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Virginia Gov. and Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonSanders: 'I fully expect' fair treatment by DNC in 2020 after 'not quite even handed' 2016 primary Sanders: 'Damn right' I'll make the large corporations pay 'fair share of taxes' Former Sanders campaign spokesman: Clinton staff are 'biggest a--holes in American politics' MORE ally Terry McAuliffe questioned the effectiveness of Donald Trump Donald John TrumpHouse committee believes it has evidence Trump requested putting ally in charge of Cohen probe: report Vietnamese airline takes steps to open flights to US on sidelines of Trump-Kim summit Manafort's attorneys say he should get less than 10 years in prison MORE's recent pitches to African-American voters Thursday. ADVERTISEMENT “What he said about the African-Americans, ‘You’re all — you have no jobs, your schools are horrible, you’re worthless.’ Is that an endearing message to get people to vote for you?” McAuliffe said in an interview with WRVA's "Ask the Governor" program, as reported by The Washington Post. “He didn’t call them ‘worthless,’ just for the record,” said host Jimmy Barrett. “But I understand what you’re saying.” “Well, basically the implication is, ‘Your life sucks,'" McAuliffe continued. Democrats latched on to Trump's plea to black voters last week, calling it an inaccurate picture of life in the U.S. for African-Americans. "What do you have to lose? You're living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58 percent of your youth is unemployed, what the hell do you have to lose?" the GPO nominee said to black voters at a rally in Michigan. |
WINNIPEG – Ottawa is forcing Canada’s two main railway companies to double the amount of grain they ship in a week to try to unclog a transport bottleneck that has left piles of grain sitting in bins across the Prairies. Transport Minister Lisa Raitt said cabinet has passed an order-in-council that gives Canadian National and Canadian Pacific a month to start moving a minimum of one million tonnes of grain in 11,000 cars each week. If CP (TSX:CP) and CN (TSX:CNR) don’t meet the requirement, Raitt said they face fines of up to $100,000 a day. The Conservatives are also promising legislation when Parliament resumes that will help ensure agricultural products get to market. “This is a very serious situation,” Raitt said at a news conference in Winnipeg on Friday. “We have to demonstrate that Canada can maintain an efficient transportation system which is capable of moving our grain to market. This is an issue of great significance and we have to address it in a timely manner.” Farmers and provincial governments have been complaining loudly that a bumper grain crop is still sitting in bins while prices fluctuate. Last year’s harvest was up by about 20 million tonnes. Ottawa has already chipped in $1.5 million for a five-year transportation study and ordered rail companies to report monthly on their performance. CN and CP did not get a heads-up about Friday’s announcement, Raitt said. Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz said farmers are increasingly frustrated by the “poor performance of the railways.” “The railways have dropped the ball,” he said. “This situation is not acceptable.” Ed Greenberg, spokesman for Calgary-based CP, said the railway will comply with the order. But he called the move unfortunate and suggested it didn’t take into account the “entire supply chain.” The issue is complex and goes beyond the railway, he added. The backlog has not been caused by a shortage of locomotives or crew, Greenberg said. “It’s been a combination of an extraordinary crop size combined with extreme weather that has resulted in this situation,” he said. “And despite an extraordinary crop size that was not forecasted by anyone, and periods of extreme winter weather, our railway has continued to move record amounts of grain.” CN’s Jim Feeny said the company can comply with the order if everyone in the supply chain works together. The challenge in moving the biggest Prairie grain crop in history is unprecedented, he said. The company has been doing everything it can to keep grain moving but it has been hampered by extreme cold, Feeny said. “We have hundreds of employees in those locations who have spent the last three to four months working night and day outside in temperatures that have persisted at -30, -35, -40 and even beyond at times with very little respite,” he said. “But the reality is, when you get that kind of cold, across that kind of territory, for that length of time with no breaks, it has a severe affect on the mechanical ability to operate trains.” Many farmers praised the order. “Obviously the government heard us,” said Dan Mazier, vice-president of Keystone Agricultural Producers, who was part of a delegation that met with Raitt last week. “This is great news from a farmer’s perspective. “The government keeps on telling us they want us to produce more so we can export more. We’d better have a transportation system that can support all that.” Greg Cherewyk, chief operating officer of Pulse Canada, said rail companies have taken grain farmers for granted because they have no other choice to get their product to market. “We have two national carriers in this country that have focused relentlessly on trimming excess capacity,” he said. “That means you can walk, but you can’t run. You can never trip because you’ll never catch up.” The Saskatchewan government has been calling for action on the backlog for weeks. Agriculture Minister Lyle Stewart said the railways have the ability to boost grain shipments. “What’s been lacking is the will to do it and certainly the penalties that are put in place will be a very strong encouragement to them to improve their service.” The province will be pushing for a minimum 13,000 cars a week, Stewart added. “We have one shot at fixing this transportation mess and we better not fall short of the mark.” Alberta’s Agriculture Minister Verlyn Olson said the federal government had little choice but to wield a big stick to get grain moving. “We were really vulnerable and starting to see signs the reputation of Canada as a supplier to a global market was really being damaged,” he said. Some, however, weren’t impressed. Saskatchewan Liberal MP Ralph Goodale called the order “far too little and it’s far too late.” “They’re not really requiring the railways to do anything out of the ordinary,” he said. “So all of this militant talk, the railway bashing that’s been going on, they’re not prepared to back it up with any kind of specific measure that is over and above business as usual.” He suggested any penalties the government collects from railways should go back to farmers to cover their losses. — With files from Jennifer Graham in Regina and Dean Bennett in Edmonton |
Less than a year after a Peel District School Board (PDSB) report showed that black male high school students feel they experience bias and racism regularly at school, the board has revealed a number of measures meant to tackle the problem in the upcoming school year. Starting in September, trustees, principals, managers and other senior board staff will receive mandatory anti-black racism bias awareness training. Poleen Grewal says changing the mindset of staff to ensure a more inclusive environment will take some time. (Ministry of Education) "One-off training, especially when you're looking at mindset changes around anti-black racism... it isn't all of a sudden you get the training and then you get it. We know there has to be ongoing conversations," said Poleen Grewal, superintendent of curriculum and instruction at the PDSB. Grewal said the board hopes to extend that training to all teachers in the 2018/2019 school year. The Peel board will also host a symposium to inspire black student leadership — the second of its kind — and establish an advisory council of community representatives and parents which will meet throughout the year to discuss the success of the initiatives and give feedback. 'We Rise Together' campaign The new measures announced by the Peel board are part of their response to the "We Rise Together" report released at the beginning of the 2016 school year, which polled a group of 87 black male high school students about how they felt at school. The students said they felt that many non-black students were afraid of them and that teachers expected them to "mess up" because of the colour of their skin. Grewal said those results were unsurprising, but hard to hear nonetheless. "It's always hard to hear when you know there are students in your schools that feel the marginalization," she said. "It's not something that anybody wants for kids." Four black Grade 12 students discuss how they are treated at their Brampton school. 1:46 Students had also said that they didn't see themselves reflected in the PDSB curriculum or staff. As a result, Grewal said, PDSB is looking at integrating the experience of black Canadians into the curriculum, and four black principals are taking the lead on the "We Rise Together" action plan. Another damning report — this one released in the spring, and created using data from the PDSB as well as other Greater Toronto Area school boards — found that a higher proportion of black students were being streamed into applied rather than academic courses, limiting their post-secondary options. York University professor Carl James, the report's author, will work with the PDSB to monitor how black students are doing. This batch of initiatives is just the beginning, said Grewal. "We have an almost three to five year action plan we're looking at implementing," she said, adding that the PDSB is also looking to do similarly focused projects with Indigenous education, LGBTQ youth and students living in poverty. "I like the focus on particular groups because that's when you're doing real equity and inclusion work," she said. |
The most difficult to treat and deadly of cancers may have met their match.Nanotechnology, at the forefront of cancer research, now has a new application, Medical News Today reports.Mauro Ferrari, president and CEO of the Houston Methodist Research Institute in Texas, has found a way to inject metastatic tumors with nanoparticles, releasing cancer-fighting drugs directly into the tumors themselves.Existing cancer drugs are limited in the fight against tumors in areas like the lungs and liver because of the body’s protective biological barriers. Basically, the cancer fighting drugs fail to reach their intended targets and wind up damaging healthy tissues.“This may sound like science fiction, like we’ve penetrated and destroyed the Death Star, but what we discovered is transformational,” Ferrari tells Medical News Today. “I would never want to over-promise to the thousands of cancer patients looking for a cure, but the data is astounding.“We’re talking about changing the landscape of curing metastatic disease, so it’s no longer a death sentence.” |
René Pleven ( French pronunciation: [ʁəne pləvɛ̃]; 15 April 1901 – 13 January 1993) was a notable French politician of the Fourth Republic. A member of the Free French, he helped found the Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance (UDSR), a political party that was meant to be a successor to the wartime Resistance movement. He served as prime minister two times in the early 1950s, where his most notable contribution was the introduction of the Pleven Plan, which called for a European Defence Community between France, Italy, West Germany, and the Benelux countries. Early life [ edit ] René Pleven was born in Rennes on 15 April 1901 as the son of a commissioned officer and director of studies at the Special Military School of St. Cyr.[1] After studying law at the University of Paris, he failed the exam for the financial corps of the civil service, so he decided to move to the United States, Canada, and Great Britain to work there. He rose to the become a telephone company executive. In 1924, he married Anne Bompard.[2] Wartime [ edit ] Immediately after the breakout of the Second World War, he was in charge of encouraging the construction of aircraft for the Allies in the United States and of purchasing planes for France.[1] As late as 1939, Pleven stated that "Politics do not interest me,"[3] but then a year later, he joined Charles de Gaulle's Free French Forces, which resisted the Nazi-allied French Vichy Regime. Pleven helped rally support for Free France in French Equatorial Africa. Returning to London, where de Gaulle and his forces were exiled, in 1941, he became national commissioner for the economy, finance, the colonies and foreign affairs of the French National Committee. In this role, he presided over a 1944 conference in Brazzaville, which opted for a more liberal policy towards the colonies and ultimately spurred the region's independence movements.[2] Postwar years [ edit ] After France's liberation, he was the Minister of the Economy and Finance in the provisional government. After the war, Pleven was elected a legislator from the Côtes-du-Nord department. In 1946, he broke with Charles de Gaulle and founded the Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance (UDSR) serving as the party's president from 1946 to 1953. The party was positioned between the Radical Socialists and the Socialists, favoring limited industrial nationalization and state controls. He then held several Cabinet posts, most notably Defense Minister from 1949 to 1950. In July 1950 he became the country's Prime Minister, as power was shifting to the right. A vehement supporter of European integration, he pushed the ratification of the Schuman Plan for European integration creating the European Coal and Steel Community as Prime Minister. He had to face opposition from both left and right to push it through, but he collected enough votes in parliament by promising to increase farm loans and to lower taxes for low-income groups. After three days and two nights of debate, the treaty was ratified. He served until February 1951 and then again from August 1951 to January 1952, resigning over disagreements about budget deficits.[1][2][3][4] He then became Defense Minister again. His proposal for a European Defense Community, in which to integrate a re-armed Germany, known as the Pleven Plan, was defeated by the Gaullists, communists, and socialists. He also advocated a hard hand in defending French colonial rule in Indochina. In 1953, he resigned as chairman of the UDSR after his party supported the Vietnam peace talks. Being Minister of Defense from 1952 to 1954, he was responsible when the French lost the Battle of Dien Bien Phu initiating the crumbling of French hegemony in the whole region.[2] In 1957, President René Coty offered him to become Prime Minister again, but he turned down.[5] Instead, he became the Fourth Republic's last Foreign Minister in 1958.[1] In 1966, Pleven's wife died. He had had two daughters, Françoise and Nicole, with her. From 1969 to 1973, he served as Minister of Justice. Losing re-election as legislator in 1973, he became president of a regional development council in his native Brittany. He died of heart failure on 13 January 1993 at the age of 91.[2] Governments [ edit ] First ministry (12 July 1950 – 10 March 1951) [ edit ] Second Ministry (11 August 1951 – 20 January 1952) [ edit ] Changes: 16 September 1951 – Minister of State Maurice Petsche dies. 4 October 1951 – Joseph Laniel becomes a Minister of State. Roger Duchet succeeds Laniel as Minister of Posts. 21 November 1951 – Camille Laurens succeeds Antier as Minister of Agriculture. |
