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The Canucks have parted ways with former player Dave Babych, who’d been working with defence prospects in the player development department since late 2009. Babych confirmed his contract wasn’t renewed after four and a half years with the team and said he wasn’t told specifically why he was being let go. “It was just ‘going a different direction,’” said Babych, 53, who was given the news in early July. Babych said losing his position at that point has hurt his chances of finding work with another NHL team. “It’s bad timing for getting something else,” he said. Canucks President of Hockey Operations Trevor Linden said via text message: “We made several changes to the Hockey Operations group this off-season and our restructuring meant we needed to part ways with Dave. He’s a very good man and remains a big part of our alumni and the community. I’m confident he’ll find a new role and I wish him nothing but the best.” |
This was a breaking news story and has been updated. Check here for updates. A Lafayette assistant professor announced today that he is going on a hunger strike to protest President Alison Byerly’s decision to deny him tenure and to protest the tenure review process. Juan Rojo, who teaches Spanish, began the hunger strike when the first faculty meeting of the academic year began at 4:10 p.m. At the beginning of the month, he was denied tenure for the second and final time. Rojo said his department voted 6-0 to grant him tenure, after which the Promotion, Tenure and Review (PTR) Committee submitted its 6-1 vote to recommend tenure to Rojo on Dec. 18. According to documents given to The Lafayette, the decision then went to Byerly, who exercised her power to veto the committee’s decision. Explaining her veto, she wrote Rojo a four-page letter. The PTR committee then responded with a letter supporting Rojo that also included a dissent from the member of the committee who agreed with Byerly. In June, Byerly wrote to the board of trustees that she could not concur with the PTR Committee, and the board of trustees informed Rojo of its final decision to not grant him tenure this month. “It’s a terrible position to be in,” Rojo said. “It’s especially painful when you have done everything you were asked to do, and the faculty are calling and recommending you be tenured, and one person has decided that not be the case – for reasons that the faculty committees have evaluated and found to have no basis.” The college issued a statement on the matter late Tuesday night. “We were very concerned to learn today from Professor Juan Rojo that he has commenced a hunger strike in response to his recent tenure denial,” the statement read. “We are of course not able to comment on the specifics of Professor Rojo’s case.” “However, in this tenure case, as in all others, we followed our procedures as laid out in the College’s Faculty Handbook,” it continued. Before making the decision to go on hunger strike—for which he said he will only be drinking water and Gatorade—Rojo discussed it with his family and his doctor. “We respect Professor Rojo’s right to disagree with the decision, but hope he will express his views in a way that does not endanger his health,” the college’s statement read. “So I have to decide: Do I choose a career elsewhere? Or do I choose a different career so I can keep my family here?” Rojo said. “I’m baffled why I’m being asked to leave.” Rojo—who has been teaching at Lafayette since 2008—said that his strike will not be brought up in his classroom. “This is not what I’m going to be covering in classes,” he said. “I am going to do what I’ve been asked to do, which is teach [the students].” As part of a speech Rojo wrote to announce his strike to the faculty, he said that he plans to end his hunger strike when he is granted tenure and changes to the tenure review process are implemented. According to his written statement, “I will end my hunger strike when “1. The Board of Trustees upholds the Promotion, Tenure, and Review Committee’s decision that I be granted tenure and “2. The Board of Trustees agrees to accept changes from this body to the Tenure Review process. Specifically, I would propose that deadlines be established after the Promotion, Tenure and Review Committee’s decision is made so that no candidate endures 8 months of doubt. In addition, I would suggest that the term “compelling reasons” be defined to clearly establish the grounds by which a President may overturn the Promotion, Tenure, and Review Committee’s decision.” This was a breaking news story and has been updated. Check here for the full report. |
Ahaan Rungta and his family moved from Calcutta, India, to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 2001, the same year MIT announced OpenCourseWare (OCW), a bold plan to publish all of MIT’s course materials online and to share them with the world for free. Little did his parents realize at the time that their two-year-old son — already an avid reader — would eventually acquire his entire elementary and secondary education from OpenCourseWare and MITx, and would be admitted to the MIT class of 2019 at the age of 15. “When I was five years old my mom told me ‘there’s this thing called OCW,’” says Rungta, who was homeschooled. “I just couldn’t believe how much material was available. From that moment on I spent the next few years taking OCW courses.” When most kids are entering kindergarten, Rungta was studying physics and chemistry through OpenCourseWare. For Rungta’s mother, the biggest challenge to homeschooling her son was staying ahead of him, finding courses and materials to feed his insatiable mind. “My parents always supported me and found the materials I needed to keep learning. My mother was a resource machine. As I got older, I studied math through OCW’s Highlights for High School program, and when I was ready for Linear Algebra, I watched all of Professor Gil Strang’s 18.06 video lectures. From the time I was 5, I learned exclusively from OCW. And I knew then I wanted to go to MIT.” When Rungta turned 12, his family moved to Lowell, Massachusetts, as his parents realized he needed to be in a more intellectually stimulating environment. He also wanted to live closer to MIT. For his 13th birthday, Rungta only wanted one thing — a visit to the Institute. “I stepped onto campus and it changed my life,” he says. “I will never forget the feeling of walking into the lobby of Building 7, looking up, and then touching the pillars to see if they were real. I couldn’t believe I was at MIT. My life and my ambitions moved to another level at that moment.” Later that day, Rungta saw an Indian restaurant in the Student Center that had been closed down. He suggested to his dad — a chef who owned a restaurant in Lowell — that he look into reopening the café. His father soon became the manager of Café Spice, and the family moved from Lowell to Cambridge. Rungta studied in the Student Center every day while his father ran the café. MIT was undergoing big changes of its own that year, with the launch of MITx, in which MIT courses would be made available online and delivered on the edX platform. Just as Rungta was ready for a new intellectual challenge, MIT once again was there for him, as its own digital learning efforts were expanding to now provide online courses in addition to course materials. When he was 9, Rungta took 3.091 (Introduction to Solid State Chemistry) through OCW with Professor Donald Sadoway. Four years later, he signed up to take it again — this time through MITx with Professor Michael Cima. He has since taken 55 MITx and OCW courses, and he now uses these online resources to supplement his on-campus undergraduate experience. Reflecting on his journey from Calcutta to Cambridge and the many intersecting moments with MIT, Rungta is grateful to his parents and to MIT for being responsive to his needs every step of the way. “MIT has been my middle school, my high school, my entire education. That’s pretty amazing. Some people think I’m gifted, but I don’t think so. OCW was a gift to me. I was lucky to be born at the time MIT was opening up education to the world and extra lucky that OCW brought MIT and me together.” As he ponders declaring a major next year, Rungta pauses for a moment, and then he lights up. “In an ideal world, I would want to major in everything.” |
Chocolate, coconut and almonds are lightly sweetened with honey to create this healthy and addictive homemade granola. Shortly after giving birth, I received the most thoughtful care package from my dear friend Aggie, In addition to sending gifts for both of my boys, she also picked out a few items just for me. What a woman!!! One of the items Aggie sent were these new-to-me granola oat clusters from Love Grown Foods. It is so nice to receive food gifts made with quality ingredients I can easily pronounce. My entire family quickly became addicted to this chocolate granola which is why I decided to create my own version. If you’ve never made homemade granola, I encourage you to give it a try. Mix and match the flavors to make it your own. If you don’t have almonds on hand, swap out walnuts or pecans. Instead of honey, try using pure maple syrup. Coconut oil adds a subtle background flavor but canola or olive oil are great substitutes. Whip up a big batch on the weekend and store it for up to two weeks in an air-tight container. Scoop it out for busy weekday breakfasts or stash it in your car or desk for healthy snacking any time of day. MY LATEST VIDEOS MY LATEST VIDEOS No fork required. Almond Joy Granola Chocolate, coconut and almonds are lightly sweetened with honey to create this healthy and addictive homemade granola. 4.75 from 4 votes Print Pin Prep Time: 5 minutes Cook Time: 50 minutes Total Time: 55 minutes Servings: 12 Calories: 201 kcal Author: Liz DellaCroce Ingredients 3 cups oats 1/2 cup sliced almonds 1/3 cup honey 1/4 cup coconut oil 1/4 cup cocoa powder 1 teaspoon vanilla 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup shredded unsweetened coconut 1/2 cup chocolate chips optional Instructions Pre-heat oven to 275 degrees and line baking pan with a silicone baking mat or spray with cooking spray. In a large bowl, toss together oats almonds; set aside. Heat honey, coconut oil, cocoa powder, vanilla and salt in a small sauce pot over medium heat. Whisk constantly until coconut oil melts and mixture is smooth - about 2 minutes. Remove chocolate mixture from the stove and pour over the oats mixture. Using a rubber spatula, stir ingredients until everything is evenly coated with the chocolate mixture. Spread granola evenly on baking sheet and bake for 50 minutes stirring mixture once halfway through the cooking time. Let cool completely before stirring in the shredded coconut and chocolate chips if adding. Notes Can be stored up to 3 weeks in an airtight container. Nutrition Facts Almond Joy Granola Amount Per Serving Calories 201 Calories from Fat 100 % Daily Value* Total Fat 11.1g 17% Saturated Fat 7g 35% Polyunsaturated Fat 4.1g Sodium 95mg 4% Total Carbohydrates 23.5g 8% Dietary Fiber 3.2g 13% Sugars 7.9g Protein 4.3g 9% * Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet. Tried this recipe? Mention @thelemonbowl SaveSave |
Pawanjeet Heir: is facing her worst nightmare - deportation, along with her husband and young son. Credit:Fairfax Media The family decided to move from Melbourne to Adelaide because sponsorships aren't easy to get and her family were desperate for permanent residency. It took six weeks before things started to unravel, when her boss started to lay down the law. "He told me I can't pay you because I sponsor you so you have to work for free," she said. "He then asked for money and said 'I will cancel your sponsorship and you will be deported' if you don't pay." In August 2013 he demanded $30,000 for the visa. "We were very scared so we paid him what he wanted," she said. "I was working for free." For the next two and a half years Heir worked long hours, six days a week for no pay. Months later he started using the so-called cash back scam, which involves the company paying her wages then her husband withdraws a similar amount and gives it back in cash. She then had to find another $20,000 or face deportation. "He would say: 'You go to immigration, nothing is going to happen to me as I am citizen of this country, but they will definitely deport you back to India'." One of Heir's darkest hours was in August 2015 when her appendix burst at work. Doubled over in pain, she wasn't allowed to go to hospital until she finished her shift. It would be a decision that cost her dearly, with multiple health complications, leaving her hospitalised for weeks. "He would tell me I had to go back to work," she said. Extortion, blackmail, cash back scams and slavery are happening every day under our noses. They happen in the most unsuspecting places such as suburban restaurants and nail bars. Most suffer in silence. He told me I can't pay you because I sponsor you so you have to work for free. Pawanjeet Kaur Heir In some cases unscrupulous employers offer sponsorships to desperate foreign workers in return for payment. In other cases they lure unsuspecting workers into a job with the promise of sponsorship, then they turn on the blackmail dial. The price of visas can vary from $30,000 to $150,000 depending on the visa, the job on offer and the worker's nationality. For companies engaging in this illegal practice, the scheme offers big bucks. In Heir's case it was cash and free labour. Azrael Yin, a former store manager at Domino's, said many small businesses sell sponsorships. "I know of one person who is sponsored and work 60 hours a week and gets paid for 40 hours." Yin says another franchisee sponsored two foreign workers, charging them tens of thousands of dollars, only to withdraw the offer. "One of the workers went back to China after the rip-off," he says. If workers complain, their sponsorship is likely to be cancelled, inevitably leading to deportation unless a new sponsor can be lined up. Finding a legitimate sponsor isn't easy and there are no protections for workers who are exploited. Mark Glazbrook, a migration agent who runs Migrant Solutions, said Pawanjeet Heir's case was the worst case he had come across in his many years as an agent. He took on her case in October 2015, along with a number of other staff who had been sponsored by the same company. Documents show that in September 2015 Australian Border Force had warned the company that it had been monitoring it since May and had a series of concerns, including supplying the department with false and misleading information, workers were being paid in cash and there were no proper records. "Some visa holders have signed cash payment receipts for dates that they were not in Australia," the letter said. For Heir, what happened next was devastating. On October 20, 2015, still suffering from health issues, she was told the company she worked for had been banned as a sponsor. The upshot was her visa had been cancelled. Her husband Raj said the news was like a heart attack for his family. "We could not leave our house for two days after this news, as we were so depressed and confused. My wife cried the whole day inside her room and could not say even a single word. We lost everything in one day, all our hopes to stay in this country and have a good life in the future." Raj quit his job. His wife's illness and the stress of spending so much money on a visa that was now useless became all too much. They contacted the ATO and the Fair Work Ombudsman to try and reclaim unpaid super and wages, but that came to nothing because the company had collapsed. They then applied for ministerial intervention, but that also failed. They are now in a situation where they have no working rights. Penniless, they had to move back to Melbourne to live with their cousins. Their last hope is the Federal Court, which is due to hear their matter in May, but they aren't hopeful. For Glazbrook it is the case that continues to haunt him. He said if the government was serious about stamping out worker exploitation it would introduce protections. In other words, if they dob in their boss for visa fraud, they should be given a temporary working visa. But it seems nobody cares. Glazbrook contacted the department in February 2016 requesting a meeting to discuss "substantial abuse and exploitation" of multiple former employees. The response was brief: he was told the department had concluded monitoring the company. They couldn't comment any further due to privacy concerns. The Heirs have suffered extortion, blackmail and are staring down the barrel of deportation. The company that did this appears to have gotten off lightly with a three year banning order for sponsoring workers. The Department of Immigration and Border Protection said it was aware of the case but couldn't comment for privacy reasons. It is little wonder, so many suffer in silence. |
A champion swimmer from Oklahoma Baptist University died after swimming with teammates in the college pool, The Oklahoman reported Saturday. Article continues below ... Ivan Maciuniak, a 22-year-old freshman at the school in Shawnee, died Friday after going underwater and failing to resurface, university president David Whitlock said. "According to those at the pool, Ivan was swimming when he went underwater. He was pulled from the pool, CPR was administered, and paramedics arrived to continue CPR and transport him to Unity Hospital North," Whitlock said. "He was pronounced dead at the hospital shortly after 5:15 p.m." School officials were awaiting more information from the medical examiner, but were referring to the death as an accident. Maciuniak was an international business major from Las Palmas, Canary Islands, Spain. Last Saturday, he was a member of the men’s 4×400-meter relay team that helped bring the school the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) national championship. Maciuniak swam the lead-off leg in the record-setting 2:57.83 swim that saw Oklahoma Baptist University overcome a one-point deficit to win the national team title, Swimming World Magazine reported. |
Developing a website is not enough these days. Even developing an “awesome looking” website is not only going to serve your purpose unless it loads faster and rank better on Google. In an earlier post I discussed how you can use free SEO Tools to rank better on Google but Google’s core search algorithm has been evolving continuously and now they are also taking site speed into consideration. For that purpose they are relying on their own tool called Page Speed which helps you to figure out what Google thinks about your website. The goal The goal is: how a developer, a front-end developer/designer or.. even a backend developer like me can use free tools to optimize an existing website and make a prototype of it without any approval from THE BOSS and without requesting any external help. I am only covering basic concepts rather than discussing UI/UX philosophy which is not purpose of this post. UI/UX. Topics being covered I am going to cover following: How to use free development tools to create your workflow for minimizing CSS and Javascript files. How to use free online tools to minify HTML, optimizing images. How to use Google PageSpeed and WebpageTest to test our efforts. Site Selection The site I selected for study was none other than Pakistan Govt’s Official Portal. Following are the reasons this site was best suited for my study: It is using old web standards. No HTML5 and CSS3 Not Mobile friendly Improper HTML structure Multiple CSS and JS files Uncompress Images Not a WordPress website (Optimizing a WP site is like opening a can of worms) Usually Government websites sucks all over the world, for example, check the PageSpeed score of USA government website. Mobile Friendly and PageSpeed Test We are entering in 2017. Mobile users have already surpassed Desktop users. It’s quite obvious that you’d like to know whether your website is mobile friendly or not. Google provides a free tool called Mobile Friendly Test, use this to learn how your site renders on mobile devices. I gave Pakistan Government Portal a try and: Ouch! that hurts. Beside showing a Big red about non-Mobile-friendly website, it also gives hint reasons of it. One of them is that viewport is not set. Let’s look into it first. Since I already downloaded required page and assets from the main website, I’d be making changes locally. <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1, maximum-scale=1, user-scalable=0"> 1 < meta name = "viewport" content = "width=device-width, initial-scale=1, maximum-scale=1, user-scalable=0" > The line above going to resolve viewport. Setting viewport lets the entire page gets adjusted as per the device currently rending it. I am also going to make the site compatible with different IE versions prior to IE11 to render pages in Edge mode. <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge"> 1 < meta http - equiv = "X-UA-Compatible" content = "IE=edge" > Ok so far so good. Let’s take a look what does PageSpeed says about the website. Well, not something good. Only 53/100. More than bad. If you read,Google is already suggesting the issues with your website and also providing ways to do it. It does not stop here, it fetches assets from your page like CSS/JS and Image files and minify and compress them and provide you to just use it but I’m not going to take this route and I’ll take care of it locally on machine. Ok we can see what the issues are: Minifying JS and CSS files, make them merge to a single file and setting a proper font-size. Gulp and Twitter Bootstrap In order to make page mobile friendly, I am going to use Twitter Bootstrap framework that has already taken care lots of burden of developing mobile friendly pages. Though version 4 of TBS is available but like many I am still sticking with version 3. I’ll recommend same to you. The other tool I am going to introduce is Gulp. GulpJS helps you to automate your workflow and make you focus on your original work: development. Instead of wasting time minifying CSS/JS files, copying from one folder to other folder, all you can to setup gulp task file and let it do the stuff on your behalf. Gulp is a node module so you should have NodeJS installed locally on your machine. Setting up Gulp is not the part of this post and you may find some awesome tutorials online. OK, so below is my gulp.js file: var gulp = require('gulp'); var concat = require('gulp-concat'); var minifyCSS = require('gulp-minify-css'); var uglify = require('gulp-uglify'); gulp.task('default', function () { gulp.src('resources/css/*.css') .pipe(minifyCSS()) .pipe(concat('style.min.css')) .pipe(gulp.dest('public/css')) }); gulp.task('minify', function () { gulp.src(['resources/js/jquery-1.4.min.js', 'resources/js/jquery.imagerotator.1.0.min.js', 'resources/js/bootstrap.min.js', 'resources/js/site.js']) .pipe(concat('scripts.min.js')) .pipe(gulp.dest('public/js')) }); 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 var gulp = require ( 'gulp' ) ; var concat = require ( 'gulp-concat' ) ; var minifyCSS = require ( 'gulp-minify-css' ) ; var uglify = require ( 'gulp-uglify' ) ; gulp . task ( 'default' , function ( ) { gulp . src ( 'resources/css/*.css' ) . pipe ( minifyCSS ( ) ) . pipe ( concat ( 'style.min.css' ) ) . pipe ( gulp . dest ( 'public/css' ) ) } ) ; gulp . task ( 'minify' , function ( ) { gulp . src ( [ 'resources/js/jquery-1.4.min.js' , 'resources/js/jquery.imagerotator.1.0.min.js' , 'resources/js/bootstrap.min.js' , 'resources/js/site.js' ] ) . pipe ( concat ( 'scripts.min.js' ) ) . pipe ( gulp . dest ( 'public/js' ) ) } ) ; After installing required node modules:: gulp, gulp-concat, minify and uglify, I am going to write my workflow that is, how tasks should act upon my JS and CSS files. I already copied required CSS and JS files from the website and put them in separate resources folder. Remember, your task is not to ruin existing site and codebase but to make a better one in parallel. I am putting assets in resources folder, gulp then copy it after a series of tasks into public folder which is then being referenced in HTML document. The should be a default task and you may add other tasks. In default I am fetching ALL CSS files from resources/css and then minifying it and then merging ALL of them into a single CSS and copying into public/css folder. Now all this can be done manually as well like developers had been doing it earlier. Here, you don’t need to worry about all this. From terminal run gulp or gulp <taskname> command and it should execute related task. So for default I am running gulp which minify CSS and for JS I run gulp minify which minify JS files. I am also creating a new index file, called index2.html and here I will write my mobile friendly HTML aided by Twitter Bootstrap. CSS Gradients If you visit the Pakistan Gov Website, you’d notice a gradient background in green and white. They are using an image file for the which is actually a 16 x 900 PNG file of size around 5.5K. Now CSS3 is here, you can achieve same result without using an image file. Do remember, my goal is to speed up website by eliminating as many HTTP requests as I can and optimize existing the remaining requests. now issue is, how do I generate the CSS as I am not a CSS Ninja neither I am designer. It’s also the goal not to disturb other people for my own experiment. I always try to find generators for different kind of stuff I do during development. Luckily some good chap made a tool that converts a gradient image into CSS gradient rules. Shoutout to Gradient Finder that this task quickly. In order to gradient appear across the site I did following: html { height: 100%; } body { height: 100%; font-size: 12px !important; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, rgb(18, 89, 44) 0%, rgb(158, 188, 169) 18%, rgb(252, 253, 252) 32%, rgb(252, 253, 252) 100%); background: -o-linear-gradient(top, rgb(18, 89, 44) 0%, rgb(158, 188, 169) 18%, rgb(252, 253, 252) 32%, rgb(252, 253, 252) 100%); background: -ms-linear-gradient(top, rgb(18, 89, 44) 0%, rgb(158, 188, 169) 18%, rgb(252, 253, 252) 32%, rgb(252, 253, 252) 100%); background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, rgb(18, 89, 44) 0%, rgb(158, 188, 169) 18%, rgb(252, 253, 252) 32%, rgb(252, 253, 252) 100%); background: linear-gradient(to bottom, rgb(18, 89, 44) 0%, rgb(158, 188, 169) 18%, rgb(252, 253, 252) 32%, rgb(252, 253, 252) 100%); } 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 html { height : 100 % ; } body { height : 100 % ; font - size : 12px ! important ; font - family : Arial , Helvetica , sans - serif ; background : - webkit - linear - gradient ( top , rgb ( 18 , 89 , 44 ) 0 % , rgb ( 158 , 188 , 169 ) 18 % , rgb ( 252 , 253 , 252 ) 32 % , rgb ( 252 , 253 , 252 ) 100 % ) ; background : - o - linear - gradient ( top , rgb ( 18 , 89 , 44 ) 0 % , rgb ( 158 , 188 , 169 ) 18 % , rgb ( 252 , 253 , 252 ) 32 % , rgb ( 252 , 253 , 252 ) 100 % ) ; background : - ms - linear - gradient ( top , rgb ( 18 , 89 , 44 ) 0 % , rgb ( 158 , 188 , 169 ) 18 % , rgb ( 252 , 253 , 252 ) 32 % , rgb ( 252 , 253 , 252 ) 100 % ) ; background : - moz - linear - gradient ( top , rgb ( 18 , 89 , 44 ) 0 % , rgb ( 158 , 188 , 169 ) 18 % , rgb ( 252 , 253 , 252 ) 32 % , rgb ( 252 , 253 , 252 ) 100 % ) ; background : linear - gradient ( to bottom , rgb ( 18 , 89 , 44 ) 0 % , rgb ( 158 , 188 , 169 ) 18 % , rgb ( 252 , 253 , 252 ) 32 % , rgb ( 252 , 253 , 252 ) 100 % ) ; } here I am setting html height to 100% otherwise gradient will not appear. Unlike image which occupies a region expand height, you gotta need to set height to 100% or whatever the % are you looking for. Responsive Image Rotator The site is also using some jQuery plugin to rotate images on top. No issue with that but the issue is the code was put on top of the body which eventually becoming reason to load site slow since Javascript and CSS are blocking resources. Check below: I have created a new JS file, named site.js and put that code in it. Also I optimized rotating images to reduce their sizes. Don’t go to any graphic designer or using Adobe Photoshop for the purpose, use free OptimZilla for the purpose. Beside using Online tools, you should also install Browser Plugin to give you idea how your site renders on different screen size. I use Responsive Web Design Tester Chrome plugin for the purpose. Here’s the screenshot of it: As you can see, Google is not whining without a reason. After making a few changes, I made an attempt to test it on Google Speed and this is what I got: 85/100. Not bad but eventually it’d change as we’d move further. Since I don’t have access to Govt website, I am putting all changes up on my own server. I restructured the HTML of entire page and put a few content just for sake of proof of concept. Once when you’re all done with your HTML changes, it’s good as it’s also recommended by Google to minify HTML. I used this tool for the purpose. Enable compression via .htaccess By writing this code in .htaccess file you can compress different types of files on your server to speed up further. Make sure .htaccess exist in root folder of your site AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript <ifModule mod_gzip.c> mod_gzip_on Yes mod_gzip_dechunk Yes mod_gzip_item_include file .