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Leicester City’s outstanding counter-attacking first goal against West Ham featured three PFA player of the year nominees linking, with Riyad Mahrez poking a pass through to N’Golo Kanté, who fed the goalscorer Jamie Vardy. But there was also a crucial, unseen contribution from another impressive performer: Shinji Okazaki. Leonardo Ulloa steals in at last to earn Leicester draw against West Ham Read more As Mahrez received the ball on the right, Okazaki glanced around to see Kanté storming forward and Vardy sprinting into the left-hand channel, so he made a clever decoy run towards the right, taking Mark Noble away from the defensive midfield zone, opening up space for Kanté to burst into, and helping to create the goal. It was textbook Okazaki: tactically intelligent, on the move, playing a supporting role. This was not, in conventional terms, an impressive individual forward performance. Okazaki had no shots, did not dribble past any opponents and recorded a pass completion rate of under 50%. But Okazaki excels in the small, subtle details, and his style is perfect for Leicester’s game plan. If the Foxes are a relatively limited attacking side, depending upon counterattacking and set pieces for goals, it helps to have a forward that creates opportunities in both respects. Okazaki does not get on the end of free-kicks frequently – but he wins them. In the opening stages he poked the ball away from Angelo Ogbonna to win a foul near the corner flag, which nearly resulted in a goal when Robert Huth headed Mahrez’s free-kick wide from point-blank range. Later, West Ham’s other centre-back Winston Reid was cautioned for a poor challenge on Okazaki, who put his body in the line of fire to draw contact – not as simple as it looks, as Vardy would later find to his cost. West Ham’s Andy Carroll slams referee Jon Moss after Leicester draw Read more Okazaki continued to make a succession of intelligent runs, too. The closest Leicester came to going 2-0 ahead came from another sudden burst, this time into the left channel, to receive a Danny Drinkwater pass. Perhaps caught in two minds, Okazaki’s final ball was more cross than shot, narrowly evading Vardy at the far post. Having created so many chances with his intelligent off-the-ball work, this would have been his first league assist of the season. It was surprising Claudio Ranieri decided to sacrifice Okazaki immediately after Vardy’s dismissal, introducing the taller, less mobile Leonardo Ulloa. Ranieri presumably wanted someone to hold up the ball, and help defend set pieces, but Leicester badly missed Okazaki’s energy: someone who could chase hopeful long passes and help to relieve the pressure. Leicester are happy sitting deep and allowing the opposition possession, but they probably dropped back too much, invited too much pressure, and eventually conceded twice. Ulloa, at least, had the composure to convert the stoppage-time equaliser from the spot. With Vardy suspended against Swansea City, Ulloa will be required once again – but it is Okazaki who will lead the fight. Many of his team-mates have enjoyed better campaigns overall, but the Japan forward typifies Leicester’s fight, selflessness and tactical intelligence. |
A Hamilton man has gone from gamer to successful developer in impressively short time by clawing his way towards a daunting yet achievable goal. Self-described 33-year-old gamer dad Duncan Bourke is the sole creator of Starship Theory, a PC exclusive ship building survival game that launched on Steam Early Access last week. In the seven days after that, Starship Theory sold more than 10,000 copies at NZ$12-15 a pop – not bad for a guy who taught himself to code in his spare time while helping his wife raise their newborn son. Two years ago, Bourke and family had just moved back to New Zealand after a stint Australia. The former teacher turned professional development worker had zero game development experience, but decided he was spending too much time playing video games, and that it was time to make one. Bourke set himself two goals: half the time he spent on his PC would be dedicated towards this project, and the project would one day be released on Steam. The latter was a way of ensuring he wouldn't start the project but never finish – something surely everyone reading this can relate to. Bourke's goals were imposing, but he gained confidence by cultivating productive habits. He'd look after his son during day, and work on his game at night. "At the time, I though that I could probably get something through Greenlight," Bourke says. "To me, that was my only goal. It was a real accomplishment to me to just release something. I thought I should try and work on it every single day, so every single day I did my best to open the program up and do something. Some days it was all night, some days it was 20 minutes." Bourke decided he would make his game in Unity, because there are plenty of free yet high quality Unity tutorials available on the net. He found YouTuber quill18 particularly helpful, and soon set out to make a game in the vein of those he most enjoyed: FTL: Faster Than Light, Dwarf Fortress, Prison Architect, and Rimworld. It was a real accomplishment to me to just release something Duncan Bourke, Starship Theory creator As you'd expect, such a thing is easier said than done, and the temptation throw in the towel or chase perfection was strong. "Many times over the development of Starship Theory I wanted to start over," Bourke says. "I look at it now and think I could do it better, but for me it was about refining the scope, honestly cutting out features, and working towards to the point that I could actually release something." This focus allowed Bourke to chip away at his intimidating task, and he slowly grinded away until one day, what emerged was actually fun to play. Then, two years of part-time work from when he had started, his game was ready for Early Access. Released by Bourke's solo outfit Reconnect Software, Starship Theory is a survival game that has you mine and trade to gather resources, plan and construct upgrades, train and manage crew, and fight to survive in the darkness of space. Bourke isn't shy about the game's inspirations. It superficially resembles FTL, but allows you to design your ship, opening up various designs that allow for varied playthroughs. "Starship Theory isn't an extremely innovative idea," he says. "It combines elements from games that I really enjoy like FTL ship control, Rimworld or Prison Architect base building, EVE Online power management and the way the combat works." "Many times over the development of Starship Theory I wanted to start over" Duncan Bourke, Starship Theory creator He tried to combine elements of ship building and base building, but "the survival guys would like it to be a bit more survival-y, and the base building guys would like it to be a bit more base build-y." Bourke estimates the game will remain in Early Access for 18 months or perhaps longer, and over that time he wants to develop features the community is excited about, which aren't always things that are aligned with his own plans. "It's tough in the Early Access environment," he says. "I see Early Access as just that: releasing something that's pretty early and developing that alongside the community. But as a purchaser of Early Access games, I think people have pretty high expectations, and I think that's probably fair – I'm charging money for the game. I tried to price it at the lower end of the scale, but I do think people expect a pretty polished title in Early Access, and that's just one of the pros and cons of the whole system." Incoming updates will centre around customisation, and include furniture, painting, and other cosmetic additions. Bourke also hopes to add more random events and a star map to the game. A cursory browse of the game's Steam reviews show that many people think the game is currently too hard, and Bourke agrees. A tutorial and difficulty levels might be added in later, the game's dice rolls will get reduced to give players more strategic power, and new players will be better supported to give them more time before "that first asteroid smashes their cargo hatch straight off the ship and they lose everything". However, more content will be added in first. Even though it's incomplete, Bourke is pleased with how Starship Theory has turned out so far. After all, it's a small game from a first-time dev, made on a budget of NZ$1000 (half of which went to registering the trademark), released with zero marketing. "I'm just thrilled I've managed to get something released on Steam that somebody has looked at and thought, 'I'd pay money to play this'," he says. "I'm just stoked that anyone wants to play it to be honest. [The game's success] has been a real bonus, but my original goal as just to start a project finish a project and release something." ◆ Starship Theory is available now via Early Access for NZ$15. |
After UFC 170 ended, the major talking point was two very different stoppages made by Herb Dean during the event. In the second bout on the main card, Herb Dean seemingly let TJ Waldburger take an unbelievable amount of unnecessary punishment before finally stopping Mike Pyle’s onslaught. In the main event title fight between Ronda Rousey and Sara McMann, Herb Dean did the exact opposite by stopping the bout three seconds after the initial knee from Rousey that knocked Sara down. While Dana White and even Sara McMann agreed with the stoppage, many believed that Dean should have given Sara even a slight window to recover. A GIF of Herb Dean leaving the Octagon after the main event has surfaced, and has caused wild speculation among the MMA community. Check out the GIF below: As you can see above, Herb Dean walks out of the Octagon shaking his head. Now, we may never be certain as to why Dean was shaking his head, but the speculation is that he was upset with his hasty decision to stop the fight. Alternatively, he could have been disappointed by the wave of boos the crowd was delivering after the fight ended. As of now, Herb Dean has not commented on the fight so we can not fully break down the situation and the stoppage of the fight. What did you think of the stoppage? What do you think Dean is shaking his head about in the GIF above? Let me know in the comments below or on Twitter @SchlinskMMA. |
by Brett Stevens on May 28, 2011 The greatest challenge for human beings is to recognize that we are a part of the world, and not some great brain that encloses it. It is real; we are subject to it. For this reason, what we see and what seems intuitively real to us needs to be processed in reverse, from the moment we see it to it happening out there, to its source — a study of cause/effect relationships. As described elsewhere on this site, our primary human error is to reverse this reversed processing, and assume that the source of the act is within us, as is its goal, thus we need to interpret it as directed at us. The resulting combination between narcissism, paranoia and social anxiety causes most people to be unable to understand cause/effect relationships. Instead, they know only appearance. “I do not know when I have been more shocked,” said she. “Wickham so very bad! It is almost past belief. And poor Mr. Darcy! Dear Lizzy, only consider what he must have suffered. Such a disappointment! and with the knowledge of your ill opinion, too! and having to relate such a thing of his sister! It is really too distressing. I am sure you must feel it so.” “Oh! no, my regret and compassion are all done away by seeing you so full of both. I know you will do him such ample justice, that I am growing every moment more unconcerned and indifferent. Your profusion makes me saving; and if you lament over him much longer, my heart will be as light as a feather.” “Poor Wickham! there is such an expression of goodness in his countenance! such an openness and gentleness in his manner!” “There certainly was some great mismanagement in the education of those two young men. One has got all the goodness, and the other all the appearance of it.” “I never thought Mr. Darcy so deficient in the appearance of it as you used to do.” “And yet I meant to be uncommonly clever in taking so decided a dislike to him, without any reason. It is such a spur to one’s genius, such an opening for wit, to have a dislike of that kind. One may be continually abusive without saying anything just; but one cannot always be laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty.” – Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice As Plato told us so long ago, if two men — one evil, one good — were given the power of invisibility, we would see the good deeds of the evil man (who being of bad intent, would hide his bad deeds) and the bad deeds of the good man (who being of good intent, would hide the good but not the bad). This asymmetry of nature puts us at a disadvantage. Appearance not only hides the true nature of things, but produces drama in us that causes us to make useless decisions. The results are often appalling: About a decade ago, the press got worked up over how Caltech had only zero or one black student in its freshman class. “Look how many blacks MIT has!” It never occurred to the pundits that if Caltech were harangued into getting more black students, they’d just wind up spending a fortune to take some away from MIT. Nobody ever gets that. The assumption is that Caltech should merely create more Caltech-type black high school seniors. In contrast, I think the most underexploited center of potential talent are kids from broken families, especially boys, who don’t have two parents to prod them to jump through all the hoops that the multi-year college admissions brownie-point collecting process requires. – Steve Sailer, “Where would colleges find underexploited talent?” In our quest to help, we find a symbol (appearance) of great suffering and try to lift up the kids who are truly without hope of higher education. We ignore the fact that all but a handful of them cannot do the work. Because we spend our time on the pity-cases, we ignore the deserving who have encountered an unfortunate situation, namely the destruction of the American family thanks to liberal sexual liberation in the 1960s. his week, researchers at Umea University in Sweden released a startling finding: Couples in which one partner commutes for longer than 45 minutes are 40 percent likelier to divorce. The Swedes could not say why. Perhaps long-distance commuters tend to be poorer or less educated, both conditions that make divorce more common. Perhaps long transit times exacerbate corrosive marital inequalities, with one partner overburdened by child care and the other overburdened by work. But perhaps the Swedes are just telling us something we all already know, which is that commuting is bad for you. Awful, in fact. Commuting is a migraine-inducing life-suck—a mundane task about as pleasurable as assembling flat-pack furniture or getting your license renewed, and you have to do it every day. If you are commuting, you are not spending quality time with your loved ones. You are not exercising, doing challenging work, having sex, petting your dog, or playing with your kids (or your Wii). You are not doing any of the things that make human beings happy. Instead, you are getting nauseous on a bus, jostled on a train, or cut off in traffic. – Slate But who would have thought it was important at all? It is just another lifestyle choice to be balanced against others, another factor to consider in making a decision. If you can afford the house in far-flung Outer Suburbia, why not? It’s just 45 minutes each way. Yet our actions have consequences beyond their immediate consequences. And so, besides the driving time and gasoline cost, there are other costs to commuting. Fifty years ago people knew that. Then the first people moved to the outer burbs and started commuting, and so prices went up in the shrinking part of the city where it was safe to live. Competition enforced the decline. Now we all commute from the suburbs, hate it, and take it out on our dogs, wives and kids, whether deliberately or not. The USPS is a wondrous American creation. Six days a week it delivers an average of 563 million pieces of mail—40 percent of the entire world’s volume. For the price of a 44¢ stamp, you can mail a letter anywhere within the nation’s borders. The service will carry it by pack mule to the Havasupai Indian reservation at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Mailmen on snowmobiles take it to the wilds of Alaska. If your recipient can no longer be found, the USPS will return it at no extra charge. It may be the greatest bargain on earth. It takes an enormous organization to carry out such a mission. The USPS has 571,566 full-time workers, making it the country’s second-largest civilian employer after Wal-Mart Stores (WMT). It has 31,871 post offices, more than the combined domestic retail outlets of Wal-Mart, Starbucks (SBUX), and McDonald’s (MCD). Last year its revenues were $67 billion, and its expenses were even greater. Postal service executives proudly note that if it were a private company, it would be No. 29 on the Fortune 500. […] Since 2007 the USPS has been unable to cover its annual budget, 80 percent of which goes to salaries and benefits. In contrast, 43 percent of FedEx’s (FDX) budget and 61 percent of United Parcel Service’s (UPS) pay go to employee-related expenses. – Business Week We like to think the solution to our problems is to ban bad things we have seen happen to others. But there’s that asymmetry again — too much focus on the negative, and we forget about the actual task, and we end up avoiding phantoms and missing out on the point. Unions seemed like a good solution to the problem of pushy bosses. Then we found out that they in fact become a kind of incompetence subsidy that makes it impossible to fire people, impossible to change regulations, and nearly impossible to get people to work harder than a lazy late-Soviet ambling pace. He says he wants to reduce the USPS’s headcount by 20 percent over the next five years through attrition; the agency’s union contracts prohibit layoffs. What’s more, Donahoe wants to close post offices and move some of their operations into convenience stores and supermarkets, where nonunion workers can staff them. […] The USPS has historically placed the interests of its unions first. That hasn’t changed. In March it reached a four-and-a-half-year agreement with the 250,000-member American Postal Workers Union, which represents mail clerks, drivers, mechanics, and custodians. The pact extends the no-layoff provision and provides a 3.5 percent raise for APWU members over the period of the contract, along with seven upcapped cost-of-living increases. The union is happy. “Despite the fact that the postal service is on the edge of insolvency, the union and management have reached an agreement that is a ‘win-win’ proposition,” said APWU President Cliff Guffey on the union’s website. If we were not blinded by years of propaganda, both paid and unpaid, from the people and media events around us, we would see this for what it is: parasitism. Yet we want to avoid the appearance of disappointing, upsetting or “oppressing” others. On and on, south of heaven. Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. |
Students march on SF’s Market Street to protest Trump election Hundreds of students from at least ten San Francisco public schools walked out of classes Thursday morning and clogged Market Street to protest the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States. Chanting “Not my president!” the students left schools around the city, including Mission and Washington High Schools, and congregated on the steps of San Francisco City Hall before marching down Market Street to the Ferry Building, blocking traffic in both directions. "We are protesting because we wanna stand up for our rights and we deserve to be heard,” said Pamela Campos, 18, a student at John O’Connell High School. “Donald Trump is just racist. He's attacking all the immigrants, all the Muslims. I saw all my classmates crying yesterday.” After reaching the Ferry Building around 11 a.m., groups of students splintered off onto nearby streets, some taking the protest up and down the Embarcadero and over to Fisherman’s Wharf. Just after noon, several hundred students marched on Van Ness Avenue, disrupting traffic, while a small group headed in the direction of the Golden Gate Bridge. San Francisco high school students march down Market St., on Nov. 10, 2016 in protest of the election of Donald Trump. San Francisco high school students march down Market St., on Nov. 10, 2016 in protest of the election of Donald Trump. Photo: Sarah Ravani/The Chronicle Photo: Sarah Ravani/The Chronicle Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close Students march on SF’s Market Street to protest Trump election 1 / 8 Back to Gallery The protest mirrored demonstrations across the Bay Area that included student walkouts Thursday in Napa, Concord and Hayward. The impromptu protests, hastily arranged on social media, came a day after thousands of high school students in Berkeley, Oakland and at other East Bay schools walked out of classes to express their outrage over Trump’s election. Similar protest were held by students across the nation, including Seattle, Pittsburgh and Portland, Ore. Myong Leigh, the interim superintendent of the San Francisco Unified School District, said students from 10 schools were participating in the demonstration. “In our hearts, we are supporting the students,” said Leigh said. “This is technically not a school district or a school sponsored activity. This is students taking their feelings and emotions and channeling them in a way that feels right to them.” Jeniffer Alberto, 17, a student at Mission High School, said Trump stood for all their wrong things. "We are protesting because we don't want Donald trump to be president. We hate him,” Alberto said. “We want all Latinos to stay here. We don't want African Americans, Latino, and Muslims to be out of America. We are not moving out. We are making a change." Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani |
BOSTON—According to local man Peter McCarthy, an endearing behavior that once helped him nurture companionship and intimacy with ex-girlfriend Kara Banachek is currently allowing him to do the same with new girlfriend Alyssa Michals. "Kara used to love it when I made funny faces and tried to get her to laugh when she was talking on the phone, and it turns out Alyssa gets a kick out of that too," the 29-year-old said Wednesday, acknowledging he has also taken advantage of the fresh audience to recycle such tried-and-true practices as stroking back the hair from Michals' forehead before kissing her and nuzzling the back of her neck as the two drift off to sleep. "I do feel kind of guilty about it, and, yeah, they'd probably both be pissed if they found out, but realistically that's not ever going to happen, so who's it hurting?" McCarthy said he was still feeling out the use of his old pet name for Banachek—"Kare Bear"—on Michals and was prepared to "go back to the drawing board" should his new girlfriend grow suspicious. Advertisement |
Quote EricMusco Quote: Originally Posted by Hey folks, Quick update! The team believes they have a fix to correct the issue, which will properly grant the HM FP Achievement progress towards the last tier. Our current plan is to release this fix in the next patch that we make available. I don't have exact timing on that patch yet, but I will let you know as soon as I do. We know that you all worked hard for that progress and so we want to get it addressed as soon as we can. Thanks everyone. -eric I get very angry about your Programmers. Nice, if others can discuss about HM-bugs and so on. But many peoples can't play this game since server-down on 08.08. ... You didn't have fixed the "versioning error". I can't play the game! Do you read THIS? I CAN'T LOGIN! And I and many others paid for your and programers job. PLEASE, DO IT! Summary: Pop up Window "versionary error" ignored. pressed play at a Char. loader starts and stoped at 90% up to 93%. - thats all. after ten mins = same. allways same. Starting a new Char: after starting the prologue: u can't use any buffs. no sprint, no talk with medicine-droid, no fighting .... every day the same .... Why are u release Patches without a former QA? sry for my English, cause I'm German. But You will understand, what I tell You?! In Germany, we love Quality, more than Quantity Damned Eric,I get very angry about your Programmers. Nice, if others can discuss about HM-bugs and so on. But many peoples can't play this game since server-down on 08.08. ... You didn't have fixed the "versioning error". I can't play the game! Do you read THIS? I CAN'T LOGIN! And I and many others paid for your and programers job. PLEASE, DO IT!Summary: Pop up Window "versionary error" ignored.pressed play at a Char.loader starts and stoped at 90% up to 93%. - thats all. after ten mins = same. allways same.Starting a new Char:after starting the prologue: u can't use any buffs. no sprint, no talk with medicine-droid, no fighting ....every day the same ....Why are u release Patches without a former QA?sry for my English, cause I'm German. But You will understand, what I tell You?! In Germany, we love Quality, more than Quantity The Spar-Legacy: all 70 Serafinah, Selina'a, Sundar-aurat, Xenia, Evolution-XR, Lïnda, Natalïa, Anov'a, Phelomena, Zephaniia *** Akaaví, Qwestyr, Anitara, Ataxerxe, Fade-tuo, Zina'ar, Psy-X, Evolution, Baaghira, Blue-Revenge, Ekstasia, Amazon-Severa and more in other galaxies. Tulak HordThe Spar-Legacy: all 70Serafinah, Selina'a, Sundar-aurat, Xenia, Evolution-XR, Lïnda, Natalïa, Anov'a, Phelomena, Zephaniia ***Akaaví, Qwestyr, Anitara, Ataxerxe, Fade-tuo, Zina'ar, Psy-X, Evolution, Baaghira, Blue-Revenge, Ekstasia, Amazon-Severa and more in other galaxies. |
