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HAWAII VOLCANOES NATIONAL PARK – A large lava breakout on the northeast flank of Puʻu ʻŌʻō began early this morning, and now scientists are keeping en eye out to see how the event will affect the June 27th lava flow. The breakout occurred at 1 a.m. Thursday morning, erupting from the lava tube supplying the distant flows on the June 27th flow field. “This breakout was still feeding a channelized flow to the north this morning,” reported the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory in their daily update. “It is too soon to tell how important this breakout is or if it will affect the vigor of the distant flows to the northeast.” There is also some new activity within the Puʻu ʻŌʻō crater. “Early this morning lava began to erupt from a vent on the northeast side of the crater floor,” says USGS HVO scientists. “The flow was still slowly spreading within the crater this morning.” None of the lava flows currently pose a threat to communities but are being monitored closely, scientists say. UPDATE – 3:55 pm – Videographer Mick Kalber of Tropical Visions Video went up over the lava flow aboard Paradise Helicopters today. He captured video of the new lava breakout (uploading now) and offers these observations: “A new outbreak on the north flank of the vent sent massive amounts of lava coursing down Pu’u ‘O’o today. This was the most surface lava we have observed since the February 23rd eruption in the same area. Volume was perhaps not quite as high as the one six months ago, but that one was all spread out… this one is concentrated in one big flow, the end of which is perhaps three miles from the communities downslope to the north. The eruption continues to be active several miles downslope from this breakout, but the volume is reduced and may slow down even more if the north flank eruption continues. The flow headed almost due east is barely burning the forest. Pele is also only marginally active in the treeline two miles to the northeast of the vent, her activity reduced to a couple small clusters of burning trees. Pu’u ‘O’o’s plume was blowing toward the west today, and skies in east Hawaii were crystal clear.” – Mick Kalber Seismic activity continues across the volcano at low levels, and there was an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 3.8 that occurred at 4:39 a.m. this morning beneath Kīlauea’s south flank. |
Posted 02 November 2013 - 07:55 PM #1 This will void your warranty, like all root exploits. Use this at your own risk. Do not take OTAs on rooted devices unless you know what you are doing, as it may cause a bootloop or a soft brick. RockMyMoto is designed for MotoXs that have recieved the Camera update, patching PwnMyMoto. If you are unsure of your firmware, try PwnMyMoto first. First step is to install Cydia Impactor, by Saurik. http://www.cydiaimpa...ork as your PC. Figure out the ip address of your phone: adb shell getprop dhcp.wlan0.ipaddress unzip RockMyMoto-{version}.zip and push the exploit and su to /sdcard/: adb push su /sdcard/ adb push RockMyMoto.jar /sdcard/ Run Impactor and select "# start telnetd as system on port 2222", then hit start. Once the process is complete, run telnet: telnet {your phone's ipaddress} 2222 Run the exploit through telnet dalvikvm -cp /sdcard/RockMyMoto.jar RockMyMoto The exploit will tell you to use adb to reboot: adb reboot Run the exploit through telnet for the second time, it will reboot on it's own: dalvikvm -cp /sdcard/RockMyMoto.jar RockMyMoto Run the exploit through telnet for the third time, it will not reboot: dalvikvm -cp /sdcard/RockMyMoto.jar RockMyMoto Wait 0-60 seconds, for su to install, then install SuperSu from the market. Enjoy! Known issues: If you have AP isolation mode enabled in your AP (aka WiFi router) you won't be able to connect to your phone via telnet, disable isolation. |
Image caption Instability in Somalia has allowed piracy to flourish A Danish family of five and two crew members captured by Somali pirates in February have been freed and brought to safety, Denmark's government says. Jan Quist Johansen, his wife, their three children, and two other adults were taken hostage on 24 February. The foreign ministry said they were in relatively good condition and expected back in Denmark shortly. In March, soldiers from the semi-autonomous Puntland region were killed during a failed attempt to rescue them. "The foreign ministry confirms that the Danish sailors from the sailing ship ING - the two parents, their three children and two crewmembers - held hostage by Somali pirates since the 24 February 2011, have now been released," said the ministry in a statement. A ransom of $3m (£1.9m) was paid for their release, reports the BBC's East Africa correspondent Will Ross. The Johansens, their children - aged between 12 and 16 - and crew were seized in the Indian Ocean as they were sailing around the world. They were apparently aware of the danger of piracy. Their yacht was seized just two days after four Americans aboard another hijacked vessel were shot dead during an effort by the US military to free them. Pirate activity has been slow in recent weeks because of the monsoon season, says our correspondent. Nonetheless, pirates continue to hold at least 30 vessels and their crew captured off the Horn of Africa. |
Human Resources We are committed to identifying and responding to the changing needs of the organization and the individuals that serve it. As a strategic partner with management, we achieve our mission by recruiting, employing, retaining, and developing a highly qualified diverse workforce. As advocates for faculty and staff, we believe in respect for all and integrity in every interaction. By earning the trust, satisfaction and respect of our customers, university leadership and our employees, the Human Resources team contributes to a productive work environment and an engaging campus experience. Employment Opportunities We offer a wealth of opportunities for individuals seeking job, career and personal growth. Our campus community affords a wide range of faculty and staff positions that support our academic programs and students, with many positions similar to those found in private organizations. If you are motivated by being surrounded by achievement, enjoy work with a shared purpose and want the pride that comes with being part of a winning team, join us today. An Inclusive Community USciences is an equal opportunity employer committed to excellence through diversity. USciences does not discriminate on the basis of sex, race, color, age, religion, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, veteran status, or any other legally protected status, in employment or other programs A Legacy of Education USciences has prepared students to be leaders and practitioners in the healthcare and science fields since its founding in 1821 as Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, the first college of pharmacy in North America. USciences has grown to more than 30 degree-granting programs from bachelor’s through doctoral degrees in the health sciences, bench sciences, and healthcare business and policy fields. Competitive Benefits USciences recognizes that attracting and retaining outstanding faculty and staff is critical to maintaining our academic standards of excellence. Toward that end, we offer a high-quality, comprehensive program of benefits. These benefits represent an important component of a faculty or staff member's total compensation. Contact Us Today Our Human Resources team is happy to assist you with any inquiries regarding the University, employee benefits, available job openings, and more. You can reach Human Resources by calling 215-596-8930, Monday thru Friday 9am to 5pm, or by emailing hr@usciences.edu. |
The French intelligence officer who led the 1985 bombing of the Rainbow Warrior, the Greenpeace ship protesting against nuclear tests in the Pacific, now lives in America where he heads an arms firm selling weapons to the FBI, Pentagon, and the department of homeland security, the Guardian has learned. The presence in America of Louis-Pierre Dillais and the sensitive nature of his dealings with the US government has led to calls from Greenpeace for his deportation . The attack engineered by the French intelligence services on an unarmed ship docked in a friendly harbour - the Rainbow Warrior sank off Auckland, New Zealand - brought widespread criticism of the French government. A Portuguese photographer on the ship drowned after being trapped below deck. Two of the French agents involved in the bombing operation later served jail sentences for manslaughter. However, Mr Dillais, an operative of the French external intelligence service DGSE who was identified by French media reports as the man who commanded the attack - codenamed Operation Satanique - was never brought to trial. A lieutenant colonel in the French military and former director of the French military's underwater combat training base on Corsica, Mr Dillais reportedly led the team of divers who placed limpet mines on the ship's hull. He is now employed as an executive in the US subsidiary of a Belgian arms manufacturer, FN Herstal. FNH USA has its headquarters in a modest office, strewn with boxes, in McLean, Virginia, just down the road from the CIA. The suite is located above the Association for Organ Procurement Organisations on the second floor of a brown brick building nestled among doctors' offices, nail salons and other businesses. McLean is one of Washington's wealthiest suburbs. According to the company website and industry publications, FN Herstal and its US subsidiary supply combat assault rifles to the Pentagon, handguns to the secret service, and sniper rifles to the FBI. The company also produces an underwater machine gun, and provides equipment to police departments across the US. The subsidiary alone turned over nearly $2.5m (£1.25m) of business in federal contracts in 2005, according to FedSpending.org. The site notes that only $93,000 worth of those contracts were fully competitive. Last year, FNH reached a settlement with the family of Victoria Snelgrove, a university student from Boston who was killed when she was hit with a pepper spray pellet fired by a police officer. Greenpeace, which tracked Mr Dillais to Virginia, has launched a campaign demanding that the American authorities explain why he was let into the United States. The organisation wrote to the department of homeland security in September last year demanding Mr Dillais's deportation. US immigration regulations ordinarily bar people who have been convicted of a violent crime, or linked to acts of terrorism. "We think the government should be setting a much higher standard on the people it does business with," said Mark Floegel, a senior investigator at Greenpeace. "It is amazingly two-faced to be buying arms from someone who is an admitted terrorist. He has not denied his role in Operation Satanic." Mr Dillais is believed to have lived in the US for a number of years in an elegant neo-Georgian townhouse only steps away from the main FNH USA office. The home, decorated with cream carpets and paintings of sailing ships and French villages, was put up for sale last week. He refused to speak to the Guardian. An assistant to Mr Dillais at FNH USA said: "I have to say frankly he is not available for an interview, and he won't be any time." However, Mr Dillais has acknowledged his role in the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, telling a television crew from the New Zealand state broadcaster, TVNZ in 2005: "I'm sorry for the loss of life," he told the station. "It was an unfortunate accident. I'm sorry for the family, but what can you do?" Officials from the state department, the department of homeland security, the FBI and the French embassy would not comment directly on Mr Dillais's presence in the US, or whether he was at risk of deportation. However, US officials did say that anyone involved in an act of terrorism would not be welcome in America. "The law is very clear: persons involved in acts of terrorism are not admitted into the United States," said Kelly Klundt, a spokeswoman for the customs and border protection agency. Bill Carter, a spokesman for the FBI, said: "If an individual has been involved in terror-related activity and is in the United States than obviously that individual would be of interest to the FBI." But the Bush administration's record in enforcing its own regulations is inconsistent. Washington has consistently resisted demands from Venezuela for the extradition of Luis Posada, a Cuban exile who is accused of blowing up an airliner with 73 people on board. He denies the charge. About a dozen French operatives were believed to be involved in the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior. However, only two were ever brought to trial, and served three years in French Polynesia after being convicted of manslaughter. In 1991, the New Zealand government withdrew all of the outstanding warrants against the French agents. Mr Dillais, meanwhile, was promoted to colonel, and by 1993 headed a small intelligence unit reporting directly to the then defence minister, François Leotard. It was in that post, according to press reports at the time, that Mr Dillais became involved in arms dealing, reviewing export contracts of French firms. But by 1996, Mr Dillais was embroiled in another scandal when he was bugged during an investigation into charges that money from Saudi arms sales was illegally diverted to the failed presidential campaign of Edouard Balladur. There is no indication that any legal action was taken against Mr Dillais. However, press reports soon afterwards noted that he had been passed over for a posting to the French embassy in Washington. Mr Dillais did not resurface in the public realm until a January 2005 press release put out by FNH USA announcing a contract to supply US special forces with assault rifles. The press release identified Mr Dillais as president and chief executive of FNH USA. Backstory On the night of July 11 1985 French divers rowed out to a ship anchored off Auckland and placed two limpet mines on its hull, sinking the vessel and killing a photographer aboard. That ship was the Rainbow Warrior. It had just evacuated a group of Pacific islanders contaminated by US nuclear testing in 1956 and was about to set sail for the French nuclear test zone at the Mururoa atoll. The act of sabotage on an unarmed ship, at anchor in the port of a friendly country, created an international scandal. France admitted in 2005 that its secret services had ordered the attack. Only two of the plotters were brought to trial. A New Zealand court sentenced them to 10 years for manslaughter but they were transferred to French territory and quickly freed. · This article was amended on Tuesday May 29 2007. We referred to the New Zealand state broadcaster as NZTV when it is in fact called TVNZ. This has been corrected. |
Russia's air defense systems manufacturer Almaz-Antey presented its report on the 2014 flight MH17 disaster at a press conference on Tuesday. Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was downed by a Buk 9М38-М1 guided missile fired from Ukrainian military-controlled territory, engineers from the Russian Almaz-Antey corporation said in a press conference presenting their report on Tuesday. Flight MH17 crashed over Ukraine on July 17, 2014, killing 298 people. After the crash, the European Union enacted sanctions against Russian companies, including Almaz-Antey, which was blamed for manufacturing the missiles which shot down the plane. Almaz-Antey's report showed that the missile in question stopped being manufactured in Russia three years before the company was founded. "During the first stage of our investigation, the type of system was established. It was a Buk-M1 system [NATO reporting name SA-11], a 9М38-М1 rocket and a 9М314 warhead," head engineer Mikhail Malyshev said. The Russian military uses Buk 9M37 missiles. The missile identified in the damage report was not produced in the Russian Federation since 1999, which is before Almaz-Antey was founded in 2002. As of 2005, Ukraine had 991 Buk 9М38-М1 missiles, according to the report. "We have conclusive evidence that the Ukrainian armed forces have this type of missile," Almaz-Antey general director Yan Novikov told journalists. Almaz Antey: Only 1 type of Buk missile (9M38m1) could do damage seen on MH17, out of production, used by Ukraine pic.twitter.com/JAhhUYSv6d — Matthew Bodner (@mattb0401) June 2, 2015 Almaz-Antey found the missiles to be 9M38-M1 missiles using comparative damage analysis of Buk missiles. "The key feature of the 9M38-M1 missile is that it creates a particular 'scalpel'-shaped area perpendicular to the missile's direction," Malyshev said. "It was exactly this scalpel impression found on the plane's skin that allowed us to find the missile's approach trajectory with a high degree of probability," Malyshev added. Выкладываю все слайды последовательно pic.twitter.com/mklrHzI7kT — Игорь Коротченко (@i_korotchenko) June 2, 2015 The report showed that the missile was fired from Ukrainian military-controlled territory. According to Almaz-Antey, the damage analysis shows that if the missile was fired from Snezhnoye, as Ukraine alleged, "the entire front end of the cabin would have been blown off." "The shrapnel moved from the nose of the plane to its tale inside its fuselage. The left engine, left wing and partially the tail unit were damaged. Specialists concluded that the missile was moving with a considerable intersection of the plane's flight path. That is, not from the front but from the side," Malyshev said. The specifications of the 9M38-M1 missile shrapnel were published for the first time having been previously classified. Almaz-Antey received permission to declassify the information from the Ministry of Defense, Almaz-Antey general director Yan Novikov said. Some technical depictions of #MH17's destruction, allegedly by old-school #Buk, from Almaz Antey presser pic.twitter.com/vGb6dh3moj — Matthew Bodner (@mattb0401) June 2, 2015 The manufacturer's investigation and comparative analysis of shrapnel revealed the missile to most likely be a Buk-M1 missile, which is used by the Ukrainian military, and fired from an area south of the village of Zaroshenskoye, territory controlled by the Ukrainian military at the time. Zaroshenskoe, that's where Almaz Antey said the Buk missile that killed #MH17 was launched from. pic.twitter.com/grWDj4CCz7 — Matthew Bodner (@mattb0401) June 2, 2015 Malyshev added that Almaz-Antey is willing to carry out a field test with independent experts to confirm the findings. "We are willing to carry out a demolition of a 9M38M1 missile at a specified angle and aimed at the same model aircraft," Malyshev added. Cannot explain why US has not published its satellite findings, could answer who to blame for MH17 crash: missile manufacturer Almaz-Antey — Daniel Bushell (@danielb_rt) June 2, 2015 Almaz-Antey added that there were US satellites flying over the area on the day of the plane crash, and releasing the information would help the investigation. |
SMITE is an immensely popular and free to play MOBA from Hi-Rez Studios, where you get to step into the biggest shoes of all; those of a mythological deity! SMITE pits all of the gods from across all times and all mythoi in a fight to the death in a fierce online battleground, and only the strongest and most skillful will survive. With a huge cast of deities with a wide array of powers, fun game modes, exciting gameplay, and delightful graphics, it’s easy to see why SMITE is so popular. To help players old and new alike get access to one of the most powerful and mysterious characters in SMITE, introduced in update 3.16, SMITE and MMOGames have teamed up to bring you this SMITE Izanami Dark Matron God And Skin Giveaway, which gives players the chance to win a free unlock for the mysterious Izanami and her special Dark Matron skin! What You Get From The SMITE Izanami Dark Matron God And Skin Giveaway Izanami, Matron of the Dead, and her default skin Dark Matron skin for Izanami How To Redeem Your SMITE Izanami Dark Matron God And Skin Giveaway Key Log into your SMITE account and enter the in game store by clicking the “Store” button. Press the “Redeem” button in the “Redeem Promotion” section. Enter your code in the field and press OK. NOTE: Each account may only use this key once. The codes may be redeemed for PC or for console, as soon as console patch 3.16 goes live. Enter Via Gleam Sign in with a selection of options within the Gleam widgets at the end of this post and complete one or more entries to enter. You can select all of them or just one, it’s entirely up to you, though the more you choose, the more chances you have to win! This giveaway will end on Wednesday, September 14, at 08:00 GMT. We will be in touch by email with the winners once the contest comes to an end. If you have any issues, please contact us. SMITE Izanami Dark Matron God And Skin Giveaway Related: Game Keys |
The anti-choice movement in the United States is one that seeks to outlaw abortion. This is not only morally abhorrent in terms of denying women bodily autonomy, but also incredibly poorly crafted public policy. Very few of its proponents can explain how this prohibition would work. The pro-choice movement would do well to understand exactly how weak this position is from a practical standpoint. There was a long period of American history when legal abortion was not available. Leslie J Regan’s book When Abortion Was Crime: Women, Medicine, and Law in the United States, 1867 – 1973 documents the history of the era well. Often, doctors would perform abortions in secret and with varying degrees of safety. Women died of infections, and were often refused medical treatment in hospitals unless they would reveal the name of their doctor. The Story of Jane: The Legendary Underground Feminist Abortion Service by Laura Kaplan tells the story of the secret group of women who provided abortions in Chicago in the late 60′s and early 70′s. The book tells the stories of the women who took great personal risk to get the abortions they needed and of the women who organized the illegal abortions to make them as safe as possible. From these books and other historical documents we can see that even when abortion was illegal, women still sought them out. Even in the present, abortion rates are generally the same, regardless of the legality of the procedure. Although it was only 41 years ago that these laws were in place, the anti-choice movement seems to have a very short term memory as to how the law used to be – and a surprising difficulty in articulating what exactly the law should say if they were in charge. Anti-choice protesters can’t explain whether or not a woman who gets an abortion should go to jail and why. Rick Berg (R-ND) won’t say whether or not a rape victim who gets an abortion should go to jail. Even if we concede that anti-choicers would eventually decide on legal punishments for doctors and/or women involved in abortion, as they had done in this country in the past, it is also important to ask questions about how this law would be enforced. Would the tactics of the past be used? Would we codify that women admitted into emergency rooms for complications due to an illegal abortion be refused treatment unless they reveal the name of their doctor? Would a woman caught attempting to abort her pregnancy be placed in jail until she gives birth? Would we look to the models in place in other countries? In communist Romania: This is a horrific violation of human rights. But it is robust public policy. This type of draconian enforcement is necessary to actually eradicate abortion, instead of just making it more difficult or more dangerous as was the case in America’s past. In fact, this same policy is used in China to force women to get abortions in order to uphold their one child policy: In El Salvador, women who go to the hospital for miscarriages are investigated because they are suspected of procuring an abortion. Would American anti-choicers go this far? What would constitute probable cause that a woman had an abortion? A late period? A miscarriage? An infection? Who would keep track of all American womens’ bodies? Whenever a person declares that abortion should be illegal in the United States, these are the facts we must present them. These are the questions we must ask. They must know the logical conclusion to the policy they are proposing. Even if they think they are speaking of religion or morality – they in fact suggesting a radical change to our laws and to our way of life. This must be made clear. That they have not thought it out this far suggests an ignorance as to how government works, and fantastical belief that simply declaring something to be wrong means that it will stop happening. *** For further reading – How Would A Rape Exception Work? |
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A group of Kansas City entrepreneurs believes Kansas City pride is at an all-time high, and because of it, the city deserves its own flag. "We have this really interesting metro, really unique metro, that doesn't have one unifying symbol,” said Graham Ripple, leader of One Flag. One Flag consists of four metro natives, two from Kansas City and two from Johnson County, who believe it’s time to help unite Kansas City with the region’s own flag. "From Atchison to Arrowhead, Brookside to Briar Cliff, Legends to Lee's Summit, Kauffman Center to Kauffman Stadium, we've witnessed a city finding its voice,” says the narration in the One Flag video. “I think that Kansas City wants to be unified. I think you look last year at the Royals parade, there's 800,000 people who came out to support the Royals. And I think that's about the Royals. I think it was also about the city,” said Graham. The One Flag Kickstarter campaign raised over $3,200 in its first four days. The goal of $35,000 must be reached by September 14. If the goal is met, there will be a three-week design period in which anyone from the public can submit their own flag design, followed by a two-week public voting period. There would then be a big revealing during a ‘Kansas City One Flag Day’ later this year. The winning designer would receive $1,000 and every town with over 10,000 people in the Kansas City region would receive a free flag. While the effort is for-profit, Ripple said the project would also give back to the community. "We're actually going to create grants for non-profits that basically will help to make Kansas City better, as well as startup funds for entrepreneurs,” he said. The One Flag effort is open to everyone within the 14-county Kansas City region: In Missouri: Jackson, Clay, Platte, Ray, Cass, Clinton, Lafayette, Bates, Caldwell In Kansas: Johnson, Wyandotte, Leavenworth, Miami, Linn Click here to check out the One Flag Kickstarter campaign. The team’s website can be found at OneFlag.co Other cities that have individual flags include Topeka, Wichita, St. Louis and Chicago. ------ Josh Helmuth can be reached at josh.helmuth@kshb.com Follow him on Twitter: Follow @Jhelmuth Connect on Facebook: |
BERKELEY, Calif. — Ann Coulter is now at the center of a civil rights lawsuit filed Monday against the University of California, Berkeley, by students who say the school is violating their right to free speech by canceling the conservative pundit’s speaking event on campus this week. The lawsuit marks the latest twist in a high-profile debate over whether Coulter will be allowed to speak Thursday at UC Berkeley, which has been known for decades as a bastion of free speech and tolerance and the birthplace of the 1960s Free Speech Movement. A legal team led by Harmeet Dhillon, a San Francisco attorney who is also a prominent California Republican, filed the case on behalf of the Berkeley College Republicans, who invited Coulter, and the Young America’s Foundation, which is helping to organize and finance the event. “Berkeley is well known as a place where ideas used to be welcome. At least on the conservative side. At least until this recent election,” Dhillon told a news conference after filing the lawsuit in US District Court in San Francisco. “The university is required to give equal access to speakers of different viewpoints.” The lawsuit says that Berkeley is trying “to restrict and stifle the speech of conservative students whose voices fall beyond the campus political orthodoxy.” Dhillon is also a committeewoman to the Republican National Convention for California and former vice chairwoman of the California Republican Party. Campus Republicans invited Coulter to speak at Berkeley this Thursday, but Berkeley officials informed the group last week that the event was being called off over security concerns. The university then backtracked and offered an alternate date, but Coulter has insisted that she plans to still come Thursday. It remains unclear where she would hold the event, and no details have been publicized. Coulter is not a plaintiff in the lawsuit. But she voiced support for it on Twitter, posting Monday that the lawsuit “demands appropriate & safe venue for my speech THIS THURSDAY.” see also Ann Coulter asked back to Berkeley after scrapped visit UC Berkeley on Thursday invited controversial conservative Ann Coulter back... The university’s attempt to call off the event came after a series of violent clashes this year on campus and in downtown Berkeley between far-right and far-left protesters. The lawsuit demands unstated damages and compensation for attorney fees, a trial by jury and an injunction against Berkeley officials from “restricting the exercise of political expression on the UC Berkeley campus.” It names four university officials as defendants, including University of California President Janet Napolitano and Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas B. Dirks, and three police officials, including university police chief Margo Bennett. The University of California president’s office issued a statement saying it welcomes speakers of all political viewpoints and “is committed to providing a forum to enable Ann Coulter to speak on the Berkeley campus.” “The campus seeks to ensure that all members of the Berkeley and larger community — including Ms. Coulter herself — remain safe during such an event.” |
