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Natural springs bring us some of earth's best water. Liquid, filtered through miles of rock, finds its way to the surface - now purified, and as hot or cold as the stone that carried it there. We've taken some of this rock from deep beneath the earth's surface, to bring you the most refined drinking experience of all time. Introducing The Stone Cup, artisan-milled from metamorphic rock. Cool it or heat it, to keep your drink at its perfect temperature - and always at its purest taste. Set of 2 Cups, Starting at only $49. SPECIFICATIONS Artisan-milled from blocks of black marble - no two cups are the same Unique Curved Design for ease of use and scent direction/concentration No Dilution or Aftertaste Dishwasher Safe Easily warm or cool prior to serving a hot or cold beverage Specific Heat (J/kgC): 880 Thermal Conductivity, Low & High: 2.08 - 2.94 (W/m K) The above thermal properties mean a long transfer of a relatively high capacity - meaning your drink stays hotter/colder, longer. Hardness: 4 (Mohs) Height: 4.25 in/ 10.80 cm Diameter: 2.25 in/ 5.71 cm Capacity: 8 Fluid Oz. (1 cup) Weight: 544 Grams (1.2 lb) Made For a Lifetime of Use Warm like any plate/dish then let your cup keep your drink warmer, longer pre-chill, then let your cup cool your drink without dilution 2, 4, 6, 8 - No matter how many guests you're entertaining, we have a package & pledge level that will work for you. Each set comes in our custom designed packaging that compliments the soft curves of the cup. Shipment is planned for April -- and we'll continue to do everything in our power to ensure we hit that date. Our factory is poised and standing by. Here's an outline of the campaign schedule: |
Yesterday we wrote about rating draft picks, and through that determining how a player outperforms relative to his draft position. Today, we’ll show you that calculation in action and the results it brings. Remember – players are scored based on how many points they contribute to their draft class’s total. This is a ranking of that score compared to other players in their draft position. Because player performance decreases as you move down the draft board, players who became all-stars from late rounds are rewarded more than early-pick phenoms in this ranking. Some fun facts about the following 10 players: Their average draft position is 56 The earliest pick was 1 st overall and the latest was 208 th overall and the latest was 208 They have 9 Stanley Cups between them 9/10 have played in a Stanley Cup final They have collectively played in 14 Stanley Cups How the scores work Higher is better Calculate % of games played, goals, and assists a player contributed to his draft class total Weight the percentage to account for position Average his games played, goals, and assists %s Multiply by 100000 to get the numerical score Subtract the average score of someone picked at the same draft position as him 10 – Claude Giroux, C, Philadelphia Round 1, Pick 22, 2006. Score: 308 Giroux was a late first rounder who bloomed in the Flyer’s franchise center. Claude has played 656 games in his career, scored 180 goals, and has 295 assists for a total of 575 points. This is enough to make him a .88 point per game player, a rarity for someone drafted in his position. His pick-weighted outperformance score is 308, good enough to make him the 10th best draft-pick of the past 15 years. 9 – Duncan Keith, D, Chicago Blackhawks Round 2, pick 54, 2002. Score: 322 Drafted late in the 2nd round of the 2002 draft, Keith has outperformed his draft slot to become lynchpin of the 3-time Stanley Cup winning Blackhawk’s core. The 4-time all-star has been recognized as the league’s best defenseman twice, a fact that makes sense when considering his outperformance score – 322. 8 – Sidney Crosby, C, Pittsburgh Penguins Round 1, pick, 1, 2005. Score: 324 At first you may be shocked to see Sid in 8th place on any list. However, once you consider how these scores are calculated, you may be more shocked he made it at all. He’s ranked above Duncan Keith, which means Sidney Crosby has outperformed other 1st overall draft picks to a greater extent than Keith has outperformed other 54th over draft picks. That’s right – the gap between Sid and the average 1st overall player from the past 15 years is wider than the gap between two-time Norris winner Keith and the average 54th overall player. And the average 54th overall player only even makes the league 64% of the time. 7 – Ondrej Palat, LW, Tampa bay Lightning. Round 7, pick, 208, 2011. Score: 327 By far the latest pick on this list, Ondrej Palat has outperformed his GM’s wildest expectations. Of the 11 players drafted 208th overall between 2002 and 2012, Palat is one of two to ever play game in the NHL. The near-last-overall draft slot has accounted for 74 goals scored in the NHL, with Palat scoring all of them. His undrafted teammate Tyler Johnson probably has a case to be even higher on the list, but only drafted players were considered. 6 – James Neal, LW, Dallas Stars. Round 2, pick 33, 2005. Score: 345 James Neal may have just lost a heartbreaking Stanley Cup final to 2005 draft classmate Sidney Crosby, but he has him beat in one regard. With a score of 345, Neal has outperformed his draft status to a higher degree than did Crosby, who came 32 picks higher. 5 – Paul Stastny, C, Colorado Avalanche. Round 2, pick 44, 2005. Score: 353 Stastny is one of 4 picks from 2005 on this list, all of whom only have one number in their draft position. Although drafted 10 picks after James Neal, Paul Stastny finds himself ahead on this list. His stellar career has seen him produce 593 points in 742 games, is better than Neal’s 451 in 632 on an absolute basis, but the gap tightens on a point per game basis. When considering how each outperformed their draft position, Neal has Stastny beat on two metrics – games played and goals scored. However, Stastny’s later draft position is enough to push him above Neal in the rankings. 4 – Milan Lucic, LW, Boston Bruins. Round 2, pick 50, 2006. Score: 355 The 3rd second rounder in a row and the latest of the three to be drafted, Lucic has overcome the curse of low expectations to become one of the better left wings in the league. Lucic has the lowest points per game average of any forward on this list, but he receives a huge boost from his dependability. He accounts for 3.12% of games played by players in his draft class, the highest percentage of any player on this list. 3 – Anze Kopitar, C, Los Angeles Kings. Round 1, pick 11, 2005. 366 The 4th pick on this list from 2005, Anze would likely be drafted 2nd after 8th-ranked Sidney Crosby in a redraft. The skilled center has won both a Selke and Lady Byng, two trophies that emphasis the understated way in which he makes an impact on the ice, but more importantly has two cups under his belt. Not only best forward in LA since Gretzky, Kopitar has also put Slovenian hockey on the map. Some call him underrated, just don’t call him Slovakian. 2 – Filip Forsberg, C, Washington Capitals. Round 1, pick 11, 2012. Score: 399 Oh, how Caps fans want this one back. Traded before he could play a game with the team that drafted him, Forsberg has exploded to be one of the most promising young players in the NHL. The Predators arguably have the trade that brought him there to thank for their recent post-season success – they were able to unload an aging player in Erat and get back a player who would likely go first overall in a redraft in Forsberg. Although pick number 11 is relatively high for a player on this list, the mediocrity of his draft class benefits Forsberg, helping him to stand out. Players drafted above him in 2012 include Nail Yakupov, who would be liable to fall out of the first round in a redraft, and Griffin Reinhart, who will likely make an appearance on a list of the bottom 10 draft picks. 1 – Jamie Benn, C, Dallas Stars. Round 5, pick 129, 2007. Score: 423 Frankly, Jamie Benn’s outperformance score of 423 blows every other member of this list out of the water. Drafted in the 5th round as a center, Benn has emerged as one of the best forwards in the league, winning the Art Ross trophy for highest point count one year after list-mate Sidney Crosby. The Stars picked up a true diamond in the rough with their 159th overall selection. Some late round players become good NHL players, but rarely do they become great ones. Benn is a lock for best draft pick of the past 15 years. |
How deep is your love? Emotions are powerful and love indeed is one of the most powerful of them all. Many of us may have questioned our overall sense of feeling and felt concern about how deep our love or passion can travel but emotional excess can also be harmful in the same way that excess of anything can be harmful. Sometimes when we are not balanced enough we can find ourselves in a no win situation. Allowing ourselves to let go in love has both good and bad pointers. The positive is that it allows us to gain a sense of our own depth and feeling and the negative is that the excessiveness we are feeling can impede upon our lives so deeply that we can no longer see or channel our own direction and instead become lost within someone else’s aura. Many people argue that it is impossible to balance both love and wisdom at the same time, but it is only though the experience of losing ourselves in love that we begin to gain our own inner sense of wisdom. The tell tale signs that we have let ourselves fall too deeply usually account to our friends or relatives telling us so. The love we feel can become problematic to the extent that it actually hurts us and causes us pain. Some people love so deeply that they would prefer to linger in the pain than come out and face the reality. It can be very easy for others to criticise or even mock our state of emotion when we have allowed ourselves to fall flat and such intense love does blind us from the truth and prevents us from seeing the other person in their true light. This is because love is unconditional and it has a habit of breaking through the negative parts of the identity and therefore instead highlights the bits that we want to see and perhaps the bits that no one else can see - the positive, the adorable and the inspiring. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” and no one is to say the beholder is wrong because we all see life and its people so differently. This notion is also clear in many forms of the arts and in particular, classical art where the God of love (Cupid as blind) indicates that lovers are blind to the faults or the unsuitability of the one they love. But we are tried and tested and pulled together for many different reasons, the truth must be found from within. [1]Psychologist Elaine Hatfield has described two different types of love: compassionate love and passionate love. Compassionate love involves feelings of mutual respect, trust and affection, while passionate love involves intense feelings and sexual attraction. Hatfield defined passionate love as: "A state of intense longing for union with another. Passionate love is a complex functional whole including appraisals or appreciations, subjective feelings, expressions, patterned physiological processes, action tendencies, and instrumental behaviors. Reciprocated love (union with the other) is associated with fulfillment and ecstasy. Unrequited love (separation) with emptiness, anxiety, or despair". There are said to be many factors associated with passionate love. Timing – being ready to fall, we ourselves must be ready Experience - Our experiences speak volumes it is believed that those who are secure and attached form deeper, long lasting relationships whereas those who are anxious tend to “fall in and out” quickly. [2]Psychologist , S Duck (1998, 1992) also recognised that life long partnerships tend to last between people who have experienced a stable upbringing .He also suggested that marriages tend to break down with those who have had a greater number of sexual partners. Similarity –[3] A study conducted by Hatfield and Rapson noted that we tend to fall passionately in love with people who we strongly identify with and those that we consider desirable The survey that Hatfield complied was called “The passionate love scale” and was designed to assess the cognitive, emotional and behavioural aspects of passionate love. This is said to have been widely used by relationship researchers for the past two decades. Passion is said to stem from an overpowering feeling of identity from the other person and although this is intense, it tends not to last very long and works very much like a fleeting process rather than a steady development but it is the overwhelming passions that tend to fizzle out quickly. Dr Hatfield recongises that the scale she has provided is useful for researchers, but couples should be a little more wary and should only take the test for fun and not make any major decisions based on how they score as she exclaims that “Love and life are very complex, and a person’s emotions are always nuanced”. We may also feel that we love too much when the other person can not return our love in the same way, sometimes love can fall into our path way as a sign that we are alive and breathing, it can quite often come in the form of an epiphany as sometimes it takes a heart break to establish what it is we truly desire. It can raise questions about life that we may never have considered and after going right to the depths within ourselves we may feel reborn and more inclined to take risks ,which then allows us to transform our ideas and open up and express what we want to the universe. So, we may choose to love very deeply but ultimately when we hit the depths of our core desires we can only begin to revaluate what it is exactly that we are striving towards and move on, it is something that we take with us on the journey, thus, our identity has been set through the experience and we come to know ourselves by walking the trail of deeper love. Whichever way you choose to look at it, when we dig deep we find some sort of treasure that reminds us of why we went searching in the first place! |
Anime News Network's coverage of New York Comic-Con is sponsored by Tokyo Ghoul: The Movie Anime News Network's coverage of New York Comic-Con is sponsored by Tokyo Ghoul: The Movie Viz Media announced at its industry panel at New York Comic Con on Thursday that it has licensed Hidenori Kusaka and Satoshi Yamamoto's Pokémon Sun & Moon ( Pocket Monsters Special Sun Moon ) manga, Tenya Yabuno's Pokémon Horizon: Sun & Moon manga, and the Pompom Pokémon craft book. The Pocket Monsters Special (Pokémon Adventures) manga series began its Sun/Moon arc in the January issue of CoroCoro Ichiban! magazine on November 21, 2016. Viz Media will release the first volume in spring 2018. Viz Media has also licensed the previous arcs in the long-running manga series. The company released the 12th volume of Pokemon XY on Tuesday. Pompom Pokémon is slated for summer 2018. The book features instructions on how to make 32 Pokémon and three PokéBalls with wool, felt, and cardboard. Viz Media will release the first volume of Yabuno's Pokémon Horizon: Sun & Moon manga in summer 2018. Yabuno launched the series, which adapts the Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon games, in Shogakukan's Coro Coro Comics magazine in September 2016. Yabuno ended the series in July. Shogakukan released the second compiled book volume on August 28. Viz Media also announced Perfect Editions for Naoki Urasawa's 20th Century Boys and 21st Century Boys for fall 2018. It will also release new One Piece Color Walk art book collections starting with One Piece Color Walk: East Blue to Skypiea in summer 2018 and followed by One Piece Color Walk: Water Seven to Paramount War . The Color Walk books will be hardcover and 320 pages each. |
Major Hollywood studios are still reeling from last month's resounding defeat of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act. The latest sign of the studios's changed posture is a letter that Paramount Pictures has sent to a number of professors around the country seeking an opportunity to discuss the challenges of fighting online copyright infringement on campus. "We at Paramount have been humbled by the strong public opposition to the proposed SOPA and PIPA legislation," wrote Paramount's Alfred Perry in a letter dated February 2 and obtained by infojustice.org. "The extent of the negative reaction surprised us." Perry wanted to "exchange ideas about content theft, its challenges, and possible ways to address it. As these last few weeks made painfully clear, we still have much to learn. We would love to come to campus and do exactly that." Perry asked to come to campus and "give a formal presentation followed by an open discussion period." He said he would also be happy to "join for a session of an existing course or seminar." If Paramount wants to learn from and dialogue with its critics, more power to the company and its executives. But that attitude doesn't seem to go all the way to the top of the corporate ladder. Philippe Dauman, CEO of Paramount's parent company Viacom, last week lashed out at the "mob mentality" that killed the Senate's PROTECT IP Act. (We recently covered Dauman's record-breaking $50 million pay raise for 2010.) "It became almost religious dogma that any legislation that might emerge through the process built around the Senate bill would have broken the Internet, created censorship around the world," he said at last week's D:Dive into Media conference. "The fact of the matter is I think the bill that would have emerged would have been very reasonable." Media and technology companies, he said, "should be working together. If you have a legitimate argument with a particular provision, it should be discussed rationally and then you get legislation." Of course, "working together" is relative. Both SOPA and PIPA began life as tough bills catering almost exclusively to major rightsholders, rather than emerging from some kind of stakeholder dialogue. And Dauman's allies in the recording industry have shown little interest in improving the OPEN Act, an alternative to SOPA that gives accused website operators greater due process rights. Last week the Recording Industry Association of America called for the legislation to be scrapped rather than amended. |
There’s a philosophical objection to any refusal of universalism that will be familiar from other uses (the denunciation of relativism, most typically). It requires only one step: Isn’t the denial of the universal itself a universalist claim? It’s a piece of malignant dialectics because it demands that we agree. We don’t, and won’t ever, agree. Agreement is the worst thing that could happen. Merely assent to its necessity, and global communism, or some close analog, is the implicit conclusion. If there is a universal truth, it belongs only to Gnon, and Gnon is a dark (occulted) God. Traditional theists will be at least strongly inclined to disagree — and that is excellent. We disagree already, and we have scarcely begun. There is no ‘good life for man’ (in general) — or if there is we know nothing of it, or not enough. Even those persuaded that they do, on the contrary, know what such a life should be, promote its universality only at the expense of being denied the opportunity to pursue it. If we need to agree on the broad contours of such a model for human existence, then reaching agreement will precede it — and ‘reaching agreement’ is politics. Some much wider world acquires a veto over the way of life you select, or accept, or inherit (the details need not detain us). We have seen how that works. Global communism is the inevitable destination. The alternative to agreement is schism. Secession, geopolitical disintegration, fragmentation, splitting — disagreement escapes dialectics and separates in space. Anti-universalism, concretely, is not a philosophical position but an effectively defensible assertion of diversity. From the perspective of the universal (which belongs only to Gnon, and never to man), it is an experiment. The degree to which it believes in itself is of no concern that matters to anything beyond itself. It is not answerable to anything but Gnon. What anyone, anywhere, thinks about it counts for nothing. If it fails, it dies, which should mean nothing to you. If you are compelled to care about someone else’s experiment, then a schism is missing. Of course, you are free to tell it that you think it will fail, if it is listening, but there is absolutely no need to reach agreement on the question. This is what, in the end, non-communism means. Non-universalism is hygiene. It is practical avoidance of other people’s stupid shit. There is no higher principle in political philosophy. Every attempt to install an alternative, and impose a universal, reverts to dialectics, communization, global evangelism, and totalitarian politics. This is being said here now, because NRx is horribly bad at it, and degenerates into a clash of universalisms, as into an instinctive equilibrium. There are even those who confidently propose an ‘NRx solution’ for the world. Nothing could be more absurd. The world — as a whole — is an entropy bin. The most profoundly degraded communism is its only possible ‘universal consensus’. (Everyone knows this, when they permit themselves to think.) All order is local — which is to say the negation of the universal. That is merely to re-state the second law of thermodynamics, which ‘we’ generally profess to accept. The only thing that could ever be universally and equally distributed is noise. Kill the universalism in your soul and you are immediately (objectively) a neoreactionary. Protect it, and you are an obstacle to the escape of differences. That is communism — whether you recognize it, or not. |
COLUMBUS, OHIO – The Columbus Blue Jackets have recalled defenseman David Savard from the Springfield Falcons, Columbus’ American Hockey League affiliate, and activated defenseman Theo Ruth off injured reserve and assigned him to Springfield, Blue Jackets Executive Vice President of Hockey Operations and General Manager Scott Howson announced October 27. Savard, 21, appeared in one game for the Falcons and had two penalty minutes. He has recorded two assists and six penalty minutes in seven games with the Blue Jackets this season. He made his NHL debut against Nashville on October 7 and recorded his first NHL point at Dallas on October 15. In 2010-11, he played his first professional season with Springfield and collected 11-32-43 and 18 penalty minutes in 72 games. He led club defensemen in goals, assists and points and ranked eighth (tied) among AHL defensemen in goals and 14th (tied) in points. A native of St-Hyacinthe, Quebec, Savard was the Blue Jackets’ third pick, 94th overall, in the 2009 Entry Draft. He spent the 2009-10 season with the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League’s Moncton Wildcats, where he notched 13-64-77 in 64 games to become the first defensemen to lead the league in assists. He helped Moncton win the QMJHL championship and was named CHL Defenseman of the Year, QMJHL First All-Star Team, won the QMJHL’s Emile-Bouchard Trophy for best defenseman and the Kevin Lowe Trophy for best defensive defenseman. In 199 career QMJHL games, he registered 23-110-133, 109 penalty minutes and had a cumulative plus/minus rating of +40. The Blue Jackets return to action tonight when the club visits the Buffalo Sabres. Game time from First Niagara Center is set for 7 p.m. ET. Live coverage on FOX Sports Ohio HD begins with the Blue Jackets Live pre-game show starting at 6:30 p.m. The game will also be broadcast live on the Wheeling Island Hotel & Casino Blue Jackets Radio Network, including 97.1 The Fan and online at BlueJackets.com. Single game tickets for the Blue Jackets home games starting at $26 are on sale now at the Nationwide Arena Ticket Office, The Chiller Ice Rinks and all Ticketmaster Ticket Centers. Fans can also purchase tickets by phone at (800) 745-3000 or online at BlueJackets.com, the official club web site, and ticketmaster.com Full and partial season ticket plans for the Blue Jackets’ 2011-12 season are on sale now starting at less than $15 per game. Full and partial-season ticket holders receive a number of great benefits including significant savings versus single-game prices; the best available seat locations; exclusive access to events with players and coaches; and priority access to tickets for most other events at Nationwide Arena and the Jerome Schottenstein Center. For more information, call (800) NHL-COLS or visit BlueJackets.com. |