Five bodies found as rescue divers use explosives to blow holes in hull: Four men and one woman in their 50s and 60s discovered Five passengers found at the front of the ship below the waterline Four men and one woman in their 50s and 60s discovered Known death toll now stands at 11 Italian divers today set off explosives to gain easier access inside Advertisement The bodies of five more passengers have been found in the wreckage of the Costa Concordia taking the confirmed death toll to 11. Four men and one woman, in their 50s and 60s, were discovered together at the front of the cruise liner below the waterline. It comes after Italian navy divers set off explosives to create openings in the hull of the ship that ran aground near a Tuscan island on Friday. Navy spokesman Alessandro Busonero said micro-charges placed on the side of the ship created four openings to allow divers 'to enter easily for the search'. Extensive debris and the 'sideways' nature of the ship has hampered rescuers from getting into sections of the stricken vessel. The holes were made both above and below the water level. Television footage showed them to be less than 6ft in diameter. Scroll down for video Discovery: A scuba diver is pictured dragging a body out from the stricken cruise liner Costa Concordia as the confirmed death toll rises to 11 Blasting through: The bright flash of an explosion shows where Italian navy divers have used 'micro-charges' to force their way through the hull of the capsized Costa Concordia - in a bid to find missing passengers and crew Peeling the hull away: Rescuers use an inflatable raft to get to the blast points and continue their search for survivors. Debris and the 'sideways' nature of the ship have hampered rescue efforts Frantic effort: A plume from another of the four explosions is seen rising from the Costa Concordia. Divers have blown holes in the ship above and below the water line so that they can get to previously inaccessible sections Mr Busonero said the rescuers were racing against time. The tragedy has turned into a potential environmental crisis as rough seas battering the stricken ship raised fears that fuel might leak into the pristine waters around Giglio island. The Italian operator of the Costa Concordia has accused the ship's captain, Francesco Schettino, who is in custody, of causing the accident, saying he made an 'unapproved, unauthorised manoeuvre' to divert the vessel from its programmed course. Earlier, authorities had said 16 people were missing. But Italian coastguard official Marco Brusco said last night that 25 passengers and four crew members were still unaccounted for four days after the ship struck a reef and capsized. Mr Brusco did not explain the reason for the rise, but at least three Italian families have said that even though their loved ones have been listed among those safely evacuated, they hadn't heard any word from their relatives. Mr Brusco also said about ten Germans and two Americans were among the 29 missing. He said there was still 'a glimmer of hope' that there could be survivors on parts of the vast liner that have yet to be searched. The last survivor, a crewman who had broken his leg, was rescued on Sunday. Difficult conditions: A stairwell disappearing into the ship shows how divers have had to navigate a world turned on it side, while smashed windows to the left of the picture is evidence of previous search attempts Confusing mess: Tangled cables and lifeboats lowered on top of each other show the chaotic nature of the evacuation Suspended: Rescue divers stopped searching for missing people yesterday, for a period, after the Costa Concordia started to slip into the sea The name of another missing person has also been revealed - 30-year-old honeymooner Maria D'Introno, of Biella near Turin, who had been on the ship with husband Vincenzo Rosselli and other family members to celebrate their marriage. All apart from Maria reached the safety of the shore by jumping into the water and swimming to a nearby headland while wearing life jackets. Vincenzo said: 'The main thing on my mind as we were swimming towards the shore was for my 74-year-old father who has a problem with his hip. We all had life jackets but Maria couldn't swim and she was scared of the water.' The partially-sunken liner slipped further into the sea during high winds yesterday and is now lying on its side in about 45ft of water. There are fears that the precariously-perched vessel could break completely free from its rocky ledge at any moment and plummet hundreds of feet to the bottom of the Mediterranean. There are also concerns that, if the vessel shifts even slightly, it could puncture its fuel tanks. Wrecked: This photograph of scattered furniture in a dining room deep inside the vessel shows how difficult the search effort is Mess: The level of destruction and damage inside the Costa Concordia can be seen here as an Italian coastguard diver searches for missing passengers Underwater world: All areas of the liner that are above water have now been searched, indicating faint hopes of finding more survivors Despite the threat of imminent catastrophe, rescue workers resumed their search for the 29 passengers still unaccounted for, trawling through the ship's maze of corridors and cabins. COSTA CONCORDIA'S VICTIMS: Missing - 29 William Arlotti, 34, and daughter Dyana, 5, - from Rimini, Italy Honeymooner Maria D'Introno, 30, of Biella near Turin Erika Soria - Peruvian crew member, 26 Russell Rebello - Indian crew member, 30 Jerry and Barbara Heil, from White Bear Lake, Minnesota, U.S. Frenchman Francis Servel, 71, who handed his wife Nicole, 61, his lifejacket * 14 Germans, 6 Italians, 4 French, 2 Americans, One each from India, Peru and Hungary Dead - 6 Giovanni Masia - 86 - from Italy Guillermo Gual - 68 - from Spain Peruvian crew member Tomas Costilla Mendoza Two, as yet unnamed, French passengers Unidentified man found on Monday morning * These are only the people who have been named by Italian authorities. The emergency services confirmed that all the areas of the liner that are above water had now been searched. A five-year-old Italian girl Dyana Arlotti , and her father William, 34, from Rimini, are believed to be among those still missing. Dyana's mother, Susy Albertini told Italian newspaper Voce di Romagna: 'I have made hundreds of phone calls to my ex-husband, but he does not respond. 'I called all the authorities, the Police Prefecture to the Marina di Grosseto, the fire department, but nobody can tell me anything about my daughter. 'The last time I saw Dyana was Thursday morning. I took her to kindergarten. 'In the evening her father picked her up. It is not the first time she has gone with her father on a cruise. 'I heard there were problems on the ship on Saturday morning from his parents. 'Meanwhile, I continue to call everyone and no one can tell me anything about my daughter.' Mr Arlotti's cousin, Sabrina Ottaviani, posted an appeal on Facebook which said: 'My cousin and little niece are still missing. They slid into the water in a corridor between muster point A and B. 'Someone told his girlfriend that they were pulled up by rope but there is no trace of them... if someone truly saw them on the rope please let me know.' Miss Albertini's mother, Alberta Sartini, added: 'We are waiting for news, we are on tenterhooks. 'My daughter had trusted to give the child to her former husband and the child was happy to go on a cruise with him. I hope with all my heart they come back.' Those confirmed dead include two French passengers and Peruvian crew member Tomas Costilla Mendoza. Two men, 86-year-old Italian Giovanni Masia and Spaniard Guillermo Gual, 68, were discovered at an emergency gathering point near the restaurant. The sixth victim was a man, found in a corridor in the part of the ship that was still above water, who was wearing his orange lifejacket. Detained: Captain Francseco Schettino, pictured here in 2010, will appear in a Grosseto court (right) where police officers have been standing guard Grounded: The cruise ship was lit up by emergency vessels as darkness fell Eerie sight: Rescue workers had to call off their search last night, abandoning the vessel until this morning Ongoing search: Rescuers walk along the side of the stricken craft Smashed: Divers inspect a broken window in a bid to find more survivors. The ship has started to slip into the sea from the rocky resting place it has been perched on Two Americans on their 'holiday of a lifetime' are among those still unaccounted for. Gerald and Barbara Heil, of White Bear Lake, Minnesota, were confirmed as missing by their daughter. And Pervuian tourism student Peruvian Erika Soria, 26, who was working on the ship, is also missing. Her father Saturnino told Pervuian TV: 'My concern is that the authorities intensify their search and find my daughter wherever she is. 'She has to be found, dead or alive. The pain of not knowing what’s happened to her is killing us. I haven’t given up hope of seeing her alive again.' Rising turbulence this morning led to concerns that the ship - which has on board some 2,500 tons of fuel - could become unstable, creating the threat of a possible environmental disaster on top of the human loss. Frantic: Rescue divers have had to suspend their search for missing people in and around the partially submerged Costa Concordia Action: Firemen lower a stretcher down the upturned deck of the partially submerged Costa Concordia (left) as scuba divers continue searching this morning (right) Still missing: Gerald and Barbara Heil (left picture), of White Bear Lake, Minnesota, scraped by as they raised their four children, but had finally saved enough to take a long-awaited trip to celebrate their retirement. The youngest passenger still missing is five-year-old Dyana Arlotti, (right picture, in burgundy top) pictured with her father, William Missing: Tourism student Erika Soria, 26, pictured here on the Costa Concordia, is one of 16 people still unaccounted for WIFE 'SAVED BY HUSBAND' WHO HANDED HER HIS LIFEJACKET A survivor told how her husband saved her life before drowning - because there was 'nobody there' to save him. Frenchwoman Nicole Servel, 61, said Francis Servel, 71, gave her his lifejacket before they leapt off the sinking cruise ship. She said: 'I owe my life to my husband – it’s obvious he saved me.' She managed to swim for shore, while Mr Servel was swept underwater and drowned. Speaking from her home near Toulouse, south west France, Mrs Servel said: 'He shouted 'jump, jump, jump. I can't swim so he gave me his life jacket. 'I froze and couldn’t jump, but he jumped off the ship and shouted upwards 'Come on, don't worry. 'I jumped off and the last thing I heard him say was that I would be fine. Then I never saw him again. 'The water was only eight degrees. When I was alone in the water I thought of my children, my grandchildren. The thought of them kept me afloat. It kept me living. I do not know how I did it. 'I swam for several minutes. I am unable to say exactly how long. And then I found myself on a rock. Villagers came to pick us up. They led us to a church. I was very cold, frozen. In the sacristy we found a cassock. I took it. It made me warm.' No leaks into the pristine waters have been reported so far, and a Dutch firm has been called in to help extract the fuel. Environment Minister Corrado Clini said: 'The environmental risk for the island of Giglio is extremely high. The goal is to avoid that the fuel leaks from the ship. We are working on this. The intervention is urgent.' And the ship's cabin service director, 57-year-old Manrico Giampetroni, was discovered in an air pocket in a flooded restaurant two days after the incident. He was trapped after breaking his leg, and was dramatically winched to safety. Confirmation of the seventh death comes as investigators look into reports that the ship's captain might have been 'showing off' when he steered the vessel too close to rocks. Captain Francesco Schettino's behaviour is said to be under close scrutiny as he faces accusations he abandoned the vessel before ensuring all of the 4,200 people aboard were safely evacuated. It is thought that Capt Schettino sailed as close to land as he did as he wanted to salute to a friend on shore. The display was said to be in a 'salute of respect' for a former Costa cruises commander Mario Palombo who retired in 2006 due to ill health and whose family were originally from Giglio. As British survivors spoke of the 'screaming and crying' as they tried to get off the stricken vessel, the ship's owner Costa Crociere said 'preliminary indications' suggested Capt Schettino may have been guilty of 'significant human error'. The ship's Italian owner, a subsidiary of Carnival Cruise lines, issued a statement late Sunday saying there appeared to be 'significant human error' on the part of the captain, Francesco Schettino, 'which resulted in these grave consequences'. It said in a statement: 'The route of the vessel appears to have been too close to the shore, and the captain's judgment in handling the emergency appears to have not followed standard Costa procedures.' Carnival PLC, the owner of the capsized boat, saw its share price plummet by around a fifth. Carnival CEO Micky Arison said in a statement: 'At this time, our priority is the safety of our passengers and crew. 'We are deeply saddened by this tragic event and our hearts go out to everyone affected by the grounding of the Costa Concordia and especially to the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives.' Authorities were holding Schettino for suspected manslaughter and a prosecutor confirmed yesterday they were also investigating allegations the captain abandoned the stricken liner before all the passengers had escaped. According to the Italian navigation code, a captain who abandons a ship in danger can face up to 12 years in prison. Schettino insisted he did not leave the liner early, telling Mediaset television that he had done everything he could to save lives. He said: 'We were the last ones to leave the ship.' Questions also swirled about why the ship had navigated so close to the dangerous reefs and rocks that jut off Giglio's eastern coast, amid suspicions the captain may have ventured too close while carrying out a manoeuvre to entertain tourists on the island. Residents of Giglio said they had never seen the Costa come so close to the dangerous 'Le Scole' reef area. 'This was too close, too close,' said Italo Arienti, a 54-year-old sailor who has worked on the Maregiglio ferry between Giglio and the mainland for more than a decade. Wreck: The Costa Concordia pictured last night dangerously keeled over off the Giglio Island Pointing to a nautical map, he drew his finger along the path the ship usually takes and the jarring one close to shore that it followed on Friday. Costa captains have occasionally steered the ship near port and sounded the siren in a special salute, Arienti said. Such a nautical 'fly-by' was staged last August, prompting the town's mayor to send a note of thanks to the commander for the treat it provided tourists who flock to the island, local news portal GiglioNews.it reported. But Arienti and other residents said even on those occasions, the cruise ship always stayed far offshore, well beyond the reach of the 'Le Scole' reefs. Coast Guard Cmdr. Filippo Marini said divers had recovered the so-called 'black box', with the recording of the navigational details, from a compartment now under water, though no details were released. All 35 Britons on board, including 12 crew, are safe. Britons who were on board the stricken ship have now arrived back home and spoken about their ordeal. Mandy Rodford, 45, and her husband John, 46, from Rochester in Kent, were celebrating their fourth wedding anniversary on the vessel when it ran aground. Searching: Italian coastguards continued the operation The couple had only been on board the Mediterranean cruise ship for seven hours before disaster struck. Mrs Rodford, who had been hesitant about going on the holiday because she does not like water, said: 'I just thought my life was gone. I just thought my life was over, getting in that water. 'I thought, if I don't die from the swimming part, I'm going to die from the shock of having to get in it.' Speaking at London's Heathrow Airport, after flying back from Rome, Mr Rodford said they first thought something was wrong when they were eating their dinner. He said he heard 'a crunch', then his drink started sliding along the table. The couple asked a crew member if there was a problem, but they were told: 'No, it's the engine.' He added: 'Then the lights went out and came back on. And then it (the ship) started going the other way, and quite a lot the other way. 'All the plates were coming off the tables and smashing, and it was just like bedlam. Everyone was getting the life jackets, but they told us to stay. They said: 'It's all right, it's under control'.' They described sliding down the corridors across the width of the ship to reach the starboard side, which was closest to the water. |
What a bargain! Here’s a topless roadster and two parts cars (one of which looks better than a parts car) for the price of four car payments. These classic British sports cars are located in Archdale, North Carolina and are available here on craigslist. The price is $1,200 or best offer. The bright yellow one was running not that long ago and looks ready to go, and if it does need parts, I’m betting the other hulks would have them. One of the nice things about Spitfires is that parts are largely interchangeable between years, and these all range between 1973 and 1978/9, so they are compatible. The dingy yellow one looks restorable as well, although not having a title would be an issue. The Triumph Club of the Carolinas would be happy to help you get them back on the road. Josh has his back on the road, why not buy these three and join him! |
Ron Amadeo Today, HTC is taking the wraps off its newest flagship smartphone, the HTC U11. This is a proper Snapdragon 835 flagship—Qualcomm's latest chip—and it comes with two notable features: a fancy "squeeze" function that launches a configurable action and dual hotword support for both the Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. The HTC U11 is priced at $650/£650 and launches in the UK in June. A US launch will follow at a later date. I was a big fan of HTC's 2016 flagship, the HTC 10, thanks mostly to its rock-solid metal body, along with the light Android skin. Starting with the earlier HTC U Ultra, HTC moved away from its best-in-class metal phones and started making glass-backed devices. The U11 signals that glass is the future of HTC. You'll get a fragile all-glass outer casing and a super-shiny back color. Like the U Ultra, the outside colors of the phone are striking, provided you meticulously clean it—the glass back is also a fingerprint magnet. Also like the U Ultra, there's no headphone jack, but HTC will ship a USB-C-to-3.5mm plug in the box. HTC's in-box headphones also get active noise cancelling. Because you're using USB-C and can draw power directly from the phone, HTC's headphone can do noise cancelling without needing a battery. The flagship smartphone market has rapidly changed in the past year, and HTC's design doesn't seem to be doing a great job of keeping up. While Xiaomi, LG, and Samsung have all worked to produce gorgeous slim-bezel devices that maximize screen real estate, HTC's phone looks positively last year, with old school hardware buttons and tall top and bottom bezels. With even Apple rumored to be switching to a slim-bezel design, HTC—as usual—sees itself facing cutthroat competition from much bigger rivals. But let's talk about what's different here. HTC's bizarre " Squeeze the Brilliant U " teaser has had the Internet scratching its collective head. The teaser shows hands squeezing a sponge, lemon, and other squeezable objects. It turns out the sides of the HTC U11 are squeezable! The left and right sides of the phone have pressure sensors that can tell when you squeeze the device. HTC calls this "Edge Sense," and it basically works like a " convenience key " that you can program for different features. A hard squeeze or short squeeze can launch different apps, like Google Assistant, flashlight, or a few other things. A "convenience key" is really the perfect way to describe the squeezable sides. There's really no difference between the squeeze gesture and an extra physical button, and the sides are about a useful as a convenience key on any other phone. They work well and are nice to have. The pressure sensor works anywhere on the bottom half of the phone, and, since it's pressure and not capacitive, it works with gloves. The other major addition to the U11 is a "dual wake word" system. While this won't be available at launch, HTC says you'll eventually be able to have both hotwords for the Google and Amazon voice command systems active all the time. If you want Google, just say "OK Google." if you want Alexa, just say "Alexa." Google has reportedly been aggressive toward electronics companies shipping Amazon's Alexa software, telling them they can't use Google Cast in Bluetooth speakers that contain Amazon software. How Google will feel about HTC shipping Alexa alongside Assistant on Android is not clear. The U11 has four microphones, and, when you trigger a hotword, it will sense where you are in relation to the phone and use the microphone closest to you. HTC says this should result in a more accurate voice transcription. Specs are about what you would expect from a flagship device. A 5.5-inch, 2560x1440 LCD; a 2.45GHz, eight-core Snapdragon 835; 4GB of RAM; 64GB of storage (plus a MicroSD card); 16MP front camera and 12MP rear camera; and a 3000mAh battery. The 64GB baseline of storage is nice, and the U11 has an IP67 water and dust resistance rating. Some versions (probably China) get 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. But not the US version. There's a bottom-firing speaker and one front-firing speaker, which doubles as an earpiece. Side-by-side, the U11 is much louder than HTC's last phone, the U Ultra. The software still looks great. HTC is still using a light skin that leaves most of the important parts of Android alone, and the company doesn't change the design too much. |
Daisuke Utagawa and Katsuya Fukushima went to Japan earlier this year to gather inspiration for the second location of their ramen house, Daikaya. They came back with that and more: a plan to open a third restaurant. This winter, they and fellow co-owner Yama Jewayni intend to open Bantam King, which will specialize in chicken ramen and Japanese fried chicken. It will be located just around the corner from the original Daikaya in Chinatown; the Shaw location of Daikaya is on track to open in late 2015 or early 2016 as well. "It's kind of a perfect storm the way it happened," Utagawa said of how the team decided to essentially open two new restaurants at once. [Daikaya succeeds with ramen house, izakaya under one roof] Daikaya partners, from left, Katsuya Fukushima, Yama Jewayni and Daisuke Utagawa in front of the future home of Bantam King in Chinatown. (Farrah Skeiky) While on the Daikaya scouting trip, he and chef Fukushima encountered "a lot of great chicken ramen," Utagawa said. At the same time, they'd been bandying about what they could do with a former Burger King space on Fifth Street NW that their current landlord had offered them. The plan came together on the fly, and almost before they knew what they'd gotten themselves into, Utagawa and Fukushima were tasting more than a dozen types of noodles, alone and in soup. Chicken ramen is pretty much what it sounds like. The base is a rich broth formed by boiling chicken meat, bones and even feet. (The broth at Daikaya's ground floor ramen house uses a mix of pork, chicken and beef.) A shorter boil results in a clearer, lighter broth called chintan; longer, and you get a dense, almost milky broth called paitan. Unlike the many varieties of ramen in Japan that are attached to a specific region, such as Daikaya's Sapporo-style, chicken ramen is not associated with a particular place, said Utagawa, a Japanese native. Chicken ramen is also a more recent phenomenon, he said. Fukushima said he's still in the recipe development phase, including what kind of chicken to serve on top of the soup. A classic rotisserie is one possibility. Separately, he's working on figuring out the Japanese fried chicken recipe, which will be a riff on a riff -- his take on the Japanese version of the fast food staple that has developed a mass following in the island nation thanks especially to KFC. The name Bantam King is a small homage to the turn-of-the-century building's previous tenant. (Diminutive bantam, or shamo, chickens have a reputation for making particularly good soup, Utagawa said.) Rather than overhauling the 1,700-square-foot space entirely, Jewayni said the team is working with designer Brian Miller of Streetsense to embrace the former chain restaurant's bones. Expect fast-food-style booths and trays among the details, amid a riot of colors and textures inspired by Japan's eye-catching commercial districts. Bantam King should seat about 50 diners. In both design and concept, the owners are trying to do something that will distinguish the new venture from Daikaya -- and not steal business from the nearby original. "We wanted to serve the neighborhood even more, and a little differently," Jewayni said. Bantam King, 700 Fifth St. NW. Opening winter 2015/2016. Related items: Daikaya succeeds with ramen house, izakaya under one roof Shaw is about to see a flurry of new restaurants and retail Daikaya brunch: Chicken and waffles and 'bagel' and lox These things you should try: Daikaya izakaya edition |
Patch #2: Memory Leak fixed, BFA Achievement Fix, Russian voices added, Save data import fixes Patch #2 Changelog We know that we need to iron out a few issues asap and are working hard to deliver the best possible Darksiders experience.7th December 2016-VRAM / Memory leak issue fixed that made the game use up all RAM, thencrashing.-Russian voiceovers added-Settings should now save correctly if Windows user name containsnon-ANSI characters-Crash when corrupt Key mapping was read fixed. We don't know yet howcorrupt Key mapping files are written.-BFA Achievement should now unlock correctly (should unlock on game startif you have already earned it)-The tutorial text explaining how to throw objects was showing the wrongbutton for keyboard / mouse users.New Feature : Force saved data importThis allows more control over importing saved data from the originalgame into Darksiders Warmastered Edition saved data.Instructions for Force saved data import1. Open the file %appdata%\kaiko\darksiders1\config.ini2. Add the line 'force_save_data_import=true' to the [game] section.When starting the game it should now always ask you whether or notto import saved data, given it finds original saved data. Please notethat all slots that your original save contains will get overwritten inthe WME savedata. You can remove unwanted slots from the original saveddata before importing, these are files either in%userprofile%\Documents\My Games\Darksiders or%userprofile%\Documents\My Games\Darksiders\[YourSteamID].Please backup your darksiders1 WME saved data before forceimporting, but make sure you store your backup outside of the steamcloud folder, otherwise the game can't save any more.We are looking forward for your feedback! |
Only a few hours ago, we shared a teaser video of the upcoming 2014 Maserati Ghibli in which the Italian carmaker promised to drop the first images of the car later this week, ahead of its world premiere at the Auto China 2013 in Shanghai on April 20. Apparently, they didn’t check for…a leak, as the Czech team over at Autoforum (in case you didn’t notice the red logo) are laying claims to the first official shots of the production Ghibli . While we can’t be 100 percent certain at this time, our initial impression is that they’re the real deal. We’ve added photos of the new Quattroporte after the jump so you can compare the styling of the two cars for yourself, but in our eyes, the Ghibli looks very much like a shorter and more compact in general, version of the larger Maserati with an even lower and more angry looking front end. The dashboard also looks similar but has more contemporary and aggressive details and trim, which was to be expected since the Ghibli aims at a comparatively younger crowd and will be cross-shopped by buyers of the more powerful versions of the BMW 5-Series and Mercedes-Benz E-Class, as well as the Audi A7 Sportback, BMW 6-Series Gran Coupe and the Mercedes-Benz CLS. We don’t have any official information of the new Ghibli in our hands yet, but from what we know, it should measure somewhere around 4.8 to 4.9 meters long and be offered with turbocharged V6 and V8 gasoline engines. Shout out to Martin S. for the tip! 2014 MASERATI GHIBLI 2014 MASERATI QUATTROPORTE |
A young black man, shot. A family in mourning and a justice system scrutinized. This isn’t the story of slain teen Trayvon Martin – although it sounds uncannily similar – but of Oscar Grant, a black 22-year-old who was shot by a police officer in 2009 after being detained at the Fruitvale Station stop as he was returning to his San-Francisco-area home after celebrating New Year’s Eve. “If we could stop this from happening, we could end so much pain,” says actress Melonie Diaz, who plays Grant’s Mexican girlfriend Sophina in “Fruitvale Station,” a new film based on Grant’s (played by newcomer Michael B. Jordan) last hours and death by a police officer’s gun. “Latinos and African-Americans know this pain equally,” says Diaz, “and I feel Sophina and the family that were left behind are victims as much as Oscar was.” Diaz met the real-life Sophina and the daughter she shares with Grant’s only daughter in preparation for her role in the film – currently playing in select cities – by first-time writer and director Ryan Coogler. And Diaz – who grew up “fairly poor” in what she describes as the “projects” in New York City’s Lower East Side neighborhood – says that her one-on-one time with the family strengthened her resolve to break down barriers regarding race both in Hollywood and beyond. “I’m familiar with life’s struggles,” says Diaz, who first became interested in acting as a student at NYC’s Professional Performing Arts High School. “Sophina said Oscar was a great father – I heard that straight from her. Despite his infidelity, despite his past mistakes, he was a family person and she had a lot of unconditional love for him. She was extremely strong and that’s what I wanted to bring to my performance. There’s a side to him and the entire family that I think was missed when the accident first occurred.” As the only actress in her Puerto Rican family, Diaz says her role in “Fruitvale Station” – which won the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival – exemplifies why she has dedicated her life to telling stories about character, strength and determination through film. “I’ve been doing smaller movies because I really want to do things that are unique and say something,” explains Diaz, who has appeared in indie films like last year’s “Supporting Characters” and 2002 classic “Raising Victor Vargas.” “My focus is on longevity. I don’t want to do things that are complacent; I want to be in things that are weird and test people’s emotions.” And as it turns out, Diaz earned more than a paycheck during the time she spent filming “Fruitvale Station,” which will be released nationwide July 26. The 29-year-old – whose list of forthcoming on-air roles includes a guest spot on the upcoming season of HBO’s “Girls” – says she found a kindred spirit and mentor in “Fruitvale Station” co-star Octavia Spencer. “I learned from her that you can be super successful and still be really nice,” shares Diaz of Spencer, who earned an Academy Award for her role in 2011’s “The Help.” “She’s so giving and a ray of sunshine. She’s really become a mentor for me throughout this process. We talked about being women of color because you know, it’s great you know, to be bronze kin.” Diaz says that Spencer even returned her “Fruitvale Station” salary when she learned of the budget constraints on set; a decision, Diaz explains, that taught her something “really valuable.” “She gave it [her salary] back and I think that says a lot about a person’s character when you believe in something so much and give it all up for the sake of a project,” says Diaz. “She told me to be strong and fight for what you think is yours. And that sometimes, being persistent really pays off.” And it’s a lesson that Diaz says she hopes to put into practice. She may be known as an indie film actress, but she’s ready to go mainstream. “I’m not above that,” explains Diaz. “But sometimes I feel like they’re not ready for me. I want to be interesting, unique and say something that really matters.” |