Planned Work Trains stop at 14 St. For service to Franklin, Canal, Houston, Christopher, 18, 23 and 28 Sts, take the to 14 St or 34 St-Penn Station and transfer to a downtown or local. For service from these stations, take the or to 14 St or Chambers St and transfer to an uptown . Trains stop at 14 St.For serviceand, take theto 14 St or 34 St-Penn Station and transfer to a downtownorFor servicethese stations, take theorto 14 St or Chambers St and transfer to an uptown Planned Work TRACK MAINTENANCE Feb 25 - Mar 1, Mon to Fri, from 9:45 PM to 5 AM Wakefield-bound trains skip Eastern Pkwy, Grand Army Plaza and Bergen St in Brooklyn For service to these stations, take the to Atlantic Av-Barclays Ctr and transfer to a southbound or . For service from these stations, take the or to Franklin Av and transfer to a Wakefield-bound . For servicethese stations, take theto Atlantic Av-Barclays Ctr and transfer to a southboundorFor servicethese stations, take theorto Franklin Av and transfer to a Wakefield-bound Planned Work STATION MAINTENANCE Feb 25 - Mar 1, Mon to Fri, from 9:45 PM to 5 AM Uptown trains run express from Chambers St to 34 St-Penn Station in Manhattan Trains stop at 14 St. For service to Franklin, Canal, Houston, Christopher, 18, 23 and 28 Sts, take the to 14 St or 34 St-Penn Station and transfer to a downtown or local. For service from these stations, take the or to 14 St or Chambers St and transfer to an uptown . Trains stop at 14 St.For serviceand, take theto 14 St or 34 St-Penn Station and transfer to a downtownorFor servicethese stations, take theorto 14 St or Chambers St and transfer to an uptown |
For the third consecutive week, there was a red card handed out on DineSafe. Chinese Bakery on Dundas West is the second bakery in two weeks to be shut down for pest infestation and food contamination. See the rest of this week's worst offenders on DineSafe. The Homeway (955 Mount Pleasant Rd.) Inspected on: November 17, 2014 Inspection finding: Yellow (Conditional) Number of infractions: 3 (Minor: 1, Significant: 2) Crucial infractions include: N/A The Dizzy (305 Roncesvalles Ave.) Inspected on: November 17, 2014 Inspection finding: Yellow (Conditional) Number of infractions: 3 (Minor: 1, Significant: 2) Crucial infractions include: N/A Chinese Bakery (433 Dundas St. West) Inspected on: November 17, 2014 Inspection finding: Red (Closed) Number of infractions: 7 (Minor: 4, Significant: 1, Crucial: 2) Crucial infractions include: Operator fail to provide adequate pest control. Operator fail to ensure food is not contaminated/adulterated. Utopia Cafe (586 College St.) Inspected on: November 18, 2014 Inspection finding: Yellow (Conditional) Number of infractions: 4 (Minor: 1, Significant: 3) Crucial infractions include: N/A Ryus Noodle Bar (33 Baldwin St.) Inspected on: November 19, 2014 Inspection finding: Yellow (Conditional) Number of infractions:1 (Significant: 1) Crucial infractions include: N/A La Prep (125 Queens Quay E.) Inspected on: November 19, 2014 Inspection finding: Yellow (Conditional) Number of infractions: 6 (Minor: 2, Significant: 4) Crucial infractions include: N/A |
Boston Red Sox majority owner John Henry, responding to comments that former Red Sox manager Terry Francona had made to the Boston Herald that he had not spoken to Henry since leaving the team last September despite calling Henry seven or eight times, said in an email that the parties spoke Monday. "I called Tito about this today," Henry wrote. "We spoke about a number of things, but regarding what you inquired about he said he had called on my cellphone but didn't leave any messages. We simply missed each other apparently a few times. Had he left me a message I would have certainly called him back. "We talked extensively and agreed that we had waited far too long in speaking and both of us had probably come to some wrong conclusions as to why we hadn't. We are looking forward to sitting down in Fort Myers this spring for lunch or a game. He will always be part of the Red Sox family. "Tito was the best manager the Boston Red Sox ever had. We won two World Series together. He'll be terrific on ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball and no one can doubt that he will be managing again very soon." Henry responded to email inquiries from ESPNBoston.com and WEEI.com. In Saturday's Boston Herald, Francona was quoted as saying, "I called John Henry seven or eight times. Never heard from him. I have not talked to John since the day I left. It makes you kind of understand where you stood." Francona left the Red Sox after the team missed the playoffs following a 7-20 September. In eight seasons in Boston, Francona compiled a 744-552 record, winning the World Series in 2004 and 2007. Gordon Edes covers the Red Sox for ESPNBoston.com. |
A number of journalists on Twitter lambasted President Donald Trump for pouring an entire box of food into a pond of precious Japanese koi, some even suspecting that amount of food could damage the fish. As the meme spread through social media, other users joined in teasing Trump for improper conduct during the photo-op on his first state visit to Japan, until full video of the incident came out showing Trump was just following the example of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. “Trump and Japanese PM Shinzo Abe were scheduled to feed koi spoonfuls of food. Until Trump poured his entire box of fish food into the pond,” CNBC reporter Christina Wilkie wrote on Twitter. Trump and Japanese PM Shinzo Abe were scheduled to feed koi spoonfuls of food. Until Trump poured his entire box of fish food into the pond. https://t.co/D7OIBzJrXi — Christina Wilkie (@christinawilkie) November 6, 2017 Trump dump: president throws entire box of fish food into precious koi carp pond https://t.co/uyO0QpYGXZ pic.twitter.com/v4P5ufZemq — Anna Fifield (@annafifield) November 6, 2017 Some even suggested that Trump’s behavior at the koi pond could launch a “diplomatic incident.” Four stages of Trump’s latest diplomatic incident: Tokyo koi pond edition. pic.twitter.com/Bx3FsEoXyq — Zack Whittaker (@zackwhittaker) November 6, 2017 Trump dump: president throws entire box of fish food into precious koi carp pond https://t.co/uyO0QpYGXZ pic.twitter.com/v4P5ufZemq — Anna Fifield (@annafifield) November 6, 2017 The full video of the fish-feeding photo-op at Akasaka Palace koi pond shows clearly that Trump followed Abe’s lead in dumping the box of fish food into the pond. Trump and Japan PM Shinzo Ave decide to dump entire boxes of fish food into a koi pond at the Japanese palace. pic.twitter.com/aPAP6IdRhP — USA TODAY (@USATODAY) November 6, 2017 Follow Thomas Phippen on Twitter Send tips to thomas@dailycallernewsfoundation.org. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org. |
This article is over 2 years old Lutz Bachmann, head of German far-right group who has been convicted for inciting racial hatred, will not seek party leadership Germany’s anti-Islamic, anti-immigrant Pegida movement has announced that it is seeking to found a political party but stressed it would not seek to draw votes from populist far-right group AfD. The new grouping would be called the Popular Party for Freedom and Direct Democracy, or the FDDV by its German acronym, movement head Lutz Bachmann said at a meeting in Dresden, Pegida’s eastern stronghold. Bachmann – convicted and fined in May for inciting racial hatred by branding refugees “cattle” and “scum” on social media – insisted he did not intend to stand for the leadership. The move to form a party comes with authorities mulling a ban for the original association which spawned Pegida over fears of growing extremism. Bachmann insisted the new party would not seek to overshadow the Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has polled at more than 10% support in recent months. German founder of Pegida fined €9,600 for Facebook posts Read more The AfD was founded as a Eurosceptic protest party in 2013 but now mainly rails against Islam and Germany’s openness to refugees, which last year brought more than 1 million asylum seekers to Europe’s top economy. “We shall support the AfD in the next elections (scheduled for 2017) and shall only field candidates in a limited number of constituencies,” Bachmann said. He added that relations between the two far-right movements were mostly good and that “only together” could they serve their mutual cause. Cracks in the AfD have emerged in recent months, with a leadership split deepening after a row over antisemitic comments by one of the party’s lawmakers, who labelled Holocaust deniers “dissidents”. There are also differences within the AfD on whether to embrace Pegida or keep the movement at arm’s length. |
Shares English proficiency is not a necessary precursor to becoming a contributing citizen in California’s economy and should not be used by the Board to discriminate against talented and skilled individuals who seek to provide high-quality acupuncture services in California. — State Senators Curren D. Price Jr. and Darrell Steinberg, letter to the California Acupuncture Board, March 22, 2013. To appreciate the recklessness of this statement, and to illustrate the Senators’ disconnect with the reality of Oriental medicine, let’s take a look at a consummate example of services provided by acupuncturists. The following video features the “Master” Kim Nam-soo demonstrating his moxibustion technique. He conducted a similar workshop for future acupuncturists in 2010 at Emperor’s College of Traditional Oriental Medicine in Santa Monica, CA. Make sure you do not miss the part where the Master is skillfully adding his own spit to the treatment! Kim Nam-Soo (also known as “Gudang”) is a 97-year-old acupuncturist from South Korea. In this video, he is teaching a form of moxibustion (burning of a mugwort cone on or near the skin). He is first preparing a wad of mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris), he is then placing it on an acupuncture point and burning it with an incense stick. Note that he is using his own saliva to make the mugwort more malleable before sticking it to the patient’s skin! Besides acupuncture and moxibustion, the other services these “talented and skilled” individuals provide consist of massage, cupping, breathing techniques, and the use of herbal, animal and mineral products. In most states, bloodletting is not part of their scope of practice — except for Arkansas. Forty years after the legalization of the profession in California, one can complete a 4-year vocational degree in acupuncture and Oriental medicine here in the Golden State — all in Chinese or Korean — and then pass a state licensing exam in the same language. The license allows the graduates to lawfully act as a “primary care provider” without having a working knowledge of English! As a result of this aberration in our healthcare laws, hundreds of unscrupulous fortune-seekers come to California each year to learn and practice unscientific mumbo-jumbo without ever learning English. Most of them could not study acupuncture in their native country because healthcare providers are upheld at a much higher standard than here, and acupuncturists are required to know modern biomedical sciences along with traditional modalities. The Acupuncture Board of the Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) was recently working to address this issue by limiting the California Acupuncture Licensure Examination (CALE) to English-only. On March 20, 2013, the CA Acupuncture Board organized a town hall meeting in San Francisco to present the reasons behind the necessity of an English-only licensing exam and then ask for public comments (click on the following image to read the report obtained under the California Public Records Act). Yet, the initiative came to an abrupt end by a cease-and-desist letter from State Senators Curren D. Price Jr., Chair of the Senate Business, Professions and Economic Development Committee, and Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg. The Senators have asked the Acupuncture Board to immediately abandon its attempts to institute an English-only exam. They are claiming that asking for language proficiency from a healthcare provider is “discrimination!” Ironically, the cease-and-desist letter came from the same Senate committee that harshly criticized the Board in March 2012 for promoting the profession instead of protecting the public. Exactly a year later, it is the Senators themselves that have come to promote the profession, and to act in overt disregard for the California Business and Professions Code 4928.1: Protection of the public shall be the highest priority for the Acupuncture Board in exercising its licensing, regulatory, and disciplinary functions. Whenever the protection of the public is inconsistent with other interests sought to be promoted, the protection of the public shall be paramount. Also, this letter is rather curious in that it does not seem to be stating an official position of the Senate or the Business, Professions and Economic Development Committee. The letter starts “We write . . .” but it does not say that either the Senate or the Committee took a vote on the issue, nor do the Senators claim to be writing on behalf of either body. It rather seems that the letter reflects the Senators’ personal opinion, even if this request is on the official Senate stationary and the authors use their official title. What is also strange here, is the fact that the licensing of healthcare providers without English fluency is not a real concern for the Senators. A staff member who wished to remain anonymous even confirmed that the Senators wrote this letter without consulting any conventional healthcare providers, public health officials, or anyone else with knowledge of infectious diseases, pharmacology, or drug-herb interactions. Senators Price and Steinberg (and their advisers in this matter, LeOndra Clark, and Bill Gage) seem to have allowed the popularity of Oriental medicine in the Golden State to cloud their common sense, leading them to ignore the crucial fact that acupuncture is not without adverse effects because it is an invasive procedure. They are ignoring that many complications can arise from acupuncture and threaten the patient after needling or after the use of supplements. An acupuncturist who does not have enough English proficiency to conduct a thorough patient interview may not be able to ensure that the modalities within his or her scope of practice are not contraindicated or otherwise subject to caution. It is therefore important to remind the Senators and their advisers, LeOndra Clark and Bill Gage, that although acupuncture does not seem very harmful, a 2012 study by Wheway et al. indicated that the total figure of needling adverse incidents is likely under-reported and underestimated. Some of these incidents are medical emergencies involving organ injury. When needles are pushed in too deeply, they can indeed injure nerves or puncture internal organs – particularly the lungs, which causes pneumothorax. Additional dangers include bleeding or bruising due to needling, especially in cases where the patient has a bleeding disorder or takes anticoagulants. Electro-acupuncture, which involves applying mild electrical pulses to the needles — something akin to Percutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (PENS) — can interfere with a pacemaker. Acupuncture can also lead to pregnancy complications. This is why an acupuncturist has to be able to effectively communicate with patients and to also make sure that emergency services are available.1 The use of herbal products also requires effective patient-provider communication. Besides the inherent toxicity of some of them, the potential for herb-drug interactions also exists and should always be a real concern. Several of herbal products have been demonstrated to compete with drugs for cellular receptors, and therefore, a mostly unknown and unreported form of “polypharmacy” exists in patients that also take conventional drugs.2 A good example is the commonly used medicinal herb dang gui (Angelica sinensis). Also known as dong quai, tangkuei, or “female ginseng,” Chinese medicine uses dang gui for premenstrual, menopausal, and other gynecological symptoms, as well as for fatigue, anemia, and high blood pressure. Pharmacological properties of this herb have been attributed to constituent coumarins, polysaccharides, fenulate and/or falvonoids.3,4 In a clinical setting, the concurrent use of dang gui and warfarin reportedly potentiates the anticoagulant effects of the latter, and increases the international normalized ratio (INR) – a measure to monitor the impact of anticoagulants. This can cause widespread bruising.5,6 Considering these factors, the use of dang gui with anticoagulants, platelet inhibitors and thrombolytic agents is contraindicated.7,8 Licorice root, known as gan cao in Chinese, is another commonly used example that can cause drug-herb interactions. Licorice which contains compounds that mimic aldosterone can interfere with the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone axis and lead to hypokalaemia.9 Licorice has been demonstrated to decrease the clearance of prednisolone and to increase prednisolone bioavailability. Licorice has also been reported to potentiate the cutaneous vasoconstrictor response of hydrocortisone. In total, more than 100 drugs are known to interact with licorice, including corticosteroids, antihypertensives, diuretics, laxatives, and other potassium-depleting drugs.10 The California Acupuncture Board, whose mandate is to protect the public, has attempted several times to address the lack of proper patient-provider or provider-provider communication. But every time, groups of practitioners, students, school representatives, and trade insiders vehemently object to any change by claiming discrimination, by calling themselves “contributing citizens,” and by receiving support from politicians who know even less about acupuncture and Oriental medicine than they do about healthcare or patient safety. On March 20, 2013, they came in large numbers for a showdown at a town hall meeting in San Francisco, where the Board was presenting the reasons behind the proposal to limit the licensing exam to English only. Immediately after, State Senators Price Jr. and Steinberg ran to their rescue with a cease-and-desist letter stating that the US is not necessarily an “English-speaking country,” and that “English proficiency is not a necessary precursor to becoming a contributing citizen in California’s economy.” The Senators also add: We respectfully request the Board to immediately cease and desist in its efforts to adopt an English-based examination and urge the Board’s consideration of other robust examination options that require a high level of competency for licensure and also preserve the ability for applicants to take the examination in languages other than English. The Board cancelled other town hall meetings it had scheduled and laid the issue to rest. In many ways this setback speaks to California’s poor healthcare policies, its politicians, and the place of science in its public health arena. Making healthcare policies based on racial and ethnic politics indicates a profound lack of concern for science and evidence in medicine. Also, claiming that effective patient-provider communication and language proficiency are not necessary to provide an invasive procedure such as acupuncture irresponsibly endangers the public by reducing medicine to the rank of politics. For those of us who put our faith in science and evidence, these non-English speaking “contributing,” “talented and skilled” citizens, are in reality ignorant voodoo-doctors who have become “primary” healthcare providers because of an enormous absurdity in California law. Since the legalization of acupuncture in the Golden State, these individuals have continuously endangered the public, and each time anyone tries to do anything about patient safety, they run to the first medically-illiterate politician they can find, and cry harassment and discrimination. Unfortunately, now that California lists acupuncture as a benefit that insurers must include in new plans under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care, New Age hocus-pocus has taken a false sense of legitimacy and efficacy simply because it is listed as a mandatory benefit under the new healthcare law. Acupuncture joins tobacco cessation, vision screening and other benefits that insurers must cover for patients under new plans, beginning in 2014. Appallingly, this turns deluded ignorants into much needed providers; and if they do not speak any English, as long as they are contributing to California’s economy, oh well! As for the crackpot who came to California in 2010 to teach future acupuncturists how to put spit and filth on patients, according to The Korea Times he was suspended in his native country the year before for practicing his craft without a license.11 With many thanks to Harriet Hall, Ui-Won Hwang, Paul Ingram and JooNyun Kim for their valuable assistance or comments. The opinions expressed here are those of the author. REFERENCES |
How One Woman Took on Shell to Save Her La. Town This is the final story in our 4-part series, The Coming Chemical Boom, funded in part by the Fund for Investigative Journalism. November 8, 2013 NORCO, La.--In June 2012, Pennsylvania officials flew to Louisiana to visit a couple of petrochemical plants owned by Shell, a company they were about to give big economic incentives to build a plant in Beaver County, Pa. But they didn’t visit Margie Richard, who once lived in Norco, but now lives outside New Orleans. If they had, they would have gotten another story about Shell’s operations here, a story about toxic emissions, industrial accidents, and how a very determined school teacher brought one of the largest companies in the world to the negotiating table. Norco’s history is a window into the chemical industry’s sometimes rocky relationship with its host communities along the Mississippi River. And it may offer clues to how ‘fenceline’ communities near plants could manage their relationships with an industry that is expanding to take advantage of the natural gas boom. At the center of Norco’s history stands Margie Richard, a retired school teacher, fervent Christian and gardener. Richard, a native of the town, helped lead a fight to get Shell to relocate families away from the plant, which the residents claimed was making people sick and posed a safety hazard. Richard’s quest, ultimately successful, was to get Shell to save the town by dismantling it. Richard has a few words of advice for Pennsylvanians gauging what a large petrochemical plant could mean for their community. “The local people need to come together and go to the table and tell them what they want. You should have input into what is going on,” she said. In Norco, she said, it took decades for the town to learn that lesson. A Tight Relationship Norco’s very name signifies the town’s deep relationship to Shell, its largest employer. In 1916, an affiliate of the company built a refinery—the New Orleans Refining Company, or NORCO. In the 1950s, looking to build a chemical plant near its refinery, Shell bought several blocks of farmland. Richard’s grandfather owned one of those pieces of land, which he sold for $90. He then moved his family next to the plant, where Richard, now 71, grew up. Diamond, the neighborhood where Richard, who is black, lived, was cut off from the white side of Norco, where many of the Shell workers lived. The plant made methyl ethyl ketone, a solvent used in coatings, adhesives, and inks, among other things. Richard remembered growing up smelling the bleach-like odors from the plant. “You smelled it—Lord have mercy—every day,” she said. Richard was a young teacher in the town in 1973, when a 16-year-old named Leroy Jones was mowing the lawn of an elderly neighbor, Helen Washington. A spark from the lawnmower ignited gas from a leaking pipeline and Washington died in the blast. Richard said she saw Jones coming down the street. “He was trying to run to the other street, but his clothes were on fire,” she said. He later died of his injuries. The explosion galvanized Richard. She noticed when her neighbors got sick or died of cancer, or when her children had breathing problems that sent them to the hospital. Her sister Naomi died at the age of 43. Her concerns grew stronger after an explosion at Shell’s refinery in 1988. (The plant is now owned by Motiva, a joint-venture between Shell and Saudi Aramco, the Saudi national oil company). The explosion toppled a 16-story tower, and cracked walls and ceilings in houses and ceilings around Norco. It set off alarms 25 miles away in New Orleans. “When that cat (catalytic) cracker went off, that fire was so huge. It was walking toward us,” Richard said. “And people were just runnin’ everywhere.” An Uprising After the 1988 explosion, a group of Diamond residents sued Shell, asking to be relocated. But in 1997, a jury ruled against the Norco group. Richard soon got involved with an environmental group that sampled air near industrial sites. The group began sampling around Norco. During a chemical leak in late 1998, they detected toxic chemicals the plant had not reported releasing to the state regulatory agency. Wilma Subra, a chemist and consultant to Richard’s group, estimated the air showed Norco residents were breathing in 100 to 1,000 times more pollutants than people in rural Louisiana. Environmental groups and the media began paying more attention. The results also caught the interest of the Environmental Protection Agency, which had begun investigating ‘environmental racism,’ the tendency for industrial facilities to locate in minority neighborhoods. Before long Richard was presenting her results to anyone who would hear them, and eventually to the company itself. Richard made a presentation to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in Geneva in 1999 and to a climate treaty conference in the Netherlands. While there, she confronted a Shell executive who attended the conference, asking if he’d be willing to breathe the air. A few weeks later, a top Shell official knocked on her trailer door to discuss her concerns. Soon after, the company began to offer buyouts to residents near the plants, with a minimum offer of $80,000. Richard took the buyout offer and moved with her mother to a New Orleans suburb, where she currently lives. Shell said the company’s decision to offer relocation money wasn’t related to the health concerns, according to a written statement from Kimberly Windon, a Shell spokeswoman. The company operates its plants “with the goal of causing no harm to the people who are on our sites and the public in the nearby communities,” she wrote. The company does this through “equipment design, technical integrity and operating procedures,” she stated. A Chemical Corridor Norco lies in the so-called ‘chemical corridor’ of Louisiana, a stretch of the Mississippi River north of New Orleans with more than 100 industrial plants that provide around 27,000 jobs, according to the Louisiana Chemical Association. But the area also has another nickname given by striking workers and local activists: ‘Cancer Alley.’ The name comes from epidemiological studies in the late 1970s that showed cancer clusters along the river near industrial plants, whose emissions make it one of the most polluted states in the country. Louisiana also has the second highest cancer rate in the country, according to recent Centers for Disease Control figures. “Cancer Alley’ is an inaccurate and unfair name, according to the chemical industry. An industry-funded study showed no direct connection between chemical plants and incidences of cancer. Studies by the CDC and Louisiana State University in the 1980s came to similar conclusions. Air emissions from Louisiana industries have been cut in half since 1991, according to data from the EPA. Tim Johnson, a public affairs consultant to the Louisiana chemical industry, said chemical companies have improved their environmental practices over the last 25 years. Part of it is because companies want to do the right thing, he said. “The people who run those plants, they live here too,” Johnson said. “Their families are here. Their children are here.” But some of the improvements came from government regulations, like those mandated under the Clean Air Act. “A lot of the improvements that have been made have been as a result of regulations,” he said. ‘Better than it used to be’ For residents who didn't want to leave Norco, Shell offered grants to improve their homes. As a result, 39 families in Diamond remained. Among those was Lionel Brown. “I saw no reason to move,” said Brown, 64. Brown said he was offered $200,000 for four lots adjacent to his home, a few blocks from the chemical plant. He thought that wouldn’t be enough to move into a subdivision nearby. “I love living here.” He said when he went on a car ride as a kid, he remembered being able to smell when the car was getting close to Norco. Now, emissions are much lower. Brown works at a Dow Chemical plant across the Mississippi river in Taft, La. Before that, he worked at an oil refinery about 30 miles away. “It’s better than it used to be,” he said, of the environmental practices at these facilities. “I work in a plant, so I know the changes they’ve made. The EPA made them do it,” he said. Ted Davis, 92, worked at Shell’s Norco chemical plant for more than 20 years, as an operator in a unit that made hydrogen peroxide. Davis, who lives in the ‘white’ side of Norco, said dealing with fumes from the plant was just part of the bargain. “That’s how people made their living,” Davis said. “In those days, that was it. You had to go to work there.” Davis, a World War II vet, came to Norco after a three and a half year tour in the Pacific. He worked in the refinery, and later the chemical plant. Norco’s fumes could be "terrible," but for Davis were nothing compared to his experience during the war. "I just came out of the Army living in New Guineau for three and a half years, so this didn’t bother me at all,” he said. “This was heaven when I came here.” Richard says she looks with pride to her days of organizing against Shell. She thinks that everyone—black and white—has benefitted. The plants are far from perfect, she said, but they’re better than they used to be. Shell’s chemical and refinery operations release 1 million pounds of toxic emissions yearly in Norco, according to the EPA. “Are they where they should be? No.” Richard said. “But guess what? They’re not where they were, and that’s a fact.” |