Los Angeles, California (CNN) -- The sudden end to a legal battle between dethroned Miss California USA Carrie Prejean and pageant officials was prompted by the revelation of a "sex tape," according to a source familiar with the lawsuits' settlement. Prejean was fired in June after lingerie-modeling photos of her emerged that pageant officials said were a breach of her contract. Prejean sued the pageant in August, arguing her firing was religious discrimination because of her opposition to same-sex marriage. Pageant officials countersued last month, demanding their former beauty queen repay $5,200 in pageant money spent for her breast implants and give them all proceeds from a book she's written. A settlement of both lawsuits was signed in New York Tuesday, but no details were made public. Lawyers and parties for each side were bound by a confidentiality pledge, according to the source. The veil of secrecy was partially lifted Wednesday after celebrity gossip Web site TMZ reported the deal was sealed after pageant lawyers presented an "extremely graphic" home video involving Prejean. TMZ Managing Editor Harvey Levin said during a webcast Wednesday that he obtained the Prejean video during the summer, but found it "too racy" to post on his site. He indicated Prejean was alone in the video. The source with knowledge of the settlement talks told CNN those details were accurate. Prejean's lawyer, Charles LiMandri, responded with a short statement issued through an employee at his law office. "It's a confidential settlement, and he can't discuss it," the statement said. Several calls and e-mail to Prejean's publicist were not returned Wednesday. Prejean's tell-all book hits bookstores next week, and she is scheduled for media interviews to promote it. Pageant spokesman Kenn Henman said Tuesday the settlement means all lawsuit demands are dropped. The pageant had claimed that the contract she signed when she entered their competition last year gave the pageant the rights to anything she wrote. The settlement ended that claim. Pageant officials also dropped their attempt to be repaid for her breast enhancement, which was done before she represented California in the Miss USA competition, according to Henman. Prejean, in exchange, withdrew her suit accusing the pageant of violating her privacy by confirming to reporters that her breasts were enhanced, Henman said. "We are moving forward from the past and looking towards the crowning of two winners and the new look of the upcoming Miss California USA pageant, telecast live on November 22," pageant Executive Director Keith Lewis said Tuesday. "We're back in the business of beauty," he told CNN. There was nothing pretty about the public fight that began in April when Prejean, 22, stepped into controversy by declaring her opposition to same-sex marriage while answering a judge's question at the Miss USA pageant. Prejean finished as first runner-up. While state and national pageant officials publicly supported her initially, their opinions eventually changed after she continued to make public statements about same-sex marriage. She held onto her crown through May, despite a series of questionable photos that emerged on gossip Web sites. Those images showed a topless Prejean, photographed from behind. She was dethroned in June by Miss USA pageant owner Donald Trump amid growing complaints by state officials that she was uncooperative and not meeting her contractual obligations. Prejean filed her lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court in August, claiming that her firing was religious discrimination because of her stand against same-sex marriage. The pageant's countercomplaint said what it called Prejean's belligerent behavior, lack of cooperation and contract breaches caused her firing, not her opposition to same-sex marriage. |
Cambridge Just Banned Non-Rescue Animals at Pet Shops Stores in the city will no longer be allowed to sell animals from commercial breeders. Get a compelling long read and must-have lifestyle tips in your inbox every Sunday morning — great with coffee! Following in the pawsteps of cities that are cracking down on sales of pets from commercial breeders, Cambridge’s City Council has just voted in favor of a sweeping ban on non-rescue animals in stores, the Cambridge Chronicle reports. The measure, which is believed to be the most stringent and far-reaching of its kind anywhere in the country, will make it illegal for stores to sell animals raised in operations where they are bred for money—including everything from puppies and kittens to birds, gerbils, pet spiders and reptiles (similar bans in most cities focus only on dogs, cats, and rabbits.) Excluded from the ban would be many people who breed pets at home. It’s slated to take effect in about a year. The MSPCA, a nonprofit that seeks to unite rescued animals with new owners, cheered the move. “It’s really a landmark ordinance,” Laura Hagen, its deputy director of advocacy, tells the Globe, adding that its adoption centers have lately been overwhelmed by small animals from pet shops. The MSPCA is among a group of animal-focused groups that will be tapped soon be tapped for for a pet regulation advisory council. Also to be added to the panel are the Cambridge Animal Commission, the Humane Society, and the Animal Rescue League of Boston. A ban has been opposed by lobbyists for pet shops who say it paints with too broad a brush and is unfair to retailers in the city who it says are diligent about obtaining animals from responsible breeders. Petco and PetSmart both have locations in the city. “There are only two stores operating in Cambridge, and both of them are operated by national corporations who lead by example when it comes to responsible sourcing, consumer education and animal welfare,” says Mike Bober, president and CEO of the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council, in a statement. published by the Cambridge Chronicle. Boston’s city council last year voted to ban the sales of dogs, bunnies, and cats from commercial breeders as a way to combat so-called “puppy mills” and other operations that have faced accusations that they mistreat the animals. |
Stepping forward for Joseph We are stepping forward with our son, Joseph, towards a life changing operation. Joseph was born prematurely at 34 weeks. After initially fighting for his life he spent the next 6 weeks of his life in neo-natel care, where we were told that due to lack of oxygen he had suffered significant damage to his brain and the doctors were unsure as to what extent he would be affected. After twelve months of uncertainty,Joseph was diagnosed with Spastic Diplegia, which is a form of Cerebral Palsy and predominately affects his lower limbs and hence, his mobility. After many years of struggle, Joseph has reached the stage where he can manage to walk with a walking frame and is able to walk a few steps independently however to do this Joseph needs daily physiotherapy along with a lot of encouragement and support. Joseph is now 8 and is a very determined boy despite his disability. Joseph lives life to the full and tries to join in playing with his friends and at local sports centres whenever he can, although his lack of mobility means that he is left behind. Joseph has been offered an operation which will be simply life changing. The operation, Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy (SDR) is carried out at Leeds General Infirmary. This operation, combined with an intensive physiotherapy programme would give Joseph the chance to do the thing that most children take for granted – which is to walk ! Although Joseph has been offered this opportunity of a lifetime, the NHS are unable to fund it and we need to raise £20,000 for the operation and following treatment. We are aware that this target is a challenge, however the grit and determination Joseph has shown over the years gives us the belief that we can make this possible. Tree of Hope are helping us to raise money for Joseph. All of the money donated is set aside for Joseph and it will be used to pay for the SDR and the post-operative physiotherapy afterwards. Should we exceed the target amount (or if we do not raise enough funds, or if they cannot be used for any other reason) the funds raised will go to the general funds of Tree of Hope to assist other sick children. It’s a long journey ahead but as a family we are determined to achieve Joseph’s goal of walking unaided and independently and you can help us take this step forward. Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page. Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity. So it’s the most efficient way to donate – saving time and cutting costs for the charity. So please dig deep and donate now. |
The Scorned Successes Critics hate ‘em, studios love ‘em – how do they make all that money? As Suicide Squad heads into its second weekend since its abysmal ratings began circulation, studios and obnoxiously diehard comic fans wait with bated breath to see if it becomes an imploding Warcraft or a trainwreck so interesting that its draw remains high. It’s not uncommon for terribly rated blockbusters to make bank, though with ballooning budgets and marketing costs, it’s becoming more difficult for them to break even. But will anyone remember how much money they made? Or is their quality their legacy? To answer this, let’s look at five examples of hugely profitable movies that were all trounced by critics (let’s call that below 35% on Rotten Tomatoes) and see what kind of influence, writing, and studio decisions they’ve inspired since their time in the theater. What kind of movies are they and how do we think and talk about them now that we’ve had a little distance? The Da Vinci Code Budget: $125 million Haul: $758.2 million RT: 25% Based on the extraordinarily popular Dan Brown novel (it was only beaten in sales by that year’s Harry Potter), The Da Vinci Code bloats and flattens all of the mystery’s imaginative elements and the earthy broad strokes of its characters. It had such feverish Catholic controversy that you couldn’t help be intrigued by its blasphemy. Only then would you discover that the film’s most controversial choice was Tom Hanks’s hair. Despite laughter and catcalls at Cannes, the film was the best domestic opening for both Tom Hanks and director Ron Howard. It had the third biggest opening weekend for that year and (at the time) the second biggest worldwide opening weekend ever. But why? What we learned People love controversy and movies based on their favorite middlebrow books. Subverting Christianity, in however milquetoast a way, raises a lot of eyebrows and that gets people out on the weekend. The sustained protests and coverage probably didn’t hurt, all while critics railed against it. So they adapted more (including Inferno, out in October 2016). The Da Vinci Code’s sequel, despite its dampened stance on riling up middle America, was a better-made film and made another huge chunk of change. In fact, Angels & Demons was the highest-grossing film of 2009 until it was surpassed by… Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Budget: $200 million Haul: $836.3 million RT: 19% This troubled Michael Bay sequel made a boatload and was conspicuously and admittedly racist. It puts the “ham” into “double whammy”. Coming off the heels of the smash hit (and decently reviewed) Transformers, the film had a head-on Rock ’em Sock ’em Robots collision with the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike. That meant Bay finished the script after his cadre of three screenwriters suffered through one final whipping before they could be free. Bay’s admitted that he made “crap” while writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have acknowledged the racist caricatures of Mudflap and Skids while shirking all responsibility for the aggressively unpleasant film. Someone around here is responsible, they all seem to say, but (enjoying being employed) they’ve all done a fine job of misdirecting blame. Moviefone’s poll saw the film voted worst of 2009, while Empire named the film the 25th worst movie ever made. While the film was nominated for an Oscar (one of the sound ones that nobody really understands), it couldn’t even win a Nickelodeon Kids Choice Award, losing to Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel. What we learned Don’t be racist. Hire real writers. Or keep making big, vapid garbage that’s linked to a property and make sure some of it is set in China (see the Chinese co-production Transformers: Age of Extinction, which is rated even lower yet made far more money that Revenge of the Fallen). Honestly, it worked for… The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor Budget: $145 million Haul: $401.1 million RT: 12% The third and final entry in The Mummy trilogy (remember when Brendan Fraiser had an action franchise?) realizes that things also died in China, where American-made action movies are extremely profitable. Mindlessness, while a detriment to most films, seems to boost the accessibility of action fare for a foreign audience. It certainly helps keep down any complex translation and subtitling. The film earned almost triple its domestic total overseas ($102,491,776 compared to $298,636,863), beating The Dark Knight for first place in its opening weekend in 26 of its 28 released markets. Its $59.5 million international opening more than doubled that of the previous film, proving that marketing and setting (which in many way is narrative marketing) matters. What we learned China is still a hit and an excellent home for dumb action fare, which we’ve seen in 2016 with the huge discrepancy between Chinese and American box office returns for Warcraft. So why’s it been such a long time since our last mummy adventure? Universal loves franchises – so much so that they want to put all the monsters they own into a terrible self-serious The Monster Squad. They had a sequel planned that Universal Pictures cancelled, deciding on a reboot. Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (remember them from Transformers?) would produce. Well now Kurtzman is scheduled to direct it. These guys make a lot of money off of their dumb CGI, so Universal is doubling down on their investment. Norbit Budget $60 million Haul: $159.3 million RT: 9% This is a joke movie that Eddie Murphy used to show America the kind of trash it’s willing to pay for. Its racism, woman-bashing, and fat jokes are meant to be a mirror to our egocentric political and economic policy. At least, I hope so, because there’s no other excuse for Murphy to go yellowface as a character named Mr. Hangten Wong. Hell, it was even nominated for an Oscar (ok, so it was for Best Makeup and Hairstyling – what can you do? Rick Baker’s a pro even when asked for racism). So what do we make of Eddie Murphy’s 14th #1 box office opener? It’s cruel, panned by black activists and film critics alike, and harshly unfunny. But wait. CinemaScore gave the film a B grade (which is already extremely low), but those under eighteen, about a third surveyed, gave it a B+. Murphy was also still in the box office with Dreamgirls, reminding people of both his name and that his name once had some talent and respectability attached to it. It helps that Norbit wasn’t screened for critics, according to Jim Emerson, skipping over that kept gate and onto the screens of unsuspecting teens. What we learned Murphy’s Oscar chances may have been affected by this offensive omnibus, but he was also going through a divorce and a paternity case in those three years he continued to be in director Brian Robbins’s far less successful (though just as widely panned) follow-up films, Meet Dave and A Thousand Words. So, we mostly learned not to be a movie star with money problems. Just ask Nic Cage about that. Wild Hogs Budget $60 million Haul: $253.6 million RT: 14% So here’s something to bring you down: Wild Hogs was one of the biggest comedy hits of 2007. Sorry Apatow, but people prefer homophobic dad actors to your stoner bros, even if you have something to say. It hit #1 at the box office while rubbing out fellow opener Zodiac with the heel of its banal biker boot. The star power of John Travolta, Tim Allen, William H. Macy, and Martin Lawrence combined all the things that middle-aged Americans love: nostalgia, conservatism, and minor crises. Old guys just want to feel the wind in their hair with their friends that they CERTAINLY don’t want to sleep with. And hang on, this movie was produced by Brian Robbins, director of Norbit. This guy really has his finger on the pulse of people that don’t read film critics (this wasn’t screened for critics either). Thankfully, he hasn’t directed anything since 2012, probably because people wised up, and has been relegated to producing YouTube star vehicles. What we learned Disney was going to make a movie called Wild Hogs 2: Bachelor Ride, which is a terrible subtitle, but after Old Dogs (directed by the Wild Hogs guy whose name isn’t worth looking up) flopped, they tabled all future Travolta projects. Disney realized you couldn’t just throw aging actors at bad comedies to make a quick buck. You have to throw them at a China-set action movie. |
If there was any question that the HTC One has been a great success for HTC, look to none other than their earnings reports for the month of May. Fresh out of Taiwan, HTC is reporting an increase of 48.3% in revenue over the previous month, which is great, considering they were down -37.87% year-over-year in April. Despite HTC still down -3.35% over the same time last year, I think it’s safe to say things are certainly picking up for smartphone manufacturer. Well, for the most part. Bloomberg is once again reporting the loss of another high-level senior executive. HTC’s Chief Operating Officer Matthew Castello has stepped down from his position after only 3 short years with the company, moving to Europe where he’ll stay on as an “executive adviser.” HTC President of Engineering and Operations Fred Liu will be filling his shoes as acting COO, taking on an “expanded role” that will cover sales operations, services and more. HTC has also formed a new division that will deal with “quality assurance,” and “product lifecycle matters.” We’re hoping this new division — headed by Georges Boulloy — is somehow directly related to the company delivering Android updates in a more timely manner. While the recent reshuffling of executives at HTC has its negative implications, at the same time it could be seen as the company simply getting rid of dead weight, and a better overall focus moving forward. HTC still has much more of the year ahead of them and with the release of the rumored HTC T6, and HTC One Mini coming fast down the pipeline, the best could be yet to come. [HTC via TechCrunch] |
You know them, maybe you’re even one of them. They’re the scumbag lowlifes of the Internet. They are the trolls. Typically hiding behind a mask of supposed anonymity, those who practice Internet harassment are often seen as the neckbeard basement-dwellers of the world. But maybe they’re every bit as scummy in person. The BBC went on a manhunt, of sorts, for a recent episode of Panorama. The full show is well worth a watch, but this one section certainly stood out above the rest. BBC’s Declan Lawn did some investigative work and got face to face with racist, bigoted hate monger Nimrod Severen. To the rest of the world, he’s known as Darren Burton. What’s probably most interesting is that Burton brings about a hard point to argue, that “Facebook is an open forum”. Not that it gives any excuse to simply be rude for the point of being rude, but he also states that he doesn’t care about the consequences because the only conviction that’s been upheld sentenced someone for 18 weeks in jail, of which they only served 9. If you’re in the UK, please do catch the entire episode. For those of us in the rest of the world…we’re a bit out of luck. This post is part of our contributor series. The views expressed are the author's own and not necessarily shared by TNW. Read next: In the last 4 years, the app economy has created almost 500k jobs in the US |
Below is our list of players who have become free agents after the 2015 season (min. 50 PA or 20 IP in 2015). Each player’s 2016 age is in parentheses. If you see any errors or omissions, please contact us. To see who represents these players, check out MLBTR’s Agency Database. Last updated 5-20-16 Catchers Carlos Corporan (32) Ryan Lavarnway (28) Michael McKenry (31) First Basemen Jeff Baker (35) Corey Hart (34) Justin Morneau (35) Mike Morse (34) Second Basemen Joaquin Arias (31) Alberto Callaspo (33) Elian Herrera (31) Jonathan Herrera (31) Dan Uggla (36) Luis Yander La O (24) Third Basemen Joaquin Arias (31) Alberto Callaspo (33) Elian Herrera (31) Luis Yander La O (24) Shortstops Joaquin Arias (31) Left Fielders David DeJesus (36) Chris Denorfia (35) John Mayberry, Jr. (32) Mike Morse (34) Delmon Young (30) Center Fielders Chris Denorfia (35) Logan Schafer (29) Right Fielders David DeJesus (36) Chris Denorfia (35) John Mayberry, Jr. (32) Alex Rios (35) Grady Sizemore (33) Delmon Young (30) Designated Hitters None Starting Pitchers Chad Billingsley (31) Mark Buehrle (37) John Danks (31) Aaron Harang (38) Josh Johnson (32) Cliff Lee (37) Eric Stults (36) Jerome Williams (34) Right-Handed Relievers Burke Badenhop (33) Brooks Brown (30) Buddy Carlyle (38) Carlos Contreras (25) Justin De Fratus (28) Jason Frasor (38) Ernesto Frieri (30) Greg Holland (30) Casey Janssen (34) Radhames Liz (32) Ryan Mattheus (32) Dale Thayer (35) Left-Handed Relievers Joe Beimel (39) Randy Choate (40) Sean Marshall (33) Aaron Thompson (29) Cot’s Baseball Contracts was used in the creation of this post. |