Breaking TNA News: Kurt Angle arrested for DWI Aug 2, 2013 - 03:45 PM TNA star Kurt Angle was arrested for Driving While Intoxicated last night in Decatur, Texas after leaving the TNA Impact tapings in Wichita Falls. Angle was booked and released on $2000 bail. In September, 2011, Angle was arrested for DUI in Virginia, eventually pleading down to reckless driving and fined $1,500. He was also arrested in March of 2011 in South Dakota for "being in control of a motor vehicle while intoxicated," which he also plead down to reckless driving. Shore's Slant: The official charge in the Texas database is "Driving While Intoxicated 2nd," but I cannot find a previous arrest in Texas, so I'm not sure if this is a level of charge (i.e. 2nd degree) or if his prior arrests in other states play into this. One thing is for sure, this is the third time Angle has been found by police behind the wheel of a car when he should not have been. He managed to escape the last two, but who knows what will happen this time? RECOMMEND THIS ARTICLE: READ OUR INSIDER NEWS BEFORE ANYONE ELSE! BECOME A MEMBER FOR JUST $7.50 A MONTH (or less with a year-long sub) - GET THE FIRST LOOK AT EXCLUSIVE INSIDER DOT NET NEWS, TONS OF EXCLUSIVE AUDIO CONTENT, MEMBER MESSAGE BOARD ACCESS, START YOUR OWN BLOG, AND VIEW THE SITE WITHOUT ANY ADVERTISING: SIGN ME UP (or MORE INFO) Email This Article | Printer Friendly Page | Back to Main Listing RELATED ARTICLES FROM MGID AFFILIATE SITES... Loading... |
On Nov. 17, researchers from the Monterey Bay Aquarian Research Institute captured what is thought to be the first video of the strangest sea creature I have ever seen: a rare anglerfish known as the Black Seadevil. The fish, which is only found at extreme depths, was spotted in the Monterey Canyon, at about 1,900 feet deep. According to CNN, the fish was located by "Doc Ricketts," a remotely controlled robotic vehicle used to investigate the extreme depths of the ocean. Doc Ricketts was conducting a "midwater transect" when the anglerfish was spotted. Advertisement: "This means we 'fly' the robot through the water at a series of different depths (10 minutes at each depth), and count all the different types of animals we see," explained MBARI's spokesperson, Kim Fulton-Bennett. This particular fish is only 9 centimeters long, and has been named Melanocetus. The fish is known for its luminous fishing hook, which attracts smaller fish. Melanocetus will then inhale the food into its gaping mouth. Watch the video of the bizarre creature below. |
LUCKLESS Sydney Swan Alex Johnson will spend the next few weeks consulting Australia's finest knee surgeons in a bid to have what could be his final crack at resurrecting his career. Johnson burst onto the scene when he made 20 appearances in his debut season in 2011, then played every game the following year, culminating in a classy 15-possession effort in the Swans' thrilling 10-point Grand Final win over Hawthorn. He was a premiership player at just 20 and looked like being a mainstay of the Swans' defence for the next decade, until the pre-season of 2013 when he tore the ACL in his left knee. Fast forward to 2015 and Johnson still hasn't returned to senior footy. Four knee reconstructions - both traditional and hybrid LARS procedures - have all failed to fix one of the game's most talented young players. Johnson's latest reconstruction in November – he's had 10 operations in total – was supposed to end his troubles, but when the joint blew up less than two weeks later, surgeons again went in and removed his ACL. The resilient defender said this week his medical team still couldn't give him an answer as to why infection attacked his knee again. "I'm in a bit of a holding pattern again, which I've sort of gotten used to over the past few years, just waiting for something to happen," he told AFL.com.au at the team's training camp in Coffs Harbour. "There's been an infection before, that might have something to do with it, but we're not 100 per cent sure - (the medical team) can't really tell us at the moment." Geelong's Daniel Menzel and Fremantle's Anthony Morabito have also had equally shocking runs with knee issues, and Johnson said he'd been in regular contact with the Cats forward. Menzel, after missing almost four full seasons, finally returned to senior footy last year with a brilliant four-goal performance in a losing side against Collingwood in round 22. "Seeing someone like that (Daniel Menzel) go through four reconstructions and then come back the way he did in the AFL gives me a lot of hope, and he's a huge inspiration to me," Johnson said. "He missed a lot of football and so have I, so I think 'if he's able to do it, then why can't I'?" Despite his pain and suffering, Johnson has been maintained his ultra-positive attitude and continues to be a huge influence around the Swans changerooms. This season, Johnson will work closely with recently retired premiership teammate Rhyce Shaw, who has taken on the role as the Swans' NEAFL coach, and will mentor the club's up-and-coming backmen. Showing just how highly regarded Johnson is by the Swans, he's been handed Shaw's old No.2 guernsey this year. It might sound strange to some, but Johnson says he's actually looking forward to his next – and hopefully final – knee reconstruction later this year, and he's still not yet considering retirement. "It hasn't entered my head yet. I'm looking forward to giving it another crack, and then if that (operation) doesn't work out, then we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, but I have every faith that it will," he said. "I grew up wanting to play footy and I grew up wanting to play at the highest level, and I was lucky enough to do that in my first couple of years - I had a really successful 2012, which I was rapt about. "I really wanted to go on from there and build on those first couple of years but I haven't had the opportunity yet. "I have the same dream now as I did when I was a young kid and I just want to get back and play footy. "That's my No.1 priority." |
Happy October! My funny little black cat, who has been the subject of at least two other blog posts, gets her chance to shine in the spotlight, or rather, glower in the shadows. I knew I wanted to do a black cat bulletin board this year, and I was trying to figure out how that would look on a black background. At the same time, after searching for relevant text, I found this Rainer Maria Rilke poem: Ah, “invisible.” That was the key. I went in yesterday and blocked out the poem, then inked it with a silver metallic Sharpie, which died halfway though, so I had to run out to the nearest Walgreen’s and buy their last silver Sharpie, but even so, the text didn’t take that long. Maybe an hour. I went back in today to put it together. I had some big ideas about making the eyes sparkle with the gold and bronze Sharpies, but it didn’t look as great as I thought it would, and the bronze Sharpie was dying, even though it was new in the package. Anyway, yellow is more striking. I used black construction paper for the ears, nose and mouth (the background is black butcher paper, so it’s a subtle difference) and the whiskers are the silver Sharpie again. Very minimalist, which took a lot less time than usual, but I did spend quite a while on the eyes. Advertisements |
San Andreas had a faultless start to its debut weekend, as the Dwayne Johnson earthquake adventure scored a whopping $18.2 million on Friday, including $3.1m in Thursday previews. The previous biggest opening day for a "by myself" movie star vehicle for The Rock is the $12.5m Friday and the $36m weekend of The Scorpion King way back in 2002. Adjusted for inflation that would be around $17.5m for Friday and $50m for the weekend, which is around where San Andreas will end up by tomorrow, give-or-take. Heck, in terms of all openings for The Rock, the likely $50m weekend will end up only behind The Mummy Returns (where he had a heavily advertised cameo as the final villain), and the last three Fast & Furious movies. This was clearly a winning combo of star+concept, as audiences flocked to see The Rock save his family (and only his family) from a massive California-destroying earthquake. Audiences came not just to see an earthquake but to see The Rock square off against said quake. As a result, you get what will be one of the larger debuts for a disaster film, especially one that doesn't involve aliens or monsters. The Warner Bros./New Line Cinema/ Time Warner Entertainment release was produced by New Line, Village Roadshow, and Rat Pac at a cost of $100 million to produce. To wit, the film's opening weekend will likely match or exceed the entire $47.6m domestic total for last year's "found footage" tornado film Into the Storm, which was also a New Line release. That $50m release was no slouch overseas, and the film ended up with $160m worldwide. If San Andreas performs in a similar fashion, it gets to $134m domestic and $450m worldwide. If it merely plays like Hercules, it gets to $124m domestic and $420m worldwide. The Rock sold the living heck out of this thing, as he does for anything he is involved in, and the marketing sold what needed to be sold (The Rock being heroic, buildings a-tumbling-down, etc.) without fail. The reward is what is likely Dwayne Johnson's biggest "all by myself" unqualified blockbuster star vehicle by a healthy margin. The irony, of course, is that there was a time when a star-driven disaster movie as big as San Andreas would have been a preordained summer champion, but now it wins merely for going the distance. The only other new wide release was Cameron Crowe's Aloha. The film was victimized by being explicitly criticized by Amy Pascal in documents stolen in the Sony leak last year, and the studio clearly lacked faith in the picture by hiding it from most critics until the last minute and then holding the reviews offline until hours before the film's domestic debut. That backfired when the film was (wrongly) accused of whitewashing the Hawaiian set story, since no critics were allowed to say "Uh, I've seen the movie, and you're merely basing your accusations on the trailer!" And indeed reviews for the Bradley Cooper/Emma Stone/Rachel McAdams romantic comedy were brutal. It wasn't just that the vast majority were negative, but rather they were brutal putdowns from critics who clearly considered themselves fans of the writer/director. I had wondered if sheer star power (like Cooper coming off of American Sniper) could save this one, but it was not to be. The $37 million release earned $3.6m on its first Friday, which will likely lead to a $10.5m debut weekend. The good news is that the film's cost was shouldered by Sony and New Regency. Also, 20th Century Fox is handling the overseas distribution, and they have a track record of turning lemons into lemonade abroad (go look up the foreign grosses for The Counselor). The bad news is that this was a pure star power test for Bradley Cooper, as the film's confusing and unfocused trailer (truth in advertising!) left little else to offer besides pretty movie stars in lovely places being charming. I disliked the clearly butchered-in-post-production film without outright hating it, and I have to wonder if the reviews were harsher because of how much we all love Cameron Crowe. I will happily admit that I was probably harsher on The Last Airbender back in 2010 precisely because it broke my heart to see M. Night Shyamalan drop the ball so unquestionably. But nonetheless, the film did not work (at least this weekend) as a bit of summer counterprogramming, which is a shame but no war crime. Sony will likely be rolling in money in July with the debut of Adam Sandler's Pixels. Truth be told, Cameron Crowe isn't necessarily a hit machine, as really only Jerry Maguire and Vanilla Sky qualify as blockbusters and We Bought A Zoo needed (and got) December legs to get to a robust $75m domestic back in 2011. For general audiences who don't worship the likes of Say Anything or Almost Famous, there was nothing to sell beyond star power. That's enough for today. Join me tomorrow for weekend estimates and the like, and HERE is the Friday box office news for holdover films. |
The published prices shown above are fortunately not the prices that most students pay. Thanks to financial aid, the majority of college students are responsible for a mere fraction of published tuition costs. The bad news is that because college tuition costs are rising so fast, they are outstripping financial aid, leaving students paying more in net costs than ever before. The net price paid by full-time students at four-year public colleges is $2,580, up $160 from last year. Net prices for private college students are $14,400, up $638. College Tuition and Fees: Ten-Year Comparison College costs have risen considerably since the 1998-1999 school year. In the last decade alone, average published tuition and fees for four-year public colleges have nearly doubled. Average published tuition and fees for four-year private colleges have increased by 38 percent. |
Brain-computer interfaces could someday provide a lifeline to “locked-in” patients, who are unable to talk or move but are aware and awake. Many of these patients can communicate by blinking their eyes, but turning blinks into words is time-consuming and exhausting. Brian interface: The micro electrodes shown here were used to record brain signals in order to decode ten words from a patient’s thoughts. Scientists in Utah have now demonstrated a way to determine which of 10 distinct words a person is thinking by recording the electrical activity from the surface of the brain. The new technique involves training algorithms to recognize specific brain signals picked up by an array of nonpenetrating electrodes placed over the language centers of the brain, says Spencer Kellis, one of the bioengineers who carried out the work at the University of Utah, in Salt Lake City. The approach used is known as electrocorticography (ECoG). The group was able to identify the words “yes,” “no,” “hot, “cold,” “thirsty,” “hungry,” “hello,” “goodbye,” “more,” and “less” with an accuracy of 48 percent. “The accuracy definitely needs to be improved,” says Kellis. “But we have shown the information is there.” Individual words have been decoded from brain signals in the past using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), says Eric Leuthardt, director of the Center for Innovation in Neuroscience and Technology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. This is the first time that the feat has been performed using ECoG, a far more practical and portable approach than fMRI, he says. Working with colleagues Bradley Greger and Paul House, Kellis placed 16 electrodes on the surface of the brain of a patient being treated for epilepsy. The electrodes recorded signals from the facial motor cortex–an area of the brain that controls face muscles during speech–and over the Wernicke’s area, part of the cerebral cortex that is linked with language. To train the algorithm, signals were analyzed as the patient was asked to repeatedly utter the 10 words. ECoG has long been used to locate the source of epileptic seizures in the brain. But electrodes used are typically several hundred microns in size and are positioned centimeters apart, says Kellis. “The brain is doing processing at a much finer spatial scale than is really detectable by these standard clinical electrodes,” he says. The Utah team used a new type of microelectrode array developed by PMT Neurosurgical. The electrodes are much smaller–40 microns in size–and are separated by a couple of millimeters. It’s possible to use less invasive techniques, such as electroencephalography (EEG), which places electrodes on the scalp, to enable brain-to-computer communications. Adrian Owen, a senior scientist in the Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit at the University of Cambridge, UK, has shown that EEG signals can be used to allow people in a persistent vegetative state to communicate “yes” and “no.” But with EEG, many of the signals are filtered out by the skull, says Leuthardt. “What’s really nice about ECoG is its potential to give us a lot more information,” he says. Decoding 10 words is “very cool,” says Owen, but the accuracy will need to improve dramatically, given the patients the technology is aimed at. “I don’t think even 60 percent or 70 percent accuracy is going to work for patients who cannot communicate in any other way and where there is no other margin for verification,” he says. Ultimately, the hope is that ECoG will enable much more sophisticated communication. Last year Leuthardt showed that ECoG could be used to decode vowel and consonant sounds–an approach that might eventually be used to reconstruct a much larger number of complete words. |
It’s hard to avoid mentioning the state of the economy these days, but why not make the best of it? Most of us have been downsizing our ways of spending in many different ways, and sometimes our living space can suffer. Here are 15 unique pieces of furniture that will help you upgrade and streamline the place you call home. Back to Basics Simplicity. The cube has been a great inspiration to space-saving living and the CUB8 is a classic example of this concept. It’s a clean, extendable coffee table with vast space. It even comes equipped with an integrated CD/DVD hanger. The SelfService furniture unit is an easy way to wine and dine in any small space. It accommodates four comfortably and the low seats slide right back into the table when the night is over. Compact Dreamland Studio apartment getting you down? The BedUP bed and the LiftBed will allow you to lift your bed (either manually or electronically) to transform your space, and can save about 12 square feet. You don’t have to lower it completely, so you can keep your other furniture in place neatly underneath. Now, if only they installed the Lollipop bunk bed system in dorms! This amazing bunk bed can be hidden into the wall or you can opt to leave one unfolded to pull double duty as a couch. Let’s Go Couchsurfing (images via Phillipe Malouin, Nicole Lehner & Luzia Kalin, blofield) So you have company over, but need some options for extra sleeping space? Look nofurther than these couchsurfing alternatives. The Tent Sofa creates privacy with folding panels once transformed into a bed. Stay At My Home is an all in one package that allows you to provide a simple, comfortable sleeping option for your guest with a mattress, removable drawer, pillow, bedside lamp and carpet. This all fits in and around the side table pictured. Inflatable mattresses are so passé. Get an inflatable sofa instead. The Blofield Inflatable Chesterfields Sofa is constructed from the same material used in life rafts, which says something about its durability. You can use it as a permanent fixture in your place, or simply blow it up in less than five minutes for an overnight guest… or take it floating? No Musical Chairs Here (images via ontwerpers, unicahome, gioia design, dedon) The Cabinet Chair by Ontwerpers is quite crafty. Reminiscent of my school days, this chair is imbedded into the surrounding shelf. It even has a built in monitor and keyboard. A wonderful, eyecatching table set that doubles as a light, the Corral Table and Bronco Stool comes with 7 seats that fit snugly into the table’s design. Going along with that theme is the Monolith steel table that transforms into a sleek sculpture when not in use. I wonder how heavy it is? And since entertaining guests outdoors with little space can be challenging, especially in a city setting, Dedon has designed a few sets of amazing stackable outdoor furniture. They don’t stack like any other chairs, but into the form of spheres and obelisks instead. The Holy Grail of Transforming (images via kenchikukagu) This is by far the holy grail of space-saving goodness. The Kenchikukagu is a set of mobile furniture that includes a fully functioning kitchen. Take a peep at the video clip below and behold the pieces in action. The set also includes a mobile guest room and work space with lighting. These are not concept designs, and are available atAmazon Japan for JPY 800,000 (about $7,346). Indoor Sport (images via Ferran Lajara, Tobias Fränzel) Want more fun and adventure in your 400 square foot space? Look no further than The Hanger and Ping Pong Door. You need to hang your jackets somewhere, but you’re tired of the coat rack; hang them on a miniature indoor rock climbing gym. Upgrade your Scrabble night to Ping Pong night with the Ping Pong Table designed byTobias Fränzel. Flip the panel down to create instant fun, with equally easy cleanup when you’re done! Small spaces are often associated with a lack of functionality and flexibility to live how you’d like. With these innovative examples of furniture and accessories for your home, you can soon turn your cozy space into a paradise, no matter what the square footage. |
A Liberal wave washed over downtown Toronto on Monday night, turning the entire city red and pushing every sitting local NDP MP from their seats. The NDP lost former party leader Jack Layton's old seat in Toronto-Danforth as Julie Dabrusin took the riding from NDP candidate Craig Scott, winning by more than 2,000 votes. Other NDP incumbents who lost to the Liberals on election night were Peggy Nash in Parkdale—High Park, Matthew Kellway in Beaches—East York, and Andrew Cash in Davenport. Andrew Thomson, a candidate for the NDP in Eglinton-Lawrence, came in third place behind Joe Oliver, a finance minister in the Conservative government, and the winner, Liberal Marco Mendicino. "It hurts a bit. Let's be honest, we lost a lot of good MPs last night," said Thomson on Metro Morning. Thomson admitted the NDP could've been stronger on infrastructure investment policy, but he mostly chalked up his loss to the desire for change. "We just lost because of the strategic voting," he said. "The good news is we got half of what we asked for, which is a change in government." Another decisive Liberal win came in Spadina—Fort York, where Layton's widow, Olivia Chow, lost to former Toronto city councillor Adam Vaughan. Speaking on Metro Morning, Vaughan said he noticed "a transformation" among downtown voters in recent weeks, with many NDP supporters switching their allegiance to the Liberals as election day drew near. "It was quite a transformation over the last few weeks," a hoarse-voiced Vaughan told Metro Morning host Matt Galloway. "I remember walking up Crawford Street and people were literally coming out on their porches and saying 'Take the orange sign down and put a red one up.' And I remember turning to the person campaigning with me and saying 'You have no idea what that feels like as a candidate. You know you've won." Galloway asked Vaughan if the Liberals' success in the city, and the NDP's poor showing, was mainly the result of progressive voters looking to block a return to power by Conservative Leader Stephen Harper. "There are progressive votes in Toronto and they started having a conversation about what makes parliament work," said Vaughan. "It was important that the Liberals finished ahead of the Conservatives and that brought some people with us." In her concession speech, Chow said she will "support (Vaughan) in progressive change," and encouraged her supporters to do the same. "The results tonight may not have been what we had hoped for, but I ask you to join me as I congratulate Adam Vaughan on running a good campaign," Chow said. Liberal Adam Vaughan, who defeated the NDP's Olivia Chow last night in Spadina-Fort York, said he noticed many NDP voters switching their support to the Liberals in the final weeks of the campaign. (CBC) Vaughan said a Liberal majority government in Ottawa is well-positioned to help Toronto and other cities. "I think what you're going to see from the federal government is a step up on urban issues, on transit and housing in particular," he said. In another NDP ouster, New Democrat MP Mike Sullivan lost to Liberal Ahmed Hussen in York South-Weston. With the win, Hussen became the first-ever Somali-Canadian MP. |
Mr. Winterkorn emerged the victor on Saturday from a power struggle that broke into the open this month. Mr. Piëch, who had been either chief executive or chairman of the company since the early 1990s, had indicated in an interview with German magazine Der Spiegel that he was disenchanted with the performance of his onetime protégé. But Mr. Winterkorn refused to leave voluntarily. And he won the support of labor representatives, who under German law have half of the seats on the supervisory board, as well as the state of Lower Saxony, which owns 20 percent of Volkswagen’s voting shares. The Porsche family, descendants of Ferdinand Porsche, designer of the car that later became known as the Beetle, also sided with Mr. Winterkorn. The Porsche family owns a majority of the voting shares. Mr. Piëch is a grandson of Mr. Porsche, but he has long had tense relations with his cousins. Volkswagen benefited from the recovery of the European automobile market from lows, the figures released on Wednesday showed. The company’s unit sales in Western Europe rose 6.5 percent to 780,000 cars, including a 25 percent increase in Spain, which has been one of the countries hardest hit by the eurozone economic crisis. In the United States, though, sales slipped 1.4 percent to about 132,000 cars during the quarter, including Audi and Porsche. Volkswagen-brand cars have only 2 percent of the market so far this year, according to Kelley Blue Book, down from 3 percent in 2012. “VW is struggling because they don’t have the S.U.V. products they need right now,” said Karl Brauer, a senior analyst at Kelley Blue Book. “That’s the hot segment right now.” Mr. Brauer said that VW sales in the United States could improve as the company rolled out the latest version of its Golf, which has received favorable reviews. Worldwide, profit on Volkswagen cars could begin to improve, Mr. Brauer said, as the company intensifies efforts to share components among many different vehicles, a strategy that reduces costs. |