In the last few months, the buzz around SVG images has grown and grown. SVG has been around for years, but it’s only recently that it’s started to look like a real contender. The hype around SVG isn’t just some hipster trend, SVG completely solves issues that file formats like JPG completely fail to address. If you want to start using SVG, this article is for you. I’ll guide you through getting your SVG from Illustrator into HTML and then teach you to modify that image using CSS. Before we get started take a look at the demo I’ve put together, this is what we’ll be building. What is SVG? S.V.G. stands for Scaleable Vector Graphics, and that first word will give you a clue as to why SVG is so popular. SVG is the perfect counter-part to responsive design. SVG images are, at their core, an XML-based vector image format for 2D graphics. The SVG specification is an open standard that was developed by the W3C in 1999, so you can see it’s been around as a technology for a decade and a half—a lifetime in web terms. Why should I use SVG? Workflow and efficiency are too valuable to throw away on a whim. If you’re going to switch from JPG or PNG to SVG then you need valid reasons, fortunately SVG provides a lot: SVG is usually smaller than bitmaps like JPGs and PNGs, meaning they use up less web space and download faster. SVG images are scaleable, they look great no matter what size you use them at, and that’s brilliant for retina displays. SVG makes the responsive image conundrum academic, by providing a one-size fits all solution. SVG is perfect for the flat design trend that is currently so popular. Because SVG is essentially XML, it can be controlled with CSS and JavaScript, providing a wealth of interactive possibilities. SVG doesn’t require HTTP requests; SVG is part of the document’s source code and so already available. SVG is an incredibly useful technology, and it’s a mystery to many why it hasn’t taken off to fuller effect. From Illustrator to the Web There are a multitude of applications that will output SVG, you can use any of them. My personal preference is Adobe Illustrator, so that’s what we’ll use. I’ve just thrown together some shapes and some text for our SVG: As you can see, it’s a very simple graphic, so that we can clearly see what’s happening in the code. The next step is to save it as an SVG. So select File > Save As. You’ll see the usual pop up, and in this one you need to select the SVG format; as soon as you do this pop up will appear: This dialogue provides us with two options: Option 1: Save the image The first option we have is to click OK in the pop up and simply save the image as a .svg image and add it to our HTML as we would a bitmap image: <img src="images/image.svg" alt="SVG"/> This is absolutely fine, and the image will still scale if you want it to, however because this option is an embedded file, we won’t have editing abilities in the source code of our page. Option 2: SVG Code… The second option is to directly access the code for the image by clicking the SVG Code… button. You can then copy it and paste it into your HTML. The code I got was: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <!DOCTYPE svg PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD SVG 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/1.1/DTD/svg11.dtd"> <svg version="1.1" id="Layer_1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" x="0px" y="0px" width="960px" height="560px" viewBox="0 0 960 560" enable-background="new 0 0 960 560" xml:space="preserve"> <rect x="314" y="89" fill="#AD6F6F" width="250" height="158"/> <circle fill="#6F9FAA" cx="553" cy="241" r="68"/> <circle fill="#6F9FAA" cx="314" cy="157" r="68"/> <polyline fill="#6FA86F" points="206.794,352.189 241.083,427.637 631.769,395.559 670.822,309.072 "/> <text transform="matrix(0.9957 -0.0926 0.0926 0.9957 260.4678 399.3389)" fill="#383838" font-family="'Pacifico-Regular'" font-size="35">SVG FOR THE WEB</text> </svg> This is the preferred approach because it’s going to allow us to manipulate the image with CSS. As you can see, the code is simple XML and as a result, is probably reasonably familiar to anyone working on the Web. That familiarity is a great advantage when working with SVG. You’ll also see that there are a number of attributes in the XML elements, that detail colors, and positions; these are the values we’ll be manipulating later on. Cleaning up the code If you’re familiar with XML (don’t worry if you’re not) you’ll see that the code produced by Illustrator is somewhat messy. This is because it’s added presentational CSS properties in the XML, cluttering it up. So the next job we have is to move the presentation aspects to CSS where they belong. We can see that all of our shapes have a fill color, and that is one of the attributes we can easily move to our CSS. To do that we just need to delete the fill attribute and value from the XML and use a simple selector to define the color we want in the fill property: rect { fill: #AD6F6F; } circle { fill: #6F9FAA; } polyline { fill: #6FA86F; } Next, we can see that in our text, most of the attributes can also be transferred to our CSS. Just delete fill, font-family and font-size from the XML and add them to the CSS: text { fill: #383838 ; font-family: 'Pacifico-Regular', arial, sans-serif; font-size: 35px; } Let’s take a look at our code now: <svg version="1.1" id="Layer_1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" x="0px" y="0px" width="960px" height="560px" viewBox="0 0 960 560" enable-background="new 0 0 960 560" xml:space="preserve"> <rect x="314" y="89" width="250" height="158"/> <circle cx="553" cy="241" r="68"/> <circle cx="314" cy="157" r="68"/> <polyline points="206.794,352.189 241.083,427.637 631.769,395.559 670.822,309.072 "/> <text transform="matrix(0.9957 -0.0926 0.0926 0.9957 260.4678 399.3389)">SVG FOR THE WEB</text> </svg> You can see that by removing the presentation attributes we have far more readable code. Taking it up a notch We’ve moved our presentation attributes out of our XML into our CSS, but those were attributes we already had. We can also add brand new attributes. The first thing I want to do is add a stroke to our first circle, but not only that, I want to control the thickness and the opacity. It’s all very simple: circle { stroke: #547178; stroke-width: 5px; stroke-opacity: 0.5; } If you check your file, you’ll see that this does indeed add a stroke to the circle, but it also adds it to the second circle which we didn’t want. The solution is exactly the same as any CSS selection issue, we just need to add a class to our XML element: <circle class=“stroke” cx=”553″ cy=”241″ r=”68″/> And then, we can target the class in our CSS: circle.stroke { stroke: #547178; stroke-width: 5px; stroke-opacity: 0.5; } Almost any CSS can be applied to SVG. We can apply a hover effect that will increase our font size, for example: text:hover { font-size: 40px; } If you test that, you’ll see that it works, but it’s a bit of an instantaneous response. It would be far better if we used a CSS transition, which is of course possible: text { fill: #383838 ; font-family: 'Pacifico-Regular', arial, sans-serif; font-size: 35px; transition: all 1s ease; } If you reload the page you’ll see a gentle transition in font size. Conclusion As you can see, SVG has a lot of power behind it. The learning curve is very shallow, and the possibilities seem endless. A single SVG image is worth dozens of bitmap images. Featured image/thumbnail, scaleable design image via Shutterstock. |
About Hey! Thanks for stopping by this kickstarter campaign. I'm hoping to raise funds to create this set of Japanese ice cream based desserts. I was inspired from my trip to Japan late last year, and being the foodie that I am, I'm sure others would love to have some authentic desserts memorabilia that can only be found in that country. Specs: soft enamel gold plating rubber backs either 1" wide or 1" tall My trip last year had initially inspired me to start this enamel pin making journey. The first pin I made were the ramen pins: And soon after I came out with sushi pins too. So what is $400 CAD going towards? The funding will go towards the production of the pins, printing costs for the backing cards, and Kickstarter fees. If you have any questions or comments, free feel to message me :D |
Tesla Model S Charging Cost After 17,000 km = $70 September 2nd, 2017 by Zachary Shahan We’ve had the first Tesla Model S in our Tesla Shuttle fleet for 3 months now. We’ve put 17,000 kilometers (~10,500 miles) on it. One of several reasons the business idea originally made sense to us was that we’d have almost no operational costs for the car itself. Most of the charging stations in our home city are free and Tesla’s Superchargers* are of course free (for vehicles up to a certain production date). After a few months with the car, we already have a jaw-dropping series of figures to share. First of all, after 17,000 kilometers, we’ve spent an eye-popping ~$10 to charge the car at public charging stations. The car mostly lives in my parking space, which unfortunately doesn’t include a charging port. As much as that lack of home charging does cut down on the normal convenience of EV life, it also provides a charging bill of nearly $0/year. I’ve only spent approximately $10 to charge in a couple of garage parking lots that have hourly rates — basically just parking rates. However, a couple of my business partners have had the car at their homes some of the time as well, which has made our charging bill soar, resulting in approximately $60 of additional cost for the electricity they used. Anyhow, $70 for 17,000 kilometers of travel is pretty sweet. Anyone who has ever looked at the price of gasoline can tell you that. But what would the cost of that driving have been with a “normal” car? As I’m typing this, I’m just as curious as you are, since I haven’t done the math yet. First of all, we have to know what car we’re comparing the Model S to. My first thought was the Fiat 500, but … that car’s not as popular globally. 😉 More seriously, the BMW 5 Series or 7 Series is probably the best choice, or a comparable Mercedes. The fuel economy of these models seems to range from 16 MPG to 27 MPG for 2017 model year vehicles. Going with 21 MPG, that’s 500 gallons of gasoline across 10,500 miles. The average price of gasoline in Poland over the past few months seems to be approximately 4.40 Polish złoty per liter, or $4.64/gallon. Finishing up with some simple math, that’s $2,320 in estimated fuel costs compared to a “similar” BMW or Mercedes model instead of a Tesla Model S 85D. So, that means we “saved” $2,250. If you extrapolate and project that our annual distance traveled and charging costs will be 4 times those of our first 3 months, that means an annual savings of $9,000. We also have no oil changes, but we won’t even get into that. As always, total cost of ownership (TCO) depends on many variables that can change quite a lot from person to person or business to business. Obviously, we are driving the car much more than the average person drives theirs, gasoline costs are much higher than in the US, and we are lucky to benefit from primarily free charging. Nonetheless, I think this is a fun scenario to demonstrate one of the advantages of electric vehicles — no gas! Let’s not chat about the other vehicle costs here — a Tesla Model S isn’t cheap! But hey, how do you price fun, a livable climate, clean air, and those wonderful Tesla Easter eggs? All images by Tesla Shuttle *We typically just Supercharge in the middle of long-distance trips. For better or worse, the locations of Superchargers in our region are basically just useful for intercity travel … as planned. 😀 |
Saudia Airlines has issued a strict dress code for passengers and stated that it will refuse to fly people who deviate from it. The airline is the national carrier of Saudi Arabia, a country which follows a conservative interpretation of Sunni Islam, Wahhabism. On the passengers code of conduct section of their website Saudia asks that travellers are not “clothed in a manner that would cause discomfort or offence to other passengers. Women exposing legs or arms, or wearing too thin or too tight clothes and men wearing shorts exposing legs." The airline already has rules for its customers which adhere to the laws of the Kingdom. Saudia flights are an alcohol free zone as it is illegal to import or consume alcohol in Saudia Arabia. Saudia Arabia is one of the few Muslim majority countries that imposes a dress code by law. All women, foreign and local, must wear an abaya (a long loose garment that covers their clothes) in public places. The dress code has started a debate online, with the hashtag #SaudiaAirlines trending. One man agreed with the new rules. He wrote: "I am not obliged to see such clothing in public spaces, great decision on the part of the airline.” Another man asked on twitter if the rules would apply to the air hostesses and a woman asked how an airline which is dictating how their customers dress will be able to encourage tourism at the same time. One Saudia passenger posted an image of a male passenger travelling while wearing shorts, asking if the code would be enforced fairly. Ali Al Ghamdi, the former Saudi head of tourism and health weighed in on the discussion, commenting that many airlines have dress codes. Speaking to Makkah newspaper he said that the requirements were not exclusive to Saudia Airlines but are issued by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and applied in varying degrees by different carriers. In March, two girls were prevented from boarding a United Airlines flight from Denver to Minneapolis as they were wearing leggings. United officials said that they were able to “refuse passengers who are not properly clothed.” |
A bishop in the United Methodist Church (UMC) is dropping a complaint against an openly gay minister for being a "self-avowed practicing homosexual." The news was announced by MIND (Methodists in New Directions), the LGBT-affirming reconciling organization for the UMC's New York Annual Conference. Reverend Sara Thompson Tweedy, who is a steering committee member for MIND, had a complaint filed against her in March 2013 for being openly gay, while the United Methodist Church bans LGBT people from serving as clergy. A dean at SUNY Sullivan, Sara is also married with two children. Bishop Martin McLee's decision to drop the complaint means that no formal disciplinary charges brought against Rev. Thompson Tweedy. Rev. Thompson Tweedy responded to the decision: In dismissing this case, Bishop McLee has chosen to honor the inclusive and justice-affirming intents of our Book of Discipline over its prejudiced and punitive rules. I have never denied who God created me to be and I have never denied my family. I went through this 14-month ordeal with the same integrity I went through the ordination process with, forthrightly answering questions and not hiding any aspect of my identity or my marriage. If my honesty resulted in my being defined as “self-avowed, practicing homosexual,” I was willing to face those consequences. Bishop McLee’s refusal to seek prosecution offers hope that other LGBTQ seminarians, ordination candidates and ministers in our New York Annual Conference can also live and work openly without fear of losing their jobs and their vocation. In a statement released in March, regarding charges against Rev. Dr. Thomas W. Ogletree for officiating his gay son's wedding, Bishop McLee said, “I call for and commit to a cessation of church trials for conducting ceremonies which celebrate homosexual unions or performing same gender wedding ceremonies and instead offer a process of theological, spiritual and ecclesiastical conversation.” As the UMC continues ongoing efforts towards LGBT equality and internal discussions about policies regarding the LGBT community, Bishop McLee's decision—as well as Rev. Thompson Tweedy's advocacy and visibility—are important steps towards making the church inclusive and affirming. |
Quail is a collective name for several genera of mid-sized birds generally placed in the order Galliformes. Old World quail are placed in the family Phasianidae, and New World quail are placed in the family Odontophoridae. The species of buttonquail are named for their superficial resemblance to quail, and form the family Turnicidae in the order Charadriiformes. The king quail, an Old World quail, often is sold in the pet trade, and within this trade is commonly, though mistakenly, referred to as a "button quail". Many of the common larger species are farm-raised for table food or egg consumption, and are hunted on game farms or in the wild, where they may be released to supplement the wild population, or extend into areas outside their natural range. In 2007, 40 million quail were produced in the U.S.[1] The collective noun for a group of quail is a flock, covey,[2] queer, or bevy.[3] New World [ edit ] Old World [ edit ] Quail in cookery [ edit ] Quail that have fed on hemlock (e.g., during migration) may induce acute renal failure due to accumulation of toxic substances from the hemlock in the meat; this problem is referred to as "coturnism".[5] See also [ edit ] |
Title: Rebecca Year: 1940 Starring: Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine Director: Alfred Hitchcock Runtime: 2 hrs 10 mins Is It Any Good?: Great! It’s classic Hitchcock! Twists and turns in every way. Joan Fontaine is coy enough as the new Mrs. De Winter, and Sir Laurence Olivier is at almost the top of his game here. As is normally the case with Hitchcock he builts a compelling film from it’s opening act all through the denouement and close. “The Master of Suspense” does exactly what we know and love, and no director I’ve ever seen nor will you ever see has ever been able to give power to McGuffin characters quite like Hitchcock he does it here with “Rebecca” and in psycho with (spoiler alert!) Norma Bates! Memorable Quote: Maxim De Winter: Please promise me never to wear black satin or pearls… or to be 36 years old. Competition: Boy was this a year! Not only did Hitchcock win but he had another film nominated (Foreign Correspondent), but we had Charlie Chaplin’s first talking feature The Great Dictator. Alongside this we had an absolute classic in The Grapes of Wrath. Bette Davis chewing up scenes in not only All This, and Heaven Too as well as The Letter. And last but certainly not least The Philadelphia Story which features an Oscar-winning turn by Jimmy Stewart who outdid none other than Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn. Man what a year! Next up we have one of the most perplexing years in Oscar history where the winner couldn’t outlast a nominee whose attitude in that year probably cost his film the win! Look forward to seeing you in 1941! Follow us on all the social medias @FilmSnobReviews and here to your right in that little subscription box! |