According to conspiracy theorist Alex Jones of InfoWars.com, the shooting that took place in Las Vegas was “absolutely staged” by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) and was achieved by using Batman characters as a mind-control device. This latest musing of Jones’ came earlier today and blurs the lines of amusement and repulsion. “There is so much proof of this being staged yesterday, when I first read about it, and this morning, that my mind exploded with hundreds of data points, and quite frankly it’s conclusive,” said Jones hyperbolically. “They’re getting ready to false flag, and it happens right in Harry Reid’s district, right in his state, right in his city, with his police department.” Jones makes these claims because he thinks that Reid false flagged the entire shooting in order to fight the Tea Party and dismantle gun rights. Going back to the Bundy standoff, Jones uses that incident as a backdrop to what took place yesterday in Las Vegas. “Harry Reid comes out and says we’re going to do something about this. These are domestic terrorists at the Bundy ranch. Everybody needs to be arrested,” said Jones “They roll out last week the domestic terrorism task force saying the Tea Party’s the number one enemy. They’ve been building this behind the scenes, now they’re rolling it out.” Even more insane, Jones cited the fact that Jerad Miller, one of the Las Vegas shooters from yesterday, dressed as The Joker as “evidence” that the government controlled his mind to commit the murders. The Joker is “a programming template for mind control,” said Jones. Somehow, since Aurora shooter James Holmes opened fire in a theater showing Batman movie “The Dark Knight Rises,” that means mass shooters are mind-controlled by the government. The Joker wasn’t even in the last Batman movie. Josh is a writer and researcher with Ring of Fire. Follow him on Twitter @dnJdeli. |
President Obama made a surprise appearance in the White House press briefing room Tuesday afternoon to deliver a paper plate full of cupcakes to honor the birthday he shares with veteran journalist Helen Thomas. Obama, who is celebrating his 48th birthday, led the press corps in singing "Happy Birthday" to Thomas, who turned 89 today. He then delivered the cupcakes to Thomas and asked her to make a wish. "You gotta blow it out to make it come true," Obama instructed, before Thomas extinguished the one lit candle on the plate. Obama then sat next to Thomas, a columnist for Hearst Newspapers, to pose for a picture. Before leaving, he told the assembled reporters that Thomas wished for "world peace, no prejudice -- but she and I also had a common birthday wish: she said she hoped for a real health care reform bill." |
Early in my freshman year of high school, I came home to find my mom sitting on her bed, crying. She had snooped through my e-mail and discovered a message in which I confessed to having a crush on a male classmate. “Are you gay?” she asked. I blurted out that I was. “I knew it, ever since you were a little boy.” Her resignation didn’t last long. My mom is a problem solver, and the next day she handed me a stack of papers she had printed out from the Internet about reorientation, or “ex-gay,” therapy. I threw them away. I said I didn’t see how talking about myself in a therapist’s office was going to make me stop liking guys. My mother responded by asking whether I wanted a family, then posed a hypothetical: “If there were a pill you could take that would make you straight, would you take it?” I admitted that life would be easier if such a pill existed. I hadn’t thought about how my infatuation with boys would play out over the course of my life. In fact, I had always imagined myself middle-aged, married to a woman, and having a son and daughter—didn’t everyone want some version of that? “The gay lifestyle is very lonely,” she said. She told me about Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, a clinical psychologist in California who was then president of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), the country’s largest organization for practitioners of ex-gay therapy. She said Nicolosi had treated hundreds of people who were now able to live “normal” lives. I read through the papers my mom had salvaged from the trash. They were interviews with Nicolosi’s patients, who talked about how therapy helped them overcome depression and feel “comfortable in their masculinity.” The testimonials seemed genuine, and the patients, grateful. I agreed to fly with my father to Los Angeles from our small town on the Arizona-Mexico border for an initial consultation. The Thomas Aquinas Psychological Clinic was on the 13th floor of a modern building on Ventura Boulevard, one of the San Fernando Valley’s main thoroughfares. Nicolosi’s corner office had emerald-green carpet and mahogany bookshelves lined with titles like Homosexuality: A Freedom Too Far and Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth. Middle-aged with thick, graying black hair, Nicolosi grew up in New York City and spoke with a faint Bronx accent. Brusque but affable, he put me at ease. When my father and I first sat down, Nicolosi explained what he meant by “cure.” Although I might never feel a spark of excitement when I saw a woman walking down the street, as I progressed in therapy, my homosexual attractions would diminish. I might have lingering thoughts about men, but they would no longer control me. Nicolosi’s acknowledgment that change wouldn’t be absolute made the theory seem reasonable. His confidence in the outcome made me hopeful. Until I had spoken with Nicolosi, I had resigned myself to the idea that, desirable or not, my life would have to accommodate the fact that I was gay. But maybe this was something I had power over. For the last half of the session, I talked with Nicolosi alone. “Tell me about your friends at school,” he said. I said I had two close female friends. “Male friends?” I admitted that I had always had trouble relating to boys my age. When I was in grade school, I preferred helping the teacher clean the classroom during breaks instead of playing sports. “Are you open to therapy?” Nicolosi asked. “If you don’t think this is working, you can stop anytime.” I agreed to start weekly sessions by phone. After our one-on-one meeting ended, I joined some of his other patients for group therapy. I was by far the youngest person there. The other men—four or five altogether—were in their forties and fifties and talked about their years in the “gay lifestyle,” which had yielded only unhappiness. They wanted normal, fulfilling lives. They were tired of the club scene, the drug use, the promiscuity; their relationships didn’t last; they complained that gay culture was youth-obsessed. If that was what being gay meant—and with 30-plus years on me, they would know—then I wanted to be normal, too. I left the office with a copy of Nicolosi’s most recent book, Healing Homosexuality, and a worksheet that categorized different emotions under the rubrics of “true self” and “false self.” The true self felt masculine, was “adequate, on par,” “secure, confident, capable,” and “at home in [his] body.” The false self did not feel masculine, was inadequate and insecure, and felt alienated from his body. This rang true. I had been teased throughout my childhood for being effeminate, and as a lanky, awkward teen with bad skin, I certainly was not at home in my body. Another sheet illustrated the “triadic relationship” that led to homosexuality: a passive, distant father, an overinvolved mother, and a sensitive child. I was closer with my mother than my father. I was shy. The story seemed to fit, which was comforting: It gave me confidence that I could be cured. According to Nicolosi, identification with a parent of the other gender is out of step with our biological and evolutionary “design.” Because of this, it was impossible to ever become whole through gay relationships. I wanted to be whole. On July 13, 1998—the same year I started therapy—a full-page ad appeared in The New York Times featuring a beaming woman with a diamond engagement ring and wedding band. “I’m proof that the truth can set you free,” she proclaimed. The woman, Anne Paulk, said that molestation during adolescence led her to homosexuality, but that she had been healed through the power of Jesus Christ. The $600,000 ad campaign—sponsored by 15 religious-right organizations, including the Christian Coalition, the Family Research Council, and the American Family Association—ran for several weeks in such publications as The Washington Post, USA Today, and the Los Angeles Times. Robert Knight of the Family Research Council called it “the Normandy landing in the culture war.” With few voices to challenge the testimonials, reporters transmitted them as revelation. Newsweek ran a sympathetic cover story on change therapy, and national and regional papers published ex-gays’ accounts. My mother might not have so easily found information about ex-gay therapy had the Christian right not planted this stake in the culture war. The ad appeared 23 years after the American Psychiatric Association (APA) declassified homosexuality as a mental illness. As a consequence of that decision, extreme forms of reorientation therapy—aversion therapy involving electrocution or nausea-inducing drugs, for instance—had stopped being used. A small group of therapists continued to practice talk therapy that encouraged patients to see homosexuality as a developmental disorder, but they remained on the fringe until the Christian right took up their cause. This was a calculated political move. Instead of fire-and-brimstone denunciations from the pulpit, the ex-gay movement allowed the Christian right to couch its condemnation of homosexuality in a way that seemed compassionate. Focus on the Family called its new ex-gay ministry Love Won Out and talked about healing and caring for homosexuals. The ex-gay movement turned the rhetoric of gay rights against itself: Shouldn’t ex-gays be able to pursue therapy and live the lives they want without facing discrimination? The two largest groups that provide ex-gay counseling are Exodus International, a nondenominational Christian organization, and NARTH, its secular counterpart. If Exodus is the spirit of the ex-gay movement, NARTH is the brain. The organizations share many members, and Exodus parrots the developmental theories about same-sex attractions espoused by NARTH. Together with the late Charles Socarides, a psychiatrist who led the opposition to declassifying homosexuality as a mental illness, Nicolosi formed NARTH in 1992 as a “scientific organization that offers hope to those who struggle with unwanted homosexuality.” By 1998, the group was holding an annual conference, publishing its own journal, and training hundreds of psychiatrists, psychologists, and counselors. Nicolosi remains NARTH’s most visible advocate. There are no reliable statistics for how many patients have received ex-gay treatment or how many therapists practice it, but in the late 1990s and early 2000s, ex-gay therapy enjoyed a legitimacy it hadn’t since the APA removed homosexuality from its diagnostic manual. Exodus had 83 chapters in 34 states. Its president, Alan Chambers, claimed in 2004 that he knew “tens of thousands of people who have successfully changed their sexual orientation.” Nicolosi appeared often on programs like Oprah, 20/20, and Larry King Live. Whether or not the Christian right’s alliance with the ex-gay movement had constituted a D-Day in the culture wars, it had successfully challenged the prevailing idea that the best choice for gay people was to accept themselves. After our initial meeting, I spoke with Nicolosi weekly by phone for more than three years, from the time I was 14 until I graduated high school. Like a rabbi instructing his student in understanding the Torah, Nicolosi encouraged me to interpret my daily life through the lens of his theories. I read in one of Nicolosi’s books, Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality, that he tries to position himself as a supportive father figure, typifying the sort of relationship that he believes his patients never had with their own father. I indeed came to see him this way. We mostly talked about how my damaged masculine identity manifested itself in my attractions to other boys. Nicolosi would ask me about my crushes at school and what I liked about them. Whether the trait was someone’s build, good looks, popularity, or confidence, these conversations always ended with a redirect: Did I wish I had these traits? What might it feel like to be hugged by one of these guys? Did I want them to like and accept me? Of course, I wanted to be as attractive as the classmates I admired; of course, I wanted to be accepted and liked by them. The line of questioning made me feel worse. Nicolosi explained, session after session, that I felt inadequate because I had not had sufficient male affirmation in childhood. I came to believe that my attraction to men was the result of the failure to connect with my father. Whenever I felt slighted by my male friends—for failing to call when they said they would, for neglecting to invite me to a party—I was re-experiencing a seminal rejection from my father. Most guys, I was told, let things like that roll off their back—an expression of their masculine confidence—but I was hurt by these things because it recalled prior trauma. My parents were surprised at how the therapy blamed them for my condition. Initially, Nicolosi had told them they were one of the cases that did not fit the mold of the “triadic relationship”—in other words, that my sexual orientation was not their fault. Once it became clear that Nicolosi held them responsible, they disengaged. They continued paying for therapy but no longer checked in with Nicolosi regularly or asked what he and I talked about. I was happy to defy my parents. Whether the grievance was that my curfew wasn’t late enough or that my parents didn’t give me enough money, I had a trusted authority figure validating every perceived injustice. Any complaint became evidence of how my parents had failed me. As I progressed in therapy, I felt that I was gaining insight into the source and causes of my sexual attractions. The problem was, they didn’t go away. At Nicolosi’s urging, I told my best friend that I had to distance myself from her. Instead, Nicolosi encouraged me to form “genuine nonsexual bonds” with other men. He paired me with another one of his patients, Ryan Kendall, who was my age and lived in Colorado. We spoke by phone every few days. Most of our conversations were mundane. We talked about our friends and people we didn’t like, recounting every high-school travail and triumph. But we frequently deviated from the therapist-approved, buddy-buddy talk that was supposed to repair us. We flirted, a novel experience for me; there were no openly gay people at my high school. Ryan and I described what we looked like to each other. He said he had brown hair and eyes and was short but cute; I said I was tall and skinny (but left out my bad skin). We promised to send each other pictures, though we never did. “What would Nicolosi say?” we’d ask. It became a regular refrain, an acknowledgment that we were misbehaving. Part of the bond we developed was in our shared rebellion against our therapist. For me, it had less to do with opposing ex-gay therapy than with the giddy thrill of defying authority. Ryan was convinced that change was impossible—“Nicolosi’s a quack,” he once said. Despite my transgressions, I still believed in Nicolosi’s theory. But my relationship with Ryan evinced a larger problem: While I was uncovering how my relationship with my parents continued to shape my inner life, I was still attracted to men. I chatted with older guys on the Internet and on a few occasions met them. I felt guilty about this but trusted Nicolosi enough to admit I had been “experimenting.” He told me to be careful of meeting men off the Internet but that I shouldn’t dwell on it or feel guilty. He said my sexual behavior was of secondary importance. If I understood myself and worked on my relationships with men, the attractions would take care of themselves. I just had to be patient. Late into my last year of high school, Nicolosi had a final conversation with my parents and told them that the treatment had been a success. “Your son will never enter the gay lifestyle,” he assured them. A few weeks later, our housekeeper caught me with a boy in our backyard. This marked the end of therapy for me. My parents were convinced it had failed because Nicolosi had blamed things on them rather than on my being teased by my male peers as a child. They sent me to another therapist. I had one session but refused to continue. While I still accepted Nicolosi’s underlying theory about why people were gay, I believed that all the talking in the world couldn’t change me. When I left for Yale, my mother sent me off with a warning: Were she to discover that I had “entered the gay lifestyle,” my parents would no longer pay for my education. “I love you enough to stop you from hurting yourself,” she said. In 2001, the year I started college, the ex-gay movement’s claims received a significant boost. In 1973, Columbia professor and prominent psychiatrist Robert Spitzer had led the effort to declassify homosexuality as a mental illness. Four years after Stonewall, it was a landmark event for the gay-rights movement. But 28 years later, Spitzer released a study that asserted change in one’s sexual orientation was possible. Based on 200 interviews with ex-gay patients—the largest sample amassed—the study did not make any claims about the success rate of ex-gay therapy. But Spitzer concluded that, at least for a highly select group of motivated individuals, it worked. What translated into the larger culture was: The father of the 1973 revolution in the classification and treatment of homosexuality, who could not be seen as just another biased ex-gay crusader with an agenda, had validated ex-gay therapy. An Associated Press story called it “explosive.” In the words of one of Spitzer’s gay colleagues, it was like “throwing a grenade into the gay community.” For the ex-gay movement, it was a godsend. Whereas previous accounts of success had appeared in non-peer-reviewed, vanity, pay-to-publish journals like Psychological Reports, Spitzer’s study was published in the prestigious Archives of Sexual Behavior. Spitzer’s study is still cited by ex-gay organizations as evidence that ex-gay therapy works. The study infuriated gay-rights supporters and many psychiatrists, who condemned its methodology and design. Participants had been referred to Spitzer by ex-gay groups like NARTH and Exodus, which had an interest in recommending clients who would validate their work. The claims of change were self-reports, and Spitzer had not compared them with a control group that would help him judge their credibility. This spring, I visited Spitzer at his home in Princeton. He ambled toward the door in a walker. Frail but sharp-witted, Spitzer suffers from Parkinson’s disease. “It’s a bummer,” he said. I told Spitzer that Nicolosi had asked me to participate in the 2001 study and recount my success in therapy, but that I never called him. “I actually had great difficulty finding participants,” Spitzer said. “In all the years of doing ex-gay therapy, you’d think Nicolosi would have been able to provide more success stories. He only sent me nine patients.” “How’d it turn out for you?” he asked. I said that while I stayed in the closet for a few years more than I might have, I ended up accepting my sexuality. At the end of college, I began to have steady boyfriends, and in February of last year—ten years after my last session with Dr. Nicolosi—I married my partner. Spitzer was drawn to the topic of ex-gay therapy because it was controversial—“I was always attracted to controversy”—but was troubled by how the study was received. He did not want to suggest that gay people should pursue ex-gay therapy. His goal was to determine whether the counterfactual—the claim that no one had ever changed his or her sexual orientation through therapy—was true. I asked about the criticisms leveled at him. “In retrospect, I have to admit I think the critiques are largely correct,” he said. “The findings can be considered evidence for what those who have undergone ex-gay therapy say about it, but nothing more.” He said he spoke with the editor of the Archives of Sexual Behavior about writing a retraction, but the editor declined. (Repeated attempts to contact the journal went unanswered.) Spitzer said that he was proud of having been instrumental in removing homosexuality from the list of mental disorders. Now 80 and retired, he was afraid that the 2001 study would tarnish his legacy and perhaps hurt others. He said that failed attempts to rid oneself of homosexual attractions “can be quite harmful.” He has, though, no doubts about the 1973 fight over the classification of homosexuality. “Had there been no Bob Spitzer, homosexuality would still have eventually been removed from the list of psychiatric disorders,” he said. “But it wouldn’t have happened in 1973.” Spitzer was growing tired and asked how many more questions I had. Nothing, I responded, unless you have something to add. He did. Would I print a retraction of his 2001 study, “so I don’t have to worry about it anymore”? The ex-gay movement has relied on the Spitzer study as the single piece of objective evidence that therapy can work. The need for that evidence became more pressing in the early 2000s, when a cadre of gay-rights bloggers began to scrutinize the movement, ready to expose any hint of hypocrisy. There was plenty of material. John Paulk, Love Won Out founder, chair of the board of Exodus International, and husband of Anne Paulk, was spotted and photographed at a Washington, D.C., gay bar. Richard Cohen, the founder of PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays)—intended as the ex-gay counterpart to PFLAG (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays)—was expelled from the American Counseling Association for ethics violations. Michael Johnston, the founder of “National Coming Out of Homosexuality Day,” was revealed to have infected men he’d met on the Internet with HIV through unprotected sex. A member of NARTH’s scientific advisory board ignited controversy by suggesting that blacks were better off having been enslaved, which allowed them to escape the “savage” continent of Africa. Shortly thereafter, the board of NARTH removed Nicolosi, who was still president. In 2010 it was revealed that NARTH’s executive secretary, Abba Goldberg, was a con man who had served 18 months in prison. Therapists associated with NARTH and Exodus were accused of sexually assaulting clients or engaging in questionable therapy practices. Among them were Alan Downing, the lead therapist of JONAH (Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality), who made his patients strip and touch themselves in front of a mirror; NARTH member Christopher Austin, who was convicted of “unlawfully, intentionally and knowingly caus[ing] penetration of” a client; and Exodus-affiliated Mike Jones, who asked a patient to take off his shirt and do push-ups for him. The movement also suffered several high-profile defections. John Evans, who had founded the first ex-gay ministry outside of San Francisco, renounced change therapy when a friend committed suicide after failing to become heterosexual. Former ex-gay Peterson Toscano, who was involved in the movement for 17 years, founded Beyond Ex-Gay, an online community for “ex-gay survivors.” In 2007, Exodus co-founder Michael Bussee apologized for his role in starting the organization. Partly as a response to the resurgence of ex-gay therapy, mainstream professional organizations also took a harder stance. From 2007 to 2009, the American Psychological Association conducted a review of all the literature on efforts to change sexual orientation. Judith Glassgold, the chair of the task force that produced the report, said the group found no scientific evidence that ex-gay therapy works. In fact, they found that it runs the risk of making patients anxious, depressed, and at times suicidal. “It provided false hope, which can be devastating,” Glassgold said. “It harmed self-esteem and self-regard by focusing on the psychopathology of homosexuality.” The APA now tells its members they should not engage in the practice. In the past few years, even Exodus has begun to show cracks in its support for ex-gay therapy. The organization has softened its rhetoric, encouraging its ministries to promote celibacy rather than change in order to live in concert with their religious values. The group no longer talks about “Freedom from Homosexuality”—its motto—but about the nobility of continuing to struggle against same-sex attractions. Exodus has also begun to distance itself from NARTH. In September of 2011, Exodus removed references to Nicolosi’s books and articles from its website. In January, Exodus president Alan Chambers spoke at a meeting of the Gay Christian Network. When asked about the possibility of gay people changing their sexual orientation, Chambers—who’d once claimed that he knew of thousands of success stories—said “99.9 percent” of those who had attempted to rid themselves of same-sex attractions had failed. There are other signs of decline. Attendance at Focus on the Family’s Love Won Out conference, the movement’s largest annual gathering, has dropped. Focus on the Family recently sold Love Won Out to Exodus. Ex-gay activists have less of a presence at religious-right events. Twenty years after NARTH’s founding, the movement has lost its luster. I’ve come to know a number of Nicolosi’s former patients and others who underwent therapy with NARTH members. Part of an informal alumni network of ex-gay dropouts, we see one another occasionally at conferences and interact in the blogosphere. Perhaps the best known is Daniel Gonzales, who writes for the website Box Turtle Bulletin. Nicolosi had also asked Daniel to participate in Spitzer’s study. When Daniel left therapy, he thought he had gained valuable insight into his condition but eventually gave up trying to resist his same-sex attractions. “I wasted one and a half years of my life on the therapy,” he said. “For a long time, the things Nicolosi said about gay relationships continued to haunt me.” His relationships with men continually failed because he was convinced, as Nicolosi had told him, that they would fall apart as soon as he began to feel comfortable with them, at peace with his masculine self. Nicolosi’s ideas did more than haunt me. The first two years of college, they were the basis for how I saw myself: a leper with no hope of a cure. I stayed in the closet but had sexual encounters with classmates nonetheless. I became increasingly depressed but didn’t go to mental-health counseling for fear that a well-meaning therapist would inform my parents that I was living the “gay lifestyle.” I planned for what I would do if my parents decided to stop paying my tuition. I would stay in New Haven and get a job. I would apply for a scholarship from the Point Foundation, which gives financial aid to gay kids whose parents have disowned them. I would not go back to Arizona. I would not see an ex-gay therapist. I spent hours in front of the window of my third-story room, wondering whether jumping would kill or merely paralyze me. I had a prescription for Ambien and considered taking the entire bottle and perching myself on the ledge until it kicked in—a sort of insurance. I am not sure how it all came to a head. Perhaps it was academic pressure combined with the increasing conflict between my ideals and my behavior. But in the spring of my sophomore year, the disparate parts of myself I had managed to hold together—the part of me that thought being gay was wrong, the part that slept with men anyway, the part of myself I let the world see, and the part that suffered in silence—came undone. I slept in 20-minute spurts for two nights, consumed with despair. I eyed the prescription bottles on my dresser with anxious excitement. I had reached a point at which I feared myself more than what would happen if I were gay. Realizing how close I was to impulsively deciding to kill myself, I went to the college dean’s office and said I was suicidal. He walked me over to the Department of Undergraduate Health, and I was admitted to the Yale Psychiatric Hospital. During the intake interview, I had a panic attack and handed the counselor a handwritten note that said, “Whatever happens, please don’t take me away from here.” I had signed my full name and dated it. More than anything, I feared going home. It was gray and cold my first night at the hospital. I remember looking out the window of the room I was sharing with a schizophrenic. Snow covered the ground in the enclosed courtyard below. Restless, I gathered a stack of magazines from the common area and flipped through the pages, noticing the men in the fashion advertisements. I tore out the ads and put them in a clear plastic file folder. I lay down in bed and held the folder against my chest. “It’s OK, it’s OK, it’s OK,” I murmured. I indeed had to go home for a year before returning to school. By then my father, who flew to New Haven the day I committed myself, realized that therapy—and the pressure he and my mother had placed on me—was doing more harm than good. “I’d rather have a gay son than a dead son,” he said. The ordeal was a turning point. While it took years of counseling to disabuse myself of the ideas I had learned while undergoing therapy with Nicolosi, it was the first time I encountered professionals who were affirming of my sexuality, and the first time I allowed myself to think it was all right to be gay. Ryan, my therapy partner, was even more deeply affected. Two years ago, I came across his name in transcripts of the lawsuit against California’s ban on same-sex marriage, Proposition 8, in which he testified about the harm therapy with Nicolosi had caused. Afterward, I friended him on Facebook. We recently met in person for the first time at a restaurant on Manhattan’s West Side. It had been 12 years since we’d last spoken on the phone. At 28, Ryan had just moved to New York City from Denver to start his undergraduate studies at Columbia. He looked like he does in his Facebook pictures: solid and short, with a shaved head and large brown eyes. Ryan had initiated dependency-and-neglect proceedings against his parents at age 16 to escape ex-gay therapy. That’s