Allegations that nude photographs of a senior Manitoba judge in bondage, chains and performing oral sex were posted on an Internet porn site have kindled debate about how much of a judge’s private life is private. The Canadian Judicial Council’s Ethical Principles for Judges — which judges are encouraged but not required to follow — say they should strive to conduct themselves with integrity and avoid conduct that would diminish public respect for the judiciary. Judge Lori Douglas will work in an administrative capacity until a complaint to the judicial council is resolved. ( SUPPLIED PHOTO ) Can someone who poses naked with a whip be considered a person of integrity, or does the question open the door to inappropriate moral judgments about an individual’s personal life? “Do we imagine that judges never disrobe or that judges never have sex lives? Of course they do,” said Bruce Ryder, an Osgoode Hall Law School professor who teaches in the area of judicial independence and ethics. Ryder worries that “prurience” and “moral prudery” will drive the debate over whether Associate Chief Justice Lori Douglas of the Court of Queen’s Bench of Manitoba should be removed from office. Article Continued Below Manitoba Chief Justice Marc Monnin announced Wednesday that Douglas, of the court’s family division, has asked to be “temporarily relieved of her duties as a sitting judge” and will work in an administrative capacity until a complaint to the judicial council is resolved. Less than 24 hours earlier, the CBC had reported that sexually explicit photographs of Douglas are part of the complaint made in July by Alexander Chapman, a 44-year-old computer specialist, who says he was harassed by the judge’s husband to have sex with her. Chapman said after he retained Winnipeg family lawyer Jack King in 2003 to handle his divorce, King showed him about 30 nude photographs of Douglas and supplied him with a password for a porn website devoted to interracial sex. Posted on a section of the website entitled “Our White Princesses” were naked photos of Douglas, then a lawyer at King’s firm, Thompson Dorfman Sweatman, Chapman said. The CBC said it has seen an ad from a website known as “Darkcavern” that featured nude photos of Douglas and sought a “smooth black male or Mexican” to join her and King for “multi-partner” sex in Cancun in 2002. King said he was depressed over the deaths of his best friend and his brother at the time, and Douglas did not know he had posted the photographs Chapman accepted a $25,000 settlement from the lawyer in July 2003 that required Chapman to delete photographs of Douglas from his personal computer. Article Continued Below “He lied about that,” Bill Gange, King’s lawyer, told the Star, adding the pictures were removed from the Internet prior to the 2003 settlement. Douglas was appointed a judge in 2005 and promoted to associate chief justice last year. The conduct of judges prior to appointment can “absolutely” have a bearing on their fitness to remain in office, said Norman Sabourin, the judicial council’s executive director. The Supreme Court of Canada made that clear in 2001 in upholding a decision to remove Justice Richard Therrien from the Court of Quebec. Therrien failed to disclose he had been convicted 25 years earlier of helping hide four FLQ members involved in kidnapping and murdering cabinet minister Pierre Laporte. The court said the public demands “virtually irreproachable conduct from anyone performing a judicial function.” But questions persist about where to draw the line. Should a judge be kicked off the bench for adultery? What about a woman who pays her way through law school by pole dancing? Is she disqualified from being a judge? If a lawyer deliberately posts nude photos of herself on Facebook or on a website it could later undermine public confidence in her ability to serve as a judge, said Lorne Sossin, dean of law at Osgoode. However, if the photos were taken in the context of an inherently private relationship and posted without her consent, Sossin said, it’s hard to imagine she should be judged negatively. Sossin suggested it would also be unfair to find Douglas unfit for judicial office simply on the basis of her sexual predilections. At an earlier time, the same might have been said about homosexuals, he added. Adam Dodek, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, who writes on legal ethics, said turning judicial appointments advisory committees into morality police probably isn’t where the country wants to go. “If she (Douglas) wasn’t aware of photos being posted on the Internet and she wasn’t involved in this plan to try to seduce her husband’s client, then what you’re really left with is somebody who is engaged in, let’s say ‘sexually graphic’ actions that some people might find offensive,” Dodek said Wednesday. That said, Dodek believes the advisory committees, which recommend candidates for judicial office, are lagging behind human resources specialists who routinely check social networking sites and the Internet in vetting job applicants. Ryder, of Osgoode, believes if a judge isn’t involved in anything illegal or something that could give rise to a conflict of interest — such as a citizens’ crusade against city hall — their private lives should not be up for discussion. “We really have to start by asking ourselves, what exactly has Justice Douglas done wrong? “Based on what we know so far,” said Ryder, “maybe she deserves our sympathy more than our condemnation, because it seems she has been the victim of an egregious invasion of privacy.” |
A provision in the defense bill giving control of the US' Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) to a president-appointed CEO aims to address the government’s ineffective foreign media, including VOA and Radio Free Europe, says anti-war activist Richard Becker. A major shake-up is on the way for government-sponsored media in the US. Under new proposals, the president would have the right to appoint a chief executive in charge of all outlets that receive federal funding. Read more A provision in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2017 passed last week would abolish the nine-member bipartisan board of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) – the US government-funded media channels that broadcast mainly to foreign audiences and include such news outlets as Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and Radio Free Asia. Under the new law, which Donald Trump will inherit from the Obama administration, the BBG will be overseen by a CEO appointed by the president. RT: In practice, what do you think these changes will mean for media organizations funded by the US government? Richard Becker: We would think that what has been going on for the last 70 years with the US government-funded foreign media like Radio Free Europe, VOA, Radio Marti directed particularly at Cuba. This has been government propaganda. It has not been very effective government propaganda. So, the Senate and the House are preparing to include in the National Defense Authorization Bill (Act) switching this over to the White House and who is in the White House. There are people like Steve Bannon from Breitbart which is an extremely provocative news source. Ann Coulter is a big supporter of Trump. We don’t know who is going to be appointed, but we do know that there is a whole history. Cuba has been a particular target. The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) under Clinton, under Bush, under Obama - they have all pursued this course of trying to bring down the government in Cuba, to try to use the media, Radio and TV Marti. And they have directly paid many scores of journalists, particularly when the case of the Cuban Five was at trial, they were being paid by the US government which was prosecuting the Cuban Five to also write denigrating stories and articles about them. So, we don’t really know what the content of this will be but we don’t think it will be anything good. Read more RT: These reforms were proposed by Republican congressmen. What do you think they were hoping to achieve? RB: I think they believe that their foreign media is quite ineffective. And I think that they are right about that. I think there are statistics showing that of all the media outlets that are paid attention to in Russia - Radio Free Europe, VOA they rate somewhere down in the 3000 or 4000 most listened to radio stations and media outlets. So, they are trying to be more effective. The US government sees, and I think this will go for the Trump administration as well, that there are certain countries in the world that they want to bring down, where they want to bring about regime change or weaken those governments. And I think that those include China, Russia, Cuba and others. RT: As we just heard, American politicians have repeatedly criticized RT because it receives government money. And yet the US government has its own media outlets, broadcasting worldwide (Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, Voice of America and so on). Isn't it a little hypocritical? RB: There is no question about that. Even when they are supposedly independent of the government, in times of crisis and particularly in war time, they serve as non-government-funded or maybe they are government-funded under the table. I am talking about the New York Times and the Washington Post, the big newspapers like they all got behind the war in Iraq. Even though the invasion in 2003 which set in motion the whole train of events that have brought us to the disastrous situation we see today in the Middle East and beyond the Middle East. And they always do this. They consistently line up despite the fact that they know that they are being fed false propaganda, false intelligence…But they got behind that war and now they are critical of some things that happened back then. But at the critical, the crucial time, when the war was being prepared, those big corporate media serve as the voice of the government. |
by J. Michael Bailey, Ph.D and Ray Blanchard, Ph.D This is the first in a series of articles authored by Drs. Bailey and Blanchard. As their time permits, they will be available to interact in the comments section of this post. Please note: As always on 4thWaveNow, if you disagree with the content of this article, your comments will be more likely to be published if they are delivered respectfully. Hateful or trollish comments will be deleted. Michael Bailey is Professor of Psychology at Northwestern University. His book The Man Who Would Be Queen provides a readable scientific account of two kinds of gender dysphoria among natal males, and is available as a free download here. Ray Blanchard received his A.B. in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1967 and his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in 1973. He was the psychologist in the Adult Gender Identity Clinic of Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) from 1980–1995 and the Head of CAMH’s Clinical Sexology Services from 1995–2010. It is increasingly common for gender dysphoric adolescents and mental health professionals to claim that transition is necessary to prevent suicide. The tragic case of Leelah Alcorn is often cited as the rallying cry: “transition or else!” Leelah (originally Joshua) was a gender dysphoric natal male who committed suicide at age 17, blaming her parents for failing to support her gender transition and forcing her into Christian reparative therapy. Subsequently, various “Leelah’s Laws” banning “conversion therapy” for gender dysphoria (among other things) have been passed or are being considered across the United States. The suicide of one’s child is every parent’s nightmare. Given the choice for our child between gender transition and suicide, we would certainly choose transition. But the best scientific evidence suggests that gender transition is not necessary to prevent suicide. We provide a more detailed essay below, but here’s the bottom line: Children (most commonly, adolescents) who threaten to commit suicide rarely do so, although they are more likely to kill themselves than children who do not threaten suicide. Mental health problems, including suicide, are associated with some forms of gender dysphoria. But suicide is rare even among gender dysphoric persons. There is no persuasive evidence that gender transition reduces gender dysphoric children’s likelihood of killing themselves. The idea that mental health problems–including suicidality–are caused by gender dysphoria rather than the other way around (i.e., mental health and personality issues cause a vulnerability to experience gender dysphoria) is currently popular and politically correct. It is, however, unproven and as likely to be false as true. Suicide vs Suicidality vs Non-suicidal Self-injury Suicide is a rare event. In the United States in 2014, about 13 out of every 100,000 persons committed suicide. Suicide was most common among middle aged white males, who accounted for about 7 out of 10 known suicides. It is helpful to distinguish at least four different things: Completed suicide means death by suicide. Suicidality means either thinking about committing suicide or attempting suicide. Non-suicidal self-injury means injuring oneself (most often by cutting one’s skin) without intending to die. Finally, mental illness includes a variety of conditions, from depression to conduct disorder to personality disorders (such as borderline personality disorder) to schizophrenia–some of which are especially strongly associated with completed suicide and suicidality, others of which are more strongly associated with non-suicidal self-injury. Obviously, completed suicide is what we are most worried about. Because it is so rare, however, and because it is often difficult to know about the dead person’s motivations for suicide, it has been especially difficult to study. There are fewer studies focusing on gender dysphoria and completed suicide than on gender dysphoria and either suicidality or non-suicidal self-injury. Studies of suicidality must rely on self-report (for example, someone must report that they are, or have been, thinking about committing suicide), and this complicates interpretations of results. (Maybe some people, some times, are especially likely to say they have been suicidal, even if they haven’t been.) Also there is more than one kind of gender dysphoria–we think there are three (this is a topic for another day)–and we should not expect risks to be identical for all types. The Scientific Literature Our aim here is not to review every available study, but to focus on the best evidence. Larger, more representative studies–and most importantly, studies of completed suicide–are most informative. Studies of Completed Suicides Two large systematic studies of completed suicide and gender dysphoria have been published, one from the Netherlands, the other from Sweden. Notably, both countries are socially liberal, and both studies were conducted fairly recently (1997 and 2011). Both studies focused on patients who had been treated medically at national gender clinics. These patients all either began or completed medical gender transition, and we refer to them as “transsexuals.” (We don’t know how many of the patients there were from each of the three types we believe exist.) The Dutch study’s suicide data were of male-to-female transsexuals (natal males transitioned to females) treated with cross-sex hormones (and many also with surgery). Of 816 male-to-female transsexuals, 13 (1.6%) completed suicide. This was 9 times higher than expected. Still, suicide was rare in the sample. The Swedish study found an even larger increase in the rate of suicide, 19 times higher among the transsexuals than among a non-transsexual control group. Still, only 10 out of 324 transsexuals (i.e., 3.1% of the group) committed suicide. Again, still rare. Note that both studies were of gender dysphoric persons who transitioned. As such, their results hardly support the curative effects of transition. The Dutch and Swedish studies were of adults whose gender dysphoria may or may not have begun in childhood. No published study has focused only on childhood onset cases. However, psychologist Kenneth Zucker has tracked the outcome of more than 150 childhood onset cases treated at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health into adolescence and young adulthood. He has generously shared with us (in a personal communication) his outcome data for suicide. Out of those more than 150 cases followed, only one had committed suicide. Furthermore, Dr. Zucker’s understanding (based on parent report) is that this suicide was not due to gender dysphoria, but rather to an unrelated psychiatric illness. On the one hand, one suicide out of 150 cases is more than we’d expect by chance. On the other hand, it is a rare outcome among gender dysphoric children and adults. Studies of Suicidality and Non-suicidal Self-injury People who commit suicide were suicidal before they did so. But most people who are suicidal do not commit suicide. “Suicidal” is necessarily a vague word, encompassing “intends to commit suicide” and “thinks about suicide,” both in a wide range of intensity. Furthermore, most studies would include as “suicidal” someone who falsely reports a past or present intention to commit suicide. Why would anyone falsely report being suicidal? One reason is to influence the behavior of others. Saying that one is suicidal usually gets attention–sympathy, for example. It can be a way of impressing others with the seriousness of one’s feelings or needs. Although this possibility has not been directly studied, reporting suicidality may sometimes be a strategy for advancing a social cause. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the rates of intentional but non-fatal self-injury peak during adolescence at about 450 per 100,000 girls and a bit fewer than 250 per 100,000 boys. These rates are much higher than the 13 per 100,000 American completed suicides per year (and remember that suicide is more common among adults than adolescents). So it is reasonable to assume that most adolescent self-injury is not intended to end one’s life. We are not suggesting that parents ignore children’s self-injury. We simply mean that self-injury often has motives besides genuinely suicidal intent. Not surprisingly, given the increased rates of suicide among gender dysphoric adults, suicidality (i.e., self-reported suicidal thoughts and past “suicide attempts”) is also higher among the transgendered. One recent survey statistically analyzed by the Williams Institute reported that 41% of transgender adults had ever made a suicide attempt, compared with a rate of 4.6% for controls. This survey recruited respondents using convenience sampling, however, and this may have inflated the rate of suicidal reports. Additionally, the authors of the survey included the following (admirable) disclaimer): Data from the U.S. population at large, however, show clear demographic differences between suicide attempters and those who die by suicide. While almost 80 percent of all suicide deaths occur among males, about 75 percent of suicide attempts are made by females. Adolescents, who overall have a relatively low suicide rate of about 7 per 100,000 people, account for a substantial proportion of suicide attempts, making perhaps 100 or more attempts for every suicide death. By contrast, the elderly have a much higher suicide rate of about 15 per 100,000, but make only four attempts for every completed suicide. Although making a suicide attempt generally increases the risk of subsequent suicidal behavior, six separate studies that have followed suicide attempters for periods of five to 37 years found death by suicide to occur in 7 to 13 percent of the samples (Tidemalm et al., 2008). We do not know whether these general population patterns hold true for transgender people but in the absence of supporting data, we should be especially careful not to extrapolate findings about suicide attempts among transgender adults to imply conclusions about completed suicide in this population. That is, importantly, the authors realize that suicidality and completed suicide are very different things, and it is suicidality that they have studied. Completed suicides in their group will be much, much lower. Increased suicidality for gender dysphoric children was also reported by parents in a recent study by Kenneth Zucker’s research group. A systematic review of non-suicidal self-injurious behavior in “trans people” found a higher rate, especially for trans men (i.e., natal females who have transitioned to males). The most common method mentioned was self-cutting. (Self-cutting is a common symptom of borderline personality disorder, which is also far more common among non-transgender natal females than among natal males.) Is Transition the Answer, After All? In a very recent study psychologist Kristina Olson reported that parents who supported their gender dysphoric children’s social transition rated them just as mentally healthy as their non-gender-dysphoric siblings. Furthermore, parents’ reports suggested that the socially transitioned gender dysphoric children were not less mentally healthy than a random sample would be expected to be. This research falls far short of negating or explaining the findings we have reviewed above. First, it was relatively small, including only 73 gender dysphoric children. Second, families were recruited via convenience sampling, increasing the likelihood of various selection biases. For example, it is possible that especially mentally healthy families volunteer for this kind of research. Third, the assessment was a brief snapshot; we would expect socially transitioned gender dysphoric children to be faring better at that snapshot compared with children struggling with their gender dysphoria. (There is little doubt that at first, gender dysphoric children are happier if allowed to socially transition.) Young gender dysphoric children do not show that many psychological or behavior problems, aside from their gender issues. The aforementioned study by Kenneth Zucker’s research group showed that mental health problems, including suicidality, increased with age. Perhaps this won’t happen with Olson’s participants, but it’s too soon to know. Why Is Gender Dysphoria Associated with Mental Problems, Including Suicidality? We don’t know. The current conventional wisdom is that gender dysphoria creates a need for gender transition that, if frustrated, causes all the problems. That is a convenient position for pro-transition clinicians and activists. But they simply don’t know that this is true. Furthermore, both our past experience studying mental illness scientifically and specific findings related to gender dysphoria suggests the conventional wisdom is unlikely to be correct. As an example, Leelah Alcorn’s suicide (like most suicides) was tragic, but she appears to have had problems that were not obviously caused by her gender dysphoria. She posted as Joshua (her male identity) on Tumblr: “I’m literally such a bitch. shit happens in my life that isn’t even really that bad and all I do is complain about it to everyone around me and threaten to commit suicide and make them feel sorry for me, then they view me as sub-human and someone they have to take care of like a child. then when they don’t meet my each and every single expectation I lash out at them and make them feel like shit and like they weren’t good enough to take care of me. since I can only find imperfections in myself I try my hardest to find imperfections in everyone around me and use them as a way to one up myself and make others feel bad to make myself look better.” Sophisticated causal analysis of mental illness and life experiences has invariably shown that things are more complex than previously assumed. For example, although depression is certainly caused by adverse life experiences, those vulnerable to depression have a tendency to generate their own stressful life experiences. So it’s not as simple as depression being caused by life experiences alone. Also, depression has a considerable genetic influence. Similarly, women with borderline personality disorder (BPD) report that they have experienced disproportionate childhood sexual abuse (CSA), and many clinicians and researchers have assumed that CSA causes BPD. But one just can’t assume the causal direction goes that way–one must eliminate alternative possibilities. Recent sophisticated studies suggest that, in fact, CSA does not cause BPD. Research to understand the link between gender dysphoria, various mental problems (including suicidality), and completed suicides will take time. There is already plenty of reason, however, to doubt the conventional wisdom that all the trouble is caused by delaying gender transition of gender dysphoric persons. We have already mentioned the fact that transitioned adults who had been gender dysphoric (i.e., “transsexuals”) have increased rates of completed suicide. Their transition did not prevent this, evidently. Suicide (and threats to commit suicide) can be socially contagious. Thus, social contagion may play an important role in both suicidality and gender dysphoria itself. Autism is a risk factor for both gender dysphoria and suicidality. No one, to our knowledge, believes that gender dysphoria causes autism. Conclusions Parents with gender dysphoric children almost always want the best for them, but many of these parents do not immediately conclude that instant gender transition is the best solution. It serves these parents poorly to exaggerate the likelihood of their children’s suicide, or to assert that suicide or suicidality would be the parents’ fault. References Aitken, M., VanderLaan, D. P., Wasserman, L., Stojanovski, S., & Zucker, K. J. (2016). Self-harm and suicidality in children referred for gender dysphoria. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 55(6), 513-520. Dhejne, C., Lichtenstein, P., Boman, M., Johansson, A. L., Långström, N., & Landén, M. (2011). Long-term follow-up of transsexual persons undergoing sex reassignment surgery: cohort study in Sweden. PloS one, 6(2), e16885. Marshall, E., Claes, L., Bouman, W. P., Witcomb, G. L., & Arcelus, J. (2016). Non-suicidal self-injury and suicidality in trans people: a systematic review of the literature. International review of psychiatry, 28(1), 58-69. Nock, M. K., Borges, G., Bromet, E. J., Cha, C. B., Kessler, R. C., & Lee, S. (2008). Suicide and suicidal behavior. Epidemiologic reviews, 30(1), 133-154. Van Kesteren, P. J., Asscheman, H., Megens, J. A., & Gooren, L. J. (1997). Mortality and morbidity in transsexual subjects treated with cross‐sex hormones. Clinical endocrinology, 47(3), 337-343. Share this: Twitter Facebook Google Like this: Like Loading... |
