around her dead on their sides; but she would not leave, and the Army had no authority to move her.” In the trenches, Brenan and his company whisper “because the Germans were only 30 yards away, and if they heard voices they would send over a rifle grenade or a jam jarful of shrapnel.” Other Brits on the line see the Germans at night as water rats sinking into their holes, wraiths with spiked helmets, or disturbed earwigs. By contrast, the Germans saw the Brits as a “brownish-yellow fleeting shadow.” Not all was metaphor. Some soldiers legitimately hallucinate. In one account I read, after five days without sleep, JR Mallree, a Canadian who fought at Ypres, saw all the animals from Noah’s Ark walk up and over a nearby farmhouse. And some stories are so incredible they don’t need the aid of hallucination or metaphor: in the Battle of San Matteo — fought in the Alps, 12,000 feet above sea level — many are killed by the lightning itself. Back in London, Lord Northcliffe expounds on the virtues of the mints being given to soldiers — round mints swirled to look like peppermint bull’s-eyes. Readers of The Times crack open their paper to find him praising the mint’s “digestive effect, though that is of small account at the front, where health is so good and indigestion hardly ever even heard of. The open-air life, the regular and plenteous feeding, the exercise, and the freedom from care and responsibility, keep the soldiers extraordinarily fit and contented.” Meanwhile, General Sir Richard Gale loses several men who just simply freeze to death and Leonard Thompson decries the amount of lice each man carries, and how “we couldn’t stop shitting because we had caught dysentery.” In the trenches, they sing, to the tune of “Auld Lang Syne,” “We’re here because we’re here.” Some were ‘glad’: “ … the German trenches, as the British discovered during the attack on the Somme, were deep, clean, elaborate, and sometimes even comfortable. As Coppard found on the Somme, ‘Some of the [German] dugouts were thirty feet deep, with as many as sixteen bunk-beds, as well as door bells, water tanks with taps, and cupboards and mirrors.’” Others weren’t: “The whole conduct of our trench warfare seemed to be based on the concept that we, the British, were not stopping in the trenches for long, but were tarrying awhile on the way to Berlin and that very soon we would be chasing Jerry across country. The result, in the long term, meant that we lived a mean and impoverished sort of existence in lousy scratch holes.” From Fussell’s book once again. Wilfred Owen writes his mother from the Somme at the beginning of 1917: “The waders are of course indispensable. In 2 ½ miles of trench which I waded yesterday there was not one inch of dry ground. There is a mean depth of two feet of water.” Pumps worked day and night but to little effect. Rumor held that the Germans not only could make it rain when they wanted it to — that is, all the time — but had contrived some shrewd technical method for conducting the water in their lines into the British positions — perhaps piping it underground. Ultimately there was no defense against the water but humor. “Water knee deep and up to the waist in places,” one soldiers notes in his diary. “Rumors of being relieved by the Grand Fleet.’ “ “You could smell the front lines miles before you could see it,” someone tells an American ambulance driver who later goes on to record it in letters home. An ambulance driver — and let’s not forget Frank Buckles, America’s last, was an ambulance driver — was in a great position to see the rest of the war-as-montage pass. From the ambulance car — which could hold up to three men, unless one was contagious — the driver could see a sky bright red, ammunition dumps on fire, black soldiers from Barbados fighting off the Germans with knives they’d brought from home (“Run Kaiser William, Run for your life, boy,” they’d sing), careless peasants rushing out to a nearby river to pick up the scores of fish that been killed by the shelling, dirt in front of the German trenches heading up in gigantic fountains, burying parties, where the soldiers would find heads that could fall off at a touch, white German pillboxes, “massive and rounded as elephants,” one soldier dribbling a soccer ball as he and his colleagues made their way to the enemy lines, someone digging a trench through a corpse, decapitating a body along the way, and soldiers complaining to the cooks that their breakfast bacon “smelled like dead men.” The First World War also oversaw the rise of MI5 (christened as such in 1916, though they were formed in 1909), the modern world’s first iteration of a modern secret service, though, of course, the profession is as old as the Egyptians. (And surprising all the way through history, too. Did you know Daniel Defoe was a spy? I didn’t until recently.) So MI5 intercepted mail, protected ports, continued running enemy agents long after they’d been jailed or killed, and noticed that Germany sent Lenin back to Russia with a very specific purpose in mind, one that — as the country went from nationwide strikes to repression in Petrograd to a Bolshevik majority — saw itself through. 6. There is plenty more to cover — the nature of the home-front in England (white feathers, the introduction of paper money, odd pub hours), France (everything shut at 9:30), and Germany (no more foreign words for the children), how one soldier imagined a tank crashing its way into a gaily laughing theater, people cruelly hungry for atrocity stories — but I hope you’ll forgive me if we leave this as an opening salvo of memory and nothing more, an aggressive splash of paint to the canvas. I’ve taken up so much of your reading time already and we still have to talk about the men who are our reason for being here: this war’s last. Bright Williams — New Zealand’s last and a runner at Passchendaele — held a very private funeral. Russia’s last — Ukraine’s Mikhail Krichevsky — was nicknamed “The Man of Three Centuries.” Turkey’s last — Yakup Satar, who also fought for Turkey’s independence — was one of 50 secretly trained in gas warfare, even unbeknownst to his country. Yod Sangrungruang — Thailand’s last — served as a mechanic. Lazare Ponticelli was France’s last. He came to France from Italy and adopted the land as his own, wanting “to defend France because she gave me food,” working first as a chimney sweep and then selling newspapers in the streets of Paris. He once continued to fire upon a group of Germans — blood running into his eyes — until they surrendered. When they waved the white flag, Ponticelli was not certain as to whether or not he was still alive. Then there was the man with his leg caught in the wires, screaming for help, screaming until Ponticelli sucked in some air, ran out with wire cutters, got the man free, and dragged him back into the trench. As The Economist notes, there was also “[t]he German soldier he tripped over in the dark, already wounded and expecting to be killed, who mutely held up his fingers to show him that he had two children. The comrades who helped him, because he could not read or write, to keep in touch by letter with the milkmaid he had met before the war. “ In an interview with Le Monde, he said: “Aux enfants, je leur dis et je leur répète : ne faites pas la guerre.” (To the children, I say and repeat: do not make war.”) Harry Patch recently passed. He was 111. Along with Claude Choules (who is an Australian citizen) he was Britain’s last veteran to fight, and was honored as the last before the “discovery” of Florence Green, who now holds that position. Patch was born in June of 1898. He served between 1916 and 1918. Helped build the University of Bristol. His death was marked by church bells across the country, a song from Radiohead, a poem from Carol Ann Duffy, as well as comments from the Queen, Prince Charles, and then-Prime Minister Brown. Patch spoke with a hypnotic, often solemn, distinctly West Country accent (where “ye” is still used!). If whiskey was ever made with a plunge pot, that’s how it would sound. He often leaned his head on his hands atop his cane when he spoke. In interview after interview he repeated: “War is the deliberate and condoned slaughter of human beings.” He would say this to anyone who would listen — to a group of children gathered around him after he received his honorary degree from Bristol, to the camera crew that followed him to Passchendaele, and many others. In his autobiography, it’s phrased, “War is organized murder and nothing else.” https://medium.com/media/b54dcd6b0362d073bb110cd52de31dbe/href John Babcock — Canada’s last — enlisted in the army at 16 by lying about his age. He got his pilot’s license at 65 and graduated from high school at 95. (In short: an early starter.) Received a birthday card from Queen Elizabeth II for his 109th birthday, remarking that she’s “a pretty nice looking girl.” When he got to Britain, he was deemed too young to “go over the top.” Via the North Bay Nugget: “I feel guilty because I’m not a war hero. I didn’t get to accomplish what I set out to do.” Frank Buckles, America’s: the only one with his own webpage. When he tried to sign up, he was too young — 18 — and the recruiter turned him away. A week later, he came back with his Grandmother. “Same recruiting station, same Sergeant … but I had increased my age to 21. He was very … gentlemanly and gave me the test.” England, first. Winchester. Drove a motorcycle around base and as an escort. Later upgraded to a Ford. Transported prisoners back from Germany. During his only leave he stayed at the Hotel de Pay in the Bay of Arachon (near Bordeaux), where, because of the water covering the ground, the postman would deliver the mail on stilts. He ultimately became a farmer in West Virginia. After he passed, Speaker Boehner and Senator Reid decided that Frank Buckles would not lie in state in the U.S. Capital rotunda. He was buried at Arlington with full honors. 7. And now — Florence Green: the last living veteran in England and the last living female veteran of the war, her status identified only a few years ago, when a researcher for the Gerontology Research Group — whose goals include slowing the aging process and tracking the lives of those around the age of 110 — came across a mention of her under her maiden name in the U.K.’s National Archives and traced her to her current location in Norwich. Served as a waitress in the officers’ mess as a member of the Women’s Royal Air Force for a couple months before the war came to an end. In a 2008 interview, she said: “I met dozens of pilots and would go on dates. I had the opportunity to go up in one of the planes but I was scared of flying. I would work every hour God sent. But I had dozens of friends on the base and we had a great deal of fun in our spare time.” At her birthday this past February, a reporter asked Green what it was like to be 110; she answered, “It’s not much different to being 109.” She lives with her daughter May, age 89. Claude Choules: a 41-year career that spanned both world wars. His specialty was “blowing things up.” Witnessed the surrender of the German Navy in 1918. Born in Pershore, in March, 1901. Moved to Australia after the First World War. Sent to clean up a part of the harbor in Western Australia and came back with “a gift of pink slippers he had found” for his daughter. Used to “see hospital ships coming across and soldiers being wheeled off them.” He was walking and swimming at 100 and only moved to a nursing home at 105. (Another secret to long life, Choules deadpanned — “Keep breathing.”) 8. Fortunately for us, Claude Choules (still breathing) and Harry Patch (now deceased) both have autobiographies. Patch’s book is titled The Last Tommy. It’s, indeed, very nice, featuring plenty of things to underline, such as: I do recall when I was aged about five or six, there was a big pear tree in the middle of the garden, with very tempting fruit. I remember Dad saying to me, ‘I know how many pears are on that tree, so don’t you pick ‘em.’ I didn’t, but when he next looked at the fruit, he found that I had taken a bite out of the back of every one I could reach. Below is an episode of a documentary about WWI veterans that focuses exclusively on Patch: https://medium.com/media/d6946cc81914c524367b877d5a2e6324/href Choules’s autobiography is called The Last of the Last. According to Choules’s daughter, it was written in “a variety of old school exercise books” sometime during his 80s. It is straight and sweet, sometimes dipping into details that everyone might not be familiar with — i.e., “I suggested Spud get the sailmaker in Fremantle to supply a very strong nylon triangular storm sail and rig this on a small mizzen mast stepped about three feet for’d of the transom and sheeted in hard amidships by means of sheets led to cleats fitted on each quarter.” — but it crosses the finish line as a genuinely likable book. “On 3 March 1901, six weeks after Queen Victoria died, with the country still in full mourning, I was born in Pershore, Worcestershire,” Claude begins. He describes quite a few animals in the book, the first notable one being a cat his family owned, Smut. “When we went down into the village she would usually accompany us, walking in front with her tail in the air. On reaching the first house, she would jump through the hawthorn hedge and remain there until our return — then she would hop out and lead the way home.” He hides beneath a train track with a friend to see what it feels like when a train roars over. A cow is struck by a bolt of lightning. He goes fishing with his friends and his father. His favorite pastime is lying on his back in a hay meadow and watching the skylarks move up “in their ever-ascending spirals.” One evening “at dusk, I thought I saw a bat fly out of [an old elm tree.] On the summer evenings, we saw lots of bats flying around. I climbed the tree, put my hand in the hole and pulled out a bat. After a good look at it I put it back again.” Does the bat blink? Wriggle? Squeak? Hold still? Choules doesn’t say. Instead, he continues: “Sometimes friends would ask me to show them a bat, which I gladly did, although I always insisted that they didn’t hurt it and that I should put it back afterwards. I think the bats got to know me because I was never once bitten …” After his brothers leave for Australia to work on the railway, Choules joins the navy in April, 1915. His boat is stationed in Southampton — for five to six months a year, he had to swim ashore. He’s taught the use of the boatswain’s pipe (or, ‘bo’sn’s pipe’), which is used to communicate specific orders, i.e., the Captain’s coming aboard, dinner’s ready, everybody to stations, and the rest. The Grand Fleet takes Choules under its wing when he turns 16. He thrills at the sight of “greyhounds of the sea,” betraying the occasional poeticism when, after his first bit of action in WWI, he describes one retreating ship as looking like it had been “punched in the ribs.” Or when he calls a hookah a “hubble-bubble pipe.” There are plenty of things to marvel and laugh at when he joins the Fleet — watching a 15-inch shell cause a 29,000-ton ship “to roll 10 degrees away from the engaged side due to the recoil of the guns,” discovering that there were drills so specific they included ‘Secure captain in straitjacket and send him to flagship,’ ‘Chief cook to report on board flagship with fried eggs,’ or that first bit of action, where the gunners on his ship claimed to have shot down a zeppelin. After the war, Choules guarded the remains of Germany’s fleet at Scapa Flow, that is, until Rear Admiral von Reuter decided to scuttle and ground the ships. Choules writes: The Flow was filled with German ships all flying a white flag and carrying the internment crews. All our boats were lowered and we were rushed aboard any of the German ships still afloat in an attempt to close portholes, watertight doors and such, but this proved useless, as they were too far gone … Our divers went down and closed portholes and watertight doors, while working parties manned pumps. Our ship’s company managed to raise the light cruiser Emden … Accused of breaching the honor of the navy, von Reuter replied that he was convinced that any Englishman in his place would have done the same thing. As a result of his remarks, he was not charged. Choules spends Peace Day in Kensington Gardens, living in a tent for a week, marches past the Cenotaph, and dines spectacularly well. He’s soon to sea again: During this time, sailors and soldiers of the Allies struggled with horrors from the Black Sea to the Persian Gulf. They rescued refugees fleeing from massacres. They warred with pirates and brigands. They policed ammunition dumps left in the wake of war, which had become a temptation to every local politician and freebooter. They settled quarrels between local sheikhs, or, if they failed, subsequently gathered the remains. They watched Smyrna burn. They rescued stranded survivors of White Russian armies and Armenian villages. They blew up Caspian forts, fed babies and rescued Christian girls. After such high-octane activity, he manages to get some leave and decides to trek to the catacombs of Citta Vecchia (Mdina today) where the Phoenicians once lived. While waiting at the train station to be taken back, they grew impatient, realized that they could drive and fire an engine, stole a train, and “the stationmaster was going berserk at seeing his train pinched but away we went along the single-rail track. A few miles down the line our engine crew managed to stop her on the outskirts of Valetta and we all jumped out and disappeared in all directions.” In the ’20s, Choules tested launching aircraft from a sea-faring vessel and often leapt from the flying deck of the ship into the waves, which were some 40 to 45 feet below. On his first day on the ship that was to take him to Australia, where he planned to join the Royal Australian Navy, Choules met Ethel, who would later become his wife. They first lived in McMahons Point and watched the Sydney Harbor Bridge appear before their eyes. Choules writes: Whilst we were in Sydney, Ethel would often bring the two girls aboard to visit me on my duty weekends. After looking around the ship, we would go down to my mess for afternoon tea and big Jim Mackey, our ship’s blacksmith, would pick Daphne up and say: ‘What would you like for tea, Daphne?’ Much to the amusement of Jim and my messmates she would reply: ‘A boiling negg, please.’ After Sydney, it’s to Fremantle, West Australia. There, he encounters ho-hum domestic concerns and responds in an entirely proportional way: A frog had made its home near our front gate and in the evenings it made its mournful croaking call. This frightened Anne, so I tried to locate it under the hibiscus shrubs and hoped my attention had shifted it. But the next evening it was at it again. I promised Anne I would get rid of it by blowing it up, so I made a small charge of gelignite and placed it right on top of where I thought it was. I covered it over, lit the fuse and in a few seconds there was a loud bang. Meanwhile, the family looked on from the front verandah. I was sure that I had fixed it but almost immediately the old frog started croaking again, as loud as ever! We all collapsed with laughter, so much so that it cured Anne of her fright, meaning it wasn’t a complete waste of effort. In the Second World War, Choules delivered a ‘recognition signal of the day’ to an island outpost, secured offshore telegraph cables, set charges on a wharf in case the Japanese created the need for a ‘scorched earth policy,’ learned how to degauss mines, taught the Americans how to degauss mines, and handled the first wartime mine washed upon Australia’s shores. Years later, he handled the nighttime security watch when Queen Elizabeth visited Australia. He retired at the age of 55 in March, 1956 and moved to Safety Bay. 9. Reached by email, David Ekbladh, an assistant professor of American History at Tufts University, thinks that, in the United States at least, “the age of our connection [to the war] passed long ago …” in part because the First World War was a different type of war than those that followed and didn’t see the same ideological systems at play. “People talk of the Korean War as the forgotten war,” he says, “but even that conflict gets context as part of the Cold War, which itself is still remembered because it was a successful struggle against another side that can be seen as unsavory.” Yet it seems to me the planet’s first global war demands a kind of global grief. We need a moment of global empathy. If we can take to Twitter and talk with the Greens of Iran and the revolutionaries of Egypt, head to Flickr and watch everyone photograph everything they see over the course of a day, could we not also take a moment to tilt our heads, and turn our attention from the present to the past? Maybe hand out shovels to men and women on the street and say, “Congratulations — you’ve just been drafted as an archeologist!” I hope none of the last ever had a moment where they said, “Wait, where did everyone go?” I hope each of them had a dog, cat or an eight-foot tall Polynesian-speaking cockatoo as loyal as Argos. I hope the porches were spacious and the sun was sweet, and that lemonade, whiskey or games of chess were always close at hand. If you’re Claude, I hope you saw the statues that line Cottlesloe and that they astonished and amazed — or that the Swan River carries past your window a different and wonderful boat or creature every day. If you’re Florence, I hope the streets of King’s Lynn are active — that the long lanes that mark the area are just as active today as they were in the 40’s — that there’s plenty of talk as to what to take to the garden this year, that the radio is propped up on the garden wall, Alan Green is announcing an electric match, and a cat is trying to nibble the plastic, curious as to what the noise-emitting thing exactly is … Marking the death of Lazare Ponticelli, France’s last, Sarkozy said: “It is to [Lazare Ponticelli] and his generation that we owe in large part the peaceful and pacified Europe of today. It is up to us to be worthy of that.” And he’s right. It’s a legacy that was taken up by Robert H. Jackson and Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, chief prosecutors for the U.S. and the UK at Nuremberg. It’s a legacy you feel as you hear Lazare, Claude and Harry say, over and over again, “No more war. Stop.” Bill Clinton came to speak at Tufts University when I was 16. In an improvised speech — he’d been so impressed with the previous speaker he’d decided to throw all his remarks out the window — he touched on Ireland and the “Troubles” and compared it to Israel and Palestine. I’d switched tickets with my Dad and gotten a seat in the front row. After he was done, I managed to stop him on the rope line by saying I was reporter for the Newburyport Daily News, which was true. I asked him if he had time for a question. He said, “Shoot.” I said, “What do you think’s the basic psychological principle that prompts all human conflict?” “Envy,” he said, and then began to riff on soccer matches and Richard Wright’s Nonzero, a book that stresses the need for a non-zero sum — or, rather, positive-sum solution. It’s a rigorously banal book (so much so that I forgot I was reading it twice) but the basic “point” it makes is sound: distribute risk, distribute generosity: society is too close, too woven together to expect or allow anything different. At this point, Clinton had been talking for so long — 10, 15 minutes — I felt like I had to say something, so when he started to talk about seeking non-zero-sum solutions in conflict situations, I said, “Like the Christmas truce of 1914.” He said, “Right,” and then he moved on — a sixty-mile-per-hour answer brought to a screeching halt. Part of me felt crushed. At the time, I thought my response had let him down. As I passed out of the crowd, amazed people asked, “What did you say to him?” But there was nothing wrong in bringing up the truce. Christmas Day 1914. That day the firing stopped. “You English,” someone called from the German trenches. “Why don’t you come out?” A few deeply sarcastic Englishmen — perhaps noting the candles that had already been lit for the holiday, points of light flaring amid the mud and bodies — replied, “Waiter! Waiter!” A letter-writer to the London Times described it this way: Our fellows paid a visit to the German trenches, and they did likewise. Cigarettes, cigars, addresses, &c.;, were exchanged, and everyone, friend and foe, were real good pals. One of the German officers took a photo of English and German soldiers arm-in-arm with exchanged caps and helmets. … a football match was played between them and us in front of the trench. They even allowed us to bury all our dead lying in front, and some of them, with hats in hand, brought in one of our dead officers from behind their trench, so that we could bury him decently. The peace did not hold, of course. It would take four years for the war to come to its proper end. From Fussell — one more time: “On the Fourth Army front, at two minutes to eleven, a machine gun, about 200 yards from the leading British troops, fired off a complete belt without a pause. A single machine-gunner was then seen to stand up beside his weapon, take off his helmet, bow, and turning about walk slowly to the rear.” And of course, even as this “war to end all wars” was ending (but without ending war), another generation was springing up — “daisies amongst the concrete.” Here are just a few of the names in that register: Julio Cortazar (b. 1914), John Fitzgerald Kennedy (b. 1917), Alan Lomax (b. 1915), Billie Holliday (b. 1915), Saul Bellow (b. 1915), Francis Crick (b. 1915), Harold Wilson (b. 1916), Thelonious Monk (b. 1917), Spike Milligan (b. 1918), Anwar Sadat (b. 1918), Nelson Mandela (b. 1918). Which makes me think: when those of my generation place their centennial flag in the ground in 2084, 2085, 2086, and 2087 — and hello, future you! Do you have flying cars yet? And if so, are they in rock bands with other flying cars? — it would be nice to bow out amongst our grandchildren knowing we stood tall enough to catch the lessons of the past — those things that threatened to entropy — and hand off a better past, that we made Walt Whitman’s job global, that every atom in me really did end up belonging to you, that we figured out how to do niceness and happiness in a smart, new, warm and lively way, that we fined experts a nickel when they used the phrase, “The world has become increasingly complex” and figured they’d done their analytical job for the day, that we did not shirk the serious, that we did justice to the particulars that marked Harry’s life, Claude’s life, Florence’s life, Frank’s life, Lazare’s life, John’s life or anyone else’s, because we don’t have to look for one-to-one particulars — and we don’t have to bray on about the responsibility of memory either (enough people have) but we just can’t walk underneath a sky as blue as this, as nice as this, and as sweet as this without nodding towards time’s cavernous past, too. Harry Patch begins his autobiography with a question — “Why me?” — and ends it like this: Can you imagine how it feels to be one of the last ones? Always hearing that another has just died, then another and another, waiting to hear who’s gone and always wondering if you’re next. Well, if they’ve written the obituary, all I can say is that I hope to live long enough that they will have to update it, and more than once! Then I can fade away. Isn’t that what old soldiers are meant to do? Not quite. Not yet. Evan Fleischer lives. You can find more of his writing here. To view this essay’s bibliography, go here; to view extra material, go here. Lemuel Cook postcard from Burrcock, a history and genealogy site; Passchendaele photo and Frank Buckles recruitment photo via Wikimedia commons. Two days after this essay was published, Claude Choules passed away. |
In this golden age of television, there sometimes enters a character who shifts all former expectations; a small-screen presence who shines through the flimsy edifice we call a human body to reveal the truth: that we are just wriggling brain stems driven by our insane lusts. Television has long been supplanting the novel as the medium we turn to for long-form narrative investigations into public personas and true selves, and among its gallery of modern antiheroes, one complex yet subtle figure stands alone: Jenna Maroney. Jenna (pronounced Jenn-ahh) was 30 Rock‘s secret weapon in a show stocked with them. Jane Krakowski, formerly known best for playing ditzy Elaine on Ally McBeal, summoned everything from her lifetime walking the boards for her portrayal of Jenna: the ultimate actress. While Jenna is an attention whore, Krakowski is a generous performer who is incessantly funny whether speaking or reacting. Jenna Maroney feels like a real person, like a woman who has endured thousands of humiliating auditions and still wakes up every morning thinking, I’M GONNA BE A STAR! Maybe it’s because Krakowski has logged decades in film, TV, and theater herself. Jenna-esque credits on Krakowski’s CV include her start on the soap opera Search for Tomorrow, her role as the health teacher in a Lifetime movie called Mom at Sixteen, playing Betty Rubble in The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas, and an appearance on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit as a serial killer targeting elderly women. A trained singer and Broadway actress, Krakowski originated the role of Dinah the Dining Car in Starlight Express, the 1987 Andrew Lloyd Webber rock musical about roller skating trains, had an adult-contemporary radio hit with pianist Jim Brickman called “You,” and murdered Dennis Franz in the video for the Dixie Chicks’ “Goodbye Earl.” Krakowski’s first film role was in National Lampoon’s Vacation, as Cousin Vicki, who dropped the infamous boast, “Yeah, but Daddy says I’m the best at it” to Audrey Griswold on a seesaw. As Jenna Maroney, she continued her tradition of getting the best lines. Jenna and Tracy Jordan comprised 30 Rock‘s id, and Jenna in particular was Liz Lemon’s twin who wasn’t evil so much as just unbelievably self-absorbed. While Liz struggled to master the most basic feminine habits, Jenna’s vanity was so large it warped space-time. Tina Fey’s long-documented envy of blondes (aside from Amy Poehler) took its ideal form in Jenna. OK, there was also Cerie. But if Cerie inspired pure eye-rolling jealousy in Liz, Jenna was the nonstop reminder that being a beautiful object (especially professionally) is its own kind of nightmare. While Jenna lived a fairly successfully blonde life, there were plenty of downfalls: a chicken-fried Florida youth with a stage mother; druggy, tempestuous, violent years with Mickey Rourke; arm wrestling with Julie Bowen for scant roles in summer comedies about guys who hate their middle-aged blonde wives. Jenna was histrionic, and it was wonderful. Even in the moments when she was made more human, she was still a preposterous human. There was plenty of hugging, but hardly any learning. Jenna’s relationship with her cross-dressing Jenna impersonator boyfriend, Paul (Will Forte), absurd even by 30 Rock standards, was not only hilarious but oddly touching, a nonsense ode to the idea of love without boundaries. I really rooted for Jenna and Paul to get back together after they separated to go on sexual walkabouts. Their relationship felt more real to me than Liz and Criss’s. While I will miss all of the characters, I will miss Jenna most of all. Despite her diva attitude and constant ridiculous demands, Jenna never really came across as a bitch. She’s too silly. Jenna seems like much more of a Gretchen Wieners than a Regina George, as the show itself suggested in “Game Over,” when we saw Jenna sucking up to tween queen bee Kaylie Hooper (Chloe Moretz). Her endless desire for a cam-er-ah, marker of her farcical actressy egotism, has become pretty mundane in this post-selfie world. There is something very attractive and reassuring about Jenna Maroney’s rootless and boundless confidence. It’s all-American. Let us celebrate Jenna the best way we can. With GIFs. |