when we fell out of touch. He dropped out of high school and lived intermittently with friends, then with his brother until his house was foreclosed on. Ryan had been homeless at times. He had a series of short-term jobs and for a period dealt drugs to make money but was broke most of the time. For food, on a few occasions, he filled a shopping cart with items and then ran it out of the grocery store. “I was beyond control,” he said. “Something just broke in me. I was trying to destroy myself because I had internalized all the homophobia from therapy.” When did things turn around for him? A few years ago, he said, he landed a job working in an administrative-support position at the Denver Police Department. It was then that he started getting involved in gay-rights causes. “The Prop. 8 lawsuit was the first time I felt people really believed in me,” he says. “I was surrounded by smart, important people, and they paid attention to me.” I could relate to that: Being at Yale was the first time I felt validated by smart, important people. I asked Ryan what he would say to Nicolosi if he were at the table. “I’d ask him why he doesn’t just stop.” I couldn’t help wondering what Nicolosi would say to me, or Daniel, or Ryan. Does he feel as though he failed us? Does he think we failed him? Has hearing the stories of his former patients posted all over YouTube and the blogosphere changed his thinking? I decide to call him to find out. I am anxious about talking to Nicolosi again, afraid of what our conversation might bring back. He knew me as an adolescent better than my parents or friends did. When I first reach Nicolosi on the phone, he says he remembers me well and that he is surprised that I “went in the gay direction. You really seemed to get it.” The conversation is quick. He is between clients, so we arrange to speak a few days later. I call and tell him I’m recording our conversation. “I’m recording too,” he jokes, “in case you say, ‘Nicolosi said that gays are sick weirdos and they’re perverted and they all should go to hell.’” I chuckle. He’s just as I remember him—irreverent, warm. He says he’s been thinking about me since I called. I ask why, if he was so sure I had “got it,” I never experienced change in my sexual orientation. Nicolosi says his techniques have improved—now his patients focus more on the moment of sexual attraction instead of speaking generally about the cause of homosexuality. Therapy, he says, has become more effective. But part of the reason it failed for me, he says, was also that I was stuck: There were not men I could bond with, and my parents did not understand me. It’s the same thing he told me throughout high school. What about people who don’t fit his model? “After almost 30 years of work, I can say to you that I’ve never met a single homosexual who’s had a loving and respectful relationship with his father,” he says. I had heard it all before. I’m thinking, as he speaks, that for all his talk about understanding the homosexual condition, what it feels like to be gay is beyond Nicolosi’s experience. For him, changing one’s sexual orientation is a hypothetical proposition. He’s never lived it. Only his patients have had to face the failure of his ideas. I mention Ryan and tell Nicolosi he blames him for destroying his family. Nicolosi says he doesn’t remember Ryan. But he is defensive about taking any responsibility. “For all this concern about how I damage people, where is the damage? We’re currently treating 137 people. Over 30 years, don’t you think there’d be a busload of people who are damaged?” I asked him what he remembers about me. “All I can do is visualize a teenager in his room in a hot small town,” he says. “You would talk to me about the loneliness, the kids at school—you really had no friends. You desperately wanted to get out.” He is trying to draw me out, get me to talk to him openly. He is the therapist, and I am once again his patient. I am reticent. I tell him I did end up leaving Arizona. “And I encouraged you, right?” he says. “Quite honestly, Gabriel, I hope you see me as someone who didn’t make you feel worse about yourself, someone who did not force you to do or believe anything about yourself that you didn’t want to.” It’s true that while in therapy, I did not feel coerced into believing his theories. Like nuclear fallout, the damage came later, when I realized my sexual orientation would not change. I could have told Nicolosi about my thoughts of suicide, my time in the mental institution. I could have told him that my parents still don’t understand me but that I’m grown up now and it has less of a bearing on my life. I could have told him that I married a man. But I realize it wouldn’t be of any use: I’ve changed since I left therapy, but Nicolosi has not. For years I shared my innermost thoughts and feelings with him. Now I want to keep this for myself. |
The DA believes that the latest Eskom expose could be one of the reasons why its board has been reluctant to release the Dentons report. The party was reacting to a Sunday Times article that alleges Eskom CEO Matshela Koko’s stepdaughter, Koketso Choma, 26, scored contracts worth R1 billion for her company from the parastatal. DA MP Natasha Mazzone said the party would be writing to Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane, requesting that she launch an investigation into Koko. “Koko’s reported actions could show that he is compromised and unfit to be the head of Eskom,” Mazzone said. “By claiming that he was not aware that his daughter was involved with Impulse International, Koko inadvertently admits that he failed in his role as the Chief Accounting officer to conduct due diligence on the company profile of a potential Eskom service provider.” Impulse International, of which Choma was a director until recently, was awarded eight contracts by Eskom’s generation unit during Koko’s tenure as the unit’s group executive. “This potentially means that Eskom violated State Procurement guidelines set out by Treasury to guide the acquisition of services by State Owned Enterprises under Koko’s stewardship.” She said it was not acceptable that, while Eskom was struggling to raise capital for some of its power generation projects needed to grow the economy, its managers could be busy “siphoning cash to benefit family members”. The long-awaited Dentons report on Eskom sheds light on shocking financial abuses. News24 used a Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) application to obtain a copy of the report, which was commissioned by the Eskom board in 2015. Dentons, the law firm appointed to conduct an audit into “the status of the business and challenges experienced by Eskom,” identified serious cause for concern regarding the manner in which Eskom awarded contracts for the supply of diesel and coal, among other shortcomings. According to the report, some of the contractors – who benefitted from the nearly R30 billion that Eskom spent on diesel for its open cycle gas turbines between 2013 and 2015 – were companies that had no footprint in the industry and that may have been set up by Eskom employees themselves, News24 reported. News24 |
Crews clean up debris from the Chicago River at Eleanor Street Boathouse, 28282 S. Eleanor St. View Full Caption DNAinfo/Ariel Cheung BRIDGEPORT — A "mystery oil spill" was spotted on the south branch of the Chicago River in Bridgeport Wednesday, covering geese and other birds in a sheeny oil and causing the partial closure of a local park, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The sheeny, mile-long oil-spill was seen Wednesday near the Bubbly Creek, or the stretch of the river near the Eleanor Street Boathouse, 2828 S. Eleanor St., the EPA said. It was also observed moving westward on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal towards California Avenue, the agency said on its website. Get our daily Bridgeport, Chinatown & McKinley Park news and alerts! Please enter a valid email address. Please enter a valid email address. Please enter a valid 5-digit zip code. Please enter a valid 5-digit zip code. Thank you for signing up! Subscription failed By clicking subscribe, I agree to be bound by the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. "Bubbly Creek has been secured with containment boom and cleanup is underway," the EPA said. Crews were observed Wednesday afternoon removing the debris from near the park's dock. Geese appeared to be covered in the oil. Christina Martinez was in her morning yoga class Wednesday at the Eleanor Street Boathouse when she and her classmates saw a black film on the Chicago River. Then the group saw geese and ducks emerge from the river covered in a dark substance. "All of us noticed there was some kind of film on the water," she said. "The geese coming out were all black." Much of the path at Eleanor Street Boathouse, also known as Park 571, was closed to the public this morning, though only the dock area remained closed as of Wednesday evening. A Chicago Metropolitan Water Reclamation District boat was seen docked at Park No. 571 at 2828 S. Eleanor St., late Wednesday morning. By Wednesday afternoon, a dozen geese were sitting at the park, a few of them darker than the rest. The darker ones were picking at their feathers, and one was reluctant to move. "They're trying to lick it off their feathers, but they'll ingest it," said Martinez, a McKinley Park resident. "They can't live in the winter without their feathers. It's sad." An incident at the Eleanor Street Boathouse has left some geese covered in a dark substance. [DNAinfo/Joe Ward] Advertisement |
Inmates in Turkey’s prisons, including recently arrested journalists Ahmet Şık and Nedim Şener, have been unable to receive copies of the Armenian weekly Agos because officials say it is published in a “foreign language.” Hurriyet Daily News reports, the two reporters filed a complaint about not receiving copies of the paper, which is published partly in Turkish and partly in Armenian, that had been sent to them at Silivri prison. Administrators of the high-security facility responded to the complaint, explaining that, “The Agos newspaper is listed among the publications banned by the Justice Ministry, thus it cannot be brought into prisons.” After learning about the journalists’ failure to receive the newspaper, Agos contacted both the prison director and the chair of Parliament’s Human Rights Monitoring Committee, Zafer Üskül, but failed to get a clear answer from either. “As if the murder of [Agos’ former chief editor] Hrant Dink was not enough, they are now even banning Agos from entering prisons,” Şık and Şener, who met with their relatives Wednesday, said in a statement. “This is a hard-to-believe act; the ban reflects one of the many injustices done in this country each day.” The paper reminds, that the two journalists were arrested in early March as part of the ongoing Ergenekon case, an investigation into an alleged gang accused of plotting a coup. The move has drawn strong domestic and international criticism. Justice Ministry officials said Turkish law requires publications in foreign languages to be checked before entering the country’s prison and that the Agos copies had been delivered to Şık and Şener on Wednesday after being inspected. |
Amid all that is new about the just-unveiled 2017 London Taxi TX5 (and there's plenty), what is perhaps most newsworthy about it is what has stayed the same. It looks, despite its LED halo headlamps, like a London black cab is supposed to look — which is to say, a lot like the iconic Austin FX4 from the late 1950s. And that's very good, indeed, because the city has had some pretenders lately — Mercedes-Benz Vito vans and Nissan NV200s that looked more Frankfurt and Tokyo than London. The TX5, presented in the rain outside Lancaster House during a four-day UK state visit by China's President Xi Jinping, is the first new London Taxi product since Chinese automaker Geely bought the company in 2013. And this is no mere revision to the current TX4, which has been plying the streets of London since 2007; the TX5 is fresh from the ground up. The new taxi took shape at Geely's design centre in Barcelona, lead by British designers Peter Horbury and David Ancona, both formerly with Volvo Cars. It uses composite body panels over an aluminium structure, keeping weight down for improved efficiency. The rear doors are rear-hinged, as they were on the old Austin FX4, giving easy access to a six-passenger rear compartment. And the car offers to riders a raft of creature comforts and 21st-Century conveniences, including on-board Wi-Fi, USB charge points and an all-glass panoramic roof. The driver's compartment is improved as well: it's bigger, brighter and blessed with improved ergonomics. The TX5 offers to riders a raft of creature comforts and 21st-Century conveniences, including on-board Wi-Fi, USB charge points and an all-glass panoramic roof. The TX5 ditches the TX4's 2.5-litre diesel engine, instead employing a battery electric powertrain with a range-extending internal-combustion engine, allowing at least part of the cabbie's shift to be accomplished with zero emissions. Details related to power and performance — or the fuel efficiency and carbon emissions for the range-extender engine — haven't been released, but the company promises full tech specs closer to the TX5's 2017 launch. One specification is a given, however: the TX5 will have a turning circle of less than 28 feet, adhering to a London law from 1906 that ensures taxicabs are able to navigate the tight roundabout at the entrance to the Savoy Hotel in Westminster. For certain cities, the taxicab fleet is as much a part of the urban identity as the skyline. New York has lost it; the Big Apple's taxicab scene, once a uniform wash of Checker Marathons, has become a canary-coloured free-for-all, with everything from Toyota Camry Hybrids to Ford Transit Connect vans wearing NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission medallions. But in London, the bug-eyed TX4 is still the defining taxicab (albeit often wrapped in a vinyl advertisement instead of glossy black paint). And with the debut of the smartly evolved yet historically rooted TX5, London's future is looking reassuringly black. If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Autos, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter. |
Mibibli's Quest is a retro-style surrealistic platformer game. Join everybody's favorite poorly-drawn 8-bit character, Mibibli, as it blasts his way through over 20 crazy and eclectic levels designed to challenge even the fiercest wayward retro warrior. Conquer caves, dance through raves, wander the suburbs, and blow up eggs... travel through time and explore your nightmares along the way! Collect power ups and find the secrets that are scattered throughout this world. Each level has it's own collection of enemies, unique gimmicks, and bizarre characters to meet. Pay heed to their quizzical insights and use it to demolish bosses and ultimately defeat Mibibli's arch-nemesis, Crocodibli! This unique, colourful, and eccentric game has been described as "Mega Man" meets "Space Funeral." The soundtrack was inspired by catchy retro NES tunes, but is interspersed by instrumental oddities. Submersive and subversive, it is truly a gaming experience that will leave a lasting impression on your mind - over 7 bits - realistic graphics - sounds AND music - grammar errors - a story that will make you cry - gameplay that will make you cry - Mibibli : @RyanMelmoth The game is available for free, but for $6.49 you get the game with new extra content, such as a new randomized mode for hardcore players and something for mibimibimibfans (and for cheaters too). If you give a total of $10 then you also get the new extended 51-track soundtrack! (If you've previously given the cost of the game or more, then you should be able to now download the paid version without paying again. If you've bought the $10 soundtrack, then you should be able to download both the game and the new expanded soundtrack.) For info on the game's extra paid content, plus a list of cheat codes, check here: http://gamesforweirdpeople.com/mibibli/newversioni... |
WARNING: THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR SERIAL EXPERIMENTS LAIN It’s been a long while since I’ve last written an article about Lain. I’ve been meaning to write something along the lines of sociology and psychology still to add on to the philosophy post I wrote on Lain but I haven’t yet, unfortunately. But I’m planning on changing that at least one step at a time. Lain has extremely heavy sociological themes within the show that it manages to handle just as well as all of its other messages and does so in a way that blows me out of the water. There will be a few points made in this post as I try to address all the questions and themes that Lain brings up in regards to how Lain interacts with her society and how the society perceives Lain, and how that all is facilitated. I will try to keep it focused mainly on the sociological side of things rather than dipping into philosophy or psychology but as with everything Lain there is some mixture between the fields from time to time. The first and the most important theme I would like to cover here is the computer vs. real life interaction. Lain makes sure to present this as an issue within the show even going as far as to offer its “solution” to the problem, which is when Lain learns that having a body is important and stops humanity from ‘ascending’ into the Wired thanks to Alice’s influence in her life. Before this show started and certainly after it aired the concern of real life vs online interaction has shown its head in research papers, schools, and concerned parents. The question of “are they spending too much time online” or “is the internet destroying their social life” has been asked time and time again with varying answers. In a paper written by John Drussell, the very thing I am speaking of rears its head. He speaks of the benefits of social networking and the cost of it, such as the deterioration of some real life relationships and the increased anxiety of interacting with someone face to face. In my opinion I feel as though Lain treats those who exist solely online as an almost toxic thing. Chisa exists only online and tries to convince others that there is no point in having a “real body” since existing on the Wired has so many more benefits. Additionally, Masami Eiri concocts an entire scheme to try and convince Lain to join the Wired so his plan will be fully realized. The balance for Lain comes when Alice reminds her that having a body and interacting face to face is as important as online interactions if not decidedly more so. Cyberia could be seen as an example of “the internet” in a real world location. It’s a place where information seems to be exchanged and on top of that the people there are all cold and separated from each other, much like many online interactions. They’re still in the same place around other people but they’re “alone together” instead of just being “together.” Cyberia is definitely an important location for the show as it is the strongest indication that reality and the Wired are beginning to merge; Wired Lain appears there from the beginning of the show and the music is shown to be a beat that makes it easier to “merge” with the Wired. Also given Cyberia I’d like to note the “cold” interactions that occur there. When the gunman shoots himself in the head after speaking with Lain, students at Lain’s MIDDLE SCHOOL are talking the next day about it and… laughing about it. They don’t take the event seriously until Alice questions what the hell they’re doing, laughing about a suicide like that. It’s more tying in to how online, an event might not seem serious when you hear about it. You’re separated from it. But when it happens in front of you… it’s a different story. The second section I’d like to address is somewhat related. It’s the separation of real life and the internet as brought up in the show. Within the context of the show it’s a very real problem that the Wired is beginning to interact with the real world. This makes it all the more interesting because it draws a parallel to those people who spend so much time on the internet they begin to become unable to “tell the difference” so to speak. During one scene in the show, Yasuo walks in to find Lain boring holes into her computer screen, her computer having transformed from a simple Navi to a gigantic behemoth. He tries to correct her by telling her that “real life and the Wired are separate places” and Lain counters with “it’s not that simple”. In the show of course we know that of course it isn’t that simple, the Wired is LITERALLY invading the boundary of reality. But it rings true in the real world as well. Both the points do. The Internet and the real world are separate. Mixing the two can lead to some dangerous things. But because of how society functions today, you can’t fully separate the real world and the internet. The internet has almost, if not surely, become a foundation in how schools, businesses, families, and even countries operate in their day to day lives. We’ve embraced the advance of technology. Which makes it all the more impressive that a show made in 1998 was able to essentially predict where we would head with the “Wired”. A few more quotes are extremely relevant to this section. In episode 6 Lain is confronted by her friends and is asked a few questions. The first, “Life’s depressing when you’re alone all the time” kind of implies that internet friends aren’t “with you” in the same way that real life friends are. Additionally it’s followed up by “What sites have you been hanging out on?” which could easily be switched for the real world equivalent of “Who/where have you been hanging with/at?” And, slightly less relevant, “You prefer a machine to your friends?” Which is also said by one of the trio in episode 4. That’s a question many introverts may fear. It’s not “machine vs. friends” to someone like Lain. It’s much more complicated than that. A third point to address is how others perceive us in real life and online and how Lain was perceived throughout the course of the show. Besides Lain’s perception of herself and her struggles to come to grips with who she really is, there’s the general public’s perception of her. It ends up being somewhere between admiration, love, and fear, as you would expect of someone who is on the level of a god. One of the most blatant ways of showing off how Lain is perceived by others is the scene where she speaks with the shapeless form of Masami Eiri and the “bobbleheads” that all chatter around her take on her face. It’s how everyone on the net is perceiving Lain. They all have their own idea of who Lain is even though Lain is struggling to figure out who she thinks she is. In general this works for everyone. You have the person you perceive yourself to be and the person others perceive you to be, depending on how you act, who you’re with, and a multitude of other factors. It goes along with the idea that you can be whoever you want to be online but for whatever reason (mostly due to who she was) Lain chose to represent her full self on the Wired where most individuals were choosing to only materialize a hand, or a mouth, or another body part. Sure, it was all they could do, but the parallel between “showing only a part of yourself” in the show and “putting your information online” works too well to just be a coincidence. The more of yourself that you “reveal” the more danger you are put in online. And because Lain is putting all of herself on the internet she’s giving people a path to start rumors about her as well. There’s another interesting quote from the beginning of episode 6 that ties in with the ability to spread information so quickly: “If people can connect to one another, even the smallest voice will grow loud… …even their lives will become longer.” With the internet/Wired, everyone has a voice. And if you’re remembered, you live on. The internet gives you the ability to live on beyond reality. Which is how Chisa and Eiri were able to continue living. It was more of a literal representation. We also have the discussion of rumors and how those rumors persist. Within the show the rumor that Evil Lain brings to light is that Alice and her teacher are involved in a relationship with each other which is of course taboo. But the focus isn’t so much on the relationship the two are having as it is on the fact that a simple rumor was able to permeate so quickly throughout the Wired. The Wired gave Evil Lain the power to cause that rumor to spiral out of control. Given the internet’s amazing capabilities we have the ability to use it for noble purposes or less than noble purposes. Evil Lain’s rumor was an ugly thing that thrived on getting other people to repeat it time and time again so that people would believe it to be true. This could tie into the alien theory as well; it might not matter, sometimes, if a rumor is true or not. As long as it sticks, as long as everyone believes it, the rumor could end up BECOMING the truth and therefore warping reality even further. This combined with “first impressions” can have a dangerous effect. If the only information anyone knows about Alice and her teacher is that they are involved in a relationship (or even that Alice masturbates while thinking about her teacher) that’s the ONLY picture they have of Alice and it can totally ruin and damage her reputation beyond repair. But Lain herself does something that isn’t necessarily the best. She tries to “fix” the problem by wiping out everyone’s memory of the incident, except for Alice’s. This caused Alice to start cracking a little bit. Being the only one to remember an incident happened, when no one else believes it happened, is a weird place to be in. If no one else believes it happened, did it really ever happen? This is where the sociological and philosophical aspects of the show begin to mix. People essentially have the power to negate the existence of certain events or people by… forgetting they exist. There’s an old saying that say you die twice; once when you actually die, and once when someone says your name for the last time. Alice says in the show “If you don’t remember something, it never happened. If you aren’t remembered, you never existed.” One more small thing of note is the video game that everyone was playing (the game of “tag” in which the girl was chasing down the man). It seemed to have warped their reality into a video game where they were still actually causing physical harm to others to the point of killing, but everyone was going along with it probably due to the fact that they thought it was all just a video game. This could lead into a discussion itself about the nature of violence in video games and how they supposedly desensitize the gamers to real life violence but that isn’t the scope of this article. Just a one off thought considering how the game was presented within the show. In conclusion… in conclusion. There’s probably a lot more I could say about sociology in Lain. Unfortunately I don’t have a degree in this subject and sociology, much like the other two topics I’ve written on, isn’t a field that can be covered in two thousand words even within the confines of Lain. These thoughts may be a bit disorganized too; maybe in the future I’ll come back and fix things up a bit. For now though I’m just happy I was able to talk even more about my favorite show Additionally I would like to say I don’t know that I agree 100% with everything I may have gathered from what Lain was trying to say about sociology. Some of this is what I thought the show was trying to say, some of it is what I believe myself. As is the beauty of Lain, someone could tell me I was 100% wrong and there could be a loooong discussion. I will write more in the future about Lain; I don’t know that I’ll ever be satisfied to a point where I’ll stop. Thank you all for reading, and remember, Let’s All Love Lain. 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MDMA, or as it's better known, ecstasy, is one of the most heavily regulated drugs worldwide. But two leading neuroscientists have just published a commentary calling for more research into the substance, claiming that understanding how it works could hold the key to new therapeutic compounds and treatments for psychological conditions. "We've learned a lot about the nervous system from understanding how drugs work in the brain – both therapeutic and illicit drugs," said Robert Malenka, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist from Stanford University. "If we start understanding MDMA's molecular targets better, and the biotech and pharmaceutical industries pay attention, it may lead to the development of drugs that maintain the potential therapeutic effects for disorders like autism or PTSD but have less abuse liability." This isn't the first time that researchers have shown that MDMA could have potential in treating psychiatric disorders - a trial of 12 people with PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder, showed that, in conjunction with counselling, the compound could treat the condition without any ill side effects. Six years later, 11 of them hadn't had any PTSD symptoms return, and none had started abusing drugs (the 12th member of the original study wasn't available for the follow-up). Another study in 1998 showed that one session of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy was as beneficial as a decade of regular talking therapy. "MDMA's therapeutic effect was often rapid, happening over the course of hours or only a few short therapeutic sessions," Malenka and co-author Boris Heifets write in Cell. The benefits appear to come from the fact that MDMA triggers electrochemical messaging in the brain that increases feeling of connection and empathy - which is why scientists class the drug as an "empathogen". But on a neurological level, researchers still don't really understand how it works - and although initial brain scans have provided insight into which regions of the brain are involved in the process, there's still more to find out. Which is why the scientists are calling for approval to use "all the available tools of modern basic and clinical neuroscience research to map MDMA’s mechanism of action in the brain". Right now, MDMA is classed as a schedule I drug in the US, alongside things like LSD and heroin - and that means they're extremely hard for researchers to get ethics approval and funding to study. To be clear, the researchers openly acknowledge that the drug can be dangerous in large doses, and shouldn't be used recreationally. But "irrational barriers to its study based on poor understanding of its actions need to be minimised so that appropriate clinical studies can be performed," the researchers write. "You can give it to human beings under appropriately controlled, carefully monitored clinical conditions and do fMRI and functional connectivity studies, and you can begin to build up a knowledge base in an iterative fashion, combining the animal and human studies, where we start to gain more traction in understanding its neural mechanisms," added Malenka. MDMA isn't the only psychoactive drug that scientists think could be beneficial for human health - in early trials, ketamine has been shown to have an "unbelievable" effect when it comes to treating depression. And a trial of 12 people has shown that magic mushrooms can also be used alongside psychotherapy to improve long-term depression in less than three weeks. Researchers in April also completed the first imaging study of the brain on LSD, which lead researcher of the study, David Nutt, said was for human neuroscience "the same as the discovery of the Higgs boson". If the two Stanford researchers have their way, MDMA will be next to receive this level of research. "Drugs like MDMA should be the object of rigorous scientific study, and should not necessarily be demonised," concluded Malenka. |