(html?|txt|css|js|php|pl)$ mod_gzip_item_include handler ^cgi-script$ mod_gzip_item_include mime ^text/.* mod_gzip_item_include mime ^application/x-javascript.* mod_gzip_item_exclude mime ^image/.* mod_gzip_item_exclude rspheader ^Content-Encoding:.*gzip.* </ifModule 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text / plain AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text / html AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text / xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text / css AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application / xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application / xhtml + xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application / rss + xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application / javascript AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application / x - javascript < ifModule mod_gzip . c > mod_gzip_on Yes mod_gzip_dechunk Yes mod_gzip_item_include file . ( html ? | txt | css | js | php | pl ) $ mod_gzip_item_include handler ^ cgi - script $ mod_gzip_item_include mime ^ text / . * mod_gzip_item_include mime ^ application / x - javascript . * mod_gzip_item_exclude mime ^ image / . * mod_gzip_item_exclude rspheader ^ Content - Encoding : . * gzip . * < / ifModule Result Below is the PageSpeed score of both Mobile and Desktop Testing Performance Google Speed gives you idea how good is your website doing visually or otherwise but Google Speed is not the end of the world neither you should kill yourself to get 100/100 score. I could resolve a few more things and could get 95+ score here but due to site and existing CSS structure it seemed difficult, neither it was the purpose. Now I want to check how far my changes have made an impact. In order to see how good my site is loading, WebpageTest is the best tool available. On checking Official Website: Too much red. Now you can start getting idea what thing is going wrong. A big F on receiving first byte. Look another screenshot of same page: Around 10 seconds for the first time load. 10 seconds is too much in Internet world. The most recommended load time is 2seconds at max. The report link here gives you idea what thing is taking much time. Now detail view gives you more idea: If you look at image above or much better on live report you can see that blocking JS and CSS loading right after HTML document which itself tool much time which makes sense that it’s heavier than mine. The issue is blocking JS and then image, it halted the entire thing and made it to load slow. Now compare it with mine one: It took around 0.875s to load and as you can see in detail view. After the HTML document it loads rotator files. If you look at here in Waterfall view these files Pakistan_day2.jpg and PmYouthLogo.jpg taking 1219ms and 2187ms respectively where as while these images were optimized, in detailed view they indicate that are taking 626ms and 193ms respectively. Huge difference just because images were optimized. Conclusion That’s it here. I showed you how as a developer or designer you can optimize existing page and make it compatible with modern web standards. This is not enough here. There are many other reasons that a website can go slow and that are more related to backend infrastructure; Slow MySQL Queries, redundant database connections, not using CDN and Caching systems. There are many possibilities but that is a separate chapter and I will discuss backend optimization some day. Till then, enjoy this. The final optimized page can be seen here. I made a few visual changes like changed footer and navigation bar as I did not like the one on original page. For those who want to see uncompress HTML page can see here. The code be downloaded from here. Is your website loading slow, willing to know what’s going on? I can help you in this regard. Just send me an email at kadnan (at) gmail (dot) com and I’ll try to help you out. |
by Christine Stuart | Jun 6, 2017 8:45am ( ) Comments | Commenting has expired | Share Posted to: Agriculture, The Economy, State Budget, Taxes, State Capitol HARTFORD, CT — With less than two days left in the legislative session, the House of Representatives is preparing for a debate on legalizing marijuana. It would be the first time the Connecticut House debates establishing a recreational cannabis law in the state, which already has a medical marijuana program and has decriminalized small amounts of marijuana. House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz, D-Berlin, said the issue would be debated for more than an hour and, like a handful of other bills this session, it would be tabled without a vote. Aresimowicz said he doesn’t believe there’s enough support to pass the measure, however, he wants to make sure the topic is debated in case it gets added to the state budget. Democrats have estimated that legalizing marijuana will bring in $60 million in revenue in 2018 and $100 million in 2019. House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, R-Derby, confirmed the plan Monday night. There is still bipartisan support for the measure even after an argument between the bill’s lead Republican proponent and Democratic lawmakers killed any prospect that it would be raised on Monday. A press conference called by Rep. Josh Elliott, D-Hamden, and Rep. Juan Candelaria, D-New Haven, on Monday was first delayed and then abruptly called off after Rep. Melissa Ziobron, R-East Haddam, walked out. “For this legislation to pass the House it needs to truly be a bipartisan effort,” she said. “For me to be left out of the process until the last minute is just wrong.” The amendment has been modified to win Ziobron’s support, even though it won’t be called for a vote. The pattern of debating and tabling is a recognition that the Democrats don’t have as large a majority as they have had in the past. They have a slim, 79-72 majority over Republicans in the House and are tied 18-18 in the state Senate. On Monday, a bill to require the Division of Criminal Justice to compile a preliminary report within 40 days after a deadly police shooting was tabled in the House and last week a debate on whether undocumented immigrant students should have access to the college financial aid pool into which they pay with their tuition was tabled in the Senate. |
This is the 3rd and final part of this blog series on success habits that breed motivation, drive, and productivity. I started implementing these activities years ago into my routine and the results allowed me to aggressively go after my goals in a way that I never had before. I talk a lot about the mindset necessary to succeed at online business while traveling. Here are more habits that we’ll hopefully put you on a long-term path to success. 13. Get a Coach or Mentor I have always said in order to be successful at anything you need 3 things; theory, application, and coaching. The reason for this is simple. Once you have the education (theory) and experience (application), getting a coach or mentor is only going to collapse your time frames and allow you to achieve your goals quicker. In my Amazon FBA business, I simply sought out somebody who has already done what it is that I’m trying to accomplish and followed in their footsteps. There’s never a need to reinvent the wheel, the foundation has already been set for you. Obviously, you’re gonna want to do your due diligence if you’re doing a paid mentorship or coaching program. You want to find someone who is active in the field you’re pursuing. For example, if you’re learning how to invest in the stock market than the person mentoring you should be actively investing and winning in the stock market. If their primary source of income is teaching other people to invest, I’d look elsewhere. Hiring a Coach or Mentor is an investment that will always pay itself back a few times over. My Recommendation: Join at least 1 group (online or in person) and surround yourself with other successful people in the field or endeavor you’re looking to pursue (music, e-commerce, blogging, etc.). Hang out where they hang out. Network and soak up as much information as you can. Just be selective in which ones you choose because they are not all created equal and some will just push you to buy things whereas others will give you the practical advice and motivation you may need. Forbes wrote an article on how to formally find a mentor in this article or you can choose to mentor yourself. 14. Find a Hobby Having a hobby is important in order to maintain a proper work-life balance. Take up something that gives you a break from your daily routine. Maybe it’s swimming, running, biking, camping, fishing, table tennis, golf, playing cards, boating, or any of a number of things. It distracts from your daily grind and can give you a feeling of inner peace before returning to life as usual. For me, it’s the gym. Doing this on a regular and consistent basis really gives me a calming effect and helps me to rebalance myself (not to mention the other benefits involved). My Recommendation: We sometimes make excuses as to why we’re too busy to take this much-needed break. Put your work or your projects aside and take some very important “me time.” If you are having trouble figuring out what kind of hobby you might enjoy or want to take up, not to worry. Here is a list of potential hobbies for you to choose from. Whether you know what you plan to do or not, pick a hobby and practice/do it 1-2 times a week. You’ll be surprised on how much your mental health improves. 15. Eat Healthy Eating healthy can make a drastic change in your life. Not too long ago I eliminated processed food, cut back on refined grains and sugar and began portioning my meals. There was an enormous difference in how I felt and what I got accomplished. I’ve tried so many different things throughout the years but I feel like this works best and allows me to be disciplined, but find what works best for you. By simply changing your eating habits, you’ll look and feel better, be more confident, have higher energy levels and a noticeable boost in productivity. The point is eating healthy and feeling good will help you accomplish your goals with more determination. My Recommendation: Do some research and find a diet that works for you. Remember that every body is different and what’s popular or what worked for someone else may not work for you. Once you’ve found it, implement it into your life by writing out a weekly meal plan and sticking to it. Discipline is essential here so give yourself an incentive by coming up with a reward for every mile stone you hit without cheating on your diet (1 week, 3 months. etc). 16. Consistent Self Development By now I would hope you’ve realized that the theme of all these new successful habits you’re adopting is to create motivation, inspiration, drive, and ultimately give you a purpose in life. In other words, you want to be developing yourself through consistent self-improvement and education which in turn will produce the skills and motivation necessary for you to thrive in any field. Constant self-development is what separates the winners from the losers and the wildly successful from the average or mediocre. If you’re reading this I’m assuming you don’t need much convincing, but this is something very near and dear to my heart. I owe everything I am to learning in this manner. The key is the consistency. Once you stop it’s very easy to shift your mindset back to where it was and to lose sight of your goals. Don’t do it! Stay focused and you can accomplish anything. My Recommendation: The key to self-development is to constantly progress and to continue moving forward. I recommend doing the following activities at least once a week (preferably more) in order to sharpen your skills and to develop your mind: meditation listen to a podcast do a few modules/lessons from an online course (Educate yourself) read a book run/workout/do yoga The outcome should give you a driven and positive mindset. Which brings me to my next point… 17. Eliminate Negativity Just as it’s important to have positive influences in your life, it’s equally, if not more important, to rid yourself of any negativity. We encounter an abundance of negativity in our lives on a daily basis. This can be detrimental to our mental health and our goals. Mindset is absolutely everything! We bump heads with negativity in many forms. This includes negative people such as whiners, complainers, dream crushers, and anyone trying to hold you back. There are negative messages in music, television shows, movies and especially the news. I would cut out any type of mainstream media. It’s been documented that people who watch the news are way more depressed than those that don’t. It’s also important to be cognizant of the way we talk to ourselves. If we don’t have a rock solid mindset about our dreams and goals, it’s just not gonna happen, at least not at the level you might expect. Think positive and talk to yourself in a way that will keep you focused and keep your belief system in check. For example, saying “I know I can make this happen” or “this is how I’m going to do it.” (it helps to have a plan) is infinitely better than saying “I’m not sure if this is possible” or “I’ll give it a try” or even worse, “I can’t do this.” Negative self-talk can be detrimental to your accomplishments, avoid it at all costs. My Recommendation: Do these things to rid yourself of the negativity in your life: Replace Negative Self-talk with self-loving positivity Eliminate mainstream media Alienate yourself from the negative people in your life Limit or be more selective on entertainment until you’ve created a strong, positive mindset (Music, Television, Movies, etc.) These are just a few tips, but I think you get the point. Surround yourself with positivity and eliminate the success-crippling negative influences in your life. 18. Take Action I’ve saved the best for last because I think this is the most important point. Everything else would be for nothing if you don’t actually implement what you learn. So many people have a HUGE fear of the unknown. Since they don’t know what to expect, they stay right where they are in their cozy little comfort zone. You know the place where there’s no growth happening and your dreams continue to linger in your head until you step out of it. So many of us get stuck in information overload acquiring more and more knowledge because we’re afraid to take the first step. I’d far prefer to take action and know absolutely nothing and fail every step of the way than to acquire all of my knowledge and completely understand every last intricacy of what I’m learning before applying it. After all, knowledge isn’t power. The APPLICATION of knowledge is power. You will also learn far more from failing than you will from everything going perfectly according to plan. In reality, nothing goes according to plan and you must adapt. No more hesitation, procrastination or second guessing yourself or your dreams and goals. If you’re going to do something, go after it with everything you have and TAKE ACTION! Not now, but RIGHT NOW! I certainly didn’t know everything before starting my Amazon FBA business, but I’m glad I didn’t. It’s been an amazing process and I can attribute everything I’ve learned and the success I’ve had to taking action instead of waiting until I knew everything. So go ahead and build that business, lose that weight, take that trip, write that book, run that marathon. Stay focused, don’t lose sight of your goals and most important of all, enjoy the journey on the road to success! My Recommendation: Start with your ultimate goal break down your tasks into yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily tasks. Adapt & learn as you go START RIGHT NOW despite your fear Celebrate your victories no matter how small they may seem Live in the moment and enjoy the process What are you still doing here! Go make it happen! Let me know any goals you’re working towards by leaving a comment below. This is the third and final part of a 3 part blog series on successful habits, check out the other posts here: |
Help and Support This is a place to get help and support for OSMC. Please post in the category you are running OSMC on, unless it is a generic issue. Feature Requests Discuss what you'd like to see in future iterations of OSMC, or how we can help the community and make OSMC even better! General Discussion Discuss anything (including non OSMC related topics) here. If you need help or support with OSMC, please post in that category instead. HowTo This section has been provided for users to provide useful [HowTo] instructional posts for the benefit of the community as a whole. Testing Help shape the future of OSMC. Development Learn more and get involved with the OSMC development process. This serves as a way of tracking issues and the discussion surrounding them. News Keep track of the latest OSMC news and announcements here. |
Despite its reputation for liberal politics and embracing diversity, California is also home to bastions of ignorance and racism. Not coincidentally, these so-called “red counties” are invariably dominated by the Republican Party. For example, during the election last year, Diane Fedele, the president of Chaffey Community Republican Women Federated in inland Riverside County, sent an email blast that contained a graphic showing “Obama Bucks,” which depicted Barack Obama’s face on a food stamps certificate, along with a bucket of fried chicken, ribs, Kool-Aid and a slice of watermelon. Now Dean Grose, the Republican mayor of Los Alamitos in Orange County is under fire for sending an email that shows the White House lawn planted with watermelons, with the headline, “No Easter egg hunt this year”: Local businesswoman and city volunteer Keyanus Price, who is black, said Tuesday that she received the e-mail from Mayor Dean Grose’s personal account Sunday and wants a public apology. “I have had plenty of my share of chicken and watermelon and all those kinds of jokes,” Price said. “I honestly don’t even understand where he was coming from, sending this to me. As a black person receiving something like this from the city freakin’ mayor — come on.” …Grose confirmed to the Associated Press that he sent the e-mail to Price and said he didn’t mean to offend her. He said he was unaware of the racial stereotype that black people like watermelons. He said he and Price are friends and serve together on a community youth board. “Bottom line is, we laugh at things and I didn’t see this in the same light that she did,” Grose said. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t sent to offend her personally — or anyone — from the standpoint of the African American race.” Grose, who became mayor in December, said he sent an apology e-mail to Price and her boss and also left her a voice-mail apology. Regardless, Price said it will be difficult for the two to work together. “Now I am like — wow, is this really how he feels?” Price said. Both Mayor Grose and Diane Fedele claimed ignorance about food-related African-American stereotyping. While it’s true that there are very few black residents in either Riverside County (which is 6.24 percent African American) or Orange County (where less than 2 percent of residents are blacks), this prompts the question: If they weren’t amused by the racial stereotyping, what was it about these graphics that compelled them to send them to their friends and co-workers. |
So now you’re talking, conversation is flowing nicely, and you feel like you’re really starting to form a connection with this person… But what happens when after 10 minutes, that dreaded moment rears it’s head? The awkward silence! What should you do when you feel like a particular conversational topic has expired? And how do you never run out of things to say so you keep people engaged and interested? Well, let’s take a step back to understand the awkward silence… Who does the awkward silence seem to occur most with: strangers or friends? Undoubtedly, strangers. But why? You’d think there would be so much more interesting ground to cover with strangers. With friends, you know how they feel about the most important topics. You’re left with just random stuff that pops into your head. Yet you still can find yourselves talking for hours in a stream of unrelated randomness. Without any sort of agenda, conversation just flows. This is exactly the point. When you feel like you’ve run out of things to say with strangers, you haven’t actually run out of things to say. You’ve simply run out of things that have passed your internal filter of “good enough to say to a stranger!” This is why you can talk for hours nothing with people you know well. Why you can turn a conversation about “nothing” into something you both really cherish. It’s not just because you have common interests. It is because neither of you has a very high threshold for what is “good enough” to say. If something pops into your head, you blurt it out. This is also why it is much easier to speak to people when you’ve had a few drinks. It’s not that you’ve suddenly become more clever or interesting (sorry to burst your bubble!) It’s that you’ve lowered your inhibitions. You say what comes to your mind without thinking if it is “good enough” to vocalize. The key here is that you are not anticipating too far ahead. You need to trust yourself to adapt on the fly. You need to remove the filter. Here is an example of “removing the filter” to apply in your own life I was working with a client who was also working with a personal trainer. She recounted a story from the day she met him. “He asked me, ‘So what’s your story?’ and I was just so taken aback. It’s such a big question. I didn’t even know where to start. So I just mumbled something awkwardly and then got quiet.” “Well what was going through your head?” “Nothing.” “No that’s not true. Something was going through your head. You just didn’t think it was good enough to say. So what was your thought process?” “I guess, ‘Oh wow this is awkward. I can’t even answer a simple question about my life! Now he probably thinks I am a weirdo…’” “Great! Use that.” “What do you mean?” “I mean imagine what would have happened if you’d dropped the filter and said that to him. What would it have gone like?” “Well I suppose I would have said, ‘Oh wow this is awkward. I can’t even answer a simple question about my life! Now you probably think I am a weirdo…” “And what would he have done?” “Laughed probably. And clarified his question.” “Exactly! The point is that what you are thinking is always good enough – at least better than saying nothing because you only want to sound super clever all the time.” The difficulty for everyone—my client, you, the best conversationalist on the planet—is not in coming up with something to say. It is in getting in touch with your thoughts and trusting yourself enough to simply state them. Will they always paint you as a genius? Certainly not! But by speaking, you’ve given both you and the person with whom you’re speaking a starting point. Now you have some Velcro hooks which either of you can latch onto. So for example, the other day I was out speaking with a girl at a club. I didn’t have anything to say, but I noticed that she had a very genuine smile whenever she spoke to people. So I told her what was going through my head: “You know you have such a genuine smile? It makes you look like a first grade teacher. I feel like I just want you to read me a picture book.” When you remove the filter, what you say will rarely be brilliant. But it will provide you with enough “hooks” to start to restart conversation. Note: if you’re absolutely stumped, I find a great way to start or restart a halting conversation is to simply say, “So what’s your story?” Play “Reminds me of…” to re-spark dying conversation So once you’ve cleared the filter, the goal is to drive conversation back to something that is fun or fascinating to both of you. You don’t want to be trapped with just sticking to the literal words at hand. So if we’re talking about the weather today, I shouldn’t be limited to just talking about the weather this week. I want to be able to make conversational leaps. One of the best tools to do this is, “Reminds me of.” “Reminds me of” consists of thinking not just linearly (i.e. weather today > weather this week) but in larger leaps (i.e. weather today > gorgeous weather > the vacation I took last year to Costa Rica when it was sunny and then poured on us as we hiked up a mountain.) “Reminds me of” can also be used to re-spark conversation with someone to whom you’ve already spoken. For instance, last night I was out at a bar with an extended group of friends. I was standing watching a drummer play a solo. We’d already exchanged pleasantries so I didn’t have any questions to ask many of the people. Still, to re-spark conversation, all I had to say was: “This guy is amazing. He reminds me of Travis Barker from 182.” Or: “This club is so cool. It reminds me of a 1920’s speakeasy mixed with a rave.” Use “reminds me of” in conjunction with the fun and values modes of conversation to rekindle any conversation and move it in a direction that will keep people captivated. It’s also a fantastic tool for connecting with someone with whom you may not have much in common because it allows you to trade stories based on whatever is happening around you. This article also appears on CharismaonCommand and is published here with the permission of the author Title photo credit: flickr, flickr |