A building boom including construction of the City Rail Link (in red) is about to start in downtown Auckland. Aucklanders coming into the city for work or play are about to be sent a very strong message - leave your cars at home. From next month, downtown Auckland will become a construction site, as major projects including the City Rail Link (CRL), the International Convention Centre and numerous office and apartment towers get underway. The three-to-five year building boom will create traffic chaos, and city officials' plans for grappling with it include an extended publicity campaign telling Aucklanders to get out of their cars or face gridlock. Auckland Transport Auckland Transport is creating 2km of 24-hour bus lanes in the CBD (in green) to help keep the city moving. "We are targeting a modal shift… and that is onto active transport, which is your walking and cycling, and obviously public transport." CRL construction manager Chris Bird said. Albert St and Victoria St West in particular will become almost no-go zones, and travel from east to west across the CBD in general will be slow. In November Auckland Transport begins construction of a new stormwater pipe up the length of Albert St to make way for the CRL. From May next year it starts building the "cut-and-cover" CRL tunnels, reducing the street to a narrow access-only lane on each side. At various times the Victoria St intersection will also be reduced to one lane as two shafts for the CRL are constructed. Meanwhile, other big projects will begin in the area. Casino operator SkyCity has vowed to start building the long-awaited International Convention Centre between Hobson and Nelson Streets by the end of the year. A 30-storey office, hotel and retail tower on the old New Zealand Herald site in Albert St gets underway before Christmas. It escalates from there, with projects such as the Park Hyatt Hotel on the waterfront, the 36-level Downtown centre and the 52-storey NDG Tower on Albert St all starting in 2016. People would still be able to walk everywhere and access to building carparks would be maintained, CRL communications manager Carol Greensmith said. Motorists could still drive down routes such as Albert St if they needed to. "I'd choose not to, if you've got a brain." she said. As part of its strategy to keep the city moving Auckland Transport (AT) is moving and upgrading bus routes and introducing 24-hour, 7-day bus lanes in parts of the CBD. The two-stage project running until the CRL tunnelling starts in May will be accompanied by a significant publicity campaign, including ambassadors at bus stops, text messages to HOP card users, and an AT roadshow touring the foyers of central city office towers. A video campaign urging downtown commuters to "break off" their relationship with their cars will be part of that. Communication about what was happening couldn't come soon enough, said Kate Healy, chair of the council's independent City Centre Advisory Board. "If I was working in Albert St, for example, I'd be very concerned about the lack of information. "I would know that this is sort of coming but I wouldn't know exactly how it was going to impact on me," she said. The City Centre Advisory Board had "certainly been having conversations" with council officials about what plans they had in place and how they were going to communicate them. "Because when you have a vacuum of information you create a whole bunch of panics that may or may not be called for," Healy said. The first phase of bus shifts begins on October 18, with a number of bus routes moved out of the works area. By May no buses will run down Albert St. Phase two focuses on moving buses away from Lower Queen St and Customs St. Demolition of the Downtown shopping centre to make way for a new office and retail development begins on May 20. By November next year the front access to the Britomart train station on Lower Queen St will be closed, and a temporary access and services block will be built at the back. The bus changes are also part of AT's New Network project, aimed at making public transport routes easier and faster. It involves "turn up and go" bus services from 7am to 7pm on major routes, with smaller hub services feeding into them and the journey charged as one trip on the passenger's HOP card. The changes were going to happen anyway and had been brought forward to coincide with the start of the CRL works, Greensmith said. "So if we move people we move them once, we move them permanently, and that will be their new world going forward." Improvements to the bus service to encourage people to give it a go would be a key part of reducing private vehicle traffic, she said. AT had done a lot of modelling to see what would would happen to traffic flows during the works, Chris Bird said. "It predominantly does show some disruption, particularly on east-west routes. "There will be delays on Victoria St, in the order of two to three minutes." It would be monitored constantly using real time data, and the agency had "some things up our sleeve" if it got too bad. "We have some pretty stringent conditions which stipulate no more than a few minutes on specific routes, and we're not allowed to break them," Bird said. BIG PROJECTS ABOUT TO START: - November: City Rail Link, from Britomart to Mt Eden - November - 164 apartments and two commercial buildings, Wynyard Quarter - Oct/Nov - One Mills Lane, 30-storey office, hotel and retail, Albert St - November/December - International Convention Centre, cnr Hobson, Wellesley and Nelson Sts - end of 2015 - Park Hyatt Hotel, Wynyard Quarter - early 2016 - Downtown centre, 36-level retail and office - May 2016 - NDG Tower, 52 levels, corner Albert, Victoria and Elliot Sts - mid-2016 |
Microsoft announced its first white spaces project in Kenya earlier this year, as part of its 4Afrika initiative, and now the company has expanded its focus with a new program in South Africa to explore the potential to deliver broadband Internet at a lower cost. ‘White spaces’ is a term for using unused frequencies for television broadcasters to deliver wireless Internet services. Microsoft says it will use TV white spaces and solar-powered base stations in order to deliver low-cost wireless broadband services to five schools in South Africa’s Limpopo province. Microsoft isn’t simply providing Web access, it says the schools will be kitted out with Windows-based tablets and projectors, while teachers will get laptops and training. Since access to power can be an issue, there will be solar panels for charging devices where mains electricity is not available. The South Africa project is Microsoft’s third such initiative in Africa — alongside pilots in Kenya and Tanzania — and Mteto Nyati, managing director of Microsoft South Africa, outlined its importance in bringing the Internet to remote areas and new users. “Technology holds enormous potential for many aspects of development, but it is particularly key to areas such as education and healthcare,” Nyati said. “Reducing the cost of broadband access means millions more South Africans will get online. This will create new opportunities for education, healthcare, commerce and the delivery of government services across the country.” Nyati tells ZDNet that white space broadband could become available for $2-$5 for 4Mbps of uncapped usage each month. That considerably cheaper than the $35 that ISPs charge for 1Mbps ADSL services each month, and could help open the door to greater social change and increased prospects for youngsters. Microsoft isn’t the only one exploring white space potential in Africa, Google launched a pilot of its own in South Africa in March. The technology isn’t solely for emerging markets, and it could have potential right across the world. Google’s TV white space database got approved for operation in the US just last month, while Google and Microsoft reportedly expressed interest in piloting the technologies in the UK last year. Headline image via Microsoft Read next: WordPress now powers 18.9% of the Web, has over 46m downloads, according to founder Matt Mullenweg |
Assault charge was part of political conspiracy, says Ken Maginnis BelfastTelegraph.co.uk A former Ulster Unionist MP has vowed to appeal against a conviction for assaulting a motorist in an angry road-rage altercation after claiming in court he was the victim of a political conspiracy. https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/assault-charge-was-part-of-political-conspiracy-says-ken-maginnis-29510328.html https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/incoming/article29510830.ece/a6f24/AUTOCROP/h342/%0A%0Aad%20rage%207794840000000000000jpg.jpg Email A former Ulster Unionist MP has vowed to appeal against a conviction for assaulting a motorist in an angry road-rage altercation after claiming in court he was the victim of a political conspiracy. Lord Maginnis, 75, was found guilty of grabbing the other driver involved in the incident in Dungannon, Co Tyrone - 21-year-old Keith Kirk from the town - and threatening to punch him. At Dungannon Magistrates Court, the peer conceded he called Mr Kirk a "yellow bellied b******" in the exchange in June last year, but he denied things had turned violent. However district judge John Meehan, who said Lord Maginnis had aimed an "angry and abusive tirade" at his fellow road user, said he was satisfied the prosecution had proved the non-injury assault charge against the peer beyond reasonable doubt. He fined the peer, from Park Lane in Dungannon, £200 and ordered him to pay a further £200 compensation to Mr Kirk. In a colourful appearance in the witness box, Lord Maginnis, a former major in the Ulster Defence Regiment, had suggested that political factors were behind the prosecution. He claimed a speech he had delivered in the House of Lords earlier this year, in which he referred to the incident as a non-offence, and his threat to take court proceedings against Stormont's Employment and Learning Minister Stephen Farry had both influenced the move to prosecute him nine months after the matter was first reported to police. He told the judge: "I was foolish or frank enough in parliament on 19th March, 2013 to refer to this event as a non-offence that had been resolved." The peer added: "At the time when the summons was issued I had threatened to seek a judicial review against a minister in the Northern Ireland Assembly (Mr Farry) whose party leader (David Ford) happens to be the minister for justice. "That all this is coming together after nine months of silence suggests to me that somebody had simply said: 'Right, we'll spike Maginnis's guns." But prosecution lawyer John O'Neill rejected the claim. "Perhaps you were simply brought to court because you had committed a crime?" he said. Lord Maginnis left the Ulster Unionist Party last year after a public falling out with its leader Mike Nesbitt over controversial remarks the peer made about gay marriage. The motoring incident involving the former Fermanagh and South Tyrone MP happened in Dungannon town centre. Appearing in the witness box, Mr Kirk said he was driving along Perry Street, taking his younger sister to the bank, when a red Honda CRV pulled out of the approaching Park Road junction, forcing him to break sharply. He said he honked his horn at the driver - an act which saw the car in front stop promptly. At this point, he told the court, Lord Maginnis got out and walked back to his window. Mr Kirk told judge Meehan that he presumed the male driver, who he said he did not know or recognise, was coming to apologise, so he wound down his window. "He grabbed my right arm with his left hand and he had his right hand in a fist, he was trying to hit me with it," he claimed. Mr Kirk said he put his hands out to protect himself. He added: "He said 'you're a big yellow bellied bastard'." Lord Maginnis's defence barrister Paul Bacon challenged him that his account was untrue. He accused him of speeding up behind Lord Maginnis's car and blaring the horn continually as the peer had stopped in the road to let a parked car out. The lawyer insisted the exchange at the car window was not violent. "He said to you, 'you can't intimidate or scare me with your horn' and a verbal altercation took place between you - but there certainly wasn't anything of a physical nature," he said. Mr Kirk denied the barrister's claim. Lord Maginnis vehemently disputed his accuser's account when it came to his turn to give evidence. He denied pulling out of the junction without looking and said he was around 30 feet further up the road, waiting "courteously" to let a parked car pull out, when he saw Mr Kirk's silver Volkswagen Bora approaching at speed in his rear view mirror. "He came like a hurricane up the road behind me to within inches of my car and then blew the horn," he said. Lord Maginnis added: "First of all I shook my head at him but when he continued to blow his horn I got out of the car and went back to him and I said 'you don't bully me with your horn sonny boy', I remember very clearly saying that." The peer, a one-time schoolmaster, said he told Mr Kirk he was lying when the driver accused him of pulling out in front of him at the junction. "I looked at him again and said 'you don't bully me you yellow bellied bastard' and then I apologised for my language," he told the judge. In response to the allegation he had manhandled the man, the peer said: "I neither did nor was I capable of," he said, explaining that his health would have prohibited such acts. He told the judge he has severe arthritis and had recent operations on both hands and on his left shoulder and required a full shoulder socket replacement on his right side. Lord Maginnis said at the time he had not looked closely at the passenger in the car and had presumed it was another man in his early 20s. "Would a 76 (sic)-year-old man under-take and have a row and have a punch up with what he thought were two 20-year-old fellows? You must be joking." Lord Maginnis said he had initially got out of the car to challenge the driver about his behaviour on the road and had only got angry when he claimed the peer was in the wrong. "He knew it was a lie, I knew it was a lie and that's what prompted my outburst," he said. But Mr O'Neill alleged that he was leaving his car with the intention of calling Mr Kirk "a bastard to his face". At this point Lord Maginnis turned to the judge: "I didn't write a script your worship." The prosecutor told the peer the blowing of the horn was the "match that lit your fuse". The veteran politician replied: "I have been about for a long time and my fuse is very hard to light." Lord Maginnis also rejected a claim that he had once referred to Mr Kirk as a "poofter". The lawyer insisted that the peer had used the term "yellow bellied bastard" because Mr Kirk had refused to get out of his car and face him. The peer responded: "No (I said it) because he is a bully and bullies tend to be yellow bellied bastards - excuse my language." Again challenged on whether he had grabbed the driver and clenched his other hand, he said. "No to both, I was incapable of doing it - sorry to disappoint you." At the outset the judge refused a defence application to take into account alleged bad character evidence against Mr Kirk - namely two previous motoring convictions. He stressed that what motoring actions either driver may or may not have taken were not relevant in justifying an assault. The judge posed a hypothetical question to demonstrate his point: "A man accused of assaulting a chef in a restaurant - is it of any relevance that it was a bad meal?" Later delivering his verdict, the judge said it was sad that a man with such a career of public service was before him in such circumstances. He questioned that the peer may not appreciate that the force of his personality could intimidate people. Outside the court, Lord Maginnis said his appeal was already lodged. "I am obviously not letting it rest here," he said. "One might say what's a couple of hundred pounds but this is my reputation. And I am appealing it, I can assure you I am appealing it." Belfast Telegraph Digital |
Image copyright Reuters Image caption The latest ceasefire in eastern Ukraine still looks fragile It is a truism that the world looks very different depending on where you stand. This thought struck me powerfully just a few days ago when I was in Paris. With the Ukraine crisis developing and the ceasefire struggling, much of the British and US media foreign coverage focused on the growing strains with Moscow. In contrast French, and for that matter Italian, newspapers were looking in a very different direction. Their concern was to the south; the worsening chaos in Libya and the threat from a massive ungoverned space just a few hundred kilometres off Europe's Mediterranean coast. Worse still is the possibility that parts of Libya could be incorporated into Islamic State's burgeoning caliphate. Never has the "arc of instability" extending through the Middle East from the Mediterranean seaboard through the Sinai Peninsula and up into Lebanon, Syria and on into Iraq looked more unstable. Established state structures are collapsing; the heady hopes of the Arab Spring have turned into a nightmare; the only organised political force that has at all benefited from the chaos is the most extreme face of political Islam. So with Nato largely looking eastwards towards the perceived threat from a resurgent Russia, is the more imminent danger actually creeping up from the south - a tide of instability bringing with it a massive wave of refugees; an unbridled source of arms; and the potential for the infiltration of jihadist extremists on to Europe's shores? Image copyright AP Image caption Numbers of refugees crossing the Mediterranean so far this year are well up Unlike a direct threat to Nato territory from Russia - which the alliance seems to be gearing itself up to deter - what can it actually do about the problems across the Mediterranean? 