The threadbare nature of our squad is such that the return of any of our injured players is cause for celebration. The Telegraph report this evening that Laurent Koscielny is fit to play on Sunday. Indeed, the Frenchman could even have been used against Bayern in midweek but Arsene Wenger was reluctant to risk aggravating what was a small hip problem. David Ospina is back in full training, and should take his place on the bench, while Mikel Arteta is apparently available and could provide a midfield option if the manager so desires. There’s also good news for Tomas Rosicky who has been given the green light to return to training after undergoing knee surgery in August. After the Interlull we should have Ramsey, Bellerin and Oxlade-Chamberlain back, meaning the squad is rounded out a bit. Theo Walcott’s calf injury means he’ll be out until December, while Jack Wilshere and Danny Welbeck remain sidelined until the new year. |
It is already illegal to use federal funding to pay for abortion services, except in the case of rape, incest, or medical emergencies, so Iowa’s change will not technically affect abortion services. Instead, the state is cutting off funding for family planning services such as STI testing and contraception provision. Employees of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland — which oversees both Iowa and Nebraska — knew this was a possibility months ago, Director of Marketing and Communications Susan Allen told VICE News. They set up a task force that ultimately determined that without Medicaid funds, four of Planned Parenthood’s 12 Iowan clinics would be unable to operate. Under federal law, Medicaid beneficiaries are entitled to “free choice of provider,” which means states cannot exclude Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers from family planning programs that operate using Medicaid dollars. But last week, Iowa’s Republican Gov. Terry Branstad signed a budget bill that gives up millions of dollars of federal funding in favor of a state-operated family planning program that will exclude abortion providers like Planned Parenthood. “These changes are devastating,” reads a statement from Planned Parenthood. “More than 14,000 patients who trust Planned Parenthood with their health care in these communities and in neighboring areas no longer have access to their provider of choice.” Four Planned Parenthood health care clinics in Iowa will be forced to close thanks to a new state law that bans health care providers who perform abortions from receiving Medicaid money, Planned Parenthood of the Heartland announced Thursday. Read more Four Planned Parenthood health care clinics in Iowa will be forced to close thanks to a new state law that bans health care providers who perform abortions from receiving Medicaid money, Planned Parenthood of the Heartland announced Thursday. “These changes are devastating,” reads a statement from Planned Parenthood. “More than 14,000 patients who trust Planned Parenthood with their health care in these communities and in neighboring areas no longer have access to their provider of choice.” Under federal law, Medicaid beneficiaries are entitled to “free choice of provider,” which means states cannot exclude Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers from family planning programs that operate using Medicaid dollars. But last week, Iowa’s Republican Gov. Terry Branstad signed a budget bill that gives up millions of dollars of federal funding in favor of a state-operated family planning program that will exclude abortion providers like Planned Parenthood. Employees of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland — which oversees both Iowa and Nebraska — knew this was a possibility months ago, Director of Marketing and Communications Susan Allen told VICE News. They set up a task force that ultimately determined that without Medicaid funds, four of Planned Parenthood’s 12 Iowan clinics would be unable to operate. It is already illegal to use federal funding to pay for abortion services, except in the case of rape, incest, or medical emergencies, so Iowa’s change will not technically affect abortion services. Instead, the state is cutting off funding for family planning services such as STI testing and contraception provision. “There’s absolutely no reason — medical reason or any other logical reason — for this to occur,” Allen told VICE News. “It feels outrageous. It feels unnecessary. It feels like completely politically motivated.” There are still several questions about how Iowa’s new state-run program will work, said Jodi Tomlonovic, executive director of the Family Planning Council of Iowa. For example, it’s still unclear whether only abortion providers will be excluded, or if health care clinics and groups that are only affiliated with abortion providers could also be kicked out. “We’re concerned too that a lot of groups won’t have the capacity to pick up the number of new clients,” Tomlonovic said, adding that thanks to these clinics’ closures, women in some parts of Iowa will have to travel 100 miles or more to get family planning services. Plus, Tomlonovic wondered, “Is it going to take us six weeks to get you in … for what we consider very time-sensitive services?” Several states have sought to eliminate Planned Parenthood from Medicaid programs, but so far only Texas and Missouri have succeeded. In the process, both states gave up millions of dollars of federal funding and set up their own state-run family planning programs. Texas, the first state to exclude Planned Parenthood, soon saw a spike in the rate of childbirth covered by Medicaid and a decrease in low-income women’s ability to find contraception. But just last week, Texas asked the Trump administration to restore its funding. If it succeeds, it could set the stage for Iowa and the many other states have tried to cut Planned Parenthood off from funding to do so without consequences. |
A New Jersey woman arrested for allegedly putting her 5-year-old daughter in a tanning booth says it was all a big misunderstanding. Patricia Krentcil, 44, told NBC's local New York affiliate that she took her daughter with her to a local tanning salon but that the child was not exposed to the booth's synthetic UV rays. "I tan, she doesn't tan," Krentcil said. "I'm in the booth, she's in the room. That's all there is to it." Krentcil, of Nutley, N.J., was arrested last week, and charged Tuesday with felony child endangerment. She was released on a $25,000 bond and is due in court Wednesday. "It's like taking your daughter to go food shopping," Krentcil said. "There's tons of moms that bring their children in." Police, though, say Krentcil put her daughter in an upright tanning booth. New Jersey state law prohibits children under the age of 14 from tanning booths. Children between the ages of 14 and 17 must be accompanied by an adult. Police were alerted by school officials, who say Krentcil's daughter showed up for school with what appeared to be a sunburn, then told classmates she "went tanning with Mommy." Rich Krentcil, the girl's father, told NBC the teacher misinterpreted his daughter. "This whole big thing happened, and everyone got involved," he said. "It was 85 degrees outside, she got sunburned. That's it. That's all that happened." More popular Yahoo! News stories: • Grandparents allegedly tow 7-year-old behind SUV in toy car while drunk • 'Bullied' dolphin hiding from pushy pod, officials say • Golden retriever guards owner's bicycle, then hops aboard for a ride |
As I noted earlier today, the Army had rescinded Major Stefan Cook’s orders to deploy to Afghanistan, a deployment that he had volunteered for only two months ago, after he filed a lawsuit asking for the deployment to be barred because, he claims, Barak Obama is not eligible to serve as President of the United States. One would have thought that would have been the end of it, and indeed the U.S. Attorney’s Office filed a Motion to Dismiss the TRO application as moot. One would have thought that, but then it’s the Queen Bee of Birtherdom we’re dealing with here. Instead of realizing that her case is dead, Orly Taitz has instead amended the original Complaint to make it even more bizarre: Cook v. Good MOTION for Preliminary Injunction (#06, July 15, 2009) Here’s a basic summary of what’s new based on my admittedly cursory initial review of this monstrosity: 1. Prior to volunteering for deployment to Afghanistan, Cook was apparently employed as a government contractor attached to the DOD. His employer has now told him that the DOD does not wish him to return to the facility he was working at, and that there isn’t any where else the company can send him. In other words, Cook has lost his job and possibly his security clearances for filing this piece of crap lawsuit. 2. Orly has added two retired members of the military who are allegedly still subject to recall, but neither of whom has been ordered to deploy anywhere but who allege that they have joined the case because of their interest in seeing the question of Obama’s eligibility resolved. 3. Her prayer for relief is, well, interesting: WHEREFORE, Plaintiff prays that this Court will enter a Preliminary Injunction upon full-hearing, waiving all bonds or other financial requirements. Specifically, Plaintiff prays that this Court (1) recognize and respect Plaintiffs’ status, and the status of all persons similarly situated in the United States Army, as conscientious objectors based solely on legitimate doubts concerning the constitutional qualifications and eligibility of the de facto President and Commander-in-Chief, Barack Hussein Obama, (2) enjoin Defendants Robert M. Gates, as well as Colonels Louis B. Wingate, Wanda L. Good and Thomas D. MacDonald from deploying Plaintiffs or any persons similarly situated to Afghanistan or anywhere on active duty at all until (3) such time as the constitutional qualifications and eligibility of Barack Hussein Obama to serve as President and Commander and Chief have been established by clear and convincing evidence (which standard of proof befits a constitutional requirement, especially in light of the confusing and conflicting circumstantial evidence set forth in Exhibits E and F). Essentially she wants to turn the case into a class action and give every member of the military an excuse to disobey orders, not that most of them would take her up on that offer. 4. Once again, Orly has signed the Complaint herself. She’s not admitted to practice in Georgia, and she hasn’t been admitted to pro hac vice in this case either. There’s no local counsel. Does she really think the Judge isn’t going to notice that. The hearing is on for 9:30 tomorrow: 07/15/2009 This is a text only entry; no document issued.ORDER. The Court will decide Defendant’s presently pending motion to dismiss after hearing argument from the attorneys at the hearing scheduled for 9:30 A.M. on July 16, 2009. Ordered by Judge Clay D. Land on July 15, 2009. (CDL) (Entered: 07/15/2009) I bet it’ll be fun. |
By Congo at Thursday, November 20, 2014 3:42:00 PM The Dunning-Kruger effect is a well known phenomenon within behavioral study circles. One thing we haven't discussed, and this may be a moment of revelation for many, is what this effect and it's proposal has on competitive gaming in the world. It's time we broke it down from development levels to professional and touched on a few soft spots for gamers. What is the Dunning-Kruger Effect? Taken simply from our favourite source of information, Wikipedia, "The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias whereby unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than is accurate. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their ineptitude. Conversely, highly skilled individuals tend to underestimate their relative competence, erroneously assuming that tasks which are easy for them are also easy for others." Theorized by David Dunning (the star of this article) and Justin Kruger, the two conclude: "the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others". How this relates to gaming comes in their proposal for this phenomenon. The two proposed that for any given skill, incompetent people will: Fail to recognize their own lack of skill. Fail to recognize genuine skill in others. Fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy. Recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill, if they're exposed to training of that skill. When researching for this piece, reading the theory and proposal, I felt as if Dunning and Kruger had done this study directly relating to gaming. Any body who has spent time playing games such as League of Legends, Dota 2, Counter-Strike, Call of Duty, well, any competitive game can sympathize with one another. I myself have been playing competitive games since I was about 13 years old (23 now) and am man enough to admit I used to suffer from the DKE. The DKE and gaming We were lucky enough to see an Ask Me Anything (AMA) on Reddit by David Dunning where he answered a whole host of questions relating to the DKE. One question in particular was brought to my attention. The question was asked by professional Dota 2 player Kurtis "Aui_2000" Ling. Hey David, I'm a professional video game player in a game called Dota 2 and I am trying to start teaching people about the game. To give a little bit of background about the game if you've never heard of it, Dota 2 is a 5v5 game where mistakes from your team mates--as well as yourself--have the potential to heavily punish you and ultimately lose the game for your team. Dunning-Kruger is often cited very extensively in Dota2 as one of the reasons for why it is hard for people to improve at the game, as well as one of the reasons for poor team cohesion in pick up public games. My questions are: Has any research been done about the effect of Dunning-Kruger specifically in videos games? What is the best way to try to teach people to combat the Dunning-Kruger effect in their games? Are there ways to even turn Dunning-Kruger into an positive force for learning? How did you get top billing on the name Dunning-Kruger? Has any research been done about how people view themselves morally when they're veiled by anonymity (i.e. on the internet on game forums) relative to their moral standard in person? David Dunning replied: No explicit research on the DKE has been done in video games, although I have to admit I am interested. You ask about Dota 2, but note that the same issue comes up, with potentially severe consequences, in flight training of new pilots. Beginning pilots are appropriately scared of the task. But, after a little training, they become more experienced and dangerous because they haven’t confronted all the problems they might yet. So, how do you expose trainee pilots to DKE without putting their lives in danger? One notion is to let beginners know just how much better other pilots are performing. That clues them in that there’s a level of proficiency that they are not at yet. Then, one can give them clues about how to get there. Oh, and how did I get top billing in the naming of the effect? Dunno. It does show that Justin Kruger and I did not provide the name. We don’t know how it happened, we just know that our good family names will be associated with ignorance, incompetence, foolishness, and the like far after we leave this mortal coil. Taking David Dunning's response and relating it to gaming actually makes complete sense. The analogy of untrained pilots being exposed to those more experienced than them can be correlated to the recent exposure to competitive games via Twitch, and other online media sources. How you ask? When I admittedly suffered from the DKE I had absolutely no exposure to the outside world of gaming. I played on one server against the same people over and over, and obviously felt I was better than them. It was only until I was exposed to players much, much better than me (via own3d.tv and Justin.tv) that I learned just how poorly skilled I was. To extend on the DKE and gaming let's take the 4 proposals and create a simple scenario in Dota 2 (possibly League of Legends too) that all of us are far too familiar with. A player joins the game, calls solo mid (possibly picks a fight with a player who called for the solo middle role as well) and eventually get's his role. He may start off well, but due to many reasons, starts losing his lane and begins blaming his team. To extend on this scenario, let's take a trip down memory lane. We've all had this type of game. He flames the other solo mid in all chat calling him, or bad, for receiving help in the form of rotations from other players in the game which inevitably loses him the lane. The opponents may be a bit better than him, which in turn resulted in him losing his lane. Does this stop him, though? Absolutely not. He continues to try crazy things and in turn gets himself, and his teammates punished in the game. After flaming his team, he continues to feed for the soul purpose of ruining the game now because it did not go the way he expected. Still stating he's much better than them and refers to a game where he actually did something useful, mentioning his rank and how it's better than theirs. After the game (or during) he realizes that even though his lane was lost the other lanes were performing quite well and all he had to do was keep his cool and hold his own. Realizing that his opposition number had a slightly better understanding and hence reviewing what he did wrong and improving. This final point unfortunately only comes with experience and is something players will begin doing once they've realized they're in need of improving. Players now a days have plenty of exposure to more skilled individuals, the only issue is those players are professionals. When entering a game against players of similar skill there's really nothing stopping you from experiencing every single one of the thoughts proposed above. The question is, how do we stop this? How does this affect gaming? I'm going to draw from personal experience for this part. Growing up and gaming in South Africa, I personally feel we have been hardest hit by this effect. Sure, every single gaming community has it's demons, but ours in particular are due to many factors, which include poor internet infrastructure, little to no international exposure (until a few years ago) and small communities where only a small select few rise above the rest. The exposure some will argue isn't a factor, but it boils down to our poor infrastructure. Until about 2 years ago only a few privaledged household were able to watch streams of international games. Thus we were trapped in a void where we saw little to no improvement. In my unprofessional opinion this lent a hand to expanding the Dunning-Kruger Effect. This interview with a South African team, Bravado Gaming, at MSI Beat IT earlier this month sums it up in a very harsh way. Of course, the player didn't use the right words and as you can imagine there were a few heated debates with the gaming hubs in South Africa. I had to preface this point with a bit of background, but now I can get back to how the DKE affects gaming. South Africa is at the grass roots of competitive gaming. We've sent 5 different teams to international tournaments in the last two months alone, which is massive for our little sunny country. The DKE puts a massive damper on the improvement of gaming down here. There are a select group of highly skilled individuals who practice countless hours to improve, and there has been major improvement, but the biggest problem lies within the casual community. Most public games become undesirable because players are unable to cooperate or enjoy a decent game against each other. There are always quarrels between players, more than often on the same team. This is where our biggest problem lies, because most new players who may be the next big pro get thrown into this deep end and drown in inadequacy. Sure, they'll eventually get out when joining the right circles, but imagine how much faster it could have happened if games went as they should without all the hot heads, game ruiners. How do we combat the DKE? This took a bit of thought and discussion but after reviewing David Dunning's response to Aui_2000, I figured the only way to improve is to take a similar approach. Introduce academies where younger players are exposed to professionals creating an environment of learning, as opposed to just jumping straight in to the competitive deep end. I honestly I feel this could help improve gaming as a whole. It's a bit of a dream but if we want to produce more quality players who posses more than just raw skill, I feel this is the only way. Closing Even thought I've mentioned a very small smudge on the international gaming community I'm sure a lot of you can draw similar comparisons. Maybe I'm wrong in assuming South Africa's small community lends a hand to a worse DKE. Perhaps a bigger community like in the EU or USA suffers even more due to large communities. My only hope is that Dunning and Kruger do perform research on this effect in gaming, helping gamers understand it and be more aware of their own actions. Congo's Twitter | Facebook / MWEB GameZone Twitter | Facebook Other News From Around the 'Net: |
The German princess continues to show how out of touch she is. A shot of the now deleted post from Elisabeth von Thurn und Taxis' Instagram account. Screengrab: Alyssa Vingan/Fashionista It was with her first column for U.S. Vogue, who named her style editor at large in 2012, that we first took notice of Elisabeth von Thurn und Taxis. Blonde, pretty and a literal German princess with a taste for luxury, von Thurn und Taxis (often called TNT) was a natural fit for the aspirational fashion mag, but the things she writes, both in Vogue and on social media, often straddle the line between entertaining/aspirational and disturbingly out of touch. On Saturday she crossed that line. In Paris for fashion week, she decided to post the above Instagram of what appears to be a homeless person reading Vogue, the magazine she works for -- something she clearly finds humor in. ADVERTISEMENT Thanks for watching! Visit Website We shouldn't have to explain why her decision to put this on Instagram, as wealthy princess, was of questionable taste. After followers complained, TNT defended the post, writing in the comments: "Why cruel? The person to me is as dignified as anyone else!" ADVERTISEMENT Thanks for watching! Visit Website ADVERTISEMENT Thanks for watching! Visit Website Update: Von Thurn und Taxis gave the following response via Instagram on Sunday after taking down the aforementioned post: Update #2: The Daily Mail tracked down and interviewed the homeless woman pictured, 65-year-old Maryse Dumas, who says, "It's not nice taking pictures of people living on the street, that not polite [sic]." Dumas didn't know her picture was being taken and has not received an apology. Front page photo: Victor Boyko/Getty Images |
Shalamov’s great work on the Soviet gulag, Kolyma Tales, is much more than a memoir of crushed humanity: seen as an epic cycle, the work acquires major philosophical dimensions • More from Chris Power’s A brief history of the short story “I hate literature,” wrote Varlam Shalamov in a 1965 letter. “I do not write memoirs; nor do I write short stories. That is, I try to write not a short story but something that would not be literature.” Despite Shalamov’s misgivings, his collection of short stories, Kolyma Tales, contains some of the greatest writing to emerge from the gulag. What he was expressing, in agonised terms, was that everything in his writing serves a purpose. As in the gulag, where survival could come down to receiving the thicker part of the soup or an extra ration of bread, or simply owning your own bowl, there is no room in his stories for the non-essential. What he is also stating, purposefully or not, is that his writing is unique. The gulag was a vast concentration-camp network that spread across some of the most inhospitable regions of Russia, and of all these regions Kolyma was the most extreme. “In the same way that Auschwitz has become, in popular memory, the camp which symbolises all other Nazi camps,” the historian Anne Applebaum writes, “so too has the word ‘Kolyma’ come to signify the greatest hardships of the gulag.” Shalamov’s translator John Glad describes the region as “an enormous natural prison bounded by the Pacific on the east, the Arctic Circle on the north and impassable mountains on the third side of the triangle”. The temperature can reach minus 45 degrees centigrade, cold that, in Shalamov’s words, “crushed the muscles and squeezed a man’s temples”. First arrested in 1929 for trying to distribute a suppressed letter by Lenin, Shalamov was released in 1932 after three years’ hard labour. Rearrested in 1937, at the outset of the great purge, he spent the next 17 years in Kolyma. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said of him that his imprisonment “was more bitter and longer than mine, and I say with respect that it fell to him, not to me, to touch that bottom of brutalisation and despair to which the whole of camp life dragged us”. For his part, Shalamov was largely dismissive of Solzhenitsyn, whose fame he envied: he refused Solzhenitsyn’s offer to co-author The Gulag Archipelago, and once described the camps as a subject “that can freely accommodate a hundred writers of Solzhenitsyn’s rank, and five Tolstoys”. Between 1954 and 1973, Shalamov wrote 147 stories about Russian prisons, transit camps, the mines of Kolyma, life in the camp hospitals, and the troubled experience of returning home. It is tempting, at first, to consider the stories autobiographical, if not straight memoir. This impression is only strengthened if you have encountered Shalamov’s stories quoted as primary source material in historical works by Robert Conquest and Applebaum, or by the political philosopher John Gray. It is a judgment his prose style supports: “Shalamov holds himself in severe check as an artist”, wrote Irving Howe, “he is simply intent, with a grey passion, upon exactitude.” Yet the more you read, the less documentary-like the experience becomes. Unusual repetitions occur, such as the selection of a work crew described from different perspectives across three separate stories: three discrete pathways that unexpectedly intersect. Similarly, particular images and phrases repeat; objects exhibit a strong symbolic power; meanings double, as accounts of daily camp life take on aesthetic and philosophical dimensions. As Robert Chandler and Nathan Wilkinson describe: A reader who knows only a few of the stories may well imagine the Kolyma Tales to be simply a factual account of Shalamov’s experiences. The events described in each individual story seem entirely real. Only when we read further, when we try to grasp the whole of this epic cycle, do we begin to realise that its truth can never be grasped: we begin, at last, to sense the terrible unreality of the survivor’s world. Successive narrators suffer identical fates, their stories intertwine impossibly, and time stands still. This fusion of realism and the surreal endows Kolyma Tales with extraordinary power. Shalamov’s work is often described as “web-like” in its complexity. The stories are quite capable of standing alone (several are outright masterpieces), but ideally they should be read as a totality, arranged in the order Shalamov intended. Unfortunately, because the stories were smuggled out of the Soviet Union and published piecemeal in the west (none of them appeared in print in Shalamov’s home country before 1989, seven years after his death), and because to date only a third of the stories have been translated into other languages, non-Russian speakers are unable to experience their intended effect in full. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Circa 1930: Russian prisoners. Photograph: Popperfoto Shalamov’s stories evoke the “world-like” camps as vast structures of pain, devourers of the men and women trapped within them. In Dry Rations, he writes: “All human emotions – love, friendship, envy, concern for one’s fellow man, compassion, longing for fame, honesty – had left us with the flesh that had melted from our bodies during their long fasts.” In Typhoid Quarantine, he catalogues the long-term effects of hard labour: clawed hands, frostbite, scurvy ulcers and pus-leaking toes. In The Lepers, an orderly is described as being trapped “in a terrible kettle where he himself was being boiled away”. Shalamov casts us into a world where prisoners sprinkle dirt in their wounds to extend their time away from the mines, and mutilate themselves for the same reason (“Kolya’s happiness began the day his hand was blown off”); where men dig up the recently dead to steal their clothing (“‘You know the shorts are like new,’ Bagretsov said with satisfaction”); where the bunkmates of the poet Osip Mandelstam raise his hand “like a puppet” for two days after his death, so they can claim his bread ration; where prisoners are tempted into a forbidden zone by “enchanted” berries, “bright blue and wrinkled like an empty leather purse, but continuing a dark blue-black juice that was indescribably delicious”, and shot dead. Here is the narrator of that last story, Berries, looking at the body of his companion: Rybakov looked strangely small as he lay among the hummocks. The sky, mountains and river were enormous, and God only knew how many people could be killed and buried among the hummocks along these mountain paths. This conception of Kolyma as a space filled with the dead – the actual and soon-to-be dead – runs throughout the stories, and reveals something of fundamental importance to Shalamov’s project. Consider the following lines from Lend-Lease, set during the second world war, in which a logging operation uncovers mass graves from 1938: In Kolyma, bodies are not given over to earth, but to stone. Stone keeps secrets and reveals them. The permafrost keeps and reveals secrets. All of our loved ones who died in Kolyma, all those who were shot, beaten to death, sucked dry by starvation, can still be recognised even after tens of years. There were no gas furnaces in Kolyma. The corpses wait in stone, in the permafrost … The bodies had not decayed; they were just bare skeletons over which stretched dirty, scratched skin bitten all over by lice … The earth opened, baring its subterranean storerooms, for they contained not only gold and lead, tungsten and uranium, but also undecaying human bodies. The frozen earth, then, keeper and revealer of secrets, acts as an archive, the physical counterpart to Shalamov’s memorialising stories. Because despite their pessimism, and despite his contention that nothing good could come from the camps (“We had all been permanently poisoned by the north, and we knew it”), his writing is an act of defiance, not despair. He genuinely believed that his stories, in Leona Toker’s description, were “a truthful but not despondent or cynical testimony”; that they “are – rather than are about – the victory of good, a slap in the face of evil”. Shalamov’s belief can be detected in the stories themselves. The first in the entire sequence, Through the Snow, describes the way a new road is trodden down by a team of prisoners. The story appears to be a straightforward description of a physical process. Until, that is, we come to the final lines: Every one of them, even the smallest, even the weakest, must tread on a little virgin snow – not in someone else’s footsteps. The people on the tractors and horses, however, will not be writers but readers. At once, as the convicts are described as writers, the new road becomes not simply a supply route between camp and mine, but a route of transmission between the camp and the wider society, between secrecy and truth, and Kolyma Tales announces itself as a work that will, at all times, operate simultaneously on distinct levels. Similarly, in The Life of Engineer Kipreev, the description of a mirror appears to double as comment on the importance and the cost of bearing witness: Mirrors do not preserve memories. It is difficult to call the object that I keep hidden in my suitcase a mirror. It is a piece of glass that looks like the surface of some muddy river. The river has been muddied and will stay dirty for ever, because it has remembered something important, something eternally important. It can no longer be the crystal, transparent flow of water that is clear right down to its bed. The mirror is muddied and no longer reflects anything. If we take the muddy mirror for Shalamov, whose act of remembrance (of something “eternally important”) has left its mark on him, then the description of the bulldozer at the end of Lend-Lease, after it has reburied the unearthed corpses, becomes part of a dialogue about the revelation and keeping of secrets: The bulldozer roared past us; on the mirror-like blade there was no scratch, not a single spot. To confront truth, these parallels suggest, is to accept a degree of damage. Relatedly, we read in Dry Rations that “a human being survives by his ability to forget”, but the statement is made ironical by appearing within a story that is itself a conscious act of remembrance. Reading Kolyma Tales is about encountering moments like this, and it is about discovering the intersections and tangents that lie not only within but between the stories. “Like every novelist,” Shalamov wrote, “I endow the first and final phrases with exceptional significance.” He might have said the same about the words between those two points, and about the dense, dynamic spaces between each separate but interconnected text. Translations from the work are by John Glad, Robert Chandler and Nathan Wilkinson. Next: William Sansom |
Donald Trump is detached from reality. Here is a candidate for our nation's highest office who scares the heck out of the rest of the world due to his ignorance of, and failure to learn, the most elementary things about international affairs. Trump had no idea that Vladimir Putin had already sent Russian troops into the Crimean Peninsula when he said recently that Putin is "not going to go into Ukraine." Then, within a 10-day period, he insulted Gold Star parents whose son was killed in Iraq; stated, before changing his mind, that he would not support the re-election of two prominent congressional Republicans; claimed with no proof that November's election will be rigged against him; and leveled what was widely seen as a thinly veiled threat to Hillary Clinton by stating that the "Second Amendment people" could deal with her if she's elected. Trump has routinely disparaged Mexicans, immigrants, women, minorities, the disabled and anyone by whom he feels threatened. The situation was aptly described by G. K. Chesterton, the English writer and theologian who said, "Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable." Trump's "evils" have reached a level to disqualify him from holding the nation's highest office. Continued support of his candidacy by the Republican National Committee is absurd and embarrassing to the nation. Trump attracts the political loyalty of a specific working-class demographic that appears unconcerned about the poison that comes out of his mouth. So, let's shift from him to his supporters. Who are these poor souls blindly supporting him even as he blows to smithereens his own candidacy, as well as the Republican Party? What does continued support of this demagogue say about American political culture and the American Dream? The Trump phenomenon, born of the conservative movement hijacked by former tea-party extremists, demonstrates just how unsophisticated and dumb-down the American electorate has become. Fear of a changing world has caused many to grab hold of the Trump myth and ignore reality. Many Trump supporters have realized for the first time that the American Dream no longer exists for them. They believe their ancestors built this nation from the ground up. Their families' past generations found work in manufacturing and other good-paying jobs that dangled a happy retirement on the end of a stick. Their work ethic was based on the premise that employer loyalty and hard work would be rewarded by upward mobility and livable wages. Then, they watched helplessly as their golden goose was unceremoniously snatched away by the very corporations they believed in. These people didn't understand that capitalism has very rigid rules, one of which was that free labor for hundreds of years could create enough corporate and individual wealth to make America the most powerful nation on Earth. But when free labor was no longer available in America, cheap labor would have to do. So, millions of U.S. manufacturing jobs left for Asia, South America, Mexico and even Canada, while corporations downsized to enhance their financial statements. Now, the working class getting a large dose of the hard life: unemployment and underemployment; high taxes, "upside down" home values; alcohol and opiate abuse, decreasing or stagnant wages; inadequate retirement savings; less opportunity for their children; and uncaring politicians funded by the same corporations that wiped out the domestic work force. So, these supporters look to Trump to make America great again by taking us all back to the good ol' days. If we are honest, the rise of Trump stemmed from manufacturing losses, corporate greed. and the refusal of Republicans to stop their incendiary speech during Barack Obama's two terms in the White House. As an Emperor with No Clothes, Trump is selling a false dream to those so desperate hat hey will embrace anything to just get back to those "good ol' days." The late George Carlin, one of my favorite political satirists, said, "It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it." It's time to wake up. Milton W. Hinton Jr. is director of equal opportunity for the Gloucester County government. He is past president of the Gloucester County Branch NAACP. His column states his personal views, not those of any organization or agency. Email: mwhjr678@gmail.com. |
Once again we’re reminded that the seizure of the American sailors two weeks ago was not some misunderstanding, it was a purposeful attack by Iran on the American navy. Today, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tweeted this: Khamenei’s comment was part of a a series of tweets praising Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) for seizing American naval vessels and taking their crews hostage two weeks ago. In one tweet he is seen congratulating the IRGC troops who captured the Americans. Photos of meeting between Leader and IRGC forces who arrested US intruding marines. https://t.co/hEKxRmaxLp pic.twitter.com/etGej5L09H — Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) January 24, 2016 This kinds of pokes a hole in Secretary of State John Kerry’s claim that the episode, in the context of the nuclear deal, shows the diplomatic gains made with Iran are paying off. Our sailors, regrettably, inadvertently went into Iranian waters. The challenge is that three or four years ago, you mentioned, we wouldn’t have known who to call. We would have probably had to call the Swiss or maybe we would have called the British. There would have been no direct communication, and it could have grown into a major kind of hostage confrontation the way it had previously. And there were people, by the way, in Iran now who certainly would have argued to hold onto them longer. But it was because we built a relationship, because we are working at this nuclear effort, because we are trying to turn a corner, as President Rouhani said, and Iran has joined into the Syria talks and Iran agreed to a formula for a ceasefire, for a unity government, for a constitutional reform, and for an election in Syria. That could not have happened were we not building on this path with respect to the nuclear program. If rapprochement with the United States was what was important to Iran’s Supreme Leader, that’s what he would have highlighted on his Twitter account. But it wasn’t. It was the humiliation of the United States. It’s worth recalling how the seizure of the sailors was portrayed in the media. It was consistent with Kerry’s emphasis on the sailors’ release. These are a sample of the headlines from two weeks ago. They are all focused on the wrong story. The main story two weeks ago wasn’t about diplomacy or about the sailors’ release. The main story was about their capture by an increasingly aggressive Iranian regime that has little regard for international norms or international law. A related story was the way the administration, in the words of the headline to Eli Lake’s analysis, “[Thanked] Iran for Resolving the Crisis It Created.” Lake wrote that there’s no arguing with the end of the story, “The sailors are freed and safe,” but: Let’s start with the incident itself. Two small U.S. sea craft transiting between Kuwait and Bahrain strayed into Iranian territorial waters because of a mechanical failure, according to the U.S. side. This means the boats were in distress. That is hardly unprecedented. International maritime law spells out the appropriate response — and in a situation like this, it does not give Iran the right to board these boats or detain the sailors, as the Iranian navy did. And yet Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday morning described the incident at Farsi Island as “standard nautical practice.” On CBS, he said: “One of the boats had engine failure and drifted into Iranian waters. The Iranians picked up both boats, as we have picked up Iranian boats that needed to be rescued.” Biden added, “That is the way nations should do it.” (It’s worth noting here that though a U.S. government source told the Associated Press initially that a mechanical failure was at fault for the incident, the Defense Department, according to The New York Times, then blamed it on a navigational error. The latest official report from CENTCOM is back to mechanical failure.) Sen. John McCain (R – Ariz.) in a statement called Biden’s assertion “patently false,” and argued, “Under international law, sovereign immune vessels like navy ships and boats do not lose their sovereign immune status when they are in distress at sea. Under international law, sovereign immune naval vessels are exempt from detention, boarding, or search. Their crews are not subject to detention or arrest.” It wasn’t just the arrest of the sailors that was likely in violation of international law, it was the broadcasting of the images of them surrendering on Iranian websites and and television which has prompted Rep. Mike Pompeo to demand an investigation into whether in doing so Iran violated the Third Geneva Convention. In 2007 the government of Tony Blair of Britain considered the broadcast of its sailors and marines captured by Iran to be a violation of the convention stating that “prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity.” Kerry congratulated himself on his top-notch diplomacy, “It is clear that today this kind of issue was able to be peacefully resolved and officially resolved, and that is a testament to the critical role that diplomacy plays in keeping our country safe, secure and strong.” But the seizure of the sailors and their boats was a situation that shouldn’t have happened in the first place. Iran knew that the administration was desperate for a nuclear deal and would do anything to prevent the deal from being implemented. America’s diplomacy lately has been deployed to protect Iran, not further American interests. That is no way to keep America “safe, secure and strong.” (Let me add here, as you might guess from the parenthetical observations above, I don’t believe that the boats strayed into Iranian territorial waters. Former naval intelligence officer J.E. Dyer explained why the story was not believable at first. Her latest, based on the CENTCOM report reflects the changes in what’s been reported, but still brings up serious credibility issues with what’s been reported.) The sailors were not released, by the way, due to Kerry’s dazzling diplomacy, but as Dennis Ross pointed out in The Washington Post article reference above, “The Iranians had about $100 billion reasons why they might not want to be holding those sailors right now.” With the lifting of sanctions, the United States has no more leverage to exert on Iran. In addition to the seizure of the sailors and their treatment there’s another part of the story that its mis-reported and that it is the “moderates” in Iran who prevailed here. Former Iranian President Akbar Rafsanjani, current President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif are often described as “moderates” or “reformers.” They’re not. The reason they are so described is because they are competing against hardliners. But that reasoning is faulty. Different factions of hardliners can compete because they have different interests. Or as Lee Smith recently explained: What is far more likely is that there is no such split between moderates and hardliners. The two camps—if there are indeed two camps—work in tandem. The hardliners take prisoners and the moderates negotiate the price of their release. Iran’s moderates are a ministry of bagmen sent out to collect on behalf of the hard men. In short, the regime with which the White House has negotiated the future of American national security is still a regime that takes Americans hostage. Unless you believe that hijacking a U.S. Navy boat, humiliating its crew, photographing them with their hands above their heads, and broadcasting their apologies on state television is a demonstration of peaceful, moderate intentions. In a similar vein Michael Rubin wrote a few days ago: The White House and State Department might celebrate the release of American hostages, but in reality the release is less an epiphany on the part of Iran that hostage-taking is wrong than it is that hostage-taking is profitable. Not only does Iran effectively get $25 billion per hostage, but it also wins the release of seven Iranians imprisoned in the United States. Iranians who were detained not for the “crime” of being a newspaper reporter, as in the case of Jason Rezaian, or a Christian, as in the case of Saeed Abedini, but because they actively sought to smuggle sensitive technology in circumvention of sanctions and law. Make no mistake: we negotiated with terrorists, and the terrorists won. There is no change of heart among the Islamic Republic leadership. Neither Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei nor his “Mr. Fix-It,” President Hassan Rouhani, have changed their tune and foresworn the behavior which led Iran to become an international pariah. Rather, what we see is a pragmatic desire in Tehran to profit and to imply moral equivalence between the American hostages held in Iran and those Iranians caught seeking to subvert the United States. The only question now is how long it will be before the next American is seized in Iran and whether, with the precedent set by Obama and Kerry, the United States will be able to afford the price. (The answer to Rubin’s question has already been answered with the abduction of three American contractors in Iraq by Iran-backed Shiite militias according to Iraqi security officials.) Keep in mind that whenever the administration or the media emphasizes how important diplomacy with Iran is, the diplomacy is not changing the regime. The price paid for the release of innocents from Iran only encourages more bad behavior. And the “moderates” just smile more, but work hand in hand with the hardliners. (And even if one believes that there are moderates in positions of power in Iran, the current power structure is ensuring that they stay on the margins.) The dynamic at play in Iran’s relationship with the United States is not how diplomacy has resolved crises, but how appeasement of a lawless regime has bred even more crises. [Photo: Twitter screenshot ] |
While the true meaning of feminism has never changed, our culture's perception of feminism and feminists certainly has. And while it's still taking some time for many people to get used to — only 20% of the American people feel comfortable identifying as a feminist, even though 82% claim they believe in gender equality — more and more people (men and women, mind you) are proudly identifying as feminists. That means that feminists come in all shapes and sizes, with varying preferences. Now, being a feminist doesn't mean you're a lesbian man-hater. Instead, being a feminist can mean you're a stay-at-home mom, a woman who shaves every part of her body, or a single father. A working mom is a feminist, a woman who is happily married is a feminist... Basically, there are essentially no other qualities, habits, or life choices that a person can possess that would absolutely exclude them from being a feminist. You can be just about anything and also a feminist. This includes being "girly." Now, I need to preface all of this by saying that even the title "girly" sits harshly on the tips of my typing fingers. "Girly" — thanks to a misogynistic patriarchy that has devalued women and actions that our society perceives to be feminine — comes with a stereotype of weakness. If you're describing someone as "girly," you're probably implying that they're soft and fragile and need someone stronger, tougher (and probably a dude, let's be honest) to protect and/or take care of them. "Girly" is a word meant to embody certain characteristics and qualities that were long ago attached to women (for ~super casual~ reasons like...controlling an entire half of the human population, devaluing women, and continuing to place political and social power in the hands of men; mostly white, heterosexual men). But the truth is, there are plenty of men who like things that many would perceive to be "girly," and when they do, they are often criticized for being "girly" because, you guessed it, being "girly" is bad. But it isn't. It isn't if you're a man, it isn't if you're a woman, and it certainly isn't if you're a feminist. If you're super girly, that simply means that you like things that have randomly been deemed "for girls" in the most patronizing, belittling sense, but it in no way means that you're a lacking feminist who is furthering the goals of misogynists the world over by liking these things. So, with that in mind, here are nine reasons why being super girly doesn't make you a bad feminist. Feminism is all about choices, so girl, go ahead and choose the things you like. You're Secure In Who You Are GIPHY While more people are choosing to identify as a feminist, there are still aging stereotypes that deter most of the American public from proudly flying the flag of feminism. While many are hesitant to call themselves feminists, 82% of the population claim that they believe in gender equality. Clearly there's a communication issue at hand; a problem with what people perceive feminism to mean, versus what it actually means. Many women (and men) believe that getting married means you're a bad feminist, shaving means you're a bad feminist, etc. But the truth is, a "girly" feminist knows that not only do none of those things have anything to do with feminism, but that changing your behavior so that people can more easily see that you're ~totally~ a feminist, is the opposite of feminism. You're Not Letting Stereotypes Define You Just like a feminist doesn't let gender stereotypes define them, a "girly" feminist isn't going to let the stereotypes our culture has attached to feminism define them. Just because a (shockingly) large population of our society still thinks that being a feminist means being a "man-hater," that doesn't mean you're going to change your likes and dislikes, just to appease the masses. You won't force yourself to like football, wear black all the time, or invest your time in any other activity that our society has deemed "manly" just to try and make it easier for certain individuals to identify as you as feminist. (Especially because that identifier would be extremely inaccurate: Liking football or wearing black does not a feminist make.) Feminine Is Strong GIPHY Liking pink, wearing makeup, dressing up and enjoying a good cuddle session with a puppy and a romantic comedy, says nothing of a person's intellect or strength. Those qualities — which many men possess too, by the way — do not lessen a person's overall worth, and certainly don't speak to a person's innate capabilities. In fact, the only reason those characteristics are considered "girly" and others are not, is because somewhere along the line of our social evolution, the powers that be (ahem, men) determined that humans needed to be categorized by gender, and turned specific likes, dislikes, and actions into gender identifiers because humans are sometimes lazy and the worst. You Believe Yourself Equal To Anyone Else A feminist who loves the color pink, shaves every hair off of her body, and/or doesn't mind letting a dude pick up the dinner check, is no worse or less than the feminist who only wears black, refuses to shave, and aggressively opens all of her own doors. The very definition of feminism is the belief in equality. Real, true, for everyone equality — and that means equality of the sexes, and equality within the feminist community. Your Likes And Dislikes Don't Make You Less Than GIPHY It bares repeating. What. You. Like. Doesn't. Impact. Your. Self. Worth. (Unless what you like is Donald Trump. I mean, I'm trying not to judge, but maybe you should evaluate yourself a little.) Liking something, or not liking something, doesn't make your better or worse than anyone else. Just because a woman values a good rom-com and a day of pampering at her local spa, doesn't mean she is incapable of fighting for gender equality in a very real, very honest, and very passionate way. You Don't Believe Women Should Mock Other Women A true feminist wouldn't mock another woman for her choices. While many women believe that marriage will never be a feminist choice, and many don't see motherhood as a feminist choice either, that doesn't mean that the feminists who do decide to get married and/or have children, should be mocked, ridiculed, or considered less than those who do not make those same choices. The entire original point of feminism was to give women freedom to make their own choices about their body, their lives, their careers, their families, and their futures. Those choices, regardless of how they may differ from our own, should be valued and appreciated, not judged and looked down on. You Use The Patriarchy's Assignments For You Against Them Giphy You don't have to spend your time and energy fighting for the right to simply like what you like, because, well, what you like is considered "normal" for a woman. However, when you're a feminist who also happens to like those things, you're in a fantastic position to turn the patriarchy on itself. The fight for equality isn't about limiting the choices women have, but about expanding them. And as a woman who fits within the "status quo," you have the unique opportunity to fight for women who may not like what you like, but certainly do deserve the right to find their own niches and enjoy their own preferences, too. You're Not Undermining The Work Of Other Feminists Just because you choose to adhere to gender norms or fit within a socially constructed ideal of beauty, doesn't mean you're spitting on the work of every feminist that has ever come before you. On the contrary, you're exercising your rights that countless women have fervently fought (and continue to fight for) today. I'm usually not one to speak for others, but I'd venture to guess that the feminists of old wouldn't want the women of today to feel beholden to a specific ideal, or shackled to certain preferences that would make them easily identifiable as a feminist. I would guess that those women would simply want us to live our lives, however, whenever, and in whatever manner we choose. |
Vancouver real estate’s rapid rise has lead to a massive amount of speculation. Consequently every data point about the use of homes is under extra scrutiny. So when Statistics Canada released the first set of Census 2016 data, it’s no surprise urban planners scrambled to pull insights from it. The most interesting piece was in the Vancouver Sun, where urban planner Andy Yan of BC’s Simon Fraser University extracted the number of underused homes in Metro Vancouver. As interesting as it was, we thought someone might be able to extract a few more insights by visualizing this down to the smallest data point. How Did You Get That Data? Empty and underutilized homes have a different definition from pretty much every analyst. We got to our data by taking Statistics Canada’s Occupied by usual residents measure (i.e. someone’s primary home), then subtracting that number from the total number of private dwellings. It’s not a perfect science, but short of hiring someone to stand outside of every home for a year, we’re probably not going to get more accurate data. Looking at these numbers helps to determine if the trend is growing, shrinking or just plain ole’ stagnant. It also helps to pinpoint areas of the city that might need a second look. If you’re not a government data nerd (or one of the government employees that emailed us to ask what all this means), these are private homes where a person or group of persons are not permanently residing. This also excludes people that were temporarily absent for the Census. Too dry? The TL;DR version is, they are homes that are not occupied or not someone’s primary residence. Metro Vancouver Unoccupied units across Metro Vancouver were rising at a very quick rate. 2016 saw a change of +14% over the previous 5 years. This works out to 66,719 homes – around 6.5% of all homes in the Metro area. To contrast this, the region experienced a population increase of 6.5%. Yes, Metro’s population is booming, but it’s doing so at a rate that’s slower than the growth of regularly unoccupied homes. City of Vancouver The City of Vancouver did have the largest concentration of homes not regularly occupied – although that’s not a surprise if you live there. Yan counted 25,502 unoccupied units in Vancouver, which represented 38% of the total homes regularly unoccupied for Metro Vancouver in 2016. Census data does use a different method than the City of Vancouver did, which is why the city’s study “only” found 10,800. The city used utilities to measure usage at the residence, so if the home was being rented out as an AirBnB, or if the house was being used for a month – it wasn’t counted as unoccupied. It’s a hotly debated issue if this is a problem, but anyway you slice it that’s a lot of homes for a city with such low rental inventory. Millennials are often told to accept that times are changing, and things are going to get rough. What if people wealthy enough to own a second home were told that times were changing, and the use of an extra home at your leisure should be taxed at a premium rate. Wouldn’t that be weird? Check out how Toronto looks in Contrast. Like this post? Show your support for our work by liking us on Facebook, or following us on Twitter. Bet you thought we were going to ask for money, didn’t you? |