CLOSE For years the only way to get marijuana was to grow it at home illegally or buy it on the black market. But today 205 million Americans live in a state where marijuana is legal for either recreational or medical use. Kristen Hwang/The Desert Sun Logan Martyn-Fisher looks through a tote bag filled with marijuana as he prepares to make a marijuana delivery in Portland, Maine. (Photo: Trevor Hughes, USA TODAY) PORTLAND, Maine — Logan Martyn-Fisher checks his phone's GPS one more time and pulls up at the Portland Amtrak station, thousands of dollars of marijuana concealed in a pair of colorful beach totes sitting on the back seat of his BMW SUV. He’s looking for a guy who’s looking for pot. Maine doesn’t yet allow legal marijuana sales, so Martyn-Fisher, his girlfriend and their BMW have carved a niche for themselves in a state where possessing, growing and consuming cannabis now is permitted. This past fall, Maine voters legalized marijuana as of the start of this year, but lawmakers still are developing a system of state-regulated stores to sell it. They hope to have the stores open by February 2018. ► Black market: Marijuana smuggling persists despite legalization ► Consequences: What's the big deal with legal pot? No one really knows yet ► Across the USA: States forge path through uncharted territory That’s where Martyn-Fisher stepped in: While marijuana sales remain illegal, he’s giving away pot but charging hefty “delivery” fees. “It kind of sucks we don’t have a store,” he said. “We have to have all these sketchy meetings in parking lots. It doesn’t really feel like you’re running a legitimate business.” And so this day finds Martyn-Fisher driving through the train station parking lot, peering through his mirrored Oakley sunglasses for his next customer, wads of cash stuffed in his pocket. Like many marijuana entrepreneurs, Martyn-Fisher can't accept credit or debit cards since most banks are afraid to violate federal drug-trafficking laws. His girlfriend runs the online ordering via the Elevation 207 Facebook page and directs Martyn-Fisher to the customers. (207 is Maine's sole area code). Much of their time is spent reassuring customers that what they’re doing is legal, especially first-time buyers nervous that they’re ordering a federally illegal drug to be delivered personally. “Got him,” Martyn-Fisher says as he makes another pass through the station parking lot. He pulls up and the man, looking a little nervous, opens his wallet and begins counting out $20 bills, handing the stack to Martyn-Fisher, who hands him back packages of vacuum-sealed marijuana. The buyer offers his thanks as he stuffs the packages into his backpack, and Martyn-Fisher discreetly counts the $390 he was expecting. ► Alaska: In the last frontier, state's marijuana stores aim for tourists ► California: How police chief, marijuana grower made peace He hits the road again, headed to a luxury hotel near the waterfront, to meet a frequent buyer and business traveler. The buyer recognizes the arriving BMW and walks to the window as Martyn-Fisher pulls up, handing over a wad of greenbacks in exchange for 2.5 ounces of marijuana, the legal maximum a person can possess. On a whim a few months ago, Martyn-Fisher posted a Craigslist advertisement offering delivery services. It didn’t get much attention at first, but a series of television and newspaper stories about it has taken him and his girlfriend from about four deliveries a day to more than 30 at their busiest as the summer tourism season was getting under way in June. “We have to have all these sketchy meetings in parking lots. It doesn’t really feel like you’re running a legitimate business.” Logan Martyn-Fisher, Portland, Maine “I do this every day, all day long, every day,” he said. “It’s really hard to say no to money.” Maine’s legislators are meeting nearly daily all summer and fall as they develop a system to tax, regulate and sell marijuana. Like legislators in other states, Maine’s lawmakers are trying to decide who can get a license to sell pot and who will oversee the regulations and collect the taxes. Martyn-Fisher isn’t waiting for them. Using Facebook to highlight the day’s offerings, such as $100 for 10 grams of marijuana delivered, he’s quickly building a customer base around the Portland area, stressing that he’s charging a delivery free for a free product. The minimum delivery fee is $75. His Elevation 207 service is booming as he drops off smokable marijuana flowers, concentrates and cannabis-infused candies to customers. Based on his encounters with local police, he’s confident his workaround is working, particularly in exploiting the interplay between the state’s medical and recreational cannabis laws. The recreational laws don’t yet permit someone like him to have so much marijuana. But he’s also a certified medical caregiver, which means he’s allowed to grow and possess larger amounts. ► California: Boutique cannabis shop puts the high in high end ► California: This city sees pot shops as key to easing war on drugs inequities The legal area is gray, in part because Maine hasn’t made marijuana enforcement a priority. In Portland, voters in 2013 decriminalized marijuana, suggesting to Martyn-Fisher and other advocates that police have gotten the message: Hands off our pot. “They don’t seem to care, and that’s a feeling I’ve had for a while,” he said. “Maine has some pretty relaxed views about marijuana. They’ve got more serious things to deal with.” Logan Martyn-Fisher holds a vacuum-sealed bag of marijuana June 12, 2017, as he waits for a customer in Portland, Maine. (Photo: Trevor Hughes, USA TODAY) One of those more serious things is the state’s rampant opioid and heroin abuse. Last year 376 Mainers died from drug overdoses. In a state with just 1.3 million residents, those deaths hit extra hard. For many marijuana sellers, it’s hard to understand why their industry faces such scrutiny when oxycodone — a federally regulated prescription medicine — repeatedly has proven fatal when abused. The kinds of customers that Martyn-Fisher said he gets show the nation’s drug laws and police are focused on the wrong priorities. In an afternoon, he made deliveries to a man with his kids in the backseat and a married couple with their kids in the backseat. Baby boomers make up a large portion of his client base. These are not irresponsible drug abusers but instead regular Americans who choose to consume marijuana the way many other consume alcohol: responsibly and in moderation, he said. Martyn-Fisher's favorite customer so far was an out-of-state father taking his daughter on a college visit “He was so excited, giving us thumbs up as we were leaving,” Martyn-Fisher said. ► California: County officials remain at odds with legal weed ► Colorado: Pot workers face banking hurdles in business, personally Looking ahead, he hopes Maine’s lawmakers can settle on a regulatory system that rewards and encourages entrepreneurs like himself, people who want to own and operate legitimate businesses, selling a product that millions of Americans clearly want to buy. Portland police didn’t return a message seeking comment. “My mom is still worried,” he said as he turns the BMW down one of Portland’s cobblestoned streets en route to the next customer. “But my dad went on deliveries with me.” Follow Trevor Hughes on Twitter: @TrevorHughes Other Legal pot in America stories: ► District of Columbia: In politically charged capital, cannabis is cottage industry ► Kentucky: Pot farmer faces life in prison; he's no criminal in some states ► Massachusetts: In city of Puritans, chance to buy pot legally moves ahead ► Nevada: A mining town straddles the Wild West, marijuana culture ► Oregon: Beach, weed go hand in hand on Cannabis Coast ► Pennsylvania: Medicinal marijuana converts minister into 'pastor for pot' ► Washington: Pot boosts city where timber had been king Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2vkJ2Vg |
Squad undergo testing at Middlesex University Players return to Harlington tomorrow Images courtesy of Back Page Images THE QPR squad moved a step closer to their pre-season training today, as they visited Middlesex University to carry out a series of indoor tests. The club’s fitness team measured the players’ power and body composition, while also reviewing any past injury problems as the final preparations were made prior to Tuesday’s return to Harlington. For many, it was the first opportunity to meet their new team-mates after the recent arrivals of Ben Gladwin, Massimo Luongo, Jay Emmanuel-Thomas and Jamie Mackie. But while today may have been a light introduction for them, the real hard work for the squad will begin tomorrow, with a series of running tests to see exactly what level they are at after a five-week break – and prepare them for the rigours of a 46-game Championship campaign. See also ... |
(Pixabay) In Mexico, a human life was recently saved with a promise of free tacos. Police in Mexico City were able to save a man who threatened to commit suicide by promising to buy him tacos, according to a report from the Spanish-language Mexican news website Azteca Noticias, which was translated to English in the online news site complex.com. Taco is a traditional Mexican dish composed of corn or wheat tortilla folded or rolled around a variety of fillings, including beef, pork, chicken, seafood, vegetables and cheese. Mexican police officers found the unidentified man ready to jump off a bridge early Tuesday morning. Sources said the young man wanted to end his life because he was "lonely and depressed in Mexico City." He reportedly came from the state of Guerrero. A video footage shows a police officer talking to the man, who was drunk at the time, telling him to get off the ledge and inviting him to go eat tacos. The man then answers in Spanish, "Yeah, I'm craving some [tacos]." The man hesitates for a while, but the police officer assures him that the police will pay for his tacos. A paramedic then approaches and convinces the man that "life is beautiful" and that he doesn't have to end it in that way. The man was finally persuaded to abandon his suicidal plan and the police brought him the tacos he was craving for. He was then taken to a mental health facility. The man was one of an estimated 350 million people worldwide estimated by the World Health Organisation to be suffering from depression. Depression is one several suicide risk factors that also include bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, alcoholism, or drug abuse, according to health authorities. Suicide resulted in 842,000 deaths in 2013 up from 712,000 deaths in 1990, according to recent studies. This makes suicide as the 10th leading cause of death worldwide. The Christian faith considers suicide an offense towards God due to its belief in the sanctity of life. |
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Ban Ki-moon: "The people of Syria have suffered enough" The UN Security Council has unanimously adopted a resolution outlining a peace process in Syria. The 15-member council reached rare agreement on the issue in a session in New York on Friday. The resolution endorses talks between the Syrian government and opposition in early January, as well as a ceasefire. The Syrian war, which is heading towards its fifth year, has killed more than 250,000 people and displaced millions more, the UN says. However, disagreements remain over the future of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The US, UK and France called for his departure, saying he had lost the ability to lead the country. Russia and China, however, argued against a requirement for Mr Assad to leave power as a precondition for talks. The resolution itself makes no mention of his future role. There is also disagreement over the definition of which armed groups fall within the remit of the ceasefire. Analysis: Lyse Doucet, Chief International Correspondent A stubborn gridlock in the UN Security Council has long blocked any step towards a political resolution of Syria's devastating war. For years, everyone insisted there was no military solution. Nobody made much effort to achieve it. The UN's first envoy Kofi Annan bitterly blamed the world body when he quit in 2012 after only one year in the job. His successor Lakhdar Brahimi frequently beseeched the Council to do more and often apologised to the Syrian people for failing them. Now UN Envoy Staffan de Mistura is tasked with organising Syria talks. This unanimous vote is a crucial step forward. But the goal of "credible, inclusive and non-sectarian governance" within six months is hugely ambitious. President Assad's supporters will welcome a UN resolution that does not mention his role. Russia's growing diplomatic and military weight in this conflict helped achieve that compromise. But, for the opposition and their allies, it will continue to be the issue that will block progress every step of the way. 'Milestone' reached US Secretary of State John Kerry, chairing the session, said the resolution sent "a clear message to all concerned that the time is now to stop the killing in Syria". "The resolution we just reached is a milestone, because it sets specific goals and specific timeframes," he added. Image copyright AFP Image caption The Security Council vote followed hours of diplomatic negotiation in New York The resolution calls for a ceasefire that should be implemented in parallel with the talks. However, actions against groups considered terrorist organisations would not be affected. This would allow Russian, French and US air-strikes against Islamic State to continue. UN Security Council Resolution on Syria (No. 2254) Calls for ceasefire and formal talks on a political transition to start in early January Groups seen as "terrorist", including Islamic State and al-Nusra Front, are excluded "Offensive and defensive actions" against such groups - a reference to air strikes by US-led coalition and Russia - to continue UN chief Ban Ki-moon to report by 18 January on how to monitor ceasefire "Credible, inclusive and non-sectarian governance" to be established within six months "Free and fair elections" under UN supervision to be held within 18 months Political transition should be Syrian-led France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius welcomed the deal but said that the idea of Mr Assad standing in elections was "unacceptable". Image copyright Reuters Image caption Almost five years of fighting has left large parts of the country destroyed One of the major sticking points so far has been which rebel groups should be considered terrorist outfits and consequently excluded from any talks or ceasefire. The agreement demands that all parties cease attacks against civilians. Russia, an ally of Mr Assad, has argued against his departure being a precondition for talks. |
Senate leadership has just released their attempt at a repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as “Obamacare.” The bill, which is being called the “Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017,” makes a few changes from the House plan, which was unpopular in both conservative and liberal circles, but still seems to fit the moniker of “Obamacare Lite.” Senate bill lives up to "Obamacare lite" moniker — offers income adjusted tax credits that go up to 350% of FPL vs 400% in Obamacare. — Philip Klein (@philipaklein) June 22, 2017 However, one of the key differences is that the Senate bill does seem to include a provision for defunding Planned Parenthood (which just spent $750,000 trying to get John Ossoff elected so maybe it can afford it???). Provision defunding Planned Parenthood is IN Senate GOP repeal bill, despite reports to the contrary. @Rewire_News https://t.co/6OXMYqvEpN — Christine Grimaldi (@chgrimaldi) June 22, 2017 According to other reports from major media outlets, the bill will cut Medicaid and eliminate taxes on the wealthy. Combined with the Planned Parenthood provision, it appears that Senate leadership is trying to get conservatives on board and will not be attempting to work with Democrats on the bill. However, it is tough to see many conservatives eagerly hopping on board with a bill that amends Obamacare instead of repealing it outright. |
White House officials and several Republican lawmakers claimed Tuesday they were nearing a deal on health-care legislation with the House Freedom Caucus, with at least three leading figures in the hard-line group ready to support an overhaul after the dramatic collapse of talks last month. Reps. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), and Raúl R. Labrador (R-Idaho) — all leaders of the Freedom Caucus and central figures in the latest discussions — signaled Tuesday they are ready to support a new plan, according to two White House officials who were not authorized to speak publicly. A lawmaker close to the Freedom Caucus later confirmed that those members were close to or ready to support the tweaked bill. Top members of the House Freedom Caucus would say little on Tuesday night about where they stand on the revised measure. Meadows said that he won’t weigh in publicly until after the Freedom Caucus meets Wednesday night, but he praised Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-N.J.) — co-chairman of the centrist Tuesday Group — and House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) for their role in trying to reach consensus. “I’m obviously very supportive of Tom MacArthur and his efforts and Chairman Walden and his efforts,” Meadows said. “So I can tell you the efforts they have put forth are to be applauded.” “I may have,” is all Labrador would say when asked whether he has decided to support a revised health-care package. “I have not made a public announcement.” “We’ve got a meeting tomorrow night!” said Jordan, who refused to elaborate. Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), another Freedom Caucus member, stopped short of vouching support for the bill, but said “it seems to me it is going in a very good direction.” He said he needs to see the legislative text before making a final decision. “I would not be the most shocked person in the building if we voted it this week out of the House,” Franks said. A top aide to House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) said he “hasn’t ruled out” a vote on a health-care bill this week, but that his top priority is passing a spending measure to keep the government funded. If consensus on health care were reached, however, the House could move quickly, said spokeswoman AshLee Strong. “I think we can turn things around quickly if we were to reach an agreement,” she said. “We will see something as soon as we can, but we’re not there right now.” Top GOP aides said that text of the new bill probably won’t be posted until House Republicans feel confident that they have enough votes to pass the bill. Rep. David Brat, (R-Va.) a Freedom Caucus member who previously opposed the GOP health-care plan, said he is “looking forward” to supporting it with the new changes giving states more options. “A lot of people like it,” Brat told reporters Tuesday night. The agreement at the crux of the revised bill would allow states to opt out of some insurance regulations in the Affordable Care Act. Through a federal waiver, insurers could be freed from a requirement to cover certain essential health benefits as defined by the federal government. And while they would still be required to cover people with preexisting conditions, they could charge those patients higher premiums. The language was crafted jointly in recent days by MacArthur and Meadows, who heads the Freedom Caucus, with White House officials involved in those conversations, officials said. White House officials said Tuesday that MacArthur made clear during the discussions that he wanted states such as New Jersey to be able to keep some mandates under the law, while Meadows wanted states to have the choice of opting out of the insurance requirements. Any new proposal would have to surmount the same obstacles that stalled the House GOP leadership’s plan before Congress left for a two-week recess in early April. “The key to getting this across the finish line doesn’t rest with the Tuesday Group. It rests with the Freedom Caucus,” Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.), a member of the centrist group, said Tuesday. The president has been fitfully trying to restart health-care talks after Ryan abruptly pulled the American Health Care Act from the floor at the end of March. Trump at first said the health-care issue was dead but then revived talks. Trump seems intent on getting a concrete legislative win, or at least flashes of progress in that direction, as his administration approaches the 100-day mark. Republicans close to House GOP leaders said Tuesday they remain skeptical of how much support would be behind any new legislation, and said House leaders are not driving the discussions with the Freedom Caucus. Other Freedom Caucus members, such as Brat, told reporters Tuesday evening that they are likely to support the compromise, while others declined to comment, saying they have not yet seen the proposal. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), a deficit hawk and Freedom Caucus member who opposed the AHCA, said he would review the amendment. “Essential benefits and all the other mandates may be affordable in a wealthy state, but unaffordable in a poorer state like Mississippi or Alabama that causes people to go from some insurance to no health insurance,” Brooks said. The carrot for conservatives is the opportunity for states to apply for waivers from some of the ACA’s mandates, including its requirement for insurers to cover essential health benefits and its ban on swelling premiums for people with preexisting health conditions. Many conservatives don’t like leaving the law’s insurance regulations in place, but the waiver provision allows them to argue that they’re giving states more control over the situation. But the revisions would also restore the law’s federal essential health benefits requirements for states that don’t obtain a waiver from them. The original bill would have turned over those regulations completely to the states. Sean Sullivan and David Weigel contributed to this report. Read more at PowerPost |
WOMEN, tone down the war paint. That’s the conclusion of a new study that suggests both men and women find faces more attractive with less makeup. The study by Bangor University in Wales comes as the #nomakeupselfie phenomenon spreads across social networks. The trend has inspired many thousands of women to snap pics of themselves makeup -free. It has also raised over two million pounds for UK cancer charity, Cancer Research. Psychologist Dr Alex Jones said the positive response to the selfies posted on social networks was unsurprising. He said people often misjudge what the opposite sex find attractive, especially in the case of women trying to appeal to men. According to his study, men prefer women who wear up to 40 per cent fewer cosmetics. Women in the study gave similar conclusions. Despite the findings and the recent social networking trend, women — especially those in the public eye — still face enormous social pressure to wear makeup. Two years ago when Russell Brand posted a photo of then-wife Katy Perry to Twitter, the picture attracted a mass of online vitriol. Brand quickly took it down. With or without... The same girl seen without makeup, left, and wearing it, right. Which is prettier? Picture: University of Bangor |
A Western New York state senator wants ride-hailing services to arrive more quickly across upstate and on Long Island. State Sen. Michael Ranzenhofer has introduced legislation that would speed up the implementation date for statewide ride-hailing regulations, moving up the first day rides would be allowed from July 9 to June 29. Under the law passed as part of the state budget, the regulations don’t go into effect until 90 days after they were passed. “While ride-sharing services have been given a green light, arriving days after the Fourth of July is too little, too late,” the Erie County Republican said in a statement. “Every year, we read about accidents and deaths caused by motorists who should not be driving. This safe, reliable transportation option can help to make our roadways safer.” Ranzenhofer isn’t the only state lawmaker proposing to reopen the ride-hailing law already. Fellow Republican Sens. Tom Croci and Sue Serino and Assemblyman Dean Murray, R-Long Island, are behind a legislative effort to bar any registered sex offender from being able to drive for ride-hailing companies after the newly enacted law left open what they call a loophole that allows Level 1 offenders pick up fares. Ride-hailing services have been allowed in New York City under city Taxi and Limousine Commission regulations, but they (generally) have not been available elsewhere. Under the new law, counties and cities of 100,000 people or more will have the authority to decide whether they will allow ride-hailing within their borders. Update: In a Legislature with 213 members, ideas are bound to overlap. A spokesman for the Assembly Republicans tweeted out this link to a bill draft from Assemblyman Ray Walter, R-Erie County, and Assemblywoman MaryBeth Walsh, R-Ballston Spa, that would move up implementation day to 30 days after the budget legislation passed. That’d be next week. |
According to sources close to the incident, 500 grams of Heroin were found and confiscated from LUMS boys’ hostel on Wednesday. Lahore (Staff Report) – Around 500 grams of heroin were found and confiscated from LUMS boys’ hostel on Wednesday, sources told Daily Pakistan. According to the sources, the LUMS administration for the past few days had been conducting raids on students’ lodgings and conducting a search operation after they had received information about illegal drugs being kept on the premises. Finally, on Wednesday some 1/2 kilograms of heroin were found in possession of a boy belonging to Dir. The estimated cost of the confiscated drugs is roughly a million rupees on the street. The boy, who remains unnamed, was not a student of LUMS but had been residing in the hostel without the knowledge of the hostel authorities. A faculty member, on condition of anonymity, told Daily Pakistan that heroin is not new to LUMS and over the years many LUMS students have become regular users of the highly addictive drug. In LUMS, there are always a few students, both male and female, who are regular users of heroin, he said. It remains unknown how such a huge quantity of heroin made its way into LUMS and how a person, not a student of LUMS, managed to reside in the hostel for such a long time. LUMS administration were not available for comment at the time of filing of the report. Update: LUMS spokesperson has now issued a clarification on the matter, saying that seized drugs weigh roughly 150 grams. |
The arrest of 14 Kyrgyz servicemen for allegedly selling weapons to terrorists involved in the August car bomb attack on the Chinese Embassy in Kyrgyzstan has sparked calls for greater anti-terror cooperation with Central Asian countries. "The incident sheds light on twin terrorism threats in Central Asia - surviving al-Qaeda forces hidden in this area and new terror groups influenced by the Islamic States (IS)," Li Wei, an anti-terror expert at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, told the Global Times. Several serving and retired border service officers and a director of the Interior Ministry were allegedly involved in selling weapons to criminal gangs, who launched terror attacks on the Chinese Embassy in Kyrgyzstan and against a Kyrgyz prosecutor earlier this year, the Russian news agency Interfax reported on Sunday. Compared with the governments of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, which have a good control over their national security, the turbulent political situation in Kyrgyzstan makes the country ripe for terrorist activities, said Li. Li said China's counter-terror measures are part of international efforts, and China should seek greater cooperation with other countries guided by the UN Security Council. Considering that some terrorists in China are now heading to Syria to join IS or conducting terror activities in neighboring areas, China is trying to shut down their transit points in Southeast Asia and is seeking greater cooperation with countries, including Turkey, to crack down on East Turkestan separatists, Li said. Kyrgyzstan's state security service confirmed in a statement in September that the attack was ordered by Uyghur militants active in Syria and carried out by a member of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), Reuters reported. "There are quite a number of Uyghurs living in Central Asia and the Turkistan Islamic Party, a branch of the ETIM, has strengthened its influence in the area in recent years. They are a threat to regional stability as well as China's anti-terror efforts," Zhu Yongbiao, associate professor at the Institute for Central Asian Studies of Lanzhou University, told the Global Times. Zhu said that China has intensified its crackdown on the ETIM and has been cooperating with countries in this area, including providing facilities and funds, working together on extradition efforts and establishing a network for sharing anti-terror information under the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). "We should engage in closer security cooperation through the SCO, leaving no room for destabilizing forces," Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said at the close of the two-day SCO meeting in Central China's Henan Province in December 2015. Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan are among SCO member countries. |
A CAD geek walks into a bar… is not the start of a joke but just one of those small world coincidences that happens when you live in a small country. A couple of years back I went along to Auckland Skeptics in the Pub expecting to meet some interesting new folks (and did) with no idea it would converge with my Autodesk world. About the same time TVNZ were screening a futuristic local drama production: This Is Not My Life. It was set in a fictional seaside town “Waimoana”. This was filmed using a business park near my work as the commercial centre, with domestic/suburban scenes shot at a real seaside development, Omaha Beach. Its a popular Auckland weekend escape. Given the budget probably was less than a Hollywood production spends on coffee I was interested to see how they managed to create this future world. Subtlety altered Smart & Nissan Cube cars with electric sound effects covered the transport (as long as you had enough carbon credits to operate them!). Careful shooting of the rather techo looking business park made a convincing near future city scene. The computer tech featured in the story, a mix of large wall displays, transparent desktop monitors and smartphone devices which became high resolution screens when active. The “PEC” (personal entertainment and communications device) became an important part of the plot, in a big brother way. Tech curiosity satisfied I was able to concentrate on enjoying the story, a interesting (almost Orwellian or Kubrick feeling) thriller set in this near-future eco-conscious world. Although unlikely to get to US screens in Kiwi form it has been announced US Network ABC has purchased the series to adapt. Several months later, in the pub full of skeptics, I met the man who made that digital tech happen! Quote from "Creating Waimoana" - tvnz.co.nz “The PEC (personal entertainment and communications device) had to be designed, along with the computers that were to be used. Somewhere along the line it was decided that these would all be clear Perspex to be filled in by Special FX in post-production. (I'm not sure how many people know that none of the stuff you see on computers or PECs is actually there - it was all done in post-production by the wonderful Peter McCully and his team at Albedo VFX. A journalist rang Rachel to discuss the show and Rachel mentioned the special fx. The journalist, who had seen eps 1 and 2 asked "what special fx". And I don't blame her; I think they are pretty damn seamless.)” Albedo VFX is a Kiwi visual effects house specialising in Digital Matte Paintings, 3D Environments and Virtual Sets. Their primary tools are 3DStudio Max, Photoshop, After Effects and Fusion. Because I haven’t had much to do with the local media/entertainment side of Autodesk (beyond attending a few Max launches) I hadn’t met Peter before. Check out his show reel below (Inc. some TINML) and support his project in the “Make My Movie Project” contest*. Your Facebook Like, Tweet or G+ click vote could help him make his own move! Albedo VFX Reel 2011_a from PJV McCully on Vimeo. An edited selection of visual effects work from Albedo VFX, Auckland, New Zealand based FX house. A sampling from Cinema, TV drama and commercials. * The MAKE MY MOVIE project is giving away a $100,000 cash grant from New Zealand Film Commission and NZ On Air for one lucky person/team to make a low budget feature film. This Is Not My Life - en.wikipedia.org This Is Not My Life - www.imdb.com |