Preston Henn, owner of the Ferrari 275 GTB/C chassis No. 6885 that has been hailed by some as the most valuable car in the world, died of natural causes on Sunday at the age of 86. The North Carolina native made a vast fortune in Florida with the "Swap Shop" chain that married using drive-in movie theaters as flea markets during daylight hours. Stoked by the percentages taken from each flea market vendor, the food and beverage sales made to buyers and sellers, and other entertainment offerings at each property since the first Swap Shop was opened in 1963, Henn amassed considerable wealth that was put towards a passion for motor racing and automobile collecting. Henn's initial foray into offshore powerboat racing was quickly traded for four-wheel competition after he nearly drowned in a crash, and from his misfortune on the water, a decade-long adventure in sports car racing delivered immense glory and satisfaction for the millionaire. Marshall Pruett As an avid purveyor of Ferrari and Porsche products, Henn spent most of his career in Italian or German machinery. His lone start at the 24 Hours of Le Mans came in a NART-entered Ferrari 512 BBLM, and his greatest success followed in 1983 his Henn's Swap Shop Racing team won IMSA's 24 Hours of Daytona with a Porsche 935, and again in 1985 with a Porsche 962. Henn called time on his racing career in 1986, and in the ensuing decades, the Swap Shop's car collection grew to nine-figure heights. With Ferrari No. 6885 as the centerpiece, the 275 GTB/C's estimated value of $80-100 million drew heavy foot traffic to Henn's primary Fort Lauderdale Swap Shop location. In recent years, Henn's steady efforts to grow the collection by purchasing almost every coveted supercar upon release led to some uncomfortable exchanges with Ferrari, who drew his ire after failing to make a LaFerrari Spyder available to the Swap Shop maven. Courtesy Kevin Jeannette In his chronicles of the complaint of the issue with Ferrari for RoadandTrack.com, Henn took pride in recounting his dismissal of an invitation—a mea culpa from Ferrari–to visit Daytona late last year as an honored guest during the brand's Finali Mondiali event. "I got some type of invitation … of course, obviously I didn't go to Daytona," Henn said. "Not really knowing [CEO Sergio] Marchionne but knowing how smart he is, he's got to try to figure out what made Ferrari as famous as they are because he is going down a different road. He's not doing the Formula 1 worth a shit. And he can't cut off his best customers. And he has done it. Not only, I figure, am I a good customer, forget that I'm a Ferrari customer, but I am the best customer any guy like him is going to have because I buy every top car." With Henn's passing, the fate of his beloved car collection should keep investors and aficionados on high alert until a decision is made on whether the vehicles will remain in place or head to new homes. |
It came as a shock when the U.S. military came clean about one of the worst biodefense screw-ups on American soil in decades—the release of live, lethal anthrax to more than 85 unsuspecting labs. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been a complete surprise, given the anthrax’s source. Dugway Proving Grounds—a massive, 1,300-square-mile Army research and testing facility in remote, northwestern Utah—has had throughout its history a number of alarming safety lapses involving deadly chemicals, biological agents, and high explosives. It’s not just that Dugway failed for more than a decade to follow standard procedures for killing the lethal anthrax bacteria—a long-running blunder that led to the lab shipping around the globe live anthrax samples that were supposed to be dead. (A Pentagon review of that biosafety breach is due this week.) Internal Army documents obtained by The Daily Beast show that Dugway’s handling of dangerous explosives was so slipshod that Defense Department inspectors in 2014 recommended that a bomb-handling course be “suspended.” Those inspectors discovered that staffers at Dugway were mixing together potentially lethal “primary” explosives in everyday pots and pans—the kind of gear you’d find in your kitchen, not in a cutting-edge military research facility. And these staffers had no coherent rationale for why they were so casually handling explosives that made nitroglycerin look like Play-Doh. “People were shocked… It was like: What are you guys doing out here?” a source familiar with the investigation said. “No one could adequately explain why they needed to be f-ing around, making these exotic explosives.” Colonel Ronald Fizer, Dugway’s commanding officer, defended his troops’ methods. “They are unorthodox but have been vetted by experienced synthetic chemists, EOD [explosive ordnance disposal] operators and have been used for eight years in the training of over a thousand EOD personnel, safely and with no mishaps,” he wrote in a November 2, 2014, memorandum. “The incident was fully investigated and all corrective actions implemented,” added Pentagon spokesperson Major Eric Badger in an email to The Daily Beast. The year before, however, a Dugway contract chemist blew off part of his right hand and damaged his eyesight when he inexplicably decided to synthesize a dangerous explosive compound with a simple “mortar and pestle,” according to another internal Army document obtained by The Daily Beast. That compound, erythritol tetranitrate, is a close cousin to an explosive commonly used by terrorists in their bomb plots. But the compound used by al Qaeda and other terror groups is less susceptible to friction and impact—and is therefore safer to use than the stuff being toyed with at Dugway. The Pentagon did, however, provide evidence indicating that Dugway has a near-flawless safety record. The Department of Defense gave The Daily Beast logs from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration showing only a single work-related injury over the past three full years. (The OSHA logs only account for government employees’ wounds; injured contractors—like the chemist with the mangled hand—aren’t included in such statistics.) And of course, the live anthrax release tells a different story. In May, a Maryland biotech firm disclosed that it had discovered an anthrax sample that it believed to be dead was, in fact, alive. And that was a matter of some concern, because anthrax can be fatal. Its spores can make their way into the human bloodstream, unleashing a pair of toxins. One triggers a fluid buildup in the central chest cavity, squeezing the heart and lungs. The other assaults white blood cells that serve as the body’s natural defenses. That’s how five people were killed during the anthrax attacks of 2001. Thankfully, no one was killed—or even injured—in that still-undisclosed Maryland lab. (Many biodefense experts believe the risk to public health was minimal, in fact.) But when investigators began examining the source of the live samples, they found that they came from Dugway, and that Dugway had been shipping other live samples around the world for a decade. In early June, the Pentagon promised a top-to-bottom review of how that happened. The review is now complete and is circulating among the Defense Department’s top ranks. It is expected to be released to the public this week. “The Department takes this matter very seriously and is acting with urgency to address it,” Badger told The Daily Beast in an email. “The Department is also investigating any apparent lapses in performance in order to ensure the appropriate accountability.” According to one document obtained by The Daily Beast, Dugway filed 20 “Biological Mishap and Incident Reports” over a five-and-a-half-year period, from early 2009 to late 2014. Seventeen of those incidents were simply accounts of biosafety drills, according to the Pentagon. One involved a relatively harmless leak in a biosafety lab centrifuge. Another concerned a suspicious envelope that “was tested and found to contain no biological organisms,” according to Badger. Dugway officials can’t seem to find the record of the final one. All in all, a relatively clean bill of health. And yet for years, there have been signs that something was amiss at Dugway—particularly in the way the lab handled its biological warfare agents. USA Today reported that in 2007 the Centers for Disease Control ripped Dugway for its ineffective chemical method of killing its anthrax bacteria before shipment. The Utah facility instead turned to gamma radiation to render the specimens harmless. Dugway technicians were so sure their anthrax was dead, they issued each sample a “death certificate.” They were wrong. The death-by-gamma-ray process was never standardized or validated, and didn’t work. The Dugway procedure “did not account for the variable amounts of spores treated in the gamma cell irradiator,” noted a June 5 Centers for Disease Control report, obtained by USA Today. Dugway’s ongoing struggles to render the anthrax safe recall an earlier, even darker era in the facility’s history. At the height of the Cold War, the U.S. military treated its own troops like guinea pigs, exposing them to weaponized pathogens, as well as nerve gas, blister agents, and hallucinogens. Dugway was one of the primary testing grounds, conducting 50 tests on more than 5,800 service members. Many veterans have spent a lifetime trying to recover from what they experienced there. In 1968, things took an even stranger turn, as the website io9 recounts. An aircraft sprayed droplets of VX nerve agent over one of Dugway’s test sites. A strong gust carried the droplets over neighboring farms. Nearly 4,000 sheep died as a result. It took the Army decades to admit what happened. The next year, according to a history website run by the Utah state government, “rare antibodies of a disease called Venezuelan Encephalitis were found in birds, cattle, sheep, and rodents around the base. During the same year Air Force pilots flying over Dugway identified an entire region as highly contaminated.” |
Stealth Social Security benefits cuts are potentially part of the debt ceiling deal currently being negotiated by President Obama and the Congressional Republican leadership, per Politico: Already on the table are more than $1 trillion in discretionary 10-year spending cuts and hundreds of billions more in changes affecting farm subsidies, college aid and retirement benefits for federal workers. Additional savings from health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid are in the offing, as well as a potential $300 billion change in the government’s inflation calculator affecting Social Security benefits and some revenues. Changing the inflation calculation for Social Security benefits from CPI to chained CPI is a benefit cut by stealth. Using the low inflation number would result in slightly smaller Social Security benefits every year. While the cuts would take place in small yearly increments, the cumulative effect would be that over a seniors lifetime they would get tens of thousands less from Social Security (PDF ). Congress is in full-blown austerity mode right now and any deal that comes out of these negotiations is likely going to be bad news for regular people. That is why I suspect any deal will be reached at the last minute, so Congress will “need” to quickly pass the bill with effectively no public debate or time for scrutiny. |
College football needs days like this more than it needs a playoff. And it damn sure needs Ohio State–Michigan more than it needs those god-awful conference championship games this coming Saturday. Those aren’t football games, they’re elaborate fund-raisers, ATMs with head trauma. Michigan played Ohio State to a standstill last weekend, however — down to the final half-minute — and it was only the second-best ending to the second-best college football game of the day. That brought great clarity to the sport — clarity that not even a national championship can bring. This game is still about life and love and memory more than it is about ratings, television checks, and a big Waterford Crystal football. Week 14 in College Football Conference championship games begin four days from now. The schedule narrows and the stakes elevate from here. But we can’t leave this weekend behind. Not just yet. —Holly Anderson Suddenly, on Saturday afternoon, as the autumn haze burned away, there was no BCS. There were no delicate made-for-TV calculations. When and where and against whom undefeated Ohio State would be playing at the turn of the year became irrelevant within the confines of the Big House. (And may we now paraphrase the late football aficionado R.M. Nixon and point out that it is, indeed, a Big House.) Because of the way simple history can reassert itself, this game, this one right here in Ann Arbor, and later that one down in Jordan-Hare Stadium in Auburn, solved all of college football’s annual end-of-the-season conundrums. History solved all those conundrums by complicating them, and by providing the simplest answer of all to the question “Who’s no. 1?” The answer: Who the rammer-jammer hell cares? Did you see those games? (Let us pause briefly and honor a modern phenomenon in college football by borrowing a trope from the Landlord here and cite the Saban Face, which, as a friend of mine emailed shortly after the hysteria had subsided at Auburn, looks like the living rendition of the great George Carlin line — the look of a man realizing that an ax has gone through his head.) In Michigan Stadium, the statistics were positively baroque. Michigan and Ohio State combined for 83 points and 1,129 total yards. Michigan quarterback Devin Gardner threw for 451 yards, which turned out to be only two fewer than he needed to win the game. Ohio State’s Carlos Hyde ran for 226 yards, and his quarterback, Braxton Miller, ran for 153, or one more than the entire Michigan team. It added up to something ludicrous, something gloriously excessive. It was what college football was supposed to be, before we handed it over to the bean counters and the computers. And, of course, it was just goofy enough to be remembered as unique even in this rivalry’s long, proud history of public invective. Before we go into detail about the happenings at Saturday’s annual Rust Belt Battle of the Bands, we should pay homage to a legend a’borning, a legend that will be handed down through the generations as long as this fabled rivalry is played. “Tell us again, grandfather, of the Day of the Double Bird.” In the second quarter of what already had been a carnival of a first half, Michigan had just scored to take a 21-14 lead. Ohio State’s Dontre Wilson fielded the kick at his own goal line and ran it back 16 yards. However, deep in the pile, ill feelings mysteriously arose. Family relationships were disputed loudly. Within seconds, a WWE card broke out. Helmets flew, as did at least one punch. An exaltation of penalty flags took wing. By the time the game officials had finished approximating who had done what to whom, and whose mothers had been most grievously insulted, two Ohio State players and one Wolverine found themselves dismissed. “I was disappointed in that,” Ohio State coach Urban Meyer grumped afterward. (It is devoutly to be hoped that the Buckeyes followed the direction of their governor, John Kasich, regarding the letter “m” and remembered to call people “otherfuckers” in the scrum. These are the things I worry about.) One of the expelled, offensive lineman Marcus Hall, was particularly exercised. He slammed down his helmet. He kicked what I can only hope was the bench. And then, as he was being led off into exile up the tunnel, Hall enthusiastically flipped off the Michigan crowd with both hands. This being Thanksgiving weekend, there were a lot of people out there watching with nothing in their hands save beer, and nothing on their hands but time. Within two minutes, Hall’s gesture had been GIF’ed approximately 9,678 times. This guaranteed him the kind of instant fame only the Internet can provide. It also guaranteed that Marcus Hall never will have to pay for a meal in Columbus for the rest of his life — whether he and the Buckeyes play for the national title or not. He demonstrated vividly that he don’t give a damn for the whole state of Michigan. I know I’m supposed to be outraged by this, but I can’t be. That would require me to be a TV drone and worry about things like The Image Of The Sport. Hell with that. Marcus Hall lived the dream of every Ohio State fan since the series began in 1897. As Meyer said after the game, it was an instant classic, and in so many ways, too. The 42-41 final wasn’t locked in until there were but 32 seconds left. All afternoon, Michigan had given itself a good puncher’s chance. But, with a minute remaining in the third quarter, its defense looked played out. Hyde, a considerable load at running back, ran the ball down to the Michigan 22. At this point, Miller dropped back and, having enough time to find a receiver on Craigslist, settled on tight end Jeff Heuerman. That put Ohio State up, 35-21. This is when championship teams put 7-4 teams away. But Michigan came back with an 83-yard drive in 11 plays that ended with an 11-yard pass from Gardner to Drew Dileo. They tied it six minutes later, only to have Ohio State score again, using Hyde to punish the Michigan defense on three carries in five plays before finally, almost contemptuously busting over from the 1. Michigan started its last drive on its own 16-yard line with two minutes and 20 seconds left. It was a desperate, stumbling thing. Gardner got himself sacked with 50 seconds left on the Ohio State 40-yard line, but somehow scraped himself off the ground again and found the two most elegant names on the roster, Justice Hayes and Fitzgerald Toussaint, on consecutive passes to get Michigan down to the 2. With 32 seconds left, tight end Devin Funchess posted up in the left corner of the end zone and Gardner found him for the touchdown that brought Michigan to within a point. It was at this moment that history — or something very much like it — came seriously into play. It had become Ohio State–Michigan. Period. Because of that, the decision for Wolverines coach Brady Hoke was an easy one. The only question this 7-4 Michigan team still had to resolve was its jersey color in a lower-tier bowl game somewhere. What they had left was a chance to beat Ohio State, and that is something that never changes. Do that, and your season is made, bowl game or no bowl game. Do that, and people talk about you along South Main Street in Ann Arbor forever. The Wolverines lined up for the two-point conversion. “Ohio State’s head coach called timeout. We went over, and [Coach Hoke] asked us as seniors, ‘Do you want to go for it?’ and I don’t think there was one guy that said no,” said Michigan tackle Taylor Lewan. “Every single person said yes. We were behind the coaches 100 percent. We fight for them and our brothers.” “We weren’t doing a good job slowing them down,” Hoke said. “We wanted to go win the football game.” The decision was suited to the moment. The play call, alas, was not. All day long, Michigan had befuddled Ohio State with misdirection, especially on throwback screen passes across the formation. This time, though, it sent Dileo on a simple slant to the right side, and Buckeye nickelback Tyvis Powell, who knew exactly where the ball was going to go from his film study that week, dove in front of Gardner’s pass, picking it off a few inches off the ground, and there was all kinds of celebrating and swaggering that was a bit unsuited to the achievement of winning by a single point after giving up 41 to what is now a five-loss team. “I was like, ‘Yeah, we watched that on film,'” Powell said. “Me and Josh Perry made a swap call. Josh ended up going on the blitz. He got the pressure on him, [Gardner] threw the ball, and I listened to [Buckeyes assistant coach Kerry Coombs] and, boom, there it was.” “I threw an interception that cost us the win,” Gardner said. “That’s what I will remember.” Too tough, young man. Much too tough on yourself. History will be kinder. |
Dan Miller is a 12-fight UFC veteran who’s logged six years with the promotion, but in recent years, his biggest fights have taken place outside the octagon. Between numerous injuries and his son battling a kidney disease, Miller’s focus hasn’t exactly been directed toward competition, which is why he hasn’t been seen in action since March 2013. The past few years have undeniably been a struggle, with Miller (14-7 MMA, 6-6 UFC) only fighting twice since August 2011. However, according to manager Mike Constantino, the 32-year-old is nearing the light at the end of a dark tunnel and is eager to get back to work. “Dan Miller’s back to training,” Constantino told MMAjunkie. “I contacted (UFC matchmaker) Joe Silva, and we’re looking to (get back) in September. Hopefully anywhere from September on you’ll see Dan Miller back in the octagon.” While Miller’s UFC run hasn’t exactly turned heads, he’s put together a respectable 6-6 record while competing in the world’s premier MMA organization. After spending his first 11 fights at middleweight, Miller’s most recent bout saw him drop to the welterweight division. However, the move didn’t produce the results he hoped for, and Jordan Mein handed the New Jersey native the first knockout loss of his career, at UFC 158. Despite the lackluster performance, Miller will remain at welterweight for his targeted fall return, Constantino said. For more on the UFC’s upcoming schedule, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site. |
The news: Breathe easy, potheads of Philadelphia. The City of Brotherly Love is about to become the largest in the country to decriminalize marijuana. Mayor Michael Nutter will sign a decriminalization bill, passed by the Philadelphia City Council in May, this week, according to an official with direct knowledge of the legislation. The bill was first introduced by Councilman Jim Kenney in May and would reduce the penalty for possession of an ounce (30 grams) of marijuana to a $25 fine, after which an offender would have the charge expunged from their record. Since June 2010, Philadelphia has punished possession with a $200 fine and a three-hour class on drug abuse. Philadelphia isn't the first large (sorry Boston) American metropolis to play with decriminalization. Chicago, which is significantly more populous, gave police the option in 2012 of giving those caught with 15 grams of pot or less $250 to $500 citations. Reuters reports, "ninety-three percent of misdemeanor marijuana possession violations in 2013 resulted in arrest ... a study by Roosevelt University's Illinois Consortium on Drug Policy found." To this end, Philadelphia is the largest city in America to take arrests entirely out of the law enforcement equation regarding small amounts of marijuana. "I'm very pleased that we've gotten to a point where activity like possession of a small amount of marijuana will not result in booking or an arrest record going forward," Kenney told Mic. "Keeping it out of the criminal courts and keeping it a civil offense is groundbreaking in Philadelphia. An arrest record for possession under an ounce results in a criminal record, which makes getting a job virtually impossible and basically makes receiving college aid or serving in the military out of the question. It keeps people from progressing and becoming good taxpaying citizens and it puts them on the path to towards poverty. With a 26% poverty rate, this is unconscionable." The background: Tuesday's announcement marks the end of a tedious political slugfest between the mayor and the city council. The Philadelphia City Council passed the bill with a 13-3 majority, enough votes to override a potential mayoral veto, but Nutter has spent the summer essentially stalling until the Sept. 11 deadline for his signature. This week, the City Council agreed to two Nutter amendments: one calling for an additional fine of $100 for those caught consuming marijuana in public places, and another delineating which part of the city bureaucracy would handle the citations. Kenney plans to withdraw his existing bill on Thursday and push for passage with these amendments next week. Here's the full text of the current bill as it currently exists: The delay hasn't gone particularly well for Nutter. Despite a Quinnipiac University poll finding that 85% of Pennsylvanians are in favor of legalization, the mayor has continually derided the effort as foolhardy. In August, he lashed out at the city council, declaring the measure a waste of his time. "People in this city ... come up to me all the time asking about jobs, asking about housing or asking about their children's education, or can we provide more services," he scoffed to CBS News. "No one has come up to me asking, 'Can you make it easier for me to stand on a street corner in front of some grandma's house and smoke my joint?' So let's be realistic here." Local media see Nutter's dismissal as "sad media spectacle," as Philadelphia CityPaper's Daniel Denvir put it. "If Mayor Nutter is capable of making a good argument against marijuana decriminalization, he hasn't shown it so far," wrote Philadelphia Magazine's Joel Mathis after Nutter's August remarks. Two former African-American mayors, W. Wilson Goode Sr. and John F. Street, urged Nutter to sign the bill when it was first approved by the council. Denvir took issue with Nutter's mocking reduction of the decriminalization push as "the great civil rights issue of our day — that black guys should be allowed to smoke as much dope as they want" in an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer. "A civil rights issue indeed: Eighty-three percent of the 4,314 marijuana-possession arrests made by Philly police in 2013 were of African-Americans," sighed Denvir. "The comments Nutter made showed him at his worst: arrogant, condescending and combative. And particularly so when speaking about poor black people." This is exactly why decriminalization matters. For Kenney and many marijuana legalization advocates around the country, decriminalization is absolutely a civil rights issue. Despite roughly equal usage rates, blacks are 3.73 times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana, according to the ACLU. Under Chicago's flawed "decriminalization" experiment, 80% of those arrested since August 2012 for carrying small amounts of pot were black, while another 17% were Hispanic and just 4% were white. Even more troubling: Black drug offenders also receive jail sentences 13.1% longer than white offenders for similar drug-related crimes. "Marijuana possession and use has been decriminalized in Philadelphia for years ... if you're a white person," Kenney told Mic. "If you're a tailgater at an Eagle game, waiting for a Willie Nelson or Phish concert, or hanging out at a frat party, you'll basically never be arrested for possession." Is it worth destroying a young person's future over a bag of marijuana? Most proponents of the Philadelphia bill say no. "As you have heard we have two young people here who were not only arrested for a small amount of weed, but the rest of their lives are jeopardized," community leader Pastor Darrell Robinson told Philly Now. "Their future is jeopardized. Their ability to make money and live a decent life in the city is jeopardized because of a small amount of weed." And that's just what happened: Within the first month of Nutter's dithering, 264 people were charged with marijuana possession and, potentially, denied futures. And as of now, Philadelphia County is the only county in Pennsylvania to arrest, jail and give criminal records to citizens. "It's unconscionable," Kenney told Philly Magazine. "The issue for me is that we have a 26% poverty rate. I need to have everyone working. And for a lot of these people, it is impossible to get jobs, all over a nickel bag of cannabis or a couple of joints." Of course, this will probably also help Kenney come Election Day in 2015: It's rumored he's planning to jump into the mayor's race. Editors Note: Mar. 3, 2015 An earlier version of this article failed to cite a passage from Reuters in accordance with Mic editorial standards. The article has been updated to properly attribute the language to Reuters. |