A Manitoba couple involved in one of the worst animal hoarding cases in the province's history appealed part of their sentence today. But they will have to wait until Tuesday afternoon for the judge's decision. Peter and Judith Chernecki pleaded guilty in April 2013 to seven counts under the Animal Care Act, after dozens of dogs were found at their Gull Lake property in 2010. Peter Chernecki received a four-month sentence in February 2014, while Judith was fined $21,500. The couple was banned from owning animals for five years. Their lawyer, Brad King, is appealing the five-year ownership ban, telling a Winnipeg courtroom on Monday that it's "harsh" for a couple that "loves animals." King is also calling on the court to reduce the fine for Judith Chernecki. He argued that the sentence has taken a toll on her physical and mental health. Peter Chernecki has already served his time in custody. 64 dogs found The charges stem from the discovery in July 2010 of abused and malnourished dogs at the couple's property in Gull Lake, about 90 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg. The initial number of dogs reported was 61, but that was later went up to 64. Many of the animals were wounded, covered in feces and severely malnourished. At least 34 of the dogs had to be euthanized after they were seized because they were in such poor condition. The dogs were kept in two buildings with no windows and were never allowed outside, according to the Winnipeg Humane Society. Couple was 'misguided,' says lawyer On Monday, King told court that the Cherneckis were "misguided" and thought they were helping the dogs by taking them in. The couple has long maintained that they were trying to help out stray animals that had been abandoned at a local landfill. They insisted that the dogs were loved and cared for. Reference letters from friends and neighbours of the Cherneckis, as well as a family doctor, were read aloud in court. They described the couple as kind and compassionate people with "hearts of gold" who loved animals. But Court of Queen's Bench Justice Colleen Suche, who is overseeing Monday's hearing, expressed concern that most of the reference letters came from people who did not see the condition the dogs were found in. Suche also said it seems that Peter and Judith Chernecki continue to blame the media, government and the public for what's happened to them, and she has a problem understanding whether they realize what they have done. Crown prosecutor Shaun Sass argued that there has never been a suggestion that the Cherneckis had intended to harm the dogs, and intent was not an element in the offence. With regards to Judith Chernecki's fine, Sass told the court that one option would be to give the couple more time to pay. He said the fine imposed is within the range. Sass added that Peter Chernecki's four-month sentence was appropriate given the condition the dogs were found in. |
With respect to sports and in the wake of the Seattle Seahawks’ dominating Super Bowl victory over the Denver Broncos, Seattle is now, as former ESPN anchor Dan Patrick is fond of saying, ‘en fuego’. After all, not only does the city have the NFL’s best team, but the Washington Huskies finished ranked in the top 25 for the first time since 2001, with highly-coveted former Boise State head coach Chris Petersen poised to take the team to the next level. This offseason, the Seattle Mariners declared themselves to be ‘all in’ after years of rebuilding and reeled in the biggest fish of this year’s free agency pool — Robinson Cano — with a massive 10-year, $240 million contract. Both the Sacramento Kings and Phoenix Coyotes came within a hair’s breadth of relocating to the Emerald City in 2013, stopped only by desperate last-minute negotiations (Phoenix) and ham-handed league intervention (Sacramento). Even the Seattle Sounders of Major League Soccer remain a hot commodity, with an average attendance (44,038) more than double that of any other team in the league. With all that said, Seattle remains without the NBA and the NHL as of this writing. If reports are true, however, change may be just around the corner. [See Also: Some Ideas on the Name of a Seattle NHL Club] NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly openly discusses expansion According to this article, the NHL is seriously considering Seattle as an expansion target, possibly in time for the 2015-16 season. Discussing expansion with Geoff Baker of the Seattle Times, Daly said, “I think we have a belief in the Pacific Northwest, it being good hockey territory. I think, obviously, the Canucks have done a fantastic job — in Vancouver, but also throughout British Columbia and the Pacific region — at driving interest in the sport.” He summed up his remarks by saying, “So, we think the possibility is there. It’s kind of more obvious than some of the other areas. It doesn’t mean we’ve done our due diligence. We’d need to satisfy ourselves on the marketplace, but just the objective factors around the marketplace suggest Seattle would be a good hockey market.” A Seattle contingent visits Vancouver to learn how the Canucks do business Next week, a group of Seattle business and political heavyweights will make a two-day trip to Vancouver, B.C. to attend a game at Rogers Arena and to see exactly how the Canucks operate. “You’ve got some people on the trip who have never been to an NHL game before,” said Ralph Morton, executive director of the Seattle Sports Commission. “So, at the very least, they’ll come back with a greater understanding of what hockey is and what it takes to present the sport to fans at the NHL level.” The Times points out that the trip has a greater purpose than merely discussions about the NHL. Nevertheless, it would seem more than a little speculative that many of the key players necessary in the effort to bring the NHL to Seattle are heading north, spending both time and resources, unless there are forces at work behind the scenes closing in on an expansion deal for the city. Expansion fees could reach $275 million It has been widely reported that the league’s asking price for an expansion fee was as high as $275 million last year, but Baker suggests that it will likely end up somewhere between $200 – $250 million. The hefty expansion fee is, of course, on top of the estimated $490 million price tag for the proposed new arena. Ownership would not likely be principally the same, as the potential new NHL team has been linked to Connecticut-based investment firm partners Ray Bartoszek and Anthony Lanza, the former of which has ties to the Puget Sound region. And there may be a third big-dollar owner: former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Not only do the dollars and cents need to add up, but the funding mechanisms would need to be significantly tweaked if NHL expansion comes to Seattle before an NBA team is granted or relocated. The Memorandum of Understanding signed last year by the City of Seattle, King County and hedge fund manager Chris Hansen specifically called for the NBA to be the primary tenant, with the lion’s share of public financing generated as a result of that event. Assuming an NHL announcement were to come soon, the agreement would need to be changed. The oft-cited ‘sources say’ indicate an announcement may be forthcoming In the Seattle Times article, the most exciting news was buried — just as I have done here — toward the very end. Baker writes: Sources have indicated that talks between the NHL and local officials were far enough along that some type of announcement could be made within weeks of the Sochi Olympics concluding. Daly told reporters in Sochi this week that no expansion announcement was imminent. But it’s unlikely the league would delay an announcement beyond June if it intends to have new teams in 2015-16. Expansion teams typically need a couple of summers to do proper marketing and prepare temporary arena facilities. If Seattle gets an expansion franchise, it likely won’t be the only one Given that the NHL’s Western Conference currently has just 14 teams (versus 16 in the East) and assuming reports are true, it would seem highly unlikely that Seattle would be the only city awarded a franchise. Quebec City and Kansas City, both with arenas that will be available by 2015-16, are high on the list of expansion candidates. Several other cities in the U.S. and Canada have been mentioned as well. No matter what, all eyes are currently on Seattle. Already the pantheon of professional football, the first American city to hoist the Stanley Cup may well be the next big thing in professional hockey. If Seattle does receive an expansion NHL franchise, the city may just party like it’s 1917. |
State Supreme Court Justice Walsh issued an order to suspend the Ramapo Planning Board's approvals for the Patrick Farm development. Attorney Daniel Richmond and ROSA Director Suzanne Mitchell outside the Hillcrest Firehouse, celebrating a judge's decision about Ramapo's Patrick Farm. (Photo: Contributed photo) Story Highlights Judge Walsh suspends Ramapo Planning Board's approvals for Patrick Farm development. Opponents celebrate the order as a vindication of their environmental concerns. A judge's order has suspended town approvals for the controversial plan to build nearly 500 houses on Patrick Farm because the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had not reviewed wetlands at the site. State Supreme Court Justice Thomas Walsh's decision this week sent the plans back to the Planning Board for consideration before the project can proceed on 206 acres along the Route 202-306 corridor just outside of Pomona village. The Planning Board's March 22, 2013, approvals were opposed in court by neighbors of the site as well as members of the grassroots environmental group Ramapo Organized for Sustainability and a Safe Aquifer. Walsh this week denied one of the Article 78 proceedings but decided on the other two by issuing an order to suspend the Planning Board's approvals. CLOSE Suzanne Mitchell, director of ROSA (Ramapo Organized for Sustainability and a Safe Aquifer) and ROSA's attorney Daniel Richmond announced a judge's recent decision to suspend approvals for the Patrick Farm development. (submitted video) He wrote the state Department of Environmental Conservation and Rockland County Sewer District No. 1 would not issue necessary permits for the project in the absence of a review from the Army Corps. Suzanne Mitchell, director of ROSA, celebrated Walsh's decision. "We believe this official judicial decision will help the Town of Ramapo Planning Board understand more clearly what ROSA has been arguing throughout this approval process when ROSA presented independent wetland expert testimony explaining that the developer was vastly under reporting the size and scope of the wetlands," Mitchell wrote in an email. Terry Rice, an attorney representing the developer, Scenic Development of Monsey, couldn't be reached for comment Thursday. Ramapo Town Attorney Michael Klein, wrote in an email that the Planning Board's actions have been affirmed by the prior court decisions dismissing the opponents' other complaints. He noted that Walsh, in his decision, "acknowledged that the Planning Board correctly approved the applications before it based on information available at that time." "However, the Planning Board has been directed by the court to consider further review in light of recent correspondence from the state DEC and Rockland County Sewer District regarding wetlands," Klein wrote. Read or Share this story: http://lohud.us/1gUDEvE |
The corporate media is linking two suspected shooters who executed two police officers at a Las Vegas pizzeria and another person at a Wal-Mart to Cliven Bundy and the patriot movement. Media reports characterize the shooters as white supremacists. According to a report posted at the Daily Mail, the married couple suspected in the shootings and who executed a suicide pact following the rampage were “militant” and “obsessed with conspiracy theories.” They allegedly shouted at diners to “tell the police the revolution has begun.” The male suspect, named as Jared in media reports, allegedly claimed to have been involved in the standoff between Cliven Bundy, his supporters and the Bureau of Land Management, according to a neighbor. Carol Bundy said the shooting in Las Vegas is not related to the standoff at the Bundy ranch. “I have not seen or heard anything from the militia and others who have came to our ranch that would, in any way, make me think they had an intent to kill or harm anyone,” she told The Daily Mail. It was reported after the pair shot the police officers they draped their bodies with a Gadsden flag. The yellow flag depicting a rattlesnake coiled and ready to strike was adopted as a symbol of the Tea Party movement in 2009. News reports added a further lurid detail by saying a neighbor described the pair as users of methamphetamine. The shooting follows the announcement on June 3 by the Justice Department it will investigate groups and individuals it deems to be terrorists. It will reorganize a task force originally formed in the wake of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing but disbanded after the 9/11 attacks as law enforcement agencies concentrated on threats from foreign terrorists. “We must also concern ourselves with the continued danger we face from individuals within our own borders who may be motivated by a variety of other causes from anti-government animus to racial prejudice,” Attorney General Eric Holder said. The incident is custom-made to demonize the patriot movement. The Southern Poverty Law Center has consistently attempted to forge a link between white supremacists and members of the patriot and constitutional movements. The murder of two police officers will undoubtedly further polarize law enforcement and turn many of them against the patriot movement. For a large number of police officers, the Gadsden flag will now represent the murder of law enforcement officers. Addendum “As I’ve noted before when writing about the militia movement, violence on the far right often comes from hotheads who have been kicked out of the more mainstream militias,” writes Jesse Walker for Reason.com. Evidence shows, however, that calls for violence often comes from government inserted agents provocateurs. The FBI specializes in this sort of behavior. The government has also controlled an infinitesimally small white supremacist movement. This fact was highlighted by the prosecution of white supremacist radio talk show host Hal Turner. “According to Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC) Amy Pickett, the third highest ranking FBI Official in New York City, Hal Turner was involved in ‘National Security Intelligence.’ According to Pickett’s testimony which appears in a scanned image of the official Trial transcript below, Hal Turner dealt with ‘National Security Intelligence, terrorism and foreign counterintelligence’ while he served with the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF),” we reported in 2009, citing Turner’s blog. “Hal Turner took the stand today in his federal trial and accused the FBI of instructing him to make violent and racist statements,” we reported on March 3, 2010. “The North Bergen, New Jersey, radio talk show host is on trial for allegedly threatening three Chicago-based federal appeals court judges. In June of 2009, Turner said the judges ‘deserved to be killed’ for a ruling they made in a gun control case.” — The Facebook page of the suspected male shooter, now identified as Jared Miller, contains links to the following websites which will in the days ahead, undoubtedly, be included in the domestic terrorist narrative now being formulated by the Justice Department and a complaint corporate media: In addition, the page mentions chemtrails, the Benghazi investigation, the climate change hoax, gun rights and other issues important to the liberty and patriot movement. Most striking is the final post on the page: “The dawn of a new day. May all of our coming sacrifices be worth it.” |
Steven Jones 911blogger.com Since the days of Sir Isaac Newton, Science has proceeded through the publication of peer-reviewed papers. Peer-review means a thorough reading, commentary and even challenge before publication by “peers”, that is, other PhD’s and professors. This paper was thoroughly peer-reviewed with several pages of tough comments that required of our team MONTHS of additional experiments and studies. It was the toughest peer-review I’ve ever had, including THREE papers for which I was first author in NATURE. (Please note that Prof. Harrit is first author on this paper.) We sought an established journal that would allow us a LONG paper (this paper is 25 pages long) with MANY COLOR IMAGES AND GRAPHS. Such a scientific journal is not easy to find. Page charges are common for scientific journals these days, and are typically paid by the University of the first or second author (as is the case with this paper) or by an external grant. Editor’s Note: Useful information for “non-scientists” about the process of peer-reviewed publishing, such as has been the case with Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe, Fourteen Points of Agreement with Official Government Reports on the World Trade Center Destruction, and Environmental Anomalies at the World Trade Center: Evidence for Energetic Materials . A peer-reviewed journal is also called a “refereed” journal. Peer-reviewers are almost always anonymous for scientific publications like this — that is standard in the scientific world. While authors commonly recommend potential peer-reviewers, editors choose the referees and usually pick at least one or two reviewers that the authors did NOT mention — and that is almost certainly the case with this paper (based on commentary we received from the reviewers). In the end, all the reviewers — who were selected by the editor(s) — approved publication. Thus, the paper was subjected to peer review by the editor or editors, and it passed the peer-review process. Debunkers may raise all sorts of objections on forums, such as “Oh, it’s just paint” or “the aluminum is bound up in kaolin.” We have answered those questions in the paper, and shown them to be nonsense, but you have to read to find the answers. I may also provide answers here and in emails, often quoting from the paper to show that the answers are already in it. Here’s what you need to know (especially if you are not a scientist): UNLESS AN OBJECTOR ACTUALLY PUBLISHES HIS OR HER OBJECTION IN A PEER-REVIEWED ESTABLISHED JOURNAL (yes that would include Bentham Scientific journals), THEN THE OBJECTION IS NOT CONSIDERED SERIOUS IN THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY. YOU SHOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT NON-PUBLISHED OBJECTIONS EITHER. So how do you, as a non-scientist, discern whether the arguments are valid or not? You should first ask, “is the objection PUBLISHED in an ESTABLISHED PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL?” If not, you can and should say — “I will wait to see this formally published in a refereed scientific journal. Until then, the published peer-reviewed work by Harrit et al. stands. ” BTW, there also has been no PUBLISHED REFEREED paper yet that counters either the “Fourteen Points” paper or the “Environmental Anomalies” papers we published last year. IF it is so easy to publish in Bentham Scientific journals, or if these are “vanity publications” (note: there is no factual basis for these charges) — then why don’t the objectors write up their objections and get them peer-reviewed and published?? The fact is, it is not easy, as serious objectors will find out. Our results have passed the gauntlet of peer-review (including in this case, review at BYU consistent with the fact that there are two authors from BYU). We say that this paper has the “imprimatur of peer-review”. That is a significant breakthrough. You cannot say that of big-foot or Elvis sightings… We are now in a different world from such things, the world of the published scientific community. CAN YOU APPRECIATE THE DIFFERENCE? I hope so. And this is what has our opponents so worried IMO… Source URL: http://911blogger.com/node/19780 |
Maria Konnikova (@mkonnikova) shows us how we can defend ourselves against would-be con artists and use the same principles for more benign purposes in her new book The Confidence Game. The Cheat Sheet: As it turns out, you can fool an honest man. But cynics — by their own overconfidence in being savvy and “scamproof” — are just as susceptible to deception. Technology and the abundance of information most of us freely surrender to the Internet makes the con artist’s job easier than ever before. What type of person becomes a con artist? How can we avoid getting scammed? Understand how belief works, why we over-believe in some things (even when we have no evidence for them), and how this plays into our susceptibility to deception. And so much more… All of us are vulnerable to deception and persuasion — and if you haven’t been conned already, chances are good you will be. But you don’t have to accept this as an inevitability if you know how to spot a con in progress and understand the principles behind it. On episode 478 of The Art of Charm, we talk to Maria Konnikova about identifying the ways con artists exploit trust, how we can arm ourselves against their manipulation games, and reverse engineering their tactics to subtly persuade others when our aims are more legitimate than a con as laid out in her new book The Confidence Game. (Direct Download) More About This Show Maria Konnikova describes herself as a writer who explores what it means to be human — the things that unite us, separate us, excite us, scare us, and make us who we are. Her first book, the New York Times bestselling Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes examined the psychology behind how the world’s greatest (albeit fictional) sleuth operated and how we might apply his power of intellect to our own endeavors. In The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It…Every Time, Maria explores how we’re all subject to gullibility, how others exploit this, what we can do to spot would-be manipulators and defend ourselves, and how we can use the same principles of persuasion for good rather than evil. But gathering this information definitely took its toll on Maria while she prepared to share her findings with the rest of us. “As I was researching the book, the deeper I got into it, the more disgusted with humanity I became,” says Maria. “I realized…it just turned me into such a cynic. By the end I just thought, ‘Yep. People suck. Everyone’s out to get you. I basically shouldn’t believe or trust anyone because I am just going to be totally gullible.’ And after just talking to con artist after con artist and looking through the techniques of persuasion and why they’re so effective, it just really made me realize that I am so vulnerable. We all are so vulnerable that it’s scary.” You Can Fool an Honest Man We may stereotype a typical mark as someone who is uneducated, naive, or greedy, but Maria tells us the overall victim profile tends to be someone who is incredibly sophisticated, savvy, and anything but greedy. Contrary to the old saying that you can’t fool an honest man, “honest men are really easy to fool,” she says. “People don’t really understand, a lot of times, that they’re victims of a con because they believe it so much they want to keep believing.” But some con artists justify their trade by contradicting this logic and saying that their marks somehow deserve it for being greedy. “I think that makes a lot of them able to live with themselves, even though that’s absolutely not true,” says Maria. “Greed is the last thing that’s motivating them.” A lot of times, honest people are scammed in ways that prey on their emotional need for affection — say if they can be convinced that a long distance contact (who also happens to be attractive) is in need of money. “It’s really depressing if you think about it,” says Maria, “because these are people who just want love [and] affection — things that we all want. And they end up broke and emotionally devastated.” Actually, You Can Fool a Cynic, Too Depressing or not, don’t be so quick to give up on trust — because cynicism has its downfalls, too. “What you find is that people who are more trusting actually end up doing better in life,” says Maria. “There’s a lot of work that shows that trusting societies end up prospering. People who have higher levels of trust end up being smarter. They do better on a lot of tests of creativity [and] intelligence — so this is a good thing most of the time. What has happened is we have the small number of people who’ve basically co-evolved with the nice ones to take advantage of it. And because there aren’t that many of them, we are usually okay. “And then you have the other end of the spectrum where, if you’re very cynical, you’re also a very easy mark…you’re totally not trusting, but you think that you are so incredibly wise that you become completely overconfident and so you become a really easy target.” In other words, people on both ends of the spectrum have trouble spotting deception. It seems we’ve evolved to trust, but overriding this programming with cynicism doesn’t do us any favors, either. Add to this our modern proclivity for willfully surrendering every manner of information about ourselves online, and we’re all pretty much ripe targets. “All it takes for a con to succeed is one point of vulnerability,” says Maria. “With the Internet and with social networks, it makes it so easy to find that one point, whereas before, you had to do a lot of legwork.” So how do we keep opening ourselves up to cons? Because we tend to feel like we’re special — exceptional and exempt from the truly bad things that can happen to people, and better than average at most things. Sadly, the people who wind up being an exception to this rule are the clinically depressed. “They end up being much more realistic about themselves and how they’re doing…” says Maria. Who Becomes a Con Artist? If most of us have evolved over the course of human history to become easy marks, then what does that say about the people who choose to become con artists? “The first thing I started investigating was…something that a lot of people naturally think, which is, ‘Are all con men psychopaths?'” says Maria. “And it ends up that a good number of them are. Psychopaths are a really interesting subset of the population because they’ve basically co-evolved to take advantage of the fact that everyone else isn’t a psychopath. So they’re pretty constant in the small single digit percentages of the population. Usually around one percent, although in some professions — like law, business, politics — they’re really overrepresented, so you get into double digits pretty quickly. I won’t speculate on what that means about humanity!” Because con artists comprise such a small percentage of the general population while the majority of us follow the rules, they can ply their trade without society completely crumbling. They operate as narcissistic, Machiavellian manipulators, happy enough to do what it takes to make themselves comfortable even if it means ruining the lives of others. “The ends justify the means…as long as you get what you want, it doesn’t really matter how you get there,” says Maria, “and con artists tell themselves this all the time because that makes them able to go to sleep at night.” How Can We Avoid Getting Scammed? We already know that being too trusting makes us easy targets. We also know that being too cynical makes us easy targets. And, of course, most of us are probably giving away way too much information about ourselves online whether we realize it or not. So what can any of us do to avoid getting scammed? Being aware of the most common scams currently making the rounds is helpful, but new ones enter the scene so frequently that it’s likely impossible to be on top of all of them. But from what we’ve learned about human nature, there are some things we should keep in mind. “What we can do is understand ourselves a little better,” says Maria. “Try to understand the things that we most want to be true. I want to be incredibly healthy and I want to find food that’s very good for me, for instance. So I should be very wary of people who try to sell me the miracle fruit or something that’s really going to make my health improve, because that’s exactly what I want to hear. And whenever someone tells you exactly what you want to hear or exactly what you think you should be hearing, your alarm bells should go off.” Of course, everyone becomes vulnerable at moments of emotional instability or emotional loss. If you’ve experienced a breakup or a divorce, lost a job or a lot of money, or happen to be going through some big change that’s disrupting your day-to-day life, you’re more likely to be victimized. At this point, it’s not as important to identify a potential con artist as it is to up our defenses. Maybe we let people we truly know and trust help us through this difficult time — making our reliance on unknown variables (like a con artist in waiting) less likely. The Self-Reflection Test If you want to get an idea of your own susceptibility to deception — or deceiving — try taking this Self-Reflection test. With a finger, trace an invisible, capital letter Q on your forehead. Before reading further, take careful note of how you’ve traced it. Is your letter Q facing outward in a way that would make it easy for someone else to read (as in a mirror image), or is it facing inward in a way that would make it easy for you to read? If the Q’s tail is facing to the left (outward), then you’re a high self-monitor. You’re very concerned with appearances, with perception, and with how others see you. You’re much more likely to manipulate reality to make a better impression, so you’re more likely to fib just a little bit so that you come off looking better. This would mean you’re also more likely to be a con artist. If the Q’s tail is facing to the right (inward), then you’re more self-reflective and introspective. You’re more likely to question things and try to understand rather than make reality different to fit your own desires. No matter your Q, we’ll move on and look at some persuasive tactics we hope you’ll use for good rather than evil… Persuasive Tactics The Double Favor Imagine that you want someone to do you a favor. Don’t ask them for that favor. Ask them for some other huge favor to which they’re probably going to say “No.” Say you want someone to write you a recommendation letter. First, ask, “Hey, would you volunteer to spend a day with my students — give up a day of your time to teach them about writing?” They’ll probably say “No,” because that’s pretty ridiculous, right? But then what happens is they’re going to feel a little bit guilty because they’ve said no to you. And so a week or two later, say, “Hey, by the way, would you mind writing me a recommendation?” Boom. They say “Yes.” And that happens all the time. There are studies that show that someone who’s refused a big favor is much more likely to say “Yes” to another big favor — as long as it’s relatively smaller than the original big favor. The Serial Favors Ask someone for a really small and easy favor. If they do it, you can probably rely on them to do further, comparable favors because they’ve already done the one. This helps them avoid cognitive dissonance because they’ll think, “Oh, I’m a nice and generous person, and if I’ve already done a favor for them, then that means that person is deserving of favors — and I should keep doing them favors.” Pretty sneaky… THANKS, MARIA KONNIKOVA! Resources from this episode: The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It…Every Time by Maria Konnikova Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes by Maria Konnikova The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli You’ll also like: On your phone? Click here to write us a well-deserved iTunes review and help us outrank the riffraff! |