Your voice-to-text speech is recorded and sent to strangers Redditor Fallenmyst just started a job at Walk N'talk Technologies, where she listens to randomly sampled speech-to-text recordings from our mobile phones, correcting machine conversions. If you use text-to-speech to send intimate messages, to discuss confidential material, or to say things that you don't want anyone to hear, be advised: everything you say to your phone is liable to being listened to later by bored strangers (and that goes double for your Samsung smart TV). Motherboard's Kaleigh Rogers signed up for Crowdflower, the crowdsourcing service that got Fallenmyst her job, and described the process of listening in on the intimate machine-human interactions of strangers: Apple spokesperson Trudy Muller told Wired that the company strips personal information from voice recordings before storing it for analysis it within Apple to improve the software. I reached out to both Apple and Samsung but did not hear back by the time this story was published. We will update this story if either company provides a response. But while it may be within the legal limits of the companies to farm out these short, anonymous voice clips to strangers online, it’s certainly not a well-known practice, explained Christopher Soghoian, the principal technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union. “Many Americans would probably be shocked to learn that the contents of what they’re saying is even being transmitted to Apple or Google or Samsung. I think many people probably think that Siri’s only on their phone,” Soghoian told me. But Soghoian stopped short of calling it an invasion of privacy, telling me that the company’s motivations seem to be to improve their voice recognition software, not to broadcast personal information about its customers. He added that if we want voice recognition software to get better, the companies creating it will need to collect data and, until the software improves, a human will have to listen to that data. The problem arises when most people dictating at their phone don’t realize that another person might someday listen to it, Soghoian said. Everything you've ever said to Siri/Cortana has been recorded...and I get to listen to it. [Fallenmyst/Reddit] Strangers on the Internet Are Listening to People's Phone Voice Commands [Kaleigh Rogers/Motherboard] (Icon: A left human ear, David Benbennick, CC-BY-SA) |
Newspapers, magazines, and book publishers are rushing to develop iPad apps tailored to Apple's new tablet. Some of these content creators have taken advantage of Apple's new platform better than others, incorporating colorful, interactive, video, and web elements into their e-versions. Alice for the iPad offers an exciting look at how content could be shifting and evolving with Apple's new platform. The developers have created the pop-up book of the 21st-century. With this creative update to Alice in Wonderland, users don't just flip the "pages" of the eBook--they're meant to shake it, turn it, twist it, jiggle it, and watch the characters and settings in the book react. Alice for the iPad's description on iTunes details some of the features: Tilt your iPad to mke Alice grow big as a house, or shrink to just six inches tall. [...] Throw tarts at the Queen of Hearts - they realistically bounce off her. Witness the Cheshire Cat disappear, and help the Caterpillar smoke his hookah pipe. Check it out below--then tell us what you think! See more terrific iPad apps here. WATCH: |
Where and when: Other stage, 10.30pm, Friday. Dress code: Mudpit rave chic. What happened: Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's Skrillex, miniature dubstep overlord and Friday-night headliner, in a spaceship that's straight out of your 8-bit nightmares. A countdown and a dramatic curtain drop reveals the DJ/producer's elaborate set, which is like a Jedi starfighter if it got marooned on the Alien set, complete with booming mutant mashups and lasers. "Let's get crazy out here right now," he screeches as smoke shoots out into the sky and the crowd hollers, stuck in the mud, determined to rave regardless. It's a jaw-dropping and ridiculous spectacle, which has drawn the diehard, the party-hard and the plain curious. But Skrillex's turbo-hectic mixes are a spectacle on their own. He quick-flicks switchblade-style between slivers of mutant dancehall (his Majestic-sampling track, Rock n Roll), booty house (DJ Funk's Fuck Dat Shit), Daft Punk arpeggios and big pop choruses (notably MGMT's Kids, Disclosure's Latch, and Niki & The Dove's DJ, Ease My Mind), all mangled into oblivion with his signature sub-bass wobbles. There are no full songs, just recognisable samples from club anthems and teases of choruses, complete with noises that defy nature itself. It's as unsubtle as a shotgun to the face, but it's impossible to be bored. Every new track is met with looks of "what the ... " or excitable joy, especially when he asks the audience to crouch down and jump up to the gnarliest deformed dubstep you've ever heard. The ridiculousness of dancing to someone dancing in a spaceship isn't lost on the crowd, but whether he's going for laughs, or announcing his place on electronic music's throne, the mud-soaked crowd leaves 120% entertained. High point: Lift off! The spaceship rises, Transformers-style, to reveal a massive metallic mask. Cue beats that could dislodge a dodgy thali. Low point: The end. No, really. Nothing else, not even the Shangri-La, will match this madness tonight. In a tweet: %^&$^%&^*(&$&%^(*&%^&*^%(*^% #thefuture |
Five thoughts and then we'll turn it over to my readers, because honestly, they did a better job of summing up last night's LeBacle than I ever could: 1. One of my first ESPN.com columns was titled, "Is Clemens the Antichrist?" It covered how my relationship changed with Roger Clemens as a Red Sox fan -- in five years, he went from my favorite baseball player to my least favorite athlete in any sport -- and how the turning point happened in 1996, when Clemens signed with Toronto and showed no remorse at the ensuing news conference. I still remember seeing that Blue Jays cap squeezed on his fat stupid face for 45 solid minutes, waiting for him to throw Red Sox fans a bone, waiting for him to say anything that would make me think, "Regardless of how this turned out, the past 12 years meant something to me," or "Just know that this happened because of Boston's front office, not their great fans." He only threw us a couple of canned comments, the same way someone would throw table scraps to a dog. I remember how angry it made me. I remember wanting to whip my remote control through the television, then realizing that I couldn't afford a new one. I remember taking down my autographed photo of Clemens' 20th strikeout against Seattle and sticking it in a closet. I remember thinking that I would never like sports quite as much ever again. So when Clemens went to Toronto, got in shape, won two straight Cy Youngs and forced a trade to the Yankees, really, a column called "Is Clemens the Antichrist?" became inevitable as soon as I found a bigger forum to write it. I hated that guy as much as you could hate a professional athlete without things getting creepy. And you know what? What LeBron did to Cleveland last night was worse. Much worse. It's one thing to leave. I get it. You're 25. You don't know any better. You're tired of carrying mediocre teams. You want help. You want the luxury of not having to play a remarkable game every single night for eight straight months. You want to live in South Beach. You want to play with your buddies. I get it. I get it. But turning that decision into a one-hour special, pretending that it hadn't been decided weeks ago, using a charity as your cover-up and ramming a pitchfork in Cleveland's back like you were at the end of a Friday the 13th movie and Cleveland was Jason ... there just had to be a better way. I blame the people around him. I blame the lack of a father figure in his life. I blame us for feeding his narcissism to the point that he referred to himself in the third person five times in 45 minutes. I blame local and national writers (including myself) for apparently not doing a good enough job explaining to athletes like LeBron what sports mean to us, and how it IS a marriage, for better and worse, and that we're much more attached to these players and teams than they realize. I blame David Stern for not throwing his body in front of that show. I blame everyone. We are already fools for caring about athletes considerably more than they care about us. We know this and we do it anyway. We just like sports. We keep watching for moments like Donovan's goal against Algeria, and we keep caring through thick and thin for moments like Dave Roberts' steal and Tracy Porter's interception. We put up with all the sobering stuff because that's the price you pay -- for every Gordon Hayward half-court shot, or USA-Canada gold-medal game, there are 20 Michael Vicks and Ben Roethlisbergers. Last night didn't make me like sports any less -- my guard has been up since 1996 -- it just reinforced all the things I already didn't like. For LeBron not to understand what he was doing -- or even worse, not to care -- made me quickly turn off the television, find my kids, give them their nightly bath and try to forget the sports atrocity that I had just witnessed. He just couldn't have handled it worse. Never in my life can I remember someone swinging from likable to unlikable that quickly. I will forgive him some day because I like watching him play basketball, and whether you're rooting for or against him, his alliance with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami created one the greatest "Holy s---, how is this going to play out?????" scenarios in recent sports history. Sports are supposed to be fun, and eventually, this will become fun -- for everyone but people in Cleveland -- because we finally have a Yankees of basketball. But I will never, ever, not in a million years, understand why it had to play out that way. If LeBron James is the future of sports, then I shudder for the future. 2. One silver lining for LeBron: No other professional athlete in any team sport could have generated the interest that he generated last night. No baseball player, no football player, no basketball player, no hockey player. He truly is the King ... of something. 3. I posted this clip on Twitter last night, but it's worth posting again: the 1996 Bash on the Beach. I won't even tell you the context (a reader will explain in a few paragraphs). Just watch what happened, listen to the announcers and choke on the irony. 4. Michael Jordan would have wanted to kick Dwyane Wade's butt every spring, not play with him. This should be mentioned every day for the rest of LeBron's career. It's also the kryptonite for any "Some day we'll remember LeBron James as the best basketball player ever" argument. We will not. Jordan and Russell were the greatest players of all time. Neither of them would have made the choice that LeBron did. That should tell you something. 5. Sports shouldn't mean this much. I promise more thoughts later in the month. See, there's an incredible basketball story here that really has no precedent: Only when Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant played together in 2001 and 2002, after Kobe had ascended to top-three status and Shaq hadn't drifted out of that group yet, have two of the best three NBA players played on the same team. I have no idea how Miami will fill out the team, or whether you can win a championship by being so good offensively that defense, rebounding and role players don't matter. We're about to find out. I am not ready to think about it yet. For now, let's relive the 12 hours from 9:30 p.m. PT through 9:30 a.m. PT from the e-mails that drifted into my mailbox. As always, thanks to everyone who took the time to write in. City: Columbus Name: Seth I think this is the first time in history one man managed to destroy an entire city by himself. Even the Enola Gay had a flight crew. City: Oakland Name: Frank I'm trying to figure out where I've had a feeling like this before. Then I remembered: This reminds me of Hulk Hogan at the moment he drops the big boot on the Macho Man Randy Savage to team with the Outsiders (Scott Hall and Kevin Nash) and essentially form the nWo. These are the only two times when I have said to myself "No! Why are you doing this! Evil! Evil! EVILLLL!" City: Chicago Name: Michael Beach You know at the end of "Gran Torino" when Clint Eastwood goes to the gang house knowing he is going to die but that it will save the two kids? That is how this lifelong Cleveland fan felt watching "The Decision", except there was no higher purpose. I was born in 1975, and I have witnessed every Cleveland heartbreak since Red Right 88 (one of my first sports memories). I'm glad LeBron thinks he did so much for our city and franchise, but he basically ripped out the heart of everyone, and perhaps the city itself, on live TV in one of the most self-centered, self-promoting moments ever. Oh, and he did so under the guise of helping the Boys and Girls club to try to assuage the guilt of murdering our franchise. I've read your columns for many years now and I know you know torment and heartbreak. That said, you know nothing of how it feels to be a Cleveland sports fan. Sure there are other teams that are more futile, and some cities come close to our collective disappointment and pain. However, none of them have had the biggest homegrown sports star and pretty much only hope for a dying city, go on TV and give a blatant "F you". City: Chicago Name: Ron I think we're realizing that LeBron was never made up of the same stuff as Kobe or MJ. And the things that we saw him doing in the future were things that we wanted for him, because of his transcendent skills. But in the end, he just didn't want those things. He was abandoned as a kid, if you see his high school documentary, you see all he wants to do is be a part of something, not be something. He just wants to be a part of a group and be wanted. We've just all along wished he was wired for greatness. He's not. And it's a shame. City: East Greenbush, N.Y. Name: Stephen S You know what LeBron's (nationally televised) stab in the back of Cleveland reminded me of? Roger Clemens' press conference after he went to the Blue Jays. City: Cleveland Name: Dave C. I cannot believe he would rip the hearts out of Northeast Ohio with this one-hour special. I do not think he understands the full implications of what he has just done. He is not going to be welcomed back. He, better than anyone, should understand the passion of fans in Northeast Ohio. That first game against the Heat in Cleveland will be nothing like he has ever experienced. The venom sent his way from the people who once adored him will shock him. Maybe then he will understand what he has done to this franchise and this city. City: Chicago Name: Matt You know what made me laugh just now? Joe Johnson came away with the biggest contract of the 2010 Free Agency Frenzy. City: Redmond, Wash. Name: Joe Morrison Just watched the LeBron train wreck. Just thought what Kobe is doing right now. Bet you he is in the gym right now. That's why LeBron will never win a title. LeBron does crap like this and Kobe gets better. Via Twitter @TheObjectiveGuy The South Beach bar reaction shots are the bizarro USA World Cup winning goal bar shots. City: Houston Name: Willie Can we please have an all-Cleveland mailbag? I'm 30 and was openly weeping for the past 20 minutes. This is a stomach punch mixed with a groin kick with an open-handed slap. City: Cleveland Name: Tom The oldest thing on my DVR is Game 2 of the 2009 Eastern Conference finals. As it goes to commercial, there is a little boy with his hands on his head. That boy is every male under the age of 50, including me. We are used to the tough breaks. When LeBron hit that shot to win the game, my first thought was -- we have that guy now, our Elway, Jordan, Montana, Bird. Only there was more -- he was one of us. He knew the pain of Cleveland teams, whether he rooted for them or not. Thursday night, he dragged out our agony. On a special named "The Decision" he did that to us. To the people that lived through the The Shot, The Drive and The Fumble. None of our players would have done that to us. LeBron, get the hell out of our town. Via Twitter @nadav_mor As a Kobe fan, I just want to thank LeBron. Debate is over and done with. Next up, Kevin Durant. City: New York Name: Jim Martelli My friend Max's reaction to the LeBron special and signing: "This country was founded upon the practice of defying egotistical kings." City: Cleveland Name: Mike I watched "The Decision" in a bar. We agreed on shots if he came back to Cleveland. I really, really wanted those shots. I did them anyway. City: Lake Lotawana, Mo. Name: Rob Reid My first thought after hearing about the ESPN special: Nobody could be so cruel as to go on national television and sucker punch his loyal fan base of seven years, right? My second thought? That's exactly what a self-absorbed, ill-advised 25-year-old kid without any real perspective would do. It was at that point I was certain he was not staying. City: Bloomington, Ind. Name: Alan My wife is a psychologist and after watching the documentary about James' high school years, she is convinced LeBron is trying to recapitulate his high school years with the "five friends" only this time it's with highly paid peers in Miami. City: Dallas Name: Matt My three favorite things from last night. 1) LeBron referring to himself in the third person no less than five times; 2) LeBron stating that he brought a lot to Cleveland (seriously ... what did he bring, hope and excitement only to rip it away in one of the most cruel fashions ever seen in professionals sports through a one-hour "Go F Yourself" special aimed directly at his hometown); and 3) LeBron having the audacity to think that anyone in Cleveland (minus his mom) would still like him. I get the feeling that he does not understand exactly what he just did. City: San Diego Name: Aaron Weitzen February 19, 2009: If Cleveland traded Wally Szczerbiak's $13 million expiring contract, they could have gotten a legitimate #2 for LeBron, probably would have won 1 or 2 rings, and there would be no Decision (sponsored by the University of Phoenix). Instead, they stand pat, confident of their record and chemistry, only to miss out on two championships and the rest of LeBron's career. City: Cleveland Name: Dave How does someone recover from this? My father will be dead before a Cleveland team wins a title. City: Cleveland Name: Pat N Cleveland has to top the list on tortured cities, right? Anyone I talked to today was already geared up for a knife in their hearts before 9 p.m. rolled around. It wasn't because of all the media and "sources," but because it's happened to us year after year. City: Cleveland Name: Dave S. I'm devastated. Not surprised it played out this way, but it still hurts. When the "Zombie Sonics" left Seattle you dedicated an entire mailbag to their fans. I think you can only extend the same to Cleveland fans. I've seen The Fumble, The Shot and Jose Mesa. This city has been let down too many times. I realize we'll never have the glamour or glitz of a Miami, New York, etc., but we're still good people and we just want to see something good happen to us. Something cathartic has to come out of this mess. City: Cleveland Name: Paul I'm 25 years old. I'm about to re-enlist for another tour overseas with the Army. I have an idea of what matters and what doesn't. But this still hurts. Nothing stings worse than when one of your own rips your heart out. Not like this ... Maybe I should do what's best for me and get out of the Army. Unfortunately, loyalty is driving me to do one more tour. LeBron knows nothing of that word. City: L.A. (from OHIO) Name: Collin Explain to me why I should care about sports when the savior of my city turns out to be a false prophet. City: Atlanta Name: Eric Retter Closest example to what LeBron did with Cleveland: Instead of proposing to your girlfriend, dumping your wife on the Jumbotron. At the Super Bowl. City: Canton, Ohio Name: Derek G. I just finished staining my deck ... at 10:30 p.m. I'm not really sure why I did this, but I was trying to take my mind off LeBron. The last time I felt like this was when my high school girlfriend dumped me; only this time I am Dan Gilbert/Cleveland and the girl is LeBron. LeBron wanted a free agent, we got him a free agent. LeBron drove 100 mph on I-71, or bombed in the playoffs, we forgave him immediately, and loved him nonetheless. I never did find out why my girlfriend left me, it just seemed like she thought the grass was greener elsewhere. I hope Miami is greener, LeBron, because Cleveland is more dead now that when you arrived. It doesn't matter how many titles you may win, you have lost a chance to do for Cleveland fans what Miami fans will never truly appreciate. City: Cleveland Name: Grant My brother and his friends have been in a fantasy basketball league for 10 years, an epic league that gets 100 posts a day in July! This league will not be renewed next year because nobody has any interest in watching the NBA anymore. These are high school friends in their 30s who love nothing more than to watch basketball and talk trash on the league message board as a way to stay in touch with each other. I can't fathom watching that selfish piece of crap in another uniform. I hate what I once loved. Basketball has been my favorite sport since I was 3 ... 23 years later, it is now dead to me at the highest level. (What the hell am I supposed to do now all winter ... in Cleveland?!?!) City: Pittsburgh Name: Michael When it came out that Brad Pitt was divorcing Jennifer Aniston for Angelina Jolie, EVERY woman in the world wanted to hate Pitt. Yet, he handled his business and didn't talk about the reasons. Shortly after, women weren't holding a grudge and couldn't even remember not loving him (absolutely amazing!). Why? Because he didn't call an hour-long live TV spectacular to dump Jen for a hotter woman. After tonight no one will ever forget to hate LeBron. City: Plano, Texas Name: Geoff Giauque This event played out just like Season 3, Episode 12 of "Entourage" ... "Sorry, Ari." Imagine if you will Ari Gold being Cleveland and Vince as LeBron. The episode starts off with Vince waking up with the gut-feeling to leave Ari because he couldn't get him the deal he wanted (NBA title). Ari wakes up with the gut instinct that he is going to be fired by Vince. Ari says losing Vince would hurt the most because he discovered Vince and brought him to stardom. Ari tries everything he can to get Vince's deal back (Cavs dropping coach and GM and hiring Byron Scott). Vince and his boys sit in pitch meetings with a handful of other agents (NBA teams), including the laughable Josh Weinstein (Clippers). Johnny Drama uses his "fool-proof" points scale to determine who has the best agency (I don't doubt that Maverick Carter used something similar). Lloyd knows every move that Vince makes during his pitch meetings (Brian Windhorst knew every move that LeBron made during his pitch meetings). Before Vince arrives for the MGA pitch, he decides to stay with Ari, because "he was there from the beginning." Ari has the "home" advantage and pulls out all the stops (Cavs playing "Family Guy" video/thinking they know him the best). However, Ari still can't tell Vince the things he needs to hear. It ends with Vince walking out on Ari and firing him in front of the entire Miller Gold Agency. Vince then goes with the "sexy" pick -- Amanda Daniels (Miami Heat). City: Cary, N.C. (originally from Akron) Name: David If you were watching LeBron's post announcement interview and saw his reaction to our fans burning his jersey, you saw the pain in his face for a second before regaining composure. People from Ohio have a strong connection to where we are from. He was no different. We love the Browns, Cavs and Indians, even when they're terrible. We love our athletes and treat them like gods. We can't explain how bad it hurts never to win. No other city feels this in EVERY sport, in such a variety of ways. The fumble, the drive, the shot, two World Series losses, losing the Finals, Ohio State losing two national titles, the Indians losing the ALCS to Boston, Cliff Lee and CC leaving us, and now LeBron leaves us. I don't know how to explain it. It's the worst feeling in the world and I have ZERO pro sports teams even with a winning chance in 2011. Just know that people in Cleveland rarely forgive or forget. Half a century of losing hardens people to the point of dumping beer on old women who are dumb enough to wear Steelers gear to Browns games, even to the point of hating our once beloved son LeBron. We can't cheer him, it would hurt to much. We burn his jersey not to hurt him, but for us. Destruction is great company to misery. City: Coral Springs, Fla. Name: Matt Williams The way sports is headed is really worrying me. Everyone accepts this narcissic attitude to these prima-donna athletes without any regard to who it may hurt. And for what? More money? More fame? When does it end? LBJ didn't even pretend to care about leaving Cleveland. He said true fans would understand. Does he even know what a true fan is? Does he know that true fans wake up reading/surfing the Internet about last night's game? Does he know true fans talk to others about what happened last night and what might happen in tonight's game? Does he realize that true fans cut out 4-5 hours a day to follow a team? Does it even bother him when he loses a game? Does he realize that true fans were following Cleveland long before he was born and will follow them long after he's retired? I fear this is just the beginning. Sports as we know it ended tonight. City: Bowling Green Name: Rob Schuster Like dangling an engagement ring in front of your longtime girlfriend, then getting on your knee at the bar and proposing to a girl you met last week. Completely destroyed. City: Anywhere USA Name: Name Withheld This is the day he went from being a lovable superstar trying to reach his potential to enemy number one. I want the Knicks to bring back Charles Oakley and Xavier McDaniel on 10-day contracts to injure him. I want Kobe Bryant (yes, Kobe!) to destroy him so badly every time they play that he loses confidence, Rick Ankiel style. I want him to lose in the first round and then break his leg in the offseason, only to see Wade and Bosh win without him (and have him screw up the chemistry when he comes back). I want him to join the French World Cup soccer team. I want him to go into the stands and attack a child in a wheelchair. I want it to come out that he was point-shaving. I want Cleveland fans to throw urine water balloons at him. I want Castro to annex Miami. I want Florida income taxes to spike to 73%. I want the Bulls to beat the Heat by 50 points every time they play. And I want LeBron's father to come out of the woodwork and say "You've brought shame on me and our family." This has moved me from the NBA fence to a die-hard Premier League fan. Goodbye NBA! City: Sherman Oaks via Cleveland Name: Scott I'm a Cavaliers fan living in Los Angeles. I came to your L.A. book signing last October, was one of the first 10 or so people in line, and had a special request for a "reverse jinx" in my book. I asked you to sign my book with your preemptive condolences for LeBron leaving. I wish I could attach a photo, but anyway you signed it: "I'm sorry LeBron left." and dated it 8/1/2010 with "futuristic" written next to the date. My friends and I all got a kick out of this, and I kid you not, some of them actually believed that your reverse jinx powers would keep LeBron in Cleveland. Obviously, it didn't work out. I'm not angry. Hey, it