'Not a job for the alliance' A week or so ago, Italian Defence Minister Roberta Pinotti spoke of her country's willingness to lead a coalition of states to counter the advance of an Islamic caliphate - Italy, after all, is the former colonial power in Libya and retains significant economic ties with the country. Other Italian leaders - not least Prime Minister Matteo Renzi - have been more cautious. He noted the other day that "this was not the moment for a military intervention". There have been signs that Islamic State leaders are well aware this refugee flow could be used as a potent weapon to cause disruption The outgoing chief of the defence staff, Adm Luigi Binelli Mantelli - Italy's top serving officer - backed up that view this week, noting that the best tools available for the moment to deal with the Libya crisis were "diplomacy and the UN Security Council". Libya, though, is of course very much on Nato minds. Developments there are being watched carefully. To the extent that there might be a military dimension to any response it could involve air, sea and even potentially land elements. Nato reaction forces, for example, could equally be deployed southwards as much as eastwards. But for now the view among senior Nato figures is that this is not a job for them. Libya presents a complex amalgam of humanitarian and security threats for which military means provide no simple answers. Just consider the humanitarian aspect. Some 300 people died last week off the coast of the Italian island of Lampedusa and nearly 3,000 had to be rescued last weekend. Not all the refugee flow is coming from Libya, of course. According to UN refugee agency figures, nearly 220,000 people crossed the Mediterranean last year and the numbers for last month are already 60% up on January last year. A growing stream risks becoming a torrent and there have been signs that Islamic State leaders are well aware that this refugee flow could be used as a potent weapon to cause disruption in southern Europe. The situation on the ground in Libya itself is complex, and this makes it hard to really get a grip on the scale of the IS phenomenon in the country. Just as in Iraq, various armed groups have rallied to the IS banner or sought local advantage by affiliating with it. Image copyright AP Image caption The Libyan city of Benghazi is now largely in the hands of Islamist fighters What is clear is that IS is prospering from the factionalism and chaos created by the division of "government" - to the extent that there is functioning government - between two separate armed coalitions, only one of which is recognised by the international community. For now it is Nato's southern members who are most alarmed by developments in Libya. But that concern could spread if events there continue on their current trajectory. Libya matters because it is seen as being so much closer to Europe's shores than the parallel dramas in Iraq and Syria. How different it was just a few years ago when Nato's air campaign in 2012 heralded the demise of the Gaddafi regime. That was hailed by Britain and France as almost a model intervention. But in retrospect it may have helped to pave the way for the chaos that ensued. It is always easy to condemn policy decisions in hindsight. But the performance of some of Nato's key players in the run-up to the Libya intervention has drawn criticism. In some ways it is a similar situation to that illustrated by the latest House of Lords report, which is scathing in its criticism of the lack of strategic thinking across the European Union in the run-up to the Ukraine crisis. The events unfolding around Europe's borders are of historic significance and the instability looks set to last for a long time. The response of the West, Nato, the EU - however you want to label it - has been limited, focused on the short term and profoundly political rather than genuinely strategic. The other day I was sitting with a senior US Nato diplomat talking about the question of arming government forces in Ukraine. He accepted that there were some divisions between advocates of such a policy on Capitol Hill and some of America's key allies - with the Germans in the vanguard of the opposition. But his key point was that any decision to go ahead with weapons supplies must look at not just their immediate impact but at the second and third-order consequences of such a step. Naive and frothy Was this done seriously in London and Paris before the decision to intervene in Libya? Officials and ministers will no doubt say "of course it was". But then wasn't the chaos that has ensued entirely predictable? These are big questions. They point to the experience, capabilities and expertise of our foreign policymakers - a theme highlighted by the Lords report. Most of the UK experts I speak to on the Russian military, for example, used to work in one way or another for the Ministry of Defence but were dispensed with as a saving after the Cold War. Where were the experts on the Middle East to advise against the naive and frothy assessments of the Arab Spring that saw it simply as an upsurge of the Twitter generation destined to bring democracy and to overthrow tyrants? There are fundamental questions too about the way in which policymakers relate to their political masters. Have they perhaps imbibed the same short-termism and focus on presentation of the wider political class? In short, where is the "strategic" vision to guide policy through these tumultuous times? |
Rebecca Sugar – Podcast Interview Highlights Rebecca Sugar was recently interviewed by podcast Comic News Insider , and she provided some new and interesting tidbits about Steven Universe and some of her other work. The whole podcast can be found on Itunes, or listened to here. Rebecca’s interview starts around 40:25. Here are some of the highlights: 40:55 – Rebecca was working on Steven Universe while working at Adventure Time. She specifically mentioned boarding the pilot of SU while boarding “Lady & Peebles” for AT. 42:25 – Rebecca says the main plot ideas of Steven Universe were preplanned. She always knew about Garnet’s eyes and fusion status. She had Sardonyx drawn before the pilot. She had charts for every fusion combination and their weapons. 44:15 – Rebecca confirms that the story changes, but not because of network notes or fan reactions. It takes about a year to make an episode so she says it’s fun to watch fans react but that doesn’t influence the show. She was happy to see that fans wanted to see Peridot redeemed because that arc had already been written when the audience was introduced to her as a character! 45:25 – Rebecca jokes that being a showrunner has “aged her a decade.” She loves the collaborative atmosphere, citing specifically the idea that Sapphire is always relating to sight and seeing, Ruby to touch and feeling. She also says Sapphire didn’t always have one eye. The characters of Ruby and Sapphire weren’t fleshed out until collaboration happened–they sort of “became” Ian Jones-Quartey and Rebecca, since they were in a relationship, running the show, and being together all the time. “Stronger Than You” is semi-autobiographical in that regard as well. 48:35 – On the songwriting process for Steven Universe, Rebecca says she writes premises and outlines of songs that will go into episodes. She’ll give and get direction like: “In the course of the song, they have to learn this, or they start out feeling this way… then I’ll take it home and work on it before we end up boarding it. The best case scenario is that I have something to give to everyone when they start to draw it.” 50:00 – More confirmation there is an upcoming full musical episode, which will feature seven songs in eleven minutes! There is a song by Jeff Liu and Ben Levin, but when Joe Johnston was drawing the song he added a Pearl verse. Rebecca loves the storyboard format because drawing and writing are inseparable, which means songs are very visual as well. 51:02 – Shelby Rabara (the voice of Peridot) had auditioned for Garnet! Jennifer Paz (Lapis) was almost Amethyst. There is tap dancing in the musical episode, and it’s Shelby Rabara’s tapping recorded. 52:30 – Rebecca wouldn’t reveal who her dream song cast would be because it’s a spoiler, but it’ll come up “in the fall.” 55:00 – Patty LuPone, voice of Yellow Diamond and broadway superstar, corrected the grammar of one of her lines from “by who?” to “by whoM?” 56:00 – Rebecca hints at a Patty LuPone song! 56:10 – On fusion, Rebecca says she wanted to explore a new way to talk about relationships. She says it started as a geeky excitement of “blank + blank = blank and has a hammer!” But of course the concept has developed beautifully from there. “I’m so interested in ways people change each other. When you’re with someone, you are not the same person necessarily you are when you’re with someone else. Especially if it’s someone you’re close to… the space between people becomes a person.” 58:50 – When an interviewer mentioned Pearl’s “unrequited” love for Rose, Rebecca was quick to say: “I don’t know that I would call it unrequited!” Personally, I’ve been aware since “Rose’s Scabbard” that these characters were romantically involved, but there are still large contingents of the fandom who say otherwise. It’s very helpful to have word of God confirmation that these lovely aliens had reciprocal feelings for each other (not to say it wasn’t complicated!). I can’t wait to see more of their backstory fleshed out. 59:30 – Rebecca’s brother Steven Sugar, on whom Steven-the-character is based, drew comics with Rebecca as kids. She still talks to Steven about the show, and praised his personal project “Friday Knights.” Because she’s so busy with the show, and has little time to practice, she laments that “he’s getting so much better than me at drawing!” 1:00:05 – Rebecca is very shy. 1:01:55 – When asked what she would do with an 8-episode miniseries from Cartoon Network to do with what she chose, Rebecca replied she’d like to explore her old comic, Pug Davis. 1:03:15 – Rebecca’s not really involved with the Steven Universe comics, but she’s excited for them. She mentions that show canon is the only absolute canon, and that even her personal stuff (such as a storybook based on beloved episode “The Answer!”) wouldn’t be at that tier. She explains the writer’s room is tight, and that group consensus is important. 1:04:45 – She would love to team up with Adam Muto of Adventure Time, but seems like she doesn’t think a crossover would work. AT is our world but in the future, whereas SU is an alternate timeline of our present. 1:05:00 – She loves writing music for Ice King. 1:05:50 – Rebecca says the voice actors try to record things together whenever possible. “Without Deedee [Pearl], Michaela [Amethyst] and Zach [Steven] can have a bad influence on each other.” I love how much these VAs reflect their characters, and this makes me itch for a Steven-Amethyst fusion! 1:08:50 – Rebecca wrote the bridges of the extended intro at an airport, and now that’s all she can think about when she goes through security. 1:10:05 – “Everything Stays,” which was written for the recent 8-part Adventure Time miniseries “Stakes,” is apparently the most personal song she’s ever written. 1:11:30 – “As a control freak…” aka more evidence Rebecca Sugar most closely identifies with Pearl. 1:12:55 – Rebecca does have a “finite ending” in mind for SU. 1:13:12 – But the story is always changing; how to tell the story is always changing. Why she wants to do it is always changing. As always, Rebecca Sugar is a delight to listen to. She is changing the media landscape around us as we speak, and I hope she continues to make cartoons for as long as she is willing and able! Author: K-K Bracken K-K Bracken grew up overseas and in the Washington, DC area, went to the Ohio State University to get her BA in English, and has been in Columbus, Ohio ever since. She is currently querying her first novel ORCHESTRATION under the name Bracken Beveridge. She is the founder and organizer for the first Steven Universe exclusive fan convention, Beach City Con. Twitter Read our before commenting. Please do not copy our content in whole to other websites. Linkbacks are encouraged. Like this: Like Loading... |
FIVE SNARKY THINGS TO SAY ABOUT TRAYVON: Memorize these and life will get easier when talking to some dope about the Zimmerman trial: They keep calling Trayvon a child. Then why was he outside after dark? Why wasn’t he getting his bath and ready for his bedtime story? If Zimmerman was a racist and he murdered Trayvon because he was black, why didn’t he just walk up and shoot him? Why did Zimmerman wait until he was on his back having his face beaten in? Obama and the administration could care less about this trial except for that it distracts from their shenanigans and failures. When was the last time you heard the words “Benghazi” or “Fast & Furious”? Even FOX has been duped. About the verdict, Tavis Smiley said; “Arm every black person in America, and then let’s see what the NRA has to say…” Does this mean Tavis Smiley wants all blacks in America wiped out? According to statistics, they aren’t going to go and kill whites, you know. And Finally: If George Zimmerman was black, none of us would have ever even heard of the name Trayvon Martin. -30- |
As Fall settles in and November grows near, the thought of holiday food is on the mind. We’ve been busy gathering new ingredients and stuffing our facility with delicious food to send out. With Thanksgiving just around the corner, we want to tell you about the new gourmet roasts we’ve created for you! Field Roast has been making stuffed vegetarian roasts for over 12 years and recently put a lot of heart into expanding these options. Knowing that the food preferences of those surrounding a Thanksgiving table vary greatly, we want to make stuffed roasts that are decadent and deliciously appealing to anyone. Gone are the days of fake turkeys and “substitutes” – these roasts raise the bar for vegan options. One more thing. Food brings friends and family together no matter the occasion, so we’ve decided to offer our entire line of stuffed roasts year-round! New! Smokey Forager’s Roast with Pineapple Mustard Glaze Inspired by the Pacific Northwest, we’ve gathered foraged chanterelle mushrooms and wild huckleberries. These special ingredients accent a traditional bread and wild rice stuffing wrapped in a rich smokey tomato grain meat seasoned with our own special blend of spices. Brush with Pineapple Mustard Glaze to add a sweet and savory finish. We are very proud to offer you the most decadent vegan roast to enjoy with loved ones this season. New! Celebration Roast with Traditional Bread Stuffing and Porcini Mushroom Gravy Delightfully seasoned with rubbed sage, garlic and lemon juice, this evolution of our classic Celebration Roast features a traditional bread stuffing made with fresh onions, celery, cranberries and butternut squash. As a special accompaniment to the roast, we offer you the perfect portion of our Porcini Mushroom Gravy. Simmered on the stovetop, the gravy combines the dark, rich, earthy flavor of porcini mushrooms with diced shiitakes to create the ultimate vegan gravy. Isn’t everything better with gravy? Hazelnut Cranberry Roast en Croute Once made exclusively for the holidays, our customers would wait year-round for the Hazelnut Cranberry Roast En Croute! It is the perfect centerpiece and most sophisticated comfort food. This vegetarian roast holds a lot of flavor! Rich, hazelnut-infused grain meat stuffed with Field Roast sausages, crystallized ginger, cranberries and apples – all wrapped in a savory puff pastry. Classic Celebration Roast This stuffed Celebration Roast was introduced in 2003 and continues to be a classic favorite. We start with a rich and savory sausage-style stuffing made from Field Roast grain meat, butternut squash, mushrooms and Granny Smith apples seasoned with a blend of rosemary, thyme and sage. We then surround the stuffing with our most luxuriant grain meat seasoned with rubbed sage, garlic and lemon juice. As a centerpiece, appetizer or sliced in a sandwich, our Celebration Roast is great for any occasion. We hope you have the chance to try all of our gourmet stuffed roasts this year. Please ask your store when they’ll have them in stock! Share your feedback with us below or on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. This entry is filed under Product Highlights and News, Special Occasions and tagged field roast, vegan thanksgiving, celebration roast, vegetarian thanksgiving, vegan holiday, vegetarian holiday, vegan roast, vegetarian roast, forager roast, hazelnut cranberry roast, gourmet vegan food, vegan centerpiece, vegetarian centerpiece. |
Earlier this year, Gideons International requested and received permission to leave Bibles at a Kentucky public elementary school so that interested children could pick them up. In response, the Tri-State Freethinkers group decided they also wanted to play the game by leaving books promoting Humanism at the same school. The district had no choice but to allow them to do it. Some parents, in response, pulled their children from school that day: It turns out that Casey County isn’t alone in letting the Gideons into schools. It’s happening all over the state — in high schools as well as elementary schools — and the freethinkers are fighting back. I’m happy to announce that they plan to distribute my book The Young Atheist’s Survival Guide at all the high schools the Gideons have distributed bibles at. In order to make that happen, though, they need some help. If you can pitch in to help purchase copies of the book, you’ll be making them available to high school students who wouldn’t normally have access to material that exposes them to non-religious thinking. I suppose we should all also thank the Gideons folks for giving us the opportunity to cleanse people of whatever the Bible is supposed to teach them (though I would be much happier if they just stopped the public school distributions altogether). More updates coming soon. I’m sure parents across the state will be thrilled! |
There’s no doubt that if your organisation practices poor information security, then you’re going to pay for it. The Trump Hotel chain has again failed to be great, and has reportedly suffered another data breach. Brian Krebs, the man who uncovers a significant number of large scale data breaches, announced that sources close to him have uncovered a “pattern of fraud”. In a written statement, a Trump Hotel Collection representative said: “We are in the midst of a thorough investigation on this matter. We are committed to safeguarding all guests’ personal information and will continue to do so vigilantly.” Less than a year ago, Krebs uncovered another data breach at the hotel chain, which was then confirmed by the organisation in October 2015. “Obsolete in cyber” Donald Trump recently spoke about his thoughts on cyber security and what his plans are if he becomes US President. Trump said “We’re so obsolete in cyber, we’re the ones that sort of were very much involved with the creation, but we’re so obsolete.” We’ll keep an eye on this story over the next few months; subscribe to our Daily Sentinel to make sure you don’t miss any updates. Share now… |
CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuela’s president said Sunday that the sudden decision to scrap the country’s most-used currency bill was an economic triumph over the country’s enemies even as the government sent troops and police to cities where riots and looting broke out over the measure. In a national radio and television broadcast, Nicolas Maduro said his abrupt action had flooded the country’s banks with currency deposited by Venezuelans racing to get rid of the paper bills while also devastating Colombian-border currency traders he blames for the bolivar’s precipitous plunge in value against “the criminal dollar.” Last week’s sudden announcement annulling all 100-bolivar notes led to massive lines at banks, a dramatic spurt in electronic payment and widespread fear by poorer people with no bank accounts and all their savings in the doomed bills, whose value had already plunged to a few U.S. cents. Cash transactions such as buying food or gasoline became extremely difficult. Maduro suddenly changed course late Saturday, announcing the 100-bolivar notes could be used until Jan. 2 Before that announcement riots and looting broke out in several cities and Maduro said Sunday more than 300 people had been detained, including several members of opposition parties. He said the violence resulted from “a macabre” plan promoted by U.S. President Barack Obama to extract massive quantities of 100-bolivar notes from the country and stockpile them abroad. He said it was meant to be “the final blow of Obama, a final blow to create chaos, violence, division.” Most economists blame the country’s economic woes on price controls and falling prices for the country’s oil exports, as well as heavy government spending and production-crippling policies that gave Venezuelans lots of 100-bolivar notes but not enough to buy with them. Maduro said he’d had to lift extend the life of the old currency notes because saboteurs had prevented the arrival of three airplanes carrying newly printed, larger-denomination bills from abroad. He didn’t give details about the plot. Disturbances continued into Saturday evening in places such as Ciudad Bolívar, where officials banned motorcycles for 48 hours and restricted overnight car and pedestrian traffic. Bolivar state Gov. Francisco Rangel Gomez said 3,200 police were sent into the streets to ensure order and he said 262 people had been arrested in the state. Rangel Gomez, a retired general, urged people to stay in their homes until the vandalism is quelled. Eight hundred police and troops were sent to the town of El Callao, where Mayor Coromoto Lugo said a youth was killed, 25 businesses were looted and 40 people were injured in the disturbances. In the southwestern town of La Fria, officials said city hall was burned during rioting on Saturday. |
This spring, metal detectorist Torben Christjansen found a small amulet in Købelev on the Danish island of Lolland. Just one inch long and wide, the piece is in a shape known as Thor’s hammer, a design thought to invoke the protective power of Thor and his dwarf-forged hammer Mjolnir. About 1,000 of these Viking-era amulets have been discovered in Scandinavia, the UK, Russia and the Baltic countries, often unearthed in women’s graves. There has been some debate, however, on whether they were representations of Thor’s hammer, even stylized versions. Skeptics point out that the shaft is disproportionately short to be a hammer, and the head too symmetrical. Christjansen reported the find as treasure trove to the local Museum Lolland-Falster where curators dated it to the 10th century. The amulet was cast in bronze and has traces of the silver or tin plating and gold plating that once adorned it. One side of the hammer’s head is decorated with interlacing pattern, the other side with a runic inscription seven characters long. This is the first Thor’s hammer amulet ever found inscribed with runes. Because the runes were so small — three to seven millimeters high — and the surface corroded from the centuries it spent in the ground, the Museum Lolland-Falster curators sent the amulet to the National Museum of Denmark for their experts to decipher. Examining it under a microscope, museum runologist Lisbeth Imer was able to translate the inscription and it resolves the hammer question in the bluntest terms possible: the runes read “Hmar is x,” or in modern Danish “Hammer is” (the x isn’t a letter but a delimiter between two words). Translated into English the inscription simply says “This is a hammer.” There are two mistakes in the runes. The author left out the first a in “hammer” and flipped the S-rune backwards à la Toys-R-Us. These could have been errors of literacy or a function of the tiny space the writer had to inscribe. Even if his or her spelling was spotty, the rune carver would have derived status and prestige from being literate in a society that prized writing. The hammer wasn’t the only artifact Christjansen found on the site. He discovered pieces of silver needles and a matrix used to make brooches. These finds could indicate there was a jewelry-making workshop in the area. If so, the hammer could have been made locally. There are no plans currently for an archaeological investigation of the site. Christjansen will keep surveying the area with his metal detector, however, and Museum Lolland-Falster curators will be working with him going forward. This entry was posted on Sunday, June 29th, 2014 at 11:50 PM and is filed under Medieval, Treasures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. |
If you want to persuade others, there are endless tips and tricks available. Most of them tell you how to package your argument to make it as convincing as possible, but according to psychologist Robert Cialdini, even if you heed every bit of advice out there on the topic, you've still ignored the most important part of persuasion. A huge chunk of persuasion happens before people even know what you're selling, he says. This "pre-suasion " is all about establishing your credibility and relationship, and it's often the difference between people embracing your ideas or tuning you out. "Research done in the last 15 years shows that optimal persuasion is achieved through optimal pre-suasion: the practice of arranging for people to agree with a message before they know what's in it," he writes in The Los Angeles Times. So how do you learn this skill? You can do a lot worse than observe billionaire investor Warren Buffett, Cialdini says. 1. Build unity When it comes to persuading people, trust often matters more than the content of your ideas, and you get people to trust you by demonstrating that you're all on the same team. Buffett knows this and demonstrated it in his 2015 letter to shareholders. Aiming to convince readers that his company, Berkshire Hathaway, could continue its improbably long run of incredible success, he opened by saying that the message contained in the letter, was "what I would say to my family today if they asked me about Berkshire's future." That's a masterstroke, according to Cialdini. "The result was a flood of favorable reaction to the letter (with headlines like 'You'd be a fool not to invest in Berkshire Hathaway' and 'Warren Buffett just wrote the best annual letter ever'), as well as a per-share increase for the year of nearly five times that of the S&P. I can say that, as a Berkshire Hathaway stockholder, I have never since thought of selling any shares. After all, Buffett had given me the same recommendation he first declared he'd give to a family member," he comments in the article. 2. Admit mistakes Admitting your errors upfront might sound like a terrible way to persuade people. After all, who would have confidence in someone who bumbled badly in the past? But Buffett proves that showing you're human straight off can actually be a brilliant move, Cialdini says. On The James Altucher Show (hat tip to Business Insider), Cialdini praised Buffett's 2012 shareholder letter for this reason. Buffett kicked it off with an admission that "for the ninth time in 48 years, Berkshire's percentage increase in book value was less than the S&P's percentage gain." "It's disarming every time he says, 'You know, we made this mistake.' I believe the next thing he says to me--and that's where he puts the strength of the last year," Cialdini explains. "He's just readied me to listen to and process the next thing he's going to say more deeply because he's established himself as a trustworthy source." 3. Make fun of yourself Buffett understands that showing vulnerability can, paradoxically, strengthen your argument. As we saw in the last section, he does that by admitting missteps, but he also strives to come across as more human and believable by making fun of himself. |
Story highlights For 40 years, Edi Guyton suffered from debilitating depression She volunteered to have electrodes implanted into her brain Dr. Helen Mayberg pioneered research to use "deep brain stimulation" on depression She is now hoping for FDA approval for the method The first time Edi Guyton tried to commit suicide, she was 19 years old, wracked with depression and unable to deal with the social and academic pressure of college. Even as a little girl, Guyton never seemed happy. Her mother had encouraged her to smile, but she didn't see any reason to. In her mind, everyone who smiled was "faking it." She often thought about taking her own life, and one night in her college dorm, Guyton's dark thoughts gave way to action. With a razor blade, Guyton cut one wrist, then the other. "I think I wanted it to get better or I wanted to die," she said. "The point was that everything was so bad, I wanted people to know that it was controlling me." Her depression controlled her life for the next 40 years -- until she decided to volunteer for an experimental treatment. A neurosurgeon would drill two holes in Guyton's skull and implant a pair of battery-powered electrodes deep inside her brain. Edi Guyton lived with debilitating depression for 40 years before experimental brain surgery. The procedure -- called deep brain stimulation, or DBS -- targets a small brain structure known as Area 25, the "ringleader" for the brain circuits that control our moods, according to neurologist Dr. Helen Mayberg. Mayberg's groundbreaking research on this part of the brain showed that Area 25 is relatively overactive in depressed patients. So, Mayberg hypothesized that in patients who do not improve with other treatments, Area 25 was somehow stuck in overdrive. Mayberg published the results of her brain scan studies in 1999, the same year Edi Guyton attempted suicide again -- this time an overdose of prescription meds that were supposed to ease her depression. "It's not that you won't be happy or that you aren't happy; it's that you can't be happy," Guyton said. The first patients Four years after publishing her research, Mayberg was ready to try what had never before been done: applying deep brain stimulation to Area 25. DBS had been used since 1997 as a treatment for movement disorders, including essential tremor, Parkinson's disease and dystonia. Mayberg theorized the low voltage current from DBS could also help severely depressed patients. Area 25 is the junction of all brain circuits that control our moods, according to neurologist Dr. Helen Mayberg. Her first surgical experiment in 2003, in collaboration with neurosurgeon Dr. Andres Lozano at Toronto Western Hospital in Canada, was more about testing for safety than actually treating the patients. "For all we knew, we were going to activate [the circuits] and actually make people feel worse," Mayberg explained. The six patients who volunteered for the procedure had all tried and failed conventional treatments. Some had attempted or considered suicide. "We had patients who were profoundly without any options and suffering," she said. All six were lightly sedated when the holes were drilled and the electrodes implanted, but they were awake to describe what they experienced. Several patients reported profound changes just minutes after the stimulator was turned on. One said the room suddenly seemed brighter and colors were more intense. Another described heightened feelings of connectedness and a disappearance of the void. The patients' descriptions during the procedure went far beyond anything the doctors expected. One patient spontaneously talked about the first crocus blooms in early spring. Mayberg wondered if the procedure had triggered a hallucination or perhaps the electrode had touched a memory circuit. The patient explained it's the feeling of looking forward to something new and rejuvenating. Mayberg says she struggled to remain a dispassionate scientist, but her empathy for the desperate patients who were, in effect, collaborators in the experiment got the best of her. "I did a lot of crying," she said. After six months of stimulation, four of the six the patients were significantly better. Mayberg has since reported similar results for 31 other patients. Mayberg and Lozano published the results of that first DBS experiment in 2005, the same year Edi Guyton's depression subverted her career. 'I felt nothing' For years, Guyton had thought she could outrun her despair by working hard. She had earned her Ph.D. while raising two daughters, landing a tenured position as a professor, earning accolades and awards for her teaching and research, and ultimately becoming chair of Georgia State University's early childhood education department. She said she got there by "faking it." "I was the great pretender," Guyton said. JUST WATCHED Can a computer diagnose, treat cancer? Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Can a computer diagnose, treat cancer? 02:50 JUST WATCHED Art inspires brain injury survivors Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Art inspires brain injury survivors 02:35 JUST WATCHED Coffee may lower risk of depression Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Coffee may lower risk of depression 03:22 Then, after 22 years working at GSU, she told her boss and colleagues about her struggle with depression and retired from the job she loved. Still not fully grasping the nature of her illness, she blamed herself. "After all, what do I have to be depressed about?" she thought. She tried a variety of treatments, including talk therapy and psychiatric medicines, but nothing worked. For the next several years, nine sessions of electroconvulsive therapy kept her stable. "I didn't like it, but it worked," she said. "But then I went back down. And I went back down very deep." With the support of her husband, Guyton managed to stay in the fight. She inquired about the experimental DBS procedure being offered by Dr. Helen Mayberg and her colleague, psychiatrist Paul Holtzheimer, at Emory University in Atlanta. Mayberg remembers the first time she saw Edi Guyton. Her slow movements were "like being in a muck," an obvious sign of severe depression, she said. "You could pick her out of a line up." Seventeen patients out of more than 1,000 who had inquired were ultimately selected for the experiment. Ten of them, including Guyton, had major depressive disorder and the seven others had depression as a result of bipolar disorder. The doctors warned them all that the procedure carried the risks of any other brain surgery, including brain damage and death, and no guarantee the depression would lift. Guyton signed the consent form, feeling that she had little to lose. "It was that bad," she said. She could not even bond with her family. The most vivid example was visiting her baby grand-niece. Guyton could barely go through the motions. "Somebody handed her to me and I held her, but I didn't even put her face to mine," Guyton said. "I just held her because I thought, 'This is what a great-aunt does. She holds the child. She admires the child. And then, thank God, she gives the child back.' And I felt nothing. Nothing." A new lease on life On February 23, 2007, Guyton rolled into a surgical suite, propelled by a sweet and sour mixture of hope and hopelessness. Her head was mounted in a rigid frame as the doctors studied computer-enhanced images of her brain. Dr. Robert Gross, the neurosurgeon, began drilling the holes in her skull. Edi clenched her teeth. "The tears came," she says. "The sound of the drill, the feeling of it: Not painful, just like somebody's touching you. That was, I think, what kind of woke me up and said this is your brain that is being drilled into. Somebody is going into your brain." The two holes allowed Gross to insert hollow tubes called cannulas, which created a pathway for the DBS electrodes -- one on each side of the brain. The electrodes are 1.27 millimeters in diameter, "about the thickness of angel hair pasta," Gross explained. As they position the electrodes, the doctors are able to monitor the sound of neurons firing. The gray matter makes a raspy sound. The white matter is silent. And that's where the sweet spot seems to be: the white matter slightly below Area 25. Each electrode has four contacts. Each contact can be independently controlled, on or off, with various levels of electricity. Typically, the doctors apply about a thousandth of the power that's used in a flashlight bulb. At the target, it stimulates approximately 1 cubic centimeter of brain tissue, "about the size of a pea," according to Gross. Finding which contact works best is done through trial and error as the patient describes what feels best. As a benchmark, the doctors asked Guyton to rate her feelings of dread on a scale of 1 to 10. "Eight," she reported. Two minutes later, with contact No. 1 on, Guyton said, "Three." But doctors would get an ever better result with contact No. 2. Shortly after the second contact was turned on, Guyton quietly announced, "I almost smiled." Then she chuckled. Dr. Holtzheimer asked, "Did something strike you as funny? Or was it just sort of spontaneous?" "I was thinking about playing with [grand-niece] Susan," Guyton