Beware, This could happen to you! I have contacted several customer service representatives at Verizon and can't seem to get anyone to fix the ridiculous situation. Here is the story: My smart phone was not working properly, I took it to the local store, they ordered a new phone that was shipped to my home and delivered the next day. Under warranty, the next day a replacement phone arrived. The same day, I put the damaged phone into the box and pasted on the prepaid label supplied by Verizon. I took the phone to the post office counter and mailed it. I had the post office scan the label and give me a receipt. About 2 weeks later I received a text message from Verizon stating that the returned phone was not received yet, but to disregard the message if the phone had been mailed back. After 2 more weeks, received another text message from Verizon stating that the returned phone was not received yet, but to disregard the message if the phone had been mailed back. After about another week, I received another text message stating that I had not returned my phone and a $449 charge would appear on my next bill. I called Verizon customer service and talked to a very nice lady named Stacy at 585-321-7650 EXT 1032. I provided Stacy with the reference number off from my post office receipt, (Prepaid Return Label # 420569509158946530067027593409) she looked it up on the internet and found it was received at the post office and had left the local post office (Algonquin, IL) and was in route to the destination. (See Attached PDF). She said she would send an email to the warehouse in Fort Worth TX and ask them to look for the phone. Stacy said she would keep me informed. A few days later, I received a voice message from Stacy suggesting that I go to my local post office and file a claim of the "lost" phone. She said should call her supervisor LUZ at 585-321-7650 EXT 1032. I called and talked to LUZ and explained that I could not go to the post office and file a claim because I did not pay for the shipping, it was a prepaid return label provided by Verizon. I also found a barcode label (keep for your own records) that I saved from the prepaid return label. FEDEX reference number 58946530067027593409 , I tracked that number and FEDEX shows it was delivered to the Fort Worth TX facility on JAN 30 at 10:59 AM (see attach PDF) I provided that information to LUZ . At this point she said it was my issue and asked why I had dropped off a FEDEX package at the USPS. I explained that the prepaid return label was a USPS label, a concept that NO ONE at Verizon appears to understand? The service is called "FEDEX SmartPost Return", and the return label was provided and paid for by Verizon. (see attached PDF) At this point, I asked to have the charge removed from my phone bill. I was told (by LUZ) that the warehouse could not find the phone , so Verizon would not remove the charge from my phone bill, but they would keep looking for it. I tried to explain that is was not my problem that the phone was lost, I did exactly what Verizon told me to do, I mailed it back in the box provided, with the prepaid label provided, hand delivered it to the post office counter and received a receipt of shipment (see attached PDF). LUZ again said that I should go to the post office and have the package traced. Tell me again why this is my problem? At this time I was very unhappy wasting my time trying to solve a problem that is totally beyond my control. I followed the return instructions EXACTLY and have proof of each step and it is still my responsibility that the returned phone is missing? LUZ said she would email the warehouse and look for the phone again. She should have fixed this at this point and removed the charge from my bill, Stacy was great, but LUZ really pissed me off!!! I Still have not received anything back from her. I called the Verizon Corporate "Executive Response Team" at 212-321-8700 and I talked with a very nice lady, she referred me to the Verizon Wireless "Executive Response Team" She told me she would email them and have them contact me. 2 days later, I was contacted by Wendy from the "Verizon Wireless Executive Response Team", I explained all of this to Wendy, she also asked why I took the package to the post office and said I should have the post office trace the package. It is clear that no one in Verizon knows how their own phone return system works? I asked Wendy to fix this, she said she will have to investigate again and that Verizon would not credit my account until they found the phone. I asked what would happen if they could not find the phone, Wendy said that I would have to pay for it $300+. Sorry, but that was the last straw! Let me get this straight, I returned a phone in the box provided by Verizon, attached the "FEDEX SmartPost Return" label provided and paid for by Verizon, hand delivered the package to the post office counter, have a copy of the post office receipt with a tracking number, have a copy of the post office tracking info showing it left the local post office, have a copy of the FEDEX portion of the shipping tracking information showing the package delivered to the warehouse in Fort Worth, the warehouse can't find the phone, so I have to pay $449!! You have to be kidding me. At this point, I attempted to contact any Verizon Executive (Corporate or Wireless) that I could find an email address for. I sent a copy of this information to at least 30 top Verizon Executives. I also filled out the "Contact sheet" for another 15 Top Execs on the Verizon Wes site. http://www22.verizon.com/investor/app_resources/interactiveannual/2010/fea_10.html http://aboutus.verizonwireless.com/leadership/executive/index.html Out of all the requests I made, only one person replied, that would be Bob Mudge, (President – Consumer and Mass Business Markets) Bob is a very nice man and said he would forward this to the correct person at the Wireless division and that he would also seem that this was resolved. In his response, he copied Daniel S. Mead (President and CEO of Verizon Wireless) dan.mead@verizon.com and Louis Sigillo (Vice President of Customer Service) louis.sigillo@verizon.com. The very next morning, I was contacted by the same WENDY at the Verizon Wireless Executive response team. Yes, the same Wendy as before. WENDY said that now they have suddenly found the empty phone box at the warehouse. The box was still sealed and was empty? SO I WILL BE CHARGED FOR THE PHONE! My postal receipt has the weight of the box on it when shipped, 13.30oz, just what a Droid phone and a small box should weigh, clearly the phone was in the box at shipment. Clearly, someone has removed the phone from the box, WENDY also stated the phone is "active" on the system, IT APPEARS THIS PHONE WAS STOLEN AFTER SHIPMENT?? (My Guess is from the Verizon warehouse?) THIS IS NOT MY PROBLEM!! Wendy said there is nothing else Verizon can do about this. I asked who else I can talk to, she said she was the final word on this. Just as a side note, Verizon only insures the return phones for $100 (the limit of FEDEX SmartPost) Two weeks after I received the replacement new Droidx2 phone, I upgraded two of my 5 lines to the new razor. Verizon gave me only a $50 "Trade in" credit for the Brand New Droidx2 I just received from the warehouse as a replacement ??? Verizon only insures the FedEX SmartPost Reteun shipment for $100, they only gave me $50 for the NEW phone I traded in, now they are charging me $449 for a damaged phone that got stolen in their shipping process! This is unbelievable! I Guess will have to go file a police report on the stolen phone, contact the post office and FedEx and inform them. I would hope Verizon will provide the information on who's account this phone is still active? My Guess it is not in my home state even? Verizon knows where the phone is, it is active (I guess) on someone's Verizon account (so WENDY Said) Maybe? Verizon will launch a criminal investigation and figure out who is stealing their phones? Unfortunately, I am not alone in this problem, Just Google "Verizon Lost My Phone" and you will see this is a systemic problem at Verizon Wireless" Lots of these same type of problems are actually posted on Verizon's own support Forums. |
David Sirota’s blog hoping that a White guy was responsible for the Boston terror has gotten quite a lot of mileage (“Let’s hope the Boston Marathon bomber is a white American”). The basic idea is that if it’s a Muslim, say, people might start thinking that increasing legal immigration by 50% and amnestying God knows how many illegals in a time of high unemployment—the Senate bill that insane Republicans think will bring them back to power—might not be a good idea. That’s because , if it’s a Muslim, people will start blaming whole groups of people and maybe not want to continue importing more of them. Or maybe they’ll tend to just blame immigration itself. (See LATimes: “Boston suspects’ background threatens to derail immigration bill.”) The bombers appear to be ethnic Chechnyans and Muslim, although at this point it can’t be said exactly what their motives were. In any case, it’s pretty obvious that these immigrant bombers don’t have much love or respect for America. So Sirota is right that people like him should hope that it was a White guy. But I rather doubt he would like the logic: It’s probably true that quite a few people would blame an entire group or even all immigrants for the actions of a few people. But that’s not really the issue. Even the least likely to stereotype would reasonably wonder why any of the group are here if even a small number are causing such death and destruction. Even if a tiny percentage of immigrants of a certain sort turn out to be terrorists who wreak major havoc (VDARE has documented the immigrant mass murder syndrome), it’s still a very bad policy to bring them in, especially when the only reasons for doing so are to meet the political goal of the left in swamping the White majority and the Republican’s goal of destroying the labor market. The same can be said about crime, low IQ, and high rates of welfare dependency and single parenting, although it would take more than a few bad apples to sway the argument on these issues. (High percentages of illegal immigrants [58% in Texas, 55% in California] are already on means-tested welfare; the new bill ensures that they will continue to do so, likely at much higher rates.) Of course, for the left and now the Republicans envisioning all those welfare recipients voting for Marco Rubio, no cost is too high in the drive to eclipse White America. But it’s worth pondering the other side of the coin—that a White American bomber would not result in stereotyping Whites. Anti-White activist Tim Wise took the opportunity presented by the Boston bombings to claim that the fact that Whites do not suffer group stigma for such an act is yet another example of “White privilege”—a “privilege” enjoyed by any demographic majority. But of course that’s the real reason why Wise and Sirota are exercised: they hate the fact that there is still a White majority. (See here for TOO articles mentioning Tim Wise.) Of course the media would have been ecstatic if they could report that a “White supremacist” had done it—”White supremacist” being the term of art routinely employed by the media for any White who dares to think that Whites have interests and will suffer huge costs by becoming a minority. The story would play into the common stereotype among many on the left that any White person is a potential “Nazi” who could rise up and murder innocent people. Which leads into the main point: Sirota discussed his column in an online debate with Ben Shapiro of Breitbart.com. So we are treated to a debate between two Jews representing the very narrow limits of respectable discussion on issues related to race and multiculturalism. Former AIPAC staffer Sirota thinks that America is a nasty, xenophobic place (unlike Israel whose latest bits of ethnic chauvinism include proposing an AIPAC-approved visa waiver program with the U.S. that would exclude Arab-Americans and insisting that France discriminate against Blacks and Arabs as baggage handlers for a state visit by Shimon Peres). To which Shapiro responds: racism exists. But it is not the dominant force in American life. Speaking of which, I do find it odd that Jews are considered members of the white privileged class when less than two generations ago, whites wouldn’t let us into their country clubs. |
How you think about gaming miniatures is about to change Hand of Glory is a new type of gaming miniature with a very cool twist: each Hand of Glory figure and accessory is magnetized using tiny rare-earth magnets. This means for the first time, you will be able to change your character on the fly. This will literally change the game! Since everything in the Hand of Glory line is magnetized, your character can swap out weapons and items to use whatever your adventure calls for. Since all accessories work with all figures, you can easily customize your character’s loadout and pick up new items along your journey. You can level up your character, swap weapons with allies, and steal items from foes. Use Hand of Glory to tell your own story. This project is inspired by open-world RPG video games, such as Skyrim and The Witcher (which, of course are based on D&D and other classic tabletop RPGs!). In the video game world, we love collecting and trading weapons, customizing loadouts for specific battles, managing inventory, experimenting with powerful dual-wielded weapon combinations, and searching for unique items along the way. We're super excited to bring this open-world video game feel back to tabletop gaming! Modularity and magnetism Hand of Glory puts a new spin on traditional gaming miniatures. To achieve maximum modularity, Hand of Glory uses our proprietary rare-earth magnet system. First, Neodymium rare-earth magnets are installed into the figure’s arms. Then, magnetic steel plugs are installed into each accessory. This way, the polarity of the magnet does not matter, and the magnetism is just right: strong yet easy to swap while you play. High-detailed cast pewter All of our highly detailed characters and accessories are cast in the US from the finest lead-free pewter and are easily paintable. Since the figures and items are cast separately, we can create unique character poses and highly ornate accessories that are not always possible with traditional miniature castings. The separated items also allow for easier painting. There are 9 Heroes in this first collection, and 2 add-on figures. They are Heroic scale (32mm) and range in size from 25mm to 40mm. Each figure is made from pewter (unpainted) and includes a 25mm slotted base and rare-earth magnets to install into the arms. Each highly detailed pewter accessory universally fits on ALL of the figures. In our first line, we are offering 3 different weapon and item series, and a handful of add-on items. There are swords, axes, shields, warhammers, magical items, potions, crossbows, torches, and even a dragon familiar! We have over 100 unique items, and all of them can be used by ANY of the figures. The Basic Pledge includes Series 1 weapons & items (15 total accessories) includes weapons & items (15 total accessories) The Advanced Pledge includes BOTH Series 1 and Series 2 weapons & items (45 total accessories) includes weapons & items (45 total accessories) The Heroic and Legendary Pledges include ALL THREE Series (over 105 total accessories!) These accessories are included with all pledge tiers These accessories are included with the Advanced, Heroic, and Legnedary pledge tiers These accessories are included with the Heroic, and Legendary pledge tiers *Each figure includes a 25mm base and rare-earth magnets, and each accessory set includes magnetic steel plugs. Figures and accessories come unpainted and unassembled and require just a bit of superglue to install. Each shipment will include a tool to help with installation. We need your help to spread the word about Hand of Glory, and the more we raise, the more stuff you will get for your pledge! Help unlock all of the free extras and additional add-on options by sharing HoG on social media, your favorite gaming forum, Reddit, etc. Hand of Glory kits include everything you need to build your arsenal. Each pewter figure includes a plastic 25mm base, and rare-earth magnets to install into the arms. Each pewter accessory includes a steel plug to install into the hand (the direction of the magnet and steel plug does not matter during installation). Each shipment will also include a tool to help with installation. We worked very hard to ensure that the parts are accurate and very simple and fun to assemble. They require only a small amount of superglue (we recommend using superglue gel!). Hand of Glory is made to be universally modular, which means that ALL current and future weapons and items will work with ALL current and future figures, and that will ALWAYS be the case! If we’re successful, we have lots of additional figures, weapons, and items in mind for future expansions, and we’d love to explore creating a game that incorporates the unique swappability of the HoG figures. Let us know in the comments what you’d like to see for version 2! Select which reward tier you would like and follow the pledge instructions. After the campaign we will send you a survey to get your Hero choices and your shipping information, and collect shipping payment (see below). Add-On Figures and Add-On Items The Legendary Pledge includes all add-ons for free but to purchase add-on figures or add-on items a la carte, just total the amount and add it to your pledge. You will also have the option to purchase add-on figures, add-on items, and duplicate Heroes and weapon sets after the campaign. A note about shipping The price of shipping is not included in the pledge, we will collect shipping after the campaign through a pledge manager. Hand of Glory kits can be shipped to anywhere in the world. Current pricing estimates are: USA: $3 - $5 CANADA: $11 - $15 EUROPE: $12 - $18 REST OF WORLD: $15 - $20 (At this point we plan on shipping everything from the US and cannot be responsible for any customs or VAT fees. This policy could be adjusted based on the success of the campaign.) The HoG team is Jason Bakutis and Matt Kroner. They are part of the team that created Fire & Bone, which has run several super-successful Kickstarter campaigns and sold thousands of tiny skulls to customers and prestigious museum stores all over the world. (You may notice a few F&B skulls in this collection!) Jason is a former FX makeup artist and has many film credits to his name. He also has worked for many years as a professional sculptor, which he does both by hand and digitally. He designed and created all the creatures and miniatures for the infamous "Zelda's Adventure" in the 90s. He has tons of experience with casting and with many kinds of production and manufacturing. Jason also has a line of miniature horror dioramas called MicroFear. Matt is a graduate of the Industrial Design program at the University of Cincinnati. He is an expert in designing products for manufacturing using rapid prototyping technologies like 3D printing, and he has used his skills as a designer in the toy industry. *Special thanks to Todd McNeal of Toad Painting for the figure painting and Annelise Jeske for the video and photography. |
Posted on January 11, 2013 by Bryan Ball Catrike has released their 2012.5 and 2013 model changes. Most are filed under great. A new 700, a new Pocket and refinements to the Villager and Trail. Also an improved 2013 component package that’s details aren’t revealed as of yet. One of the 2013 changes can be filed under not-so-great. Only seven colors available for 2013. If you want a custom Catrike color, get it soon! Check out the details in the following press release. (Full gallery of spy shots after the jump.) From Catrike… Another Leap of the Cat(trike) Our vision dictates that we will be excellent at our core, focus 100% on development of our Catrikes and be the inspiration of the trike market. We have quietly spent hundreds of hours in R&D last year doing just that. We have added a lot of new great features to our 2013 line up that will be communicated to our dealers and public by our next Catrike Rally. We will have a small price increase to reflect the true value of our ethically made in the US products. In the mean time we have a few changes that are being implemented now in what we call the 2012.5: 2012.5 models (we are calling these 2012 and a half models, meaning that they have new updated 2013 frames but with 2012 components. These are the trikes we are shipping in January and until our 2013 models are ready) -prices remain the same as 2012 for these 2012.5 configurations –Pocket: New frame, 406 wheels front, 41 degree seat back (4 degrees less than 2012) and 9″ Seat Height (1″ higher then 2012) another great, perfectly scaled Catrike. –700: New frame. We fit this trike with 406 (20”) front wheels and Ultremo ZX tires. As an accomplishment in engineering, we rotated the rider’s body position around the center of gravity, thus achieving a more streamlined position, raising the seat, transferring weight to the rear of the trike, without in effect, affecting the center of gravity. We have dropped its bottom bracket just enough for perfect tuning of the cockpit and the balance between rider comfort, output and aerodynamics. Finally we have added 1″ to its wheel base, to a total of 46″ for an optimum weight distribution, front wheel clearances and impressive straight line stability. The result is a slightly more reclined and better aerodynamic position, a higher seat bottom and ground clearance to create an improved relationship between the chain line and its main frame, thus stiffening the whole frame during pedaling while still maintaining its impressive cornering ability, handling and steering forces during turn. On top of that, because we have our own CNC milling machine, we have designed and sculpted a new flanged drop out that is lighter, stiffer and just plain gorgeous that screams quality and design with a purpose. This trike is simply the most beautiful, refined and fastest Catrike we ever produced. We have coined the term of a low flying carpet for trikes and nothing is more truthful when you ride the new 700. –Trail and Villager: These Catrike are even more sophisticated with new seat adjustable system (like the Road). Frame is clean, light and strong and now has a 300 lbs weight capacity with one quick release to adjust the seat angle that is very friendly and intuitive. Not all steering systems are designed equal. Thanks to our over a decade in steering design and dedication and expertise in direct steering, we have yet again refined our steering geometry. Its handling rivals any trike in the World that cost thousands more, and still provides the great qualities of a well designed direct steering; light at low speed, solid at high speed with a great road feedback and a direct connection between rider and machine. A lovely and fun feeling with all the performance and stability desired. – Our new 2013 Catrike standard group is unprecedented and establishes a new benchmark in the trike category. Thanks to our focus, volume and standardization we are able to give more. –Colors: we have selected the 7 most appealing, popular and meaningful colors and will offer only these in 2013. They are mostly considered premium, double coats and they will come as a standard with no price increase on any Catrke model. This is a case that we figure we can do more offering premium colors in our established process so we can provide it as a standard cost, making the Catrikes even more appealing and greater value. This will allow our customer to decide with confidence among only great choices of our beautiful Catrikes. The new standard colors are: Liquid Black, Alpine White, Moon Rock Silver, Electric Blue, Lava Red, Saber Green and Shinny Mango. |
To recap the #MeToo movement across the media landscape, it's exposed CBS This Morning co-host/PBS host Charlie Rose, NBC's Today co-host Matt Lauer, CNN analyst/New Yorker writer Ryan Lizza, and author/NBC political analyst Mark Halperin to name a few. So who will be the next liberal celebrity to lose his career due to allegations of sexual misconduct? Well, the answer appears to be Tavis Smiley. On Wednesday night, PBS announced it was suspending the talk show host for the same reason as many of his fellow celebrity liberals. Variety provided some of the details of his suspension in PBS Suspends ‘Tavis Smiley’ Following Sexual Misconduct Investigation: <<< Please support MRC's NewsBusters team with a tax-deductible contribution today. >>> “Effective today, PBS has indefinitely suspended distribution of ‘Tavis Smiley,’ produced by TS Media, an independent production company,” the public broadcaster said. “PBS engaged an outside law firm to conduct an investigation immediately after learning of troubling allegations regarding Mr. Smiley. This investigation included interviews with witnesses as well as with Mr. Smiley. The inquiry uncovered multiple, credible allegations of conduct that is inconsistent with the values and standards of PBS, and the totality of this information led to today’s decision.” ...The investigation found credible allegations that Smiley had engaged in sexual relationships with multiple subordinates, sources said. Some witnesses interviewed expressed concern that their employment status was linked to the status of a sexual relationship with Smiley. In general, witnesses described Smiley as creating a verbally abusive and threatening environment that went beyond what could be expected in a typical high-pressure work environment. Several expressed concerns about retaliation. ...In a February piece in the Observer, Jacques Hyzagi, a former producer on Smiley’s television show, wrote that Smiley’s “misogyny is always creeping around, barely camouflaged by Midwestern good manners.” Hyzagi described Smiley picking up a woman at the Orlando airport and bringing her along on a reporting trip as a “f--- buddy”; alleged that Smiley had a romantic relationship with another producer; and quoted Smiley denigrating PBS executives. Liberal hypocrisy. How shocking! The question is not if but who will be the next abusive liberal celebrity to be caught up in sexual misconduct allegations? For those few unaware of the liberal bonafides of Smiley, NewsBusters has a long chronicle of his antics in this matter. Here are a smattering of the Tavis Smiley highlights: Tavis Smiley and Celeb: We ‘Don’t Want to Be Here in This' Trump 'Madness’ PBS's Smiley and Guest Muse Over 'Self-Loathing' Women Voting for Trump PBS Host Tavis Smiley Ignores Folk Singer’s Sex Offense History Tavis Smiley on CNN: 'Racism, Poverty and Militarism' Behind Ferguson Shooting PBS’s Smiley Sees ‘Tolerance Decreasing’ in America, U.S. Seen as ‘Arrogant, Elitist, Pompous’ Going back farther in the archives to January 2009, then-NewsBusters contributing writer Mark Finkelstein chronicled Smiley declaring on MSNBC's Morning Joe that "[w]e're all working for Barack Obama." Smiley wasn't the only person who spewed liberal venom on his eponymous PBS show as, thanks to it being filmed in Los Angeles, it acted as a home base for far-left celebrities whenver they felt it necessary to, well, vent. The latter story is rather ironic considering the reason why Smiley is now being headlined in the news. |