At some point late in your fantasy football draft, you might have trouble deciding which backup tight end to select (assuming you want a backup TE on your roster). Post Fantasy Insanity columnist Drew Loftis and Roto Files columnist Jarad Wilk debate whom to take: the 49ers’ Vance McDonald or the Jets’ Jace Amaro. Drew: This is all about opportunity. Say what you want about Chip Kelly being an NFL punchline, a coach unfit for the NFL, a guy better suited for college, one of the worst personnel directors in recent memory … What was my point? Oh, yeah, one thing you can say about Kelly is that his offense has the potential for high volume. Whoever the QB is — Colin Kaepernick or Blaine Gabbert — they don’t have a lot of options. There’s WR Torrey Smith, RB Carlos Hyde and … not much else. Jarad: McDonald may not have a ton of competition for catches, but he needs a QB capable of hitting him between the numbers, and then he has to learn how to stop dropping passes (he dropped 13 percent of his targets, which may not seem like a lot, but it makes a difference when you’re looking for TDs in the red zone). Amaro is coming off a shoulder injury that forced him to miss last season, but is getting rave reviews in camp. In 2014, Amaro didn’t have Ryan Fitzpatrick throwing him the ball (he had Geno Smith or Michael Vick). He didn’t have Chan Gailey running the offense, he had Marty Mornhinweg. He also didn’t have receivers who required all that much attention. Amaro is going to get red-zone targets as teams up the coverage on Brandon Marshall and Eric Decker, and I think he could be one of the better sleeper picks this season. Drew: McDonald scored three times in the final five games last season. Don’t expect that kind of production across 16 games, but those three in five games are one more than Amaro has in his career. I’ll gamble with the guy who has shown a sliver more on the field. Plus, I’m not convinced Gailey is the best coordinator to groom tight ends. The last impact TE under Gailey (as either a coach or coordinator) was Tony Gonzalez with the Chiefs — in 2008. Jarad: Amaro was drafted when the Jets had a coach (Rex Ryan) who knew about as much about offense as I do Acoustic Radiation Force Impulse Imaging, but he was drafted to be a part of the offense. As a junior at Texas Tech, Amaro caught 106 passes for 1,352 yards and seven TDs. Plus, Gailey has had productive tight ends (six TDs for Mark Bruener with the Steelers in 1997, and back-to-back six-TD seasons for Scott Chandler with the Bills in 2011 and 2012) in the past. Amaro is not being drafted as your No. 1 TE, so you just need production in the weeks you need him to fill in, which fantasy owners will get. A healthy Amaro gives Fitzpatrick another big target. He’s a great low-risk/high-reward kind of late-round selection. Drew: Reward. Exactly. So if I’m picking a backup TE late, I’m going for upside, and Amaro doesn’t have the same kind of ceiling as McDonald, who could be this season’s Gary Barnidge — the TE who comes out of nowhere. That’s not likely to happen, but it’s more likely for McDonald than Amaro. Jarad: Amaro will have a chip on his shoulder, trying to prove he can stay healthy — and there’s nothing better than a motivated player with something to prove. His weight is down, he’s working tirelessly on his hands (which McDonald should be doing), and he’s in a great situation where he will become a viable fantasy TE this season. |
The Trolls in Our Midst: What Fairytales Can Tell Us about Online Behavior In this month’s Geek Reads, Andrew Ervin looks at trolls in literature and in life Andrew Ervin Blocked Unblock Follow Following Aug 22, 2016 Art by Jonn Bauer I’ve been reading lately about trolls, both the mythological monsters and those anonymous online ones who, per the Urban Dictionary, “purposely and deliberately (that purpose usually being self-amusement) starts an argument in a manner which attacks others on a forum without in any way listening to the arguments proposed by his peers.” Until recently, I had associated the current usage of “troll” with fairytales. The arrival on my desk of two bestiaries in particular, however, gave me a good excuse to reexamine what I knew — or thought I knew — about trolls and the way we use that word today. In the 1840s, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jøgen Moe collected a series of Norwegian folk tales, including the famous “Three Billy Goats Gruff.” In it, the smallest of the three goats is the first to attempt to cross a bridge guarded by a fierce troll. The goat implores the beast to wait for his big brother, who will make for a better feast. The middle sibling, of course, convinces the troll likewise. When the biggest of three goats reaches the bridge he knocks the troll into the water and the current carries away the creature, rendering the bridge safe forevermore. Here, a troll is an impediment to reaching greener pastures, whose greed causes it to pass up an easy meal in the hopes of a larger one. That does not, at first glance, immediately describe the kind of trolling we see on Twitter and online comments sections. In the first half of the twentieth century, Ingri and Edgar Parin d’Aulaire published beautifully illustrated editions of Asbjørnsen and Moe’s tales. Their newly republished Book of Norwegian Folktales follows some other lovely editions of their stories we’ve seen lately, such as D’Aulaires’ Book of Trolls, and includes, as they translated it, “The Three Bushy Billy Goats.” Even more intriguing to trollology is the macabre “Cinderlad and the Troll” in which the youngest son of an impoverished man is bullied by his brothers and his king into confronting a troll. Trolls, it turns out, can be easily baited and thereby bested. The Cinderlad returns victorious, albeit after cooking the troll’s daughter in a pot and donning her clothes. In The Golden Bough (1913), his landmark compendium of religious rites and superstitions, Sir James George Frazer wrote, “In many parts of Sweden firearms are […] discharged in all directions on Easter eve, and huge bonfires are lighted on hills and eminences. Some people think that the intention is to keep off the Troll and other evil spirits who are especially active at this season.” Even now, I might be might be supportive of our own open-carry laws if they served a similar purpose and really did keep trolls at bay, but I’ve seen no evidence that they do so. Trolls are also particularly active on Midsummer Eve, which Frazer calls, “that mystic season the mountains open and from their cavernous depths the uncanny crew pours forth to dance and disport themselves for a time.” In troll country, the locals often “believe that should any of the Trolls be in the vicinity they will shew themselves.” When they do, I image the villagers know exactly how Bilbo Baggins felt when he encountered the ravenous trolls in The Hobbit (1937): “He was very much alarmed, as well as disgusted; he wished himself a hundred miles away.” Jorge Luis Borges, in his Book of Imaginary Beings (1967), wrote “the Trolls of popular superstition are evil, stupid elves that dwell in mountain caves or in rundown huts.” Today, I imagine Twitter serves the same function; it is the dank mountain cave of many a troll. Trolls are also two-faced. Borges added that the “most distinguished among them have two or three heads.” The Dictionary of Satanism (1972) noted that a troll is “an earth demon or a personified nonhuman power.” That’s sounds a bit closer to our current usage, but it’s still not exactly accurate. I also suspect that a few online trolls might be decent — albeit confused — human beings IRL. The Trollusk in Mercer Mayer’s children’s book One Monster After Another (1974) has a more mundane but equally insidious purpose: it steals peoples’ mail so he can collect the stamps for himself. According to the other excellent bestiary to recently cross my desk, trolls are chaotic evil. The excellent, fifth edition of the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual explains: “Born with horrific appetites, trolls eat anything they can catch and devour.” Furthermore, they “have no society to speak of” and are “difficult to control […] doing as the please even when working with more powerful creatures.” We might be getting closer here. Most disturbingly, these D&D trolls are capable of regenerating lost limbs and are therefore very difficult to defeat. That happened in my own campaign just last month and it took a fireball to finally smite the poor thing. Similarly, in World of Warcraft, a troll’s health regeneration rate gets a 10% bonus. They are nothing is not tenacious. I owe much of my interest in trolls not just to my research into video gaming communities, but to what philosophy professor Stephen T. Asma, in On Monsters: An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears (2009), calls “the simultaneous lure and repulsion of the abnormal or extraordinary being,” but, again, that doesn’t seem to describe online trolls. I had to do a bit more digging into the etymology. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, to troll means “to fish for pike by working a dead bait.” In Webster’s New World College Dictionary, it means “to fish with a bait or lure trailed on a line behind a slowly moving boat.” That kind of trolling, perhaps even more of than the mythological ones, seems to describe the behavior of today’s online trolls, as we may very well see below in the comments-section responses: |
Grabarz19_PL, on 10 July 2012 - 04:54 PM, said: No. +/-1 means maximum of 3 different tiers as there would always be someone higher than you (+) and lower (-) unless you're the top dog or the one on the bottom. +/-2 means that you want the tier spread to have 5 different tiers Well that is what I meant - as soon as you allow the 2 tier spread you end up with perhaps half or more of the tanks with a 2 tier spread because if you have 4 tier 8s and 4 tier 6s then they are all at 2 tier spread with the 7 tier 7s all having only +/- 1.Perhaps I have mis-read it - when it said an average of +/- 1 I read that as most tanks having that but some specific tanks having a higher +/- spread. Perhaps it just means that in a game of 15 at least half of the tanks will only have the +/-1 which... makes more sense now that I think about it! |
New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton can go back to work. The NFL announced Tuesday morning that Commissioner Roger Goodell has reinstated Payton from his season-long suspension, effective immediately. The two men met on Monday, with Payton acknowledging his responsibility for the actions of his coaching staff and players. "We had a very productive discussion," Goodell said in a statement. "Sean fully complied with all the requirements imposed on him during his suspension. More important, it is clear that Sean understands and accepts his responsibilities as a head coach and the vital role that coaches play in promoting player safety and setting an example for how the game should be played at all levels. We are committed to delivering football that fans love and the safety players deserve. Coach Payton agrees and I look forward to working with him going forward to do that." Payton can resume his coaching duties immediately. That means he'll be able to attend the Senior Bowl this week and get back in the Saints' facility to start preparations for the offseason. Of course, the Saints' stadium and facilities will be busy next week with Super Bowl week arriving in New Orleans. Reinstating Payton now helps put the Bounty scandal behind the league with the big game approaching. Debate: Saints winners again? Without Sean Payton, the Without, the Saints went 7-9 in 2012. Will the reinstated coach turn them right back into serious contenders? More ... "I am thankful today Commissioner Goodell has granted me reinstatement," Payton said in a statement released by the Saints. "As I stated back in March, 'I, along with Mickey Loomis, take full responsibility for all aspects of our football program.' I clearly recognize that mistakes were made, which led to league violations. Furthermore, I have assured the Commissioner a more diligent protocol will be followed. Lastly, I feel we have learned from our mistakes and are ready to move forward. I want to thank our owner, Mr. Benson and all of our great fans for the overwhelming support throughout this past year. I am excited to be back as Head Coach of the New Orleans Saints!" NFL.com's Ian Rapoport notes that Payton's originally-scheduled date to return to the Saints was February 3. This gives him a chance to start studying up on prospects at the Senior Bowl, and possibly eases some of the tension between the NFL and the city of New Orleans before the Super Bowl. It will be interesting to see if Payton becomes a vocal presence during the week. He certainly has a lot of work to do with his team. Former Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams remains suspended indefinitely. Follow Gregg Rosenthal on Twitter @greggrosenthal. |
Actor Sung Kang to Unveil Nissan 240Z Race Car at SEMA Photographs by Andrew Chen Nissan’s Z cars have quite the racing heritage thanks to winning teams like Bob Sharp Racing (BSR) and Brock Racing Enterprises (BRE) who dominated the 1970s SCCA racing circuit with the 240Z. Over the years, this storied sports car has attracted love and attention from some of Hollywood’s biggest names, including legendary actor Paul Newman — who raced on the BSR team in the early ’70s — and comedian/Datsun collector Adam Corolla. This year will see another Tinseltown star, Sung Kang (Fast & Furious 6, Gang Related), add his name to the Z car love affair as he is building a 1973 Nissan 240Z race car to compete in various amateur racing circuits. And because he wants to share his automotive passion with the world, this project is being chronicled in a five-part documentary series titled Z Dream, with the first episode scheduled to air in October 2015 on FOX Sports Digital. What originally started as a casual excuse for Sung and his two friends, Michael and Greg, to simply hang out and create something cool, has quickly blossomed into an ambitious and extensive venture as they aim to finish the car in less than 65 days and debut it at this year’s SEMA Show in Las Vegas. While the talented team at GReddy Performance prepared the bare-metal body of the 240Z for its next stages, Sung and I sat down to talk about some of the things that inspire him for this project. Much like how Bob Sharp put Datsun on the map for privateer racers with unprecedented access to technical advice and competition parts, Sung chose the 240Z because it’s an attainable car for the average automotive enthusiast. He, like many others, has a special emotional connection with the car, having longed to build a racing Z ever since he was old enough to hang car posters on his wall. The group hopes that the Z Dream documentary will motivate others to also build a car that’s distinctly their own. And while Sung respects the purists who covet a period-correct example, his wish is to build a 240 that’s fresh and hip, but still honors the heritage of a car that means so many things to so many people. It’s a tall order, but he’s not going to settle for anything but the perfect balance of classic and modern, all while maintaining full racing functionality. The guys have opted to go with the legendary RB26 powerplant in naturally-aspirated form, and after GReddy adds their magical touch, they’re expecting a rev limit of 12,000 RPM (most likely governed to 10,000 RPM for reliability reasons). With the car’s critical components planned and laid out for installation, the next step is for the chassis to receive a coat of paint and some custom bodywork from the meticulous artists at Signature Autobody. For those that are too impatient to wait for the crew at eGarage and FOX Sports to finish editing the footage for Z Dream Episode One, you can follow Sung Kang’s official Facebook page for behind the scenes photos and discussions on the progress of the build. Z Dream is executive produced by Justin Ching (FOX Sports) and Brian Yang (408 Films). Update 10-2-15: Z Dream episode 1 releases in about a week on SPEED. In the meantime, here’s an exclusive teaser video: |
SOME stories are bigger than football. This is one of them. After a generous gesture some 30 years ago, Mark ‘Bomber’ Thompson was reunited with his 1984 premiership jumper on Wednesday night. Up until recently, Thompson believed the jumper was buried with Michael Lawson, the young man he gifted the piece of memorabilia to in the ‘80s. Lawson died on April 4, 1990. Leukaemia had eventually taken its toll after a two-year battle. He was just 18. LIVE stream every game of every round of the 2017 Toyota AFL Premiership Season on FOX SPORTS. Get your free 2-week FOXTEL PLAY trial and start watching in minutes. SIGN UP NOW >> Michael Hardy with the 1984 Essendon premiership cup. Photo: Ian Currie Source: News Corp Australia “It was probably a strange thing to do, looking at it now,” Thompson told Fox Footy’s AFL 360. “Memorabilia is quite special and kept and all of that. But at the time I felt like anyway I could help that young man and put a smile on his face ... I think it did.” Thompson was made aware of the existence of the jumper, after Lawson’s stepbrother Mark Hardy reached out to AFL 360 co-host Mark Robinson. Hardy said he always knew of the signed jumper, but only made the connection that it was Thompson’s grand final guernsey during a recent wardrobe clean out. Branded on the jumper was the message: “To Michael, Best wishes. Wear this knowing I played in a Grand Final in it. All the best, Mark Thompson.” When Hardy read of Thompson’s mental demons, he knew he had to act and repay the generosity shown to his dying brother. Mark Thompson after the 1984 premiership. Source: News Corp Australia “It brought my brother happiness at a time when there was no happiness in his life,” Hardy said. “It made him happy and smile. It was a very moving thing to do. And for nothing in return. “It almost gave me the trigger in my head to send the message back, to give it back. And I thought I’d give it back to Bomber.” Hardy conceded it was difficult to hand the jumper back, but that he knew it was the right thing to do. “Mark earned it, he played for it, he won for it. Michael died for it,” Hardy said. “And I found it basically. It’s not mine to have. It would mean a lot more to Bomber than to me or my dad or my sister. “It was Michael’s in his time of need and I wanted to repay the favour.” A clearly moved Thompson replied: “To get it back after its been lent out for thirty odd years makes it a little more special.” |
It underlined how schools are a “top priority” target for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), which delivered a direct threat last December. The terrorist group's francophone propaganda magazine, Dar al Islam, urged Muslim parents to remove their children from French schools and to kill teachers, who were called "enemies of Allah" for teaching the French principle of secularism. Each school will now hold three exercises per academic year, covering the "ability of schools to react and not be taken by surprise”. A text messaging alert system will warn pupils, along with a specific alarm different to the one used for fires. Headteachers have been asked to hold meetings with parents to explain the new security measures. In January, several Paris secondary schools were evacuated due to bomb threats, although these turned out to be hoaxes. In March 2012, Mohamed Merah, a jihadist with links to al-Qaeda, killed three children and a teacher outside a Jewish school in south-western France. |
Game creator Jordan Mechner wanted to teach the next generation. So the man behind the groundbreaking 1989 Apple II game Prince of Persia recently posted his original 6052 assembly source code to Github. But getting the code from decades-old floppy disks "covered with dust" was no simple task. Mechner employed the services of vintage computer expert Tony Diaz and digital archivist Jason Scott to extract the bits from the floppies and assemble it into a readable code file. Without Diaz and Scott, Mechner's code could have been lost forever. The exact methods he used to create this landmark game would have become as obsolete as the 1976 technology it was played on. But old source code isn't the only cultural artifact that requires specialized knowledge to preserve. As paper and dyes deteriorate, acetate degenerates, and the minute magnetic flux recorded in analog tape fades with the ages, how do we preserve cultural artifacts like photographs, music, and film? And what of more modern digitally created media? Images and video are shot directly in digital formats and stored on flash media. Music is recorded in 24-bit, 192kHz digital resolution onto massive hard drives. All these files exist in various codecs, formats, and file systems; on spinning magnetic platters or in solid state NAND flash. How do we preserve these files for future reference, study, and appreciation? These are the questions asked and answered by "digital archivists" every day. Ars spoke to Robin Pike, a certified archivist currently serving as a Digital Collections Librarian at the University of Maryland, to give us insight into the process, and the motivation, that fuels her work. Collections speak in a loud voice Anthony Bannon, a director at the George Eastman House, wrote in the forward to 500 Cameras that "collections manage time." Collecting, documenting, and managing a collection of objects—in Bannon's case, cameras, photographs, and other photographic ephemera—gives us insight into our history, and can lead us in new directions. Such collections bring value when they are organized, interpreted, and shared. "But we must care for them, say their names, and notice what they consign," Bannon writes. "So we take responsibility for our collections with gratitude. The collector, whether individual or institutional, engages with the object to recognize the light of its value and hold the spark, to take on the responsibility of its meaning and make sense of it." Pike brings such a personal sense of responsibility to her work as a digital archivist specializing in audiovisual materials. Growing up in a family of musicians and music lovers, Pike was exposed to "legacy" music formats including vinyl LPs, and even vintage glass 78RPM records, from an early age. Honing in on classic Hollywood musicals, Pike performed as both an instrumentalist and vocalist in high school stage productions, and performed in bands and orchestras. This love of music took Pike to Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where she majored in music education. To supplement her studies, Pike took a job as a student assistant in the university's music library, first shelving books and scores, and later doing preservation repairs. Pike helped process numerous collections that were donated to the library, including an obscure collection of books and other documents from a former marching band director that had a zeal for military band history. "It wasn't so much the content that interested me, but that some of these books were nearly a century old," Pike told Ars. Pike also took, as part of her music education curriculum, a class focused on capturing and disseminating digital music. Among its subjects: MIDI files, compressed audio such as MP3, and digital score formats. "By the time I finished my undergrad degree, I knew I didn’t want to teach anymore; I wanted to go into librarianship," Pike said. So Pike headed to the University of Pittsburgh to earn a masters degree in library and information science. Pitt is regarded as having one of the top three archivist programs in the country, but it also features a course called "Sound and Moving Image Archives." "While I work with all formats, my passion is still audiovisual media," Pike explained. Analog to digital converter Aside from her lifelong love of music, Pike is attracted to the complexity of working with analog materials. "Analog materials are formed of layers of 'stuff,'" she told Ars. "Film exists of a base layer and an emulsion in which the dyes are suspended. Magnetic media, such as open reels, cassette tapes, and VHS tapes, are made of the base layer with the emulsion