was worth a shot. City: New York Name: Rob As a Knick fan I'm not even mad, I'm just disappointed. He gave up. He quit. The most gifted basketball player ever said "I can't do it." How disheartening is that for sports fans? He had options, and good options, to be the man on a good team with a legitimate second banana (Amare, Rose) or stay with a 60-win team, but he chose to ride the coattails of Wade. Wow. He gave away his shot at being the greatest ever ... or even entering the discussion. What competitor does that? City: Minneapolis Name: Greg S. You just saw the sports death of a city. I can't see LeBron ever being hated as much as Modell, but his future will be similar. He'll have to move his entire family out of the state and never return. Cleveland fans never, EVER forget. It's been 15 years, and Modell still can't set foot in the state for fear of his life. But the anguish with LeBron is a little different -- he was supposed to be one of us. He was supposed to be the Chosen One. When the chips were down, he didn't show up, and at the first chance he had, he bolted and left us hung out to dry, like so many before him. That's the action I would expect from a politician -- not a monarch. Even a self-proclaimed one. Everyone in Cleveland is now cursing LeBron's name, praying to whomever they all pray to that he gets his just desserts. But we know better. We're from Cleveland. The torture isn't complete until the most hated figures get to rub their championship rings in our face. The most vilified characters of our history all got to do it. Jordan got six. Belichick got three. Elway got two. Even Modell the antichrist got one. LeBron will get his, too. Maybe even more than Jordan. And we get to watch it for the next five years. Alas ... it's the Cleveland way. City: Stockholm, N.J. Name: Ron Battiston It's been amazing to watch LeBron go from arguably the most popular player in the NBA to arguably the most despised over the course of one week. City: Akron, Ohio Name: Paul Please do a catharctic "Ohio Fans Only" mailbag ... I'm sure you're getting dumped on with Cleveland Readers' e-mails after the fans have gotten dumped on by LeBron. These people need to grieve. Since the announcement, there has been NOTHING else on local TV. I am dead serious. The NEWS has not broadcast ANYTHING OTHER THAN REACTION TO LEBRON. No shootings, no robberies, no sex scandals, nothing. It is LITERALLY the ONLY news. An hour and a half of news, and going strong, of just LeBron. There was a 30-second break on one channel when they gave the cheery weather report that it was going to rain tomorrow and that was as a positive. When is a thunderstorm blurb a good thing? What other event could possibly usurp the rest of the world's news from happening? I don't know how to recover. Help us grieve. City: Martinsburg Name: Tyler Who would have thought the biggest winners image-wise from the summer of 2010 would have been Kobe Bryant and Kevin Durant? City: Sydney, Australia Name: Gorgz I know what's coming. The inevitable mailbag where you provide a forum for disgruntled Cavs fans to vent their emotions alongside their lit LeBron jerseys and effigies (a thrice of its own if you will, just not Miami's). Go ahead. That's your role as the Internet equivalent to Michael Moore films or Springsteen songs about working class people in working class towns. Know this though. The argument that LeBron shouldn't have gone to Miami because Wade is too good a player (one of the 5 superstars currently in the league, in your words) might be the most ridiculous you've ever come up with (I'm a fan, but you can be a little out there). So if Magic and Jordan went through the same draft class, were great friends, and had the opportunity to play together, they say no, because they're concerned how their legacy will be remembered in William J. Simmons world? Please. Bring on the black jerseys, the evil empire comparisons, South Beach models, bandwagonism, dynasty and everything else. Bring on the Heateration, haters! City: Mentor, Ohio Name: Kevin You have to make Cleveland the number one most tortured sports city of all time. After tonight it is indisputable. I am literally shaking as I type this. My city has been through so much, WHEN WILL IT END!?!?! City: San Jose, Calif. Name: Dave So right after "The Decision," my buddy who's a trainer for the Browns set his Facebook status as "I am a trainer for the best sports team in Cleveland!" The fact that his statement is 100% true is one of the most depressing sports situations I can think of. City: Boaton Name: Rene Was that the ultimate Gen Y move? Pick hanging with your friends as a career instead of kicking their butts and laughing with them in the offseason ala Jordan and Sir Charles? Us Gen Xers will never understand. City: Chicago Name: Ben I know I'm a little late with this but I just wanted you to know that when he announced his one-hour special the pendulum here in Chicago swung firmly from "we want LeBron" to "I want that diva to go somewhere else so we can beat him." Maybe it didn't swing all the way in that direction, but it was about 85% there. Two of my co-workers took advantage of his new Twitter account to send him a message that went something like "Chicago doesn't want someone who's more invested in their image than winning. Jordan would never pull this crap." I've never been more proud of this city. City: Austin, Texas Name: Ted What kind of odds would I have gotten a few months ago that Gilbert Arenas would no longer be the craziest Gilbert in the NBA before the next season began? I could have made a killing! City: Hibbing, Minn. Name: JD Imagine you're an average dude in high school. Somehow, you begin dating the hottest girl in school. It goes good not great, but hey, she's beautiful and you aren't really going to complain. Senior year, she breaks up with you and begins dating the new quarterback that just transferred into the school. Except she did this on stage at the homecoming coronation, embarrassing you in front of the whole school. This is what LeBron did to the city of Cleveland. City: Portland Name: Boris At 25 if you had the opportunity to spend the next 5 years with two of your best friends living in South Beach winning NBA championships would you pass that up? I think we overestimate how much this guy thinks about his "legacy." This is someone who calls his mom on the morning of The Decision, and right after The Decision, for moral support. He is a 25-year-old kid, not a 25-year-old man. This is EASILY the FUNNEST scenario. What other choice could there have been? City: Fair Lawn, N.J. Name: Jessica You know how happy Carrie looked at the prom? And when the pig's blood was dumped on her you couldn't help but empathize? And when she went on her rampage you were actually kinda rooting for her? That's how I feel about the city of Cleveland right now. City: Boynton Beach, Fla. (by way of Buffalo, N.Y.) Name: Max While my heart hurts for Cleveland right now, heel turns in the WWE are awesome. I'll never forget that moment when Triple H revealed he had married Stephanie McMahon the night before her wedding right as she was supposed to tie the knot with Test (or when Stephanie subsequently revealed to the now-deceased Test that the whole thing was a ruse all along). It makes for great theater. And LeBron and Bosh and Wade together in Miami makes for great theater too. Hopefully, LeBron will embrace that role and ascend to Shawn Michaels, Triple H and The Rock-like levels, cementing his greatness once and for all just like they did. 'Cause anything otherwise and LeBron James is a complete sellout. City: Glandorf, Ohio Name: Jay Karhoff This is a drunk e-mail but I've never felt this betrayed. The deepest circle of hell is reserved for those who betray and LeBron earned his spot. City: Ravenna, Ohio Name: Redov You probably know that Art Modell doesn't exactly have good standing in Cleveland. Or Akron. Or Canton. Or ... well, pretty much anywhere in Northeast Ohio. I never, EVER thought that anyone would replace him at the top of Northeast Ohio's blacklist. City: Toronto Name: Josh Is this the biggest turn in sports history? It makes Tiger's fall from grace look like a DUI. LeBron was loved and now he is a coward, disloyal, self-absorbed and completely insincere. It reminds of me of something William Goldman said after Nicholson made a drunken ass of himself at the Golden Globes a number of years back. He said that was what movie stars were really like. LeBron has shown in public what we all know: athletes, our "heroes", are often spoiled adolescents who deserve our pity, not our admiration. It is a sad day for all sports fans. And like most of America, I'm cheering for LeBron to never win a single title. I hope he enjoys that as his legacy. City: Cleveland Name: Rick C John Wooden said "It takes talent to get to the top, but it takes character to stay there." It is now apparent that LeBron does not have the requisite character. City: San Luis Obispo, Calif. Name: Brett Thanks LeBron. My favorite player (Kobe) now looks like a class act. You also managed an impressive precedent tonight, which was screwing up your carefully crafted public image without a woman being involved. Oh, and you forgot to wear a pair of sunglasses on your head as you informed us all that "I will be taking my talents to South Beach and the Miami Heat." City: Cleveland Name: Kyle "The Decision" confirmed what I have feared for two months now: that LeBron knew he was going to be leaving after this season, so he had to start justifying it early. I recognized his strategy, because I've done the exact same thing prior to breaking up with a girlfriend. Breakups suck, so why not try to make it a little less painful? Stop doing the little things, start making up excuses for not spending time with her, stop communicating as much ... essentially, do things that she will resent so that by the time you break up with her, she's mad at you and almost welcomes the breakup because of all the crap that you just put her through. LeBron did the same thing -- stop trying in the playoffs, refuse to be a part of planning for the future, stop talking with the organization other than the pre-ordained free-agency meeting, and then top it off with a ridiculous TV "special" to drive home the point that he's even more narcissistic than Lex Luger. Unfortunately, LeBron had never tried that strategy before, so he was unaware that it's a terrible idea. The people you break up with just totally lose respect for you and despise you even more for contriving such a stupid situation. The breakup is going to suck regardless -- there's really nothing that can be done to stop it, so don't make it worse by playing mind games leading up to it. Obviously I've learned that lesson, but I don't think LBJ has, mainly because all of his "advisers" are just yes-men because everyone on the planet is afraid to disagree with "The King." City: Maynard Name: Marcus I waited 27 minutes to hear LeBron say that he was gonna be Dwyane Wade's lackey? What a joke. City: Cleveland Name: Chunky A Athletes, or most of them, treat sports like a business. Everyone says that, but it's times like this when it actually becomes clear. For fans, it's a romantic relationship. You've sort of noted this many times, but I never quite felt it until now. Fans of teams are not third parties to their teams. Or maybe I should say we don't feel like third parties. Not sure athletes realize that for most of us (especially the older folks paying the bills), the individual athlete is not that important. That's why the LeBracle was so unseemly. It was premised on the assumption that fans (not just Cavs fans but Knicks fans, Heat fans, etc.) had romantic relationships with their teams while personifying the fact that the athletes don't return the favor. LeBron made the decision like the executive leaving Ford for GM, yet the LeBracle played on the fact that people would be on pins and needles because they had more emotionally invested. No one spends the whole day reading chats and texting when a CEO leaves Ford for GM. I can't imagine that experienced PR professionals would have condoned LeBron's strategy here. Not all PR is good PR. City: Long Beach Name: Tom Big freakin deal, Cleveland. Signed, Seattle. City: Boston Name: Jay Karmelek So I'm watching LeBron treat Cleveland like my daughter treats her diaper, and I hear Jackson and Van Gundy talking about how horrible the Cleveland fans are for burning his jersey and how "this is how you handle yourself" as though they're watching something I'm not. I like both of their analysis usually, but they've never spent a month's salary on games, never put in 80 hours waiting tables, taking out trash or even been stuck in an office with the escape of sports as a way to get through it. So they wouldn't understand that many fans don't care about "witnessing" LeBron whatever the heck that is, as if Cleveland fans should be grateful they got to see him dunk a bunch of times and choke in the playoffs. City: Detroit Name: Justin Johnson The generational shift in the NBA: Jordan = John McClane Kobe = Maximus LBJ = Vincent Chase City: Cleveland Name: Jared I never thought I'd reach the day where I could no longer hate Kobe, Joakim Noah, Stan Van Gundy and Dwight Howard, or your beloved Celtics for hope that they dish out to LeBron the punishment he deserves for this charade. City: New Canaan, Conn. Name: Peter Kirschenbaum I am a lifetime Heat fan. Last night: Mixed emotions. This free agency has been like winning two different lotteries. When Wade and Bosh chose the Heat, it felt like winning a $5 million lotto jackpot. Having LeBron pick the Heat feels like winning the powerball megamillion. Now nobody likes you and all of the sudden you have all these bandwagon fake friends wanting to hang out since you're finally worth something. You can't enjoy your money anymore because everyone wants a piece. Am I happy about winning the powerball? Yes, of course. Is it wrong though, that I feel like I might've been better off just winning the $5 million jackpot? City: Albany, N.Y. Name: Patrick I have been following the LeBrachelor from Spain where every afternoon they do to six bulls what LeBron just did to Cleveland. City: Richfield, Minn. Name: Aaron If I'm Cavs owner Dan Gilbert I immediately look at the schedule for when the Heat come to town the first time. I then arrange a ceremony where they retire jersey #23. Even have LeBron help raise it into the rafters. Do it up right and honor the accomplishments. I'd have an emotional speech put together honoring all the ups and downs that they've seen; bring up all the heartbreaks and near misses in the playoffs and regular season. The name on the back of the jersey? Jordan. City: Kingston (Canada not Jamaica) Name: Kris Thiele Now that LeBron has secured his place on the Mount Rushmore of Benedict Arnolds of Sports -- who else do you put up there? My picks: NBA -- LeBron James. MLB -- Roger Clemens. NHL -- Patrick Roy. NFL -- Brett Favre. City: Bmore Name: Ethan Right now, I'm just finishing Chapter Two of your Book of Basketball, and I find it odd that we are having this free-agency spectacle happen right as you reflected on the age-old debate of Chamberlain/Russell. Since the most captivating basketball argument nowadays is LeBron/Kobe, don't you get the sense LeBron will be remembered as Chamberlain and Kobe as ... *gulp* ... Russell? City: Akron, Ohio Name: Joel My perspective is simple: there is no way Michael Jordan ever makes this choice. None. It's sad for Cleveland, that is for sure. But, honestly, I think it's sadder for basketball because we're missing the chance to see a basketball specimen come into his own and reach that rarified level of transcendent player. Maybe the Heat play beautiful basketball, but I think no matter what this will be remembered for three things: LeBron's ego, the realization that he is scared to be great, and that we all know, no matter what, Michael Jordan never would have chosen this path. LeBron will never touch Jordan's shadow at this point, let alone surpass him. And I think that lack of chase is a sad day for basketball. City: Cleveland Name: Jeff I've figured out the moral of the story: Stay in school. Wade: 3 years at Marquette Bosh: 1 year at Georgia Tech The kid from Akron: no college The most educated guy convinced his dumber friends to come play on his team for less money. City: Tulsa, Okla. Name: Ryan Flippo LeBron's decision to sign with Miami absolutely constitutes the biggest heel turn I've ever seen in real life. It's like LeBron and Cleveland are working the ring together in a gigantic Tag Team Royal Rumble, and it looks like they've got a real chance to come away with the Belt, until all of a sudden Jim Ross screams, "Good God, that's Pat Riley's music!" City: St. Cloud, Wis. Name: Jake Bill, in your LeBronocalypse column, you said the message LeBron was sending by signing with the Heat was "Help!" Is it possible that this was more about LeBron deciding that what he wanted most was to have fun? Think about it, he never went to college and has been looked upon as a franchise savior since before he was drafted, now he can live in one of most fun cities in America and play ball with two of his best buddies in the league, and he doesn't have to carry the franchise every night. I'm not saying he went about announcing his decision the right way, I'm just saying, if it were me, I'd jump at the chance to get paid to play with two of my best buds in a town where we can have tons of other fun on our days off. City: Perth, Australia Name: Glenn Jamieson Can you please annoint "Taking my talents to South Beach" as the new euphemism for masturbation? City: Las Vegas Name: Duke The stone-cold assassins that I have witnessed in my life: Tiger, Jordan, Kobe, Federer, Brady. All had what appear to be strong father-figures in their childhoods. LBJ and his mom agreed that Miami "would make him happy." Need I say more? City: Dallas Name: Craig I know that you have coined the so-called "Tyson Zone", but I think LeBron entered the "Tiger Zone" last night. LeBron was a global athletic icon who was well-respected and seemed like a genuinely nice guy. Then he revealed during a 60-minute nationally televised event that he was selfish and more narcissistic than Rickey Henderson. The NBA is a business and I couldn't care less that he's leaving Cleveland. I wouldn't stay there in his shoes. However, the way LeBron conducted himself was shameful. The Tiger Zone: A global athletic icon who appears to be a genuinely nice guy is revealed to be a total jerk following a single event. City: Minneapolis, Minn. Name: Joe Last night may have been the best PR moment for Kobe in his entire career. How many people are, just like me, going to be rooting for Kobe to tear LeBron apart on the court after that disgusting, narcissistic spectacle last night? LeBron really pulled off something to 'AMAZE' me last night ... he made Kobe 10 times more likable at 10 p.m. last night than 3 weeks ago. City: Boston Name: Jacinta When LeBron arrives in Miami, will it be Dexter Morgan's responsibility to "put him down" since he murdered all of Cleveland? City: Ottawa, Ontario Name: Dave Smyth The first comparisons people were making last night were that LeBron will now be Magic to Wade's Kareem, or more accurately Pippen to Wade's Jordan. Sorry, but the real comparison here is A-Rod. A-Rod is also the most physically gifted and talented guy in his sport. A-Rod also has the biggest ego in his sport. A-Rod also has no heart and no guts and typically gags in the playoffs. A-Rod blew off a smaller market team (Seattle) that adored him to play in Texas. A-Rod decided to go the Yankees to win rings knowing that they would always be Jeter's team. A-Rod won a World Series last year but nobody considers him a champion the same way they look at Jeter because he didn't help build the Yankees. How is any one of those things any different in any way shape or form than LeBron? The Heat will always be D-Wade's team regardless of how many titles LeBron wins there. Congratulations on your decision LeBron -- you have successfully downgraded your career arc to A-Rod. Unbelievable. City: Southampton, Pa. Name: Steve L On ESPN last night, they were wondering what the nickname for the new trio of free agents in Miami should be. I vote for ... 1. The Sisterhood of the Traveling That's Never Called 2. The Fly Girls 3. The Unholy Trinity 4. Florida's Second-Best NBA Team and my personal favorite ... 5. The Nazgul The Nazgul were the characters in "Lord of the Rings" that were former kings who turned into demons that were constantly chasing the ring. It completely consumed them and robbed them of their humanity. I think this sums up the situation in Miami. City: Ann Arbor, Mich. Name: Ethan A picture tells a thousand words. City: Akron, Ohio Name: Kevin Heffernan Please elevate Cleveland to #1 on your Levels of Losing list. I want to be #1 in SOMETHING. We had a LeBronfire last night ... I burned everything I own with his name on it. My wife could sleep with my father and I wouldn't feel this betrayed. Born here. Raised here. Played here. Betrayed here. Bill Simmons is a columnist for ESPN.com and the author of the recent New York Times best-seller "The Book of Basketball." For every Simmons column and podcast, check out Sports Guy's World. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sportsguy33. |
For Immediate Release, June 7, 2017 Contact: Brett Hartl, Center for Biological Diversity, (202) 817-8121, bhartl@biologicaldiversity.org Denni Cawley, Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, (385) 707-3677, dcawleyuphe@gmail.com Public Records Sought on EPA Delays in Reducing Dangerous Smog Pollution Pruitt Unilaterally Postponed Requirements for States to Cut Harmful Ozone WASHINGTON— Public-interest groups filed a Freedom of Information Act request today seeking public records illuminating Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt's decision to unlawfully delay, by a year, a Clean Air Act requirement for states to reduce dangerous ozone pollution. The records request was made by the Center for Biological Diversity and Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment. Each year ground-level ozone pollution causes more than 1,000 premature deaths, millions of asthma attacks and billions of dollars in lost productivity. Despite these well-documented harms from ozone pollution, Pruitt announced this week that the EPA will delay until October 2018 the deadline for states to provide evidence they are complying with the healthier ozone level. The delay, which Pruitt asserts is needed to gather additional information, ignores the fact that all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and six tribal areas have already submitted all the information the EPA needs to make the determinations. “Americans have a right to know why the EPA is obstructing these urgent, lifesaving measures recommended by the agency's own scientists,” said Brett Hartl, the Center's government affairs director. “Once all the facts are laid bare, we're likely to discover a trove of details about Pruitt's push to help polluters. And I bet we'll find virtually no mention of helping the millions of Americans struggling with life-threatening asthma attacks.” “Delaying compliance means another year where our families will face higher rates of disease and more premature deaths,” said Dr. Brian Moench, a member of the Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment board. “This is another example of the new EPA acting to protect polluting fossil fuel industries instead of public health.” Before Pruitt's decision, states were required to submit information to the EPA this year on whether they were meeting the new 70 parts per billion ozone standards. Under the Clean Air Act, after providing this information, states must develop plans to reduce pollution and meet the new standards. Now states will have an additional year — with a new October 2018 deadline — prior to even beginning to take action to address ozone pollution. “This repulsive decision by Pruitt is nothing more than a gift to polluting industries so his cronies can keep trying to undermine this critical safeguard,” said Hartl. “Pruitt's only been at the EPA for a few months, but he's already taken virtually every opportunity to sacrifice human health and the environment simply to inflate corporate profits.” An EPA study found that Clean Air Act programs to reduce ozone pollution prevented more than 4,300 deaths and 3.2 million lost school days in 2010 alone. The Clean Air Act has also helped to keep the U.S. economy healthy by creating jobs, with more than 1.7 million Americans employed in the environmental technology industry helping to keep our air clean. The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.3 million members and supporters dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places. |
The recruiting dead period is over, which means Jim Harbaugh's roving minstrel show is back. Harbaugh made headlines earlier this week when 2016's top-ranked kicker, Quinn Nordin, revealed Harbaugh's desire to come over, watch a movie, and sleep on a 6'3" piece of carpet in Nordin's room. Harbaugh is at Detroit Jesuit today. Juniors are not allowed to take pictures with Harbaugh, but Michigan's coach found a creative way around that: NCAA rules states that juniors can't take photos with college coaches. So we got in the back ground @CoachJim4UM pic.twitter.com/nkgHGHqxJO — Nacho Libre (@jackrobruce) January 14, 2016 But Harbaugh didn't stop there. He continued his quest to sleep with talented #teens: Jim Harbaugh will also be spending the night at 2016 #Michigan commit Houston (TX) DT Jordan Elliott's house. pic.twitter.com/jcgZf90ZGe — Shane R. Kinnee (@SRKinnee) January 13, 2016 Somebody tell Jordan to blink twice if he's under duress. |