replied. "That was when I almost smiled. But when I laughed, that was because I almost smiled." She had imagined holding the child and looking into her face. "I felt feelings that I thought were gone," she would later say. How did it feel to have a machine and electricity transform her emotions? "It felt fantastic," she said. "I didn't care what was doing it!" To determine whether the surgery was truly effective or if the patients felt better simply because they believed in the treatment, the doctors told the patients that some of the battery packs powering the electrodes inside their brains would be turned off, while others would be left on, to measure any placebo effect. Guyton's power pack was turned off, and her depression quickly returned. With the stimulator back on, she improved. Based on her scores in February from a widely used psychological test called the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression, Guyton's mental illness is in remission. Her ups and downs are the same that any healthy person would experience -- as long as the battery in the stimulator implanted under her collarbone remains charged. Five years after the surgery, Edi Guyton is one of Mayberg's most dramatic success stories. She volunteers with a mental health advocacy group, she's active with a church and she's in a writer's club. And last fall she toured Italy with college friends who knew her from the days she had put a razor to her wrists. To be sure, Guyton still has some bad days. "I don't feel good all the time," she admitted, and she sometimes worries that a bad spell could be lurking on the horizon. "But this gives me the capacity that if I can, if there is joy in my life, I have the capacity to feel it." Next steps As much as Mayberg's experiments showcase how far brain science has advanced, there is still much more to learn. In fact, more than 10 years after her pioneering studies on Area 25, Mayberg is still trying to answer basic questions about the experimental treatment she conceived. Does the electricity from DBS activate neurons near Area 25 or inhibit them? Is DBS flipping a switch or knocking down a wall? "To be brutally honest, we have no idea how this works," Mayberg said. Mayberg is the co-holder of a patent for the procedure, which has been licensed to St. Jude Medical, Inc., a company that manufactures and sells DBS equipment. St. Jude is hoping to win Food and Drug Administration approval for commercial use of DBS for treatment-resistant depression. The FDA awarded limited approval in 2009 to Medtronic, Inc., to use DBS on a different part of the brain for intractable obsessive compulsive disorder. Medtronic is funding a study to determine if that part of the brain, the ventral capsule/ventral striatum, could also be a viable target for depression. In the meantime, Mayberg still hopes to answer why DBS helps some patients but not others. After all, if Area 25 is the "ringleader," why doesn't everyone improve? Mayberg simply does not know. "We've got to understand the biology better," she says. "So until we're actually hitting 90% or really effectively helping everybody, we've got our work cut out for us." |
Kanishk Sajnani, a young ethical hacker who is in his early 20s, recently managed to conduct a hacking spree and reward himself a discounted flight, a free ticket and much more. However, instead of doing the things he could, he simply informed the respective companies about the flaws their systems had. This is what ethical hacking is all about. [irp posts=”35824″ name=”Hacker Earns 50k Miles by Exposing Vulnerability in United Airlines Website”] The Air India hack Sajnani was able to hack into the application tracking system of Air India in 2015 (but only disclosing it now in 2017) and exploited a major vulnerability that allowed him to book a ticket from India to San Francisco for just Re 1. However, he immediately emailed Air India notifying them of the vulnerability that resided in their tracking system and consequently received a call from the manager of finance asking Sajnani to prove his claims. He followed the request accordingly and was rewarded for his efforts. SpiceJet got spiced SpiceJet was another one of Sajnani’s victims. This time, however, it was not only the system that was defective; rather it was an entire department which did not pay attention to the irregularities of the transactions that Sajnani was able to carry out. Essentially, Sajnani booked a flight from Ahmedabad to Goa for just Rs. 4. The actual flight would have cost him Rs. 4,000. Later, however, he canceled the ticket and made himself eligible for a refund of Rs. 2000. However, Sajnani had to call the helpline informing them he has canceled the ticket and should, therefore, receive a refund. [irp posts=”26626″ name=”United Airlines Bug Bounty Program: Report Security Flaw, Get Rewards”] This implies that no one in Spice Jet was aware of what was happening and was also not responsible enough to automatically give Sajnani his refund. Nevertheless, he emailed Spice Jet informing them of the vulnerability in their system. The reply that he got first was simply alarming since it stated that Sajnani could email his resume to the careers department if he wants an internship. Seeing such a response, Sajnani then reached out to the General Manager of Spice Jet, Mr. Pradeep Shah and the reply he got had a .eml attachment named “Double Facepalm.” “They sent me our previous correspondence in a .eml type file attached *Double Facepalm * This time the mail was signed by their Nodal Officer. Either they didn’t understand the point I made Or they didn’t like to acknowledge the fact that their security was compromised.” Cleartrip and Sajnani’s attempt to enjoy the luxury of a lifetime Sajnani hacked into Cleartrip’s booking system and booked himself a flight for free. He notified the company by sending out an email. Later, the company responded back requesting Sajnani to call them and explain the vulnerability. Nevertheless, realizing the danger of talking about these things over a phone, Sajnani refused and asked them to continue the correspondence over email. Sajnani then explained the vulnerability through an email. Furthermore, the payment system of Cleartrip was found defective as it entitled Sajnani for a Rs. 1,199 refund and the money was credited in his Mobiwik wallet. Sajnani informed Cleartrip regarding this issue as well but did not hear back. “I deliberately tried to hack into each one of them. This is just something I love. Obviously, I never shared any of my findings with anyone else. I’m doing it now because their applications have been updated & thus bugs have been removed,” Sajnani wrote in his post on Medium. What this all means? Sajnani, for one, was highly disappointed since only a couple of companies responded him professionally, while others either ignored it or took it as a joke. This implies that such companies are too arrogant to accept the weaknesses in their systems. Sajnani stated that at least these companies should have the courtesy of replying appropriately when someone is pointing out the flaws in their digital systems. All of this implies that we all are vulnerable to theft and security breaches and no company is cautious enough to address such issues. The importance of cyber security in India: Although CloudFlare bug bounty reward is often ridiculed for being a meager t-shirt; companies in India seem oblivious to the ridicule and are doing somewhat similar. Last week HackRead exclusively broke the news about the Zomato hack where it turned out that their bug bounty reward is just a simple certification. This shows that most of the giants are willing to make money but when it comes to spending on their security they are not ready for it or are not willing to absorb the expense. Furthermore, the replies from the companies Sajnani got in touch with also show a lack of education regarding the cyber security in India. While it’s true that India might be the next big thing in the world of technology, the need to educate officials at companies like Air India, SpiceJet and Zomato is a necessity like never before. Image Credit: Shutterstock [irp posts=”22372″ name=”Hackers take free rides after hacking American, United airlines accounts”] DDoS attacks are increasing, calculate the cost and probability of a DDoS attack on your business with this DDoS Downtime Cost Calculator. |
The Chinese Minitrue on the recent Google events (Click the link for more) Google has officially announced its withdrawal from the China market. This is a high-impact incident. It has triggered netizens’ discussions which are not limited to a commercial level. Therefore please pay strict attention to the following content requirements during this period : […] B. Forums, blogs and other interactive media sections: 1. It is not permitted to hold discussions or investigations on the Google topic 2. Interactive sections do not recommend this topic, do not place this topic and related comments at the top 3. All websites please clean up text, images and sound and videos which attack the Party, State, government agencies, Internet policies with the excuse of this event. 4. All websites please clean up text, images and sound and videos which support Google, dedicate flowers to Google, ask Google to stay, cheer for Google and others have a different tune from government policy 5. On topics related to Google, carefully manage the information in exchanges, comments and other interactive sessions 6. Chief managers in different regions please assign specific manpower to monitor Google-related information; if there is information about mass incidents, please report it in a timely manner.. The Chinese Minitrue instructions to the media during the National People’s Congress (Click the link for more) |
AUSTIN, Texas -- Some people in East Austin are crying foul after they say one group's attempt at advertising turned out to be more like vandalism. The owner of The Brixton, Tim Lupa, is upset with painted signs on murals outside of his business, and others along 6th Street, for Kelly Rowland's new docu-series "Chasing Destiny" on BET network. Lupa said it is supposed to be chalk paint, which typically washes off, but he hasn't had much luck scrubbing the tags away. For Lupa, the difficult part is that the graffiti is on top of art that is supposed to be on the walls of his building, located at 1412 E 6th St. "It is private property. I can understand doing sidewalks, the rain will wash it off, but this is a vertical building and it's a piece of art. It's been sitting there for seven years and nobody's touched it except somebody who's trying to make money. It's disrespectful and now I have extra work to do," he said. Local artist Dave Lowell, who had nothing to do with the ads, but works with chalk paint frequently, said Lupa needs to be patient. "You see this kind of thing all the time during South By and it usually disappears the week after. So it might be an issue right now, but that's going to go away before too long," he said. The Brixton shared photos with Time Warner Cable News of someone who they claim was out tagging in East Austin with the Chasing Destiny promotional stencil. Murals outside of other businesses, such as Rio Rita's at 1308 E 6th St, were also defaced with the chalk paint ad. Some have already removed the painted ad, or are in the process of doing so. -- Is It Illegal? -- Time Warner Cable News has reached out to the City of Austin and SXSW officials for comment on the painting issue, but we have not heard back from them yet. However, Austin attorney Rick Flores, who is representing clients in the Bowie Street sign changing incident, offered his legal opinion on the East Austin tagging: "Unfortunately for all the parties involved, this type of marketing is unlawful. Tagging a building without the consent of the owner could be considered as graffiti or criminal Mischief. The person that did it may think that it's an easy clean-up or that there's no real property damage, but that is not always the case. Even if the tagger cleans it up themselves, it's an inconvenience to the property owner. It all comes down to whether or not permission was given." -- BET released the following statement: -- “BET Networks is excited to be back at SXSW and hired a third party agency to help spread the word about our new show 'Chasing Destiny.' We support and embrace the Austin creative community. We apologize for the series branding on the East Austin murals and are having them removed.” -- What's Next -- The owner of The Brixton hopes to raise enough awareness that the people responsible come forward and clean the paint up themselves. Rowland will speak at the 2016 SXSW Music Conference on Saturday at 2 p.m. about her career, both solo and as a member of Destiny’s Child. FULL COVERAGE: SXSW 2016 We'll bring you more updates on this developing story right here on TWC News. See social media reaction to the painting below (Mobile Users Click Here): --- Advertising or Vandalism? Join the Discussion: Follow TWC News Austin on Facebook & Twitter |
(MIKE)>> (PAT)>> (MIKE)>> (JOHN)>> (PAT)>> (JOHN)>> (MIKE)>> (JOHN)>> (MIKE)>> (JOHN)>> (PAT)>> (MIKE)>> (PAT)>> (MIKE)>> (PAT)>> (JOHN)>> (MIKE)>> (JOHN)>> (MIKE)>> (MIKE)>> (JOHN)>> (MIKE)>> (JOHN)>> (MIKE)>> (MIKE)>> (PAT)>> (EDDIE)>> (MIKE)>> (PAT)>> (EDDIE)>> (PAT)>> (EDDIE)>> (PAT)>> (EDDIE)>> (PAT)>> (EDDIE)>> (PAT)>> (EDDIE)>> (MIKE)>> (PAT)>> (EDDIE)>> (JOHN)>> (EDDIE)>> (PAT)>> (JOHN)>> (PAT)>> (JOHN)>> (PAT)>> (JOHN)>> (MIKE)>> (EDDIE)>> (JOHN)>> (MIKE)>> (PAT)>> (MIKE)>> (PAT)>> WELCOME TO ENGINE POWER. TODAY IS GOING TO BE A FIRST IN AUTOMOTIVE TELEVISION FOR A COUPLE OF DIFFERENT REASONS. THE FIRST, WE HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO PLAY WITH A BRAND NEW SHELBY GT 350-R MUSTANG. NOW WHEN I SAY NEW, THIS CAR ONLY HAS 130 MILES ON IT. SECOND, WE'RE TEAMING UP WITH HELLION POWER SYSTEMS TO INSTALL A TWIN TURBO SYSTEM TO SEE WHAT THIS MYSTERYENGINE IS CAPABLE OF. NOW THIS IS GOING TO BE THE WORLD'S FIRST TWIN TURBO GT 350-R, AND HELLION IS MAKING THE SYSTEM AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC. ENGINE POWER AND HELLION HAVE TEAMED UP BEFORE. A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO WE ROLLED IN A BLUE 2013 BOSS MUSTANG. IT GOT TONS OF GOODIES LIKE A TWIN 62 MILLIMETER TURBOSYSTEM WITH AIR TO AIR INTERCOOLER, JMS BOOST PUMP, AND TURBO SMART WASTE GATES AND BLOW OFF VALVES. NOW WE ROLLED IT ON OUR DYNOJET CHASSIS DYNO AND WITH SOME CUSTOM TUNING PERFORMED BY CHRIS GROVES FROM THE DYNO EDGE IT CRANKED OUT 910 HORSEPOWER. HELLION COULDN'T STOP THERE. THEY CAME BACK WITH A YELLOW 2015 MUSTANG GTWITH AN AUTOMATIC. THE TURBO SYSTEM INCLUDED TWIN 55 MILLIMETER BALL BEARING PRECISION TURBOS AND THE SAME TURBO SMART BOOST CONTROLLERS. NOW CIRCLED SUPPLIED A TORQUE CONVERTER AND THE ONLY OTHER DRIVETRAIN PART CHANGES WAS A ONE PIECE DRIVESHAFT AND NEW REAR HALF SHAFTS. THIS SETUP SPUN THE TIRES TO A TUNE OF 818 HORSEPOWER ON PUMP GAS AND A MELLOW TUNE. TO GET STARTED WE'RE GOING TO GET A BASE LINE ON THIS GT 350-R. FOR MANY OF YOU THIS MAY BE THE FIRST TIME YOU'VE EVER SEEN ONE ON THE DYNO. IT'S A NEW THING FOR US AS WELL. THIS MUSTANG IS EQUIPPED WITH A FIVE POINT TWO LITER FLAT PLANE CRANKSHAFT VEIGHT. IT HAS A 12 TO ONE COMPRESSION RATIO AND FORD STATES IT CRANKS OUT 526 HORSEPOWER AND 429 POUND FEET OFTORQUE AT THE CRANK. NOW IT'S EQUIPPED WITH A SIX SPEED TREMEC TRANSMISSION AND HAS A 3.73 REAR GEAR. I'LL MAKE THE PULL IN FIFTH GEAR, WHICH IS ONE TO ONE, AND SINCE PEAK HORSEPOWER IS AT 7,500, WE'LL PULL IT FROM 3,000 TO 7,600.HOW'S THAT FOR CONSISTENCY, IT OVERLAID POWER AT 461 AND TORQUE IS 386. LOOK AT THE POWER ABOVE 7,000.KILLER GRAPH, WOW, VERY NICE.I THINK WE JUST NEED TO MAKE MORE NOW.WELL THAT'S WHY YOU'RE HERE.LET'S DO IT. THIS NEW FIVETWO HAS NEW HEADS WITH LARGER VALVES AND A BETTER INTAKE MANIFOLD. I WAS REALLY EXCITED ABOUT THE POWER ABOVE 7,000 RPM.NOW IT'S TIME TO PUT TURBOS ON AND MAKE A LOT MORE POWER BELOW 7,000 RPM. I DON'T THINK WE'RE GONNA HAVE TO TURN THIS THING AS HIGH IN THE RPM RANGE AS WE DID ON THE FIRST PULL. THE TURBOS ARE GONNA MAKE MORE POWER DOWN LOW. IT'LL MAKE ALL THE POWER WE WANT AND WE'RE NOT GONNA HAVE TO STRESS THE ENGINE. THE FIRST THING WE NEED TO DO TO INSTALL THIS KIT IS DRAIN THE RADIATOR, REMOVE THE AIR BOX.AND REMOVE THE CAT PIPES.A COUPLE OF CLAMPS AND FOUR NUTS AT THE HEADER COLLECTOR GETS IT DONE.NEXT UP IS REMOVING THE FRONT FASCIA. THIS NEEDS TO BE DONE CAREFULLY SO NO NICKS OR SCRATCHES APPEAR. NOW THE EXPANSION TANK CAN BE REMOVED. IT GETS REPOSITIONED LATER. THE COOLING FANS CAN ALSO GO. THEY WILL BE PLACED IN A NEW HOUSING FOR MORE CLEARANCE. MODULAR MOTORSPORTS, OR MMR, SUPPLIED AN OIL FILTER RELOCATION KIT. NOW THIS WAS NEEDED SINCE ONE OF THE TURBO PIPES INTERSECTS WHERE THE FACTORY ONE WAS MOUNTED. HELLION PREINSTALLED IT. WE NEED TO PLACE A DEI COOL TUBE EXTREME HEAT SLEEVE ON THE TRANS COOLER LINES. AT THE FRONT WE CAN REMOVE THE PLASTIC SPLASH GUARDS AND AIR DAM TO MAKE WAY FOR THE INTERCOOLER. ALSO REMOVED IS THIS SUPPORT BRACE SO A NEW ONE CAN GO IN ITS PLACE. IT'S THE SUPPORT FOR THE INTERCOOLER, WHICH IS A VERTICAL FLOW BAR AND PLATE STYLE. NOW IT'S CONSTRUCTED OUT OF ALUMINUM AND ALSO HOUSES THE FACTORY MASS AIR SENSOR. NOW THIS INTERCOOLER HAS BEEN USED IN APPLICATIONS MAKING OVER 1,600 HORSEPOWER. IT'S ALSO THE SAME ONE THAT'S USED IN JOHN'S WIFE'S CAR THAT GOES WELL INTO THE EIGHT SECOND TERRITORY DOWN THE QUARTER MILE. NOW IT IS POSITIONED IN FRONT OF THE A/C CONDENSER AND RESTS IN THE NEW SUPPORT BRACKET.FOR THE GT 350 WE'RE GONNA USE PRECISION 55 MILLIMETER BALL BEARING TURBOS WITH BILLET WHEEL, BALL BEARING CENTER SECTION, AND STAINLESS VBAND HOUSINGS. AFTER THE BREAK WE'RE GONNA PUT THESE BAD BOYS ON AND SEE WHAT THEY CAN DO.WE'RE BACK AND TURBOS ARE WAITING TO GO ON, BUT FIRST WE NEED TO REPLACE THE ORIGINAL THERMOSTATHOUSING BOLTS WITH STUDS. WITH SPACERS IN PLACE, THE DRIVER'S SIDE TURBOCAN