When security officer Jeyaseelan Jaganathan saw a young boy floating face-down in the swimming pool of the condominium where he works, all he could think of was his own seven-year-old daughter. He had run from the guardhouse after a resident alerted him. He immediately dived in to save six-year-old Raphael. Last week, he met the boy and his father, Mr Prince Adesanya Gabriel Aderemi, 53, for the first time since the Nov8 incident. "I owe him my boy's life. Without him, my son would have been dead," said Mr Adesanya, an accountant. The Singapore permanent resident, who is originally from Nigeria, is married to Singaporean Elizabeth Adesanya, 40, a security supervisor. They have two other children aged four and nine. On that day, Raphael was attending a poolside birthday party at Kovan Residences condominium with his mother and two siblings. No one saw how Raphael entered the pool, said Mr Adesanya, who was working then. Raphael's mother was in their host's apartment and found out about the incident only when she heard a commotion at about 8.30pm. This took place after a panicked resident at the condo ran towards the guardhouse where Mr Jeyaseelan - one month into his job - was on duty. "She was shouting very loudly, 'Please come over, there's a boy drowning in the pool'," said the 43-year-old. He immediately rushed to the scene and saw Raphael, who was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, floating in the 1.2m-deep children's pool. The boy appeared unconscious and was bleeding from his head, he said. By then, about 30 people had gathered by the poolside. A few of them were trying in vain to pull the unconscious boy in using umbrellas, but no one entered the pool. Mr Jeyaseelan's training as a security officer kicked in. He jumped into the pool, carried Raphael out and checked his pulse but there was none. At the time, no one, including Mr Jeyaseelan, knew how to perform cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Aware that there was a clinic across the road from the condo, he ran over there, carrying the boy in his arms. He pleaded with the doctor at the clinic to save Raphael. "I was thinking of my own child because I have a child around that age," said Mr Jeyaseelan, who has five children aged between seven and 21. The doctor was able to revive Raphael's pulse and the boy was taken in an ambulance to KK Women's and Children's Hospital. He was warded for five days, three of which were spent in an intensive care unit. Raphael, however, was a fighter. He regained consciousness the day after the incident and, two days after he was discharged, even performed at his kindergarten's graduation ceremony. Mr Adesanya later sent a letter of commendation to Mr Jeyaseelan's employer, security company Soverus. Mr Jeyaseelan has been in the security industry for nine years, but it was the first time he had encountered such a situation, he said. As he watched Raphael running around and giggling during the interview, he added: "I'm glad he's back to being himself." mellinjm@sph.com.sg |
Image copyright Getty Images Iran and world powers have extended negotiations to end a decade-old crisis over the Iranian nuclear programme. There are still obstacles to a deal though, compounded by years of distrust. Why is there a crisis? World powers suspect Iran has not been honest about its nuclear programme and is seeking the ability to build a nuclear bomb. Iran says it has the right to nuclear energy - and stresses that its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes only. Diplomats have been seeking a deal that would allow Iran to have nuclear power but reduce the likelihood of it gaining nuclear weapons. How close are they to a deal? Image copyright Reuters Image caption The two negotiating teams have accused each other of making unrealistic demands Iran and the so-called P5+1 - the US, UK, France, China and Russia plus Germany - agreed an interim accord in November 2013 that saw the Islamic Republic curb sensitive nuclear activities in return for relief from sanctions that have crippled its economy. A deadline of July 2014 was set to find a "comprehensive solution", but the talks were subsequently extended by four months to give negotiators more time. Despite "significant progress" being made, both sides agreed in November that another seven months were needed. Western diplomats are confident of securing a political agreement by 1 March 2015, with all-important technical details to be sealed by 1 July. How did the crisis start? Image copyright AP Image caption Iran's former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, rejected curbs on its nuclear programme Iran's nuclear programme became public in 2002, when an opposition group revealed secret activity including construction of an uranium enrichment plant and a heavy-water reactor. Enriched uranium can be used to make reactor fuel but also nuclear weapons, while spent fuel from a heavy-water reactor contains plutonium suitable for a bomb. Iran subsequently agreed to inspections by the global nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). But the IAEA was unable to confirm Iran had not sought to develop nuclear weapons. This led the US and its European allies to press Iran to stop enriching uranium. Talks failed to make any progress and in 2005 the IAEA referred Iran to the UN Security Council for failing to comply with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Since then, the Security Council has adopted six resolutions requiring Iran to stop enriching uranium, some imposing sanctions. In 2012, the US and EU began imposing additional sanctions on Iranian oil exports and banks, putting pressure on Iran to negotiate. What do the world powers want? The US says any agreement should ensure it would take Iran at least a year to make enough fissile material for a nuclear warhead if it chose to do so. Such a limit on the so-called "break-out time" would require a sharp reduction in Iran's uranium capacity. The US is believed to want Iran's enrichment capacity to equate to the production capability of less than 4,500 of its inefficient, first-generation centrifuges. Iran currently has about 10,000 operational centrifuges, out of a total of 19,000 installed. The P5+1 also wants Iran to limit its research and development activities, which could enhance centrifuge efficiency. It believes the enrichment restrictions should remain in place for at least two decades and be backed-up by extensive monitoring. What does Iran say? Image copyright AFP Image caption Iran says it needs the enrichment capacity to produce fuel for the Bushehr power plant from 2021 onwards Iran is reportedly offering to freeze the current number of operating centrifuges for three to seven years. After that, it argues, there must be sufficient enrichment capacity to produce fuel for the Bushehr power plant when its fuel supply agreement with Russia expires in 2021. That would require Iran to expand its current capacity 10-fold or more, which experts say would reduce the amount of time required to produce weapons-grade uranium to a few weeks. In return, Iran says it would ship almost all its stock of low-enriched uranium to Russia and accept more intrusive inspections by the IAEA. The P5+1 has noted that Russia, which recently agreed to build two new reactors in Iran, is prepared to supply fuel for Bushehr for its lifetime. What other obstacles are there to a deal? Domestic political constraints are being blamed for hindering a compromise on enrichment. Analysts say Iranian negotiators would struggle to defend an agreement that does not preserve their country's current capacity. Western negotiators would likewise struggle to sell a deal that allowed Iran to rapidly produce weapons-grade uranium. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said any deal would need to see Iran halt all enrichment activity. Image copyright Reuters Image caption Iran's economy has been hit hard by sanctions targeting its key energy sector There has also been disagreement over how and when sanctions imposed on Iran would be lifted. Iran wants UN sanctions to be lifted quickly. However, the P5+1 believes that should happen in the final phase of any accord because they could not be quickly or easily reimposed. President Barack Obama can suspend sanctions imposed by the US Congress, but he cannot lift them permanently, which might dissuade companies from resuming trade with Iran. Why is Iran suspected of seeking nuclear weapons? The US has alleged that Iran had a nuclear weapons programme in 2003, but that senior Iranian leaders stopped it when it was discovered. Image copyright AFP Image caption The IAEA's director general, Yukiya Amano, has demanded access to the Parchin military site In 2009 Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared: "We fundamentally reject nuclear weapons." But the IAEA published a report in 2011 claiming "credible" information that Iran had carried out activities "relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device". The report drew attention to a military complex at Parchin, which the IAEA has been unable to visit since 2005. In September 2014, the IAEA said Iran had failed to give a satisfactory explanation of its research at Parchin into detonators that could be used to trigger a nuclear weapon or explained studies that could help calculate the explosive yield of one. How does Iran justify its refusal to obey UN resolutions? Image copyright AFP Image caption Iran has insisted its nuclear programme is entirely for peaceful purposes Iran has said it is simply doing what it is allowed to do under the NPT, which allows signatory states to enrich uranium to be used as fuel for power generation. Such states have to remain under inspection by the IAEA. Iran is under inspection, though not under the strictest rules allowed because it will not agree to them. Could Iran build a nuclear bomb if it chose to? Image copyright AFP Image caption Iran has the largest and most diverse ballistic missile arsenal in the Middle East There are mixed views on this. US Secretary of State John Kerry said in April 2014 that Iran had the ability to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a nuclear bomb within two months. However, Mr Kerry said such a "break-out" window did not mean Iran yet had a warhead or suitable delivery system. That was also before the IAEA confirmed Iran had converted all of its medium-enriched uranium into forms that were less of a proliferation risk. Any bomb-making process would likely be done in secret, so estimating timelines would be extremely difficult. |
(CNN) In terms of the total number of lost hours of electricity, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands are in the midst of the largest blackout in US history, according to a report from an economic research company. In all, Hurricane Maria has caused a loss of 1.25 billion hours of electricity supply for Americans, according to the analysis from the economic research firm Rhodium Group . That makes it the largest blackout in US history, well ahead of Hurricane Georges in 1998 and Superstorm Sandy in 2012, the group said. That 1.25 billion number will continue to grow. More than a month after Hurricane Maria knocked out the electric grid on the islands, the vast majority of residents remain without electricity, and the restoration of that power is months away The Rhodium Group analysis largely relies on data on electricity loss provided to the Department of Energy, as well as news reports for storms prior to 2000, according to Trevor Houser, a partner at Rhodium who co-wrote the analysis with Peter Marsters. Houser said the group analyzes the economic impacts of weather and climate events, and they decided to dig in more deeply on the impacts of Maria on the Puerto Rican economy. "As we started looking at the scale of the blackout and try to put that in historical context, it became clear this was a record-breaking event and worthy of some attention and focus just from an electric standpoint," Houser said. 9 of top 10 are hurricane-related Getting power back to hilltop communities like Aguas Buenas after Hurricane Maria requires work in tough terrain. Other major storms or incidents have knocked out power for more people, but those were for shorter periods of time. For example, the 2003 blackouts in the Northeast US affected about 30 million people, but the power was restored within a few days . That incident caused the loss of 592 million customer-hours of electricity, according to Rhodium Group, making it the eighth-largest blackout in US history. Puerto Rico has a smaller population -- about 3.4 million -- but the blackout has lasted for a much longer stretch of time. As of Thursday, just 26% of households had power restored, according to data from the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA). PREPA, a state-owned utility, filed for bankruptcy in July , is $9 billion in debt and is struggling to recover from the hurricane outages. Not coincidentally, several of the top 10 blackouts in US history involve Puerto Rico, including Maria and Irma this year and Hurricane Georges in 1998. Whitefish Energy, a two-year-old utility firm with ties to the Trump administration, was awarded a $300 million contract from PREPA last week to help restore the country's power grid. The huge contract to a small company has led to questions and criticism from Puerto Rican politicians JUST WATCHED Power crews waiting on supplies in Puerto Rico Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Power crews waiting on supplies in Puerto Rico 04:18 The Virgin Islands, with a much smaller population, has similarly struggled to restore power since Hurricane Maria. As of October 22, just 14.9% of customers had power, according to the U.S. Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority. That includes about 71% without power on St. Thomas, 98.4% without power on St. Croix and 100% without power on St. John. Aside from the 2003 blackout, all of the biggest blackouts in US history were due to hurricanes or major storms, including Hurricane Hugo in 1989, Hurricane Ike in 2008, and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. This year's hurricane season has been particularly destructive. Hurricane Irma, the Category 5 storm that tore through the Caribbean before hitting Florida in early September, caused the loss of 753 million hours of electricity, making it the fourth-largest blackout in US history. In general, most power outages are due to disruption in the power lines that deliver energy, rather than in energy generation, Houser said. Hurricanes, with their high sustained winds and wide geographic area, are particularly likely to knock out power for large numbers of people. |
"New Digs" is a SpongeBob SquarePants episode from season five. In this episode, SpongeBob moves into the Krusty Krab after being late to work. Characters Synopsis SpongeBob is getting ready for bed. However, he is so excited about going to work the next day that he cannot fall asleep. After speedily running around, it does not tire him, he drinks a glass of warm snail milk, which causes him to fall asleep within moments. The next morning, SpongeBob wakes up and finds out he overslept. He desperately rushes to get to the Krusty Krab, even jumping over an unfinished bridge that was over a cliff to get there on time. Right when he puts his employee time card in the slot, the clock changes to 9:01 AM, making him 1 minute late. Worried that Mr. Krabs will punish him for being one minute late, SpongeBob begins working in overdrive to try and make up for his lost minute. Soon, Mr. Krabs notices his jumpiness and checks on him, but SpongeBob breaks down, telling Mr. Krabs that he was tardy and begging Mr. Krabs not to throw him out. Mr. Krabs does not scold him that much (even saying "Um... don't do it again."), but at SpongeBob's request, Mr. Krabs punishes him for his "wrongdoings" by making him clean the salad bar. Squidward sarcastically suggests to SpongeBob that he should live at the Krusty Krab if he loves it so much. That night, SpongeBob brings his bed to the Krusty Krab and sleeps there. The next morning, Mr. Krabs is shockingly startled by SpongeBob's bed. SpongeBob tells Mr. Krabs that he is going to live at the Krusty Krab from then on. When Squidward finds out, he is overjoyed. That night, SpongeBob brings all of his furniture to the Krusty Krab to make himself feel more at home. The next morning, Squidward is thrilled that SpongeBob no longer lives next door to him. He happily tells the news to a customer. Later, when the customer asks Squidward for change, he gives him two socks and a pair of underwear. Squidward then notices the whole cash register is filled with socks and underwear. He asks SpongeBob why they are in there and where the money is. SpongeBob then says that the money is now being kept in a pickle jar. More socks and underwear are hanging up on a clothesline. A customer then takes a pair of underwear, thinking it is a napkin. SpongeBob then explains to Squidward that Gary has the mustard. Later, SpongeBob moves his furniture into Mr. Krabs' office. Then SpongeBob's parents come to the Krusty Krab. Gary's trail of slime gets all over the floor and customers keep slipping on it and injuring themselves. A customer then tells SpongeBob about the "snail trail" incident and SpongeBob becomes mad at Gary. SpongeBob wreaks havoc at the Krusty Krab after living there a few more days. He ends up placing soap decorations in the bathroom, knitting napkin holders, and embroidering the menus. Mr. Krabs becomes angry when he notices shower curtains in his office. He threatens to tear them down, but when he does, he finds Margaret SquarePants taking a shower. Harold SquarePants comes in and angrily beats up Mr. Krabs before fleeing. The customers leave the Krusty Krab when they find out SpongeBob is shaving Patrick's back hair. Having enough of SpongeBob's antics, a furious Mr. Krabs forces SpongeBob move out of the Krusty Krab. In the end, SpongeBob moves back to his house and plays his very loud drums, much to Squidward's dismay, who cries in agony. The next day, Mr. Krabs discovers that Squidward has moved into the Krusty Krab, much to his chagrin. Production Originally, there was going to be a scene where Gary either was shown being milked or the aftermath of being milked for the snail milk featured in this episode. This was most likely was removed as it would have been disturbing and Gary is a male snail, so it would not make sense. Both the scene where Mr. Krabs pulls the shower curtains and the scene where SpongeBob shaves Patrick's back were based off real stories from the crew. 9:00 AM is when the SpongeBob crew has to be at Nickelodeon Animation Studio. Music ( ‣ ) Associated production music ( • ) Original music ( ◦ ) SpongeBob music • Laundry Song - Nate Cash, Nicolas Carr, Tom Kenny ‣ On the Beach - Kapono Beamer [SpongeBob going to bed] ‣ Cream Pie - Sage Guyton, Jeremy Wakefield [SpongeBob running around] ‣ ? [warm snail milk] ‣ Solo Steel - Jeremy Wakefield [SpongeBob falls asleep] ‣ Sponge Monger - Sage Guyton, Jeremy Wakefield [SpongeBob running to work] ‣ Abject Terror - Paul Lewis ["NO!!!"; SpongeBob is nervous that Mr. Krabs will catch him.] ‣ Dingles Regatta - Brian Peters [food delivered to table four/"I'm on it! Nothing a dedicated on-time employee can't handle."] ‣ Hawaiian Cocktail - Richard Myhill [SpongeBob apologizes Krabs for being late/"I love it here, Mr. Krabs."] ‣ Harp Ding - Nicolas Carr [SpongeBob grins] ‣ Hawaiian Happiness - Jon Jelmer [SpongeBob in a cardboard box] ‣ The Tip Top Polka/The Cliff Polka - Chelmsford Folk Band [Krabs opens the Krusty Krab] ‣ Nude Sting - Nicolas Carr [SpongeBob wakes up] ‣ ? ["SpongeBob reporting for duty, sir."] ‣ Steel Licks (a) - Jeremy Wakefield [SpongeBob says he'll be living at the Krusty Krab] ‣ Unknown Track 45 - Nicolas Carr ["Rent?"] ‣ The Tip Top Polka/The Cliff Polka - Chelmsford Folk Band ["Well, let's get ready for the customers."] ‣ Captain Lenoe's - The Folk Players ["Eww, I guess I could use some freshening up."] ‣ Nautical Hijinx - Nicolas Carr, Barry Anthony [SpongeBob bathing in the dishwasher] ‣ Vibe Q Sting - Nicolas Carr ["SpongeBob living at the Krusty Krab?"] ‣ Island of Romance - Bruce Campbell [Squidward is overjoyed] ‣ Spanish Ladies (b) - Robin Jeffrey, Tim Laycock [closing time] ‣ The Tip Top Polka/The Cliff Polka - Chelmsford Folk Band [the next day] ‣ Lap Steel - Nicolas Carr [SpongeBob's underwear in the cash register] ‣ Drunken Sailor (b) - Robin Jeffrey, Tim Laycock [SpongeBob explains] ‣ Steel Sting - Jeremy Wakefield ["Ew!"] ‣ Steel Licks (g) - Jeremy Wakefield [SpongeBob doing laundry] • Laundry Song - Nate Cash, Nicolas Carr, Tom Kenny [SpongeBob sings] ‣ Keel Row - Brian Peters ["SpongeBob, you can't hang your delicates in me customers' faces."] ‣ Seaweed - Steve Belfer [SpongeBob moved into Krabs' office] ‣ Hello Blues - Sage Guyton, Jeremy Wakefield [SpongeBob's parents arrive] ‣ Steel Licks (b) - Jeremy Wakefield ["That boy's taking the manliness out of me restaurant."] ‣ Vibe Sting - Nicolas Carr [floral print curtains] ‣ Comic Tension (a) - Dick Stephen Walter ["That's the last straw!"] ‣ The Plot Thickens - Dick Stephen Walter [SpongeBob's mom taking a shower] ‣ Gator - Steve Belfer ["Thanks, SpongeBob!"] ‣ Shock Horror (a) - Dick Stephen Walter [Krabs screams after the customers leave] ‣ Steel Licks (d) - Jeremy Wakefield [Krabs cries] ‣ Me for You - George Callert [Squidward sunbathing] ‣ Steel Licks (i) - Jeremy Wakefield [SpongeBob moves back to the pineapple] ‣ ? - Nicolas Carr [SpongeBob playing drums] ‣ When Daylight Shines/Captain Lenoe's - The Folk Players [ending] Release Reception As of February 1, 2019, The Internet Movie Database (IMDB) gives this episode a rating of 8.1/10 based on 244 ratings by users.[2] TV.com users give this episode a rating of 8.4/10 based on 108 votes.[3] Trivia Timeline 9:01am - SpongeBob puts his timecard in the time slot 12:31am - SpongeBob is laying in a cardboard box 8:59am (next day) - SpongeBob puts his timecard in the time slot After "Help Wanted," "The Secret Box," "SpongeBob Meets the Strangler" and "SpongeHenge" General In the 2012 R-rated drama mystery film, Flight , a brief clip of the episode, where SpongeBob drinks snail milk, is seen on television when the main character is changing the channel at a hotel room. , a brief clip of the episode, where SpongeBob drinks snail milk, is seen on television when the main character is changing the channel at a hotel room. When SpongeBob reveals he put the money from the cash register in the pickle jar, Mr. Krabs laughs it off and tells Squidward it is "harmless tomfoolery." In other episodes, he freaks out when something happens to his money. When SpongeBob sings "Laundry Song," the music is the same one used for the title card. This is the second episode where SpongeBob has sleeping problems. The first is "Night Light." This episode takes place after "SpongeBob Meets the Strangler" because in that episode SpongeBob had a 100% on-time percentage and in this episode, he ruins that percentage. This episode premiered one year after Who's Hungry? was released. was released. In the Welsh dub, the episode is called "Does Unman Fel Cartref," which translates to "There's Nowhere Like Home." This episode takes place after "The Secret Box" and "SpongeHenge" because in those episodes, SpongeBob says he was never late for work, and in this episode, he’s late. However, the Krusty Krab is shown destroyed in "SpongeHenge", which means that there would not have been an opportunity for SpongeBob to be late. Therefore, that must mean that "SpongeHenge" is non-canon. Cultural references In this episode, SpongeBob has to be at work by 9:00 AM. This is a reference to the start time of most jobs, including that of the SpongeBob crew. SpongeBob playing his drum set, and Squidward getting annoyed might be a reference to the Sesame Street characters Bert and Ernie. Errors When SpongeBob wears his sleepy time blinders and goes to bed, his blinders are missing when he is in the bed. When Squidward attempts to put the dishes in the dishwasher, he puts the dishes on the conveyor belt. After SpongeBob reveals himself in the dishwater, the dishes disappear. The next morning in SpongeBob's house, he woke up missing his left shoe on his foot. Then when he ran to the Krusty Krab, and right to the kitchen he has his left shoe and sock on. Also, while SpongeBob was hastily running to the Krusty Krab, his teeth are missing i n one frame. The closed-captions say "man on speaker" when Squidward talks on the speaker. In the scene where SpongeBob begs Mr. Krabs to give him back his job, when he was one minute late at the Krusty Krab, the order window in the background in the cooking area was missing. However, it is visible in later cooking area scenes throughout the episode. When SpongeBob was telling Mr. Krabs that he was late, it was still morning. Less than ten seconds later, when Mr. Krabs left, it was already night. When Mr. Krabs first leaves the Krusty Krab, he walks directly straight. However, the Chum Bucket is not there across the street. This error also happens when SpongeBob was running late for work and runs directly straight to the Krusty Krab. After Squidward says "If you love it so much, why don't you just live here?," SpongeBob grins and in that shot the black ring part of his Krusty Krab employee hat turns blue. Before Squidward tells SpongeBob "goodnight," the wall between SpongeBob's nightcap and his headboard is brown. When the shot switches to a close-up of this, the wall has the correct coloration. When Squidward was saying goodnight to SpongeBob at the Krusty Krab, it was morning. However, a few scenes later when Mr. Krabs and Squidward were walking home, it is night time. When SpongeBob sings the Laundry Song, he attaches his underwear to a clothes line. The line continually changes from one rope without returning, to a full rope returning to the kitchen. |
There have been a number of big returns to WWE this year, and many rumors of others heading back to the biggest wrestling promotion in the world. The latest rumor, though, involves the name of someone that many never thought they’d see in WWE again, and that is Shane McMahon. Is Shane-O Mac and the money coming back in 2016? What Culture is reporting that leaks are coming forth from WWE that the company will be releasing a Shane McMahon DVD sometime in 2016. That’s all great and fine, but usually a DVD release based on a particular individual means that person will be on WWE television to promote the product. In turn, this could mean that Shane McMahon only makes an appearance or two on Monday Night Raw so he can shill the DVD release. On another note, there could end up being a lot more to all of this, and Shane McMahon could actually get involved in a storyline of some sort. Maybe he could be the one to come in and save the company from the hands of The Authority or maybe he would actually join them. At this time, that is all speculation, and Trib Live believes it won’t be that exciting. It was in 2010 that Shane McMahon left WWE to pursue other ventures. Not only did he want to do other things in life, but WWE was also in a bad spot at the time, and it made sense for him to head on out. He’s done a number of things since leaving, including YOU On Demand most notably. It’s a multi-platform entertainment service that delivers Hollywood movies and much more to customers across China via streaming services on a subscription basis. Shane-O Mac is now 45 years old and hasn’t wrestled in quite a long time. If he was to return to the company, it would likely not be in a wrestling role. He could come back in a backstage role or even if it is on WWE TV, it could be similar to that of his sister, Stephanie McMahon. If he ever did decide to wrestle again, it would likely be on a dialed down basis or maybe a one-time all-out match like he used to have. If anyone remembers the “Street Fight” between McMahon and Kurt Angle at King of the Ring 2001, then it’s hard to think he could replicate that at this stage in his life. Then again, stranger things have happened. In 2013, Shane McMahon did voluntarily step down as the CEO of YOU On Demand and appointed Wiekang Liu as his successor. McMahon is still the Chairman of the Board and principal executive officer of the company, but he isn’t as involved as he once was. Right now, McMahon could really do well in bringing his genius to the storyline aspect of things behind the scenes. He could create storylines and put together feuds and put action on TV that fans want to see. Shane McMahon has often been compared to his father and is said to have a mind that is along the same lines of Vince McMahon himself. His knowledge of the company and creativity could really help WWE out on the corporate and television side of things. Triple H and Stephanie McMahon haven’t done a bad job and are truly succeeding with NXT, but what could it hurt to bring on one more brilliant mind? A DVD coming out for Shane McMahon is big enough in itself and having a lot of his greatest moments in one spot will be fantastic. Shane McMahon possibly returning to WWE television in 2016 is huge and could really end up being a big lift for the company. [Images via WWE] |
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