We should talk about Max B. Over the past few years, the Harlem sing-rapper has emerged as one of the most influential rap voices in the world, his emotive drug-fogged singsong helping to make the world safe for people like Future and Wiz Khalifa. And he’s not some unknown pioneer; he’s been acknowledged as such. Rappers have been seeking his approval, to the point where Kanye West devoted an interlude on The Life Of Pablo to making sure everyone knew Max B was OK with Kanye using the word “waves.” Max B’s recent prominence is amazing for a couple of reasons. One reason is that Max has been in prison for the last seven years. In 2009, he was sentenced to 75 years behind bars for setting up an armed robbery that turned into a murder. Another reason is that Max B was never especially good at making music. I spent about three and a half years in New York, starting in the middle of the last decade. This was not an especially good period for New York rap. I got to be there for the concurrent rises of a series of bring-New-York-back goons, touted mixtape prospects who never amounted to much because their music was boring. For a while there, people really thought Papoose and Saigon and Maino were stars in the making. People were wrong. I was there for the breakup of the Diplomats and for the Wu-Tang Clan’s final slide into just-for-the-heads festival fare. I was there for 50 Cent losing his spot to Kanye West and for Jay-Z releasing Kingdom Come. And I was there for Max B. I didn’t get the big deal with Max B. For me, he was just some atonal-honking dingdong who couldn’t even sing as well as Freaky Zeeky but who was allowed to ruin multiple Cam’ron hooks for way too long. At the 2006 Hot 97 Summer Jam, Dipset closed out the show, and Cam and Jim Jones and Juelz Santana all got way, way less stage time than Max B. I couldn’t figure it out. I still can’t figure it out. Max was an original, sure. But at least to my mind, the whole depressive-singing thing was an interesting-in-theory formula, one that didn’t amount to much on its own. It took Future coming along to turn it into actual good music. Still, Max is an honest-to-god rap cult hero, a figure who’s become mythic since he went away to prison. Those stories are always fascinating. And I have a theory that Max B’s absence is the only reason we still have to deal with French Montana. I was in New York for at least part of French Montana’s rise, too. The first time I encountered him, it was on a Smack DVD or on some other DVD-mixtape, which was going improbably deep on French’s beef with the Brooklyn battle rapper Murda Mook. Mook would clown French viciously in some living room, then French would watch Mook’s insults and mutter half-heartedly about how they were stupid. French didn’t make a great impression then. But French could make songs, something that Mook couldn’t do and that most rappers still can’t do. French was Max’s protege in the years before Max went to prison, and he got a definite boost from that association. But French was also capable of durable mixtape-rap bangers like “New York Minute” and “Shot Caller,” the latter of which crossed over into national underground-hit status a few years after I left the city. He teamed up with Harry Fraud, the psychedelic boom-bap producer who gave him an actual sound. And he proved himself capable of being the rare New York rapper who could make organic collaborations with Southern guys, like the Waka Flocka Flame team-up “Choppa Choppa Down.” But once French teamed up with Rick Ross and Diddy in some kind of Maybach Music/Bad Boy dual venture, he lost the locally specific energy that had once made him an intriguing newcomer. Once the record-label machinery got moving behind French, it became painfully obvious that he was a deeply average rapper, not a star in the making. His official 2013 debut, Excuse My French, was a limp hit-chasing cobbled-together nothing that lost French’s sonic identity, and his biggest hit turned out to be “Pop That,” the superstar posse cut that had Drake and Ross and Lil Wayne all outrapping French. He felt like a guest on his own song. His rapping style is muttery and conversational, and when you remove him from the context of a Harry Fraud track like “Shot Caller,” he sounds like a happy Eeyore. He has no particular on-mic magnetism of his own, and he has a bad habit of letting his guests completely overwhelm him. Excuse My French bricked, and the year it came out, I saw French put on one of the saddest live rap performances I’ve ever seen. He headlined a day of the FADER Fort at SXSW, rapping in front of a live band whose under-rehearsed din he had no idea how to navigate. And he promised big guests, which turned out to be Diddy and Macklemore. Watching French attempt to amiably head-bop to “Thrift Shop,” a song whose point rebukes French’s entire silk-scarved existence, was one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen. French’s music should be a lot more interesting than it is. His whole story — Moroccan immigrant kid to teenage Bronx drug dealer to NY mixtape scrapper to something like actual stardom — is the stuff that great biopics are made of. A few years ago, The FADER sent my friend Zach Baron to Morocco with French, and the result was one of my favorite magazine profiles ever. Zach watched as French met his father for the first time. It was really something. French’s look is great, too — all Versace and Egyptian cotton, a new spin on ancient ideas of luxury. In interviews, he comes across as warm-hearted as he does savvy — a rare thing for a major rapper. But none of the things that make French fascinating come across in his music. He’s had every chance to ascend to the upper levels of rap stardom, and he just can’t do it. On last year’s Coke Zoo mixtape, a full-length Fetty Wap collaboration, we get to hear a very real contrast between French, a longtime industry insider who can’t make the big leap, and Fetty, a grimy New Jersey outsider who’s already made that same leap. You’d think the music industry would’ve stopped trying with French by now. But they haven’t. They won’t. Wave Gods, the new French Montana mixtape, isn’t awful, but it isn’t good, either. The best moments are the ones that give in fully to Harry Fraud’s sense of float and to whatever the guests might be doing. “Lock Jaw,” with the exciting Florida up-and-comer Kodak Black, is probably my favorite song on the tape, and that’s mostly because it’s really a Kodak Black song. “Figure It Out” is a Nas song with a Kanye West hook. “Man Of My City” is a Travis Scott song with a Big Sean verse. Max B hosts the tape, calling in from prison and saying nice things about French, but French never justifies them. I know plenty of New York people who think that French is an honest-to-god great rapper, and I know absolutely nobody from outside New York who feels the same way. In most cases, that would be fine; every city needs its own underground superstars. The problem is that various powers keep trying to push French to be something more. It’s never going to work. That used to be the knock against Jadakiss, by the way — he was too New York-specific to resonate anywhere else. (50 Cent on “Piggy Bank”: “In New York, niggas like your vocals / But that’s only New York, dog / Your ass is local.”) And yet, when Jadakiss shows up on French’s “Old Man Wildin,” he just pops off it, shooting wizened guttural authority in every direction. French still hasn’t figured out how to project that sort or personality. But he’ll keep getting chances. FURIOUS FIVE 1. Tate Kobang – “Oh My” A kid from Baltimore grabs a hypnotic, propulsive Honorable C-Note loop and gets all breathless and energetic over it, high-stepping over it like it’s Baltimore club. The whole thing is forward momentum — no room for contemplation, the hook almost a by-product of how fast and assured everything is. I’m from Baltimore, which means I’m going to stan hard for anyone who bursts out of my city with this sort of explosiveness. Even if I wasn’t, though, I’d still be amped. This is the sort of song that should make you amped, wherever you’re from. 2. Azealia Banks – “The Big Big Beat” Azealia Banks’ best moments are the ones where she threatens to bring back hip-house. This one is a miles-deep thump that sounds like something Crystal Waters would’ve howled over in the early ’90s. Banks grabs it with authority, and she sounds like a revelation. Even the singing parts are fun as hell. 3. Aesop Rock – “Rings” I think Aesop works best when his music has some fire to it, when it refuses to allow him to fold completely inward. This big, nasty rumble of a beat does the trick. Aesop is as lyrically dense as ever, but he’s rapping on-beat now in ways that he wasn’t doing 15 years ago. It’s all a little busy, but mostly in a good way. 4. T.I. – “Money Talk” T.I. is an elder statesman at this point, but he’s still listening to rap, still adjusting, still learning. I love the subtle little Young Thug inflections he throws into this. He never bites, but he uses them to color his own flow, tweaking it just slightly so that it makes sense over a weird, blooping beat like this one. 5. Joey Bada$$ – “Retro” Joey Bada$$ made his name doing ’90s-style New York retro-rap, and he could probably keep doing that forever without losing his audience. Instead, he suddenly sounds like he exists in the present day. The beat comes from boom-bap archivist Statik Selektah, but it has a glimmer to it that feels very new. And Joey has urgency and swagger; he is fully willing, for instance, to denounce New York nonentity Troy Ave. IT WAS ALL GOOD JUST A WEEK AGO |
Here are six key takeaways from the Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) 15th annual report on the global wealth-management industry from its report titled Winning the Growth Game: Global Wealth 2015. 1) Just 928 households own one-fifth of India’s private financial wealth. The number of Indian ultra-high net worth households (households with wealth over $100 million) in 2014 was 928. The percentage of private financial wealth they own is 20%. This measure is projected by BCG to go up to 24% by 2019. 2) Indian households with financial wealth of more than $1 million own 36% of private financial wealth in the country. The share of those with over $1 million in financial assets has gone up from 33% of total private financial wealth in 2009 to 36% in 2014. Their share is projected to go up to 38% by 2019. The BCG 2015 global wealth report doesn’t say how many households in India had financial wealth of more than $1 million. However, their 2014 report said that India had 175,000 millionaire households in 2013. 3) The rate of growth of wealth of those with more than $100 million is projected to be the highest among all wealth groups in the next five years. In India, the wealth of this group is expected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 26%. 4) India ranks fourth globally among countries having the largest number of ultra-net worth households. The US remained the country with the largest number of ultra-net worth households at 5,201, followed by China at 1,037, the UK at 1,019, India at 928, and Germany at 679. 5) Share of millionaire households will grow further Millionaire households (those with more than $1 million in private financial wealth) held 41% of global private wealth in 2014, higher than 40% in 2013. Their share is expected to rise to 46% of the global private wealth in 2019. 6) The Asia ex-Japan region is predicted to overtake North America by 2019 in terms of private financial wealth. Asia-Pacific (ex Japan) is expected to grow at a CAGR of 9% from 2014-2019 while BCG predicts North America to grow at a slower pace of 4.2%. By 2019, the Asia Pacific (ex-Japan) region is expected to have 34% of global wealth, up from 29% in 2014. In contrast, North America’s share of global wealth is expected to decline from 31% in 2014 to 28% by 2019. |
‘Everybody hates you’. I was warned not to look at social media, but you know how it is. So when curiosity got the better of me and I opened Twitter on my phone early Friday morning, they were the first three words I read. On Thursday I joined Fianna Fáil, and was appointed spokesperson on Brexit. The reaction on social media was a tsunami of abuse. The satire was at the most cutting edge of Irish wit. Some public figures I greatly admire shook their heads, publicly. A Kenyan friend of mine WhatsApp’d me from Nairobi – a Wicklow resident she knows had been in touch to see if she might intervene (true story). The questions at the press conference in the Dáil were delivered with a certain professional glee, and they were straight to the point – Why, given the myriad of criticisms you’ve made over the years of Fianna Fáil’s role in the crash, are you now joining them? And there’s the obvious human question – Why, when you could’ve stayed safely on the Independent benches, would you invite such a torrent down upon yourself? I had, after all, a pretty good idea of how some would react, and it’s a deeply unpleasant thing to experience. I did what was hands down the worst interview of my six years in politics, on RTE’s Drivetime. I struggled to address a strong criticism of Fianna Fáil it was being insisted I had made. I paused (never pause). I said I didn’t know where the quote was from (never do that). I said it just didn’t sound like my language (stop digging), and was told it was from my own website (car crash). The clip was put online by Drivetime and devoured by an online hoard. That sanctimonious ass (me) was getting his just deserts (and in fairness, I had it coming). As an aside, I checked the source afterwards and as I suspected, it wasn’t my language. I had been quoting a third party from a conversation back in 2011, who was reflecting that a culture associated with Fianna Fáil during the bubble would invariably now be seen in the incoming Fine Gael / Labour Government. But it doesn’t really matter, because the basic charge being levelled was the same one put repeatedly on Thursday – I was joining a political party I had been highly critical of in the past. And that charge is both accurate and fair. So why do it? Right now, in spite of some genuine progress, Ireland is being driven in broadly the same direction that we see fracturing parts of Western society. This fracturing is giving rise to events like Brexit, American isolationism and the growth of far right-wing politics across Europe. If we continue down our current path, that fracturing will happen here, and arguably already is. And even if it doesn’t happen, these international events already pose the greatest economic threat Ireland has faced in decades. Given this, the best way forward, for me, is to work with a strong political team, who I believe want to steer Ireland in a better direction, and who have the ideas, the ambition and the capability to navigate the choppy waters ahead. Based on the social and economic thinking and policies being put forward, I believe Ireland would be better served by a Fianna Fáil-led government than by a Fine Gael-led one. I have levelled numerous criticisms at Fianna Fáil. I stand by those statements, and believe that policy decisions taken from about ten to fifteen years ago contributed significantly to the crash. But I’ve equally criticised Fine Gael and Labour, and believe that policy decisions they made in the last Dáil contributed significantly to unnecessary damage caused to so many people during the recession. So no matter what party I might join, it would be one whose policies I have been critical of, and I would, absolutely correctly, be held to account for what I had said about them previously. But that discomfort pales in comparison to what matters in Ireland today. Nearly a decade on from the crash, Ireland should be in clear blue waters. We should be enjoying a gradual return to a stable and shared prosperity. Some things are going well, like the on-going fall in unemployment. But look through any Sunday paper, and you’ll see a menu of the challenges we’re facing. Domestically, there’s the obvious, in areas like housing, healthcare, child poverty and transport. And there’s the less obvious, in areas like education funding, pensions, infrastructure and the erosion of a stable tax base. Internationally, the two obvious concerns for Ireland are Brexit and an increasingly isolationist America. But there are more subtle challenges too. If Marine Le Pen is elected, for example, she may seek to pull France out of the Euro, which could collapse the currency. There’s the imminent erosion of much of Ireland’s tax competitiveness. President Trump has told big business he’ll drop the US corporate tax rate to 15-20%. Prime Minister May is signalling that she may go below 15% (it was 30% in 2006). And Northern Ireland is moving its rate to 12.5% pretty soon. There’s the attempted relaunch by the European Commission of a policy that would spread out corporation tax receipts around Europe in a way that could wipe billions off our tax base. Any of these issues, on their own, would pose a material risk to our economy. But they’re all happening at the same time. Why do I think a Fianna Fáil government would serve Ireland better in these times? Firstly, I see a party going back to its social democratic roots, emphasising a stable tax base, support for business, investment in public services and communities, and a shared prosperity. Secondly, the party I’ve witnessed over the past six years is one that’s worked hard to move on. There are those who call this naivety on my part. Maybe, but my view is based on experience – over the past six years I’ve worked at close quarters with a fair number of Fianna Fáil TDs and Senators on three different Oireachtas Committees, and I’ve been consistently impressed. Thirdly, the scale of the domestic and international challenges and opportunities we face requires some of the big, brave thinking of the Lemass era. And rightly or wrongly, I believe that potential’s there today. The stark reality we have to address is that the socio-economic model that we’ve been using in the Western world isn’t working for too many people, nor for the planet. The result is less opportunity, and more instability, for too many people. The centre – both the centre left and centre right – need to reimagine the way forward. We need to figure out, very quickly, how to grow socially and economically in ways that are both inclusive and sustainable. That is the challenge of our times, and the stakes – both the risks and opportunities – cannot be overstated. What I did this week wasn’t done lightly. I knew some people would react negatively, and would have preferred me to stay Independent. These are my reasons, and I fully respect those who do not agree with them. Now, it’s on to Brexit – ensuring that the rights of the citizens of Northern Ireland are protected, that our Irish companies are given every possible support, that Ireland’s voice is heard clearly in the upcoming negotiations, and much more. This article originally appeared in the Sunday Independent on February 5th, 2017. |
Qatar are likely be stripped of the 2022 World Cup, according to a former senior figure in their bid team, who turned whistleblower to expose corruption. Phaedra Almajid says the weight of evidence of wrongdoing from her and others will be so overwhelming that FIFA will be left with no option but to find another host. Almajid has been under protective custody of the FBI and she fears her safety will be compromised further if the tournament is taken away from the tiny oil-rich state, who shocked the world by winning the right to stage the 2022 event in 2010. Phaedra Almajid spoke exclusively to the Mail on Sunday and revealed how she had been treated FIFA president Sepp Blatter announces Qatar as the hosts for the 2022 World Cup in December 2010 While hoping justice is done, Almajid admits that the prospect ‘scares me a lot’ because some ‘extremists’ may feel she played a role in that happening. She said: ‘There are people who are annoyed with me [for speaking out], and what really irks them is that I’m a female, Muslim whistleblower.’ Another consequence of recent events, Almajid believes, is that outgoing FIFA president Sepp Blatter may try to take 2022 from Qatar as part of a radical reform agenda designed to win him praise ‘and save his skin.’ Speaking for the first time since Blatter announced he wants a new election to pick his successor Almajid said: ‘I just don’t think Blatter actually intends to quit. Everything he does is very calculated. He’ll try very hard to save himself, I’m sure of it.’ Almajid, an Arab-American now based in the US, worked for Qatar’s 2022 bid team until early 2010. She told the Mail on Sunday last year that a subsequent retraction of her allegations was coerced. In fear of her safety for herself and her family - she has two children, one of them severely disabled - she was taken into the protective custody of the FBI. The FBI are leading the investigation which has led to 14 arrests, with even more expected. ‘The FBI have everything,’ she said. Almajid also co-operated fully with a FIFA-funded probe led by Michael Garcia, a former US attorney for New York. Blatter hands over the Jules Rimet trophy to the Emir of the State of Qatar Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani Triplets Jackson (left), Wilsher (centre) and Lillie Weekes were among the 13 children killed in a fire at a nursery in a shopping mall in Qatar’s capital, Doha. Their parents Martin and Jane are seeking justice Disgraced Warner in negotiations Disgraced former FIFA vice-president Jack Warner, who has previously vowed to fight extradition, is in ‘tentative negotiations’ to talk to American law enforcers, The Mail on Sunday has learned. A source close to the Trinidadian, accused of taking a £6.5million bribe from South Africa to vote for it to stage the 2010 World Cup, said: ‘Jack has finally come to terms with the reality of his situation. ‘His lawyers are negotiating with the US to try to minimise whatever consequences are coming his way.’ When another FIFA official, Hans-Joachim Eckert, released a summary of Garcia’s findings last November, Eckert claimed there were ‘serious concerns’ about Almajid’s credibility. She had been guaranteed anonymity by Garcia. Instead she saw Eckert’s summary as a clear attempt by FIFA to smear her. ‘I’m still furious with the way I was portrayed,’ she says. ‘I was stupid enough to trust that FIFA wanted to find the truth.’ Almajid insists that her anger today, however, is most intense on behalf of others who have been victims of human rights violations in Qatar, across many different sectors of society. This anger in turn is also aimed at FIFA, a body that handed Qatar the 2022 World Cup. FIFA whistleblower Phaedra Almajid is now under FBI protection and fears for her life Speaking in an interview, Almajid said she would be looking over her shoulder for the rest of her life One case of agonising personal interest to Almajid involves the deaths of 13 children in a fire at a nursery in a shopping mall in Qatar’s capital, Doha, in 2012. Among those killed were two-year-old triplets Lillie, Jackson and Wilsher Weekes, whose parents Martin and Jane have become close friends with Almajid through their own quest for justice in Qatar. The couple are from New Zealand although Mr Weekes is British-born. Among many shocking aspects of their case is that a member of Qatar’s royal family, Sheikh Ali Bin Jasim Bin Al Thani, owned the nursery where the Weekes’ children died, and was convicted in a Qatari court in 2013 of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to six years in jail. But he has not served a day of that sentence and instead continues in his role as Qatar’s ambassador to Belgium, and to the European Union. There has been no official explanation as to why he remains at liberty. The issue will be considered at a United Nations Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva later this month. Almajid says: ‘The Qataris don’t care about human rights. There are human rights violations being made across Qatari society and they make promises to fix them - and they break every promise. ‘The have said there will be justice for the family of the triplets who died in that fire and there has been none. Instead the man responsible is an ambassador. ‘The Qataris promise they will fix the human rights abuses around the labour being used to prepare for the World Cup. They haven’t and I don’t believe they will. ‘The Qataris don’t keep their promises. They won’t keep promises on human rights. I lived there and worked there for seven years and I know that the royal family there hate one thing more than anything - being publicly shamed. They should be shamed for the treatment of the Weekes family. |
LAKE PLACID, N.Y. (AP) — Steven Holcomb, the longtime U.S. bobsledding star who drove to three Olympic medals after beating a disease that nearly robbed him of his eyesight, was found dead in Lake Placid, New York, on Saturday. He was 37. The U.S. Olympic Committee and USA Bobsled and Skeleton announced his death, the cause of which remains unclear. However, officials said there were no immediate indications of foul play. An autopsy was tentatively scheduled for Sunday. The native of Park City, Utah, was a three-time Olympian, and his signature moment came at the 2010 Vancouver Games when he piloted his four-man sled to a win that snapped a 62-year drought for the U.S. in bobsled's signature race. "It would be easy to focus on the loss in terms of his Olympic medals and enormous athletic contributions to the organization, but USA Bobsled and Skeleton is a family and right now we are trying to come to grips with the loss of our teammate, our brother and our friend," said Darrin Steele, the federation's CEO who had known Holcomb for two decades. Holcomb also drove to bronze medals in both two- and four-man events at the Sochi Games in 2014, and was expected to be part of the 2018 U.S. Olympic team headed to the Pyeongchang Games. He also was a former world champion in both two-man and four-man competition. "The entire Olympic family is shocked and saddened by the incredibly tragic loss today of Steven Holcomb," U.S. Olympic Committee CEO Scott Blackmun said. "Steve was a tremendous athlete and even better person, and his perseverance and achievements were an inspiration to us all. Our thoughts and prayers are with Steve's family and the entire bobsledding community." Steven Holcomb of the United States, from left, poses with his team Curtis Tomasevicz, Steven Langton and Christopher Fogt after winning their four-man Bobsled World Cup race in Koenigssee, southern Germany, on Sunday, Jan. 26, 2014. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader) Holcomb was still one of the world's elite drivers, finishing second on the World Cup circuit in two-man points and third in four-man points this past season. His final victory came in Lake Placid last December, when he drove to a two-man win. He was cherubic, almost always happy in public, someone whose sense of humor was well-known throughout the close-knit bobsled world. Yet he revealed in recent years that there was also a troubled side, including battles with depression and a failed hotel-room suicide attempt in 2007 which he wrote about in his autobiography, "But Now I See: My Journey from Blindness to Olympic Gold." "After going through all that and still being here, I realized what my purpose was," Holcomb told the AP in a 2014 interview. The depression, he believed, largely stemmed from his fight with the disease called keratoconus. Holcomb's vision degenerated to the point where he was convinced that his bobsled career was ending, and his mood quickly started going dark as well. His eyesight was saved in a surgery that turned his 20-500 vision into something close to perfect, and his sliding career simply took off from there. Winning gold with push athletes Steve Mesler, Curt Tomasevicz and Justin Olsen at the Vancouver Olympics turned Holcomb into a full-fledged star. In the months that followed, Holcomb met President Barack Obama, played golf with Charles Barkley, hung out with Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes - they were then a couple - visited the New York Stock Exchange, threw the ceremonial first pitch at a Cleveland Indians game and went to the Indianapolis 500. He even posed nude for ESPN The Magazine's body issue, an obviously memorable experience for the notoriously rotund bobsledder. "I'll just say it was interesting," Holcomb said after that issue was published. Funeral arrangements were not immediately announced. Today, Utah Olympian Steven Holcomb passed away. Jeanette and I send our sincere condolences to his family and friends. pic.twitter.com/CN9S9ypnNN — Gov. Gary Herbert (@GovHerbert) May 7, 2017 AP National Writer Eddie Pells in Denver contributed to this report. © 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. × Photos |
Some customers will remain without drinkable water due to extensive damage LARKFIELD, Calif. (October 16, 2017) – California American Water has advised customers in most areas of the Larkfield Water System in Sonoma County that is now safe to consume the local of tap water after several days of restrictions. Customers on Larkfield Maples Court and any first responders or recovery personnel in the mandatory evacuation areas are still affected by the Do-Not-Consume order and will be noticed once water is safe to drink. The declaration comes after days of restorative work and testing, following a devastating fire that impacted the company’s storage and pumping facilities. “Our field crews having been working around the clock for the last week to restore service and ensure adequate flow for fire services,” said California American Water Northern Division General Manager Audie Foster. “This effort also included a top-to-bottom integrity analysis and water quality testing to bring the system into compliance with drinking water standards. We are happy to announce that we have accomplished that goal and the water is now safe to drink.” Customers are advised to run their faucets and other water outlets for several minutes to flush out the line before consuming. Areas to remain out of service : Some areas of the system including those on Vista Grande Drive, Wikiup Drive, Carriage Lane south of Carriage Court, in the area south of Pacific Heights Drive and east of Old Redwood Highway and south of Mark West Springs Road on either side of Old Redwood Highway to the east of the Luther Burbank Center remain without water service due to the extensive damage. California American Water, a subsidiary of American Water (NYSE: AWK), provides high-quality and reliable water and/or wastewater services to more than 660,000 people. With a history dating back to 1886, American Water is the largest and most geographically diverse U.S. publicly-traded water and wastewater utility company. The company employs more than 6,800 dedicated professionals who provide regulated and market-based drinking water, wastewater and other related services to an estimated 15 million people in 47 states and Ontario, Canada. More information can be found by visiting www.amwater.com. ### |
Tunisians carry a banner saying, ‘We are sorry’ (Picture AFP) Local Tunisians risked their lives to save tourists targeted by the gunman Seifeddine Rezgui last week – with hotel workers forming a ‘human shield’ to prevent him going inside. Others ran to help wounded beachgoers while the gunman was still stalking the beach, looking for more victims. He fired his Kalashnikov into the air and yelled, ‘Run! Get away! I’m not here to kill you!’ ” said lifeguard Ibrahim Ghrib, 23. Staff at the Bellevue hotel lined up to prevent the gunman going into the hotel after he opened fire on the beach. John Yeoman, 46, told the Mirror, ‘It’s amazing what they did. The staff were in a line and they were shouting at him, saying ‘we won’t let you through.’ MORE: Tunisia terror attack: 30 Britons now thought to have been killed Salafists lay flowers and cards at the scene of the massacre (Picture Getty) ‘They shouted: ‘You’ll have to go through us’. That’s why he’s got his back turned to them. Advertisement Advertisement ‘He tried to get to my hotel and they stood in a line.’ The 46 year-old transport worker from Kettering described how the staff at the Bellevue hotel lined up to prevent killer gunman Seifeddine Rezgui from going into the hotel after he opened fire. |