Sevilla FC Sevilla FC Manchester City Manchester City 1 3 FT Game Details GameCast Lineups and Stats Manchester City produced one of their greatest European performances to secure a place in the Champions League last 16 with a brilliant 3-1 win at Sevilla. Manuel Pellegrini's men did the damage early as they raced into a 2-0 lead with goals from Raheem Sterling and the outstanding Fernandinho inside 11 minutes at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan Stadium. Benoit Tremoulinas pulled one back for last year's Europa League winners but Wilfried Bony put City back in control before the break and they eased to a victory that puts them top of Group D. The draw between Borussia Monchengladbach and Juventus in the group's other fixture meant that City had ensured qualification with two games to spare. After their past struggles in the competition, this was a landmark moment for City under Pellegrini. Pellegrini raised some eyebrows in his selection as he left in-form Kevin De Bruyne on the bench, but his decision to play Fernando in midfield, allowing Fernandinho and Yaya Toure to push forward worked superbly. Raheem Sterling and Fernandinho were both on target for Manchester City. They made a blistering start as a result with Fernandinho twice going close in the opening minutes, first testing Sergio Rico and then shooting wide. Bony also drove a shot across goal before City went ahead with just eight minutes gone. Fernandinho was the architect with a defence-splitting pass and Sterling raced through to finish with composure from a difficult angle. City did not relent and they claimed a second three minutes later as Sterling seized possession and broke down the left to tee up Bony. Rico parried the Ivorian's shot but the rebound looped into the air and the irrepressible Fernandinho followed up to head home. Former Sevilla star Jesus Navas almost added another after a strong run down the right but Rico tipped his powerful low drive onto the post. Sevilla also contributed to a breathless opening and they should have had one back after Vicente Iborra headed dangerously across the City box but Fernando Llorente volleyed over. Navas saw another shot saved by Rico and Toure had an effort blocked but Sevilla did reply as Coke skipped into the area and crossed for Tremoulinas to head in. Joe Hart then produced a brilliant save to keep out a Timothee Kolodziejczak header on the line and Iborra slammed the rebound into the side-netting. It was a worrying spell for City but they soon recovered their composure and reasserted their grip on the game through Bony after 36 minutes. Navas, revelling back on his old stomping ground, was the provider after a good run down the right and Bony tucked away his shot coolly from in front of goal. City's pace, perhaps inevitably, dropped after the break but they continued to probe. Sterling remained dangerous and twice jinked across the area. He first set up Fernandinho to shoot at Rico before he tested the keeper himself. Another chance came as Toure combined well with Bony but then curled his shot wide. Bony had another effort blocked as City continued to create the better chances in a dominant performance. Such was City's superiority, Pellegrini was even able to give Fabian Delph a run-out in the closing minutes to step up his comeback from injury. |
Story highlights The FBI worked closely with Canadian authorities, the White House says A U.S. official says a train along the New York-to-Toronto line was being targeted One suspect, Raed Jaser, is in "disbelief" after his arrest, his lawyer says Police say the suspects got help from al Qaeda in Iran; Iran denies al Qaeda operates in its borders Passengers might have been catching a catnap, reading a book or daydreaming as they gazed out the window into southern Canada. They may have recently hopped on the train or boarded many hours ago as far back as New York. Whatever their origin, wherever they were sitting, wherever they were going -- perhaps to the last stop of Toronto -- these travelers wouldn't have expected the terror that Canadian and U.S. authorities detailed this week, a plot they alleged was backed by al Qaeda elements half a world away. According to a U.S. intelligence official and another government official, the plan was to plant explosives on a trestle -- a type of bridge over which trains often pass -- and detonate them after a northbound train crossed from the United States into Canada. Specifically, another U.S. official said, the New York-to-Toronto line that runs through Buffalo was targeted. Once the explosives went off, two of the officials said, the train would have careered off its tracks, causing untold death and destruction. The attack never happened. Instead, the two men who Canadian authorities say planned the alleged terror plot are behind bars. JUST WATCHED Police: Suspects had al Qaeda support Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Police: Suspects had al Qaeda support 01:22 JUST WATCHED Police: 'No imminent threat' to public Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Police: 'No imminent threat' to public 01:49 JUST WATCHED Close-up look at disrupted terror plot Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Close-up look at disrupted terror plot 01:56 On Tuesday, a day after the Royal Canadian Mounted Police announced the arrests, 35-year-old Raed Jaser appeared in Old City Hall Court in Toronto, the city he calls home. Asked whether he understood the legal proceeding, Jaser said, "It's very clear." But his lawyer, John Norris, afterward said that his client -- whom he described as a permanent resident in Canada, where he has lived the past 20 years -- is "in a state of shock and disbelief." "He is anxious to see the evidence that the crown says that it has against him," Norris said outside the courtroom. After waiving the reading of his charges, Jaser returned to the Canadian federal facility where he's being held. Bail was not considered Tuesday in his case. His alleged co-conspirator -- 30-year-old Chiheb Esseghaier, who was taken to Montreal for a jurisdiction hearing so that a justice can decide whether he'll be transferred to the province of Ontario -- is expected to be in a Toronto courtroom Wednesday for a similar proceeding, said Norris. According to court documents, both Jaser and Esseghaier face charges of conspiring "to murder persons unknown ... for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with a terrorist group." Suspects not citizens but have roots in Canada So who are these two suspects, and what were they doing? Authorities have not released much detail about the men, including their nationalities or how long they'd been in Canada, beyond that they weren't Canadian citizens. University of Quebec spokeswoman Julie Martineau said that, since 2010, Esseghaier has been a doctoral student at the National Institute of Scientific Research at that school. He was conducting research on nanosensors, which are used primarily for medical treatments or to build other nanoproducts, such as computer chips, she said. "He seemed like a normal student," said Martineau. Authorities allege that Esseghaier and Jaser watched "trains and railways in the greater Toronto area" and intended to derail a passenger train, said Royal Canadian Mounted Police Chief Superintendent Jennifer Strachan. "We are alleging these two individuals took steps and conducted activities to conduct a terrorist attack," she said. Muhammad Robert Heft, a Muslim community leader in Toronto, told CNN that a tip from a local imam led to the investigation. Heft, president of the Muslim social services organization Paradise Forever , cited the Canadian police, which he said revealed the information during a briefing on Monday with local Muslim leaders. "We are supportive and thankful that the RCMP did the investigation and was able to apprehend the individuals before anything happened," Heft said. "We are pleased that they took us in and explained what was going on." The Canadian Broadcasting Corp., quoting "highly placed sources," reported that Esseghaier and Jaser had been under surveillance for more than a year. White House spokesman Jay Carney said Tuesday that the FBI worked with its law enforcement counterparts in Canada, its close ally, during the investigation. The terror plot -- which a RCMP official said on condition of anonymity wasn't linked to last week's deadly Boston Marathon bombings -- was in its planning stages and not imminent, Canadian authorities said. Still, the outlines are reminiscent of those found in a document seized during the raid in Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden. This document indicated that al Qaeda members discussed as early as 2010 a plan to derail trains in the United States by placing obstructions on tracks over bridges and in valleys, though no specific rail system was identified, a law enforcement official told CNN in late 2011. Police allege ties to al Qaeda in Iran Authorities have said that they believe the suspects had help. Royal Canadian Mounted Police Assistant Commissioner James Malizia said the men got "support from al Qaeda elements in Iran" to carry out an attack and conspire to murder people in greater Toronto. There's no evidence that Iran's government was behind the plot, he added. "When I speak about 'supported,' I mean direction and guidance," Malizia said. Iran denies that al Qaeda has any presence within its borders. "Al Qaeda has no possibility to do any activity inside Iran or conduct any operation abroad from Iran's territory, and we reject strongly and categorically any connection to this story," Iran's mission to the United Nations said in a statement Al Qaeda and Iran have not been viewed as allies, with al Qaeda's membership mostly Sunni-dominated rather than Shiite, the Muslim sect of the vast majority of Iranians. "We have very little intelligence on al Qaeda in Iran," said U.S. Rep. Peter King, chairman of the House counterterrorism and intelligence subcommittee. What is known is that bin Laden's son-in-law Sulaiman Abu Ghaith fled Afghanistan and ended up in Iran after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. According to U.S. documents and officials, Abu Ghaith landed in Iran along with other members of bin Laden's inner circle, including the group's military commander, Saif al-Adel, and Saad bin Laden, a son of the al Qaeda leader who has played a leadership role in the group . Saad bin Laden also helped one of his father's wives and several of his father's children move from Pakistan to Iran, officials said. Abu Ghaith, a Kuwaiti, was captured in Jordan this year and is now in the United States, where he'll be charged in federal court with conspiring to kill Americans as part of al Qaeda. |
The date for Estonia’s next presidential election has been set for 29 August 2016, with 24 September determined as a possible follow-up date should voting in parliament prove inconclusive. Incumbent Toomas Hendrik Ilves is not allowed to run again, having served two consecutive terms from 2006-2011 and 2011-2016. Over the last year, a field of potential candidates has blossomed, yet until now the it is still difficult to tell the wheat from the weeds or to speculate who will become Ilves’ successor. The Estonian president is elected by parliament and except for the 1992 election – when the first round was exceptionally held by popular vote with a runoff held in parliament – parliament has three attempts to elect a candidate with a two-thirds majority of its members, i.e. 68 out of 101 members. If parliament fails to elect a candidate, the election passes on to an electoral college consisting of all members of parliament and roughly two-and-a-half times as many representatives from local parliaments and city councils (the number of representatives is based on population size – in 2016 there will be 234 local representatives). In the electoral college, only an absolute majority is necessary to elect a candidate in two rounds of voting. New candidates can be suggested in the first and second round of voting in parliament and in the first round of voting in the electoral college, making it possible for surprise candidates to emerge (and in the case of Arnold Rüütel, president 2001-2006, even win) at a relative late stage. Parties, candidates and the public Until now, there is only one confirmed candidate for the presidency: The Centre Party has nominated Mailis Reps, a 41-year old former minister of education and deputy chairman of the party who supports popular presidential elections. Interestingly, Reps beat long-time party leader and one-time Prime Minister Edgar Savisaar in the party internal ballot for the nomination by a 90:78 margin. The Centre Party however remains an outcast in the Estonian parliament – despite its continuous electoral success – and is eyed with suspicion by other parties due to its close links with the Russian minority and contacts to Vladimir Putin’s ‘United Russia’. Thus, it is unlikely that Reps will eventually take the presidency. The names of several other candidates have been mentioned over the last year, yet as 21 members of parliament are needed to receive a nomination, only the Reform Party of Prime Minister Taavi Roivas would be able to formally nominate another candidate of their own accord (the internal nomination of Mart Helme by the ‘Conservative People’s Party’ which holds only seven seats in the Riigikogu is thus largely inconsequential). Roivas on the other hand will likely not try to claim the presidential office for his own party but give it to either of the junior coalition partners, the Social Democrats or the Pro Patria and Res Publica Union. The Social Democrats have informally nominated Riigikogu speaker and veteran politician Eiki Nestor as their own candidate, while the Pro Patria and Res Publica Union want to put forward former Chancellor of Justice, Allar Jõks. Public opinion however still complicates the situation for the coalition. Despite having never been formally nominated or endorsed, foreign secretary Marina Kaljurand (independent; nominated to the cabinet by the Reform Party) has topped opinion polls for months as the public’s preferred president. Former Prime Minister and EU Commissioner as well as Reform Party co-founder Siim Kallas has also declared his willingness to be a presidential candidate but has not received any endorsement from the party so far. A joint candidate of Reform Party, Social Democrats and Pro Patria and Res Publica seems to be the most likely outcome of the election, yet it will likely only be decided in the electoral college (until now, Ilves’ reelection in 2011 was the only time that the Riigikogu elected a president without the help of the college). The future of the presidency: Popular elections unlikely President Ilves, although not always unequivocally liked by parties and citizens, leaves large foot steps to follow. He is an internationally renowned expert of cyber security and as a former foreign minister and ambassador to the United States brought a great deal of diplomatic skill to the role which helped him to make the country considerably more visible. The discussion about a future president is very much influenced by that role, with Prime Minister Roivas and others stressing that any potential candidate would need to have international experience and know their way around issue of foreign and defence policy (especially the latter has been rising in importance for the small Baltic nation in the wake of the Ukraine crisis and disputes with Russia over borders). In turn, Mailis Reps, who already as a education minister was criticised for lack of experience, has little to offer in this regard and thus stressed that in her view the president should be more active in domestic politics – a view not shared by the majority of politicians and very much counter to the development of constitutional practice over the last 20 years as my own research showed. Reps proposal to introduce popular presidential elections, a change equally favoured by Mart Helme of the ‘Conservative People’s Party’ is thus also unlikely to be implemented – previous projects for constitutional amendments proposed by the Centre Party as well as the first presidents, Lennart Meri, were all unsuccessful. |
It may have taken a little while to reveal itself, but it appears that Calvin Harris and ex-girlfriend Taylor Swift actually do have a little bad blood after the demise of their relationship. People published news Wednesday morning that, as long-rumored, Swift was a co-writer on “This Is What You Came For,” Harris’ hit song with Rihanna, information confirmed by Swift’s publicists. Further, TMZ alleges that it was the song itself that caused the couple to break up. During the promotion of the song, Harris did an interview with Ryan Seacrest and was asked whether or not he could foresee ever collaborating with his then-girlfriend. “You know, we haven't even spoken about it. I can't see it happening, though,” Harris said, words that apparently hurt Swift, given their secret collaboration. With all that in mind, Harris took to Twitter himself to confirm, clarify and question some aspects of Swift’s choice to out herself as being involved with the song. Things start harmlessly enough, with Harris being quite complimentary of Swift’s lyrical skills, as he links to the original People story that broke the news of their collaboration. https://twitter.com/CalvinHarris/status/753256456711843840 Harris then goes on to clarify his own involvement with the song, regarding the music and production, as well as stating that the secrecy involved was Swift’s choice. https://twitter.com/CalvinHarris/status/753257779775668224 Then things start to get fun. Harris is clearly hurt by Swift’s choice to out herself in such a way as to make Harris look like the bad guy, before going full “Kermit drinking tea” shady and suggesting that if Swift were happy in her new relationship, she wouldn’t have so much time to try to tear Harris down. https://twitter.com/CalvinHarris/status/753258935432294400 https://twitter.com/CalvinHarris/status/753259239863296000 Harris goes on to further make his point by invoking the name of Katy Perry, which is the point at which you realize he is not playing around. In a 2014 interview with Rolling Stone, before the release of “1989,” Swift said the song was about another female artist, whom she declined to name. “For years, I was never sure if we were friends or not,” Swift told the magazine. “She would come up to me at awards shows and say something and walk away, and I would think, 'Are we friends, or did she just give me the harshest insult of my life?’” Swift went on to say that the other artist then did something so horrible that it left Swift saying, “Oh, we’re just straight up enemies.” “She basically tried to sabotage an entire arena tour. She tried to hire a bunch of people out from under me. And I'm surprisingly nonconfrontational – you would not believe how much I hate conflict. So now I have to avoid her. It's awkward, and I don't like it,” Swift said. This is all (kind of) relevant in light of a 2013 Examiner interview of a backup dancer for both Swift and Perry, who detailed leaving Swift’s tour early with two friends to return to Perry’s entourage. https://twitter.com/CalvinHarris/status/753259873035399168 As for Perry she appears to have weighed in on the matter via her own meticulously chosen reaction gif. https://twitter.com/katyperry/status/753297289230241792 After that, Harris was all sunshine and light, suggesting that Swift focus on all of the great things in her life because she’s earned them, before going on to wish everyone a beautiful day. https://twitter.com/CalvinHarris/status/753260609970417664 https://twitter.com/CalvinHarris/status/753261674145067008 With such delightful social media entertainment, how could anyone not have a good day? libby.hill@latimes.com Twitter: @midwestspitfire MORE ENTERTAINMENT NEWS Taylor Swift and Tom Hiddleston: Is their relationship an elaborate hoax? Calvin Harris on Taylor Swift's new relationship: 'She's doing her thing' Kobe and Vanessa Bryant are expecting their third child, 'Baby Mamba' Drunk, vomiting Lamar Odom removed from red-eye flight at LAX before takeoff, report says The beautiful story of how Stephen Colbert met his wife UPDATES: 11:50 a.m.: This article was updated with Katy Perry’s Twitter reaction. This article was originally published at 10:36 a.m. |
Another Equal Pay Day has come and gone. It’s the day that marks how far into the next year women have to work to match the annual earnings of men (using the Census Bureau’s annual adjusted pay gap). This year that day was April 4, just in case you missed the celebration. Now last year Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren marked the day with an impassioned statement calling it a “national day of embarrassment.” “By the sound of it, you would think it’s some sort of historic holiday commemorating the anniversary of a landmark day that our country guaranteed equal pay for women,” Warren said. “But that’s not what this is about. Not even close. “The game is rigged against women and families, and it has to stop,” she added. So this year the Washington Free Beacon had a special Equal Pay Day surprise for Warren in an article documenting that the pay gap in Warren’s Senate office is nearly 10 percent higher than the national average. By their calculation, women working for Warren earned 71 cents for every dollar paid to men during the 2016 fiscal year. The Free Beacon’s analysis included only full-time staffers who were employed for the entire year. That meant Warren’s chief of staff, Mindy Myers, and her male replacement were not included in the calculation. But the report found only one woman, Warren’s scheduling director, making $100,000 or more, while five men earned six-figure salaries. It’s not that Warren’s the only hypocrite on Capitol Hill; she’s just the preachiest. |
So much for "Boston Cream Thigh” and “Peanut Butter D-Cups.” A North Hollywood pornography studio has agreed to not release products with titles and packaging that take inspiration from Ben & Jerry's trademark ice cream flavors. The porn maker Caballero Video, also know as Rodax Distributors Inc., has reached a settlement with Ben & Jerry's, according to the law firm representing the sweets maker. The porn company will comply with a court order, filed Monday, to not sell products including the 10 titles in its "Ben & Cherry's" series. ON LOCATION: Where the cameras roll Ben & Jerry's had said that Caballero didn’t have permission to reference Ben & Jerry’s or its trademarked ice cream flavors, which have names that the filmmakers evidently found to be a creative goldmine. Ben & Jerry's flavor names include "Banana Split," "Cherry Garcia" and "Everything But the..." — all of which became fodder for X-rated fare in Caballero's hands. Caballero also used packaging that resembled Ben & Jerry's well-known clouds and cows imagery. The Vermont ice cream company sued Caballero last September. The studio was ordered by the court to not distribute the videos while the case was pending and the company recalled the titles. PHOTOS: Hollywood Backlot moments Ben & Jerry’s, a subsidiary of Unilever, distributes its products around the world in supermarkets, convenience stores, Ben & Jerry’s Scoop Shops, restaurants and other venues. The porn industry frequently takes its titles from popular culture, especially hit movies. Examples include “The XXXorcist,” “Raiders of the Lost Arse," “A Clockwork Orgy” and “American Booty.” Ben & Jerry's did not immediately respond to a request for comment. ALSO: CBS and Time Warner Cable extend deal to Friday afternoon Activist investor Dan Loeb boosts rhetoric in call for Sony spinoff NFL amps up its digital media, launching a fantasy football effort Follow on Twitter: @rfaughnder ryan.faughnder@latimes.com |
The mainstream media will get around to covering abortion this month as the nation marks 40 years of legalized abortion for any reason throughout pregnancy via Roe v Wade. Time magazine has released its issue, which comes to a shocking conclusion. The cover article makes the case that the pro-abortion side is losing the abortion debate, saying, “40 Years Ago, Abortion Rights Activists Won an Epic Victory With Roe v. Wade. They’ve been losing ever since.” The article makes the pro-abortion case that, while abortion is still legal, it is increasingly difficult to access thanks to the closing of so many abortion clinics and pro-life laws that help women by giving them additional information and alternatives. The magazine also contains an article from Emily Buchanan of the pro-life women’s group Susan B. Anthony List that rebuts what has become the modern talking point for Planned Parenthood and other abortion defenders — that abortion is about protecting women’s health, some excerpts of which appear below: |
Share. Choose the games you want to see in PS Plus. Choose the games you want to see in PS Plus. Sony may be set to introduce a new feature allowing you to vote on games you'd like to see in each month's set of free PlayStation Plus titles. NeoGAF user El_Cinefilo discovered a video while browsing the "What's New" section of his PS4 in the UK going into detail about a new "Vote to Play" feature. According to the video, gamers will be given a choice of three games to choose between, and the one that receives the most votes will be offered free as part of PS Plus the following month, while the other two will be discounted. "An exciting way to have your say on what you'd like to play next through PlayStation Plus," the video apparently explains. "While voting is open you will be able to check which tiles are receiving the most votes or change your own vote at any time. Then the votes will be counted and the chosen game will be available as part of the PS Plus monthly games the following month. If your favourite game wasn't chosen it will be available to be purchased with a PS Plus discount" Interestingly, one of the three games listed in the demo video was Grow Home - a Ubisoft title that's currently only available on PC. Armello, on the other hand, recently got a PS4 release date in September. Could that be when we see the feature launch? IGN has reached out to Sony to see if we can get any confirmation on the feature and will update the story when we hear back. In the meantime, Sony announced the PS Plus titles available for August recently, while PS4 sales have hit 25.3 million. Luke Karmali is IGN's UK News Editor. You too can revel in mediocrity by following him on Twitter. |
Nginx is an extremely high performance web server which has the ability to handle thousands of requests per second with little hardware requirements. It can be installed on any operating system and it comes as an open source application as well. As much as Nginx is setup and supported for Windows, it does come with quite a few issues which limit it’s performance. We strongly recommend that you setup Nginx on a Linux server. You can get started on our cloud servers for just a few dollars per month. We’re going to go over how to install Nginx for Windows and we will also cover the details of how to set it up as a service within Windows, so it can start automatically.. You will need to have full Administrator access to the machine that you will be setting up as well to continue. Download & Extract Nginx Nginx comes pre-compiled for Windows which makes it extremely easy to get started. If it did not come pre-compiled, you would need to have a compiler installed on your computer with a full environment. Fortunately, this is not the case. At the time of this article, the latest Nginx version is 1.5.4 so we’ll download it from here: Download Nginx Windows Once you’ve downloaded Nginx for Windows, you can extract it to your folder of choice, we recommend that you install it somewhere easily accessible such as C:nginx . Verify Nginx Windows Installation In order to make sure that the service is working with no problems, we recommend that you start a command prompt window and type the following, make sure that you update the path if you’ve installed it in another folder. C:/nginx/nginx.exe You should be able to go to http://localhost/ and you should see the “Welcome to Nginx” default page. If you see that page, then we can be sure that Nginx has been installed properly. We will now shut it down and install it as a service, to stop it, you can use this command. C:/nginx/nginx.exe -s stop Now, if you were using Nginx as a simple development server, you can use these simple commands to start and stop the server as you need. However, if you will be using it as a production server, you would want to install it as a Windows service, which is what we’re covering in the next step. Install Nginx Windows Service We will be using the WINSW project to create a service out of the existing Nginx binaries. The first step is to download it from the following URL and save it in the same folder as Nginx as nginxsvc.exe . Download WINSW Once that is setup, you will need to create a service file, please be sure to create a file with the name nginxsvc.xml and with the following contents: <service> <id>nginx</id> <name>nginx</name> <description>nginx</description> <executable>c:nginxnginx.exe</executable> <logpath>c:nginx</logpath> <logmode>roll</logmode> <depend></depend> <startargument>-p c:nginx</startargument> <stopargument>-p c:nginx -s stop</stopargument> </service> You are now ready to install the Windows service, you can proceed to run the following command: C:/nginx/nginxsvc.exe install You can now proceed to manage the service from your service manager. The easiest and fastest way to access it is to type the following in your command prompt: services.msc You should be all setup and done at this point. You have Nginx as a service and you can set it up to start automatically when it is booted with your operating system! |