BE POSITIONED.THE SAME PROCESS HAPPENS ON THE PASSENGER SIDE. SUPPLYING PRESSURIZED ENGINE OIL TO THE TURBOS IS THE MMR RELOCATION HOUSING. A DASH FOUR LINE IS ATTACHED TO IT, WHICH GOES TO A "T". THEN BOTH LINES FROM IT GO TO THE DASH FOUR FITTINGS ON THE TURBOS. NOW THE FIRST DRIVER'S SIDE HOT PIPE CAN BE ATTACHED TO THE TURBO. ALL OF THEM HAVE THE OPTIONAL SILVER COATING FROM HELLION. SECOND ONE TO GO ON IS FOR THE PASSENGER SIDE TURBO. MAKE SURE TO LEAVE ALL THE CLAMPS LOOSE UNTIL THEY ARE ALL RAN. UNDERNEATH THE SECOND HOT PIPE FOR THE DRIVER'S SIDE IS INSTALLED. NOW THE "U" PIPE, WHICH GOES FROM THE HEADER TO THE PREVIOUS PIPE, CAN BE INSTALLED ON THE DRIVER'S SIDE, FOLLOWED BY THE PASSENGER'S SIDE "U" PIPE. THESE DIRECT THE EXHAUST GASES BACK UP TO THE TURBOS.THE CAR GOES BACK DOWN SO WE CAN SLIP ON A COOLANT HOSE SUPPLIED BY HELLION AND DROP IN THE XPIPE. THIS IS WHAT DIRECTS THE SPENT EXHAUST FROM THE TURBOS TO THE DOWN PIPES, WHICH GO ON NOW. THEY CONNECT TO THE XPIPE AND USE STURDY BRACKETS CONNECTED TO THE FRAME TO SUPPORT THEM. THE SECOND SET OF DOWN PIPES CAN GO IN AT THIS TIME. THERE SHE IS. TO AVOID THE OBNOXIOUS SOUND OF A WASTE GATE DISCHARGING TO THE ATMOSPHERE, HELLION DIRECTS IT BACK INTO THEEXHAUST TO KEEP A FACTORY SOUND. THESE WASTE GATES ARE PRECISION TURBO PW 46 MILLIMETER PIECES. THEY'RE MADE FROM HIGH GRADE, HIGH TEMPERATURE STAINLESSSTEEL AND BILLET COMPONENTS FOR SUPERIOR STRENGTH AND FUNCTIONALITY. NOW A FEW MORE PIPES ARE INSTALLED ON THE DRIVER AND PASSENGER SIDES TO MAKE THE CONNECTION TO THE FACTORY EXHAUST. THIS COMPLETES THE HOT SIDE PIPING.NOW THAT THE HOT SIDE'S DONE YOU CAN SEE HOW BEAUTIFUL THE SYSTEM LOOKS. THAT'S BECAUSE DESIGN IS TAKEN INTO CONSIDERATION WHEN WEBUILD THESE TURBO KITS. YOU CAN'T JUST THROW A BOX OF PIPES ON A CAR AND EXPECT IT TO RUN. THE TUBING SIZE, THE WASTE GATE POSITION, THE SIZING OF THE TURBO CHARGER, ALL OF THAT IS NEEDED AND THESE NEED TO BEPERFECT IN ORDER TO HAVE SOMETHING THAT'S GONNA RUN. WE WERE TOUTED AS THE COMPANY THAT REVOLUTIONIZED THE TURBO CHARGING INDUSTRY AND WE DID IT AGAIN WITH THE GT 350 KIT.THE COLD SIDE PIPING HAPPENS NOW. THESE PIPES HAVE THE SAME COATING AS THE HOT SIDE.HERE'S HOW THEY ARE POSITIONED WHEN THEY'RE ON THE CAR. WITH THE BLOW OFF VALVE INSTALLED, THE FIRST PIPE ATTACHES TO THE TURBO OUTLET. THEN THE LONG COUPLE GOES ON. FINALLY THE SECOND PIPE ATTACHES TO THE INTERCOOLER.THE OTHER SIDE WENT ON THE SAME WAY BUT NEEDED A COUPLE OF ADDITIONAL COUPLERS TO CLEAR THE OIL FILTER RELOCATION KIT.ON HELLION'S STANDARD MUSTANG GT KIT THE OIL THAT IS FED TO THE TURBOS IS GRAVITY DRAINED FROM THEM BACK DOWN TO THE STEEL OIL PAN. NOW THIS GT 350-R IS EQUIPPED WITH A HIGH TECH POLYMER OIL PAN THAT WE'RE NOT GOING TO TAP INTO. SO HELLION SUPPLIES THIS COOL LITTLE CATCH TANK AND THIS HIGH FLOW PUMP THAT'LL PUSH THE OIL BACK UP AND INTO THE VALVE COVER. THE PUMP AND TANK ARE ATTACHED TO EACH OTHER AND ARE POSITIONED ON A BRACKET ON THE PASSENGER SIDE OF THE CAR. THE DRAIN LINES ARE RAN FROM THE CATCH TANK UP TO THE TURBOS. HEAT WRAP WILL PROTECT THEM. USING A BRACKET SUPPLIED BY HELLION, THE FACTORY EXPANSION TANK CAN BE RELOCATED TO THE DRIVER'S SIDE. THE ELECTRIC FANS WERE PLACED ON A SHROUD SUPPLIED BY HELLION AS WELL, AND THEY GET BOLTED UP IN THE SAME LOCATION. A NEW UPPER RADIATOR TUBE IS SUPPLIED AND GOES ON NOW.TO KEEP THE ELEMENTS OUT OF THE TURBOS, HELLIONDOESN'T CUT CORNERS. K&N CONICAL FILTERS ARE SUPPLIED. TO POWER THE OIL PUMP FOR THE TURBOS HELLION SENDS A RELAY. IT TRIGGERS THE PUMP BY AN IGNITION CIRCUIT USING A FUSE TAP SO THE PUMP RUNS ANY TIME THE CAR IS RUNNING. A GROUND IS NEEDED AS WELL.IT'S TIME FOR US TO TAKE A BREAK BUT WHEN WE COME BACK WE'RE ADDRESSING THE FUEL SYSTEM AND THAT'LL GET US ONE STEP CLOSER TO THE DYNO.WE'RE BACK AND READY TO CONTINUE. INCREASING THE FUEL FLOW TO THE ENGINE IS A MUST WHEN ADDING THE POWER WE ARE WITH THE TWIN TURBO SETUP, BUT THAT MEANS THE FACTORY INJECTOR NEEDS TO BE REPLACED. HELLION SUPPLIES THESE 95 POUND PER HOUR DIETCHWERKS HIGH IMPEDANCE UNITS, BUT TO ACCESS THEM THE FUEL RAIL MUST BE REMOVED.FIRST DISCONNECT THE INJECTOR CONNECTORS. NOW THE SUPPLY LINE FROM THE RAIL, AND USE A VACUUM CAP TO PREVENT A SPILL. NEXT REMOVE THE FASTENERS HOLDING THE RAIL TO THE MANIFOLD, AND THE ENTIRE ASSEMBLY CAN BE REMOVED. THE NEW INJECTORS ARE INSTALLED AND SECURED WITH THEFACTORY RETAINERS. NOW THE ASSEMBLY GOES BACK IN THE SAME WAY IT WAS REMOVED.THE COIL COVERS COME OFF NEXT TO ACCESS THE COIL PACKS. THEY NEED TO BE REMOVED SO WE CAN PULL THE PLUGS AND REGAPTHEM FROM 51 THOUSANDTHS DOWN TO 22 THOUSANDTHS. THIS IS DONE DUE TO THE INCREASED CYLINDER PRESSURE OF THE TURBOS. THE FACTORY PLUG GAP IS TOO WIDE FOR THE SPARK TO REACH THE GROUND STRAP EFFICIENTLY. SO GAPPING THE PLUGS TIGHTER MEANS THE GROUND STRAP IS TIGHTER TO THE CENTER ELECTRODE, MAKING THE SPARK STRONGER AND MORE EFFICIENT. THE FINAL PIECE OF PIPING COMPLETES THE COLD SIDE. THIS RUNS FROM THE OUTLET OF THE INTERCOOLER TO THE THROTTLE BODY. MAKING A STATEMENT IS THE MIGHTY HELLION DECAL. NOW THE FRONT WHEELS AND TIRES CAN BE REMOVED. NOTICE THE PAPER, IT'S TO PROTECT THE CALIPER FROM BEING SCRATCHED WHEN THE WHEEL IS REMOVED, AS WELL ASTHE INNER FENDER LINERS.AND THAT MAKES WAY FOR THE TURBO SMART EBOOST TWO BOOST CONTROLLER, WHICH IS AN OPTION IN OUR KIT. WITH A SUPERCHARGER YOU'RE LIMITED TO THE BOOST YOU CAN MAKE BY THE PULLEYS THAT ARE SENT. THE GREAT THING ABOUT THIS KIT AND THIS GAUGE IS THAT WE CAN CHANGE THE BOOST FROM THREE TO 30 POUNDS WITH A TOUCH OF BUTTON FROM INSIDE THE CAB. NOW LET'S GO GET THIS THING INSTALLED.THE FIRST STEP IS PULLING THE HARNESS THROUGH A FACTORY GROMMET IN THE FIREWALL.NOW ONE OF THE SOLENOIDS CAN BE MOUNTED ON THE DRIVER'S SIDE WHEEL WELL, AND THE OTHER ON THE PASSENGER SIDE WHEEL WELL.DOING THIS KEEPS THEM EVEN SPACED FROM THE WASTE GATES FOR THE QUICKEST RESPONSE POSSIBLE. THE FIRST VACUUM LINE RUNS TO THE TURBO COVERS. THE SECOND LINE GOES TO THE TOP OF THE WASTE GATES, AND THE THIRD GOES TO THE BOTTOM OF THE WASTE GATES. NOW WE CAN PUT THE COOLANT WE REMOVED WHEN WE DRAINED THE RADIATOR BACK IN. ALRIGHT THE TIME HAS COME TO FIRE THIS HELLION GT 350-R UP. NOW BEFORE PAT PRESSES THE BUTTON I HAVE TO SAY, THIS TWIN TURBO SYSTEM GOES TO SHOW WHY HELLION IS THE INDUSTRY LEADER. THE QUALITY, FITMENT, AND COMPONENTS USED IN THE SYSTEM MAKE FOR A STRAIGHT FORWARD INSTALLATION. YOU READY?OH I'M READY.GO AHEAD AND PRESS IT PAT. [ engine fires up and revs ]QUIET, NICE AND QUIET.SOUNDS GREAT, PERFECT!VERY COOL. WHEN WE COME BACK IT'LL BE LOADED UP ON THE DYNO JET.OH IT'S GONNA ROCK THE DYNO.OH NO QUESTION.WE'RE BACK AND THE GT 350-R IS RETURNING TO THE ROLLERS. THIS TIME IT'S PACKING A HELLION TWIN TURBO SYSTEM. MEET EDDIE RIOS, OWNER OF ADDICTION MOTORSPORTS.HE'S A TUNING GENIUS AND WORKS WITH HELLION ON ALL THE CALIBRATIONS. HE'LL BE USING HP TUNERS VCM SUITE TO GET THE JOB DONE. NOW HE'S ALSO A FELLOW GT 350-R OWNER, SO HE KNOWS THE INS AND OUTS OF THIS ECU. THE PULL IS IN FIFTH GEAR TO 8,000 RPM, WITH SEVEN POUNDS OF BOOST AS THE TARGET.FIRST PULL, MADE 694 HORSE, 600 POUND FEET OF TORQUE.THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT.NICE, NOT BAD FOR A FIRST PULL.THAT'S PRETTY NICE, NICE AND EVEN, GRAPH LOOKS NICE, NO PROBLEM AT ALL.SEVEN POUNDS EXACTLY, HUH?YEP, THAT IS RIGHT AT SEVEN PSI RIGHT NOW.IF I COULD RAISE THE REV LIMITER IT'D GO, BUT LET'S JUST KEEP IT STOCK.WHEN YOU'VE GOT TO RAISE AN 8,000 RPM LIMITER, THAT'S PRETTY IMPRESSIVE.YEAH, WE'LL JUST LEAVE IT ALONE.YES LEAVE IT ALONE. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO THERE?TURN THE BOOST UP.TURN THE BOOST UP, YOU HEARD THE MAN.I'M NOT SCARED.WITH A SLIGHT BUMP UP IN THE BOOST DEPARTMENT WE'RE READY FOR THE FINAL PULL. REMEMBER THIS ENGINE HAS A 12 TO ONE COMPRESSION RATIO.THAT WAS NOT BAD RIGHT THERE. 723.97, SO REALLY CLOSE, AND 654 POUND FEET OF TORQUE, AND I'M SHOWING ON THERE NINE POUNDS OF BOOST.THAT'S PRETTY STOUT, AMAZING!AND LOOK AT IT PULL UPSTAIRS. CARRIES IT ALL THE WAY UP.WHO SAID THAT THE GT 350 DON'T MAKE NO TORQUE? 650 FOOT POUNDS, FULL BOOST BY 4,000 RPM,THOSE 55'S ARE ZINGING.YEP, LOOK AT THIS, LOOK WHERE IT ACTUALLY COMES UP AT EIGHT AND A HALF AND THEN IT AVERAGES, IT'S IN THE MID SEVENS THROUGH THE PULL.YEAH, IT MAKES MOST OF THAT POWER IN THE MID SEVENS AT LESS THAN 4,000 RPM IT MAKES EIGHT POUNDS OF BOOST. QUICK SPOOL, LOTS OF LOW END TORQUE, AND CARRIES THE POWER ALL THE WAY TO RED LINE AND PEAKS UPSTAIRS. THIS IS A CRUSHING, AMAZING DYNO GRAPH.IT IS, THE FUNNY THING IS IT'S A 262 HORSE GAIN OVER THE BASE LINE.I THINK THAT'S A GOOD START.I THINK THAT'S A GOOD START.I THINK WE DID ALRIGHT.WHILE JOHN AND PAT ARE CELEBRATING A VICTORY, EDDIE IS REPLAYING THE DATA LOG TO MAKE SURE NO MORE CHANGES ARE NEEDED BEFORE WE ROLL THE CAR OFF THE DYNO.ADDING TURBOS TO IT, ALL IT DID IS JUST EXAGGERATED THE AMOUNT OF POWER THAT IT MAKES NATURALLY ASPIRATED. OBVIOUSLY IF YOU WANT TO PICK UP 262 HORSEPOWER WITH JUST NINE POUNDS, OR EIGHT AND A HALF POUNDS OF BOOST AVERAGE THAT IT MADE, I MEAN IT JUST SHOWS HOW MUCH TIME WAS SPENT AT FORD. WELL OBVIOUSLY HP TUNERS HAS BEEN THE LEADER. THEY'RE THE BIGGEST REASONS WHY US IN THE AFTERMARKET CAN TUNE THESE VEHICLES WITH ENGINES BEINGRELEASED MONTHS AGO.THIS GT 350-R ONLY HAS 200 MILES ON IT, IS OWNED BY A GOOD FRIEND OF MINE, JIM GUTHRIE. JIM'S IN RACING HIS WHOLE LIFE, RACED IN THE INDY RACING LEAGUE, DRIFTING, AND OF COURSE LIKES FAST STREET CARS.SO HE WAS GRACIOUS ENOUGH TO LET US TAKE HIS GT 350-R AND PUT THIS KIT ON THERE. SO WE'RE GONNA GIVE IT BACK TO JIM, LET HIM GO HAVE SOME FUN BEFORE WE TURN IT UP PAST 1,000 HORSE LIKE IT'S CAPABLE OF.IF YOU'VE GOT A EUROPEAN VEHICLE LISTEN UP. POWERSTOP CAME TO THE RESCUE AGAIN WITH AN OE LEVEL HIGH QUALITY BRAKE KIT THAT COST A LOT LESS THAN BUYING IT FROM THE DEALERSHIP. THIS IS THE EUROSTOP PACKAGE THAT IS ENGINEERED TO MEET THE STRICT ECER-90 EUROPEAN STANDARDS. NOW THE ROTORS ARE COATED WITH GENUINE GEOMET FOR EXCELLENT CORROSION RESISTANCE. THEY'RE ALSO MADE FROM HIGH CARBON METALLURGY TO PREVENT DISTORTION AND CRACKING. NOW THE BRAKE PADS HAVE TO MEET THE SAME STANDARDS FOR THE HIGH SPEED NO LIMIT AUTOBAHN. NOW TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THIS EUROSTOP BRAKE KIT AND THE APPLICATION THAT FITS YOUR RIDE LOG ON TO POWERSTOP DOT COM.DUPLICOLOR HAS A HUGE LINE OF QUALITY PRODUCTS AND THIS TRUNK PAINT IS DEFINITELY ONE OF THEM. THIS IS THEIR DURABLE SPATTER PAINT AND IT'S USED TO RESTORE YOUR FACTORY TRUNK APPEARANCE. IT'S A HIGH BUILD FORMULA THAT COVERS UP SCARS AND ABRASIONS, AND GIVES A LIKE NEW FACTORY FINISH. IT'S WATER RESISTANT AND COMES IN SEVERAL COLORS, AND YOU CAN USE IT OBVIOUSLY FOR TRUNK INTERIORS BUT OTHER THINGSLIKE STORAGE LOCKERS AND METAL CABINETS. IT'S AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL AUTO PARTS RETAILER.THIS TECH TIP IS GOING TO BE EXHAUSTING, LITERALLY.WE'RE GOING TO TALK HEADERS. NOW THIS IS MEANT TO BE A GUIDELINE TO GIVE YOU AN IDEA OF WHAT STYLE OF HEADER AS WELL AS WHAT PRIMARY SIZE IS NEEDED FOR YOUR ENGINE. NOW KEEP IN MIND, STANDARD PRIMARY SIZES RANGE FROM AN INCH AND FIVEEIGHTHS TO OVER TWO AND A QUARTER INCHES. NOW THE BIGGER THE ENGINE'S DISPLACEMENT AS WELL AS THE MORE RPM'S ONE TURNS DICTATES HOW BIG OF HEADER IS NEEDED. THERE ARE SO MANY DIFFERENT BRANDS, STYLES, LENGTHS, AND MATERIALS USED TO MAKE HEADERS. NOW THE SELECTION IS PRETTY MUCH ENDLESS AND CAN GET A LITTLE OVERWHELMING. NOW WE'LL GIVE YOU A GENERAL IDEA OF WHAT YOU NEED TO DO THE JOB FOR YOUR BULLET. THE FIRST STEP TO SELECTING A SET OF HEADERS IS FINDING THE BALANCE BETWEEN ENGINE REQUIREMENTS AND FITMENT. NOW AN ENGINE BUILDER WILL TELL YOU WHAT SIZE HEADER WILL OPTIMIZE POWER, BUT A CHASSIS OR VEHICLE'S DESIGN MAY LIMIT THAT AND DICTATE WHAT FITS. SHORTY HEADERS ARE DESIGNED TO FIT TIGHT TO THE ENGINE BLOCK AND WORK WELL IN CONFINED AREAS, SUCH AS AN ENGINE SWAP GOING INTO A CHASSIS THAT IT WASN'T DESIGNED FOR.NOW THESE PRODUCE GOOD TORQUE AND POWER IN THE LOW TO MID RPM RANGE ON STOCK TO MILD PERFORMANCE VEHICLES. NOW THEY'RE EASY TO INSTALL AND GREAT UPGRADESTO STOCK MANIFOLDS. NOW THE IDEAL APPLICATION FOR THESE ARE DAILY DRIVERS, JEEPS, OR EVEN A TRUCK USED TO PULL A BOAT OR TRAILER AROUND WITH ON THE WEEKENDS. NEXT IN THE LINE UP ARE MID LENGTH HEADERS. NOW THESE FIT BETTER INTO A VEHICLE WITH THE ORIGINAL ENGINE DUE TO THEIR LENGTH, BUT THEY ALSO WORK WELL IN ENGINE SWAPS LIKE LS' INTO EARLY CAMAROS WHEREYOU HAVE A LOT OF ROOM. NOW THEY COME WITH EITHER EQUAL OR UNEQUAL LENGTH PRIMARIES, AND ARE DEFINITELY BETTER BREATHING THAN THEIR SHORTER COUNTERPARTS. NOW THESE THINGS PRODUCE GREAT POWER AND TORQUE THROUGHOUT THE RPM RANGE, AND THAT'S DUE TO THE TUBE LENGTH AND THE COLLECTOR DESIGN.LONG TUBE HEADERS ARE FOR PERFORMANCE ENGINESTHAT REQUIRE THEM. NOW THESE HAVE THE GREATEST EFFECT ON HORSEPOWER AND TORQUE. NOW THE PRIMARIES SHOULD ALL BE EQUAL LENGTH FOR PROPER SCAVENGING, WHICH DIRECTLY EFFECTS CYLINDER BALANCE. NOW TUBE DIAMETER IS ALSO KEY. IF THE INDUCTION IS DOING ITS JOB UPSTAIRS, THE EXHAUST HAS TO DO ITS JOB DOWNSTAIRS. NOW WE SHOWED YOU A PERFECT EXAMPLE OF HOW THAT WORKS ON APOTENT LITTLE SMALL BLOCK WE DUBBED LITTLE BLACK AND BLUE. CHECK THIS OUT. WITH INCH AND FIVE EIGHTHS LONG TUBE HEADERS IT CRANKED OUT 507 HORSEPOWER WITH 447 POUND FEET OF TORQUE. BY JUST SWAPPING TO INCH AND THREE QUARTER PRIMARIES, NO OTHER CHANGES, THE ENGINE MADE 527 HORSEPOWER WITH 451 POUND FEET OF TORQUE, A 20 HORSEPOWER GAIN.THAT LITTLE TEST JUST PROVES HOW THE OLD SAYING GOES, THE MORE YOU EAT, THE MORE YOU HAVE TO, WELL YOU KNOW.WELL ON THAT NOTE WE'RE OUT OF HERE, SEE YOU NEXT TIME. |
Former NFL player and scout Bucky Brooks knows the ins and outs of this league, providing keen insight in his notebook. The topics of this edition include: -- The best secondary in the NFL this season doesn't reside in Seattle or Denver. -- A very interesting quirk in Tom Brady's approach this season. -- How will Adrian Peterson fare in Arizona? But first, a look at the surprising struggles from one of the NFL's young stars ... * * * * * What's wrong with Amari Cooper? The Raiders' WR1, who earned Pro Bowl berths after his first two seasons (both 1,000-yard campaigns), has hardly made an impact as a playmaker this season, to the point where I don't recognize No. 89. Although there are only five games in the books in 2017, Cooper's pedestrian stat line -- 13 receptions, 118 receiving yards and one touchdown -- suggests that something isn't right with his game. Whether it's the chemistry between the third-year pro and his MVP-caliber quarterback, adjusting to a new role in a retooled offense led by a new play caller (first-year offensive coordinator Todd Downing) or opponents paying close attention to his tendencies as a route runner and playmaker, there is something going on with Cooper that is keeping him from playing like a superstar on the perimeter. From a production standpoint, Cooper certainly isn't impacting the game like a No. 1 receiver. He's averaging just 6.6 targets, 2.6 receptions and 23.6 receiving yards per game in 2017, after averaging 8.2 targets, 4.8 receptions and 69.5 receiving yards during his first two seasons (2015 and '16). Not to mention, Cooper ranks worst in the NFL among receivers with at least 30 targets in drops (five), drop percentage (27.8), receiving percentage or catch rate (39.4), receiving yards per target (3.6) and passer rating when targeted (34.7). If that's not enough to set off alarm bells, the fact that he hasn't posted a 100-yard game since Week 8 of the 2016 regular season (when he had 12 receptions for 173 yards against Tampa Bay) should raise some serious concerns about his disappearing act on the perimeter. Elite receivers are expected to produce big numbers as the focal point of the passing game, and those expectations don't change when opponents begin to send double-coverage or brackets to their side. The best pass catchers in the business not only find a way to get open against loaded coverage, but they punish opponents who leave them alone in one-on-one matchups. "A wide receiver is really a No. 1 guy if he commands a double-team," a former NFL defensive coordinator told me. "If we need to give him special attention to prevent him from dominating the game, then you know you're dealing with a real dude on the perimeter. If we feel like we can cover him without tricks or gadgetry, then he's not a real No. 1 in my mind." While that coach's opinion is certainly subjective, he does bring up a good point when discussing Cooper and his disappointing production this season. Is it a byproduct of Cooper facing more double-teams on the outside, or have opponents figured out his game? Having studied the All-22 Coaches Film, I believe opponents have read the book on Cooper and adjusted their coverage tactics accordingly. As one of the top prospects in the 2015 draft class, the 6-foot-1, 210-pound receiver out of Alabama was an outstanding playmaker with polished routes and strong hands. He torched defenders with his diverse route-running skills, exhibiting exceptional timing and precision getting in and out of breaks. In addition, Cooper kept defenders off-balance with an assortment of stems and releases that compromised their leverage. As a pro, Cooper continued to torment defenders with his clever route-running skills. If defensive backs attempted to shadow him from distance (7 or 8 yards off at the line of scrimmage), he consistently ate them up on a variety of short and intermediate routes. Cooper's stop-start quickness and burst made it nearly impossible to stay with him on quick-rhythm routes like slants, hitches, digs and outs. Fast-forward to 2017, and defensive backs have figured out that eliminating free access at the line makes it tougher for Cooper to impact the game on the outside. Thus, you're seeing more defenders walk up and press him at the line (bump-and-run coverage), to make him earn his catches and yards. "He doesn't respond