Over 20 congressional bills aim to address the crisis of confidence in NSA surveillance. With Patriot Act author and Republican Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner working with Vermont Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy on a bipartisan proposal to put the NSA's metadata program "out of business", we face two fundamentally different paths on the future of government surveillance. One, pursued by the intelligence establishment, wants to normalize and perpetuate its dragnet surveillance program with as minimal cosmetic adjustments as necessary to mollify a concerned public. The other challenges the very concept that dragnet surveillance can be a stable part of a privacy-respecting system of limited government. Pervasive surveillance proponents make two core arguments. First, bulk collection saves Americans from foreign terrorists. The problem with this argument is that all publicly available evidence presented to Congress, the judiciary, or independent executive branch review suggests that the effect of bulk collection has been marginal. Perhaps, this paucity of evidence is what led General Alexander and other supporters to add cyber security as a backup exigency to justify the program. The second argument that defenders of mass surveillance offer is that detailed, complex and faithfully-executed rules for how the information that is collected will be used are adequate replacements for what the fourth amendment once quaintly called "probable cause" and a warrant "particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized". The problem with this second argument is that it combines two fundamentally incompatible elements. Mass surveillance represents a commitment to near-universal all-seeing gaze, so as to assess and respond to threats that can arise anywhere, at any time. Privacy as a check on government power represents a constitutional judgment that a limited government must have limited power to inspect our daily lives, and that an omniscient government is too powerful for mere rules to restrain. The experience of the past decade confirms this incompatibility. Throughout its lifetime, NSA dragnet surveillance has repeatedly and persistently violated any rules in place meant to constrain it. After 11 September 2001, and until 2004, the President's Surveillance Programs (PSP) simply operated outside the law. The 2009 inspectors general report (pdf) on these programs explained that, initially, the White House obtained a veneer of legality by soliciting an opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel. It then deployed security clearance strategically to insulate the OLC lawyer who had blessed the illegal program from the scrutiny of OLC's normal internal review processes. After 2004, professionally conscientious lawyers at the Department of Justice forced the White House to modify some of the programs and shift others to collection based on National Security Letters (NSL). The victory of legality proved shortlived and imperfect. A 2007 inspector general report on NSLs disclosed that, from 2003 to 2005, the FBI created an alternative basis for dragnet surveillance by issuing over 140,000 NSLs that were under-reported to congressional oversight. Most damningly, the FBI abused "exigent letters" as the reported noted: [By making] factual misstatements in its official letters to the telephone companies either as to the existence of an emergency justifying shortcuts around lawful procedures or with respect to the steps the FBI supposedly had taken to secure lawful process. These violations were so serious they became the subject of a separate damning report. Later reports (pdf) established that the violations continued unabated through 2006, and that redress measures from 2007 were only partially and imperfectly applied. By the time the last NSL report came out, the Fisa Amendments Act of 2008 had recreated the powers of the original PSP and more, subject to detailed constraints and judicial review. But foreign intelligence surveillance court (FISC) opinions since then suggest that the new rules have also failed. A 2009 FISC opinion, evaluating the process from 2006 to 2009, dedicated a whole section to "misrepresentations to the court", and stated that the government has "repeatedly submitted inaccurate descriptions" of the process the FISC was reviewing. The court ordered a series of procedural fixes; the NSA solemnly undertook to follow these, and the court permitted it to continue dragnet surveillance subject to the new rules. Two years later, a 3 October 2011 opinion (pdf) noted: The court is troubled that the government's revelations regarding NSA's acquisition of internet transactions mark the third instance in less than three years in which the government has disclosed a substantial misrepresentation regarding the scope of a major collection program. In a by-now-familiar pattern, the NSA was contrite and implemented new procedures, which the court then blessed. As the Edward Snowden revelations have been accumulating, we see that the pattern has continued unabated. This very week, we learned that the NSA is collecting millions of email address books around the world, producing even richer and more invasive portraits than telephony metadata likely offer. The NSA continues to evade oversight. This time, it relies on the kind of jurisdictional arbitrage familiar to so many lawless sites the world over: because its technical collection points are physically outside the US, it does not require authorization from either Congress or the Fisa court, even though the dragnet inevitably captures large amounts of data from Americans. The official response, predictably says "we have checks and balances built into our tools". But really, after a dozen years of repeated violations even when the Fisa court or Congress were in the loop, why would we expect these self-monitored procedures to work? It would be a mistake to imagine that these failures represent faithless or incompetent civil servants. To the contrary, we should assume that these failures come because NSA and FBI counterterrorism agents are faithful and competent civil servants, but are faced with incompatible demands. Technology has enabled government to have investigative and situational awareness on a scale and scope that were science fiction when the Stasi shut its doors. The "state of emergency" mindset necessary to justify the program in the first place drives those charged with assuring the safety of Americans to always use this technology to its full potential; it also gives them an independent source of legitimacy for their actions – the fierce urgency of necessity. Their mission clashes with the fundamental premise of privacy as a civil right: that state power is best contained by making the overwhelming majority of what goes on in society invisible to the state. As Justice Alito put it in the supreme court's decision to strike down GPS tracking: [Historically] the greatest protections of privacy were neither constitutional nor statutory, but practical. Once the state knows about behavior, it is hard to rely on rules alone to bear the full burden of preventing overreach by those who wield its awesome power. Often, the arguments will be genuine and plausible. How could you possibly justify limiting pervasive surveillance to foreign terrorism and cyber attacks, but not use it to track down a missing child or shut down a ring of pedophiles? The new power that comes with near omniscience, however, extracts a heavy cost. The ACLU's report on FBI abuses, such as hounding whistleblowers or domestic advocacy groups, documents that the opportunities for abuse are as many as there are officials, subjects, and felt necessities. Rules alone cannot hold back the millions of potential abuses of an omniscient state. Whether it be the banality of analysts stalking ex-lovers, the inhumanity of careerist prosecutors hounding hacktivists under vague computer laws or using impossibly broad laws like the "material support" statue to pressure innocents to become informers, the crooked timber of humanity – armed with the power of the state and restrained only by the seven fresh bowstrings of superficial legality – will bring failure for constitutional freedoms, predictably, inevitably, tragically. Congressional critics of bulk collection need to stand firm. Their current plans aim to do away with bulk collection of telephony metadata, and fix some of the loopholes associated with internet bulk collection. Their fight is critical for anyone concerned about pervasive surveillance becoming the new norm, and deserves our solidarity. But we need more. As long as government is allowed to collect all internet data, the perceived exigency will drive honest civil servants to reach more broadly and deeply into our networked lives. Bringing an end to mass government surveillance needs to be a central pillar of returning to the principles we have put in jeopardy in the early 21st century. |
Map showing places where it is illegal to die, where it used to be illegal to die, and where there are attempts to make it illegal to die. Prohibition of death is a political social phenomenon and taboo in which a law is passed stating that it is illegal to die, usually specifically in a certain political division or in a specific building. The earliest case of prohibition of death occurred in the 5th century BC, on the Greek island of Delos; dying on Delos was prohibited on religious grounds. Today, in most cases, the prohibition of death is a satirical response to the government's failure to approve the expansion of municipal cemeteries. In Spain, one town has prohibited death;[1] in France, there have been several settlements which have had death prohibited;[2][3][4][5] whilst in Biritiba Mirim, in Brazil, an attempt to prohibit death took place in 2005.[6][7] There is a falsely rumored prohibition on recording deaths in royal palaces in the United Kingdom, for rather different reasons.[8][9] Ancient [ edit ] Greece [ edit ] The island of Delos was considered a sacred and holy place by the ancient Greeks, and various measures were taken to "purify" the island and render it fit for the proper worship of the gods. In the 6th century BC, the tyrant Peisistratus, of the city-state of Athens, ordered that all graves within sight of the island's temple be dug up and the bodies removed to locations on or beyond the perimeter. In the 5th century BC, under instruction from the Delphic Oracle, the entire island was purged of all dead bodies, and it was forbidden for anybody else to die or give birth on the island. Modern [ edit ] Brazil [ edit ] The mayor of Biritiba-Mirim filed a public bill in 2005, to make it illegal for the people living in the town to die. Although no specific punishments have been presented, the mayor intends to target relatives of people who die with fines and even jail if necessary to get more space for tombstones. The main reason for the attempt to pass such a law with such severe punishments if broken is that the town's 28,000 inhabitants apparently do not look after their health properly, making them more vulnerable to death, which would mean having to bury more corpses in the already full cemetery. Since the cemetery was inaugurated in 1910, over 50,000 people have been buried in 3,500 crypts and tombs. In November 2005, the cemetery was declared to be full and 20 recently deceased residents were forced to share a crypt, and several others were buried under the walkways. The mayor, to support his uncommon proposal for a law, stated that 89% of the town is occupied by rivers, of which most are underground and serve as vital water sources for nearly two million people living in São Paulo, and that the remaining area is protected because it consists of tropical jungle. So, public land five times the size of the cemetery was set aside to provide space for a new one, which environmental experts claim will not affect water tables or surrounding tropical forest. The environment council decided to analyze such a solution carefully, while the state government had agreed to help build a new vertical cemetery; but, as of 2005 , nothing has been done, and the law has not yet been passed, leaving the situation in suspense.[6][7] France [ edit ] Three settlements in southern France have prohibited death. The mayor of Le Lavandou outlawed death in 2000, after planning permission for a new cemetery was turned down due to environmental concerns. He described the new bylaw as "an absurd law to counter an absurd situation".[3] In 2007, Cugnaux also prohibited death, for similar reasons,[2] and was subsequently granted permission to enlarge the local cemetery;[5] inspired by the town's success, Sarpourenx was next to follow suit, in 2008.[4] Japan [ edit ] The island of Itsukushima is considered a sacred location in Shinto belief, and is the site of the Itsukushima Shrine, an UNESCO World Heritage Site. Purity is of utmost concern in Shinto worship, and because of this, the shrine's priests have attempted to keep the island free of the pollution of death. Immediately after the Battle of Miyajima in 1555, the only battle to have taken place on the island, the victorious commander had the bodies of the fallen troops removed to the mainland, and ordered that the entire battlefield be cleansed of the blood that was spilled, to the point that buildings were scrubbed and blood-soaked soil was removed from the island.[10] Retaining the purity of the Itsukushima Shrine is so important that since 1878, no deaths or births have been permitted near the shrine.[11] To this day, pregnant women are supposed to retreat to the mainland as the day of delivery approaches, as are terminally ill or the very elderly whose passing has become imminent. Burials on the island are still forbidden. Spain [ edit ] Death has been prohibited in the Andalusian town of Lanjarón.[1] The village, with 4,000 inhabitants, is to remain under this law until the government buys land for a new cemetery. The mayor who issued the edict explains that the awkward new law is his response to politicians urging him to find a quick fix for a long-lasting problem.[1] The edict has become wildly popular amongst residents, even amongst political opponents of the mayor who issued the law, and was received with a sense of humor from most.[1] Myths [ edit ] United Kingdom [ edit ] A story sometimes reported in the United Kingdom states it is forbidden for commoners to die in a royal palace, such as the Palace of Westminster, on the grounds that anyone who dies in a royal palace is technically entitled to a state funeral.[8] However, this has been proven to be a myth.[12] |
Click here to watch on Youtube Well, it's the guide you guys have been waiting for, I bet. At least, for my Bravely Second fans out there. Anyways, behold! My Bravely Second team setup! So this is an article I've been wanting to do for a while and an article I'm pretty sure most of you wanted to see, considering how my writeup for my team setup in Default is my most popular to date, thank you all for that by the way. This will be my usual setup that I prefer to use, mostly for fighting bosses and such. So, without further delay, I give you my Bravely Second team build! First up, we have our trusty Cavalier, Yew. Yew is my healer for this team, with the Wizard as the main job, with the Bishop as the side command. The abilities for Yew are only three, but they work wonders as a magic setup: Group-Cast Master, Group-Cast All, and Steady MP Recover. I have my own setup of items, but one I would recommend would definitely be Gold Hairpin, which decreases MP usage by 25%. So, why would I have an attack magic class as my main for a healer? Why, for the ability that comes with it, of course! Spellcraft allows you to change the way a spell acts. I think some of you know where this is going. For those of you who don't, let me explain. The Bishop class in Bravely Second is like Victor and Holly had a baby and created Nikolai, the greatest healer of all time. The Bishop's healing spells, under Holy Magic, don't require an amazing Mind stat or anything, because the spells heal whole percents that don't change - 30, 50 and 100%. Benediction is the spell that heals 100%, costs 24 MP normally, and heals just once on the cast, of course. However, combine Benediction with Mist from the Spellcraft ability, which adds another 30 MP to the cost, and at the end of each turn, your team is fully healed for four turns. 54 MP for four full heals in only one cast. Plus, the spell is not decreased in power thanks to Group-Cast Master, and you could even do multiple Resurrects at max power, with Group-Cast All, in one cast. PLUS, the cost is decreased by 25% thanks to Gold Hairpin, so the Benediction Mist actually only costs 41 MP. PLUS, still, Bishop has Calm, this game's version of Stillness, which is literally half of everything for that - cost of 1 BP, and all damage is nullified for one turn. AND, with the Steady MP Recover, you get 30 MP back at each turn's end, along with a full heal. If you're not sold by now, there's still lots of other things this healer setup can do, so go try it out for yourself. But simple breakdown: you can group-cast all spells at max power, have passive healing at the end of your turns, and nullify damage for a turn of safety, all for low costs. Best healer ever. Good job, Yew. Next in our line up is Edea. Her role is quite similar to what I had her set up as in my Default team. In Second, I have her as a Ninja with Pirate commands. Abilities include Quad Wield, Axe Lore, Steady MP Recover, and Frenetic Fighting, with Dual Wield included from the Ninja job. So, one of the new jobs, the Charioteer, allows you to equip more than two weapons to a character. With Quad Wield, I can equip three axes and one katana to Edea. The reason for having a katana is so I can have two different types of Specials available to me. If you wanted maximum physical attack though, go with all axes. With Axe Lore, this damage is increased even higher still, and Frenetic Fighting increases the amount of hits Edea can land in an attack from sixteen to thirty-two. So, as this setup was in Default, Edea's job is to enfeeble the enemy, meaning to weaken their stats like attack and defence while hitting them with hard smashing attacks. Shell Split, Skull Bash, Defang, and a few others are incredibly useful and powerful against any foe. With Quad Wield, the smashes deal even more damage, which can usually end up as max damage, 9999. So, hit the boss with a Shell Split to lower their physical defence to 75%, and then follow up with Double Damage to hit for max. Shippujinrai from the Ninja job is also great for getting in that first hit. And then there's Impermanence, which will reverse the affect of all buffs and debuffs. So, say you've got one of those bosses that like to stack 200x more damage than you, use this to turn it around on them. But don't ruin your own buffs either. This setup is like an anti-support, where instead of buffing your allies, you debuff the enemy. Kinda cool. However, there is of course an obvious downside to this, and that would be that because of the extra weapons, Edea has a very low defence due to the lack of armour. So, make sure to try and heal her quite a bit and keep an eye on her. Magnolia is one of my favourite characters of Bravely Second, and not just actual character wise, but stat wise too. So I made her my other copy class from Default. I know, I'm lazy, I don't try new things, but that's because this is perfection. Anyways, Magnolia is my new Monk with Dark Knight commands. Abilities for her are HP 20% Up, Dawn of Odyssey, Fortitude, BP Limit Up, and once again, Steady MP Recover. I have the Brave Suit equipped, which gives Magnolia one BP right at the start of a battle, and Ribbon, which nullifies all status aliments. If you already know how this works, good for you, but if you haven't seen my Bravely Default Team Setup video, here's how it works. Since she is a Monk with the 20% extra HP, Magonlia will have at least or an amount of HP over the damage cap, 9999. Magnolia will Default and gain BP with every hit she takes thanks to Fortitude. Then she'll Brave out, use Phoenix Flight to spend all of your HP, leaving you with 1 point left, and deal damage equal to her HP given up, aka max damage, and then spam Minus Strike to deal max damage three more times. This damage is completely pure and unaffected by defence, so you can knock a boss down by about 40k HP each damage cycle. And if she doesn't die because of the one HP she's left with, the Benediction Mist will get her back up, ready to do it all over again! The only weakness of this is very apparent, as Magnolia can be killed fairly often, but otherwise, this is the best kind of consistent damage you can do in the game. As for her abilities, Fortitude give her 1 BP for every attack that hits her while she's Defaulting, and Dawn of Odyssey acts as a halfway Hasten World, where every ally and enemy gains one BP every four turns. And with BP Limit Up, she can hold 4 BP instead of 3, so you can get back to damaging the enemy even faster. A great build, if I do say so myself. And lastly, we come to the returning miracle, Tiz Arrior. So, for Tiz, I have him as my support character as an Exorcist with Astral Magic commands. His abilities are, well, Steady MP Recover, Limit Breaker, Prolong Support, BP Limit Up, and Fortitude. Exorcist is like a limited, but really overpowered support class. Undo HP can send Magnolia back up to max after she does her damage cycle, and even bring her back from death to maximum health. Undo Action can protect someone from one enemy move, and Undo BP can even help get Magnolia back up in BP to deal damage on the turn right after her last damage turn. And Astral Magic can just be spammed like crazy to build up an incredibly powerful Bravely Second move that deals over a hundred thousand damage in one go. Now, Tiz's abilities go a long way in helping his team. Limit Breaker allows you to increase the maximum limit for boosting stats, and Prolong Support will make them last twice as long. With Fortitude and BP Limit Up, like Magnolia, Tiz can gain BP very quickly to back up his teammates, and, well, you already know what Steady MP Recover does. Freelancer is not on this list because Examine is no longer needed, because of the Magnifying Glass item you can use to scan an enemy now. So, just level up your Moon base Munitions shop to level 2 and get some today! But all in all, Tiz is there on the side to get everyone else back up and ready to go again, with his great reseting abilities and items to boot. I also just really like Geist. Like, a lot. So, now that we've got the team down, here's how to use them. Default the team twice, and Magnolia should probably be at 3 or 4 BP by now. Yew casts a Benediction Mist over the team, Edea Defaults, while Magnolia goes Phoenix Striking, and Tiz undoes Magnolia's HP, and perhaps her BP if you wanted to. Then, get Edea and Magnolia to strike together, enfeebling the enemy and dealing even more damage, and have Tiz ready with Undo Action and HP on the side. Yew just kinda sits on the side and keeps casting Benediction Mist every four turns, or Resurrect across all allies if anyone falls. And if the team needs a turn to catch their breath, Yew can cast Calm which takes affect at the start of the turn automatically and nullifies all damage, allowing you to Default and heal up. Then just keep repeating and, voila! as Magnolia would say. Now this probably isn't the most 100% effective team that can be built. Trust me, I can imagine even stronger, but probably much dirtier and greasy, setups that you could make. But this is just the team that I enjoy using the most, and it's fun because it requires a bit more skill to use than just Jumping or Reflecting 24/7. Not that those are bad, they're just too easy, in my opinion. Now I have ideas for other setups to try out and write some more articles on what I think of them, but if you guys have any ideas on what you'd like to see, give me a comment and I'll try it out, I have all the classes maxed. But that's all for this guide. Thanks for watching, I hope this setup has helped you out and given you ideas on how to build up your team, and I'll see ya soon. |
Neil the roving UHub commuter e-mails this account: Last night around 7:00pm I get off the Orange Line at DTX and see some frantic ~20 year old kid frantically running around and asking the janitorial staff questions. I try to be helpful so as we're heading down to the Red Line southbound, I ask him what's wrong or if he needs directions. He says, "Oh man, I just left my cat on the train!" I ask if it was in a carrier. Yes, he was bring in back from the vet's after being neutered. He had left the cat on the train and walked all the way up to the Orange Line before remembering it. Cat travels on southward to parts unknown. He's running ahead of me down the platform when All I call up my "See Somethning, Say Something" app and call the non-911 T police number. I tell them I'm not sure if they want to transfer me but I'm with a kid who just lost his cat. Dispatcher asks me to describe the cat. I call the kid over, put on the speaker phone and it turns into a full description of the subject: Yes, Orange tabby, white stripes, approximately 6 inches high wearing a white cone on its head. Long tail. Blue carrier. Answers to Mouseripper. He gives his contact info and about 30 seconds later gets a call back that the fleeing feline was safe and sound at South Station. I almost went with him to get a pic of the reunion but he was pretty stressed out. Had to go face the girlfriend as well and explain losing the cat. |
Politics: Who would think the president who proposed HillaryCare would help kill ObamaCare. Bill Clinton just gave congressional Democrats cover to oppose their party's president — and try salvaging their political skins. When New Coke failed back in the 1980s, the Coca-Cola Co. didn't "fix" it; the company swiftly brought back the real Coke, calling it "Coca-Cola Classic." In the end, New Coke was scrapped and the fiasco made consumers appreciate "The Real Thing" that they had taken for granted. ObamaCare can't be "fixed" any more than New Coke could. But the pressure's on for Democrats to get rid of it, even if, like the Coke Co., they must pretend it's not really a failure, and they're not returning to the past. Of all people, ex-President Bill Clinton has come to their rescue. Ozy Media's interview with Clinton sent tremors through Washington on Tuesday, as President Obama's official ObamaCare "explainer in chief" said: "Even if it takes a change to the law, the president should honor the commitment the federal government made" to younger, healthy health insurance beneficiaries "and let 'em keep what they got." But this isn't just self-centered Bill being Bill, as when his convention speech outshone Obama's at last year's convention. Clinton may well be saving incumbent Democratic congressmen and senators from the voters' wrath next year, for which they'll be grateful — both to Bill and to certain 2016 presidential candidate Hillary. What the Democratic Party's elder statesman just did is give congressional Democrats permission to oppose Obama on ObamaCare. It doesn't mean they will explicitly call for repeal, but they now no longer have to be shy about insisting on big legislative changes that could unravel the whole law. Writing in Forbes on the eve of Clinton's remarks, University of Colorado at Boulder presidential scholar Steven Hayward firmly predicted that "ObamaCare is going to be repealed well in advance of next year's election" — even if it's "repeal" by another name. The question is what the political dynamic will be in Congress. With majority control of the House of Representatives, Republicans should wield huge leverage. But Hayward warns that changing the ObamaCare law to drop the individual mandate "could leave us with an unfunded expansion of Medicaid and a badly disrupted private insurance market," something the GOP can avoid through proposing "a serious replacement policy, based on the premium support tax credit ideas that John McCain advocated (poorly) in 2008." There is a much bigger issue, however: Will the Tea Party, and their sizable forces among House Republicans, accept anything less than pure repeal — even if it is a legislative reform that tears the heart out of ObamaCare and will be a big step toward its demise? Will doing nothing — forcing Democrats to sleep in the bed they made for themselves — be an option? Whatever happens, by backing changing the law to fulfill a promise Obama knew he couldn't keep, Bill Clinton may find himself having written ObamaCare's epitaph. |
The death-defying skydiving stunt that aired live tonight on Fox went off without a hitch – but not without a hiccup. Renowned skydiver Luke Aikins became the first man to jump from an airplane at 25,000 feet without a parachute and land safely in a giant net. The stunt, performed on a branded program called Stride Gum Presents: Heaven Sent, went perfectly, but it almost didn’t go off as planned. In the days leading up to the jump, SAG-AFTRA informed the production company that it was too dangerous – that they wouldn’t let him jump without a chute. On Thursday, the union issued a “Do Not Work Order” for the show on the pretext that the producers were “not signatory” to its contract. The producers, however, say they wanted to sign the contract, but that the union refused to sign off because of safety concerns. If they went ahead in the face of the union’s threat, more than a dozen stunt riggers, coordinators and announcers could have faced expulsion from the union. Replacing them all on such short notice would have been impossible, so they agreed that Aikins would wear a chute – and not become the first to jump out of a plane and land in a net without one. But Aikins hadn’t practiced the stunt with a parachute, and as the plane approached 11,000 feet on the way up, he expressed concern about having to wear one, and how it might affect his freefall and landing. “Less than 24 hours ago, I was informed that I’m gonna have to wear a parachute to do this jump,” he said. “That adds a complication that didn’t exist before. I was clean and I was gonna land on my back. The powers that be have decided that it’s safer for me to wear a parachute.” Everyone involved with the stunt was angry. To them it’s like a union telling a trapeze artist or a high wire act they can’t perform without a net – only in this case, Aikins was working with a net. Earlier on the show, Monica Aikins, the stuntman’s wife, expressed the chagrin that many involved had had with the union. “Most of all I’m just a little bit pissed,” she said. “Last night, 25 hours before the jump, SAG comes to us – the union comes to us – and tells us – backs us basically in a corner – to say he’s got to jump with a parachute.” But as the plane rose to 25,000 feet – just minutes before the jump – the show’s announcer told the viewing audience: “Seconds ago we received word that the restriction to wear a parachute has been lifted.” Onboard the plane, Aikins struggled out of the parachute. A few minutes later, he moved toward the door, jumped, and fell safely into the record books. His team was as excited as if he’d won the Indy 500 – but they were also still “just a little bit pissed” at their union for nearly spoiling the gag. |