There is no doubt that Samsung’s latest Galaxy S7 combo is a huge hit. Earlier, it was reported that the South Korean giant was able to ship more than 10 million units in its first month of availability. Now, two separate reports from Korea are predicting that the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge are expected to touch the 25 million sales milestone by the end of this month. The four factors have been the backbone for this success story: aggressive marketing, good performance, an early launch and carrier push/promotions. According to Korean publication Pulse news, the Galaxy S7 edge is outselling the regular variant. And since the S7 edge costs more, Samsung is expected to report higher profits in the latest earnings. The sales of Galaxy S7 and its brother are expected to decline in second half of the year. And Samsung is about to get it covered with the launch of Note 7 on 2nd August. Overall, as of now the tech giant is having a great time in 2016 and we hope they end the year with same flow and momentum. Source: Pulse News |
For well over three years, heavy doses of propaganda have created a myth about a purported steel cylinder for testing explosives located on a site at Iran’s Parchin military testing reservation. Iran was refusing to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect the site while it sought to hide its past nuclear weapons-related work, according to that storyline. Now Iran has agreed to allow the IAEA to visit the site at Parchin and environmental samples have already been collected at the site. However, the politically charged tale of the bomb test chamber of Parchin is beginning to unravel. IAEA director general Yukiya Amano entered the building in which the explosives chamber had supposedly been located on Monday and announced afterward that he found “no equipment” in the building. That is surely a major story, in light of how much has been made of the alleged presence of the chamber at that location. But you may have missed that news, unless you happened to read the story by Jonathan Tirone of Bloomberg Business News, who was the only journalist for a significant news outlet who chose to lead with the story in his coverage of Amano’s Monday visit. The rest of the news media buried that fact far down in their stories, focusing almost entirely on the fact that the Iranians have been allowed to physically gather environmental samples at the site under the gaze of IAEA technicians rather than IAEA inspectors carrying out that function. The main storyline associated with the purported bomb cylinder since early 2012 has been that Iran has been removing evidence from the site for years in anticipation of an eventual IAEA inspection in order to hide the evidence of past experiments using the purported chamber. But the full story of that mysterious chamber makes it clear that it was highly dubious from the start. The first description of an explosive chamber at Parchin appeared in an IAEA report published in early November 2011. But less than two weeks after the story of the cylinder was reported in the media, Associated Press reporter George Jahn published a report that an official of an unidentified state had “cited intelligence from his home country, saying it appears that Iran is trying to cover its tracks by sanitising the site and removing any evidence of nuclear research and development". The official provided an “intelligence summary” from which Jahn quoted: “Freight trucks, special haulage vehicles and cranes were seen entering and leaving” the site on 4-5 November 2011, it said, and “some equipment and dangerous materials were removed from the site". Disputed intelligence The purpose of that language was clearly to suggest that Iran had actually removed the cylinder and the nuclear materials that it had been testing. If true, it would have been very incriminating evidence of Iran’s nuclear deception. But there was a problem with that claim. Officials of two other IAEA member states that were obviously following the aerial photography of the Parchin site closely denied that the story being peddled to Jahn by the unnamed state was true. It was true that there was more activity than normal at the site on those days, they told Jahn, but nothing resembling the activities claimed by the unidentified state’s “intelligence summary”. One of those two countries denying the story was clearly the United States. Pentagon spokesman Captain John Kirby told Jahn he had “seen nothing to indicate that those concerns are warranted”. The episode of the AP story begs the obvious question: Why was the state that could not be named so intent on planting a false story of Iranian removal of the purported cylinder? The obvious purpose of such a story would be to prepare government and public opinion for a possible IAEA visit to the site in the future, and the subsequent discovery that there was nothing incriminating at the site. That, in turn, indicates that the state in question was the same one that had provided the original story of the explosive cylinder to the IAEA and that it already knew that no cylinder would be found there because the original story had been a fabrication. Israeli-supplied documents The IAEA member state that had provided the information about a purported bomb cylinder was never identified by the IAEA. But IAEA director-general Mohamed El Baradei asserts in his memoirs that in the summer of 2009 Israel turned over to the IAEA a number of intelligence documents purporting to show that Iran had carried out nuclear weapons work “until at least 2007,” most of which consisted of purported Iranian official documents whose authenticity had been questioned by some of the agency’s technical experts. El Baradei refused to bow to diplomatic pressures from Israel’s allies, coordinated by the head of Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission, to publish a compendium of those documents, including the claim in an intelligence report of the Parchin explosives cylinder. The Israelis and the Obama administration had to wait until Amano succeeded him and agreed to do exactly that. The episode of the AP story isn’t the only evidence that the unidentified state had concocted an intelligence document on Parchin that was a complete falsehood. In August 2012, an IAEA report stated that the agency had acquired the satellite imagery available on the Parchin site for the entire period from February 2005 to January 2012. The report revealed that the imagery showed “virtually no activity at or near the building housing the containment vessel” during that entire period. The imagery clearly suggested that Iran had not been using the site for any sensitive activities, much less the activities suggested by the IAEA in its report, during the seven years, nor had they engaged in any cleanup of the site. And an earlier episode sheds further light on the issue. In 2004, John Bolton, then the administration’s Iran policymaker, leaked satellite imagery of sites at Parchin that had features someone believed might be high explosives testing facilities. After a few months of bullying by Bolton, the IAEA asked to visit Parchin. Iran not only agreed to an inspection in February 2005 but allowed the IAEA to choose any five sites in any one of the four Parchin quadrants – after the inspection team’s arrival - and take environmental samples anywhere at the sites. And in November 2005, after El Baradei requested a second inspection, Iran again gave the IAEA the choice of five more sites at which to take samples. The significance of those two 2005 IAEA inspections is not merely that the environmental samples all came back negative. More important, Iran would never have allowed the IAEA to choose to take environmental samples anywhere it chose at Parchin if it had carried out nuclear-weapons related experiments as claimed later by the unidentified state. The story continues Beginning in spring 2012 and continuing right up to the Vienna round of Iran nuclear negotiations last summer, the IAEA, Western diplomats and David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security generated many dozens of stories about Iran’s “stonewalling” the IAEA on Parchin while it sought to remove evidence of its purported nuclear-related testing at the site. Those stories invariably used the term “sanitising” – the same word the Israeli official used in passing on the false story to AP. Those stories were just as dishonest as the original Israeli story because the IAEA and Western diplomats assigned to it know very well that there is no way to remove all traces of nuclear material from a site. In 2013, Stephan Vogt, the head of the IAEA's environmental sample laboratory, declared in an interview: "You cannot get rid of them by cleaning, you cannot dilute them to the extent that we will not be able to pick them up." Strangely, however, even after that interview was published, the Parchin stories continued as if Vogt had not revealed the impossibility of “sanitising” a site that had held nuclear material. We are now only a few weeks away from the release of the environmental sampling results at Parchin. It will be amusing to this writer to see how the governments and news media who pushed the Parchin myth manage that story. |
In baseball, the designated hitter rule is the common name for Major League Baseball Rule 5.11,[1] adopted by the American League in 1973. The rule allows teams to have one player, known as the designated hitter (or DH), to bat in place of the pitcher. Since 1973, most collegiate, amateur, and professional leagues have adopted the rule or some variant.[2] MLB's National League and Nippon Professional Baseball's Central League are the most prominent professional leagues that do not use a designated hitter.[3] Major League Baseball rule [ edit ] In Major League Baseball, the designated hitter is a hitter who does not play a position, but instead fills in the batting order for the pitcher. The DH may only be used for the pitcher (and not any other position player), as stated in Rule 5.11. Use of the DH is optional, but must be determined prior to the start of the game. If a team does not begin a game with a DH, the pitcher (or a pinch-hitter) must bat for the entire game. The designated hitter may be replaced as DH only by a player who has not entered the game. If a pinch hitter bats for, or a pinch runner runs for, the DH, that pinch-hitter or pinch-runner becomes the DH. The designated hitter can be moved to a fielding position during the game. If the DH is moved to another position, his team forfeits the role of the designated hitter, and the pitcher or another player (the latter possible only in case of a multiple substitution) would bat in the spot of the position player replaced by the former DH. If the designated hitter is moved to pitcher, any subsequent pitcher (or pinch-hitter thereof) would bat should that spot in the batting order come up again (except for a further multiple substitution). Likewise, if a pinch-hitter bats for a non-pitcher, and then remains in the game as the pitcher, the team would forfeit the use of the DH for the remainder of the game, and the player who was DH would become a position player (or exit the game). Unlike other positions, the DH is "locked" into the batting order. No multiple substitution may be made to alter the batting rotation of the DH. In other words, a double switch involving the DH and a position player is not legal. For example, if the DH is batting fourth and the catcher is batting eighth, the manager cannot replace both players so as to have the new catcher bat fourth and the new DH bat eighth. Once a team loses its DH under any of the scenarios discussed in the previous paragraph, the double switch becomes fully available, and may well be used via necessity, should the former DH be replaced in the lineup. Interleague play and exhibitions [ edit ] In Major League Baseball, during interleague play, the application of the DH rule is determined by the identity of the home team, with the rules of the home team's league applying to both teams. If the game is played in an American League park, the designated hitter may be used; in a National League park, the pitcher must bat or else be replaced with a pinch-hitter. On June 12, 1997, San Francisco Giants outfielder Glenallen Hill became the first National League player to DH in a regular-season game, when the Giants met the American League's Texas Rangers at The Ballpark in Arlington in interleague play.[4] At first, the DH rule was not applied to the World Series. From 1973 to 1975, all World Series games were played under National League rules, with no DH and pitchers batting. For 1976, it was decided the DH rule would apply to all games in a World Series, regardless of venue, but only in even-numbered years. Cincinnati Reds first baseman Dan Driessen became the first National League player to act as a DH in any capacity (regular season or postseason) when he was listed as the DH in the first game (he was the DH in all four Series games that year). This practice lasted through 1985. Beginning in 1986, the DH rule was used in games played in the stadium of the American League representative. There was initially no DH in the All-Star Game. Beginning in 1989, the rule was applied only to games played in American League stadiums.[5] During this era, if the All-Star Game was scheduled for an American League stadium, fans would vote in the DH for the American League's starting lineup, while the National League's manager decided that league's starting DH. Since 2010, the designated hitter has always been used by both teams regardless of where the game is played.[6] In June 2010, the Philadelphia Phillies' scheduled 2010 series against the Toronto Blue Jays at Rogers Centre was moved to Philadelphia, because of security concerns for the G-20 Summit. The Blue Jays wore their home white uniforms and batted last as the home team, and the designated hitter was used.[7] The game was the first occasion of the use of a designated hitter in a National League ballpark in a regular-season game with Ryan Howard being the first player to fill the role.[8] In spring training games, the home team chooses whether the designated hitter is used. Occasionally National League teams opt to use the designated hitter, usually when a player is recovering from an injury. Background and history [ edit ] The rationale for the designated hitter rule arose comparatively early in the history of professional baseball. It was observed that, with a few exceptions—most notably Babe Ruth, who began his career as a pitcher with the Boston Red Sox—pitchers are usually selected for the quality of their pitching, not their hitting, and that most pitchers were weak hitters who had to be batted ninth in the batting order and pinch-hit for late in games when their team was trailing. The designated hitter idea was raised by Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack in 1906,[9] though he was not the first to propose it. The rumors were that he grew weary of watching Eddie Plank and Charles Bender flail at pitches when at bat. Mack's proposal received little support and was even lambasted by the press as "wrong theoretically". The notion did not die. In the late 1920s, National League president John Heydler made a number of attempts to introduce a 10th-man designated hitter as a way to speed up the game, and almost convinced National League clubs to agree to try it during spring training in 1929.[9] However, momentum to implement the DH did not pick up until the pitching dominance of the late 1960s. In 1968, Denny McLain won 31 games and Bob Gibson had a 1.12 ERA, while Carl Yastrzemski led the American League in hitting with only a .301 average. After the season, the rules were changed to lower the mound from 15 to 10 inches and change the upper limit of the strike zone from the top of a batter's shoulders to his armpits. In addition, in 1969 spring training, both the American League and National League agreed to try the designated pinch hitter (DPH), but they did not agree on the implementation. Most NL teams chose not to participate. On March 6, 1969, two games utilized the new DPH rule for the very first time. Two newly formed expansion teams, the Montreal Expos and the Kansas City Royals, would participate in one such game, and the New York Yankees and Washington Senators in the other. On March 26, 1969, Major League Baseball nixed the idea for the time being. However, a four-year trial in which the International League and four other minor leagues started using the DH for their games began that year.[10] Like other experimental baseball rule changes of the 1960s and 70s, the DH was embraced by Oakland A's owner Charlie O. Finley. On January 11, 1973, Finley and the other American League owners voted 8–4 to approve the designated hitter for a three-year trial run.[9] On April 6, 1973, Ron Blomberg of the New York Yankees became the first designated hitter in Major League Baseball history, facing Boston Red Sox right-handed pitcher Luis Tiant in his first plate appearance. "Boomer" Blomberg was walked.[11] The result of the first season of the DH was that the American League posted a higher batting average than the National League, something which has remained consistent to this day. In response to increases in American League attendance because of the designated hitter[citation needed], the National League held a yes/no vote on August 13, 1980, to determine whether or not the league would adopt the designated hitter. A majority of the 12 member teams was necessary to pass the rule, and the measure was expected to pass. However, when the teams were informed that the rule would not come into effect until the 1982 season, Philadelphia Phillies vice president Bill Giles was unsure of how the team owner, Ruly Carpenter, wanted him to vote. Unable to contact Carpenter, who was on a fishing trip, Giles was forced[by whom?] to abstain from voting. Prior to the meeting, Harding Peterson, general manager for the Pittsburgh Pirates, was told to side with the Phillies.[clarification needed] The final tally was four teams voting for the DH (Atlanta Braves, New York Mets, St. Louis Cardinals, and San Diego Padres), five votes against (Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati Reds, Los Angeles Dodgers, Montreal Expos, and San Francisco Giants), and three abstentions (Philadelphia Phillies, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Houston Astros). Five days after that meeting, the Cardinals fired their general manager, John Clairborne, who was the leading proponent for the adoption of the DH rule, and the National League has not held another vote on the issue.[12] As time passed, the designated hitter rule has ended up offering American League managers multiple strategic options in setting their teams' lineups: they can rotate the DH role among part-time players (for example, using a left-handed batter against a right-handed pitcher and vice versa) or they can employ a full-time designated hitter against all pitchers. It also allows them to give a healthy everyday player a partial day off, or to give an injured player the opportunity to bat without exposing him to re-injury while playing in the field. In recent years, full-time DHs have become less common, and the position has been used to give players a partial off-day, allowing them to bat but rest while the other team is batting. This option comes in very handy when a team's lineup includes several older players. The 2012 Yankees, for example, rotated five players through the DH spot during the season, all of them over 34 years old.[13] Only a handful of players compile over 400 at-bats as a DH each year. With the Houston Astros having moved to the American League for the 2013 MLB season, which requires interleague play season-round (as well as the Astros to start using a DH full-time), there is debate within MLB to unify the rules of the two leagues, with either the American League returning to its pre-1973 rules and having the pitcher hit, like the National League, or the National League adopting the DH.[14] In January 2016, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred indicated that consideration was given to the National League adopting the DH for the 2017 season when a new collective bargaining agreement would take effect.[15] However, he later backtracked on this statement to say that he does not see unification coming any time soon.[16] Accordingly, the DH rule was not adopted by the National League for 2017. Awards [ edit ] Major League Baseball presents an annual award to the most outstanding designated hitter of the season, called the Edgar Martínez Award. Renamed for the former Seattle Mariners DH after his retirement in 2004, the Outstanding DH Award was introduced in 1973 and has been handed out every season since, except 1994 due to a players' strike. Notable winners include Martínez (five times) and David Ortiz (seven times, five consecutively). DHs have generally not made much impact on the Major League Baseball Most Valuable Player Award or National Baseball Hall of Fame voting, because of the relative rareness of the full-time DH and the fact that the DH does not contribute on defense. During the 1993 season Paul Molitor became the first player to win the World Series Most Valuable Player award while playing 137 of 160 games (85.63%) as a designated hitter; David Ortiz did the same in 2013. Ortiz was also the first designated hitter to win the ALCS MVP in 2004. Ortiz and Molitor played games at first base in their World Series MVP seasons, leaving Hideki Matsui in 2009 as the only World Series MVP to never play the field that season. Among Hall of Famers, Paul Molitor and Jim Rice were, until 2014, the only inductees to even have played at least 25% of their games at DH. In 2014, Frank Thomas became the first Hall of Famer who played the majority of his games at DH. In 2018, Edgar Martínez was elected to the Hall of Fame having played over 70% of his games at DH. Debate [ edit ] There is considerable debate over whether the designated hitter rule should be removed,[17][18] while some[17] have argued that the National League should adopt it. On the other hand, there are also fans who enjoy the fact that the American and National Leagues use different rules. Two generations of fans of American League teams have grown up with the designated hitter rule being in place, so some may consider the designated hitter to be as much a traditional part of baseball as the pitcher taking his turn at bat is for fans of National League teams. Critics often argue that use of the designated hitter introduces an asymmetry to the game by separating players into classes, creating offensive and defensive specialization more akin to American football. Opponents of the rule believe it effectively separates pitchers, other fielders, and designated hitters into separate roles that never cross, possibly causing issues with promoting 'batting cage' players whose scope of experience is extremely limited. However, when the pitcher bats alongside everyone else, all nine players must take turns at the plate and in the field, and the hybridization of roles requires that everyone knows other roles in addition to their own. The designated hitter rule also changes managerial strategy in late innings. In the National League, a manager must decide when to let a pitcher bat or remove him, as well as with whom to pinch-hit and where or if that player should take the field afterward. When the decision to remove a pitcher is made, the manager may also elect to double switch, delaying the new pitcher's turn at bat. A designated hitter reduces the need for late-inning pinch hitters.[19] Advocates of the designated hitter[17][18] point to the fact that it has extended many careers, and, in a few cases, created long, productive careers for players who are weak fielders or have a history of injuries, such as Edgar Martínez and David Ortiz. Hall of Fame members George Brett, Carl Yastrzemski, Paul Molitor, and Martinez continued their careers longer than they ordinarily would have without the rule.[20] Barry Bonds, who spent his entire career in the National League and actually won eight Gold Gloves earlier in his career, was used strictly as a DH later in his career when the San Francisco Giants played away interleague games due to his poor fielding.[21] Some believe that extending careers of older players is less of an advantage and more of a disadvantage, filling spots that otherwise may have been taken by younger players who end up not finding a place in the major leagues. Interleague play has added a new wrinkle to the controversy. Some feel that it is not fair to ask an AL team to play without their DH when their roster has not been set up to do so, or on the other hand, to ask an NL team to use a DH when they may not have an appropriate player. Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig once proposed that the road team's rules should be followed for interleague games in order to combat this advantage for the home team, but the idea has not received traction.[22] The decline of pitcher Chien-Ming Wang due to an interleague game injury has been cited in support of the designated hitter. On June 15, 2008, Wang, at the time one of the Yankees' best pitchers, was taken out of an interleague game versus the Houston Astros due to a right foot injury he sustained while running the bases, something he was not used to doing, since pitchers do not bat in the American League. Wang was diagnosed with a torn Lisfranc ligament and a partial tear of the peroneus longus of the right foot. The cast was removed on July 29, but the extensive rehabilitation process prevented Wang from being an effective pitcher at the major league level since. Yankees part-owner Hank Steinbrenner showed frustration with pitchers having to bat in the National League and suggested that the League "join the modern age".[23] Designated hitter outside Major League Baseball [ edit ] Minor League Baseball [ edit ] Among Minor League Baseball teams, Rookie and Single-A level leagues use the DH in all games. At the Double-A and Triple-A level, when both teams are National League affiliates, pitchers may bat. In the Pacific Coast League, pitchers only hit when both clubs are NL affiliates and both clubs agree to have their pitchers hit. The reason for the difference is that as players get closer to reaching the majors, teams prefer to have the rules mimic, as closely as possible, those of the major league teams for which the players may soon be playing.[24] International baseball leagues [ edit ] The DH is used in most professional baseball leagues around the world. One notable exception is the Central League of Japan, where pitchers bat as they do in the National League. Japan's Pacific League adopted the designated hitter in 1975. When teams from different leagues play against each other in the Japan Series or interleague games, the DH rule is adopted if the Pacific League's team hosts the game. The DH rule is used in the Japanese minor leagues. Amateur baseball [ edit ] In American high schools and other amateur baseball leagues that use National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) rules, a DH may bat in place of one player in any position, not just a pitcher. Many coaches use a designated hitter in place of the weakest hitter in the lineup, if they use one at all. In amateur baseball, many pitchers are also good hitters and will often play another position (or even DH) when not pitching. Japanese high school baseball is one of the few amateur baseball leagues in the world that has never used the designated hitter rule at all. In high school baseball in South Korea, the rule has been adopted since 2004. American Legion rules, on the other hand, allow the DH only to bat for the pitcher; prior to 1995, the use of the DH was not allowed in Legion baseball at all. In college baseball, NCAA rules state that the designated hitter must hit for the pitcher, but in many instances the pitcher is also a good hitter, and the coach may elect to let the pitcher bat in the lineup. If the pitcher opts to bat for himself, he is treated as two separate positions – a pitcher and a designated hitter (abbreviated P/DH on the lineup card) – and may be substituted for as such (i.e. if he is removed as the pitcher, he may remain as the designated hitter and vice versa). However, if a player who starts a game as a P/DH is relieved as the starting pitcher, he may not return to the mound even if he remains in the game as the DH, and he may not play any other defensive position after being relieved as the pitcher unless he immediately moves to another defensive position, in which case the new pitcher must assume the spot in the batting order of the fielder the P/DH substituted for, and the DH is lost for the remainder of the game. Conversely, a player who begins the game as the DH, but not as the pitcher, may come into the game as a reliever and remain as the DH (in effect becoming a P/DH), be relieved on the mound later in the game but continue to bat as the DH. In Little League Baseball, the DH is not used. However, a league may adopt a rule which requires all players present and able to play to be listed in the batting order (such that the order contains more than nine players), and thus all players will have a turn to bat even when they are not assigned a fielding position. Players in the batting lineup without a position on the field are given the position designation extra hitter (EH), a position seen occasionally in other amateur organizations (both youth and adult). Sources [ edit ] Will, George F. (1990). Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball . McKelvey, G. Richard (2004). All Bat, No Glove: A History of the Designated Hitter . Dickey, Glenn (1980). The History of American League Baseball . Johnson, Lloyd (1999). Baseball's Book of Firsts . Mahony, Phillip (2014). Baseball Explained. Archived from the original on August 13, 2014. References [ edit ] Further reading [ edit ] |