which includes magnetic particles that encode the analog (or sometimes digital) signal and a lubricant to make it glide over the tape player heads easily. LPs have a core material and a coating, in which the grooves are stamped. "In every case," Pike continued, "these materials do not want to stick together forever, and it's only a matter of time before they flake apart, even under the best storage conditions. When magnetic and digital media starts to deteriorate, the encoding signal can become distorted, so you may not be able to retrieve what was originally recorded. Because the physical materials have an 'expiration date,' when their expected lifespan will end, the only way to preserve the materials is digitally." Pike employs an impressive array of modern and vintage technology in her work. She prefers to use Macs, since OS X gives her the ability to run top GUI software for handling audio, video, and still images, while still giving her access to open source management tools like Fedora and Dspace. She also works with UMD's IT staff to arrange massive storage arrays to store archival master files on site. These files "can be around 100MB for images, 5GB for audio, and over 50GB for video files," Pike said. And each file gets two tape backups—one on-campus, and one off-campus. Pike also has a collection of "legacy audiovisual players," including turntables, reel-to-reel tape decks, cassette players, VHS players, and CD and DVD players. But she also has at her disposal Laserdisc players, open-reel videotape players, 2” Quadraplex players, Sony Betamax players, film projectors for various film sizes, DAT players, and specialized systems to play wax and wire recordings. Besides working on physical transfers—moving analog media into digital formats—Pike and her colleagues also deal with transferring massive amounts of digital data from legacy formats into newer ones in hopes they will remain accessible far into the future. "One of the biggest challenges in the field of digital librarianship is simply trying to evolve as fast as technology," Pike said, "because we need to also keep up with emerging file formats and software systems to read those formats. We need to think of ways to preserve them and make them accessible either through emulation, or migration to a different format or system." After transferring or reformatting media into digital archival masters, however, comes the rather inglorious but essential process of creating, storing, and indexing the critical metadata for each audiovisual artifact. Modern Melvil Dewey "Metadata is essentially information about the digital object which is frequently embedded in the header of the file code, akin to someone writing a description of a photograph on the back of the photograph," Pike said. "This metadata can help identify characteristics about the file without having to open the file, and is especially important for identifying the files before they are ingested into a repository or content management system." Once all the metadata is associated with a file, and loaded into repository—essentially a database—that file can now be browsed or searched by students, faculty, researchers, and others. Sometimes, though, copyright issues rear their ugly head, and can limit accessibility. "Copyright is a huge barrier for making any digitized materials accessible," Pike said. Some institutions focus solely on public domain material. Some institution may own some of their copyrights, such as a university-run press. And there's always plenty of that material to work on, according to Pike. Regardless, many institutions lack the resources to track down copyright holders, which are often difficult to locate and negotiate licensing agreements to make digital archives and make them available to others. "The libraries [at UMD] do approach copyright holders to create licensing agreements for materials that professors want to put on reserve or make available for classes when publishers are known," Pike said. "But, there are levels of accessibility that are created based on the copyright (or questionable copyright) and license agreements—whether materials are available on the digital collections website, available for download, available for streaming, or available for streaming to restricted IP addresses on campus or just within the libraries." Digital stewards of our past, present, and future If there is one thing we learned in talking with Pike, it's that digital archivists rarely suffer from a lack of gravitas. Much like the family member that collects, organizes, and identifies old family photos to preserve one's heritage, digital archivists seek to do the same for all mankind. "We are the custodians of what has been created and are enabling access—ideally free and unlimited—for the future," Pike said. "No matter what is created and where it is created, if it is important, some librarian, archivist, or records manager is capturing it and saving it for the future. In addition to saving the digital objects, we need to make them accessible so people can use and reuse the materials." "We are the custodians of human history." Further Reading |
Looking for news you can trust? Subscribe to our free newsletters. Robert Mueller, the special counsel heading up the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion between associates of Donald Trump and the Kremlin, has empaneled a grand jury, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. The move suggests that Mueller’s investigation is “ramping up,” according to the paper. “This is yet a further sign that there is a long-term, large-scale series of prosecutions being contemplated and being pursued by the special counsel,” Stephen I. Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas, told the Journal. Vladeck told the paper that the grand jury, which was established in the past few weeks in Washington, DC, was an indication that Mueller’s investigation has extended far beyond the scandal swirling around for National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. “If there was already a grand jury in Alexandria looking at Flynn, there would be no need to reinvent the wheel for the same guy,” Vladeck said. “This suggests that the investigation is bigger and wider than Flynn, perhaps substantially so.” Ty Cobb, one of Trump’s lawyers, told the paper he was unaware of the DC grand jury and added: “The White House favors anything that accelerates the conclusion of [the special counsel’s] work fairly.” Also on Thursday, CNN reported that Mueller’s team has “seized on Trump and his associates’ financial ties to Russia as one of the most fertile avenues for moving their probe forward, according to people familiar with the investigation.” Some of the ties reportedly being scrutinized are unconnected to the 2016 election. CNN noted that Trump told the New York Times in July that if Mueller began to look into his financial dealings and didn’t focus solely on Russia, Mueller would be crossing a red line. “President’s outside counsel has not received any requests for documentation or information about this,” Jay Sekulow, one of Trump’s attorneys, told CNN when asked about Mueller’s reported investigation into Trump’s financial ties. “Any inquiry from the special counsel that goes beyond the mandate specified in the appointment we would object to.” Also Thursday, Reuters reported that the Mueller grand jury has issued subpoenas in relation to the June 2016 meeting between Donald Trump, Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, and a Russian lawyer. |
Hey everybody, Hopefully you’ve had the chance to check out our Dragon and Mage changes for mid-season. We’ve got a bunch of other objective changes to Summoner’s Rift going in the patch, and I wanted to share those + context with ya’ll and take your questions and feedback! Everything is subject to tuning and future iteration, of course. **Rift Herald** We’re pushing to make Rift Herald a more unique and meaningful objective for those looking to dominate the top half of the map. This new Rift Herald should be a more contestable objective with a clearer purpose: long-term selfish power for one team member - especially a lone-wolf or split push character. * Rift Herald now spawns at 6 minutes and **never** respawns * Rift Herald’s stats significantly increased (should be much harder to solo) * Doom’s Eve removed and replaced with a unique Superbuff: * Lasts 20 minutes and persists through death * While alone, you gain some damage reduced vs. champions and build Corruption stacks * At 100 stacks, your next attack discharges all Corruption to deal bonus magic damage (works on almost anything, including minions and towers; damage is reduced for ranged attacks) * Corruption stack rate and discharge damage scale with champion level Hopefully this excites top laners, junglers, and some mids. We’re keeping an eye on it to ensure it’s powerful, but also contestable and not too game-ending. **Red and Blue Buffs** Late-game, Red and Blue buff have been somewhat ignorable these days. We’re buffing and compressing their power in the mid-late game to make them more appreciable objectives to leverage or steal, especially in games that are in a standstill and need things to fight over and create power windows. * Red Buff * Burn now applies a damage tick immediately on apply or reapply (stronger attack-speed scaling); damage-per-tick reduced to compensate * Health regen now scales steeply with champ level but turns off when in combat with champions or epic monsters (currently triples at level 6 and again at level 11!) * Blue Buff * AP per level replaced with +15% total Ability Power (like Rabadon’s Deathcap effect) * Mana regen based on max Mana doubled (flat regen unchanged) * Buff Durations * Red and Blue will last the same duration on your first clear, but all Red and Blue buffs after that will have a 90-second duration instead of 120 When you’re looking to make a play in mid-late game, buff camps should be juicier targets now, especially if you can steal them from the enemy’s side of the map! **Camp Respawn Timers** In order to facilitate more coordinated and contested objective play at all skill levels, we’re making a some UI changes. This also has the benefit of reducing timekeeping and chat-typing work. * When a camp that has a timer (Red, Blue, Dragon, Baron, Rift Herald) has less than 60 seconds to spawn, its timer is revealed to both teams at that time (regardless of their vision of the camp), and an “about to spawn” icon appears in the minimap simultaneously (will replace regular camp icon if you still haven’t seen the cleared camp by the time its respawn has 60 seconds left) * To clarify, if you never have vision of enemy jungle, you won't see any changes for the first 4 minutes after their camp dies. But at 60 seconds remaining to respawn, you will get new information over live. * The respawn icon starts dull at 60 seconds to spawn and becomes bright at 20 seconds We generally like seeing more fights around objectives, and promoting objective awareness like this can help a lot. After getting used to the new UI, rallying your team around a Dragon spawn or even a buff steal can often be done with a simple ping instead of having to type things out in chat. **Turrets** Turrets have several changes in store. Overall, we want them to be more defendable places to stand your ground, reduce their takedown reward compared to other objectives, clean up some of their mechanics, and rebudget their defenses so things other than marksmen basic attacks can contribute more to turret takedowns. * Turret Damage Ramp * Inner and Outer turrets more quickly ramp up their damage when attacking champions, and they maintain full damage when switching targets. * Inner and Outer turrets only take 4 shots to ramp up to full damage (instead of 5). * Turret Takedown Rewards * Outer turret total gold reward reduced, though local gold reward is increased (local gold 220 -> 300, global gold 125 -> 100) * Inner turret gold rewards reduced (local gold 250 -> 175, global gold 150 -> 125) and XP reward removed * Inhibitor turret local gold reward increased (0 -> 50) * AP Damage Conversion * When your attacks trigger AP damage conversion (occurs when attacking a turret while your AP is more than double your bonus AD), the converted damage is now magic instead of physical * Turret Stats * Base Armor/MR increased (from 0 to 40), Base Health decreased (from 4000 to 3300) * Turrets are now subject to penetration (generally tankier than Live unless you have about 20 penetration or have a true damage proc; overall a small nerf to marksmen damage, but a buff to some mages and assassins) * Reinforced Armor converted from 200 Armor/MR to 66.67% damage reduction Overall, diving and taking turrets should be less of a freebie than what we’ve seen recently. Let’s hear your thoughts! Title Body Cancel Save |
Poor Hillary. Big, bad Donald Trump got so close to her during the presidential debate last fall, she says, that he “made her skin crawl.” “Morning Joe” broadcast a recording of Mrs. Clinton reading that revealing snippet aloud yesterday, her plain, hard intonations trying to excite interest in “What Happened?” her new book purporting to explain why she lost the election. The passage, which recounts her musing about how she should react to his looming presence, evokes several responses. Number one: if that’s the best tease they could find in this unnecessary oeuvre (don’t we all know why she lost?), I hope Simon & Schuster has a sure-fire way to get their advance back. The company is deep in the hole after publishing her last tome, “Hard Choices,” which sold only some 280,000 copies in its first year. For that one they reportedly ponied up an advance of $14 million; whatever they paid for this one, it was probably too much. By the way, that sales total for “Hard Choices,” a stunningly dull work, doesn’t come close to the million-plus copies sold of Trump’s “Art of the Deal;” one more round to Trump. Number two: her recollection may be faulty. Hillary’s memory often plays tricks on her, like when she mistakenly remembered having come under sniper fire in Bosnia, or when she blamed the Benghazi attack on a video, or when she said that all her grandparents had immigrated to the U.S. (Three of four were born in this country.) The morning after the debate in question, then-candidate Trump, accused of having tried to intimidate her, denied the charge, and claimed that it was Clinton who invaded his space. The video shown on Morning Joe shows Trump standing at some distance from Hillary, not breathing down her neck, contrary to her description of the scene. He patiently waits at his lectern while she speaks. What is the truth? Number three: in the book, she says that at the time, feeling uncomfortable, she wished she could “hit pause, and say to everyone watching, well, what would you do?” That is so extraordinarily revealing. Hillary Clinton, at that moment, feeling pressured by her rival and uncertain how to respond, actually wants to take a survey. She doesn’t trust her own instincts, so turns to crowd-sourcing for answers. Maybe this book is more telling than we had imagined because, indeed, that is exactly one of the reasons Clinton lost. Remember early in the campaign when the New York Times wrote an admiring story about Hillary’s intense preparation? How she had consulted no less than 47 experts in preparing her economic agenda? I thought at the time: anyone nearing 70 and readying to run for president must surely know what she believes. But no, she was lost, and still exploring every point of view. The result was a platform-by-committee, a mishmash of policies directed by pollsters and political apparatchiks. You may not agree with Donald Trump’s views or agenda, but by gosh you know what he stood for. Trump promised to Make America Great Again by bringing back jobs, enforcing the rule of law, protecting our borders, demanding fair trade and turning back the Obama-era regulatory blitz. He vowed to put America First. Hillary’s campaign themes were buried under a mudslide of political talking points. One of John Podesta’s leaked emails revealed that Clinton's campaign weighed and ultimately rejected 84 potential slogans before choosing "Stronger Together," a catchphrase that never gained traction. 84! Doesn’t that say it all? Number four: if Hillary is so easily intimidated by powerful men, she really does not belong in the Oval Office. She says in her book that in motoring through that “incredibly difficult moment” she was “aided by a lifetime of dealing with difficult men trying to throw me off.” One wonders, has she always struggled to assert herself with men? Was husband Bill one of those “difficult men?” Maybe her infamous “reset” with Vladimir Putin would have been more successful except that she was cowed by yet another “difficult” man displaying an excess of testosterone. Maybe Hillary is insecure around men because they are bigger than she is. In the video of the debate, Trump appears to be standing virtually on top of Mrs. Clinton, because he is taller. When the camera backs away, it is clear that there are several feet separating the two figures. President Trump stands 6’2”; that kind of height can be imposing or even intimidating to someone several inches shorter. Mrs. Clinton may be one of those people. In the 2008 campaign, her office told reporters that she was 5’5”. In the recent campaign, according to a piece in the Washington Post, her staff claimed she stood 5’7”. That’s remarkable, since she is of an age where she almost certainly is losing height, and not gaining it. Why would someone lie about their height? Does pretending to be taller give her extra confidence? For the record, Maggie Thatcher was 5’5”, as is Angela Merkel. Neither seems to have been intimidated by big, powerful men, including, in the case of Merkel, Donald Trump. Could it be that Hillary simply doesn’t have what it takes to be president? That’s what voters decided. Maybe, at the end, that’s What Happened. |
Romados, No. 1, Best Portuguese, No. 1, Best BBQ Chicken It isn’t easy to explain Romados to someone who hasn’t tried it. Tourists, vegetarians, ignorant rotisserie loyalists — they won’t believe you when you tell them that a nondescript Portuguese grilled chicken joint and bakery on the corner of Rachel and de Bullion is as essential to the city as Schwartz’s. But Romados is special. Its alchemical sauce-slathered chicken, piquant fries and ridiculous portions for under $10 more than warrant the line-ups that were a constant until January 5, 2013. That’s when a small electrical fire broke out in the basement of the restaurant. As the news spread feverishly over social media, Manny Machado, Romados’s operations manager (and son of owner Fernando), took to Facebook and Twitter to assure alarmed — and hungry — Montrealers that the fire was minor and that Romados would be slinging chicken and natas again soon. He was wrong. An insurance inspection found that smoke had seeped through the restaurant’s walls and into the apartments upstairs. “Toxic smoke is worse than any other kind of fire damage,” says Machado. “We had to gut the entire restaurant.” As Romados navigated a maze of insurance bureaucracy and contended with the whims of construction workers, customers got desperate. They vented their frustrations by scrawling notes on the restaurant’s door and in testy Facebook posts. Machado responded on Romados’ page with optimistic promises and a reminder that messages like “Fuck you. We want chicken!” weren’t exactly speeding things along. But now there is an end in sight. The family recently started serving customers at its St-Michel wholesale bakery, and Machado says they are hoping to reopen the Rachel location by St-Jean Baptiste Day [Ed. note: Romados will reopen on Friday, July 5]. Window installation is the last remaining obstacle. “The day they are in, we open,” he says. So what changes can we expect from the revamped Romados? Machado, who is also an interior designer, is taking the opportunity to give his family’s restaurant a facelift. He promises that its functionality and food will return unaltered but says the layout and decor will be different, with one benefit being more seating. Another thing we can expect: those line-ups. Despite being closed for the entirety of the voting period, Romados ranked No. 1 for Best BBQ Chicken and Best Portuguese in the Best of MTL. Which begs the question: Will Romados ever franchise its chicken? Machado would only answer cryptically. “The demand definitely exists, and we’d like to make our products as accessible as possible to the very hungry citizens of Montreal and beyond.” ■ Twitter: @gemmahorowitz To see the results of the Best of MTL survey, go here. To see the complete Best of MTL issue of Cult MTL, with expanded survey results, go here. |
The Licensing Act 2003 forbids the playing of live music without a licence. Clowns appearing at a circus in Birmingham have been silenced by licensing regulators who banned them from playing their trumpets. Zippos Circus said Birmingham City Council officials told them the show could not go on unless the clowns dropped the musical part of their act. The circus, performing in Calthorpe Park, Edgbaston, until September 23, fell foul of the Licensing Act 2003. The act forbids the playing of live music without a licence. Circus owner Martin Burton said that applying for a licence was time-consuming and expensive and called for circuses to be exempt from the legislation. 'Ludicrous legislation' Mr Burton said: "I'm a big fan of silent comedy, but this is nonsense. "Live music is an essential part of traditional clowning, and for us to be told that they can't play instruments, even in the three minutes of the show which features trumpets, is laughable." "Circuses should be exempt from this ludicrous legislation." The circus will move to Sheffield for performances starting on 25 September. Jacqui Kennedy, Birmingham City Council's director of regulatory services, said: "Under the Licensing Act 2003 elements of the programme proposed by Zippos would fall into the category of regulated entertainment. "On that basis such events would require either a licence under the Licensing Act 2003, or a Temporary Event Notice under the same legislation. "Birmingham City Council do not condone unlicensed events." She said local authorities must ensure the four licensing objectives - the prevention of crime and disorder, public safety, the prevention of public nuisance, the protection of children from harm - were not undermined. "As with all legislation there are interpretation issues and each case is determined on its merits," she added. |