In a rather nervous video and associated blog post, Chaos Computer Club appears to demonstrate how they can get through Touch ID by taking high-resolution photographs of a fingerprint. Ironically, they claim the hack can be completed with “materials that can be found in almost every household” then go on to say that a 2400 dpi resolution photograph of the fingerprint must be used. The group claims that Touch ID was only a little bit more difficult to get through compared to other fingerprint sensors, since the iPhone 5s’ scanner is extremely high-resolution. They go on to state that fingerprints should not be used as a secure method of authentication since they are left on so many surfaces and can be picked up very easily. A large, crowdfunded bounty was created to reward the first group to “crack” Touch ID. In this case, CCC is using conventional methods rather than software cracking, but the video proof makes a solid case that it is effective. The chances that someone will be able to take a 1200 dpi photograph of your fingerprint without your knowledge, however, is slim. |
Hello, League of Legends community. We're Esports Express and we write satire about competitive video games. We feel we provide something unique: humor and levity in a sea of terrible but often hilarious drama. Until now, we've just been some writers occasionally doing League articles. We want to write more and to pay our writers. There are a lot of articles that we could have written and a lot of events that deserved the "ESEX treatment." With your help we can do all that. Patrons will get some cool extras like a special ESEX electronic magazine each month with articles that we didn't run and behind the scenes commentary. You can also join our writers chat to see how our process works and suggest ideas. We'll also have some stretch goals for new content. |
Editor's note: This story has been updated with comments and information from the architect for the project Brad Moore. Design plans for a mixed-use development housing project in Ann Arbor are being reviewed as a St. Louis-based developer proposes a six-story high rise on South Main Street. Collegiate Development Group has submitted plans to Ann Arbor Design Review Board for a project that would include micro-studio, studio and townhouses along with three-, four- and five-bedroom apartments. The project would span over a trio of parcels at 615, 633 and 637 S. Main, which are occupied by businesses in the South Main Market, a hookah lounge and The Ann Arbor School for the Performing Arts. A 5,000-square-foot commercial retail space would be built as part of the ground floor of the project. Architect Brad Moore of J Bradley Moore & Associates said the retail space could be occupied by one or a couple of the tenants in the current shopping areas if a deal can be worked out with the developer. The ground floor will also feature townhouses with slightly elevated porches and a entrances that open right off of Main Street. Commons areas and community rooms will also be located on the ground floor and overlook Main Street. "What we're trying to do is activate and engage the streetscape," Moore said. The variety of housing types are geared towards attracting a variety of renters as the multi-bedroom apartments are less than half of the 246 units proposed for the complex. The micro-studio and studio apartments will allow for renters to live close to downtown while keeping rents affordable. "We're excited about the fact that we're offering something that is more affordable," Moore said. Known as "The Residences at 615 S Main," the property would include 199 parking spaces and total 86,162 square feet. A courtyard and pool would be in the center of the complex. City records show the three properties that would be combined to form the housing project have not been sold. The building at 637 S. Main St. in 2014 for $2.3 million. The company expressed plans to renovate the former Firefly Club building and create office space on the second floor. The neighboring property at 633 S. Main was at the same time as 637 S. Main, but did not sell. A car wash still operates at the property. If approved, The Residences at 615 S. Main would be directly across the street from the recently opened This most recent proposal joins several other housing projects in various stages of development including and a recently proposed at 513 E. Huron. Matt Durr is a business reporter for The Ann Arbor News. Email him at mattdurr@mlive.com or follow him on Twitter. |
Sun archives More columns by J. Patrick Coolican Sun editorial Being there for veterans (4-18-2008) We know that suicide is a terrible problem in Nevada, with a rate 50 percent higher than the national average. Among military veterans and especially young veterans, however, it’s a crisis, according to new data from the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services. From 2008 to 2010, the Nevada veteran suicide rate was 2.5 times higher than the rate for all Nevadans and nearly quadruple the national nonveteran suicide rate. In 2010, suicide accounted for more than a quarter of deaths among veterans 24 and younger. All told, of the 1,545 Nevada suicides between 2008-2010, veterans accounted for a stunning 373 of them, or nearly a quarter. The explanation: The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have taken a brutal toll on our young men and women. And they have come home to a bad economy and communities that are often clueless about what veterans have experienced or how to help them. “Those high numbers are reflective of a decade of war and the impact that has on those who have been asked to serve in that war,” said Luana Ritch, a veteran and public health expert who compiled the data for the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services. There’s no great repository of data that tracks veterans’ health, other than the Department of Veterans Affairs. But many veterans aren’t in the VA system. And veterans’ death certificates sometimes neglect to mention military service. Given these data collection issues, it’s possible the problem is even worse than the figures show. Also owing to data collection issues, it’s not clear if the veteran suicide problem is better or worse in other states. What we do know, however, is that nationally the problem is significant. The VA estimates that a veteran takes his or her own life every 80 minutes — 6,500 suicides per year. That’s 20 percent of all suicides in the United States. The Center for a New American Security published a report last year, “Losing the Battle: The Challenge of Military Suicide,” highlighting the dire situation. The report notes that during peacetime military service members historically experience lower suicide rates than the overall population. Some experts believe there are three bulwarks of suicide prevention: feelings of “belongingness,” feelings of usefulness, and an aversion to pain and death. The damage to these prevention protections could explain the rising prevalence of military and veteran suicide during wartime. Once home from war, veterans may feel separated from their comrades and alienated, useless on the homefront and tolerant of extreme pain and death because they’ve seen a lot of it and are numb to it. In 2005, I spent six months studying the neuroscience of post-traumatic stress disorder at Ohio State University and learned about the tragedy of veterans — as well as rape and accident victims — who often suffer silently, tormented without knowing what afflicts them. What I learned is that the public tends to misunderstand post-traumatic stress. Repeated exposure to extreme stress, like the kind soldiers experience in war, can change your brain chemistry. Symptoms include extreme anxiety and watchfulness to the point of paranoid delusions, nightmares and sleeplessness, rage, depression and an inability to form close relationships. The symptoms can be treated with medication and counseling, but there’s no cure for altered brain chemistry. Veterans suffering from PTSD often self-medicate with drugs and alcohol, which can accelerate the downward spiral. “Losing the Battle” also blames high suicide rates on systemic failures: a flawed mental health screening process; a cultural stigma attached to seeking help; an insufficient number of care providers; too much prescription medication (an astounding 14 percent of the Army population is prescribed an opiate, according to the report); and finally, multiple agencies across multiple jurisdictions have trouble getting on the same page. The repercussions for an all-volunteer military could be severe, as family and friends could attempt to dissuade a potential recruit from enlisting if they believe military service will result in psychological harm or even suicide. I called the VA in Southern Nevada and in Washington but never heard back from them. Linda Flatt of the Nevada Office of Suicide Prevention shared some information. Warning signs include: thoughts, fantasies, planning and discussion of ways of hurting or killing oneself; recklessness; rage, guilt, anxiety, depression; withdrawal from family and friends; drug and alcohol abuse; and feelings of hopelessness. Prescription medication and firearms can be especially dangerous for people at risk of suicide; they should be stored safely. If you or someone you know may be at risk, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 or the Veterans Crisis Line at 800-273-8255 and press 1. |
Story highlights President Obama: "Now's the time" to move on immigration Sen. Rubio warns Obama against a "bidding war" for easier green cards Eight senators, four from each party, have laid out a bipartisan blueprint for reform House legislators are also said to be working on a bipartisan immigration plan President Barack Obama threw his full support behind a comprehensive overhaul of U.S. immigration laws on Tuesday, saying "now's the time" to replace a system he called "out of date and badly broken." The president specified three pillars of immigration reform: better enforcement of immigration laws, providing a path to citizenship for the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants already in the country, and reforming the legal immigration system. Speaking at a majority Hispanic high school in Las Vegas, Obama said "a broad consensus is emerging" behind the issue across the country, with signs of progress in Congress. However, he acknowledged a fierce debate ahead on an issue he described as emotional and challenging, but vital to economic growth and ensuring equal opportunity for all. "At this moment, it looks like there's a genuine desire to get this done soon. And that's very encouraging," Obama said, later adding: "This time, action must follow. We can't allow immigration reform to get bogged down in an endless debate." The president spoke a day after eight senators -- four from each party -- introduced a framework for overhauling the immigration system that would provide an eventual path to citizenship for most of the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants in America. JUST WATCHED Obama: Econ needs immigration overhaul Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Obama: Econ needs immigration overhaul 01:18 JUST WATCHED Obama: Senators' ideas in line with mine Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Obama: Senators' ideas in line with mine 01:53 JUST WATCHED Immigrant family fears being torn apart Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Immigrant family fears being torn apart 03:03 JUST WATCHED IL OKs undocumented immigrants' licenses Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH IL OKs undocumented immigrants' licenses 01:39 While touted as a breakthrough by its drafters, the plan was similar in many aspects to previous immigration reform efforts that have failed in recent years. Obama described the blueprint as a sign of renewed desire by Democrats and Republicans to tackle the issue, saying the plan was "very much in line with the principles I've proposed and campaigned on for the last few years." He was criticized by Latino activists for failing to deliver on a 2008 campaign promise to make overhauling immigration policy a priority of his first term. As his re-election campaign heated up last year, the Obama administration announced a halt to deportations of some young undocumented immigrants in a move that delighted the Latino community. Exit polls in November indicated that Latino voters overwhelmingly supported Obama over GOP challenger Mitt Romney, who had advocated a policy that amounted to forcing undocumented immigrants to deport themselves. Obama won Nevada, a battleground state with a large Hispanic population. Obama appeared on Tuesday at Del Sol High School, which has a 54% Hispanic student body, according to U.S. News and World Report rankings. To earn the opportunity for citizenship, Obama said undocumented immigrants must first pass a background check, learn English, pay a penalty, and then get "in the back of the line" behind people trying to come to America legally. Millions of undocumented immigrants would get immediate but provisional status to live and work in the United States, under the compromise plan crafted by the senate group. That outline also called for strengthening border controls, improved monitoring of visitors and cracking down on hiring undocumented workers. Only after those steps occurred could undocumented immigrants already in the country begin the process of getting permanent residence -- green cards -- as a step toward citizenship, the senators said at a news conference on Monday. Before Obama spoke on Tuesday, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said any legislation based on the framework he helped draft must include tougher law enforcement sought by conservatives to get his vote. "We need border security, we need workplace enforcement, we need a visa tracking system," Rubio said, adding later that would oppose a bill that lacked language guaranteeing that "nothing else will happen unless these enforcement mechanisms are in place." Rubio and other senators involved in the bipartisan immigration effort said Monday they plan to provide a bill to the Senate Judiciary Committee in March, with hopes of getting the measure passed over the summer A few hours later, Obama said he would propose his own immigration bill if Congress failed to act on the issue in a timely manner. On the House side, a similar effort on immigration is said to be under way involving a group of Republicans and Democrats. Two senior House Democratic sources briefed on that effort told CNN the group was working to release some sort of outline of its plan soon, possibly as early as this week, but concede "they are not as far along as the Senate." Senate lays out blueprint The principles described by Obama on Tuesday were similar to the framework proposed Monday by the eight senators. Conservatives split on reform Other conservatives immediately voiced their opposition to what they called amnesty, a code word on the political right for providing undocumented immigrants a path to legal status. "Our immigration laws aren't broken, they just aren't enforced," argued Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, after Obama's speech. " ... We've been down this road before with politicians promising to enforce the law in return for amnesty. And then after the amnesty, they fail to make good on the enforcement promises. The American people should not be fooled. When you legalize those who are in the country illegally, it costs taxpayers millions of dollars, costs American workers thousands of jobs and encourages more illegal immigration." Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah objected to the framework by his Senate colleagues, saying the guidelines "contemplate a policy that will grant special benefits to undocumented immigrants based on their unlawful presence in the country." Rubio rejected such a characterization on Tuesday, saying that the framework would require undocumented immigrants to undergo a background check and face immediate deportation if they committed any serious crimes. Otherwise, they then would have to pay any taxes owed as well as a fine to get what Rubio called "the equivalent of a non-resident visa that allows you to work here." An opportunity to get a green card and possible citizenship would only come after the government undertakes other steps, such as increasing border security, he added. Obama, meanwhile, signaled disagreement with Republicans over the state of border security, saying in his speech that the Southwest border was more secure than ever. He mentioned steps to crack down on the hiring of undocumented workers, as well as unclogging the legal immigration system to encourage highly skilled and educated workers already in the country to remain instead of taking their expertise abroad. Democratic senators backing the framework unveiled Monday plan include Chuck Schumer of New York, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Michael Bennet of Colorado. On the Republican side were Rubio, John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Jeff Flake of Arizona. Durbin said Tuesday that immigration reform must have bipartisan support to work, so it won't include everything everyone wants. "It's going to look different than what I might write, or the president might write," he said. Like the Senate framework, the House plan will include a path to citizenship, but details of how that will work are still being discussed. The Senate proposal is a good starting point, Rep. Joe Garcia, D-Florida, said Tuesday on CNN. "I think it puts us in a very good place," he said. A litany of left-leaning advocacy groups spoke out on the senators' plan, praising it as a good first step but cautioning against harming the rights of workers. "The people of this country are ready for us to be one country again without second-class people being mistreated simply because they lack paper, even though they are already contributing to our economy and our tax system," NAACP President Ben Jealous said. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told Yahoo News on Tuesday that his labor federation representing 12 million people will mount a "full-fledged" campaign in support of comprehensive immigration reform. "We think everybody ought to have the right to work hard and to progress to citizenship," Trumka said. Meanwhile, U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue has been in talks with Trumka on the issue. He said after Obama's remarks that American business hoped for changes this year. "We should seize this opportunity to create an immigration system that serves the interests of our economy, our businesses, and our society," Donohue said. In a sign of the heated public debate on the issue, a group of about two dozen protesters standing across the street from the Las Vegas high school waved signs opposing amnesty for undocumented immigrants as Obama's motorcade drove past. |
I originally write the bulk of this back in April / May when Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee’s book “The Second Machine Age” came out, but other things interceded. There has since been much ink spilled on the topic ([Techcrunch][Technology Review]) and recent press attention about AI has brought the topic the future of society, tech, jobs (and human life [Techcrunch]) back into focus again. Brynjolfsson and McAfee’s is a great read and provides an interesting view on the potential impact of technology in the modern age. They argue compellingly that today’s advances in computing power, networking, artificial intelligence and robotics have put us on the cusp of a new productivity revolution that is on par with the invention of the Steam Engine in the late 1700’s — spectacular. Only this time, technology is not transforming what humans are physically capable of, but instead what they are mentally capable of — replacing brainpower, not muscle power. The benefits of many of these emerging technologies are truly amazing: seamless automatic language translation, self-driving cars, data analysis well beyond human capabilities, and much more. These capabilities all have the potential to enable humans to be more productive and do much more than they can today — something that is already becoming obvious. Many of the technologies also immediately become building blocks for yet more innovation. Unfortunately, although the benefit of these advances is spectacular, the authors and others highlight another huge consequence — the distribution of the wealth created by this newfound bounty may keep getting more and more uneven. Specifically, the impact on employment could be enormous — with large percentages of the population potentially seeing dramatically reduced work opportunities. In essence — the first machine age enabled humans to move to brain driven activities in a higher plane to reap rewards — eventually most of the labour force was able to do so. In the second machine age when brainpower is what is being replaced — where does the labour force go? Furthermore the skill set required to create the engines of this intelligence — the machine themselves are highly focused, specialised and belong to increasingly small set of people. While there are economic policy fixes to this widening gap, there is one recommendation in Brynjolfsson and McAfee’s book that stands out as clearly important: the emphasis on human creative thinking as the key capability that will set apart winners and losers in this Age. As machines become more intelligent, this is a key area where humans hold an advantage. Humans often also be even more effective when working in tandem with smarter machines than on their own. This sounds like a positive, but it raises new questions: What will this creativity look like? Especially in the work place? And how will individuals be able to apply it? Who will be able to work with these intelligent machines? This is a tough question, but at least some hope for optimism from a potentially unexpected quarter — that some of the answers might lie in some of the structural changes already happening all across many hardware and software, and two in particular : The opening of increasing numbers of Web and other APIs for re-use by others and the emergence of simpler script like programming frameworks. On the surface these might have little to do with each other — and worse APIs today are certainly in the realm of complex programming today — hardly a good start as an enabler for more equality in the workforce! However, going deeper, together these trends both simplify programming and make it more powerful at the same time. This change arguably has the power to bring simple and creative yet powerful programming into many more walks of life than today — something that would be unachievable with just today’s standard programming languages and which, if harnessed, could boost human productivity (and equality) enormously. The Potential Employment Gap This possibility that new generations of intelligent technology could negatively impact employment is perhaps most starkly illustrated by chart comparing labor productivity and private employment below. Figure: Labor productivity v’s Private Employment over time [Source “The Second Machine Age”]. Productivity and employment have tracked each other for most of the postwar period, but as the chart shows, early 2000 sees a significant decoupling. Today productivity, corporate investment and GDP are at record highs, however the employment to population ratio in the United States is lower than at any time in the last 20 years. Whether these trends are as strong as they appear is disputed (http://pando.com/2014/03/19/no-there-isnt-a-great-decoupling-between-pay-and-production/), however there has been a clear widening of inequality in the United States and in many other countries. Furthermore many of the pressures for decoupling are very real. While this may be a temporary blip, it certainly gives pause for thought. Beneficiaries of the Second Machine Age If Brynjolfsson and McAfee are correct, the whole population will see productivity gains, but there will be very significant negative labor pressure. The vast majority of this negative impact will fall on routine cognitive tasks that are easily automated — data entry, repetitive calculations, decision making that can be captured as a rote learned set of rules and so forth. This means a significant slice of white-collar jobs. One option to avoid the widening economic gap would be to restrict deployment of these new intelligent technologies in the first place. While this may have some effect, the Luddite strategy limits the benefits the technology can bring. Also, since there is no single global political system, there is nothing stopping other nations adopting these technologies instead and getting ahead of those nations that choose to ban it. A key challenge therefore seems to be — how to put the power of these technologies into the hands of more than just the few? Not as consumers, but as creators and participants? APIs, Apps, Scripting and Creativity There is little doubt that the ability to program and control complex software and hardware systems will be a defining factor for success in the new era. In other words — the ability to orchestrate modern systems, be they software or hardware — will be an essential skill and those that master it will likely be highly successful in the industries they work in. Computer programs stand to be the new masters of the Universe. Does this mean every student should learn programming? Although it sounds like a solution (and many more could certainly benefit than today), this is neither practical nor desirable. There is certainly a strong need for more computer engineers across many industries, but it would be an extreme challenge to retrain so many individuals. The level of difficulty in training good engineers and the impact these engineers have is part of what is driving the premium wages in the category. Today, computer programming is a full time occupation. In other words, it leaves little time to learn the nuances of some other domain — the domain in which software must operate. So it’s likely a poor choice to take a skilled logistics planner, and turn them into a full time software engineer, or to turn an excellent — much of the valuable domain expertise would simply be lost. One could consider starting with just new graduates, but also here even of those who self select computer science degrees to not all go on to become productive programmers. So if the answer is not to send everybody to engineering school — what is it? Another tack might be instead of pushing everybody to the same level of complexity — reduce that complexity and make programming more accessible. More precisely — if complex, programming cannot be effectively taught in its current form to the general population, then: make it simpler. However, it needs to be done in a way which retains the power of the complex fully fledged version of programming. Although this sounds like an impossible trick, there is one way in which we may just have the answer that is needed — the combination of APIs and Scripting: Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are a technology that provide standardized computer interfaces to highly valuable data or control functions are on the increase. These range from the ability to fill a prescription at Walgreens, tweet a message, order a book or change the setting of a thermostat many miles away. These interfaces represent the new building blocks of the software/hardware world. Engineers use them as back-end support services to make their software programs run. Their power lies not in the complexity of the code written to call them but in the power of the services they connect to — which can be as complex as an auto supply chain or as simple as a google search. are a technology that provide standardized computer interfaces to highly valuable data or control functions are on the increase. These range from the ability to fill a prescription at Walgreens, tweet a message, order a book or change the setting of a thermostat many miles away. These interfaces represent the new building blocks of the software/hardware world. Engineers use them as back-end support services to make their software programs run. Their power lies not in the complexity of the code written to call them but in the power of the services they connect to — which can be as complex as an auto supply chain or as simple as a google search. Scripting: in addition to standard software apps and mobile apps, a new class of “programming” is emerging in simple programs written as simple “IF-THEN” rules that apply simple actions to a set of APIs to create change in the world. These are exemplified by services such as IFTTT, Zapier or Cloudwork — the former is consumer orientated, the latter two workplace focused. These services allow non-programmers to set up simple actions such as: o If I receive an email from Dave, send me an SMS also. o If I take an Instagram photo, save it in Dropbox as well. o If a customer opens a ticket in our customer support system, update our CRM also so that the sales team is aware there is an issue. o If the weather is rainy today, switch the lights to blue when I wake up. These systems are very simple today, but the potential power of APIs combined with apps and scripting limitless. APIs are beginning to provide access to nearly every physical and data access available, and scripting provides a simplified means for non-programmers to affect complex change in the world. Why APIs and Scripting and Not Just General Programming? At this point, a legitimate question would be — why is this so different from simply teaching people to program? Simple programming languages have existed for a long time — Basic was simple. However, there is a major difference: Some previous languages were simple but they were never powerful in the sense of how they could directly affect the world. But APIs can make them powerful — by providing real-time real data and the ability act with real physical resources. We have never been in a situation where a simple set of primitives can do so much. It is only now that the backend physical and data systems are coming on line to allow direct action in the world. The net effect is that an individual now has the power to create significant new value by writing simple scripts. Creativity and The Building Blocks of the Second Machine Age By itself this could be a powerful engine — but it is the composability of these APIs and Scripts that really drives change. Each technical revolution creates building blocks that can be combined in new creative ways for more productivity. For example, the technologies from the industrial revolution have allowed many things to be invented many times over — a 2014 Tesla car is all but be indistinguishable from magic to someone who had seen only an early steam engine. In the Second Machine Age, many of the building blocks are new technologies such as intelligent algorithms, robotic platforms, or guidance system components. However, they are also APIs and scripts / apps — software and services. An API that is accessible for use provides a permanently addressable building block that can be combined with others to create something new. This is not only true of digital media resources like Google searches or Facebook Photos — but of physical items such as delivery trucks that roll when an order is made, or drones which map farm fields to assess the impact to weather events. Empowering Individuals As APIs become more widespread and scripting / apps more accessible to the general populace, the potential is huge. Many more individuals can create new value. No doubt a premium will remain for the most skilled engineers, but in many fields, if the computing infrastructure of APIs and basic script tools is strong enough, domain experts from this field will stand the best chance of creating the most value. They will understand the domain AND be able to put their powerful designs into motion in context. There are currently more than 10,000 open public APIs listed in directories such as ProgrammableWeb and APIs.IO. Many times this number of private APIs associated with particular products or organizations also exist. The number of scripting and simple programming tools that work with these APIs is still in its infancy but increasingly rapidly. No doubt there are many other important factors in both how impactful new intelligent technologies will be and how widely the benefit will spread. But, with the increasing availability of APIs and the ability to access them simply, there is massive unrecognized potential to democratize powerful programming in a way that has not been possible before. Each building block, if delivered in the right way is the means for someone to create new value in their domain of expertise. This puts the ability to create back in the hands of experts, craftspeople, doctors, artists and others. Just as happened in the 1st machine age, the world will again have it mechanics and car designers — but it will also have its race car drivers, logistics wizards and railroad pioneers. This is just one of the reasons I’m proud to be at 3scale where we can contribute to the emergence of some of these technologies. Review: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/review-the-second-machine-age-by-erik-brynjolfsson-and-andrew-mcafee/2014/01/17/ace0611a-718c-11e3-8b3f-b1666705ca3b_story.html |