Following the launch of ‘Translational Bioinformatics’, a PLOS Computational Biology collection presented as an online book, in December 2012, PLOS Computational Biology Founding Editor-in-Chief Phil Bourne discusses how open access can boost the availability and prominence of book chapters. As authors, many of us have had less than satisfactory experiences in writing book chapters as part of a themed volume, or textbook that, when published, are expensive, inaccessible and cited and used infrequently through lack of availability [1]. It could even be argued we write them from some sense of obligation and need, but do not put our best science and efforts into them because we know they won’t be read and hence cited. Putting that thought aside, let’s just say that a lot of good science goes underutilized. Some finds its way into journal reviews and journals that specialize in such content, for example the Elsevier Current Opinions series, but much languishes. I, many of the PLOS editors, and the PLOS management have long wanted this situation to change; well now it has. The value of themed hardcover volumes and textbooks was understandable in a purely print era. An era during which we frequented the library more, which is where these volumes resided, being too expensive for individuals to purchase. These volumes make no sense today in a digital, open-access world. We are proud to report that PLOS Computational Biology has taken the first steps to address this nonsense. Translational Bioinformatics, edited by Guest Editor Maricel Kann and Education Editor Fran Lewitter, is the first complete PLOS “book” that can be accessed online as individual chapters or downloaded as a complete volume. An ePub version is now available too. The content is indexed, each chapter has a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) assigned and hence is resolvable (i.e., uniquely findable), and is indexed in PubMed and available as full text from PubMed Central, like all PLOS content. Translational Bioinformatics can be used as a reference guide or textbook, and includes exercises. After review, the authors have had their hard work rewarded through a PLOS citation and greater accessibility to their work. The book uses the PLOS collection feature to bring the content together into a single entity while retaining the individuality of each article. While we regard this as an important step forward it does raise some questions. The first question is who pays? Obviously we are strong proponents of open access, but also the first to admit there must be a business model if open access content is to be persistent. Certainly most of us have never made any money from writing specialized book chapters contributed to a volume, but would we pay a modest amount to have them published open access? This remains an open question at this time. PLOS met the cost of publishing Translational Bioinformatics, but if this approach to book chapters were to take off, someone will have to foot the bill. At this time PLOS are interested in furthering this cause and, as with all front matter within the Education Section of the journal, book chapters are not subject to publishing fees. If the demand becomes too great we will need to revisit this. Support for chapter content would seem an opportunity for a wonderful contribution by an individual philanthropist or foundation in furthering scientific dissemination. The second question is what quality of review do we require of chapter content? In general terms solicited book chapters do not undergo the level of review found in a research article. Unless the content is terrible, the editors soliciting the material are hard pressed to reject it having persuaded the authors to write it in the first place. Good editors, as we have here, will provide the level of review found in a research article. Moreover, with greater exposure and article level metrics (ALMs) applied to each chapter, the content will rise or fall on its own merits and the end result will likely be higher quality content than we have traditionally seen from book chapters. With regard to PLOS Computational Biology specifically we regard this book content as front matter in the Education Section and as such it has had significant review. We will be revisiting the issue of review, and indeed all aspects of the scope of our support for chapters, as demand increases. The third question is what do we lose and gain in an online book? Of course there are the obvious issues, now long debated, regarding eBooks versus physical books and there is no need to revisit those issues here. What are worth visiting are the specific issues surrounding a book publication by PLOS, an organization which is currently set up to operate as a journal publisher. PLOS have been wonderful in making this project happen and paving the way for more through the notion of collections. Collections do present challenges when used to represent a book. For example, the collection has no ISBN or other book-like identifier defining the citation; books have editions whereas there is no notion of versioning in a collection. On the positive side the collection can become a dynamic entity, such that new chapters (with their own journal-like citation) can be added to the collection at any time. Open questions there might be, but an exciting time nevertheless, with PLOS continuing to push the envelope regarding scholarly communication. Over time we will sort this out, but in the meantime enjoy Translational Bioinformatics, a new innovation in open access publishing. [1] http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2012/08/29/how-to-bury-your-academic-writing/ Acknowledgments: Thanks to Maricel Kann and Fran Lewitter for editing a fine volume. To Editor-in-Chief Ruth Nussinov for useful input and to PLOS staff, Rosemary Dickin, Laura Taylor, Clare Weaver, Theo Bloom and Kristen Ratan for making it happen. This blog post will be published as an Editorial in the February issue of PLOS Computational Biology. Philip E. Bourne is a professor of pharmacology and Associate Vice Chancellor for Innovation and Industrial Alliances at the University of California San Diego, the co-founder of SciVee.tv, and Founding Editor-in-Chief of PLOS Computational Biology. If you’d like to share your feedback on this post, please add a comment below. |
Ruby use is up 40 per cent amongst North American software developers since 2008, according to a new study from Evans Data. Despite the jump in popularity, Ruby still occupies a relatively small niche in the developer community as a whole, the company says. Only 14 per cent of developers polled in North America use Ruby at least some of the time, up from 10 per cent in a poll last year. About 20 per cent, however, told Evans they expect to use Ruby in the coming year. The market research firm's latest bi-annual Development survey got its figures by polling 400 North American software developers. Evans reckons the popularity of Ruby is spurred by the rise of Ruby on Rails, the open-source framework written in the programming language — and it thinks it is also one reason why Linux continues to grow as a target platform. "The increasing adoption of developers using scripting languages correlates with today's overall emphasis on web centric applications which have to be highly malleable to rapidly changing market driven requirements," said Evans Data CEO John Andrews in a statement. "Interestingly, while we see Linux continue to increase as a target platform, this category of development reflects the greatest growth in targeting a non Windows target platform." While that's fine and dandy for open source fans, the developer poll also indicates commercial SQL databases are two and a half times more likely to be used as a primary database than open source SQL databases. Sample pages of the survey can be found here. ® |
We are on the verge of an important milestone in our world's political history. State-sponsored false flag operations, the central weapon of governments seeking a pretext for war and domestice repression can be eliminated forever. George Santayana wrote: "Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it." Today we have an opportunity to learn from our past and forge a new era in human sovereignty while righting the scales of justice. Horrible crimes against humanity were committed on 9/11 and the true criminals need to be identified and removed from positions of power in our world. Modern people-to-people global communications provides the potential for building a worldwide awareness of these previously hidden sinister acts and a level of transparency of governance never before imaginable. It is our hope that as this millennium develops, we here in America will once again make a significant contribution to the progress of human freedom and self-determination by freeing ourselves and the world from this malevolent empire propped up by deceit and propaganda. At our birth as a nation we fought against a militaristic empire bent on dominating us. Now it is time for us to put to the test the strategies of nonviolence that Dr. King and Gandhi have urged us to pursue. Once again we must struggle for freedom from oppression. This time we must overcome an Orwellian media and global network of forces in the shadows that have tried to control us through these false-flag "terrorist attacks" which have included the 1993 WTC bombing, the Oklahoma City bombings, the London attacks of 7-7 and the vile crime of September 11th, 2001. At the Emergency Truth Convergence in the summer of 2005 (www.truthemergency.us) we said: The Fear Ends Here. We urge you again to throw out your fears and embrace the joy and glory of working together as brothers and sisters in a common cause. Let us unite with all who choose to join us and sound an alarm as well as a declaration that we are free and in charge of our own destiny as awakened and empowered citizens shaping a better world. A post-9/11 truth world has a huge upside for all of us - let's keep our eyes on that silver lining beyond the dark clouds currently surrounding us. A Call To All True Patriots to Investigate September 11 We have actively studied the questionable nature of the official version of what happened to our nation on September 11, 2001. Throughout the first year after 9-11 we ignored and did not believe those who asked us to question the official story. Like millions of Americans we believed America had been attacked by terrorists from abroad. Sadly, we are now convinced that rogue elements within our government committed a vicious criminal act against its own citizens for the larger purpose of swaying us to support both domestic and foreign policies mapped out in the late 1990's. 9-11 was Hitler's Reichstag fire of 1933 and Roosevelt's Pearl Harbor masterfully coordinated to achieve the desired ends of an imperialistic role for America in the world, patriotic support at home and the erosion of our constitutional rights. In a nutshell, the war on terrorism is a cruel hoax by a misguided, out-of-democratic control small group of individuals sabotaging the best of American values. We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis combined with severe domination from an Orwellian corporate media knowingly or unknowingly being of service to the true powerbrokers behind the curtain. We feel like we are living in the "Matrix" where we can blend in, but knowing something is horribly wrong and must be exposed. The quality of life for all of our loved ones is at stake along with the hopes of millions of people for a world of peace, freedom and ecological sustainability. If just a few of you take the time to study a little more and become involved in the 9-11 Truth movement we will be greatly appreciative. We strongly feel that everyone should involve themselves in this effort to expose the truth about 9-11 and in the greatest push ever from the grassroots to nonviolently replace our current despotic leadership. It would have tremendous positive consequences, if similar to the fall of Nixon over Watergate, that the Bush administration was exposed on this and replaced. This outrageous criminal act must be brought to justice and our freedoms restored. We need to reach out now to all those who may be willing to hear, break the silence and take courageous action. |
Last year, while writing for that basketball bible known as The New Republic, Maxwell Neely-Cohen offered a pitch-perfect description of Twitter’s outsized influence on all things NBA. “Twitter has become the epicenter of basketball fandom, a beating heart and a central nervous system, a place where serious statistical analysis flows alongside highlights, jokes, exclamations, and inane trash talk from every conceivable corner of the world,” Neely-Cohen wrote. “The NBA Twitter ecosystem includes professional gamblers, math geniuses, journalists, front office insiders, >superfans , team PR reps, massive athletic apparel brands, cable news anchors, rappers, heads of state, and the very players being discussed. For football and baseball the killer app second screen experience is fantasy sports; for basketball it is Twitter.” > The shorthand for this is “NBA Twitter” and no media person covering the NBA can escape its influence, both good and bad. As part of an NBA media roundtable this week with seven influential voices, I asked how much NBA Twitter influences what they do and why? > The panel: • Howard Beck, NBA writer, Bleacher Report • Candace Buckner, Wizards reporter, Washington Post • Tania Ganguli, Lakers reporter, L.A. Times • Adam Himmelsbach, Celtics reporter, Boston Globe • Frank Isola, NBA columnist, New York Daily News, SiriusXM NBA Radio host, Around The Horn panelist. • Michael Lee, senior NBA writer, Yahoo! Sports • Marcus Thompson, columnist, The Athletic Bay Area Beck: Twitter is indispensable. It’s my primary news feed (both NBA and real world), a social outlet, a place to engage with readers and to promote my work. There’s a lot of nonsense on Twitter, but there’s also a lot of really smart NBA conversations going on. Occasionally, that might spark a story idea, or help shape a story I’m already working on. It also provides a snapshot of how fans/media view a particular trend or player or league issue. That may help inform my own opinions, or at least give me something to think about. Buckner: Being new to Washington I’ve learned through Wizards Twitter that there are many people who are down on the team’s front office, particularly president Ernie Grunfeld. It makes sense, there’s a lot to be mad about. So while this helps inform me with past context, I’m vigilant in not having it influence the way I write. I got here in 2016, not during the height of the #SoWizards era. I don’t want to get sucked into an echo chamber. I’d rather write what I see in the here and now. Again, it’s good to have context and apply it when it makes sense, but paying too much attention to NBA Twitter can be like spin. If I don’t want to be spun by the front office, then I have to keep the same standard in mind when I’m interacting with fans. Ganguli: I love NBA Twitter. It’s the result of the league and the people around it not taking themselves too seriously, which is great. I don’t think it influences what I do all that much. It is interesting to see what gets noticed and what doesn’t. Himmelsbach: This is a great question. I always say that Twitter is at once so great and so horrible. It’s a fantastic place to share your work, but I’m well aware that most followers don’t even click on the actual stories. If anything, they just use the time to complain that they’ve used their free articles for the month and hate the Boston Globe’s paywall. Twitter is certainly home to some of the most rabid and intelligent fans, and the real-time interactions can be really cool. But I also have to remind myself sometimes that I’m not writing for Twitter, and that in the end it’s a small part of the overall audience. So just because something might get a lot of favorites doesn’t mean it would make a great story. It also seems that some sports journalists tweet overly positive things about the teams they cover because they know it’ll get more retweets, because fans like positive. That can be awkward. Isola: It's huge. From linking to your stories to expressing opinions in 140 characters, every NBA writer and broadcaster is building (or ruining) their brand every day. I don't have Facebook, SnapChat or Instagram but I do Twitter. I enjoy it. Mostly, I use it to bust balls which is very easy to do because folks take sports very seriously and Knicks fans take themselves seriously. Lethal combination. But sometimes it bothers me. For example, when Gordon Hayward suffered that gruesome leg injury a lot of players were quick to tweet "Prayers for Gordon Hayward." I get it, he's part of the NBA brotherhood and mostly players were reacting to the visual of him suffering that terrible injury. Of course, I don't remember many players tweeting out prayers to Jeremy Lin the next night when he suffered a far worse injury. But when an NBA broadcaster tweeted how Hayward's injury would impact the Celtics on the court he received a lot of blowback from followers who thought he was being insensitive. Too soon? Was he supposed to tweet "Prayers for Hayward" and then wait 24 hours to give his basketball opinion. Politically correct Twitter is the worst kind of Twitter. Lee: If something goes viral—either a post-game rant or a poster dunk—that’s probably a story worth pursuing. There are always several layers that can be examined and hashed out. I remember last year the Warriors had a party at Steph Curry’s house where there were balloons that read, "Super Villains.” In the photo, all the players were looking at the camera but Klay Thompson was checking his phone. Fans on Twitter reacted and I asked Klay about it as part of a story. NBA Twitter has some of the best debates, too, and it’s good to provide information and support for barbershop-type discussions. I'd probably also be incredibly more productive if I stayed off NBA Twitter. It has to be the best of the major professional sports. Thompson: Too much, I’d say. It has become an extension of whatever outlet we work for, a mandatory component in addition to the paper or website, etc. It also is a straw man, a not-so-scientific survey of moods and tones and narratives. It drives motivations—of articles, player’s comments, team ordinances—because it has a way of shaping perception. |
The draw for the group stage of the ESEA Season 25 Global Challenge has been made, with the eight participating teams having been split into two groups. Held this weekend in Burbank, California, the Global Challenge will see the leading teams of the ESEA MDL divisions in Europe, North America and Australia, plus the winner of the Brazilian Open division, square off for their share of a $50,000 prize pool. FlipSid3 Tactics will take on Mythic in the first round The tournament will begin with a double-elimination, best-of-one group stage, which will determine the four teams advancing to the single-elimination playoffs, in which all matches will be played in a best-of-three format. Below you can find the group draw in full: The complete schedule for this two-day tournament looks as follows: |
SIR – 500 years ago, Europe entered into a religious war. We know this now as The Reformation. The advent of Protestantism and the ensuing conflict of religions resulted in the death of one in three of the population of Europe. A catastrophe somewhat akin to the Great Plague! This conflict is still ongoing, although the killings in Ireland have abated somewhat in recent years. What happened in Europe 500 years ago is now happening in the Middle East, with Muslims killing Muslims in the name of religion. All religions profess to being peaceful, with a creed of love thy fellow man. Most religious people follow this creed, doing much good for their fellow man. However, both Christian and Muslims, in the past and up to the present, advocated to some degree “Worship my god my way, or die!” We now have the same situation in the Middle East, albeit 500 years later, with Muslim factions, both Shia and Sunni, once again killing each other in the name of religion. Over time, more people have died in religious conflicts that in any other wars. We are told “God is infallible, he made mankind in his own image”. My point is that religion kills. If there is a God, then he or she has a lot to answer for. Captain Denis Turner, Lindisfarne Road, Shipley |
At sunset, Bibiana Ranee sets out to gather wild edibles for dinner from the surrounding forest. She returns with bright bunches of greens. Jarain and jali are washed, sliced, sauteed, and served with a hearty pork stew, with raw tree tomato on the side. Ranee, 54, is proud of her ancestral roots: She’s a member of the Khasi tribe, which nestles high in the mountains of Meghalaya, a state in northeast India. All three major tribes of Meghalaya—Khasi, Garo, and Jaintia—are matrilineal. Children take the surname of the mother’s clan and girls inherit traditional lands—the youngest daughter typically receiving the largest share. Girls inherit traditional lands—the youngest daughter typically receiving the largest share. To reach her home in the village of Nongtraw in East Khasi Hills, Ranee must make her way down a steep mountain via some 2,500 meandering steps. Her front porch is adorned with rosy hues of amaranth, an ancient grain cultivated for more than 8,000 years. “When I was five years old, my mother took me to the fields,” Ranee says. “I learned about the foods in the fields and the forest from her.” Across India, indigenous women step up to the plate in myriad ways: In Meghalaya, indigenous women are keepers of the seeds that form the foundation of their food sovereignty, a conscious choice by small food producers to define their unique food systems and culture. Indigenous women are also holders of traditional knowledge that enables them to gather medicinal plants and wild edibles in the surrounding forests, and gives them deep understanding of the ecology. “Women are conservers of seeds and know when each grain has to be sown,” said Patricia Mukhim, a prominent Khasi journalist and editor of The Shillong Times. “They exchange seeds, and if today we still have been able to conserve the indigenous seed species, which are hardy and can resist the vagaries of climate change and its extreme temperatures, then women are singularly responsible for that conservation effort.” While a majority of rural women in India struggle for land ownership, as well as recognition of their immense contributions as farmers, Khasi women are valued as food producers in their families and larger community. “Since [Khasi] women own land they can also control what crops and vegetables to grow and what livestock to rear,” Mukhim said. Khasi women are valued as food producers in their families and larger community. Ranee grows more than 32 food crops in her field and home garden, an astonishing diversity that’s in stark contrast with the wheat and rice monocultures that were promoted during India’s Green Revolution. She names three varieties of yams, four varieties of millet, two varieties of tapioca, and a medley of other vegetables—pumpkins, cucumbers, wild potatoes, beans, and sesame that diversify her food basket. Her home garden has rich offerings—a natural pharmacy with an abundance of medicinal herbs and shrubs, along with vegetables and fruit trees. The surrounding forest adds to the nutritious bounty, offering wild greens, nuts, medicinal plants, fruits, and mushrooms. Dr. Daphne Miller is impressed by the biodiversity of food that is nurtured and sustained by indigenous women in Nongtraw. “When I wandered around the village, I found plants that are very good at lowering blood sugar,” said Miller, who studies the world’s healthiest diets and is the author of Farmacology. “The foods are herbs—wild foods that are medicinal in their qualities for lowering blood pressure, blood sugar, stress.” Nongtraw farmers, like Ranee, are proud that their village has sustained its traditional organic farming practices in spite of industrial agriculture entering the state. Ranee said that some farmers tried using chemical fertilizers on small plots of land when the government promoted them, but later refused. “My mother told me to grow food without fertilizers,” Ranee said. “What indigenous famers do is they follow the rules of nature,” Miller said in an interview with Indigenous Rights Radio. “They have a huge amount of biodiversity within their land, they use dozens of different seeds. They are not just organic—they are regenerative. They are organic plus!” Ranee concurs and is proud that all her children value their indigenous food systems and understand that the health of the surrounding forest and river is key for their health and well-being. “We may not have a lot of money, but we have plenty of food.” While indigenous farmers in Nongtraw refrain from using chemical fertilizers and pesticides, the pressures of industrial agriculture loom large. Rice monocultures are increasing in Meghalaya, as is the influence of the market economy. Women in matrilineal Meghalaya are also politically marginalized and as land becomes a scarce and valued commodity, instead of a community resource, new challenges are surfacing for Khasi women. Ranee has joined the North East Slow Food & Agrobiodiversity Society (NESFAS) to celebrate traditional farming practices that conserve the vast biodiversity of foods found in their forests and traditional jhum fields (an ancient shifting cultivation method) and raise awareness of the vital links with indigenous culture and food sovereignty. Last November, Meghalaya hosted Indigenous Terra Madre, a gathering of 140 food communities from 58 countries. Ranee and others from Nongtraw attended a food festival that was attended by more than 60,000 people across northeast India and beyond. At the festival, indigenous foods, seeds, harvest songs, and dances exhibited how a deep relationship with land and biodiversity is linked with stunning cultural richness. Reflecting on their way of life, Ranee remarked: “We may not have a lot of money, but we have plenty of food. We are happy, because we live in peace and harmony with Mother Earth.” The Khasi tribe in the northeastern state of Meghalaya in India is matrilineal, where children take the last name of the mother’s clan. Unlike other parts of India, where women struggle to access land rights, Khasi women inherit land, the youngest daughter typically receiving the largest share. Bibiana Ranee is proud of her Khasi lineage and indigenous roots. She is a strong advocate for local food systems and agrobiodiversity, where indigenous knowledge systems are preserved and celebrated. “In matrilineal societies of Meghalaya like the Khasi, women are considered important partners like their male counterparts in any kinds of agrobiodiversity activities. If the land is ancestral or clan land, women are the custodian of such lands. Women have a distinctive part in the agrobiodiversity life and their contributions toward income generation and food security is recognized in Khasi society,” said Dr. A. K. Nongkynrih, Professor of Sociology at North-Eastern Hill University in Shillong, Meghalaya. Karamela Khonglam grows more than 35 varieties of crops in her jhum field, an ancient shifting cultivation method practiced widely in northeast India. “Being from a matrilineal system, I am respected as a woman,” she says. “There are ceremonies attached to the sowing and harvesting season. Each grain is seen as a blessing from nature and what is conserved naturally is often more treasured than those given by the agriculture and horticulture departments, which are soaked in chemicals for preservation,” notes Patricia Mukhim. Khonglam harvests sesame seeds from her jhum field. “If I grow just one crop, where would I get rest of our food from?” she asks, noting her reservations about monocultures. Women are also the seed savers, playing a vital role in preserving the immense agrobiodiversity of the region. Farmers in Nongtraw have also revived their tradition of growing millet—a nutritious grain that was marginalized by India’s Green Revolution. “Women are conservers of seeds and know when each grain has to be sown. They exchange seeds and if today we still have been able to conserve the indigenous seed species, which are hardy and can resist the vagaries of climate change and its extreme temperatures then women are singularly responsible for that conservation effort,” Mukhim said. Khonglam’s daughter poses with finger millet, a nutritious grain that is packed with protein and minerals. Mentoring the next generation of indigenous farmers and revitalizing pride in traditional farming is an important priority for advocacy groups like NESFAS. Ranee’s home garden has many medicinal plants. In this photo, a relative shows how his wound was healed using a combination of two plants from the garden that are known for their blood-clotting properties. Another herb, kynbat pyllon, in Ranee’s garden is used to cure stomach ailments. Traditional varieties of hill paddy are in decline in many parts. But there’s hope for revival; 14 varieties of local rice were found in a Jaintia village and food justice groups are working to revive more varieties. 