Time. It is one of the universal laws governing our existence on this planet. The incredible phenomenon that gives everything in our lives a sense of stability. It gives life to progress. We’re always subject to it, we’re constantly talking about it, and without it, we’d be lost. Time can either be your greatest enemy or your most trustworthy companion. It all boils down to the way we approach it, and whether we’re willing to treat it with the love and respect it deserves to allow a wonderful relationship with it to grow. Why Is Time Management Important? In trying to understand the concept of “the arrow of time,” theoretical physicistSean Carroll explains, “We remember the past but we don’t remember the future. There are irreversible processes. There are things that happenlike you turn an egg into an omelet, but you can’t turn an omelet into an egg.” Carroll’s explanation is simple, yet so illustrative of precisely how time works. We’re very obviously moving forward in some sense. There is a process of aging. All things degenerate or evolve over time. A New Perspective On Time “For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again.” ― Eric Roth, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Screenplay Does progress in time actually exist? By definition, without time, progress wouldn’t exist. Progress is a movement forward in time, with reference to quality. With respect to the outside world, progress in time is an obvious occurrence. The most simple example is technological advancement. However, with regards to each of us as individuals, I’m not sure that progress in time is obvious as we think. The past and future both seem to exist in our minds, but whether we’re making progress – advancing as individuals, is a unique question we all need to face if we want to learn to utilize time effectively. The past and future can be said to come to one point, which is the present moment. Here’s how: Everything we are in this moment is a compilation of the past. Our past circumstances, actions, and decisions. The circumstances we’ve been handed and the way we’ve responded to those circumstances all comes together into who we are, right now. By the same token, what will happen to us in the future is already set in stone, unless we make decisions that don’t conform to who we are right now. Based on who we are in this moment, whenever we face new events or circumstances, we will respond according to how we’ve habitually been programmed to respond, which is a direct result of the past. This begs the question, how can I change my relationship to time, and how can I utilize it more effectively? The Hidden Treasures of Time Management “Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its brevity.” ― Jean de La Bruyère, Les Caractères Embedded in the notion of time management are two significant ideas. Do I take advantage of the opportunity to grow and alter my decisions on a moment to moment basis to conform to the person I want to be? Do I make the necessary time to do both what I am obligated to do, and what I want to do in and with my life? Time Management refers to the idea of dividing time in an organized way and designating certain periods of it for specific activities. Without effectively splitting up our time towards the different things we need to and want to do, we feel the constant pressure of time like a 200-pound boulder on our minds. We get stressed about when we should do what’s necessary to be done and whether we’ll have the time to do what we want. The effect is that we get confused and act without thinking logically about how we can make everything fit together in a coherent and stress-free way. We end up constantly wishing we had more time. Just like the incredibly truthful quote above explains, if we don’t organize our time effectively, we’ll always be chasing more of it. The hidden treasures of time management are the ability to create the changes you want to see in yourselfand to live comfortably without questioning whether or not you’re making time to live the life you want to have. How To Effectively Manage Your Time Changing your relationship to time and learning to manage it effectively is about evaluating how you currently treat your timeand getting logical about how you can split it to actually do what you plan. The biggest problem with time management isn’t the act of sitting and thinking about how to split time, but rather the fact that wedon’t follow through on how we decide to divide it – we procrastinatewhenever we “don’t feel” like doing what we planned. That’s exactly how the two hidden treasures of time come together. We have to plan logically and effectively, along with make moment to moment, day to day decisions about following through on how we plan. Step One: Divide your time in a way you can trust yourself to act We can plan to get up at 5:00 a.m. and workout all we want, but unless we actually get up and go to the gym, we’re abusing our time. In order to do time management the right way, we really have to designate times for actions in a way that we can trust ourselves to act. If you know you won’t be willing to do a designated action at the time you specify for it, you’re WASTING your time. If you plan to read, meditate, work, exercise, write, or do any other habit you continuously tell yourself you want to do without ever getting to it, designating a new time for it might be the secret to finally getting it done. Step Two: Keeping your promises to time One of the hidden treasures of time I explained was that this moment holds the only possibility of change. If we learn to change our relationship to the moments in which we make decisions about how to act and what to do, we can make our every dream come true. To USE time in the way we PLAN for it, we have to learn and appreciate that if we don’t stick to our plan now, the chances of us sticking to what we decide later diminishes drastically. On the other hand, if we do begin to follow through on our plans in those moments we don’t feel like it or think there’s something more pressing, time will reward us with the beauty of its structure. Stop breaking your promises to time and time will give you the life you want. |
The five biggest lies about entitlement programs Social Security and Medicare are big issues, and not everyone is telling the truth about them. As with all great lies, there's a nugget of truth buried inside this one. Evidence exists that the lower paychecks most American consumers started seeing at the beginning of the year took a bite out of consumer spending. A slew of low-end retailers and merchants, including Wal-Mart, contend that the Jan. 1 change in the Social Security payroll tax, which lowered the average household income by about $80 a month, came out of their hides. Never mind that the very word "entitlement" is a lie. Social Security and Medicare got that name because workers became "entitled" to those benefits by paying into the system. In recent years, however, the term has become distorted to signify benefits people are entitled to without earning them. Most of those you see in the papers or online tend toward the inconsequential (The Six Best "Fast & Furious" Movies). Blaming the payroll tax, however, ignores the whole story. First, on Jan. 1 the tax wasn't hiked; it was restored to its 2010 level, after a two-year "holiday" that reduced the withholding to 4.2% of employees wages (up to wages of $101,800 in 2011 and $110,100 last year) from the 6.2% level in effect since 1990. The idea was to deliver stimulus dollars to middle- and working-class families. But the holiday was always a wretched idea, in part because of what everyone knew would happen when the old rate reappeared —people treated it as a pay cut. The worse flaw was that it was a lousy way to deliver targeted working-class relief. The change replaced the Obama administration's previous Making Work Pay tax credit, which delivered up to $800 to families earning $12,900 to $150,000. The payroll tax break, by contrast, went only to those who pay into Social Security. So it left out 5.7 million state and local workers (mostly teachers). On the plus side, it fattened the paychecks even of the nation's top earners by a much-needed $2,100 or so. Lie No. 2: "Entitlement" benefits for millionaires and billionaires are a costly problem. This is a favorite of people like hedge fund billionaire Peter G. Peterson, a sworn enemy of Social Security and Medicare. The theme is: Look how wasteful Social Security is — why it even goes to people like me! The goal is to "means test" these benefits so they go only to people who "need them," as Peterson says. The lie here is the assertion that a significant portion of benefits goes to multimillionaires. In fact, their share of benefits is minuscule. That's because there aren't very many of them, and they don't get more than the maximum old-age benefit, which was $30,156 last year. According to the IRS, only 47,732 households reported income of more than $1 million, including Social Security benefits, in 2010. Their total take was about $1 billion, after paying income tax on their Social Security checks. They account for about 14 hundredths of one percent of all Social Security outlays. By contrast, more than 75% of benefits go to recipients with $20,000 or less in non-Social Security income and more than 90% to people with incomes below $50,000, as economists Dean Baker and Hye Jin Rho of the Center for Economic and Policy Research showed in March 2011. To reduce program costs by even a couple of percentage points, you have to start cutting benefits for people earning as little as $40,000 in non-Social Security income. So when Pete Peterson starts bemoaning how his Social Security check is cutting into his granddaughter's future, it's the working class that should bolt the door. |
Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, is a growing problem worldwide. There are 350,000 people with dementia in Australia and this is set to rise to 900,000 by 2050. There is no cure for Alzheimer’s disease. So if “coffee really can help to prevent dementia”, as a headline by the Daily Mail last week suggested, that would be amazing. This is why the study on which the headline was based received so much interest. It was reported on by publications such as the the Independent and websites dedicated to anti-ageing research. According to the Daily Mail, the study showed: Women over the age of 65 who had a normal caffeine intake were 36% less likely to develop a cognitive impairment. Unfortunately there are many reasons not to get excited. The study was observational: a look back through data collected over many years. This means many reasons that weren’t explored may account for the findings that women who drank coffee decreased their risk of dementia. Factors not examined included diet, exercise, general health and use of other medications. Basically, researchers found drinking coffee was associated with lower dementia risk; not that coffee caused the lower risk. Coffee may have nothing to do with it. And there are many other reasons to be sceptical. The Conversation , CC BY-ND Where did researchers get their information? Ira Driscoll and colleagues from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee have published an interesting analysis in the reputable Journals of Gerontology, Medical Sciences. The information they used to come to their conclusions comes from women aged 65 to 80 who participated in the Women’s Health Initiative Memory Study (WHIMS) and were followed for up to ten years. The WHIMS was not a planned study originally. It was a sub-study of a large randomised-controlled trial, called the Women’s Health Initiative, examining the effects of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) on postmenopausal women aged over 65. Although the trial was stopped early, the women continued to be followed up until 2010. The Women’s Health Initiative Memory Study was specifically examining the effects of HRT on memory and dementia. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee researchers used this sample to study whether there was a connection between caffeine consumption and new cases of dementia. The women were all free of dementia when they joined the study between 1995 and 1999. Their cognition – memory and other thinking abilities – was assessed annually in person, until 2007, and then by telephone. For women who showed evidence of cognitive decline over subsequent years, more information was obtained from someone who knew the woman well. A panel of specialist physicians who reviewed all the information agreed on whether women had developed probable dementia. Caffeine intake, which included tea, cola and other sources of caffeine, was based on questionnaires the women completed. To isolate the effect of caffeine, the analyses accounted for other reasons that might affect rates of dementia. These were age, education, use of HRT, weight and height, sleep, blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, smoking, alcohol use and how well the women performed cognitively at their first visit. What were the results? Of the 6,467 women in WHIMS, 209 developed dementia and 388 developed some cognitive impairment. Greater levels of caffeine intake were associated with a lower incidence of dementia or cognitive impairment. Researchers divided the women into two halves – the first half contained those who consumed higher amounts of and the second, lower. The average amount of caffeine intake in the lower group was 64 mg per day (roughly under one standard cup of coffee); while in the higher group, it was 261 mg (roughly over three cups). from shutterstock.com The women in the upper group had 26% (not 36% as reported by the Daily Mail) less chance of developing dementia than those in the lower. This is a statistically significant difference. But when the women’s level of cognition at recruitment was taken into account, the risk reduction was only 20%, which was no longer statistically significant. The researchers concede several reasons for caution. For a start, this study only looked at older women. They mention another study from France that found coffee had a protective effect on women but not men. And a third study found European men who drank three cups of coffee per day had the lowest rate of cognitive decline over ten years. Why else should we be sceptical? The women in this study weren’t representative of women generally. They were better educated than average and just the fact they had survived to 65 to 80 years at the time they entered the study, and then lived even longer to allow follow-up, means they may have been a healthier group. This is called the survivor bias, which can lead to false conclusions. Nor was there a clear dose-response outlined with the number of cups of caffeinated coffee per day. This means the actual amount of caffeine was not measured and blood levels were not checked. Plus, people make their coffee at different strengths, and because the basis for the analysis is what the women reported, their ideas around caffeine intake measurements could be unreliable. Further, the diagnoses of dementia were not based on a clinical assessment. Telephone assessments are more prone to error and this introduces some noise. Also, if the women drank coffee just before their assessments, the alerting effect may have helped them score better. Another possible explanation for the findings is that women may have cut back on their coffee just before they enrolled in the study for reasons linked to incipient dementia, also known as mild cognitive impairment. For example, incipient Lewy body dementia can lead to sleep disturbances as its first symptom even before the dementia becomes apparent; so people with symptoms might stop coffee to help sleep better. What else should we take into account? Observational studies such as this are not the gold standard. To really assess coffee’s effect on cognitive decline, we would need a planned randomised controlled trial where women are allocated to caffeine or decaffeinated intake and followed for some years. The women and raters would need to be blind as to which group they would be in. Clearly this would be very difficult if not impossible, especially in our café society. What should readers do? Caffeine is perhaps the most widely used addictive substance in the world and appears safe. People have different reactions to caffeine that may vary with age and health. Some people become more anxious, others find it can improve their performance. I find that as I have grown older, my sleep is more sensitive to caffeine. There are things you can do that may reduce your risk of dementia, such as eating healthy food, preferably based on the Mediterranean diet of lots of vegetables and fruit and very little saturated fat, and staying physically fit and mentally active. Don’t get too hung up on this kind of research. Let’s see more evidence over time. – Henry Brodaty Peer review This is an interesting study but I agree there are major issues with its methods and conclusions. It is unclear exactly how caffeine intake was assessed. The paper states caffeine intake was self-reported using a questionnaire asking about coffee, tea, and cola beverages, but it did not specify whether drinks contained caffeine or not. Hence researchers assumed it was all caffeinated. It is also disappointing the women were only split into two groups: those who drank more coffee, and those who drank less than average. There is a reasonable chance of misclassification bias, meaning some people in the lower caffeine intake group should really be in the upper group, due to limitations in the assessment of caffeine intake. You normally address this by splitting participants into more than two groups, and often four or five. It is very interesting that those in the highest caffeine intake group were also less likely to have diabetes at baseline. While this fits with a major review of the relationship between risk of type 2 diabetes and coffee consumption, it’s also possible there is some remaining confounding bias due to better overall health of those with higher caffeine intakes that is not accounted for. I agree that further longitudinal analyses would be of value, especially if they repeated the measure of coffee and other caffeinated beverages, particularly decaffeinated coffee, over a number of time points. It would be even more interesting to look at results where people changed their intakes over time. – Clare Collins |
Rick Perry, the frontrunner to become the Republican candidate in next year's presidential election, has just hours left to prevent a man being put to death in Texas in a case in which the jury was told the prisoner was a danger to the public – and should therefore be executed – because he was black. Duane Buck is one of four men scheduled to die by lethal injection in Texas, where Perry is governor, over the next eight days – an exceptional rate even in this execution-happy state. At Buck's sentencing hearing, the jury that set his punishment was informed by a psychologist that black people had a higher rate of violent behaviour, a statement used by the prosecution as its key argument against giving him an alternative penalty of life imprisonment. On Tuesday night, another hotly contested case is scheduled to reach its climax with the execution of Steven Woods, who was sentenced to death for a double murder, even though an alleged accomplice later confessed to having pulled the trigger. How Perry reacts to the demands for commutation and clemency in these two highly controversial cases will give an indication of how he proposes to deal with the death penalty issue, which has welled up in the presidential race for the first time. Perry, as governor of Texas, has presided over more executions than any other US official in modern times. Photograph: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Perry was questioned about his enthusiasm for the death penalty at a televised Republican debate last week. When the TV moderator put it to him that his state had executed 234 prisoners since he became governor in 2000, the Republican studio audience cheered. Perry said he had never lost any sleep worrying that some of those individuals might have been innocent. "I've never struggled with that at all," he said. When asked how he felt about the audience applauding so many deaths, he replied: "I think Americans understand justice." Lawyers for both Buck and Woods are engaged in frenzied last-minute lobbying to Perry and to the courts to try to put off the executions. If their efforts fail, Woods's execution on Tuesday night will be followed by Buck's on Wednesday night. Responsibility for the execution going ahead, despite the controversy over the racially-tinged testimony, is now falling squarely on the shoulders of Perry. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles has cleared away one of the last impediments to the ultimate penalty going ahead by refusing to recommend that Buck should be granted clemency. That leaves Perry, who has power to issue a 30-day reprieve but who has very rarely done so. Buck, 48, shot and killed Debra Gardner, his former girlfriend, and a friend of hers, Kenneth Butler, in a drunken explosion of jealousy in July 1995. His guilt is not in dispute, but the testimony presented to the jury at his sentencing is. At the hearing, a psychologist, Dr Walter Quijano, was called by the defence and testified that he did not believe Buck would be a future danger as the murders had been a one-off crime of passion. But under cross-examination, the prosecution pressed him about Buck's ethnicity as an African-American. "You have determined that the … race factor, black, increases the future dangerousness for various complicated reasons. Is that correct?" the prosecution asked. "Yes," replied Quijano. The prosecution later exhorted the jury to make their decision on the basis of Quijano's testimony. The jury found that Buck did pose a future danger of violence, and put him on death row. In 2000, the then attorney general in Texas, John Cornyn, admitted that the racial testimony of Quijano had wrongfully been allowed to prejudice sentencing in seven separate cases. Six of those cases were reheard as a result, but, in a legal oversight, Buck's never was. Buck's lawyer, Katherine Black, is petitioning Perry to commute his execution to allow resentencing. "This case violates the US constitution and undermines our moral values. A person has a right to be sentenced based not on the colour of their skin," the petition reads. Further pressure has been brought to bear on Perry by a senior Texas lawyer who acted as prosecutor in Buck's original trial. Linda Geffin has written to Perry calling on him to delay the execution. "It is inappropriate to allow race to be considered as a factor in our criminal justice system," she wrote. Steven Woods, 31, who will die barring a last-minute stay of execution, was one of two men accused of murdering Ronald Whitehead and Bethena Brosz in a drugs turf war in May 2001. Woods was brought to trial in August the following year. The prosecution alleged that he had planned and carried out the shootings, and he was convicted and sentenced to death. Three months later, his alleged accomplice, Marcus Rhodes, who had cut a deal with prosecutors, was given a life sentence, despite having confessed that he had personally carried out the shootings. Rhodes was given life imprisonment, while Woods remained on death row. Amnesty International has issued an urgent action alert, accusing Texas of treating Woods unfairly in a case "where one defendant receives a death sentence and another who pled guilty to personally shooting the two victims receives a life sentence". Mary O'Grady, a specialist in death row based in Austin, said that under the so-called "law of parties" in Texas, death penalties can be inflicted even on those who did not pull the trigger. Being present at a murder, knowing that an accomplice intended to kill, is sufficient. "A lot of people with no blood on their own hands get executed in Texas," O'Grady said. The prospects of Perry granting clemency for Woods are not great. The governor has only once in 11 years shown clemency to a death row inmate unless forced to do so by the courts. "When it comes to death row, Perry is completely unfeeling and unemotional," said Ray Hill, who runs the Execution Watch website and radio show in Texas. "It never strikes him that he should value the lives of those who are accused, even wrongfully." Next week two further executions are scheduled, of Cleve Foster on Tuesday and Lawrence Brewer on Wednesday. |
Nigeria beat Algeria 2-1 in Dakar to win the Under 23 Africa Cup of Nations as South Africa took the remaining Olympic spot with a 3-1 penalties win over hosts Senegal in the third place play-off match. Goalkeeper Jody February proved to be South Africa's hero with three saves during the shootout and a penalty save in the regulation 90 minutes which had ended 0-0. Phakamani Mahlambi hit the winning spot-kick to send South Africa's men to the Rio Games. It is the first time that both the South Africa men's and women's football teams have qualified for an Olympics. In a rare instance of a third-place play-off match carrying more importance than the final itself, it was the hosts Senegal who had the best chance in the game to seal victory when they were awarded a penalty in the 73rd minute. Moussa Wague's effort was saved by the outstanding February who then played a starring role in the ensuing shootout, saving three spot-kicks . South Africa's men join the newly crowned Under 23 Africa Cup of Nations champions Nigeria and runners-up Algeria, at Rio 2016. Nigeria took the lead in the final against Algeria thanks to a 14th minute penalty from captain Peter Etebo. Just 16 minutes later, Algeria were level when Oduduwa Segun Tope scored an own-goal. In a frenetic first half, Nigeria took what proved to be a decisive lead, as Etebo again struck - this time in open play - to put Nigeria 2-1 up. Algeria missed a key opportunity to draw level in the second half. USM Alger's Zinedine Ferhat had a penalty saved by Nigeria goalkeeper Daniel Emmanuel in the 68th minute. Nigeria held on to win 2-1 to lift the trophy and take their place in Rio as African champions. Nigeria boast a proud Olympics record. They made Olympic football history in 1996 by becoming the first African and non-European and South American team to win the gold medal. They also finished runners-up at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where current under-23 coach Siasia also coached the 'Dream Team' in China. However, the so-called 'Dream Team V' led by Austin Eguavoen failed to qualify for the 2012 London Olympics after crashing out in the group stages of the 2011 U-23 championship in Morocco. |
Warner Bros plans new movie of the vampire slayer, but without any of the cast of the cult TV series or its furious creator It was the story the fans have long been waiting for: the return of Buffy, feminist icon and slayer of vampires – and this time on the big screen. But any good cheer was quickly drowned out by rage and upset yesterday as it emerged that Warner Bros was planning to make its film version of the cult TV series without Joss Whedon, the show's creator – and, it appears, without any of the cast of the long-running show. In an email, Whedon said yesterday: "This is a sad, sad reflection on our times, when people must feed off the carcasses of beloved stories from their youths – just because they can't think of an original idea of their own ... I always hoped that Buffy would live on even after my death. But, you know, after." The writer of the new screen adaptation is Whit Anderson, a relatively unknown actor with only a smattering of screen credits, the most high profile being a small role in the Jim Carrey vehicle Yes Man. "I was the same age as Buffy, and it was so rare to have a female lead character on TV in those days who was strong and capable and smart but also allowed to be feminine," she told the Los Angeles Times on Monday. Whedon appears to have fallen victim to Buffy's unusual history. Starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, Buffy the Vampire Slayer became a TV phenomenon when it premiered in 1997. It ended up running for 145 episodes and seven series, charting the life of an ordinary teenage girl who happens to kill vampires and other monsters by night. The show hit upon a mix of ordinary teenage angst, humour and gore that earned it a devoted fanbase. Whedon used the series to explore increasingly off the wall story ideas – in the episode entitled Once More With Feeling, for example, the cast sing almost every line of dialogue. But Buffy had originally seen the light of day five years earlier, in a feature film script, which Whedon had sold to the director-producer team Fran and Kaz Kuzui. The first Buffy film emerged in 1992, with Kristy Swanson as the eponymous vampire killer alongside Luke Perry and Rutger Hauer, but scored only moderate returns. Whedon is known to have been less than happy with the film. After he was approached to turn the concept into a TV series, the Kazuis acted as hands-off executive producers alongside him. It was very much Whedon's show, but the Kuzuis' retained their rights. In 2009, no doubt motivated by the continuing success of teen vampire films – notably the Twilight series – the Kazuis announced that they hoped to revive the Buffy character, which Warner has now optioned. No casting details have yet been announced, but one of the producers, Charles Roven, has dropped a hint that Buffy will be an older character this time. "This is not your high school Buffy. She'll be just as witty, tough, and sexy as we all remember her to be," he said. Whedon is cynical about the likelihood of teen-vampire overkill – "But seriously, are vampires even popular any more?" – but is also realistic about the way the movie business operates. In an email to the entertainment website E! Online, he wrote: "Obviously I have strong, mixed emotions about something like this ... I don't love the idea of my creation in other hands, but I'm also well aware that many more hands than mine went into making that show what it was ... I can't wish people who are passionate about my little myth ill. "I can, however, take this time to announce that I'm making a Batman movie. Because there's a franchise that truly needs updating. So look for The Dark Knight Rises Way Earlier Than That Other One And Also More Cheaply And In Toronto, rebooting into a theatre near you." The new film's producers may have reason to fear anger among Buffy fans. The power of the community was demonstrated after Whedon's 2002 sci-fi series Firefly was dropped after only 11 episodes by its parent network, Fox. After a campaign to save the show, Firefly fans persuaded another studio, Universal, to put a feature film, Serenity, into production. This same vociferous online community has been registering its outrage at plans to produce a new Buffy film, among them the showbiz blogger Perez Hilton. "We are not liking this," he said. "Without creator Joss Whedon or the original cast, we're afraid this has failure written all over it. It's going to have to be pretty spectacular if it's going to impress us." Mike Goodridge, the editor of the trade paper Screen International, feels it is too soon to write the film off. "Charles Roven is pretty cool. He's the man that made the Batman movies with Chris Nolan, so he knows what he's doing – and lots of people were against that at the time. Remember, Buffy was nothing as a movie, and the audiences are very different from TV – Warner know that people have an appetite for revamps. I think it's a great idea." |
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