#1. Hillary is Obama with Chops. Her platform is better than 8 years ago and her experience level is through the roof. She’s even more revolutionary. We’re going to be saying to half the population, “Yes you can!” She’s bringing the same progressive agenda but with even more ability to get it done. #2. Hillary is a Revolution in Leadership The old way to lead was to be a slick blow hard. That way is dead. Nobody wants a boss yelling braindead gut decisions at them. Hillary is the revolution. The Ezra Klein piece describing her leadership super powers is riveting. In this revolution, the boss still makes decisions — but now they make smart ones because they know how to harness a team of geniuses. That’s what listening is — it’s taking your brains and adding in hundreds of other brains. This revolution is happening everywhere. Basketball with the Warriors. Startups with basically every CEO at any of the top companies. You can’t fake leadership and succeed anymore. #3. Hillary has the Highest Integrity of Any Presidential Candidate Ever We know this because she’s survived wave after wave of phony investigations. Those fakers in Congress haven’t been able to pin anything on her. Not even close. On top of that, we’ve had a chance to read thousands of her work emails. And those emails proves #2, she’s a post-Machiavellian leader who leads and wins by getting the job done. So many of us have lost faith in our elected officials because we assume they’re corrupt. She’s the antidote because we actually, finally, got true transparency. I read her emails and got exactly what I wanted — someone who comes to work to do the job of leading the country. #4. Hillary is the People’s Champion Her entire career is helping people and public service. This is Occam’s razor — she’s in public service because her mission is to make the world better. This isn’t rocket science. Her resume is her motivation. #5. Hillary Wins Wherever She Goes This is someone who wins no matter what the challenge. Here’s the list of accomplishments and more. No amount of whining from the dinosaur class has ever tripped her up. Damn, she’s so bad ass. #6. Hillary is the Ultimate Campaigner She’s everything we want from a politician. Instead of patronizing us she gives us plan after plan after plan. She has a plan for everything. Instead of offering false promises she gives us a track record. We know how she’ll govern because we’ve watched her. This is exactly how we want people to campaign. |
The presence of servants of noble birth imposed a social hierarchy on the household that went parallel to the hierarchy dictated by function. This second hierarchy had at its top the steward (alternatively seneschal or major-domo), who had the overriding responsibility for the domestic affairs of the household. Taking care of the personal well-being of the lord and his family were the Chamberlain, who was responsible for the chamber or private living-quarters, and the Master of the Wardrobe, who had the main responsibility for clothing and other domestic items. Of roughly equal authority as the steward was the marshal. This officer had the militarily vital responsibility for the stables and horses of the household (the "marshalsea"), and was also in charge of discipline. The marshal, and other higher-ranking servants, would have assistants helping them perform their tasks. These – called valet de chambres, grooms or pages, ranking from top to bottom in that order – were most often young boys, although in the larger royal courts the valet de chambres included both young noble courtiers, and often artists, musicians and other specialists who might be of international repute. Assigning these the office of valet was a way of regularising their position within the household. As a result of the military nature of the medieval noble household, its composition was predominately male. Towards the end of the medieval period the ratio levelled out somewhat, but at an earlier date the feminine element of the household consisted only of the lady and her daughters, their attendants, and perhaps a few domestics to perform particular tasks such as washing. Many of the male servants were purely military personnel; there would be a gatekeeper, as well as various numbers of knights and esquires to garrison the castle as a military unit. Yet many of these would also serve other functions, and there would be servants entirely devoted to domestic tasks. At the lower level, these were simply local men recruited from the localities. The higher level positions – in particular those attending on the lord – were often filled by men of rank: sons of the lord's relatives, or his retainers. From the household of the king to the humblest peasant dwelling, more or less distant relatives and varying numbers of servants and dependants would cohabit with the master of the house and his immediate family. |
5 things the car industry could learn from the foxbody Mustang Share with: 5 things the car industry could learn from the foxbody Mustang Photo source: Ford The Foxbody Mustang is perhaps not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of America’s primordial pony car, however, due to its commercial success and the sheer number of fox stangs roaming around, it should be no surprise it has gained a near cult following. Modern automakers could learn a lot from what is considered America’s equivalent to the nissan S Chassis. Here are five lessons the auto industry can take from the foxbody Mustang. Big engine, small car. For a coupe or hatchback of its size, the ford 302 eight cylinder engine makes for a great powerplant, providing enough grunt to haul around the fox. Even the 3.8 liter V6 and the turbocharged four banger could get this wild stallion moving. In this day and age, downsizing seems to be the norm, and yet the gearheads among consumers still want a slightly oversized V8 in any small rear wheel drive car. Light for its class. Weighing in at around 1400 kilograms, the foxbody mustang is relatively lightweight when compared to other cars of its era. This means it has a higher potential when it comes to handling. This lightness also means better fuel economy, but who cares about that? In all seriousness, a lighter car is most of the time, a better car, yet this seemingly obvious tenet of car culture has apparently been forgotten. Strapping airbag after airbag on each nook and cranny of the modern automobile in an effort to pass safety regulations, car makers have made our vehicles bloated and full of gimmicky gizmos, packing pound after pound into each new iteration of any car. Second life as used car. Put simply, there is a million of these out there, plentiful, cheap, and produced before the era of planned obsolescence. Its availability makes it an attractive first car for many young gearheads and a potential project car for anyone, from drifters to drag racers, the fox body lives on. Nowadays, each vehicle seems to come with an expiration date, and this is further showcased by how we buy or rather not purchase but lease our vehicles. Granted most gearheads won’t be leasing disposable daily drivers any time soon, but the remainder of consumers tend to lease rather than buy. Tinker friendly. While it’s true that the eighties’ emission and pollution laws strangled the performance of many muscle and pony cars, the 302’s potential can be unsealed with the help of the aftermarket. From drift to drag and even track or circuit racing, the fox mustang shapeshifts into a jack of all trades and cost effective master of some. Aftermarket support is gigantic which enables any kind of build to be possible, put simply, the sky’s the limit. In the same manner Apple computers limit user involvement in lieu of a more streamlined user experience, the auto industry nowadays seeks to eliminate the DIY guy that lives in the mind of every gearhead. Automakers should make their offerings more tinker friendly. Platform for the people. Just like the Nissan S chassis or any Subaru before 2005, the foxbody mustang is before anything else, a platform, one that spans the 80’s cougar, thunderbird and the late seventies ford Fairmont. Just like an adult sized lego set, the interchangeable nature of the fox platform cars and their affordability turns them into the perfect project vehicle for DIY mechanics and gearheads of any kind. Affordability is a word that seems to have lost meaning in recent years, and no company offers a bare bones, down to earth muscle or pony car. The death of DIY and hot rodding for the masses, as well as the dawn of what some call the “virtual reality era” has locked the gearhead out of tinkering in their own garage. We need to go back, in order to go forward, learn what we can from what was, in order to shape what is, into what will be. Also you might like: The Fox body Mustang: Giving S-Chassis boys a run for their Money. |
Here's a serious question for parents-to-be: Do you find yourselves becoming increasingly frustrated that you don't really know the baby growing inside you or your partner until it's born? You aren't able to experience your baby with sight or touch until it finds its way out of the womb—isn't this slightly creepy? Well, one father-to-be just couldn't take it anymore and developed a way to virtually meet his baby before it popped out into the real world. Enter a caption (optional) One regular afternoon, Samuli Cantell casually thought about how cool it would be to use 4D ultrasound to scan his unborn baby and turn it into a VR experience. He then came up with the idea to use 4D ultrasound images and data to create a 3D print of his baby. The print was used to create a full VR experience that allowed VR goggle wearers to "see" the baby floating in space, hotdog-like umbilical cord and all. How he convinced his girlfriend to let this happen, I don't know. Somehow he did, and from the looks of the pictures, all parties involved seem pretty excited about it. After receiving advice from Aava Medical Centre and GE (they manufacture 3D and 4D ultrasound systems), Cantell came up with this process: "We went to the Aava Medical Centre for the 4D ultrasound scan. At this time, our baby was already a bit too big for perfect scans, but after an hour we got enough material. From the data I imported DICOM files to osiriX lite and made the frst 3D model. It turned out pretty messy, but with a little help from a friend, we sculpted a nice 3D model. The 3D model of the baby was then placed in a Unity project, and the experience was ready." For a first go around, the results looks pretty solid: Enter a caption (optional) Here Cantell describes how he felt when staring at his baby floating in space: When I put the VR glasses on for the first time, the experience took my breath away. Even though I knew this was only a 3D model, the fact that it was based on our unborn child and the power of this immersive experience really blew my mind. For the first ten minutes, I was just sitting still on the floor watching her floating in the air next to me. It was very emotional and calming, yet unreal. Cantell's takeaways from this process are as followed: "It's as awesome as it is weird, music plays a huge role in this kind of emotional experience, a lot of manual 3D sculpting is still needed, and the scanning should take place before pregnancy week 32." Out of everything on this list, what I want to know most is what songs were on the VR Baby Experience playlist. All of this sounds creepy, but keep in mind that a lot of parents-to-be have anxiety about parenting and meeting their babies—this could serve as a form of therapy to help calm those nerves. It's also a potential way for fathers to feel more connected to their babies before birth. Perhaps a way to calm fathers down on Maury or Jerry Springer when they learn they are, in fact, the father? I'm curious to hear what people who've actually gone through the pregnancy process have to say about this. I particularly want to know if you would show your child's VR baby experience to them during sappy milestones—like their graduation or wedding —in place of baby photos. My only kids are two plants and a fish, so I have no answers. |
ST. JOHN'S — This year's Brier was about so much more than curling. With Newfoundland and Labrador hosting the Canadian men's championship for the first time in 45 years, the tournament became a symbol of provincial pride for the people here. Brad Gushue knew it. And he made sure to send them off with one big party. After the St. John's skip captured his first Brier title — and the first for his province since 1976 — with a nailbiting 7-6 win over defending champion Kevin Koe on Sunday night at the Mile One Centre, the celebration in the Brier Patch spilled into Monday morning. Brad Gushue of Newfoundland and Labrador defeated Canada's Kevin Koe 7-6 on Sunday night to win the Tim Hortons Brier for the first time. 2:13 Thousands of people danced wildly, waved Newfoundland and Labrador flags and rewatched Gushue's final shot — a clutch draw into the eight-foot to score the decisive point — over and over on the big screens. They cheered just as loudly as the first time they saw it. Finally, just before 2 a.m. local time, Gushue and his teammates — Mark Nichols, Brett Gallant and Geoff Walker — took the stage alongside family and friends. The teammates raised their beers to the crowd, thanking them for what they called the best Brier ever. Gushue shared the Tankard with an adoring crowd at the Brier Patch. (Devin Heroux/CBC Sports) Gushue then picked up the Brier Tankard and passed it to the throng of fans. For the next 15 minutes the trophy crowd-surfed around the Patch. "I've been close so many times," said Gushue, 36, whose 13 previous Brier appearances had produced a pair of runner-up finishes, including one last year. "To finally win it and win it at home, you couldn't have asked for a better story." The story really began last June, inside the Merchant Tavern on Water Street in downtown St. John's. Gushue says the team spent 16 hours over the course of two days mapping out the road to capturing their first Brier title at home. Despite injuries — including a troublesome hip for Gushue — and ups and downs throughout the season, the team was able to write its last chapter in dramatic fashion. "I'm so proud of the team and so proud of how we stuck to the plan," said Gushue, who finally has a Brier title to go with his Olympic gold medal from 2006 and will try for his first world championship next month in Edmonton. Proud father Raymond Gushue could barely contain himself after his son won the Brier. Wearing a t-shirt that proudly proclaimed him "Brad's Dad," Raymond was teary-eyed as Brad hoisted the Tankard. "We've been waiting a long time for it," Raymond said. "Finally it happened at home." Raymond Gushue got a turn with the Tankard after his son's victory. (Devin Heroux/CBC Sports) When his son settled into the hack for the decisive moment of the tournament, Raymond said he felt confident because he'd seen Brad make that draw thousands of times. "I was thinking to myself, do what you do. That is your bread-and-butter shot," Raymond said. When the rock, after a few nervy seconds and some heavy sweeping by Nichols and Gallant, finally slid fully into the eight-foot to seal the win, it sent the capacity crowd, and Brad's dad, into a frenzy. For Raymond, the victory was extra-special knowing how much pressure rested on his son's shoulders. "We deserve to go crazy after all the years of hard work and losing in the finals," he said. "Cinderella story for the whole week." Brad's status as the belle of the ball rubbed off on his dad too. "If I ran for mayor, I bet I'd win this week," Raymond said. "I've shook so many hands and so many people came over and congratulated me and my wife so many times. You couldn't even walk five feet and someone wanted to talk to you. It was so nice." Lucky loonie, Newfoundland style Gushue didn't know it at the time of his final throw, but about five feet from where he pushed out of the hack, underneath the carpet and boards, rested an old Newfoundland 50-cent piece. During the setup of the event, a local curler who was helping with the ice came up with the idea of burying a lucky coin beneath the playing surface. A lucky Newfoundland coin was buried just feet away from where Gushue delivered the decisive shot. (Devin Heroux/CBC) "We were originally going to put [coins] behind the hack on each sheet," said Evan Kearly, who plays on a team that lost to Gushue in the provincial playdowns. "But the main ice-maker said we couldn't do it." But Kearly and another member of the ice crew weren't going to be denied the opportunity of lending a little luck to the home side, so they tucked away the 1919 Newfoundland coin where no one could see it. "We were putting down the carpet and we were like, screw it, we're going to put it in anyway," Kearly said. "We stuck it at the back of the B sheet because we knew this was the sheet the final would be played on. "Maybe that extra bit of luck is all they needed." The 50-cent piece belongs to Gushue now. "I got it in my pocket," he said with a smile. "Not sure what I'll do with it yet but it's pretty special." Lasting legacy Gushue played an integral part in bringing the Brier to St. John's. As much as he relished the potential of winning a championship at home, Gushue's hope was that the event would create a legacy in the community and foster a new wave of curlers in his province. Team Gushue hopes the energy this week at the Mile One Centre can lift the profile of their sport in Newfoundland and Labrador. (Devin Heroux/CBC Sports) He said other curlers remarked at how much younger the crowd seemed at the Mile One Centre, and how inspiring that was to see. One of them Nichols, who grew up in Labrador City and badly wants this Brier to ignite a curling spirit he felt early in life. "I really hope this is a shot in the arm for Newfoundland and Labrador curling," Nichols said. Perhaps, among the thousands in the stands who witnessed the team's thrilling, historic victory on Sunday night, was the next Brad Gushue. "I think there are going to be a lot of young boys and girls that leave here dreaming about winning a Brier or a Scotties," said the triumphant skip. "That's awesome." |
https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/when-guns-in-police-hands-spontaneously-fire-themselves/ Krystal Barrows, a 35-year-old mother of three, was resting on the couch in her living room in Chillicothe, Ohio when her life was needlessly brought to a violent end by a police officer during a narcotics raid. Barrows was not a suspect. Ross County Prosecutor Matt Schmidt insists that none of the police deliberately fired his gun into the home. While not ruling out what he called “user error,” Schmidt suggested that a “malfunction” might have been responsible for the errant gunshot. Using the familiar passive voice construction favored by government-aligned publications when describing state-sanctioned criminal violence, the Chillicothe Gazette reported that the round was fired “from the weapon of a law enforcement officer,” a conveniently ambiguous preposition intended to disguise or diminish the fact that unless the gun suddenly became self-aware, it was fired by a police officer. A similar circumlocution can be found in the Associated Press’s initial coverage of an incident last October in Chino, California: “Authorities say a police officer’s gun accidentally fired during a school safety demonstration in Southern California and three children were treated for minor injuries.” The gun in question was an AR-15 rifle of the kind that in the “wrong” hands (that is, those not consecrated to the task of committing state-sanctioned violence) are usually described as “assault weapons.” The official story is that the rifle, which was locked into a weapons mount on a police motorcycle, was left unattended and attracted the interest of a curious student. One of the students recalled that while the officers were handing out anti-drug propaganda (my word, not his) “the kid got hold of the gun and he shot it at the ground….” One of the children wounded in the “safety demonstration” required surgery to remove shrapnel from his eye. If the gun had been a privately owned weapon, its owner would have been arrested for child endangerment. But this act of potentially lethal irresponsibility was committed by sanctified agents of official coercion, so criminal charges won’t be filed. A school “resource officer” in San Antonio was placed on paid vacation last May when his gun somehow fired itself inside a local middle school. One local news account explained that “the officer was inside his office at Jordan Middle School when the gun accidentally fired around 8:45 a.m.”; no explanation for the gun’s aberrant behavior was offered. Last March, a gun carried by Officer Sean McCutheon of the Lloyd, New York Police Department spontaneously discharged while the officer was patrolling the halls of a local high school. This story had an unusually positive outcome: The incident prompted the school district to suspend its “resource officer” program. Given the frequency with which police-owned guns fire themselves, it’s clear that cops should be disarmed in the interest of public safety. 1:03 pm on December 16, 2013 The Best of William Norman Grigg |
Photos: Photos: Highest-paid TV actors and actresses The highest-paid TV actors and actresses – Forbes has released its list of highest-paid TV actresses of 2014 , and Sofia Vergara was at the top. The "Modern Family" performer made $37 million, thanks to her TV show and endorsement deals with such brands as Diet Pepsi and CoverGirl. Here are 13 other TV actors and actresses whose 2014 haul helped them land in Forbes. Hide Caption 1 of 14 Photos: Photos: Highest-paid TV actors and actresses The highest-paid TV actors and actresses – Mariska Hargitay, the longtime star of "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," came in second with a take of $13 million, drawn from her per-episode salary as well as syndication earnings. In addition to "SVU," Hargitay oversees a nonprofit, the Joyful Heart Foundation. Hide Caption 2 of 14 Photos: Photos: Highest-paid TV actors and actresses The highest-paid TV actors and actresses – Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting's success on "The Big Bang Theory" has made her one of the most financially successful actresses in the business. The 2014 tally for the star? $11 million. Hide Caption 3 of 14 Photos: Photos: Highest-paid TV actors and actresses The highest-paid TV actors and actresses – Julianna Margulies recently earned an Emmy for her performance on "The Good Wife." The actress made $10 million, according to Forbes. Hide Caption 4 of 14 Photos: Photos: Highest-paid TV actors and actresses The highest-paid TV actors and actresses – Ellen Pompeo's long run on "Grey's Anatomy" has kept her on Forbes' list. The actress made $10 million in 2014. Hide Caption 5 of 14 Photos: Photos: Highest-paid TV actors and actresses The highest-paid TV actors and actresses – Cobie Smulders is moving on from "How I Met Your Mother," which wrapped up its run in March. That's OK: Films such as "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" have kept her in demand. She tallied $10 million. Hide Caption 6 of 14 Photos: Photos: Highest-paid TV actors and actresses The highest-paid TV actors and actresses – Smulders' "HIMYM" castmate Alyson Hannigan also made out well in 2014. According to Forbes, the actress made $9.5 million. Hide Caption 7 of 14 Photos: Photos: Highest-paid TV actors and actresses The highest-paid TV actors and actresses – Forbes also keeps track of male TV performers. Tops on its list is Ashton Kutcher, who made $26 million from such projects as the show "Two and a Half Men" and deals with Nikon and Lenovo. Hide Caption 8 of 14 Photos: Photos: Highest-paid TV actors and actresses The highest-paid TV actors and actresses – Kutcher's "Two and a Half Men" castmate Jon Cryer is also doing well for himself. The actor made $19 million in 2014. Hide Caption 9 of 14 Photos: Photos: Highest-paid TV actors and actresses The highest-paid TV actors and actresses – Mark Harmon stars on the top-rated "NCIS," a highlight of a steady career that spans more than three decades. Harmon made $19 million in 2014, Forbes says. Hide Caption 10 of 14 Photos: Photos: Highest-paid TV actors and actresses The highest-paid TV actors and actresses – Neil Patrick Harris' versatility -- he acts! he sings! he dances! -- has made him an in-demand host as well as a top-notch performer. Another "HIMYM" actor, Harris made $18 million in 2014. Hide Caption 11 of 14 Photos: Photos: Highest-paid TV actors and actresses The highest-paid TV actors and actresses – Patrick Dempsey earned $16 million in 2014. The "Grey's Anatomy" actor has deals with Porsche and Simmons Beautyrest. Hide Caption 12 of 14 Photos: Photos: Highest-paid TV actors and actresses The highest-paid TV actors and actresses – The shrewd Kevin Spacey is a notable producer -- his company, Trigger Street, has had a hand in such films as "Captain Phillips" and "The Social Network" -- and continues to shine as an actor, particularly in "House of Cards." Spacey earned $16 million in 2014. Hide Caption 13 of 14 |