(PhysOrg.com) -- A remarkable piece of Neolithic rock art, unlike anything previously found in Eastern England, has been unearthed in the Cambridgeshire village of Over. The hand-sized artefact, which could date back to 2,500 BC, was found by a participant in a geological weekend course which was being run by the University of Cambridge's Institute for Continuing Education. It consists of a hand-sized slab of weathered sandstone with two pairs of concentric circles etched into the surface - a motif which, according to archaeologists, is typical of "Grooved Ware" art from the later Neolithic era. While examples of similar Grooved Ware art have been discovered at sites elsewhere in the UK, this is the first time that any such find has been encountered in Eastern England, which may provide more information about the connections of the communities who inhabited the area 4,500 years ago. The motives of whoever created the design are unclear. Researchers say that it could represent the ornamental efforts of a Prehistoric Picasso, but may just as easily have been an aimless inscription. "It really is a fantastic find; certainly we have had nothing like it from any of our sites before," Dr. Chris Evans, Director of the Cambridge Archaeological Unit, which operates out of the Department of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge, said. "In fact, it's unique in Eastern England, with the nearest comparable example being the similar scratch patterns on a sandstone plaque from a Grooved Ware site in Leicestershire. Otherwise you would have to look to Wessex or Northern Britain and the much more formal Megalithic Art of the period." "The big question in the case of the Over stone is whether we should actually be calling it meaningful art, or if it amounted to no more than Neolithic doodling. Either way it's a great find." The stone will make its first public appearance since the discovery was made this Saturday (July 17th), when it will go on display at Over Village Carnival. It was found by Susie Sinclair, who was taking part in the weekend course led by Dr Peter Sheldon (from the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The Open University) at Hanson Aggregates' Needingworth Quarry. The quarry lies north and west of Over alongside the River Great Ouse. The Cambridge Archaeological Unit has been excavating sites within the quarry for 15 years, partly in an effort to better understand the shape and nature of the landscape in prehistoric times. The remains of several settlement clusters from the late Neolithic period have already been found. The Over stone, however, was hidden in the quarry's spoil, one of the heaps of waste geological materials discarded by quarry workers. Researchers believe it had been deposited within one of the river's ancient palaeochannels crossing the area and that, with the existing information they have about the geographical layout of the region, the point where it was found can be reconstructed with relative ease. The area around Over and the River Great Ouse would have looked dramatically different 4,500 years ago. Huge, "S" shaped bends from the river originally meandered across the fens and efforts to tame them only really began in earnest in the late medieval period. According to the latest research, at the time the Over stone was being carved, the countryside would have been dominated by the snaking course of the river, its tributary channels and flooding. This would essentially have broken the area up into a delta-like landscape of small islands, channels and marshlands. Explore further: Megalithic rock art discovered in Anglesey More information: Further information about the Cambridge Archaeological Unit and its work in the area can be found at: www-cau.arch.cam.ac.uk/ |
NBA Star Chris Paul BATTLE PLANS DRAWN After Becoming Players Union Prez NBA Star Chris Paul -- BATTLE PLANS DRAWN ... After Becoming Players Union Prez EXCLUSIVE ' superstarhasn't even been President of the Players Union for a full 24 hours yet -- but he's already put together a list of players' demands to take to the NBA, TMZ has learned.Paul edged out veteran shooter Roger Mason and others to take the position -- and NBA sources tell us the players went with CP3 because they feel he's got the cojones and the clout to effectively take on the league.Sources tell us ... Paul is taking his new role very seriously -- and is already talking to players about his agenda, which includes:-- Preparing a battle plan to fight any league proposal for HGH testing-- Eliminating flopping fines-- Forbidding any dress code additions/changesFYI -- NBA Commishis leaving his post in February ... and will be replaced by Adam Silver. Whether the move is good for the players is yet to be seen. |
By WINIFRED ROBINSON Last updated at 00:11 14 December 2007 So at last the biggest secret of motherhood is out. For every woman who gives birth then sinks back blissfully into the pillows, there are scores like me who sit bolt upright, eyes wide with fear and think: "Oh my God, what have I done?" Lest you assume that I just didn't bond with my baby, let me say from the outset that I loved my son Tony from the top of his down-covered head to the tip of his tiny little toes. I loved him before he was born, before he was even conceived. Scroll down for more ... I loved the idea of him, and I never lost touch with that love throughout the many miserable years of infertility and the IVF treatment that finally resulted in his birth on August 20, 1999, when I was 41. By then, as one of the doctors so tactlessly put it, I was "in the last chance saloon when it came to having kids". But however much he was loved and wanted, my baby's arrival waved no magic wand of satisfaction over my life. And as a study this week by the Institute for Social and Economic Research in Colchester attests, I am not so much the exception as the rule. The survey questioned four thousand couples and discovered that children, until the age of five - the point where most start school - make mothers less satisfied with their lives. I can sympathise with that. Indeed, I sometimes look back on my son's early years as a long dark tunnel from which I emerged blinking when he reached about four. The irony of my situation wasn't lost on me: that after all those years of trying for a baby and finally achieving my goal, his arrival made me somehow unhappier than I had been before. Because what no one can convey before your own little bundle arrives is just how hellishly hard it is to be a Mum - by far the most difficult challenge most of us face in life. So why wasn't maternal love the harbinger of happiness? For me the biggest problem was a surfeit of the stuff. I was so overwhelmed with love for Tony that I was tormented with anxiety. In my career as a BBC reporter I had the confidence to dodge pieces of flying masonry while covering riots in Northern Ireland. But finding myself in sole charge of a tiny screaming infant, I panicked, convinced that I just wasn't up to the job of looking after my baby and petrified that he would suffer as a result. And for the first three months of his life, suffering was what Tony did. He had colic - that mysterious belly ache which afflicts so many infants - and he screamed the place down for quite a lot of the time. I recall a well-meaning elderly neighbour desperate to watch Coronation Street in peace, knocking on my door with the helpful suggestion that the milk I was feeding Tony could be off. The professionals whose I advice I sought were about as helpful: the midwives suggested feeding on demand, the doctor a strictly-timed feeding regime. Those first few months can be bewildering and utterly exhausting, when a baby sleeps for no more than about three hours at a time day and night. Then there is the effect that the arrival of a baby has on a marriage. My husband and I had six blissful years together before Tony was born, years of intimate dinners and holidays with lots of strolling hand-in-hand down cobbled streets soaking up the culture of some delightful foreign city. Like many childless women I know, I had made a bit of a baby of my man. I loved looking after my husband, Roger Wilkes, also a journalist, fussing over him even - and of course, when Tony was born, all that abruptly stopped. "I just haven't got time" became my mantra, and so it remained for the next few years. And if I wasn't the kind of mother I expected to be, Roger wasn't the kind of father I'd imagined either. Like many men he turned out to be hopeless with small babies, although he is wonderful with Tony now he is eight years old. Scroll down for more ... "He won't take this feed from me," he used to say crossly, as if an infant might be expected to down a bottle of formula milk like a yard of ale. When I returned to work Tony was three months old and a colleague asked: "Have you reached the I Hate My Husband Because He's Useless Stage Yet?" Casting my eyes to heaven I confided that I had reached that moment several weeks before. I can still recall precisely the moment when I stared at my husband with murder in my eyes. I was holding a screaming baby and Roger was holding a raw chicken. At any moment my parents, travelling by train from Liverpool to visit us in London, would arrive. My husband has many talents, but cooking is not among them and he was looking at the chicken and asking what he should do with it. A murderous mist suffused my gaze and I swear if I hadn't been holding the baby, I would have strangled him. Tempers are not improved by sleepless nights, and they don't do much for general good health and wellbeing either. When warned about sleepless nights before Tony was born, I used glibly to reply that I would be fine because I had experienced shift work. Motherhood in my case, though, brought thrice-nightly waking for ten whole months and regular 4am alarm calls in the three years that followed. And all without the chance to catch up on the sleep you have lost. Perhaps worse than all this was the fact that as Tony got a little older and I returned to work, there was the sheer loneliness of looking after him. Roger and I decided to organise our jobs so that we could care for Tony ourselves without outside help. It meant working alternate days. On the plus side, our baby was never packed off to a nursery. On the downside, in those early years I seemed to be always entertaining Tony on my own. The modern tendency for people to move far from their families for work exacerbates this problem. It certainly did for us. I had my mum, dad and no fewer than five sisters desperate for the chance to help me with my baby son. But they were all in Liverpool, 200 miles away from where we lived in west London. Most afternoons I would take Tony to feed the ducks in Kew Gardens across the road. I missed my husband, I missed my mum, and I longed for adult company. Earlier this year in another survey, 2,000 new mothers reported the year after childbirth as the loneliest time of their lives, a time when only 90 minutes a day was spent in the company of other adults. I think this loneliness may explain the other surprise finding in the research that was published this week that mothers are significantly happier with life if they have a job, regardless of the hours involved. Much as balancing motherhood and work is stressful, at least (as my own mother used to put it) work "gets you out", out into the grown-up world, with the chance to chat to colleagues around the water cooler. I never even considered staying home to look after Tony full-time because our whopping mortgage made two incomes essential. At the time I envied the mothers who didn't face the wrench of leaving a small child. But looking back, I'm not so sure that full-time motherhood would have made me happier, probably because as an older mother I was so used to the intellectual stimulation of work and was set in my ways. And if I am honest, it was perhaps the contrast between the worlds of work and motherhood that made the task of mothering seem so monumental in those early years of Tony's life. In my job as co-presenter of Radio 4's consumer programme You And Yours, effort pays off and can sometimes bring instant rewards. If I want a particular interview to go well, I do extra research and it usually works. By contrast, trying hard with young children can just be pointless and frustrating, and I would guess that this must be the experience of a great many mothers who have careers. For me, closing the door on the chaos that can be kindled by a fractious child and stepping out in my suit to the office was a welcome escape. At work I felt relaxed and in control, but at home, confronted by a toddler who clamped his jaws against all vegetables, I sometimes wanted to weep. I felt so inadequate and frustrated. And whereas at work my tasks tended to be quickly accomplished, with Tony I discovered that the basic lessons of life, as passed on by mothers to their children, must be endlessly repeated often over years. I blush to confess it, but I did a great deal of goal-oriented nonsense with Tony when he was a baby. There were trips to the infant music classes, where all the tiny pupils were invited to play primitive instruments and kiss the same toy monkey at the end. I had expected to foster in Tony an early love of percussion - in the event, all he picked up were a few nasty viruses from the soggy cuddly toy. Trips to the "Kinder Gym" piled the humiliation on as a teacher put parents and children through a routine called "Skipping along, Singing a Song" in which my boy didn't so much skip as dawdle. In fact, Tony resolutely refused to respond to my efforts in a whole range of areas, starting with breastfeeding, which I hang my head in shame to admit we never mastered (I ended up giving up within days), through to the pureed vegetables he spat out and the potty he wore on his head rather than use. The terrible twos went on well into his threes because from the moment he was born he seemed to have his own tastes and opinions on just about everything. And he could be stubborn to the point of cussedness, just like his mum. But hand on heart, I can honestly say there was never a moment when I wished I wasn't a Mum. No matter how rosy the memories seemed of the days when I came home from work and relaxed with a large glass of wine, I would never have swopped my childless state for the life I now had with my boy. And if all of this sounds like a lament, I don't mean it to be, because in the long run Tony has brought me infinitely more joy than any work project or any other relationship in my life. There were the triumphs of his first words, his first steps, the delicious softness of his little body curled up against mine. His initial total dependence on me may have been terrifying, but it is also wonderful-to be needed so intensely, even if it is for a short time. Which brings me on to the question of why life gradually gets more satisfying for many mothers when their children start school. There are the obvious advantages, not least among them the 30 hours a week or so of free childcare - a big money saver if you are working, and a chance for some long-deserved 'me-time' if you are at home. In our case - and for many other parents I know - the start of school signalled the end of the broken nights. School tires children out and even the poorest sleepers tend to settle as a result. But for me, more importantly, Tony starting school coincided with the realisation that difficult times with young children are just phases in their development that pass. By the time he was four, I had learned to stop trying so hard. I found motherhood infinitely more rewarding as a result. I remember in those first nightmare days with Tony, a girlfriend rang who'd had a baby a year before. "Why didn't you tell me it was like this?" I asked her. "Because you feel so foolish saying that," came the reply. I understood perfectly what she meant: how could I of all people, after all that effort to have a baby, admit that I was struggling to cope? Admitting that life as the mother of a young child is less than perfect means breaking one of the last taboos - and yet it shouldn't be so hard to say it. As this week's research proves, those of us who didn't relish every moment are the not the exception, but the rule. |
Myths and Facts about Homelessness: A statistical analysis Although a large percent of the U.S. population are homeless every year (about 1 percent of the general population), the pocket of people who become homeless are almost all in the lower or working classes. Thus the majority of the people in the U.S.—those who are middle or upper class—have almost no contact with the homeless. One of the main ways in which the homeless remain dehumanized is by misunderstanding the homeless and making assumptions as to the causes and implications of homelessness. To humanize the homeless, we first have to understand who, statistically, the homeless really are without our cultural biases. Myth: The homeless are an insignificant percent of the population of the United States Approximately ten percent of all the people in the United States are under the poverty line. And a full ten percent of those will spend some time in the next year on the street. This means that approximately one percent of the population of the U.S.—about 3 million people—will be homeless in any given year. This is not insignificant. This is a huge mass of population, an economic failure, and an indication that the U.S. is more concerned with solving the world’s problems than its own. Myth: Most homeless are vagrants Seventy five percent of those who become homeless remain in the city in which they became homeless. And a large percentage of these find themselves homeless in the town they were raised in. For the most part, homeless folks move less frequently (by choice) than suburbanites. Myth: Most homeless remain so for years More than 70 percent of the homeless remain so for less than two years. For most people, homelessness is a very brief phase in their lives. Only a minority actually remain chronically homeless. Myth: The homeless are lawbreakers Statistics have shown that while a larger majority of homeless are addicts than the general population, any one homeless person is not any more likely to be a criminal than a housed person, with one legal exception: camping ordinances. It is true that the homeless are as much as a hundred percent more likely to break a camping ordinance than a housed person. But, of course, they break that law just by being a homeless person, whether they desired to break that law or not. In most cities in the United States, it is a criminal act to be a homeless person in the city in which one has been raised and lives. But in the area of violent crime, such as rape, murder, burglary or mugging, a homeless person is less likely to perpetuate such a crime than a housed person. Myth: Most homeless people are addicts It is estimated that 25-40 percent of all homeless are addicted to a substance. If we are only including the chronic homeless, that statistic is higher. But even if we are only including that population, we must ask the question of what situation caused which. Was it the addiction that caused homelessness or the homelessness that caused the addiction? It depends on the person. But many people find that once they are off the street (and on anti-depression medication) they no longer find that they need or desire to continue with their addiction. Myth: Most homeless people are mentally ill It is estimated that from 15-25 percent of all homeless are mentally ill, far below “most.” However, since in the general population of the United States up to 40 percent of all people are diagnosed with a mental illness sometime in their lives, it must be seen that there is something amiss with these statistics. From what I have found, the lower statistic for homeless people indicate those who are diagnosed with a mental illness. But since more than half of all homeless people are without any heath care insurance, then most would not have been able to be diagnosed, and even of those who were diagnosed, many of them deny the diagnosis. Thus, we should amend the statistic to say that the amount of homeless that are mentally ill is unknown, but the number might reach as much as half. Myth: Most homeless people are campers The majority of people who are homeless live in cars or trucks. Others sleep temporarily in people’s living rooms or garages. Less than 25 percent of those who are homeless camp, although this population is the most persecuted by society. Myth: Most homeless people choose homelessness Homelessness is almost no one’s choice. In one estimate, approximately 6% of the homeless chose that as a lifestyle. But the point of fact is that it is not so much that people choose homelessness, as some refuse the demands made upon them to maintain a house or apartment. To live in a house or an apartment requires on to work for 40 or more hours a week at minimum wage, just to pay for housing, food and utilities. Those who are excellent at keeping a budget might be able to also afford a car. But most of those on the street suffer from some kind of limitation on their ability to do that kind of labor. It could be mental illness or addiction, or it could be a social limitation, or it could be an inherent refusal to do that much work for so little gained. Most people who become homeless are willing to do whatever they can to return back into the standard economic requirements of our society. It is the chronic homeless who have difficulties entering back into that work force. Myth: Homeless people are lazy Homeless people typically work harder for the little they receive than we do for any equal economic benefit. For a single meal, they may walk miles. For five dollars a day they will walk a five mile route, climb in dumpsters along the way, collect the recyclables, walk them another mile to the nearest store and place each container in the machine for which they receive pennies per item. Other homeless hold signs at a busy intersection or freeway onramp, receiving as many insults as they do donations. Although estimates greatly vary, most homeless folks have at least part time work. Most homeless are looking for steady work, but find that it is difficult to come by for one who does not have an address or a daily shower. Myth: There are ample services for the homeless It depends on the city as to what services are available. In my local city, the Portland OR area, there are many meals, but only enough shelters, either at night or during the day, for but a small percentage of the homeless population. And there is not a single city in the United States that has sufficient facilities for emergency shelter for their homeless populations. Part of what services are available depend upon one’s goals. If one is only seeking to give homeless the least amount of nutrition to survive, then perhaps there are enough services. But if one is hoping to see the homeless get past their social difficulties and become an economically viable member of society, the United States doesn’t even have a fraction of the resources to meet the needs of the homeless. Myth: The homeless need to help themselves Every homeless person on the street have tried to help themselves and found it to be very difficult. 40 percent of people who have experienced homelessness get off the street in less than six months. The rest of people who find themselves homeless for years tried to get off the street, but found it impossible. The chronic homeless are those who have tried and have given up. It is now up to someone else who can assist the homeless to step in and to give them a step up. It is true, homeless people need to help themselves. No one can force anyone to accept help they do not want. But the majority of the homeless are seeking help, there just aren’t enough people to do so. They need others to help them to help themselves. |
Resources Sponsored by: Get the Facts Here’s a quick list facts you’ll want to know about infertility: Who has infertility? 1 in 8 couples (or 12% of married women) have trouble getting pregnant or sustaining a pregnancy. (2006-2010 National Survey of Family Growth, CDC) 7.4 million women, or 11.9% of women, have ever received any infertility services in their lifetime. (2006-2010 National Survey of Family Growth, CDC) Approximately one-third of infertility is attributed to the female partner, one-third attributed to the male partner and one-third is caused by a combination of problems in both partners or, is unexplained. (www.asrm.org) A couple ages 29-33 with a normal functioning reproductive system has only a 20-25% chance of conceiving in any given month (National Women’s Health Resource Center). After six months of trying, 60% of couples will conceive without medical assistance. (Infertility As A Covered Benefit, William M. Mercer, 1997) |
Leader of RMT transport union accuses Ed Miliband of dancing to the tune of Tony Blair over automatic union affiliation to Labour The leader of the RMT, Bob Crow, is to call on trade unions to break ties with Labour and create a new party that "speaks for working people". Crow accused Ed Miliband of showing unions contempt and "dancing to the tune of Tony Blair" following the Labour leader's plans to end the automatic affiliation of union members to the party. Although the transport union was expelled from the party in 2004 for allowing Scottish branches to affiliate to other political parties, Crow claimed Miliband's reforms were an attempt to "hack away at the last remaining shreds of influence held by those who created the party". At Saturday's Durham miners' gala, one of the country's most traditional trade union events, the RMT general secretary will attempt to rally support for a "new party of labour" to take on the "anti-worker" agenda of the three main political parties. Last year Miliband became the first Labour leader in more than two decades to address the gala, but he will not attend on Saturday. Speaking ahead of the event, Crow said: "Over the past week we have seen Ed Miliband dancing to the tune of Tony Blair and the rest of the New Labour conspirators as he seeks to hack away at the last remaining shreds of influence held by those who created the party that he leads, the trade unions. "If others want to stick around and be insulted by those whose only interest is our money and not our ideas then that's a matter for them, for the rest, there is a whole world of opportunity outside the constraints of the Labour party and RMT would urge them to embrace it and join us in this new political project. "This is a moment of huge opportunity for all those sick and tired of Labour's embrace of pro-business, pro-EU, neo-liberal policies and we should seize it with both hands. "With the latest assault by Labour on the unions the time is right to start building an alternative political party that speaks for the working people and the working class communities that find themselves under the most brutal attack from cuts and austerity in a generation. The time for the alternative party of labour is now." Miliband launched plans for significant reform of the Labour party's relations with the trade unions earlier this week - a move Tony Blair hailed as "a real act of leadership". The measures were designed to draw a line under the biggest crisis of Miliband's leadership, sparked by claims that Unite tried to fix the selection of Labour's general election candidate in Falkirk by packing the constituency with 100 or more of its own members, some of them without their knowledge. An internal party report on the allegations has been handed to police. Miliband said events in Falkirk represented "part of the death throes of the old politics", and he hoped to usher in an "open, transparent and trusted" system which would engage more union members directly in the party. Rather than being automatically affiliated to Labour unless they opt out of their union's political levy, union members should be asked to make an active decision to join the party by opting in. The explosive reaction expected from the unions did not materialise, however, as Unite general secretary Len McCluskey told how he was "very comfortable" with the proposals. |