11 varieties of indigenous fish are found in a river that flows below Nongtraw. Communities use baskets to catch the fish, and fishing is regulated by village rules. Ranee believes it’s important to instill pride in indigenous youth in their unique food culture and deep connection with nature. Indigenous dancers showcase their traditional harvest dances at Indigenous Terra Madre in Shillong, Meghalaya in November. |
In findings recently published by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, a significant increase in the risk of prostate cancer is associated with intake of high-dose dietary supplements containing vitamin E and selenium. This shed light on a new consideration in the prevention of a disease which already claims the lives of thousands of men in the U.S. every year. Dr. Alan Kristal, first author of the study, said the finding also reminds the public of the general risks involved with taking any high-dose dietary supplements. Many people assume that these are simple compliments to a regular diet and “are helpful or at the least innocuous.” But this is not true as he goes on to explain, “We know from several other studies that [these supplements] provide far more than daily recommended intakes of micronutrients” and increase cancer risk. He added that these results are based on randomized, double-bind studies with controls which have tested for the effects of folate and beta carotene and now also for vitamin # and for selenium. The work analyzed data gathered during a large-scale survey – the Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT) — which was designed to determine if high doses of vitamin E or selenium would help reduce prostate cancer risks. The study began in 2001 and was scheduled to be conducted over a 12 year period ending in 2013, but was brought to an end in 2008 as no defensive effect from selenium was found but clear indications that vitamin E actually increase the risk of cancer became apparent. Kristal and his team established, two years after ending the survey, that patients who had received a high daily dose of vitamin E had a 17 percent higher chance of contracting prostate cancer. The levels of selenium in trial participants played a significant role in the effects which supplemental selenium and vitamin E had on their resulting risk profiles. Those who entered the trial with selenium baselines considered low nearly doubled their risk of aggressive cancer, a 91 percent increase, if they received a high daily dose of supplemental selenium. Those who entered the trial with high selenium levels soon experience toxic level of selenium after receiving high-dose supplements on a daily basis. Those who had a relatively low baseline level of selenium and received vitamin E supplements increase their risk of prostate cancer by 63 percent and their risk of high-grade cancer by 111 percent, more than double, but participants starting with high selenium levels were apparently protected from the risk increasing effects of the vitamin E supplements. Kristal explained to reporters that supplements of this type, especially vitamin E are very popular, but no proper study has demonstrated any efficacy towards the end of preventing major chronic diseases. Kristal added simply than men using these supplements should stop. Neither selenium, he intoned, nor vitamin E supplement regimens bestow any known benefits on those consuming them — only increased risk. Men can, however, stick to their existing daily multivitamin routines without anxiety. Dr. Durado Brooks at the American Cancer Society remarks that the levels the test subjects were getting in the research study were much higher than anything found in typical multivitamins and higher than any daily recommended allowance. He went on to say that the effects of high-dose supplements of individual nutritive components are complex, unpredictable and demonstrably dangerous. While new screening methods to help speed detection of prostate cancer have recently been announced, men would still do well to stop any supplemental intake of selenium and vitamin E to reduce the risk of contracting the deadly cancer in the first place. By Brian Ryer Sources: Philly.com CBC News Science Codex Medical Daily |
Low Melting EVA Bags Low-melt EVA (ethylene vinyl acetate) batch inclusion bags designed for the preliminary process of mixing rubber and other materials in the rubber and tire industry.EVA bags are used For Packing of Rubber, Natural Rubber, Synthetics, reclaimed Rubber Bales. It is available in different colors like pink, yellow, red, green & clear transparent color for easy batch code identification. The Unique molecular structure permits cross-likability with sulfur or peroxide curing medium, allowing the bag to become an integral part of the resulting compound. These Bags made from syndiotactic Polybutadiene, a unique cross-linkable polymer that links with the molecules of your Rubber ingredients to actually become part of the end product. EVA Bags are cleaner with less to less to store and less to throw away, EVA batch inclusion bags can help you save a lot of time and resources when it comes time to clean up. |
Following on from our review on Marvel Future Fight, we wanted to give you a heads-up to tell you that the Guardians of the Galaxy are definitely on the way to the game. How do we know this? Because we have them available for selection already. They look amazing too and all five members are going to be in the game – that means Star Lord, Rocket Raccoon, Drax, Groot and Gamora. Groot and Drax will be Combat type heroes, Rocket and Star Lord will be blasters and that leaves Gamora as a Speed type. You may also want to know that Gamora, Star Lord and Rocket will all be two-star heroes, while Drax and Groot will be one-star heroes. When will they be coming to the game? Only time will tell, but we have a feeling that it will be sooner rather than later and our general assumption is that they are going to be part of the next big Future Fight event. Enjoy these preview images here and let us know if you have any questions about the Guardians below in our comments section. Marvel Future Fight has to be up there with the very best of Marvel mobile games, so it’s unsurprising to hear that the game has now passed 10 million downloads worldwide in just two weeks. Are you loving this game at the moment? |
There is much about 7-year-old Evan Moss that is not exceptional. He is in constant motion. He can speak endlessly about Pokemon. He thinks the cartoon “Phineas and Ferb” is, “like, hilarious.” But Evan Moss also has epilepsy and suffers from severe, possibly life-threatening seizures. And when he found out that there was a type of specially trained dog that can detect seizures and act to help him, Evan had the idea to write a book to help raise the $13,000 needed to buy such a dog. So he wrote and illustrated “My Seizure Dog.” He will have his first book-signing at a Fairfax County coffee shop on Sunday — and there just might be a large crowd there. And that is exceptional. In addition, the experience spurred his parents Rob and Lisa Moss, to create the Seizure Tracker Web site, a free and innovative way for people with epilepsy (and other disease sufferers) to record and share their experiences with seizures, medication and other events. The site now has 8,000 registered users worldwide. Evan lives with his parents and 9-year-old sister Aria in the Virginia Hills neighborhood, just off Telegraph Road in the Alexandria section of Fairfax County. He is a second-grader at Rose Hill Elementary School, and he has been dealing with epileptic seizures since he was an infant. The seizures are now so severe, his mother said, that “Really, this dog is going to be a life-saver.” At one point, Evan was having 300 to 400 short seizures a month because of tuberous sclerosis complex, his parents said. Brain surgery at age 4 stopped those seizures. Then, much longer and more serious seizures began about two years ago, the kind that require heavy medication and sometimes emergency medical response. But Evan seems completely undaunted. He had a seizure Friday morning, just hours before meeting with a reporter. He showed no signs of it, even though his mother said he had taken medication that would have knocked most people out. The Mosses educated themselves about epilepsy, and Lisa Moss now is on the board of directors of the Epilepsy Foundation. Rob Moss spends most of his time improving the Web site the family created. “There was nothing out there” before Seizure Tracker, he said. Family friend Bob Kohm said, “He locked himself in a basement for a year, and he spends his time constantly making it better.” The site was launched as Evan was undergoing brain surgery and the next day there were 250 users. In the course of learning about epilepsy, the Mosses discovered seizure dogs, specially trained to alert epilepsy sufferers in case they are sleeping, and to alert the parents if the person needs help. The dogs are trained by 4 Paws for Ability, and cost about $22,000. The organization asks participants to pay $13,000. And so the literary work “My Seizure Dog,” influenced by such writers as Leo Leonni (“Inch by Inch”) and Mary Pope Osborne (“Magic Tree House” series) was born. It is self-published through CreateSpace.com, and can be purchased there or through Amazon.com. “It’s kind of like,” Evan explained, “I had the idea when Mom and Dad told me I was getting a seizure dog and had to pay $13,000. So we decided to sell it to make money, and we’re having a signing at Grounded Coffee,” on Telegraph Road. Well, that sort of says it all. In the book, Evan says, he shows that “the dog will eat pizza with me. If I go to the moon, it will go there with me.” Those are his favorite parts. “Now that I wrote such a good book,” he added, “I think I’m going to be a famous author. That’s actually my dream.” He said a first-grade class called Writer’s Workshop helped inspire him. In addition to writing, he also wants to be an astronaut and work in a pet supply store. Epileptic children face the possibility of such things as sudden unexplained death due to epilepsy (SUDEP) or death by suffocation when they have a seizure in their sleep and can’t roll over. Seizure dogs can provide critical help in those moments. Despite the surgery, the medications and the grand mal seizures, “He’s pretty upbeat,” his mother said, and he is not autistic, as many epileptic children are. “He’s an amazing kid,” said Kohm, whose sons Marcus and Josh are Evan’s best friends. “Evan will just say, ‘I’m going to have a seizure,’ Then when it’s over, go back to doing what he’s doing. It’s just part of the Evan experience. It doesn’t define him.” Evan’s book-signing is at Grounded Coffee, 6919 Telegraph Road in the Alexandria area, from 1 to 3 p.m. Sunday. If you would like to make a donation to help him, send a check payable to “4 Paws for Ability” to: 4 Paws for Ability Fund for Evan Moss 253 Dayton Ave. Xenia, Ohio 45385 |
As part of our celebration of Star Trek’s birthday we have TrekMovie video from the weekend’s Salt Lake City Comic Con where Leonard Nimoy beamed in via Skype and talked about how he got cast in Star Trek following his appearance on Gene Roddenberry’s previous show The Lieutenant. We also have clip of that episode. Watch it all below. Nimoy Celebrates 48th Anniversary + Talks Trek Casting At SLCC We don’t know how we’ll celebrate birthdays and anniversaries when we eventually adopt a Stardate numbering system, but for now, Sept. 8 will always be Star Trek day. While the date Star Trek first aired with "The Man Trap" will no doubt get more fanfare in 2016, its 50th anniversary, we at Trek Movie are still celebrating the 48th and so did Leonard Nimoy, who was sure to highlight the big day on Twitter: Star Trek went on the air 48 years ago today. The stories begin and the vision will LLAP — Leonard Nimoy (@TheRealNimoy) September 8, 2014 At the Salt Lake City Comic Con over the weekend, Nimoy gave his thoughts on his half-century as Spock. He made an appearance via Skype to a packed audience of convention goers who wished he could have beamed over to share the hour with them in person. Relevant to today’s anniversary, there was a point when one fan asked how Nimoy how he landed the job as Spock. The actor recalled the story about a guest role on a series called The Lieutenant, created by a certain Mr. Gene Roddenberry, who was so impressed with Nimoy’s performance and offered him the role as Spock. Watch him tell the story below. The Lieutenant – Birthplace of Star Trek Nimoy’s episode of The Lieutenant (which starred Gary Lockwood) was "In the Highest Tradition," which aired February 29, 1964. It also featured Majel Barrett. Nimoy and Barrett appeared in Roddenberry’s first pilot for Star Trek "The Cage," which was shot at the end of that year, and Lockwood appeared in Roddenberry’s second attempt at a Star Trek pilot “Where No Man Has Gone Before” which was shot in 1965. The episode was written by Roddenberry and was also directed by Marc Daniels, who went on to direct 14 episodes of Star Trek. Here is a clip from The Lieutenant featuring Nimoy, Lockwood, and Barrett. Watch a clip of the episode below (via Amalie1701 on YouTube). Tomorrow TrekMovie will share the full video of Nimoy’s SLCC appearance. |
Begovic has 41 caps for Bosnia-Hercegovina Chelsea have signed goalkeeper Asmir Begovic from Premier League rivals Stoke City for an undisclosed fee, reported to be £8m. The Bosnia-Hercegovina international joins Chelsea on a four-year deal. Stoke had hoped to keep the 28-year-old, who had one year remaining on his contract at the Britannia Stadium. "I have loved my time at Stoke but feel I had to take this opportunity to continue to develop and challenge myself as a player," Begovic said. Begovic, who joined the Potters from Portsmouth in 2010, is the champions' second signing of the summer following the arrival of Radamel Falcao on a season-long loan. "I am very happy to be joining Chelsea," said Begovic. "After speaking at length to the manager, I feel like I can develop here and be an important part of this team. I am looking forward to meeting up with the team on Wednesday for the pre-season tour." Begovic, who will challenge Thibaut Courtois for the main goalkeeper role, will take the number one shirt left vacant following the sale of Petr Cech to Arsenal. |
Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter. Sign up for Take Action Now and we’ll send you three meaningful actions you can take each week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue Be the first to hear about Nation Travels destinations, and explore the world with kindred spirits. Did you know you can support The Nation by drinking wine? “Bombing of Hospitals Called Routine.” That was the August 9, 1973, Newsday coverage of congressional hearings on “clandestine U.S. air and ground activities in Cambodia and Laos”: Ad Policy U.S. commanders in Vietnam placed no restrictions on ground or air attacks against Viet Cong or North Vietnamese hospitals a Senate committee was told yesterday by several Vietnam veterans. In direct testimony and in letters, the veterans said hospitals often were considered targets rather than areas to be avoided as required by the Geneva convention on warfare.… The committee also has been trying to determine who ordered a dual reporting system in which 3,630 B-52 raids over Cambodia were recorded falsely as having occurred in South Vietnam [that would be Henry Kissinger]. Gen. Creighton Abrams, currently the Army chief of staff and a former commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, testified that he carried out the false reporting system, but did not create it…. Abrams said that at one point there were so many different authorizations and reporting systems being applied to the secret operations that he had trouble keeping things straight himself. In testimony on the hospitals, Alan Stevenson, a stockbroker from San Francisco and former Army intelligence specialist, said that while in Quang Tri province in 1969, he routinely listed hospitals among targets to be struck by American fighter plans. “The bigger the hospital, the better it was,” he said. Stevenson said he believed the hospitals were rated highly as potential targets, not because American commanders wanted to attack wounded enemy troops, but because hospital complexes were often protected by company- or battalion-sized troop units…. |
1969 was a big year for technology and science. In June, this year, we celebrated 40 years since the first manned moon landing, but in what may come as a surprise to many, this month also marks the 40th official anniversary of the birth of the internet. In fact, the moment that the ‘internet’ itself was born is open to debate. Was it when the TCP/IP protocol was created in 1978, enabling all networks to connect to each other? Was it when the first web browser was invented in 1989, or was it when the first spam message was received in 1973? The first connection The date that most have now centred on is 29 October 1969, which is when a message was sent by a student programmer called Charley Kline - under supervision from Professor Leonard Kleinrock - from a computer at UCLA to Bill Duvall running a computer at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI). Computers had been able to connect before this point via direct modem connection, with speeds of 15 characters a second. Over the net, the speeds were already 50kb – many orders of magnitude greater. To put that into perspective, 50Kb per second is the sort of speed that anyone still on dial-up modem will be getting when connecting to their ISP, so you can imagine how fast that must have seemed in 1969. The reason for the message attempt was because Kline at UCLA was trying to was to gain remote access to the computer at SRI from UCLA, in order to be able to use its processing power. IT PRO spoke to Professor Peter Willetts of City University, an expert in non-governmental organisation and global politics who has researched the early days of the internet. “In those days computers were huge machines that dominated rooms and each had different advantages," he said. "They realised they were being under-utilised, so the first step was to set up remote terminals in different parts of the campus so users could use them at the same time.” This remote access was known as ‘time sharing’. This first connection attempt was legendary. Kline and Duvall and Duvall had written software to enable the computers to accept connections, and the first thing they had to do was log in. The first character sent was ‘L’, followed by ‘O’ – at which point the SRI computer crashed – a most inauspicious beginning for the first network connection. Of course, they tried again, and the second time round they were successful with the first connection made over the net. Arpanet The network that this connection was made over was the ‘Arpanet’, which is commonly seen as a forerunner to the internet as we know it. This was created by the US government. It was a direct response to the launch of Sputnik by the Russians, an event that had a seismic effect on the US government and indeed the American people, who were shocked by the evidence that despite being supposedly backward, the Soviets were technologically ahead of them. As a result, President Eisenhower commissioned the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), which put money in computer science. The thinking behind this was that the launch of Sputnik proved that the US was behind in technology and needed a faster method of sharing information between scientists and academics. |
The Queensland set of Aquaman was plunged into turmoil after an on-set animal handler was left injured by a rogue camel this week. But not even a trampling beast could halt production of the high-budget film, with stars Jason Momoa and Amber Heard spotted filming for the new Hollywood blockbuster at the Gold Coast's Currumbin Beach on Friday. The pair were filmed venturing into the ocean, both dressed in their associated character's get-up. Business as usual! Not even a trampling beast could halt production of the high-budget film, with stars Jason Momoa and Amber Heard spotted filming for the new Hollywood blockbuster at the Gold Coast 's Currumbin Beach on Friday Jason wore the full Aquaman outfit while Amber wore a tight-fitted mermaid-like green jumpsuit, as they paced the beach and walked in and out of the surf. The actors seemed to getting plenty of advice from the film crew who remained on the shore. The crew were pouring bottles of water on Amber's head, possibly to relieve her from the heat or to make her fiery red locks look wet without immersing her whole body underwater. Hero: Jason wore the full Aquaman outfit as he plunged in the waves Heroine: Amber wore a tight-fitted mermaid-like green jumpsuit Concentration: The pair both paced the beach as the crew filmed On set: The pair walked in and out of the surf A producer then walked out into the surf next to Jason and Amber, chatting into a walkie talkie while receiving advice from the film's directors. Also snapped was Amber Heard's rumoured new love interest Kelly McNaught, who is also Jason's stunt double. Standing back amongst the trucks and tents, the buff bald-headed man stood tall as the the production unfold in front of him. Jason and Amber then scurried back into the water, with beach revellers - or movie extras - still very much in plain sight. Behind the scenes: The crew were pouring bottles of water on Amber's head, possibly to relieve her from the heat or to make her fiery red locks look wet without immersing her whole body underwater Advising: The actors seemed to getting plenty of advice from the film crew who remained on the shore Double trouble: Also snapped was Amber Heard's rumoured new love interest Kelly McNaught, who is also Jason's stunt double Lets go! Jason and Amber then scurried back into the water, with beach revellers - or movie extras - still very much in plain sight But among all the fun the crew and actors were having, turmoil arose later on in the day. A female animal handler was injured after being trampled by a camel, that was reportedly startled by an incoming wave while walking along the beach. The woman stumbled as the camel began to thrash, who was then struck in the head by it's hoof. Not all fun and games: But amongst all the fun the crew and actors were having, turmoil arose later on in the day Fortunately, the woman was not severely injured, and taken to Pindara Private Hospital in a stable condition. It's the second incident involving an animal to occur in four months for the film, after a woman was severely injured in July attempting to save a donkey from a runaway golf cart. Animal handler Katie Brock endured multiple fractures after being hit by the buggy, as she pushed the donkey out of harm's way. Suffering broken ribs and a cracked vertebrae, the 54-year-old was rushed to hospital and is still recovering. Ouch! A female animal handler was injured after being trampled by a camel, that was reportedly startled by an incoming wave while walking along the beach |