by @marathemara I know where I came from; but what about all you zombies? –Robert Heinlein Dad Egbert and his post-scratch counterpart Dad Crocker are a fascinating enigma. For one thing, he’s the only human in all of Homestuck, with the exception of historical and cultural figures, who was actually born, and who looks and acts the same way in both Alpha and Beta timelines. How did that happen? Where did Dad come from, and who is he? Here is what we know about Dad Egbert/Crocker: Before the Scratch, he’s Jane’s son, John’s guardian, and a lover of practical jokes; after the Scratch, he’s John’s son, Jane’s guardian, and in the Betty Crocker line of succession. In both timelines, he’s a serious businessman with a fondness for fedoras and fedora-fond friends; he keeps a car and a literal ton of shaving cream in his sylladex; and he’s a loving parent, as far as we can tell from his interactions with both John and Jane. Beyond that we know nothing about him: he is drawn faceless except for his nose, and communicates through notes scattered around the house and the occasional Stern Fatherly Emotion. He doesn’t even get a first name. He’s the most enigmatic of Homestuck’s main characters. All eight of the other humans are point-of-view characters–even the other Beta guardians get their own stories told as the Alpha kids–but since we never see Dad as a child or a teenager, we only see him through the eyes of his children, John before the Scratch and Jane after. The really fascinating thing about all of this is not that we have so little knowledge of what Dad is like. What I love about Dad is that John and Jane know just as little about him as we do. Because we never see him through his own eyes, Dad Egbert/Crocker becomes an effective–and quite clever–parody of how children see and imagine their parents. For all his loving nature, he is weirdly aloof, giving his children space to imagine him as things he isn’t, and in one case, deliberately allowing John to believe that he is a comical street performer (though this may be John’s imagination running away with him, more than any encouragement on Dad’s part). This aloofness, combined with the faceless depiction and the notes, exaggerates the emotional distance between parent and child into awesome and ridiculous pastry-based Strife. But it gets better. After the Scratch, Dad becomes a parody of himself. The narration claims Jane has a closer relationship with Dad than John did; she rebelled as John has, but that was years ago and she got over it. But because Dad is such a cipher, the signs we see of his presence are exactly the same as before the Scratch, except weirder. He still keeps his deceased parent in the living room…but as taxidermy instead of the more socially appropriate cremation urn. He still tries to keep his child indoors for their own safety…but this time he does it by moving the refrigerator in front of the door. And when Jane persuades Lil’ Sebastian to move the fridge for her, the note she finds underneath is the same note that John found inside the safe…but again, like so many things in the Alpha timeline, slightly more ridiculous, slightly more funny, and slightly more enigmatic. John didn’t understand his dad, and Jane doesn’t understand him even more. And it’s funny, because we don’t either. |
The Ravens have signed former second-round outside linebacker Sergio Kindle to the practice squad. The Ravens announced the previously reported move this morning and cut cornerback Jordan Mabin from the practice squad. The former All-Big 12 selection went unclaimed off waivers today after being released Saturday when the Ravens activated Suggs from the reserve-non-football injury list. "He was good about it, actually," Ravens coach John Harbaugh said when asked how Kindle handled being released. "I think he's very determined to be a good football player in this league. We're going to see if we can get him onto the practice squad. We have some tough choices to make there. "We still think he has a chance. We really think there's a possibility he could grow into a player. We've seen some glimpses in practice." Drafted in the second round out of Texas in 2010, Kindle fractured his skull days before training camp of his rookie season. The Dallas native suffered permanent hearing loss in his left ear when he fell down two flights of stairs and suffered neurological damage that required several months of rehabilitation. Kindle recorded his first career NFL tackle, a solo stop, against the Philadelphia Eagles during a 24-23 loss at Lincoln Financial Field on Sept. 16. However, he has been a healthy scratch for the past four games. "I love Serg," nose guard Terrence Cody said. "We came in together and I kind of looked at him as an older brother and stuff because they were looking for us to do some things for the defense and the defense. It's kind of depressing. At the same time, it's a business." Kindle had expressed disappointment recently to The Sun about his level of activity, but vowed to keep working hard. "It would be nice to play against anybody," Kindle said prior to being released. "I don't really ask the coaches anything. You just work hard, and the time will come. You got to be calm. Frustration ain't going to get you nowhere. I'm practicing well. I got to keep doing that, and it will all fall into place." awilson@baltsun.com |
Ryan Murphy has another brand new series coming your way. As well as working on American Horror Story, Scream Queens, American Crime Story and his most recent hot property Feud, the TV mastermind has somehow found the time to create another series. According to Deadline, the series will be set in 1986 and “examines the juxtaposition of several segments of life and society in New York City: the emergence of the luxury Trump-era universe, the downtown social and literary scene and the ball culture world”. Ball culture refers to an underground LGBT+ subculture in the United States, especially prominent in New York City in the 80s, where queer people compete for trophies and prizes at events known as balls. The scene was brought to the world’s attention in iconic 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning, and is regularly drawn upon for inspiration by reality behemoth RuPaul’s Drag Race. Related: Why Feud is more than just camp fun – it’s something of a revolution As with the majority of Ryan’s other shows, including Nip/Tuck and the campy musical hit Glee, we’re expecting Pose to feature plenty of LGBT+ characters that will surely make the show a queer favourite. Unlike his other shows, however, Pose is expected to star “largely new and unknown performers”. Ryan will produce the show alongside American Crime Story producers Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson. It’s slated for a 2018 premiere. Elsewhere, it’s been revealed that former Glee star Darren Criss will play Andrew Cunanan, who murdered legendary fashion designer Gianni Versace in 1997, in the third season of American Crime Story. |
Lying in pitch darkness, sealed in a tank of warm water and held perfectly afloat, thanks to about 400 kilograms of Epsom salt. In the early 1980s, sensory deprivation tanks, as they used to be known, were all the rage. But for a variety of reasons, including a bad recession and misconceptions at the height of the AIDS crisis, the trend dried up, according to Treeka Drake. Treeka Drake, owner of One Love Float, says floating lets her feel more connected to herself. (Evelyne Asselin/CBC) "And so it kind of crashed. By the 90s, it was unheard of, you couldn't find them anymore," she said. Now they're back. Drake's business, One Love Float, is one of several places people can experience sensory deprivation floatation in Calgary. Drake says in today's hyper-connected world, floating is a rare opportunity to get away from it all. "Here we find it's just a lot of people looking for self-exploration. People seem to love just to be able to unplug," she said. "There's a lot of answers in silence." Dustin Ryan, co-founder of FloatLife, says he's noticed a growing interest in floating since his business opened in 2014. (Evelyne Asselin/CBC) Dustin Ryan, who opened FloatLife in northwest Calgary in 2014, also says there is a growing interest in floating. "It's been going great. We've definitely been seeing more of a resurgence of floating in Calgary," he said. "Before we opened up, there were very few places where people had the opportunity to float." |
A family-owned trucking firm that has a contract to deliver Diebold electronic voting machines to 14 voting districts in Maryland is headed by the former chairman of Maryland's Republican party, Wired News has learned. Office Movers, which is owned by The Kane Company in Elkridge, Maryland, received the contract from Diebold Election Systems to transport the company's machines from warehouses to the polls for the state's Feb. 12 primary and November general election. John M. Kane, president and CEO of The Kane Company, was chairman of the Maryland Republican Party from the end of 2002 until December 2006. He is also a member of the statewide steering committee for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. According to one news report, Kane has been tasked since last month with raising money for Romney in Maryland, a Democratic stronghold. His wife is a delegate on the Republican primary ballot for Romney rival Rudy Giuliani. Even in this tumultuous election season, the company's political affiliations might not raise conflict-of-interest questions were it delivering old-fashioned voting machines. But the Diebold touch-screen voting machines used in Maryland produce no paper trail and have experienced glitches that have invited close scrutiny after previous elections. A report compiled by the elections office in Montgomery County, Maryland, (immediately northwest of the District of Columbia) after the 2004 presidential election revealed that 189 machines (7 percent) there failed on election day. Of these machines, 58 wouldn't boot up and were taken out of service, and another 106 experienced frozen screens. Other counties have experienced problems with the machines as well. Local voting-integrity activists were surprised to hear of Office Movers' deal with Diebold (now known as Premier Election Solutions), and they worry that the integrity of elections is at risk if machines are transported by a company whose owner is so closely aligned with a party and candidate. "What concerns us the most is that there is a chain-of-custody issue here," says Mary Kiraly of the Maryland Election Integrity Coalition, an umbrella group of five organizations, including the Maryland branches of Common Cause and the American Civil Liberties Union. "Twenty thousand voting units leave the custody of Board of Elections officials, and they are placed in the hands of a third-party private company responsible, not to the state Board of Elections, but to the vendor," Kiraly says. "How was this company chosen, and who vetted the employees who handle and deliver these vulnerable voting units?" According to Maryland's statewide contract with Diebold, which the state signed in 2003 for $55.6 million, the vendor is responsible for providing secure storage and transport of its voting machines. Although the machines are stored in county warehouses, private companies are subcontracted by Diebold to transport the machines from the warehouses to polls and back again at the end of the election. Reached by phone, Kane acknowledges some irony in his company delivering the voting machines, but says there's no conflict of interest since he's no longer head of the state Republican Party and isn't currently involved in it. Although The Baltimore Sun reported last month that Kane would be raising money for Romney, he says his position on Romney's presidential steering committee is purely ceremonial and that he's done no fundraising except for his own $2,000 contribution. "They just wanted the former chairman's name (on the committee) to show that (Romney) had gravitas in the state," he says. Office Movers is contracted to deliver machines in 14 of the state's 24 voting districts this year, including Montgomery County – Maryland's most populous. Four other private companies will deliver in the remainder of the state. A fifth company, Signature Space, is contracted to serve as project manager, responsible for the logistics of all the deliveries of the companies. Office Movers also delivered Diebold machines in the 2004 election cycle, when it was contracted to deliver machines to eight Maryland counties during that year's general election, and to an unknown number during the primary. It was hired by Diebold indirectly that year through a subcontractor commissioned to manage the deliveries and pick other contractors to deliver the machines. According to a contractor who worked for Diebold at the time, when the subcontractor picked Office Movers for part of the project, Diebold wanted to keep the information confidential, because of Kane's relationship with the Republican Party. "They didn't want to have any political blowback (from the contract)," says Chris Hood, who worked as a Diebold contractor from 2001 to 2004 producing voter-education materials. Hood recalled a 2004 conference call with Diebold officials in which Tom Feehan, Diebold's project manager for Maryland, told participants that the contract with Office Movers had been signed, but that they needed to keep the news under wraps. Diebold had run headfirst into a firestorm of controversy in 2003 when it was discovered that CEO Walden O'Dell had sent a fundraising invitation to wealthy Republicans in Ohio saying that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes" to President Bush in 2004. Hood says because of the logistics involved in delivering thousands of machines to polls, Office Movers has possession of the machines for hours at a time. "Anything could be done," he says. "You could take a whole truck of machines and drive it into the warehouse, and drive another truck out. So a lot of things could happen. But there is no security in the process of deploying voting machines. Absolutely no security." Since the company picks up machines from polling places after elections, it means the company has possession of machines that fail or otherwise perform irregularly during the election or that might later be involved in recounts. In a tight election, that arrangement could cast a shadow on any postelection troubleshooting or recount. Ross Goldstein, deputy administrator with the Maryland state Board of Elections, says he was aware of Kane's political connections, but that he's not concerned about them because the voting machines are secure. "These machines are locked, sealed, tamper-taped," he says. "There are very strict protocols that the drivers follow. I think it's a little far-fetched to assume that he's going to have drivers that are in cahoots. There are enough other security procedures involved with the seals that I don't think it's an issue." Mike Morrill, spokesman for Diebold/Premier, says that Office Movers is a natural choice for delivering its machines, because the company has had contracts with various government agencies and local boards of elections going back many years. "We've all found them to perform very well, which is why we looked at them again this year," he says. As for Kane's political connections, Morrill says he thinks Hood probably misunderstood what he heard on that 2004 conference call. It would have been silly for Diebold to try to keep its deal with Kane's company quiet, because Diebold provides each county with a report naming the company that will deliver its machines, and gives the same information to the state Board of Elections. Although he says he was not aware that Kane was on the steering committee for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, he says that Kane's and his wife's political affiliations are well-known and irrelevant, since they're part of Kane's personal life, and his company has never been accused of political wrongdoing. Morrill adds that if Diebold/Premier screened out companies involved in political activity of one type or another in Maryland, it would have trouble finding anyone. "You assume somehow that all of the people who work for him would share (his political) perspective," Morrill says. "I don't think you can assume that someone who engages in political activity on a personal level would then use their corporation to serve that purpose." Kane notes that his company has been delivering voting machines in the state for 38 years and that Office Movers withdrew from its contract to deliver voting machines in 2006 while he was chairman of the state Republican Party "out of fear of any conflict of interest being raised." "It was my desire not to be a story line," he says. "I didn't want to have a cartoon in The Baltimore Sun with me in the back of a truck with a screwdriver saying, 'Chairman Kane delivers the vote.'" That conflict-of-interest fear, however, didn't prevent the company from bidding on the contract in the first place. The company's withdrawal three months before the primary raised criticism at the time from Maryland's Democratic Party, which believed that Kane was trying to disrupt the election and suppress the vote by creating chaos that would discourage voters from voting. Vote suppression is generally viewed as a tactic that benefits Republican candidates. Kane says that was never his motivation for canceling the contract and that he hadn't been aware until after the contract was signed that his company was planning to deliver the voting machines that year. He adds he has never had any personal contact with Diebold/Premier, and says he doesn't even know the value of the delivery contract, though he thinks it might be around half a million dollars. The Kane Company, which owns a number of other shipping companies in addition to Office Movers, makes $7 million a month in revenue, according to Kane. David Paulson, spokesman for Maryland's Democratic Party, says that Kane's affiliations with the Republican Party and Romney's campaign are a concern but doesn't think they should prevent the company from having the delivery contract. "It concerns me that an individual with heavy political ties to the Republican Party and to Mitt Romney is associated or involved in any way in the electoral process in a way that could be disruptive if one chose to be," he says, "But there's never been a hint, beside that breaking of the contract in 2006, of manipulation or otherwise nefarious activity on behalf of Office Movers." He says he believes Kane is "an honest person" and wouldn't "do something illegal or unethical in service of a contract like this." But he also says that because Democrats control local boards of elections across the state, he expects that "these contracts and this delivery service will be closely watched and monitored to ensure that nothing untoward occurs." |
Newly released video of George Zimmerman at the Sanford Police Department the night he shot Trayvon Martin to death show the neighborhood watch volunteer without blood on his clothing or bruises on his face or head. His clean-shaven picture seems to contrast with the violent beating he told police he endured at the hands of Martin, 17, who Zimmerman said attacked him from behind. The video, obtained by ABC News, appears inconsistent with Zimmerman’s recently leaked statement to police that he was in a death struggle with Martin before Zimmerman shot him in the chest in self-defense. Zimmerman told investigators that Martin jumped him from behind, punched him in the nose and pounded his head into a sidewalk, according to a police report first described by the Orlando Sentinal. In the video, apparently taken by surveillance cameras outside and inside the police station, Zimmerman’s face and head are clearly visible and show no injuries consistent with the kind of fight Zimmerman's statement described. Zimmerman, 28, the neighborhood watch captain at the Retreat at Twin Lakes gated community, is seen arriving in a police cruiser. He gets out of the car with his hands cuffed behind his back. Zimmerman is clean-shaven and appears several pounds lighter than in ubiquitous mug shot of him taken in 2005 when he was arrested on a charge of assaulting a police officer. The video’s release comes amid shifting public perception of Martin, whose baby-faced image has become the face of the so-called “Trayvon Martin movement for Justice” that has captivated much of the U.S. Earlier this week, school officials in Miami released Martin’s disciplinary record, showing that he had been on a 10-day suspension when he was killed. According to reports, school officials found an empty baggy that contained marijuana residue. Meanwhile, some websites have replaced widely circulated family photos of Martin with pictures of him sporting removable gold tooth caps. Other websites have picked seemingly random photos of other youth in questionable or offensive poses and claimed that they are of Martin. Martin’s family has called the counter-offensive an assault on Martin’s character and a “smear campaign.” Tracy Martin, the teen's father, told HuffPost earlier this week, “I refuse to let them assassinate my son’s character." He added: "The question should not be why was he suspended from school, it should be why did this man kill him in cold blood." Zimmerman shot Martin to death the night of Feb. 26. Martin had been walking toward his father's girlfriend's house shortly after 7 p.m. and Zimmerman spotted him and called 911 to report a "suspicious" person. Zimmerman followed Martin, disregarding a police dispatcher who told him "we don't need you to do that." Police said early in the investigation that Martin noticed he was being followed, asked Zimmerman what he wanted, and a physical encounter ensued. In the recently released police reports, Zimmerman told police he got out of his vehicle to follow Martin, but lost sight of him. As he walked back to his vehicle, Martin attacked him from behind, punched him in the nose, knocked him down and began smashing the back of his head into the sidewalk, police reports say Zimmerman told officers. During the tussle, Zimmerman pulled the 9 mm handgun he carried and shot Martin in the chest, he told police. Lawyers for the Martin family said Zimmerman was the aggressor. The lawyers said Martin's girlfriend in Miami was on the phone with him just moments before he was killed. The girlfriend has told ABC News and family lawyers that Martin told her someone was following him. She said she heard someone ask Martin something, then what sounded like someone pushing him. The phone sounded like it was then knocked to the ground and went dead, the girl said. The funeral director who handled Martin's funeral said there were no cuts or bruises on the teen's hands that would suggest a violent struggle or fight. “I didn’t see any evidence he had been fighting anybody,” Richard Kurtz of Roy Mizell and Kurtz Funeral Home in Fort Lauderdale, told television talk show host Nancy Grace. |