Here in the oil-rich eastern region of Venezuela, propaganda for President Hugo Chávez dominates the landscape, from spotless billboards by the airport to dusty banners over trash-strewn lots. A hillside water tank carries the name of Chávez’s PSUV party. Though President Chávez has spent years focusing on the region’s strategic importance, cultivating support for his party and its policies of “21st century socialism,” his campaign has hit resistance here. And it has become one of the places where opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski stands to pick up votes when the country goes to the polls on Sunday. Over the course of his nearly 14 years as President, Chávez has made it clear he wants supporters of his socialist revolution to control access to the region’s quarter trillion barrels of oil reserves. But with a record of oil spills, a rising accident rate in refineries, and social problems like the continent's highest murder rates and weekly blackouts, Chávez’s time in office may be working against him, weighing on his public support here, and across much of the country. "It's very tight, and both have very similar chances of winning," says Iñaki Sagarzazu, a Venezuelan teaching at the University of Glasgow, Scotland. "It will come down to who mobilizes the most." Mr. Sagarzazu says that Chávez support has moved from urban to rural areas over the years. That’s left the president with a base in the plains while urban areas have moved largely to the opposition, which this year is supporting Mr. Capriles, governor of a state that includes part of the capital, Caracas. Here in this region, too, people have shifted their support away from the incumbent. "He never does what he says," says Reina, a mother of 11 and full-time homemaker, who was shy about talking to the press. She says she has supported Chávez for years, but is still undecided as to whether she will give him her vote again in a race that’s too close to call, with pollsters and analysts divided on which candidate is the most likely winner. Environmental and labor woes Venezuela is experiencing 18 percent inflation and there is a sense that neighbors, such as Brazil, have emerged more successfully from poverty. Such concerns are countering Chávez's emotional connection with the people and his ability to attract support with populist programs such as free homes. In the oil region, environmental issues have also affected the president's standing. One case is Monagas state, where the president received 71 percent support in the 2006 election. A pipeline burst in the state Feb. 4, spilling thousands of barrels of crude into the Guarapiche river. Local opposition press reported that for the first hours of the disaster, the state oil company failed to halt the flow, in part because some employees were away in the capital for a rally commemorating the 20th anniversary of Chávez leading a failed military coup. The spill forced managers to halt water withdrawals from the river, leaving about 200,000 residents of the city of Maturin with limited running water for six weeks. The state's governor, Jose Gregorio Briceño, criticized the central government's response, and was ejected from the PSUV in retribution. He now supports Chávez's opponent, Capriles, and his change of sides may improve the Capriles mobilization, allowing the opposition to pick up votes. The labor movement in the oil and basic industries sectors has also become less reliably pro-Chávez. The workers were solidly in the president's camp six years ago, when Energy Minister Rafael Ramírez told workers that the state oil company was "deep red," referring to Chávez's team color. But many of them have also grown disillusioned with promises of a workers' paradise accompanied by no-bid contracts for newly rich suppliers, while health and safety standards decline. Is fourteen years 'enough?’ Even the most dedicated supporters say the big extractive industries need fundamental change. Raúl Párica is a leader in the pro-Chávez oil workers union. He rattled off a list of complaints about the state oil company, PDVSA, including inefficiency, bureaucracy, and corruption. He still says he'll vote for Chávez, but that crime is an epidemic. The PSUV party is infested with opportunists with no social conscience, he says. What is needed is deeper, cultural change — a "cultural revolution." Fourteen years isn't enough time to change a culture that developed over a century, Párica says. And Chávez's diminished support here won't all translate into more votes for challenger Capriles. Jose Bodas, a plant operator and union leader with the state oil company, moved away from the president in 2007, and today he is supporting Orland Chirinos, a little-known third-party candidate, saying that Capriles is fundamentally a representative of the business class, and won't support workers. Shifting politics at the state oil company violates one of Chávez's primary goals, which is to keep the country's oil out of the hands of the US and the local opposition, whom he calls "lackeys." But there is no sign of another round of political purges at the company, which went on strike against the president's policies ten years ago, driving up oil prices worldwide. Not all want ‘change’ One irony of the race is that the self-proclaimed revolutionary is now a conservative choice, attracting support from people who have gained under his administration and now fear losing their piece of the pie — be it a lucrative contract, a basic job, or something as small as a handouts of inexpensive meat and milk. Chávez won in 1998 as the candidate of hope and change, but he is now an institution. Adriana Marin says she has friends who will vote for the president because their parents are doing much better under Chávez than they had under prior administrations. She says she'll support Capriles because she says Venezuela is becoming less free compared to other countries in the region. Get the Monitor Stories you care about delivered to your inbox. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy Ms. Marin isn't alone. Capriles has hooked many supporters with his message of change. When he closed out his campaign in the region Tuesday, tens of thousands of supporters turned out. He told them he would halt the politicization of state enterprises and the current policy of pressuring workers to contribute one day of salary per month to the governing political party. Chávez, who is recovering from cancer, didn't show up to his own campaign-closing ceremony here, instead saving energy for a rally yesterday in Caracas that was likely the biggest of the campaign. There, he responded to those who say he hasn't fulfilled long-standing promises, telling the crowd he’ll be more "efficient." |
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Rory Cellan-Jones talks to Google's Luc Vincent about the refreshed Street View service It is nearly four years since Google's Street View arrived in the UK, and now it is getting a major revamp. The Street View cars have been roaming Britain, refreshing the coverage in the big cities and bringing new images to remote places, such as the Isle of Lewis. The latest version has added another 15% of the UK's roads, bringing the total covered to 65%. And by using backpacks with lightweight recording equipment the company has brought the service to new places, from the interiors of buildings like the BBC Radio 1 studios to the towpaths of canals. But what do we now think about this close-up view of our streets, a project which has been marked by controversies over privacy? I've been talking to the man behind Street View, Luc Vincent - via the rather clumsy medium of a Google Hangout - and asking him about the project's ambitions. (Our edited interview is above - but you can see the full version here). He started by stressing that his boss Larry Page had come up with the original idea, roaming the campus of Stanford University taking pictures. It had then turned into Luc's 20% project - the blue sky ideas Google engineers are encouraged to work on for a fifth of their time - and had been launched in five US cities in 2007. Now it has mapped large areas of the world at street level. Forty seven countries now have coverage, and the cars have driven five million miles. But how useful is it? I've always suspected that many people use it once to look at their own house - and then forget about it. Luc Vincent says it is true that much of the traffic is local, but he insists it has become a very attractive service: "People use it to preview the restaurant they want to go to, or choose a vacation spot or search for real estate," he told me. Image copyright AFP But when it launched in the UK, while some were fascinated, others were appalled at what they saw as an invasion of their privacy by a Big Brother American business. In the village of Broughton, near Milton Keynes, residents chased a Street View car away, and accused Google of trying to peer through their windows. In Germany, the reaction was much stronger, with entire streets blanked out as residents rebelled against the idea. Google has stopped taking images there, so that some big cities have coverage but elsewhere there is nothing. Luc Vincent seems bemused by this kind of reaction. "I think the Big Brother aspect is really overstated," he says, "it's not we are driving in one place at one time, it's not like a camera is pointing at you all the time." The other controversy which surrounded Street View was the discovery that some of its cars had been collecting data from unsecured wi-fi networks. Mr Vincent says that did cause harm to the project: "It certainly slowed us down quite a bit," he says, "we've done what we can to fix the problem, we don't collect any wi-fi right now." Image copyright Getty Images In the UK, at least, the privacy row seems to have abated. When I looked on Street View the village of Broughton was there in full glorious detail, and I could not spot any homes that had been blanked out. And when I contacted a couple of residents they no longer seemed too concerned: "We've moved on," one person told me. It seems the bigger issue there now is getting proper broadband. Nevertheless, I do sense a wider disquiet about the growing power of Google in so many areas. Many of its services - like Street View or the mobile operating system Android -seemed to have no obvious commercial purpose when they are launched. Executives like Luc Vincent would have us believe that the only motivation is to give as many as people as possible useful information, with any thought of profit a long way down the road. But look at China's concerns this week about the dominance of Android - a worry shared by some global telecoms operators - and recent concerns about the way the company scans Gmail to serve users relevant adverts. No longer is the world content to assume that the search giant's motives are always pure. Google's mission to organise the world's information takes another step forward with the expansion of Street View. But the more closely they watch us, the more we may need to keep a critical eye on them. |
Ahmedabad: MIM after losing in Bihar poll, where almost all its candidates lost their deposits, there was ongoing debate on why MIM is not contesting the forthcoming civic elections in Gujarat. Now, new rumours are making rounds in media and political circle that Asaduddin Owaisi is striking deal with Ahmed Patel, a close aide of Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Gujarat civic elections. There is also a rumour that MIM worker will work for Congress candidates contesting in the civil poll. Meanwhile, MLA of Dariapur in Ahmedabad, Gyasuddin Sheikh talking to the media also hinted the same. It is to be noted that Gujarat civic poll for 323 local bodies will be held on 22nd and 29th November. This election is considered as important test for “Modi wave” in his homeland after Patels’ agitation for reservation. This will be the first election after Anandiben Patel became the State’s first woman Chief Minister. Earlier, Congress workers had approached Asaduddin Owaisi to contest Gujarat election after his younger brother Akbaruddin Owaisi accepted Prime Minister Modi’s challenge to contest election in Gujarat. |
Watch REMEMORY Starring Peter Dinklage for Free via Google Play for a Limited Time Set to hit American theaters on September 8, the sci-fi thriller film "Rememory" is totally free to view or download until September 20 via the Google Play Store. Unfortunately, the promo is limited to twenty countries at the moment namely: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Albania, Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Botswana, Cambodia, Fiji, Iceland, Jamaica, Macedonia, Malta, Namibia, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. While the film has received mixed reviews, nothing beats free right? If you need more convincing to give "Rememory" a shot, you can watch the trailer below: "Rememory" stars "Game of Thrones" mainstay Peter Dinklage, Anton Yelchin, Julia Ormond, Henry Ian Cusack, Gracyn Shinyei and Colin Lawrence. The film made its debut at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Following the mysterious death of a scientific pioneer who creates technology that allows you to extract memories and watch them on an external device, Sam Bloom (Peter Dinklage), a detective, sets about trying to solve the murder using this memory machine. As the investigation continues, a web of intrigue and deceit is uncovered. |
Soviet condoms, a wall of drawings celebrating spanking, Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin doing battle with oversized penises – welcome to Moscow's first sex museum. The artfully named Tochka G ("G Spot") opened last month off Arbat, Moscow's famous tourist street, and is already courting controversy. The Russian capital teems with sex, much of its nightlife centring on brothels and strip clubs. But when it comes to public discourse, sex simply does not exist. The museum's offerings range from the absurd to the historical. Upon entering the red-and-black basement space visitors are immediately confronted with two phalluses each two metres tall: one decorated in the blue and white swirls of Russia's traditional Gzhel ceramics, the other in a colour that can only be described as "flesh". The museum's main draw is an oil painting by St Petersburg artist Vera Donskaya-Khilko titled Wrestling (2011). The canvas is dominated by Putin and Obama, standing face to face as they prepare to do battle with their enormous penises. To make clear who stands stronger, Putin has two (one red, the other green). "Putin has two members, as a symbol of hyperpotency, a symbol of the gray cardinal," the wall text reads. Paintings of orgies, mermaids with two sets of breasts and men serving cocktails on their erections compete for attention with sculptures of different species of animals engaging in sex. Glass cases hold Soviet condoms ("From the Bakovsky Factory, Size 2, two roubles"), Soviet-era art deco Vaseline tins and old Russian pamphlets on "women's illnesses". There are also international offerings – erotic woodcarvings from France, ritual phalluses from Timor-Leste and Cameroon and even three gold-plated "phallus talismans" from 20th-century England. The modern-day offerings are inevitably more crude – life-sized Realdoll blow-up dolls from the US, an Argentine sculpture featuring a woman lying on a white carpet while a pigtailed young blond sucking on a lollipop looks excitedly on. Yet for founder and curator Alexander Donskoi, the museum isn't really about sex. "It's a project about freedom," he said. Donskoi is a loud critic of the Putin regime and modern Russia's system of governance. Perhaps with good reason – the 41-year-old spent three years in prison after announcing, while mayor of the northern city of Arkhangelsk, that he planned to run for president during Russia's last vote. Donskoi's main goal appears to be to provoke. He is less concerned about Russians' attitudes towards sex than about restrictions on freedoms. His ire extends to the Russian Orthodox church, a highly traditional organisation that has gained increasing power under Putin. "I think the clampdown on freedom in Russia is also the result of the fact that the nation is steadily moving away from secular government and that Russian Orthodoxy has filled the empty space left by communist ideology," he says. Last week Donskoi met a representative of the Moscow mayor's office over concerns about the museum. Does he think it will be shut down? "They can do whatever they want," he says. Until then, the museum continues to grow in popularity. On a recent afternoon about a dozen people quietly wandered about. Many headed straight for the shop which, Donskoi says, is the largest sex shop in Russia. Alongside the usual offerings – vibrators and whips, latex masks and lacy lingerie – stood some particularly Russian paraphernalia: S&M nesting dolls, slippers topped with breasts and sexy outfits for women who want to dress up as Aeroflot stewards, Russian rail workers, traffic police or communist-era Young Pioneers. The most popular are sexy tax police and prosecutor uniforms, said Donskoi. "It's a bit of a fetish, because everyone is scared of them most." |
Architecture The architecture is similar to the Candi Plaosan Lor temple, a structure with two storeys and the outer structure is a three-level structure with base, body and roof reflecting Buddhist cosmology (see above under Candi Plaosan). The upper storey, with three rooms, was made of wooden structures with wooden stairs extending from lower storey to upper storey. The lower storey had statues for the monks to pray. Today there are no statues but the frames of Batara Kala indicate the presence of statues once upon a time. The outer wall is covered with niches, bas reliefs of Bodhisattvas, mythical benevolent creatures of Kinnaras/Kinnaris for a total of 36 statues. The statues are in an elegant dance form. Conclusion There are interesting places like Ijo Hindu temple and Dieng Plateau with Pandava temples, which I did not have time to visit. But similar to the Angkor, this region is full of Dharmic structures. It is only fair to say that Hinduism survived because of the influence of this region and the Hindu Majapahit Kingdom, which ruled this place before being defeated by Islamic forces in the 16th century. Some of the defeated inhabitants of the Majapahit Kingdom moved to Eastern Java and settled there. Today they form the ethnic group of 300,000 Tenggerese who practice Hinduism and pray at Mount Bromo (which I was fortunate to visit as part of this trip). And more importantly, one of the priests of the Kingdom, Dang Hyang Nirartha, moved to Bali and established the Shivaite Hinduism practiced in that island today. How did I get there? I flew into Yogyakarta international airport as it is better connected domestically and internationally. Do note that the local airlines do not take foreign credit cards. So you can’t book tickets online. Just go to their local office to book the local flights. The price from what I noticed remains the same whether you book two months in advance or one day in advance. It is around $35-$40 one way to different destinations. I went to the Denpasar office in Bali – all the local airlines’ desks are in the airport and seated next to each other. Also note that they accept only Indonesian Rupiah and not USD or other foreign currencies. Prambanan is situated 20 minutes from the Jogjakarta or Yogyakarta international airport. It costs around 70,000 Indonesian Rupiah (conversion rate is roughly 13,000 Rupiah to 1 USD at the time of writing this article) in taxi from the airport to Prambanan. Where did I stay? I stayed at Poeri Devata resort, which I happened to book for roughly $38 per night. I had a pleasant experience due to the friendly staffs. The hotel is situated on the backside of the Prambanan complex and provides a view of Prambanan temples. The hotel provides a free ride to the Prambanan temple compound entrance. The other option is to stay in Yogyakarta but I recommend staying in Prambanan as there is easy access to other archaeological complexes like Ratu Boko palace, Candi Sambisari, Candi Plaosan, Candi Kalasan, Candi Sari and one can visit these sites by motorcycle, which you can rent from the hotel at 10,000 rupiahs per hour (roughly $1 USD). Do note you will need an international riding permit. |
Welcome to Wikitubia! This is an unofficial YouTube wiki run by fans. Wikitubia was founded on September 25, 2006, and currently has 3,764 articles. Before starting, please make sure to read our rules . And help us grow Wikitubia here . With thousands of YouTubers and millions of videos. YouTube has been such a popular website since its release. Community Please join our community! We are trying to build a big and a strong community here. Try joining our community by editing on articles that need help here, by writing what you have on mind in our blog page here, by checking our announcements and what people discuss on the forums here, join our local chatroom to see what people are talking about, enter our contests and events to win some things on the forums and on the blogs, if you want to know more, check it out here. Announcments Posted by HanselElGato on July 17, 2018 - When editing articles please do not put something like (currently this YouTuber has 500k subscribers right now) its not necessary, and gets outdated real fast. Thank you! Posted by EpicNinjaDude37 on December 28, 2018 - When using YouTuber Infoboxes, please do not re-arrange anything in the infobox or mush them together in source mode. It doesn't do anything visually but it will confuse other contributors whenever they update it in the future. Thank you! Posted by Purzyckij on January 9, 2019 - Please only add videos that are going on a page. If you are adding a video to this fandom just to add it here without adding it to page you will receive a warning then a block if it continues. |
Marin County supervisors have approved new master plans for McNears Beach and Paradise Beach parks that would cost an estimated $55 million to implement. However, officials said there is no immediate plan to fund the projects. “This is a vision. It is not our intention and never has been our intention to build this out in one fell swoop,” Steve Petterle, county parks’ principal landscape architect, told supervisors last week. “It was our intent to create a path to the future.” Petterle said the master plans will allow the county to seek state and federal grants as well as private donations to help fund the projects. “Every state and federal grant application that I have put my name to asks one specific question: Does this park have an approved plan?” he said. Petterle said bite-size parts of the plan can be undertaken as funds become available. “I view these as little pieces of a jigsaw puzzle,” he said. Paradise Beach Park on the Tiburon Peninsula was acquired by the county in 1958, and McNears Beach Park on the shoreline of San Pablo Bay in San Rafael became a county facility in 1970. Both parks already had master plans, but Chris Chamberlain, county parks assistant director, said those plans are antiquated. The new master plans cost a combined $372,000. The plans call for new amenities as well as addressing decades of deferred infrastructure maintenance. Both plans would also improve accessibility to the parks adding pedestrian paths, promenades and trails that visitors of all ages and abilities could traverse. The plan for the 19-acre Paradise Beach Park would include restoration of the pier and seawall; a large boardwalk; a concession; kayak rentals; new pavilions and shade structures; additional picnic areas; and native gardens. The estimated cost is $20 million. The plan for the 60-acre McNears Beach Park would include a promenade along the waterfront; improved beach access with a swimming pier; a large swimming pool; a cafe; multi-purpose buildings; a children’s nature play area; a kayak launch area; upgraded picnic facilities. The estimated cost is $35 million. In addition to the master plans, supervisors approved “mitigated negative declarations of environmental impact” for both projects, thus affirming that the projects require no additional analysis of environmental impacts at this time. The National Marine Fisheries Service expressed concern that the kayak launches in both plans would increase the amount of overwater structure and offered suggestions for design of the launches to reduce shading. The fisheries service also encouraged the use of softer solutions to shoreline stabilization than are planned at both parks. Further environmental analysis would likely be required under the California Environmental Quality Act before work on any specific project could begin. Supervisor Kate Sears pointed out that approval from the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission would be required for any work within 100 feet of the shoreline. Petterle said sea-level rise would be incorporated into construction plans. “These parks are part of what makes Marin a special place,” said Max Korten, director of Marin County Parks. “Our promise is that these plans won’t sit on a shelf. We will utilize this vision to implement meaningful improvements that ensure these resources are available for generations to come.” |
The pre-E3 news volcano keeps on spewing molten infobits, as is its over-exuberant wont. EA, for whatever reason (perhaps, you know, E3) is saving its trailers until next week, but it’s seen fit to toss a rather important morsel in hungry fans’ direction to tide them over. Namely, via an email touting the publishing kingpin’s trade show lineup, it pegged SimCity‘s grand opening for February 2013. Previously, all we had to go on was a vague “2013.” Now then, here’s hoping that actually goes according to plan – given the precedent set by a certain other recently launched “always online” game. Maxis, meanwhile, has promised a grand unveiling next week – far beyond rough-around-the-edges tech demos. Most crucially, multiplayer’s apparently a lock for the show, which means we’ll finally understand how EA’s admittedly less potent connected tech will improve our experiences. So then, chatter excitedly amongst yourselves. Preferably in Simlish. |
A tipster in Texas flirted briefly with Scientology when college-age. Then, sensibly, she ran the hell away. Now people she's never met are sending her creepy hand-written notes trying to get her back into the cult. The envelope was also hand-written, for the 'we're watching you' personal touch, and contained this note: It also contained a lengthy personality test to try and lure her back in by helping her to "discover the factors about yourself that cause you stress. She responds: What causes me stress is the fact that nearly 20 years after the fact, I can't seem to get these jagweeds to stop sending me their trash mail. Here's the survey. Feel free to take it, but beware in case you fall into their trap and join the crusade. |
In Father’s Day speech Obama says fathers need to have “courage” to raise their children. Obama talks tough on 'AWOL' fathers Talking tough on Father’s Day, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) challenged African-American men on Sunday to play more of a role in raising their children and warned them that “responsibility doesn’t just end at conception.” “Too many fathers are MIA. Too many fathers are AWOL,” he told a huge African-American congregation in Chicago. “There’s a hole in your heart if you don’t have a male figure in the home that can guide you and lead you and set a good example for you.” Story Continued Below “What makes you a man is not the ability to have a child — any fool can have a child,” he said, to applause. “That doesn’t make you a father. It’s the courage to raise a child that makes you a father.” Obama drew laughs when he talked about gyrating portrayals of him in the media: “That was when I wasn't black enough. Now I'm too black.” Responding to cheers and applause, he added ruefully, “Y'all remember.” Obama said parents can’t use lack of government resources as an “excuse” for not doing anything for their children: “As fathers and as parents, we’ve got to spend more time with them, and help them with their homework, and turn off the TV set once in a while, turn off the video game and the remote control and read a book to your child." The point about the remote is one Obama often makes on the campaign trail, always to big applause. Obama met this week with evangelical ministers, and the speech could help him reach out to family-oriented conservatives who remain unenthusiastic about Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Obama’s fatherhood speech was delivered at Apostolic Church of God in Chicago, where the crowd overflowed from the 3,000-seat sanctuary into the banquet hall. Obama’s wife, Michelle, and their daughters, Sasha and Malia, also attended. The senator declared that even many two-parent families can do a better job of preparing their children: “It’s a wonderful thing if you are married and living in a home with your children, but don’t just sit in the house and watch ‘SportsCenter’ all weekend long.” Obama began by saying that too many fathers are “missing — missing from too many lives and too many homes,” having “abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men.” “You and I know how true this is in the African-American community,” he said. “We know that more than half of all black children live in single-parent households, a number that has doubled — doubled — since we were children. We know the statistics — that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime, nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behavioral problems, or run away from home, or become teenage parents themselves. And the foundations of our community are weaker because of it.” |