Almost half our genes can be the starting point for diseases. Scientists have identified 11,000 genes that occur in the human genome in variants that can cause disease. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön and the Harvard Medical School have studied why such high-risk genes persist in the human genome instead of being eliminated by selection. Their analyses suggest that the continuous adaptation to new pathogens in the course of evolution has increased the diversity of our immune genes but also comes at a price. According to the researchers, such diversity also extends to neighbouring DNA segments, where it results in the persistence of harmful gene variants. Diversity in the genome is a good thing: it has allowed us humans to adjust to changing environmental conditions during the course of evolution. Such genetic variety generates diverse combinations with each new generation and can bring with it survival advantages. Besides the many variants that have no effect or even a beneficial effect on health, there are others that make their carriers susceptible to certain diseases. These harmful gene variants represent a survival disadvantage and should therefore have been weeded out by natural section in the course of evolution. Instead, some high-risk gene variants, such as those for Alzheimer's disease or cancer, have persisted in the population for a long time without disappearing. A group of researchers led by Tobias Lenz and Shamil Sunyaev has studied this phenomenon and found evidence that the occurrence of harmful gene variants could be the price we pay for the genetic diversity that is otherwise highly beneficial to our survival. They analyzed a group of immune system proteins that help detect foreign molecules. The genes for these proteins contain many variable sites and occur in a number of alternative forms in the population. This diversity ensures that our immune system is able to recognize a broad range of pathogens. A special form of selection preserves this variation within the group of immune proteins: scientists describe it as balancing selection. It arises, for example, when several alternative variants of a gene confer a survival advantage, and are therefore not eliminated by selection. Harmful mutations don't get lost The scientists suspect that balancing selection may sometimes also lead to the conservation of harmful gene variants. They ran computer simulations of different types of selection using the example of immune system genes. During these tests they discovered that balancing selection not only increases the diversity of immune proteins but also affects neighbouring DNA segments. There, while reducing the total number of variable sites, it increases the frequency with which these variants occur in the population -- even if they are harmful. They then compared the simulation results with data from a genetic analysis of 6,500 people. And the analysis confirmed their suspicions: As in the simulation, fewer variable sites occurred in the immediate vicinity of the immune system genes; however, the remaining variants, including harmful mutations, were relatively more common in the population. Harmful genes are therefore able to evade natural selection. "I did expect that higher resistance to pathogens might lead to an accumulation of some harmful mutations. But the extent to which such mutations persist in the population really surprised me. It would be interesting to know how many genetic diseases in humans can be traced back to contact with pathogens we have encountered in the course of our evolution," says Tobias Lenz, group leader at the Max Planck Institute in Plön and member of the newly founded Kiel Evolution Center. In the next step, the researchers want to examine whether balancing selection at other sites in the genome are responsible for the fact that harmful gene variants occur so frequently in the population. |
With great humility, an allodial ‘libertarian’ (that is, one who believes that land may be owned absolutely, without any annual rent or charge whatsoever for the privilege of exclusive ownership) wrote: > You should not presume to speak on behalf of libertarians, > since you are obviously in the position of not understanding. > Instead you should ask for clarifications. To which Dan Sullivan responded: OK. Complete novice that I am, I will undoubtedly benefit from your erudition on what the following passages mean. Please do explain them. Feel free to interpret each sentence and go into detail, so that we might benefit from your intellectual prowess: “The only reformer abroad in the world in my time who interested me in the least was Henry George, because his project did not contemplate prescription, but, on the contrary, would reduce it to almost zero. He was the only one of the lot who believed in freedom, or (as far as I could see) had any approximation to an intelligent idea of what freedom is, and of the economic prerequisites to attaining it….One is immensely tickled to see how things are coming out nowadays with reference to his doctrine, for George was in fact the best friend the capitalist ever had. He built up the most complete and most impregnable defense of the rights of capital that was ever constructed, and if the capitalists of his day had had sense enough to dig in behind it, their successors would not now be squirming under the merciless exactions which collectivism is laying on them, and which George would have no scruples whatever about describing as sheer highwaymanry.” from Nock, The God’s Lookout February 1934, p. 320-324 “So long as the State stands as an impersonal mechanism which can confer an economic advantage at the mere touch of a button, men will seek by all sorts of ways to get at the button, because law-made property is acquired with less exertion than labour-made property. It is easier to push the button and get some form of State-created monopoly like a land-title, a tarriff, concession or franchise, and pocket the proceeds, than it is to accumulate the same by work. Thus a political theory that admits any positive intervention by the State upon the individual has always this natural law to reckon with…” The American state at the outset took over the British principle of giving landlords a monopoly of economic rent. That shifted the switch; it established the State’s character as a purveyor of privilege. Then financial speculators sought a privilege, and Hamilton, with his “corrupt squadron in Congress,” as Mr. Jefferson called them, arranged it. Then bankers, then industrialists; Hamilton also arranged that. Then, as the century went on, innumerable industrial subgroups, and subclasses of special interest, were heard from, and were accommodated. Then farmers, artisans, ex-soldiers, promoters of public utilities, began to accumulate political power with a view toward privilege. Now, since the advent of universal sufferage, we are seeing the curious spectacle of the “unemployed” automatically transformed into the strongest kind of pressure-group; their numerical strength and consequent voting-power compelled Mr. Roosevelt to embrace the extroadinary doctrine that the State owes its citizens a living–an expedient little noticed at the time, I believe, but profoundly interesting to the student of historical continuity. Moreover,…when the State confers a privilege, natural law impels the beneficiary to work it for all it is worth; and therefore the State must at once initiate a whole series of positive interventions to safeguard, control, and regulate that privilege. A steady grist of “social” legislation must be ground; bureaus, boards and commissions must be set up, each with its eleborate mechanism; and thus bureaucracy comes into being. As the distribution of privilege goes on, the spawning of these regulative and supervisory agencies also goes on; and the result is a continuous enhancement of State power and a progressive weakening of social power, until, as in Rome after the Antonines, social power is quite extinguished–the invidual lives, moves, and has his being only for the governmental machine, and society exists only in the service of the State. Meanwhile, at every step in this process, natural law is pushing interested persons, groups and factions on to get clandestine control of these supervisory agencies and use them for their own advantage; and thus a rapid general corruption sets in, for which no cure has ever yet been found, and from which no recovery has ever yet been made. James Buchanan (1986): The landowner who withdraws land from productive use to a purely private use should be required to pay higher, not lower, taxes. [I don’t know much about Mr. Buchanan. Is he a Marxist?] Adam Smith Wealth of Nations As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed. Nicolai Lenin: “Henry George is the capitalist’s last ditch.” [Since you say Georgism is Marxist, and since Lenin is surely Marxist, then this must be some kind of cryptic endorsement. Perhaps you could decrypt it?] Thomas Jefferson: [Feel free to skip the first four paragraphs, which are undoubtedly due to Marx’s influence on Jefferson. I particularly would like to hear your analysis of the last and longest quote.] “I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self-evident, that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living; that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it. The portion occupied by any individual ceases to be his when he ceases to be, and reverts to the society…” “Whenever there are in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. “In Europe the lands [that are not] cultivated are locked up against the cultivator. …This begets dependence, subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue and prepares fit tools for the design of ambition. “I think our governments will remain virtuous..as long as there are vacant lands [available] in any part of America. When [Americans] get piled up on each other in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt, as in Europe.” “That the lands within the limits assumed by a nation belong to the nation as a body has probably been the law of every people on earth at some period of their history. A right of property in movable things is admitted before the establishment of government. A separate property in lands not till after that establishment. The right to moveables is acknowledged by all the hordes of Indians surrounding us. Yet by no one of them has a separate property in lands been yeilded for individuals. He who plants a field keeps possession till he has gathered the produce, after which one has as good a right as another to occupy it. Government must be established and laws provided, before lands can be separately appropriated and their owner protected in his possession. Till then the property is in the body of the nation.” [This intro is from The World’s Great Speeches, 1942, Garden City Publishing, Inc.] “Richard Cobden [1804-1865], statesman and economist, has won world fame as a powerful advocate of free trade.” “I hold that the Landed proprietors are the parties who are responsible if the laborers have not employment. You have absolute power; there is no doubt about that. You can, if you please, legislate for the laborers, or yourselves.” Frank Choderov: Second editor of The Freeman, and author of One is a Crowd and Income Tax, Root of All Evil. This quote is out of From Christmas to Christmas Analysis, vol 1., No. 4: “On earth as it is in Heaven.” Whatever Heaven connotes to the theologian, to the layman it sublimates the highest aspiration of the human spirit– which is Freedom. Can a Heaven which embraces slavery, economic or political, have any meaning? It is fantastic, blasphemous, if you will, to speak of Heaven-on-earth as a place where one man must pay another for the privilege of living. Surely, the Milky Way has not been reduced to private ownership, nor are the Elysian Fields preempted and for sale. “Then again, are the standards of eternal life fixed by monopoly exactions? Is there a tax on immortality? Do soulbureaucrats hound the spirits into collectivized subjectivity? Or rather, do we not think of Heaven-on-earth as an existence wherein every man may do that which he will, provided he infringe not on the equal right of every other man?…” [Perhaps you could not only interpret Herbert Spencer’s meaning, but answer his questions? Then he and I will both become enlightened by you.] from Social Statics “It can never be pretended that the existing titles to landed property are legitimate. The original deeds were written with the sword, soldiers were the conveyancers, blows were the current coin given in exchange, and for seals, blood. Those who say that ‘time is a great legalizer” must find satisfactory answers to such questions as — How long does it take for what was originally wrong to become right? At what rate per annum does an invalid claim become valid?” Stephen Pearl Andrews is quoted here from Liberty and the Great Libertarians, which, according to Laissez Faire books, “offers choice selections from many of the greatest authors on liberty” Andrews’ works include Comparison of the Common Law with the Roman, French or Spanish Civil Law, The Constitution of Government in the Sovereignty of the Individual, from which this quote is taken: “The very foundation principles of the ownership of lands, as vested in individuals and protected by law, cannot escape much longer from a searching and radical investigation…. Land reform, in its present aspect, is merely the prologue to a thorough and unsparing, but philosophical and equitable agrarianism, by means of which either the land itself, or an equal participation in the benefits of the land, shall be secured to the whole people. Science, not human legislation, must finally govern the distribution of the soil. Robert G. Ingersoll, as quoted in Liberty and the Great Libertarians, p. 189 “Now, the land belongs to the children of nature. Nature invites into this world every babe who is born. And what would you think of me, for instance, tonight, if I had invited you here — nobody had charged anything, but you had been invited — and when you got here you had found one man pretending to occupy a hundred seats, another fifty, another seventy five, and thereupon you were compelled to stand up — what would you think of the invitation? It seems to me that every child of nature is entitled to his share of land, and that he should not be compelled to beg the privilege to work the soil of a babe that happened to be born before him.” Louis F. Post as quoted in Liberty and the Great Libertarians, p. 349, Land Liberty and Justice “Since in justice rights are equal, there must in justice be equal rights to land. Without land man cannot sustain life. It is to him as water to the fish or air to the bird — his natural environment. And if to get land whereby to support life, any man is compelled to give his labor or the products of his labor to another, to that extent his liberty is denied him and his right to pursue happiness is obstructed. Enforced toil without pay is the essence of slavery, and permission to use land can be no pay for toil; he who give it parts with nothing that any man ever earned, and he who gets it acquires nothing that nature would not freely offer him but for the interference of land monopolists.” [That last sentence deserves detailed analysis] Edwin C. Walker, from Liberty and the Great Libertarians The conception and the facts of liberty and slavery result from association, not isolation; and the sparseness or density of population, the simplicity or complexity of association, will create the customs, rules and laws governing human relations. Therefore, what the solitary man may rightfully do is no measure of what he may rightfully do when he comes into contact with another man. The liberty of one is conditioned upon the liberty of the other. William Lloyd Garrison, as quoted in Liberty and the Great Libertarians, p.355 Men mistake when they imagine the Single Tax agitation to aim only at fiscal change, a new method of taxation. Its sole purpose is to secure the larger freedom of the race. It is not the method but the result that is precious. For it is idle to talk of the equal rights of men when the one thing essential to such equality is withheld. The Physiocrats of France grasped the central truth, and saw that freedom of natural opportunity, comprosed in the term land, was the foundation-stone of freedom and justice. Had the French Revolution proceeded along their line, it would have had a different ending. The succeeding spectre of Napoleon, devastating Europe and wading through the blood of his sacrificed countrymen to the throne, would not have affrighted mankind. The fruits of liberty would have been gathered. Luke North (Editor of Everyman) as quoted in Liberty and the Great Libertarians, p. 356 The demand of the centuries, never so virile and insistent as today, is for equal freedom. The modern Everyman asks not for himself what all may not have. The asking were vain, indeed, for there is no freedom till all are free. Master and slave are bound by the same thong. Human solidarity is not a moral fancy but a stern fact. Karl Hess, Sr., speechwriter for Barry Goldwater and creator and first editor of the Libertarian Party News: “All taxes should be placed on land values until the state is abolished entirely.” [Of course, Hess also said, “I loved education, which is why I spent as little time as possible in school.” This is suspiciously similar, if not as succinct, as the quote by George Bernard Shaw in my tagline. Perhaps, then, Karl Hess was also a Marxist Collectivist. There is one under every bed, you know.] Dan Sullivan “The only time my education was interrupted was when I was in school.” –George Bernard Shaw |
1 0 Sign in to rate Russian 7000+ sentences, new words introduced gradually 203.28MB. 7560 audio & 0 images. Updated 2017-12-29. This item is large, and may take some time to download. Description This is a modification of 13 000 Russian sentences sorted from easiest to hardest , shared with the author's permission. Many thanks! I really liked that deck but found it still had some issues, mainly: - There were too many similar or redundant sentences. - The sentences weren't grouped by the new word they introduce, so it wasn't very convenient to pick up new vocabulary. So my goal was to reprocess this deck to bring it closer to the quality of Spoon-fed Chinese , which it's inspired from. Here's what I did: 1. Eliminate sentences that contained the same set of 6 consecutive words (up to permutation, and considering different forms of a word to be the equal). This removed a bit less than 2000 sentences. 2. Analyze the whole deck to figure out the frequencies of words (this worked better than using an actual frequency list). 3. Sort the cards by their least frequent word (the "new word"), grouping different forms of a same word together. 4. Limit the number of cards that teach a the same new word (at most 3 as a base rule, but if there are many different forms, keep them all). This step drastically reduced the number of cards to about 7600 cards. 5. In every card, emphasize in bold the new word that is being studied (the original sentence is available in another field if you don't like that). Overall, this should make the learning experience much more convenient and you won't have to spend a lot of time deleting useless notes. Don't forget that you can customize the cards all you want and switch things around easily! Of course, it's not perfect, and here is a non-exhaustive list of issues: - I didn't change the TTS. It's decent but has occasional glitches, and sometimes messes up the stress or mixes up е and ё. Remove the card when that happens. - Just like the original deck, the sentences start out quite hard, so this is not suitable for beginners. You'll need to acquire some very basic understanding of Russian first (for example with Duolingo). - Because the number of sentences is limited, it is unavoidable that sometimes more than one new word is introduced at a time (in which case only the least frequent one is bolded). However this should not be too frequent. - Although it's trying, it won't teach you Russian on its own. Make sure you use other resources, especially for grammar. The code I used for this is available here, and more technical details are coming soon: https://github.com/vlecomte/sentence-study-order Sample (from 7560 notes) Cards are customizable! When this deck is imported into the desktop program, cards will appear as the deck author has made them. If you'd like to customize what appears on the front and back of a card, you can do so by clicking the Edit button, and then clicking the Cards button. Russian Ей в это время никак не мог быть третий десяток. Russian bold Ей в это время никак не мог быть третий десяток. Audio Play Pause English She can't have been in her twenties at that time. Tags Russian Эти люди говорили, что война была гражданской. Russian bold Эти люди говорили, что война была гражданской. Audio Play Pause English These people said the war was a civil war. Tags Russian Я и не знал, что стоимость жизни в Австралии настолько высока. Russian bold Я и не знал, что стоимость жизни в Австралии настолько высока. Audio Play Pause English I didn't realize that the cost of living was so high in Australia. Tags After the file is downloaded, double-click on it to open it in the desktop program. At this time, it is not possible to add shared decks directly to your AnkiWeb account - they need to be added from the desktop then synchronized to AnkiWeb. Reviews Extremely valuable deck for those with INTERMEDIATE or higher passive listening/reading understanding of Russian, who want to improve active speaking skill, especially active grammar skill. Listen to Russian speech, store in neutral form in memory, reproduce Russian speech (thus practicing active vocabulary and grammar skills), press button and read Russian text to verify speech correct. Only look at English text if unknown words. If too many unknown words, you are not ready for this deck. You can rearrange the deck to show English on the front and Russian on the back, but this has two disadvantages. First, it teaches translating from English rather than thinking in Russian. Second, there are many correct ways to translate a given English sentence into Russian, and the natural thing is to pick the simplest, which means you won't get practice with less common Russian vocabulary or with less obvious ways of expressing the same thought in Russian. As author notes, occasional errors in computer generated text-to-speech and/or English translation. You should immediately recognize these errors if you are at intermediate level or above with passive listening skills. Don't delete cards with errors, since they are a good test for you, just give the correct pronunciation when you speak. Integrates well with AABBY dictionary. Get the Universal, Learning and ExplanatoryBTS dictionaries. The last of these is Ru-Ru, but necessary because it is the only dictionary which shows stress for all forms. |
When all hope seemed lost, a thoroughly uninspiring game of football was won in the most dramatic of fashions with an injury-time winner from Matt Doherty. It was as welcome as it was unlikely. There have, sadly, been many candidates for the most turgid and vacuous games of football at Molineux this season. And, while the second half livened up a bit, this was right up there. The Early Bird season ticket deadline is this week but in the first half Wolves did anything but put on a show to whet the appetites of their apathetic fanbase, who booed them off at half time. But somehow, with practically the last action of the game, Doherty dragged them over the line when he headed home Jeremy Helan's free kick. Moments of drama and inspiration have been in short supply at Molineux of late, but this was one to savour. And whenever Wolves are in need of a win in future they should call Bristol City. After all, it's 85 years since they last won in Wolverhampton. Advertising Doherty, who earlier set up Nathan Byrne's opener, was undoubtedly man of the match, while Michal Zyro gets a mention for a very positive impact as a half time substitute. With youngsters Bright Enobakhare and Connor Hunte, on for his debut, on the pitch at the end the average age of the outfield team was just 21.7 years old. And while the football served up was far from vintage, at the very least these Wolves pups showed heart, spirit and battling qualities - as well as hope for the future. Jackett made two changes from the team that lost 2-1 at Middlesbrough, with Mason and Kortney Hause replaced the injured duo of Ethan Ebanks-Landell and Bjorn Sigurdarson. Advertising And there was a familiar face in the Bristol City line up with Scott Golbourne, who left Molineux in January, lining up for the Robins and receiving a good ovation from the home supporters. With Wolves having little to play for one may have expected a carefree, attacking home performance. However what followed was one of the most vacuous, bland and insipid halves of football witnessed at Molineux in many a year. In front of a sparse and silent crowd, neither team displayed much approaching quality in a half of desperately little entertainment. It took 10 minutes for the game's first attack, from which Jeremy Helan sent a 20-yard free kick over the bar. George Saville, free on the edge of the area, then curled a shot which Richard O'Donnell spilled, but Mason couldn't collect the rebound in a busy minute that belied the following 35 up to half time. The visitors played marginally the better football of the two sides but lacked a cutting edge. Bouremouth loanee Lee Tomlin drove goalwards from the left of the area - Carl Ikeme saved and Hause had to be alive to clear in his own six-yard box. Marlon Pack fired a long-ranger off target and Conor Coady sent a looping header safely into O'Donnell's arms in what could only be termed as half chances. And then just before the whistle put everyone out of their misery, dangerman Jonathan Kodjia slipped in behind the Wolves defence and prodded across goal and wide. The home fans made their feelings known at half time, booing Kenny Jackett's team off the field and chanting "boring". It was a fully deserved reaction for a soulless performance, the opposite of what Jackett had called for from his team in the build-up to the game. However, whatever the under-fire head coach said at half time, worked a treat. Jackett sent on Zyro at half time, replacing Kevin McDonald in a switch to 4-4-2 - and to everyone's surprise within two minutes of the restart Wolves were in front. Doherty, so impressive in recent weeks, made it to the byline and played across goal where Byrne fell over as he somehow got the ball over the line. It was about as aesthetically pleasing as a unmade Tracey Emin bed first thing in the morning, but Wolves cared not. And they continued in the same vain at the start of the half. Golbourne seemed to think he was still a Wolves player when he turned a cross inches past his own post as Wolves threatened a second. Zyro, playing up front with Mason, with Helan and Byrne on the flanks, was making a positive impact and his left-wing cross went through Mason who was well placed. Back came the Robins - Danny Batth got in a superb goal-saving tackle as Kodjia lined up a shot in the six yard box. Visiting manager Lee Johnson made three changes in three minutes in an attempt to get back in the game, with former Wolves full back Mark Little one of those to enter the fray. Doherty, in the form of his Wolves career of late, broke from defence and played to Zyro with the outside of his boot - the Pole showed good strength to hold off his man and fired into the side netting from 15 yards. But the Robins continued to persist - and they were rewarded with an equaliser 13 minutes from time. Joe Bryan sent over an excellent cross to the back post where Iorfa and Aden Flint slid in, with the ball rolling past Ikeme. It wasn't immediately clear who got the final touch but Flint celebrated like it was him who poked home. Jackett reacted by sending on teenage winger Connor Hunte, formerly of Chelsea, for his Wolves bow. And the winger made an immediate impact, cutting in from the right, playing a one-two with Zyro and firing a deflected shot wide. On came another youngster, Bright Enobakhare, in the dying minutes as Jackett turned to the vibrancy of youth to engineer a dramatic victory. And so it happened, with Doherty rising highest to head home Helan's free kick for the most unexpected of winners. Wolves (4-3-3): Ikeme; Iorfa, Batth (c), Hause, Doherty; Coady, McDonald (Zyro, 45), Saville; Byrne (Hunte, 82), Mason (Enobakhare, 85), Helan. Subs: Martinez, Deslandes, Rowe, Price. Goals: Byrne (47), Doherty (90) Bristol City: O'Donnell, Matthews (Little, 69), Flint, Baker, Golbourne; Wagstaff (Agard, 66), Pack (c), Bryan, Freeman; Kodjia (Wilbraham, 66), Tomlin. Subs: Fielding, Williams, Pearce, Reid. Goals: Flint (77) Attendance: 17,459 Referee: Scott Duncan (Northumberland) |
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