The Somerset County 4-H Fair is Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, Aug. 12-14, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. at North Branch Park, 355 Milltown Road, Bridgewater. Since 1948, thousands of visitors have enjoyed the Somerset County 4-H Fair. The Fair has grown and changed, but there are still no admission or parking fees, no midway or carnival rides. This fair recognizes the accomplishments of 1,000 Somerset County 4-H members and is a showcase for visitors to see a wide variety of 4-H projects in action. Maps and schedules of daily events such as dog, horse and livestock shows are available in the information tent. Twirling, go karts, rockets, magic, model airplanes, R.C. cars, model trains and other 4-H clubs compete and perform. The Arts Tent, Science Tent and Prep Tent (for the youngest 4-H'ers) are packed with exhibits, activities for visitors, demonstrations and performances. Ten other 4-H tents house a variety of animals including dairy cows, beef, alpaca, horses, dogs, herpetology, sheep, goats, poultry, rabbits and small animals. Most animal tents have a petting area and information about how to join 4-H. Somerset County Government, Raritan Valley Community College, Veterans Services, Rutgers Cooperative Extension, Somerset County Library and other non-profit organizations and commercial advertisers have displays, information, contests and free gifts. Under the big top, over 20 community organizations offer a wide variety of meals and snacks. All day, professional and amateur entertainment can be enjoyed. The fair is sponsored by the Somerset County 4-H Association and the Board of Chosen Freeholders in support of the 4-H Youth Development Program of Rutgers Cooperative Extension. 4-H Members, volunteer Fair Managers, 4-H Club Leaders and parents work together, making this the largest event in Somerset County. Other partners include the Somerset County Park Commission and Raritan Valley Community College. Stevenson- D'Alessio American Legion Post #12 and Johnson & Johnson Ethicon, Inc. are major donors. To make getting in and out of the fairgrounds as easy as possible, free shuttle buses run from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. each day of the Fair from Raritan Valley Community College, Route 28, Branchburg. |
By Jake Emen It took just a few months of operation for Lyon Distilling Company of St. Michaels, Maryland to break a 42-year streak which stood as a stain against a state with ties to whiskey distilling dating to the colonial days. When they introduced Maryland Free State Rye Whiskey, it became the first rye made in Maryland since 1972, and the latest step for partners Ben Lyon and Jamie Windon as they continue to embark on a journey of craft distilling. Located on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Lyon Distilling currently produces a range of rums, the Free State Rye and New Make Corn Whiskey. Beginning with rum and moving to whiskey was no accident, either. “The reason we started with rum is because one, I really like it. It’s sort of an underdog spirit,” says Ben Lyon, the company’s distiller. “But also, the historical trajectory of distilling in Maryland … go back to the 1700s and Maryland had something like 5 rum distilleries. So, starting with rum was historically significant while fulfilling my passion in the spirit itself. And doing the corn whiskey just before the rye, is also sort of keeping with what was being made in Maryland.” As such, Lyon Distilling is looking back at the same time it’s forging ahead, and doing something which would surely make the forefathers happy, getting their hands dirty to produce something they’re proud of stamping their name onto. “Having that tangible result at the end of the day,” Lyon remarks, “and saying, alright, today I made this… to me that’s incredibly satisfying.” Craft & Quality “Jaime and I bootstrapped this operation, we didn’t take any investors,” says Lyon, who emphasizes the importance of having complete control over every detail of the operation. There’s nobody to tell him what to do, how to do it, or what to experiment with. The only pressure is on himself, to continue putting out quality products and to meet a growing demand. That means there’s more than a few all nighters spent in the back room, mashing and fermenting and distilling and bottling, all in a quest to actually get bottles on the shelf by the time the next batch of tourists browsing antique stores and boutique shops descend upon Talbot Street, the quaint main drag of St. Michaels, the following weekend. Currently, Lyon utilizes three 26-gallon traditional pot stills, offering a setup which is ideal for a one-man operation, and his exacting eye for detail, quality and tinkering. “They’re electrically fired, so the second you make an adjustment, because of the size, that instantaneous change of temperature occurs, and there are lots of little variables you can control with that,” Lyon shares. “It’s a super efficient setup. I have the ability to do really small batches, or, we’ll run them in sequence, and we have almost 100 gallons total of distillation capacity.” Lyon actually honed his craft on a custom-built 150-gallon Kothe still, but loves the quality and precision offered by his current setup. Of course, it also helped to keep investment costs down, as larger stills can become exponentially more expensive. Two more 26-gallon stills should be arriving within the next few months to help increase output, although new fermenters would be an even bigger help. They currently have about half a dozen open-fermentation 55-gallon drums, but he has his eye on a few 500-gallon fermenters which would help him ramp up the process significantly. As it stands, production is between 100 and 150 bottles per week, across their entire family of rums and whiskeys. Lyon finishes a batch, and a few days later it’s gone. The Spirits Named in honor of Maryland’s refusal to pass state enforcement laws in support of the Prohibition era Volstead Act, Free State Rye offers a mash bill of 55% rye, 35% corn and 10% malted barley. It’s making its debut as an unaged white whiskey. Lightly-aged versions are to come, utilizing tiny 1-gallon charred new American oak barrels. Free State Rye offers a buttery profile, almost popcorn-like in flavor. It’s far from traditional, and doesn’t have the spice you might expect from a rye, nor the bite you might expect from a white whiskey. It’s also an interesting counterpoint to the floral, citrusy Mosby’s Spirit from their relatively nearby neighbors in Virginia, Catoctin Creek. While the aged renditions aren’t yet available for sale, during my visit there happened to be a bit of 1-month aged Free State Rye available for sampling straight from the barrel. Here, there’s a more classic rye profile with some sharper spice, and notes of rye grain. Another few months in there should certainly do it some good. Lyon’s New Make Corn Whiskey is made from locally sourced organic corn and malted barley with a mash bill of 90% corn, 8% malted barley and 2% rye. It’s bottled basically fresh off the stills, spending just 18 hours in a barrel. This provides the faintest touch of wood and vanilla to the whiskey, but also means it could technically be called a bourbon as well. For Lyon, he managed to even surprise and impress himself with the New Make Corn, which is easy-sipping and smooth, and best enjoyed neat. “I really like our rye, but I’m almost more proud of the corn whiskey,” he says. “It has depth and character unlike any other corn whiskey I’ve had. “I really like what we’ve done with that, and to surprise people, and yourself, that’s part of the fun. You can get these wild spirits which are unlike anything out there… that’s what this is all about, doing it in small batches, we’re not every day of the week trying to churn out ‘textbook perfect bourbon’ or anything else.” What’s Next at Lyon Distilling? In the future, expect limoncello, gin, and various other experimental products and future surprises to be available as well. For example, they’re planning on distilling the beers of several local breweries. A wholesale license is also in the works, and Lyon expects restaurants from D.C. to Annapolis to keep their rum and whiskey behind the bar. But there are no hard and fast goals for production increases, and Lyon never wants to lose his total control, along with his license to experiment and tweak and fine-tune. “I want to be able to service those outlets,” Lyon says, “but I always want this to be the operation where I have my hands on every part of the process. When you start to have somebody else doing fermentations or this or that, it changes. It totally changes.” Of course, Lyon Distilling has only been open for a few months. With new stills and fermentation barrels in the works, the growth will come. There’s time for that, and it’s going to be interesting to see where they are in a year or two, and what some of these spirits and projects turn into. Plenty of companies claim to emphasize Lyon’s dedication to handcrafted quality and his attention to detail, but few actually stick to it. For now, if their small-batch status means they sell out by the time you visit the distillery – and they are indeed constantly selling out of their limited supply – well, so be it. Quality and craft are the only priorities here. Visiting If you’re planning a trip out to the Eastern Shore distillery, be sure to call in advance and see if they have any of the Free State Rye or New Make Corn, or whatever else you’re into, on hand. It goes quickly. Visitors can stop by anytime between 12 and 6, and you can pop on back to get the tour and see the stills, and try some free tastings. One concession to that expected growth may be a more limited time for tours in the future. |
Actor Kevin Spacey was so taken with the way Boston handled itself following the Boston Marathon bombings he felt he had to help in any way possible. The late night TV scene this past week was dominated by Jimmy Fallon's ascension to the throne of NBC's "Tonight Show," his tremendously funny viral videos and Jimmy Kimmel's "Sochi wolf" hoax. But Spacey's appearance on the "Late Show with David Letterman" was the week's highlight for Bostonians and the people who love the city so. Spacey talked to Letterman about how the aftermath of the bombings affected his life when he met with survivors at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital and several other medical facilities - without any pre-publicity - for four days last spring and how it inspired him to name his new dog "Boston." "There are two Bostons to me," he said. "After the marathon last year I was so moved by what happened I wanted to so something." The trip ended up with Spacey getting a new dog, one sent by a shelter in New York to help the bombing victims heal emotionally, and reaffirming his love for the city. The dog was originally named "Cuddles" because of the way she dealt with people. She won over Spacey's heart but was given the name "Boston" to honor the Hub. You can see how much "Boston" has grown by checking out these photos of the pup Spacey Tweeted last spring: Mystery solved. New member of my family. Her name is Boston in honor of the city. @animalleague RT pic.twitter.com/uCcKjcsDmc — Kevin Spacey (@KevinSpacey) May 4, 2013 They do grow so fast, don't they. Check out his full conversation with Letterman here. Well done, Kevin. Got a news tip, want to let me know directly what you think, or have a complaint or compliment about my "aggressively relevant" content, hit me up on our Obnoxious Boston Fan Facebook page, on Twitter @realOBF or e-mail me at obnoxiousbostonfan@hotmail.com. Thanks always for reading and pass the clicker. |
One in every five U.S. pediatricians say anti-vaxxers aren't welcome at their practices. (iStockphoto) By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterMONDAY, Nov. 2, 2015 (HealthDay News) -- One of every five U.S. pediatricians regularly drops families who refuse to have their children vaccinated, a new survey shows. Doctors in the South and Northeast were more likely to take this hardline stance, said study lead author Dr. Sean O'Leary, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Children's Hospital Colorado in Denver. But O'Leary said he's heard anecdotally that pediatricians across the nation have come under pressure to refuse to take on unvaccinated children, following the Disneyland measles outbreak that occurred earlier this year. "I'm hearing the practice has become more common, particularly in California, following the outbreak," O'Leary said. "Parents say, 'I don't want to take my child to a clinic with non-vaccinators and expose them to risk,' so there is parental pressure on some pediatricians." An ongoing medical debate continues to simmer over a doctor's right to refuse treatment for children whose parents are against vaccination, O'Leary added. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention both discourage this strategy, the study authors said in background information. The survey is published online Nov. 2 in the journal Pediatrics, an academy publication. These organizations urge physicians to keep treating the children of vaccine-reluctant parents, and to build a relationship of trust that could lead to the parents being convinced of the safety of and need for childhood vaccinations. To see how widespread the practice of dismissing anti-vaccine families has become, the researchers conducted a survey of 815 pediatricians and family physicians in 2012. About 66 percent of the doctors responded to the survey. Those surveyed said it's generally rare for a parent to refuse a vaccination for their child. Overall, 83 percent of doctors reported that 1 percent or fewer parents refuse one or more infant vaccines in a typical month. When that happens, 21 percent of pediatricians and 4 percent of family physicians said they "always" or "often" dismiss families, according to the survey results. Pediatricians likely to dismiss families over vaccination are nearly five times more likely to be in private practice, and four times more likely to be from the South or a state that does not allow philosophical exemptions from vaccination. There are a number of reasons why pediatricians take this tack, said O'Leary and Dr. H. Dele Davies, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics' committee on infectious diseases. "For these physicians, what I'm hearing them say is they strongly feel not immunizing their children is such a great risk that they're taking a stand," said Davies, an expert on pediatric infectious diseases and vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, in Omaha. Because pediatricians only treat children, they are likely to be much more concerned with the safety of clientele who have not yet been immunized, Davies said. "They may be reflecting their sense that, if you don't want to do this, I don't want to expose my other patients to potential risk," he said. Pediatricians may also feel that they won't be able to establish a relationship with parents if they can't see eye-to-eye on vaccination, O'Leary said. "The pediatrician might feel that the physician/patient relationship may not be a productive one if they're so far apart in terms of a core concept like vaccination," O'Leary said. "Pediatricians consider vaccination one of the most important things they do." Finally, pediatricians sometimes use the threat of dropping a family to convince parents to agree to vaccination, O'Leary said. "It really convinces a lot of parents to go ahead and get their child vaccinated, because it's such a strong message about the importance of vaccination," he said. No one knows what happens to families who are dropped for vaccination refusal, which demonstrates the need for further research on this topic, O'Leary said. "This practice is pretty common, and we don't know what happens to those families," he said. "We don't know how often they make the decision to go ahead and vaccinate, despite their concerns. We don't know where they go if they do leave their pediatrician." Dr. Wanda Filer, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, said her group also discourages dropping families over the issue of vaccination. Family physicians are much less likely to drop families, according to the survey results. Filer said that's probably because these doctors treat the entire family, and not just the kids. In fact, Filer said the Disneyland measles outbreak has made parents in her York, Pa.-based practice more interested in making sure kids are properly immunized. "There's more opportunity for family physicians to double down on conversations about the importance of vaccines," she said. More information Visit the U.S. National Institutes of Health for more on childhood vaccinations. |
Mud-free and musically diverse, this year's Glastonbury was one of the best in recent memory. Here are some of the things we spotted along the way. 1) Craig David created his own legend's slot Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Craig David performs Ain't Giving Up at Glastonbury 2017 When 100,000 people sang "boink", Craig David was all over it. The star celebrated his improbable, but amazing, career resurgence by throwing a huge party on the Pyramid Stage, full of his greatest hits (and quite a few other people's too). Afterwards, fans said Craig should have been given Glastonbury's coveted Sunday afternoon "legend's slot". But sadly that will never happen... He chills on Sunday. 2) Karma Police Image copyright Daniel J Singer There might have been extra security at Glastonbury this year, but the police weren't about to let that dampen the spirits. If anything, the boys and girls in blue were determined to keep the Glastonbury spirit alive and kicking. There was also this business with the mounted police and a false horse's head. The stuff of nightmares. Image copyright Glasto Police / Twitter Image copyright Glasto Police / Twitter 3) It was sunny... Perhaps too sunny Image copyright Getty Images On Wednesday, as temperatures reached 34C, we sat on the hill opposite the Park Stage when, all of a sudden, everyone broke into a spontaneous round of applause. Five minutes later, it happened again. And again. It took us about half an hour to work out that, every time, they were celebrating the sun disappearing behind a cloud. 4) Dua Lipa broke herself Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Dua Lipa sings an acoustic version of Lost in Your Light at Glastonbury 2017. "I've done myself an injury," said Dua Lipa, as she limped into the BBC compound after a performance at the John Peel stage that was as packed with hits as it was people. "I've mashed my tailbone," she grimaced. "It was already bruised after I fell off a jet ski. Then I went on stage and danced like I'd never danced before. All sorts of crazy stuff. Now I can barely walk." Get well soon, Dua! 5) Don't let dreadlocks drag you down Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Dreadlock holiday One reveller had a very creative solution to their bad hair day. 6) The Foo Fighters settled an old score with David Beckham Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Foo Fighters perform Everlong at Glastonbury 2017 In 1998, when the Foo Fighters played their first ever Glastonbury, half of the audience walked away to watch England v Colombia in the World Cup - a match where David Beckham scored one of England's two goals. Fast forward 19 years, and the band headline the Pyramid Stage with Beckham watching from the sidelines. That makes the score 1-1. But what happens next? 7) It was the starriest Glastonbury ever Image copyright EPA It wasn't just Beckham watching from the sidelines. We spotted Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt and Game of Thrones star Kit Harington hanging out at the festival. Image copyright Getty Images We also spotted Margot Robbie, Cara Delevingne and off-duty musicians Chris Martin and Rita Ora who, judging by her Instagram, arrived in a helicopter. Image copyright Rita Ora / Instagram Most surprising of all was Bradley Cooper - who turned up on the Pyramid Stage and played guitar (albeit silently) while filming a sequence for the upcoming remake of A Star Is Born. He then introduced a set by country singer Kris Kristoffersen, who starred in the 1976 version of the film alongside Barbra Streisand. Image copyright Sarah Jeynes Image caption The star last visited Glastonbury as a guest of Metallica in 2014 8) It's hard to concentrate on your delicate piano ballad when Jools Holland strikes up his big band Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Sigrid shares her vocal warm-up secrets We had the privilege of watching up-and-coming pop star Sigrid soundcheck for a live session on BBC Radio 1. As you can see above, her acoustic rendition of Don't Kill My Vibe was nothing short of stunning. Unfortunately, when it came to the broadcast, the Norwegian was interrupted by Jools Holland and his Big Band, who launched into a thunderous set on the nearby Pyramid Stage. Sigrid persevered; eyes screwed tight, delivering a delicate and heartfelt performance against the boogie woogie barrage. "That was weird," she told us afterwards. "I could hear the whole show behind me. I really had to concentrate. Thank goodness I had headphones!" 9) Ohhhhh, Jeremy Corbyn Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The Labour leader was introduced on stage by Glastonbury Festival founder Michael Eavis Everywhere you went, the chant broke out: "Ohhhh, Jeremy Corbyn." We heard it between bands, we heard it in the healing field, we even heard it at the silent disco. But most of all, we heard it during his appearance on the Pyramid Stage. The Labour leader delivered a well-received speech - but he forgot the one thing he was supposed to do: Introduce US hip-hop band Run The Jewels onto the stage. Speaking to the BBC afterwards, they didn't seem to mind. "He said a lot of things that resonated with the common man," said Killer Mike. "I was very impressed. Old G can talk." 10) Katy Perry doesn't know the Scottish flag Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Katy Perry performs Roar at Glastonbury 2017 "I can see all of you!" shouted Katy Perry to the hordes who came to see her at the Pyramid Stage. "Even that security guard in the neon, way in the back by that blue flag with the X." That would be the Saltire, Katy. The flag of Scotland. Mind you, how many of you know the flag of Katy's home state, California? (It's got a grizzly bear on it, FYI). 11) You don't have to spend a fortune on instruments to play Glastonbury Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Vegetable orchestra plays Glastonbury Dave Grohl's signature DG-335 Gibson guitar will set you back about £4,500 - but you can play Glastonbury after a visit to your grocer, as we discovered when we met Finnish musician Vicky O'Neon. 12) Stormzy had the time of his life Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Stormzy performs Big For Your Boots at Glastonbury 2017 "Hey, mumzy, look at your boy now," beamed Stormzy, as he surveyed the massive crowd who turned up for his set on The Other Stage. They included one Katherine Perry, who told the rapper she had "delayed the helicopter" to catch his set. "[I'm] just a massive fan," she added on Snapchat. Image copyright Twitter After posing for photographs with the star backstage, Stormzy took to Twitter to express his disbelief at how the whole night went down. "So happy right now, thank you to every single person that came and saw me," he wrote. "Chris Martin came to speak to me after. What an inspiration. And Katy Perry came as well! What a dream. We thank God." Then, apropos of nothing, he added, "Before I forget, Dynamo is the greatest magician on the planet." Whatever you say, Stormzy. Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk. |