If he delivers as advertised, B.C. Finance Minister Mike de Jong's next budget will offer relief for the rapidly increasing cost of real estate – a consuming issue in communities from Vancouver to Kelowna. Over the past week, politicians on both sides of the legislature have condemned "predatory practises" and "market manipulation" that may be driving the cost of a family home out of reach for new buyers. But at the heart of the issue, the real estate market is shaped by laws of supply and demand. The federal, provincial and local governments can tinker at the margins, but there are limits to the influence each can wield. Story continues below advertisement The veteran finance minister has been pressed to adopt a wide variety of tactics in the budget he will introduce on Tuesday: Punish real estate speculators, discourage "dark" homes of absentee owners and reduce taxes – particularly for first-time home buyers. He's also been warned that some of the proposals would benefit the wrong parties, fix problems that really don't exist or make matters worse. He must achieve a delicate balancing act: Changes engineered to allow more people to purchase a home will create more buyers. Without more supply, that is a recipe for sending prices higher still. Try to cool prices down, though, and existing homeowners will see their equity shrink. The theme for the budget is "affordability," which includes more than just real estate. However, Mr. de Jong has made no secret that he intends to tackle the high cost of housing in urban centres – especially Metro Vancouver. The Globe and Mail examines some of the levers available to him. The downtown skyline and cranes at Port Metro Vancouver are seen in the distance behind houses in east Vancouver. DARRYL DYCK/For The Globe and Mail Supply and demand After months of talking about possible measures to help first-time home buyers get into the market, Finance Minister Mike de Jong recently modified his message: You can't increase demand, he cautioned, without ensuring more supply. An example of the challenge: In a bid to cool the superheated real estate markets in Toronto and Vancouver, the federal government announced changes late in 2015 to make it harder for first-time home buyers to get a mortgage. The changes were expected to prompt a flood of buyers racing into the market to beat the new rules, but the Canadian Real Estate Association noted the futility of tackling the problem from only one side. "An increasingly short supply of listings in Vancouver and Toronto blunted the impact of changes to mortgage regulations announced in December that were aimed at cooling these housing markets," the association's president Pauline Aunger noted in a statement. On Friday, Premier Christy Clark sketched out what was billed as the single biggest affordable-housing investment in the province's history – a five-year plan to build 2,000 new units around the province at a cost of $355-million. The budget will include $50-million for the coming fiscal year. Story continues below advertisement Peter Hall, a professor of urban studies at Simon Fraser University, said such investments are needed to address increasingly unaffordable communities. "This is a really good start, even though the housing needs – a decades-long backlog – are much greater than this," he said. "I hope the details confirm that the province appreciates that the housing-affordability crisis is not just the extremes of vacant west-side homes and homeless shelters." But the province has also insisted that local governments must shoulder much of the blame for stifling development and limiting supply. The recent Throne Speech vowed to force municipalities to disclose "hidden" costs, saying local governments are adding tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of a new home. The approach is supported by the construction industry, and the Fraser Institute has added fuel to the debate with a report last July that found Metro Vancouver municipalities can take up to 18 months on average to approve housing projects while compliance costs can reach as high as $40,000 per home. Reducing the regulatory burden on builders, they suggest, would provide an incentive to build more housing, and would get new housing stock into the market more quickly. Prof. Hall said the pressure on local governments could prove counterproductive, and said the province would do better to stick with incentives rather than threats. "This is a much better approach." Story continues below advertisement Dark homes With its international charm and relatively low property taxes, combined with economic turmoil in other economic jurisdictions, Vancouver's real estate market is a lure for investors who have no plans to live and work here, says real estate economist Tom Davidoff says. "Vancouver has a target on its back as a place where homes are traded as pure speculative investment," he said. "We have this giant, gold-embossed invitation to please come here, park a bag of cash in a house and leave it vacant." Most notably in Vancouver and West Vancouver, there is now a push to ensure every house is a home. The concern – although based mostly on anecdotal evidence – is that a growing number of houses are being bought for speculation or secondary residences by foreign investors, exacerbating the tight supply of homes on the market. The "dark" home issue has been around to varying degrees for decades but Prof. Davidoff of the University of B.C.'s Sauder School of Business says it has taken off in the past year. He is part of a team of academics who have presented Finance Minister Mike de Jong with a possible solution to the empty-house question. More than 50 economists have now signed off on the proposal for a property-tax surcharge of 1.5 per cent. It would exempt homeowners who live in the property and pay income taxes in British Columbia, and provide incentives to rent the property if the owner doesn't want to live there. Jurisdictions that choose to adopt the tax could return the revenue as a rebate to homeowners who do live in the community. The tax would encourage investors to at least add to the rental stock. And the province would be able to collect the data to determine, finally, just how much of an issue vacancy really is. "Everybody knows this is an issue; it's just a question of how big or small it is. [The proposal] is a tremendous win for taxpayers, for affordability and for gathering information," Prof. Davidoff said. But the province has not flagged this issue as a priority, and it is possible that the only action in the coming budget will be an initiative to collect more data about foreign ownership. The simplest solution would be to restore a requirement to file a citizenship statement with the land title registry. The obligation was repealed by the NDP government in 1998 in the name of cutting red tape. A price on flipping The outrage over housing prices in the Vancouver area – and the fact that many people in the region simply will never be able to afford to buy a home – seemed to crystallize one weekend last May. The Twitter hashtag #DontHave1Million began trending and hundreds of people, many millennials who still find themselves outside the housing market, gathered at an event downtown. Condo marketer Bob Rennie – one of the biggest supporters of Premier Christy Clark's leadership and election campaigns – floated the idea of a tax on real estate speculators who flip properties within six months. And Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson soon echoed Mr. Rennie – one of his biggest financial backers – in demanding the provincial government implement luxury and speculation taxes to chill the city's real estate market. Since then, the province has rejected such taxes, arguing they could reduce prices – and, with them, the equity many British Columbians have built up over the years. David Ley, a geography professor at the University of British Columbia who studies housing bubbles, said Singapore's 16-per-cent tax on homeowners who sell within the first year of buying has helped – along with other restrictions on foreign buyers – to stop the spiralling speculation in the top end of that market. That effect, in turn, leads to a trickle down in affordability for all buyers, he said. "The story here is taxes can indeed cool off the market. What you need to do, obviously, is get the right calibration. You don't want to overtax and kill the market," Prof. Ley said. A flipping tax would need to be incremental in terms of how quickly the flip occurs, he said, "so the faster the flip, the bigger the tax." The profits of such a tax could be used by the municipalities to put into an affordable-housing fund to build new units, he added. David Eby, MLA for Vancouver's pricey Point Grey riding and the housing critic for the Opposition NDP, said it's difficult to know how long the average speculator takes to flip a property, because neither the real estate industry nor the provincial government will release such data. "The data out there is very difficult to access and only selectively available and we need to change that," Mr. Eby said. "They simply refuse to provide the data." He said his party is calling for an inquiry because "there are so many different factors that could be driving this market and so many different policy responses." Median prices for a detached home sold last November on Vancouver's west side hit $3.1-million and $1.31-million on the city's east side, according to the latest data from the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver. Prof. Ley said setting a luxury tax on those properties above $2-million could cool down Vancouver's west side, where many believe speculators have displaced long-term residents to the city's cheaper east side. "Anecdotal evidence I have suggests that is happening, but I don't know if investment is also occurring [on the east side]," Prof. Ley said. Such a tax might slow the eastward flow of residents while the revenue could be used to fund affordable housing, he added. Still, only a comprehensive set of policy measures are going to have any real effects on affordability in the region, he said. "Our market is so extreme that I think policy makers have simply got to look outside the box," Prof. Ley said. "Incremental shifts are not going to satisfy people and are not going to have an effect." Sales the shadows When the controversial yet legal practice of "shadow flipping" came to light in a Globe and Mail investigation last weekend, the provincial government soon responded by saying that this type of activity is symptomatic of a "high-demand, low-supply market." But by midweek, as public outcry mounted over agents flipping homes through reselling sales contracts before they closed, Premier Christy Clark was urging the Real Estate Council of B.C. to take action or else her government would step in. "If they don't fix it, we're going to fix it for them," she told reporters. "And we'll do it in short order, because what is happening in the housing market in the Lower Mainland, and in a lot of communities, it's crazy." The real estate council, a self-governing body that oversees real estate agents and brokerage firms, now has until April 15 to report back to Finance Minister Mike de Jong with the findings of its independent advisory group looking into the dubious practices of using contract assignments to flip properties. It's difficult to estimate the effect of shadow flipping on affordability in the Vancouver area's housing market, said Joshua Gottlieb, a professor at the University of B.C.'s Sauder School of Business. Many of the property flips are done through private deals – so the top prices the end buyers pay for homes aren't reflected in MLS data – which further distorts overall values. That also makes it next to impossible to determine just how common the practice is. Because contract assignments happen before a property's title changes hands, which is what triggers the province's property-transfer tax, the provincial government could be losing out on hundreds of thousands of dollars that would normally be collected through the levy. In British Columbia, buyers typically pay 1 per cent for the first $200,000 of a home's sale price and a further 2 per cent of the amount higher than that. That would add up to $48,000 on a $2.5-million sale, the average price for a single-family detached house sold within the City of Vancouver last November. Still, Prof. Gottlieb said cracking down on shadow flipping would not solve the fundamental problem: "that it's hard to know the true value of a house and that the housing is unaffordable in much of the Lower Mainland." If the provincial government eliminates the practice, the biggest benefit may lie in restoring the public faith that the industry is being regulated effectively, as Mr. de Jong told the real estate council in a letter last week. "It is particularly important for regulators to be vigilant in the type of market conditions we are experiencing in certain areas of British Columbia right now," the letter said. An out-of-touch tax Finance Minister Mike de Jong sometimes can't resist the urge to take a shot at Bill Vander Zalm, referring to the unpopular Property Transfer Tax as "Mr. Vander Zalm's tax." The former premier introduced it as a luxury-home tax in 1987, but it has been almost unchanged, and today there are few real estate transactions in British Columbia that are not swept up in that 30-year-old definition of luxury. Cancel the tax and the province could instantly make real estate more affordable. The chances that the province would give up a revenue stream that will deliver more than $1.2-billion to its coffers this year are closer to none than slim. The tax is, however, the most effective lever that the province can use to temper the high cost of housing, and it is likely going to be overhauled next Tuesday. For the past six months, Mr. de Jong has mused about his options and has strongly hinted the tax will be restructured, with a higher rate applied to the most expensive homes and the additional revenue funnelled into lessening the burden for first-time home buyers and those in the market for less-expensive properties. Currently, the tax is set at 1 per cent on the first $200,000 of the market value of a property and 2 per cent on the remainder. First-time home buyers can qualify for an exemption on properties valued at $475,000 or less. The Canadian Home Builders' Association of B.C. says the tax should be scrapped but that, at the very least, a reduction is overdue. "Housing affordability needs to be addressed and B.C. home buyers deserve this reduction in tax," CEO Neil Moody said. "It's the one thing the government can do to directly change and make the possibility of home ownership a closer reality for more families, by reducing the tax and increasing the threshold." In its budget submission to the province, Mr. Moody's association argued that the tax is just out of touch. "This structure is not congruent with British Columbia's escalating real estate market … and the current rate continues to severely affect housing affordability." The challenge for government is defining what a luxury home is in 2016 dollars. The benchmark price for a two-storey single family home in greater Vancouver in the first month of this year hit $1.4-million. In Victoria, that home cost an average of $600,000, according to statistics compiled by the Canadian Real Estate Association. |
There are some words you just don’t utter in polite company. If you allude to them at all, it is by an initial letter. The “F” word, the “C” word. Particularly in America, the “N” word. Andrew Leigh, one of Australia’s foremost academic economists before he became a Labor politician, suggests another: the “I” word. Inequality. For a long time politicians on the progressive side were wary of mentioning it, for fear of being accused of engaging in class warfare or practising “the politics of envy”. Right-wing politicians tended not to mention it at all, as much as they were in favour of it. They preferred to sloganise with other “I” words, such as “individualism” and “incentive”, which were euphemisms for the same thing: allowing economic inequality to increase, in the belief that this would cause the economy to grow faster. But in recent years, suggests Leigh, talk of inequality has been politically destigmatised. “There has been a shift in the willingness of progressives to say the ‘I’ word,” Leigh says. “It’s been steadily building over recent years. Obama talks about inequality more than Clinton did, Miliband talks about inequality more than Blair did. Shorten talks about inequality more than Keating did.” “We’re in the top third of the most unequal countries in the OECD.” They can do it safe in the knowledge that the old rejoinders have lost much of their sting. That hasn’t stopped conservatives from trotting them out, of course. Shortly after delivering his woefully unpopular budget last year, Treasurer Joe Hockey told an appreciative audience at the right-wing Sydney Institute that accusations it disproportionately targeted the least well-off for cuts “drifted to 1970s class warfare lines”. “The gap between rich and poor has often been used to attack governments when all other avenues have been exhausted,” he said, and invited his audience to feel the pain of the wealthy. “Just 2 per cent of taxpayers pay more than a quarter of all income tax. Maybe these taxpayers would argue that the tax system is already unfair.” Historic trends For about 30 years after World War II, inequality declined across the developed world. Economic growth rates were generally high, unemployment generally low and wages increased pretty much in parallel with productivity. “Then,” says Peter Whiteford, professor in the Crawford school of public policy at the Australian National University, “there here was a turning point. Something happened in the late 1970s and inequality started going back up again, particularly in the English-speaking countries. The United States is the most extreme [example].” In the US, wages for most people are lower now, in inflation-adjusted terms, than they were 40 years ago. For those at the bottom of the income distribution scale, they have fallen. For those at the top they have risen dramatically. And wealth has risen even more. A good indication of just how unequal a society the US has become was the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report released late last year. It showed that average household wealth in America was $US301,000. But median wealth – that is, the amount held by those exactly half way up the income range – was less than $US45,000. The obscene wealth of those at the very top pushed the average up to more than six times the mean. The comparative figures for Australia were $US402,000 and $US220,000. Still, Australia has become a much less equal place. Between 1975 and 2014, Leigh says, the income share of the top 1 per cent of Australians has doubled, and that of the top 0.1 per cent has tripled. “And the top 10 per cent have seen three times the wage growth of the bottom 10. We’re in the top third of the most unequal countries in the OECD [the 34 wealthy countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development]. “We’re more egalitarian than the Americans and Canadians but not as egalitarian as the Europeans and particularly the northern Europeans,” Leigh says. As Whiteford points out, the 20 per cent of Australian households with the highest disposable income are now about five times better off than the poorest 20 per cent. So, what caused this decline in equality? Whiteford says: “The two macro-explanations are globalisation, which undercuts wages in rich countries … [because] working-class jobs are exported; the other is education and returns to skill.” That is to say, those whose education has enabled them to work with new technologies have benefited more. There are a couple of other factors, too. Leigh cites the “collapse of unions from half the workforce to less than 20 per cent”, and cuts in the top tax rates that have allowed the wealthy to keep more of their income. Richard Denniss, of the left-wing think tank The Australia Institute, acknowledges the role of technological change, but puts much down to politics. The neoliberal economic theories that became influential in the 1970s “set out to increase inequality”, he says. The idea was that if the role of government were reduced, economic activity deregulated, globalised and privatised, and taxes cut, it would incentivise business to grow, which would ultimately benefit all of society. “They set out to give rich people more. It didn’t make the economy grow any faster,” Denniss says. And indeed that is largely true, at least in the developed world. There were benefits, though, for poor countries that took up the jobs exported from the rich nations. The statistics show that in Australia average economic growth rates were no higher during the past 30 years than in the previous 30. Still, Australia did very well. The Credit Suisse report showed the average Australian to be the wealthiest in the world (largely due to the value of real estate). Unlike America, in this country incomes grew across the board even as inequality increased. Says Whiteford: “From the late 1990s until just before the GFC [in 2008], the poorest 10 per cent saw their incomes go up by 40 per cent and the richest 10 per cent saw theirs go up by 60 per cent. So everyone gained, but inequality still grew.” From about 2000, inequality in what economists call “market incomes” – the amount we receive, excluding government taxes and benefits – decreased. The only thing that prevented Australia from becoming more equal in the early 2000s, Whiteford says, was the federal government. “The succession of tax cuts, post 2003, made the system less progressive than in the past.” Those tax cuts, mostly brought in by the Howard government although some of them were matched by the incoming Rudd government, overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy. An Australia Institute analysis showed 42 per cent of the benefit accrued to the top 10 per cent of income earners – more than went to the bottom 80 per cent. Had those tax cuts not been given, Australia would not have a budget crisis now. And it wasn’t just tax cuts. The Howard government, awash with money from the mining boom, made various other concessions to the wealthy, such as abolishing taxes on superannuation and halving the rate of capital gains tax. Even the GFC, so devastating across much of the world, hardly touched Australia, a fact that explains why the “Occupy Movement” never took off here as it did elsewhere. Indeed, Whiteford says, “inequality fell after the GFC, in part because the stockmarket crash affected the incomes of people at the top end, and in part because the aged and disability pensions were increased a lot, so the share of some of the poor went up. “Inequality went down again in 2009-10 in the first stages of the recovery,” he says. But then in 2011, the mining boom turned to a bust. The Labor government could not keep its oft-repeated promises of a budget surplus, and the Abbott government swept to power on the promise of fixing the “debt and deficit disaster” of its predecessor. It has not done so. And, as unemployment grows and wages stagnate, the likelihood is that inequality is again growing, although official data cannot confirm it just yet. Certainly the voting public feels it, and equally certainly, as attested by more than a year of consistent polling results, the voting public does not support the government’s proposed budget fix – spending cuts that all analysis has shown affected disproportionately the less well-off. Says Richard Denniss: “I call it the ‘right-wing ratchet’. Costello cut taxes on the rich when times were good. Hockey is supposed to cut spending on the poor now times are tough. It’s not at all obvious to the public that we should cut spending on the poor rather than raise taxes on the rich.” Hockey's pitch Having failed to get its most regressive budget measures through the senate, even the government appears to be coming to the realisation that it has to confront the “I” word. Thus we now have a tax discussion paper in which “all options” are on the table. Thus we have a realisation that something must be done about the superannuation system, which delivers huge tax-free returns to the richest among us, and the negative gearing and capital gains regimes that are inflating a real estate bubble. But old rhetorical habits die hard. Just last week after the release of his tax reform white paper, in response to the CEO of the Australian Council of Social Service, Cassandra Goldie, who had invoked notions of fairness on behalf of the less well-off, Hockey repeated his line from the Sydney Institute speech. “Two per cent of taxpayers pay 26 per cent of personal income tax – two per cent,” he said. He went on to suggest they might leave Australia because of the perceived unfairness of it. It does sound like a lot when put like that, as an isolated fact, devoid of context about the distribution of income and wealth. But now we know the context. Those top 2 per cent earn about 15 per cent of all income. So they are not paying 13 times over the odds, as Hockey’s bald statement would suggest, but less than two times. They have benefited massively from income tax cuts, superannuation tax breaks, capital gains tax exemptions, negative gearing and other gifts bestowed by conservative governments over the past couple of decades. Not to mention income growth bestowed by a globalised economy. In that light, do you suppose our wealthiest can afford to pay more? |
The R engine is usable in a variety of ways – one of the lesser-known features is that it provides a standalone math library that can be linked to from an external application. This library provides some nice functionality such as: * Probability distribution functions (density/distribution/quantile functions); * Random number generation for a large number of probability distributions In order to make use of this functionality from q, I built a simple Rmathlib wrapper library. The C wrapper can be found here and is simply a set of functions that wrap the appropriate calls in Rmathlib. For example, a function to generate N randomly-generated Gaussian values using the underlying rnorm() function is: [source lang=”c”] K rnn(K n, K mu, K sigma) { int i,count = n->i; K ret = ktn(KF, count); for (i = 0; i < count; ++i) kF(ret)[i] = rnorm(mu->f, sigma->f); return ret; } [/source] These have to be imported and linked from a kdb+ session, which is done using special directives (the 2: verb). I decided to automate the process of generating these directives – the code shell script below parses a set of function declarations in a delimited section of a C header file and produces the appropriate load statements: [source lang=”bash”] INFILE=rmath.h DLL=\`:rmath echo "dll:$DLL" DECLARATIONS=$(awk ‘/\/\/ BEGIN DECL/ {f=1;next} /\/\/ END DECL/ {f=0} f {sub(/K /,"",$0);print $0}’ $INFILE) for decl in $DECLARATIONS; do FNAME=${decl%%(*} ARGS=${decl##$FNAME} IFS=, read -r -a CMDARGS <<< "$ARGS" echo "${FNAME}:dll 2:(\`$FNAME;${#CMDARGS[*]})" done echo "\\l rmath_aux.q" [/source] This generates a set of link commands such as the following: [code] dll:`:rmath rn:dll 2:(`rn;2) rnn:dll 2:(`rnn;3) dn:dll 2:(`dn;3) pn:dll 2:(`pn;3) qn:dll 2:(`qn;3) sseed:dll 2:(`sseed;2) gseed:dll 2:(`gseed;1) nchoosek:dll 2:(`nchoosek;2) [/code] It also generates a call to load a second q script, rmath_aux.q, which contains a bunch of q wrappers and helper functions (I will write a separate post about that later). A makefile is included which generates the shared lib (once the appropriate paths to the R source files is set) and q scripts. A sample q session looks like the following: q) \l rmath.q q) x:rnorm 1000 / generate 1000 normal variates q) dnorm[0;0;1] / normal density at 0 for a mean 0 sd 1 distribution The project is available on github: https://github.com/rwinston/kdb-rmathlib. Note that loading rmath.q loads the rmath dll, which in turn loads the rmathlib dll, so the rmathlib dll should be available on the dynamic library load path. [Check out Part 2 of this series] |
Mental Illness Linked to Immune System Wellbeing For too long we’ve assumed that mental illness is merely a symptom of the mind, and unrelated to the condition of the rest of the body. However, recent research suggests that a depressed immune system can have an effect on mental health and that mental health can also have an effect on immune system health. For example, take the last time you had a cold and were laid up in bed for several days. Usually, by the second or third day many people will feel lethargic and unable to accomplish tasks, even if they feel better from their physical ailment (e.g. cold or flu). You probably felt a lot like someone who suffers from depression, and that’s no coincidence say scientists. Immune System Inflammation Connected with Mental Illness The primary mechanism in the immune system that researchers are connecting with mental illness is inflammation. Research has begun to show that individuals with immune system inflammation are more likely to experience depression, which may explain why 1 in 4 Schizophrenics entering the hospital for mental health treatment simultaneously had a urinary tract infection. Similarly, research has also shown that: Brain conditions such as Multiple Sclerosis and Parkinson’s Disease have an effect on mood. Mothers with autoimmune disorders such Lupus are more likely to have children with Autism. Treating Mental Illness by Targeting the Immune System With the recent research on mental illness and the wellbeing of the immune system, scientists are beginning to think that targeting the immune system may be the best route to treat some patients’ mental illness. That isn’t to say that all mental illness are best treated by targeting other areas of the body, but for those patients with mental illness that isn’t treated very well by targeting the brain, it may be an alternative method for doctors to help these “tough cases”. Overall, what the research shows is that it is important for us to stop thinking of the brain and body as entirely separate entities, as your psychological health has an impact on your physiological health and vice versa. |
Finland has received information from five aircraft primes regarding the replacement of its air force’s Boeing F/A-18C/D Hornet fleet. The HX fighter replacement programme was kicked off in November 2015 by defence minister Jussi Niinistö. This was followed some weeks later by the issue of a request for information (RFI) from the government to five manufacturers. The Finnish defence ministry notified the governments of France, Sweden, the UK and the USA that it would be seeking information on each nation’s fighter offerings, and at the time said it was seeking information on seven aircraft types from five manufacturers. All five manufacturers have responded, namely Boeing, Dassault, Eurofighter, Lockheed Martin and Saab, with their respective F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, Rafale, Typhoon, F-35 and Gripen E aircraft. Information on the Lockheed F-16 and Boeing F-15 has not been offered. The government is expected to issue its counter-response in April 2017, once the RFI responses have been analysed. A subsequent request for proposals is expected to be issued in 2018, and the government has indicated that a selection will be made in 2021. “Through a RFI it is possible to bring together visions as to what kind of solutions the recipients of the RFIs offer to replace the capabilities of the air force F/A-18 aircraft in the post-2030 security environment,” the defence ministry says. The incumbent Finnish F/A-18 Kaisa Siren/REX/Shutterstock Notably, the defence ministry adds that a mix of vehicles could have been offered – including unmanned air vehicles – which could complement the multirole fighter. Weapons, training, command and control systems, and maintenance offerings will also be assessed by the government. Helsinki operates 61 F/A-18C/Ds, including seven two-seat trainers, Flight Fleets Analyzer shows. The defence ministry says these will be phased out by 2025. |
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