Do you love free movies? YouTube may be one of the best options for great free movies! Here are some of the best YouTube Channels for free movies. Maverick Entertainment Love high-quality independent movies? Maverick Movies not only has great movies but also original shows with the makers of these films. You can find the Maverick Entertainment YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/maverickent The Paramount Vault Paramount Vault is one of the classic film production houses in the United States. Now they are offering their classic movies and even newer movies—everything from B movies to big name blockbusters—Paramount Vault has it all 100% free on YouTube. You can find the Paramount Vault YouTube Channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzMVH2jEyEwXPBvyht8xQNw Viewster Viewster promotes that they add new movies every day. With a large selection of movies from every genre you can think of, Viewster as a channel everyone should check out. You can find Viewster’s YouTube Channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/ViewsterTV Timeless Classic Movies Love old classic movies? Timeless Classic Movies is a great YouTube channel that has everything from sci-fi, such as Plan 9 from Outer Space, to dramas, such as The St. Louis Bank Robbery. They have something for everyone. You can find Timeless Classic Movies on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/user/TimelessClassicMovie Timeless Western Movies Love westerns from shorts to full-length movies? Timeless Western Movies has you covered! You can find Timeless Western Movies on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/user/timelesswesternmovie Please follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more news, tips, and reviews. Need cord cutting tech support? Join our new Cord Cutting Tech Support Facebook Group for help. |
Story highlights Widower Jacob Stevens is a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed against the NYPD Stevens says the police failed to investigate his wife's death after she was hit by a car At the heart of the issue is a seemingly simple phrase: "Likely to die" Jacob Stevens scrambled to new wife Clara's side moments after she was struck by a car and whispered desperate entreaties for her to live. But in his heart, he knew that Clara Heyworth, 28, would soon die. Blood from a wound on her head was spilling onto the road, Stevens said, and it was clear that she was seriously injured. "I don't think anyone can fix this," Stevens told friends that morning. "We all know this can't be fixed." A lawsuit filed Monday in Brooklyn federal court claims that the driver of the car that struck Heyworth was intoxicated, speeding and violating other traffic laws. But the civil suit -- which names the driver, Anthony Webb, and the New York City Police Department -- is far from open-and-shut. "The New York City Police Department is legally required to investigate traffic accidents if there is a serious injury, but their current policy is not to do so," said a statement from Stevens, who is a plaintiff in the case along with his late wife's estate. "They canceled their investigation into the crash that killed Clara that very night, destroying crucial evidence, and they've also failed to investigate hundreds of other similar cases." The suit goes further, saying that rather than being a random lapse, the handling of Heyworth's case is consistent with an entrenched policy within the NYPD of failing to meaningfully investigate cyclist and pedestrian incidents crashes except when the victim's death is certain. "NYPD systematically misclassifies vehicular crimes as 'accidents,' creating a false appearance of declining crime rates while motorists like Webb escape consequences," according to the lawsuit. Efforts to seek comment from the department and from Webb have been unsuccessful. The City of New York's law department has said they will review the case thoroughly once the legal papers are formally served. 'Likely to die' At the heart of the issue is a seemingly simple phrase: "Likely to die." When traffic crashes result in death, and sometimes when death is imminent, a specialized squad within the NYPD called the Accident Investigation Squad -- trained to perform a comprehensive canvas of the scene -- is called in to investigate. "A sergeant or a lieutenant makes a determination after consultation with the doctors -- say, at the hospital to keep it simple -- that there is a likelihood (of death)," said John Cassidy, executive officer of the NYPD Transportation Bureau, at a City Council hearing in February. "At that point, the accident investigation technicians ... respond to the location, and they begin the examination of the scene." The problem, according to Steve Vaccaro, Stevens' attorney, is that the NYPD has substituted a more restrictive and ill-defined standard of "likely to die." "It is left to untrained officers, given no guidance as to what 'likely to die' means, to obtain a prognosis for the victim from emergency room personnel completely engrossed in saving the victim's life," Vaccaro said. Meanwhile, "the decision of whether to gather and preserve evidence of how the crash occurred hangs in the balance." The lawsuit says Webb's vehicle allegedly struck Heyworth just before 2 a.m. July 10 at an intersection in Brooklyn. "I can still hear the screech of his brakes and the sound of the impact," said Stevens, who was steps away but has no visual memory of the accident. "My friends saw the tire marks that (the car) left all over the road." By 2:06 a.m., an officer who had arrived on the scene, according to the lawsuit, radioed that Heyworth "may be likely" to die. Two minutes after that, the officer asked for an Accident Investigation Squad detective to respond to the scene. Then, at 2:59 a.m., while Heyworth was being rushed to Bellevue Hospital, the Accident Investigation Squad inquiry was called off. "Police canceled the investigation because Heyworth was still alive," Vaccaro said. "No doctor was at that point willing to say she was likely to die." Doctors later estimated that Heyworth was effectively brain dead when her head hit the pavement, so it is unclear why the Accident Investigation Squad inquiry was never started, Stevens said. Despite that, doctors at Bellevue offered an operation to save Heyworth's life, with the caveat that her quality of life would be questionable. Even if it succeeded, Stevens said, it was not clear whether she would regain normal functioning. "The surgeon said, 'I need your guidance here,' " he said. "I was asked, in other words, whether to let her die or to bear the risk of her being severely brain damaged." Stevens gave the go-ahead for the operation, but despite doctors' efforts, Heyworth died. This is where the "likely to die" policy -- which is a departure from state traffic law in which an investigation is triggered, at minimum, in the event of serious injury -- becomes murky for families of victims clamoring for an investigation. "If Clara had survived that operation but come out of it severely brain damaged, what would NYPD's position be?" Stevens asked. "That they were right to cancel their investigation since she hadn't actually died?" Three days after Heyworth's death, the Accident Investigation Squad opened an investigation of her case -- an act Stevens says came way too late to collect crucial evidence. Accidents or criminal acts? Vaccaro says that in many cases involving cyclists or pedestrians versus vehicles, deference is given to drivers, and the tendency is to treat them as accidents rather than potentially criminal acts. "As a civilized society, we cannot classify every accident as lightning bolts from an angry God," Vaccaro said. "These cases have causes that are understood and have to be investigated." The lack of Accident Investigation Squad presence on the night of the crash meant Webb would probably not be criminally charged. "I'm horrified that they canceled their investigation that night," Stevens said. "I'm angry about the fact that this not only applies to Clara and myself, but that there seems to be a policy not to investigate violent road deaths in New York City." What Stevens hopes to gain from the lawsuit is, of course, justice. But on a broader level, he wants the NYPD to make it the rule of law to investigate these cases. "I want to see the law followed and for every case of serious injury or death on the road to be properly investigated," Stevens said. "I want the police to solve the crimes that people want solved." |
Bike Lanes Planned for Fletcher Drive, Meeting Tonight At tonight’s meeting of the Glassell Park Improvement Association, Los Angeles City Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell will be presenting the Department of Transportation’s (LADOT) planned Fletcher Drive Streetscape Project. Project plans are posted at the GPIA website. The project includes a road diet with bike lanes, plus new landscaped median islands. The bike lanes extend 0.8 miles from Fletcher and San Fernando Road to Avenue 36 and Eagle Rock Boulevard. Fletcher turns into Avenue 36 just north of the 2 Freeway. This safety project would make Fletcher Drive safer for students at the adjacent Irving Middle School and Fletcher Drive Elementary School. Fletcher also serves as an important connection from Northeast L.A. to the L.A. River, Silver Lake, and Hollywood, though those connections will need to see the road diet extended below San Fernando Road. Hopefully some day. Tonight’s meeting place at 7 p.m. at the Glassell Park Senior Center at 3750 Verdugo Road, next to the Glassell Park Rec Center and Pool. Nearby Verdugo Road is also in the early planning stages of another NELA street safety road diet project. The project, according to this GPIA Facebook event page, is expected to include “bike lanes, left-turn pocket lanes, high-visibility crosswalks, and reduced lanes of auto traffic” on Verdugo Road from Eagle Rock Boulevard to Plumas Street, near the city border with Glendale. GPIA and Councilmember Jose Huizar are hosting a workshop for public input on the Verdugo Road safety project. The forum takes place next week: Thursday May 19 at 7 p.m. at the Glassell Park Community Center at 3750 Verdugo Road, at the Glassell Park Rec Center and Pool. Find out more about the Verdugo Road project at the Neighbors for a Safer Verdugo website. |
Biblia Pauperum illuminated at From the Apocalypse in ailluminated at Erfurt around the time of the Great Famine. Death sits astride a manticore whose long tail ends in a ball of flame (Hell). Famine points to her hungry mouth. The Great Famine of 1315–1317 (occasionally dated 1315–1322) was the first of a series of large-scale crises that struck Europe early in the 14th century. Most of Europe (extending east to Russia and south to Italy) was affected.[1] The famine caused millions of deaths over an extended number of years and marked a clear end to the period of growth and prosperity from the 11th to the 13th centuries. The Great Famine started with bad weather in spring 1315. Crop failures lasted through 1316 until the summer harvest in 1317, and Europe did not fully recover until 1322. The period was marked by extreme levels of crime, disease, mass death, and even cannibalism and infanticide. The crisis had consequences for the Church, state, European society, and for future calamities to follow in the 14th century. Background [ edit ] Famines were familiar occurrences in Medieval Europe. For example, localised famines occurred in France during the fourteenth century in 1304, 1305, 1310, 1315–1317 (the Great Famine), 1330–34, 1349–51, 1358–60, 1371, 1374–75, and 1390.[2] In England, the most prosperous kingdom affected by the Great Famine, there were famines such as in 1315–1317, 1321, 1351, and 1369.[2] For most people there was often not enough to eat, and life was a relatively short and brutal struggle to survive to old age. According to official records about the English royal family, an example of the best off in society, for whom records were kept, the average life expectancy in 1276 was 35.28 years.[2] Between 1301 and 1325, during the Great Famine it was 29.84 years while between 1348 and 1375 during the Plague, it was only 17.33 years.[2] It demonstrates the relative steep drop between 1348 and 1375 of about 42%.[3] During the Medieval Warm Period (the period prior to 1300), the population of Europe exploded compared to prior eras, reaching levels that were not matched again in some places until the nineteenth century—indeed parts of rural France today are less populous than at the beginning of the fourteenth century.[2] However, the yield ratios of wheat, the number of seeds one could eat per seed planted, had been dropping since 1280, and food prices had been climbing. After favourable harvests, the ratio could be as high as 7:1, but after unfavourable harvests it was as low as 2:1—that is, for every seed planted, two seeds were harvested, one for next year's seed, and one for food. By comparison, modern farming has ratios of 30:1 or more (see agricultural productivity).[2] The onset of the Great Famine coincided with the end of the Medieval Warm Period. Between 1310 and 1330, northern Europe saw some of the worst and most sustained periods of bad weather in the entire Middle Ages, characterized by severe winters and rainy and cold summers. The Great Famine may have been precipitated by a volcanic event,[4] perhaps that of Mount Tarawera, New Zealand, which lasted about five years.[5][6] Changing weather patterns, the ineffectiveness of medieval governments in dealing with crises and population level at a historical high made it a time for little margin for error in food production.[2] Great Famine [ edit ] Europe in 1328. In the spring of 1315, unusually heavy rain began in much of Europe. Throughout the spring and the summer, it continued to rain, and the temperature remained cool. Under such conditions, grain could not ripen, leading to widespread crop failures. Grain was brought indoors in urns and pots to keep dry. The straw and hay for the animals could not be cured, so there was no fodder for the livestock. The price of food began to rise; prices in England doubled between spring and midsummer. Salt, the only way to cure and preserve meat, was difficult to obtain because brine could not be effectively evaporated in wet weather; its price increased from 30 shillings to 40 shillings.[7] In Lorraine, wheat prices grew by 320%, making bread unaffordable to peasants. Stores of grain for long-term emergencies were limited to royalty, lords, nobles, wealthy merchants, and the Church. Because of the general increased population pressures, even lower-than-average harvests meant some people would go hungry; there was little margin for failure. People began to harvest wild edible roots, plants, grasses, nuts, and bark in the forests.[7] A number of documented incidents show the extent of the famine. Edward II of England stopped at St Albans on 10 August 1315 and had difficulty finding bread for himself and his entourage; it was a rare occasion in which the King of England was unable to eat.[8] The French, under Louis X, tried to invade Flanders, but in the low country of the Netherlands, the fields were soaked and the army became so bogged down that they were forced to retreat, burning their provisions where they left them, unable to carry them away.[9] In the spring of 1316, it continued to rain on a European population deprived of energy and reserves to sustain itself. All segments of society from nobles to peasants were affected but especially the peasants, who represented 95% of the population and who had no reserve food supplies.[10] To provide some measure of relief, the future was mortgaged by slaughtering the draft animals, eating the seed grain, abandoning children to fend for themselves (see "Hansel and Gretel") and, among old people, voluntarily refusing food for the younger generation to survive.[10] The chroniclers of the time noted many incidents of cannibalism, although, self-admittedly, "one can never tell if such talk was not simply a matter of rumor-mongering".[10] The height of the famine was reached in 1317, as the wet weather continued. Finally, in that summer, the weather returned to its normal patterns. By then, however, people were so weakened by diseases such as pneumonia, bronchitis, and tuberculosis, and so much of the seed stock had been eaten, that it was not until 1325 that the food supply returned to relatively normal levels and the population began to increase again. Historians debate the toll, but it is estimated that 10–25% of the population of many cities and towns died.[2] Though the Black Death (1347–1351) would kill more people, it often swept through an area in a matter of months, whereas the Great Famine lingered for years, prolonging the suffering of the populace.[2] Geography [ edit ] The Great Famine was restricted to Northern Europe, including the British Isles, northern France, the Low Countries, Scandinavia, Germany, and western Poland.[11] It also affected some of the Baltic states except for the far eastern Baltic, which was affected only indirectly.[11] The famine was bounded to the south by the Alps and the Pyrenees. Consequences [ edit ] The Great Famine is noteworthy for the number of people who died, the vast geographic area that was affected and its length but also its lasting consequences. Church [ edit ] When God saw that the world was so over proud, He sent a dearth on earth, and made it full hard. A bushel of wheat was at four shillings or more, Of which men might have had a quarter before... And then they turned pale who had laughed so loud, And they became all docile who before were so proud. A man's heart might bleed for to hear the cry Of poor men who called out, "Alas! For hunger I die ...!" Poem on the Evil Times of Edward II, c. 1321. In a society whose final recourse for all problems had been religion, and Roman Catholicism was the only tolerated Christian faith, no amount of prayer seemed effective against the causes of the famine. That undermined the institutional authority of the Church[2] and helped lay the foundations for later movements that were deemed heretical by the Church, as they opposed the papacy and blamed the perceived failure of prayer upon corruption within the Church.[2] Cultural [ edit ] Medieval Europe in the fourteenth century had already experienced widespread social violence, and even acts then punishable by death such as rape and murder were demonstrably far more common (especially relative to the population), compared to modern times.[2][12] The famine led to a stark increase in crime, even among those not normally inclined to criminal activity, because people would resort to any means to feed themselves or their family.[2] For the next several decades, after the famine, Europe took on a tougher and more violent edge; it became an even less amicable place than during the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries.[2] This could be seen across all segments of society, perhaps most strikingly in the way warfare was conducted in the fourteenth century during the Hundred Years' War, when chivalry ended, as opposed to the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries when nobles were more likely to die by accident in tournament games than on the field of battle.[2] The famine also undermined confidence in medieval governments for their failure to deal with its resulting crises.[2] Population [ edit ] The Great Famine marked a clear end to an unprecedented period of population growth that had started around 1050. Although some believe growth had already been slowing down for a few decades, the famine was undoubtedly a clear end of high population growth. The Great Famine would later have consequences for future events in the fourteenth century, such as the Black Death, when an already weakened population would be struck again.[2] Ireland [ edit ] The Great Famine coincided with and greatly influenced the Bruce campaign in Ireland, the attempt of Edward de Bruce, a younger brother of Robert the Bruce of Scotland, to make himself High King of Ireland. At first, the Irish-Scottish alliance seemed unstoppable, as it won battle after battle and gained control of most of Ireland in less than a year. It was on the verge of driving the Anglo-Norman settlers out of Ireland altogether. The famine hit Ireland hard in 1317 and struck most of the country, making it difficult for Edward de Bruce to provide food to most of his men. He never regained momentum and was defeated and killed in the Battle of Faughart in 1318. That ended the last organized effort in many centuries to end English rule in Ireland.[citation needed] See also [ edit ] Notes [ edit ] |
The warming centre at Creekside Community Centre will no longer be able to accommodate homeless people who want to protect themselves from freezing temperatures. With the cold snap continuing and temperatures expected to dip to as low as -9 C in the Lower Mainland, many community centres around Vancouver have been serving as temporary warming shelters, but after drug paraphernalia was found inside and outside Creekside Community Centre in the Olympic Village neighbourhood, questions have been raised. Drug paraphernalia outside Creekside Comm Centre. Kid found needle inside. Centre had been used as warming centre for homeless @GlobalBC pic.twitter.com/0klBuTPKfc — Jordan Armstrong (@jarmstrongbc) January 10, 2017 This morning, the City confirmed a child came into contact with a syringe and needle in the bathroom at Creekside Community Centre on Monday. The child was not injured. Malcolm Bromley, general manager with Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation, says a decision has now been made to close the warming centre at Creekside Community Centre, but it has nothing to do with the syringe incident. “Unfortunately, dealing with syringes and injectibles in Vancouver’s public spaces is, at times, common place,” Bromley said. Bromley said their staff are not geared to run a 24/7 operation at the community centres, but some had to work very long hours since mid-December. “As you can imagine, it takes a tremendous toll on staff and is very stressful,” he said. So, Bromley says, a decision has been made over the Holidays to allow Creekside Community Centre staff to take a break. WATCH: The Creekside Community Centre will no longer be used to help homeless people get out of the cold after the drug paraphernalia was found at the site. Jordan Armstrong reports. However, the demand for warming centres is expected to increase during the cold snap and even though Creekside Community Centre won’t serve as a warming centre anymore, a warming centre at Carnegie Community Centre will be opened for the first time Tuesday, along with existing warming centres at Britannia and West End Community Centres. The city estimates there are around 2,000 people who benefit from warming centres. |
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