well to press coverage and physicality," an AFC secondary coach told me. "When defenders put their hands on him and knock him around a little bit, they can take him out of the game." Studying Cooper's performance against the Denver Broncos (two catches for 9 yards in Week 4) and Baltimore Ravens (one catch for 8 yards in Week 5), I noticed that each team primarily used press techniques in its man and zone coverages to prevent him from rolling right into his route. The defenders used one- or two-hand jams at the line of scrimmage to disrupt the timing and rhythm of his route. With defenders staying attached at the hip down the field, Cooper has been unable to consistently get open against press coverage. According to Next Gen Stats, Cooper produces the fifth-worst passer rating against press coverage (64.2) and the eighth-worst catch rate (46.2 percent) in the league (among pass catchers with 10 or more press targets). That's certainly not the production that you expect from a WR1, particularly a two-time Pro Bowler who was expected to dominate as Derek Carr's favorite playmaker on the outside. Looking at the Raiders' scheme and tactical approach, I believe Oakland could do more to help Cooper escape press coverage. Downing can move his WR1 around via motion, shifts or exotic formations to give him more room at the line of scrimmage. In addition, the Raiders can position him in the slot, to allow him to use "two-way" releases against softer nickelbacks in coverage. The Raiders also need to consider mixing up Cooper's route tree to prevent defenders from squatting on his routes. Just looking at the tape, I noticed that he runs a lot of slants, hitches and hinges (deep hitch) from an out-wide alignment. Cooper also tips off his routes with his alignment at the snap. Defenders can quickly anticipate which routes he is running based on his proximity to the numbers (hash-split rules), and they are adjusting their leverage accordingly. Not to mention, defenders are also clued in to Oakland's passing-game tactics from certain formations, particularly 3x1 formations and empty sets. With defenders fully aware of what's coming from No. 89, the Raiders' No. 1 receiver has been essentially eliminated from the passing game this season. In fact, I will suggest that Cooper has been erased from the Raiders' aerial attack since the middle of last season, when the Broncos and Texans provided a blueprint for defending the crafty pass catcher. Considering his struggles date back to Week 9 of 2016, the onus is on the 2-3 Raiders' coaching staff to come up with some creative ways to free Cooper from coverage. With the season hanging in the balance, we will see if Oakland can expand the playbook to get No. 89 back on track. JAGUARS' SECONDARY: The best defensive backfield in the NFL today It might take the rest of the football world a few more weeks to reach this conclusion, but the Jacksonville Jaguars have the best defensive backfield in the league. No disrespect to the Seahawks' "Legion of Boom" or the Broncos' "No Fly Zone," but Jalen Ramsey, A.J. Bouye, Aaron Colvin, Barry Church and Tashaun Gipson are the new lockdown kings of the NFL. Now, I know that statement is going to stir up a hornet's nest in my mentions, but you might want to pause before you @ me on Twitter. The Jaguars rank third in pass defense (177.8 yards per game), while holding opponents to a 58.8 percent completion rate (fifth). Not to mention, opposing quarterbacks own a 3:10 touchdown-to-interception ratio and a 56.9 passer rating (lowest in the league). If those numbers aren't impressive enough, the fact that Bouye (38.3) and Ramsey (47.1) rank first and second in passer rating allowed (min. 25 targets) should open some eyes, particularly with each guy holding opposing quarterbacks to sub-50 percent completion rate (Bouye at 42.9, Ramsey at 47.1) while also each notching a pair of interceptions. That's the kind of production that you would expect from a shutdown corner, right? So that must mean the Jaguars have two lockdown specialists on their roster, with Bouye and Ramsey vying for the No. 1 role. "You'd rather have two guys that want the challenge (of being the shutdown guy) than not have the challenge," Jaguars secondary coach Perry Fewell told reporters during training camp, via the St. Augustine Record. "I think it bodes well for both of them. When you look at different styles of receivers, you know the No. 1 guy and the No. 2 guy in this league, they are very similar. Sometimes Jalen may match up good with the big guy and A.J. may match up good with a smaller, quick guy." Studying the All-22 Coaches Film, it's easy to see that the Jaguars' lockdown specialists are rare finds at the position as skilled technicians with polished footwork and superb instincts. Each can employ a variety of tactics and techniques on the island to snuff out pass catchers. Ramsey is the longer, more athletic playmaker of the two. The second-year man, who was taken fifth overall in the 2016 NFL Draft, combines world-class athleticism (at Florida State, Ramsey won the 2015 ACC indoor and outdoor long-jump titles) with an alpha dog demeanor and a rugged game. Ramsey embraces the physical aspect of playing the position, as evidenced by his aggressive bump-and-run style, yet he also displays the patience and discipline to shadow receivers from distance. In addition, Ramsey shows outstanding instincts, awareness and ball skills on the perimeter. He has registered 23 passes defensed in 21 career games, as well as four interceptions and a forced fumble. That impact production stands out on tape, as you watch him quickly close in on receivers off breaks. Ramsey's burst, acceleration and explosiveness make him nearly impossible to shake when he's locked in and focused. Bouye is a high-IQ player without extraordinary footspeed and short-area quickness. The fifth-year player -- who stunningly went undrafted in 2013 and signed with Jacksonville this past offseason after four years with the Texans -- is a coach's dream on the perimeter with a game that looks like it was plucked straight from a clinic tape. From his polished footwork and fundamentals to his flawless turns and transitions to his superb instincts and diagnostic skills, Bouye plays the position in textbook fashion. He is rarely out of place when the ball is thrown; this consistent positioning allows him to routinely make plays on the ball. In 2017, Bouye has seven passes defensed, but that doesn't include the number of errant passes he has forced due to sticky coverage. With Bouye and Ramsey locking down the outer edges of the field, quarterbacks are forced to throw the ball between the hashes against a trio of defenders who make life miserable for pass catchers over the middle. Church, Gipson and Colvin aren't household names, but their complementary games form the perfect triangle in the middle of the field. Gipson serves as the centerfielder in the back end. He is expected to roam from numbers to numbers as the deep-ball eraser in a single-high-safety defense. Although disappointing production in 2016 led to concerns about his playmaking ability as a designated ballhawk, he has certainly put those issues to rest with three interceptions in the first five games of this season. Gipson is a "vision" player with a knack for diagnosing routes and anticipating throws. Last season aside, he is quietly one of the best ballhawks in the business; 18 career interceptions validate that point. In a defense where interceptions are the byproduct of tips or overthrows, Gipson's combination of instincts and ball skills make him a game changer at the position. Church is the enforcer every elite defense needs between the hashes. He thumps like a mad man but also show enough athleticism and range to play as a deep-middle defender at times. His versatility allows the Jaguars to showcase a few looks with No. 42 featured as a blitzer off the edge or as a hole defender sitting at linebacker depth. With Gipson also adept at playing near the line of scrimmage, Jacksonville's defense can use the safeties to toy with quarterbacks during the pre-snap phase. "It's not like this guy is always down or this guy is always back," coach Doug Marrone told reporters at a presser this week, via Jacksonville.com. "I think those things help. It gives you a chance to mix up the coverages, what is going on, and things of that nature." Colvin is rarely mentioned when observers talk about the Jaguars' secondary, but the fourth-year pro plays a key role as the team's nickelback. He not only aligns in the slot to neutralize the slippery pass catchers who occupy the WR3 role, but he must be a factor against the ground attack when teams elect to run to the open side in "11" personnel formations (1 RB, 1 TE and 3 WRs). Colvin throws his body around as a feisty tackler, and his willingness to hit allows the Jags to comfortably stay in their nickel defense against most looks. In coverage, Colvin's experience and versatility (can play inside or outside at CB) serves him well in Jacksonville's "see ball, get ball" coverage. He has a great feel for sorting out routes, which allows him to break quickly on the ball to hold pass catchers to minimal gains. This brings me back to why Jacksonville's secondary has surged to the top of the charts. The pieces of the puzzle fit together nicely in a scheme that showcases each player's respective talents. While some will downgrade the Jaguars for using a set of coverages that are eerily similar to the Seahawks' hybrid Cover 1/Cover 3 system, it's hard to dispute the unit's production and effectiveness neutralizing aerial attacks around the league. Considering the Jags' high number of takeaways (15, tops in the NFL) and the sticky coverage displayed on tape, I dare you to name a defensive backfield that's playing better ... NEXT GEN STATS: Tom Brady owns the blind side There's little doubt that Tom Brady is the "G.O.A.T." (Greatest of All Time) at the quarterback position, but I'm amazed NFL defensive coordinators haven't caught up with his approach this season. Granted, he is one of the best clutch performers that I've ever seen, as evidenced by his spectacular performance in Super Bowl LI, among the countless comeback wins in his career, but he is torching opponents working away from the typical strong suit of right-handed quarterbacks. Instead of wearing out defensive backs with a barrage of throws to the right side of the field, Brady is repeatedly directing passes to his blind side. "He has always preferred to throw to the offensive left (defensive right)," a former AFC defensive coordinator who routinely faced Brady told me. "He's comfortable throwing to that side and he's really good at it. Plus, Brady's sweet spot is between the numbers and the hash, so he doesn't mind wearing you out with a bunch of dink-and-dunk throws to his left." According to Next Gen Stats, Brady leads all passers with 62 completions to the left this season, racking up 782 yards and five touchdowns for a passer rating of 115.5 (all league-highs, as well). .@Patriots QB1 goes against the grain by working the left-hand side of the field more than any other QB in football. Uncommon for righty QB pic.twitter.com/7OYvX1sdxr ��� Bucky Brooks (@BuckyBrooks) October 13, 2017 What's remarkable about Brady's success is his willingness to work the short area of the field to his left. The four-time Super Bowl MVP has completed 33 passes between 0 to 10 yards from the line of scrimmage, which is more than double the league average (16). In addition, Brady has completed 14 passes at an intermediate distance (10 to 20 yards), nearly three times the league average (5). Comparing Brady's passing heat map with the alignments and route trees of the Patriots' top receivers, some obvious trends emerge. For instance, Brandin Cooks spends a lot of time on the left running an assortment of vertical routes. He aligned out wide on the left on 51 percent of his offensive snaps. In addition, Cooks has received 75 percent of his targets, 67 percent of his receptions and 73 percent of his receiving yards on the left-hand side of the field. Most importantly, he has averaged 23.0 yards per catch on receptions on the left. Against the Houston Texans in Week 3, Cooks finished with five receptions for 131 yards and two touchdowns, with the bulk of his work done on the left side of the field. In that same game, Rob Gronkowski snagged eight balls for 89 yards and a touchdown with most of his routes ending on the left side of the field. With the Patriots using Cooks to clear the zone on verticals, Gronkowski's crossing routes and option outs were frequently left uncovered. With that information in mind, I don't know why defensive coordinators don't use field or location calls to discourage Brady from targeting that side. "We used to discuss all of that information with our players, but Brady is so good at making adjustments that he would tweak his game to exploits our coverage," the former AFC defensive coordinator said. "He would work the other side of the field and target No. 3 or No. 2 on throws inside the numbers. (Defensive coaches number receivers from outside to inside. Thus, No. 1 would be the receiver nearest sideline, with No. 2 representing the slot receiver, etc.) Thus, you're at his mercy when he decides to counter your tactics." While Brady is pretty efficient working other areas of the field, it is apparent that he wants to work the back side in 2017. It will be interesting to see if opponents adjust their tactics to disrupt the timing and rhythm of the Patriots' passing game. ADRIAN PETERSON'S NEW HOME: Can the RB save the Cardinals? I don't know if Bruce Arians rubbed a magic lamp, but the wily old coach is hoping that newly acquired running back Adrian Peterson is the genie who can save the Arizona Cardinals' ailing ground game. While I don't blame the coach for scouring the Earth looking for a remedy after losing star running back David Johnson to a dislocated wrist in Week 1, I just don't know if the 32-year-old running back is the answer to the team's woes. Look, I have the utmost respect for what Peterson has accomplished in this league. He ranks fourth in NFL history in rushing yards per game (93.1), behind only Jim Brown (104.3), Barry Sanders (99.8) and Terrell Davis (97.5). He is also one of only seven runners with a 2,000-yard season on the resume, to go along with three NFL rushing titles and 50 100-yard rushing games (49 regular season, 1 postseason) in his 11-year career. On the surface, Peterson looks like a major upgrade for the Cardinals, based on the memory of Peterson's most recent rushing title (2015), when he tallied 1,485 rushing yards while displaying his trademark violent running style as a workhorse runner. He finished the season with 10 20-plus-yard runs and four 40-plus-yard jaunts as the premier RB1 in the league. With those numbers still dancing around coaches' heads like sugar plums, I certainly can understand why a team would take a chance on Peterson, despite the veteran runner seemingly struggling with injuries (he missed most of 2016 with a torn meniscus), declining production (Peterson has only averaged 2.39 per carry over the past two seasons) and a one-dimensional game (he's a downhill runner). While that didn't help him land a major role in New Orleans, it made him an attractive option for a team in need of a spark on the ground. "I've been really pleased with the tape that I saw on him this year," Arians told reporters on Wednesday. "It's just, his opportunities dwindled down there (in New Orleans). And I haven't been satisfied with our running game. "When [Peterson] was available, we thought it was the best thing for our football team." Here's the problem: The Cardinals haven't shown a strong commitment to the run this season. They rank last in rushing-play percentage, 28th in rushing attempts, last in rushing yards per game and last in yards per carry. And their offensive line appears to lack the collective pop to move defenders off the ball. A talented runner can certainly mask those flaws, as Johnson has demonstrated during his time as the team's RB1. Since 2016, the Cardinals averaged 4.51 yards per rushing attempt and 5.6 yards per play with the Pro Bowler in the backfield. By comparison, they only averaged 2.95 yards per rushing attempt and 4.8 yards per play without Johnson. Although Peterson is no longer the superhero he was in Minnesota, he still retains the rugged mentality needed to carry a running game as a workhorse. He bristled at the notion of losing a step and didn't appear overly concerned about the Cardinals' offensive-line woes. "Do I still got it?" Peterson responded to a question this week. "Well, I don't think it's that mentality, 'Do I still got it,' but that's all you hear from the media ... 'Oh, he lost it,' this, that and the other. So, of course, in my mind, [I] was like, OK, I know that's not the case. When I go out there, I'm always putting my best foot forward, and I feel like it will speak for itself." Based on the All-22 Coaches Film, it is hard to tell how much Peterson has left in the tank. He only gained 81 rushing yards on 27 attempts over four games in New Orleans this season and finished his time with the Saints with just one run over 10 yards (11 yards against Carolina). I like the effort, physicality and toughness that he displayed in limited action, but I would need to see him shoulder a heavy workload to get a better feel for whether he still has the juice as a runner. Arians, on the other hand, saw enough from Peterson to know that he could fill the void created by Johnson's injury. "A violent runner who still has it," Arians said of what he saw from Peterson. "He's not 22 anymore, but he still pours it up in there, and it's very exciting." The Cardinals are desperately seeking a spark in the running game. We'll see if Arians can get a little magic out of Peterson to help the team reverse its fortunes. Follow Bucky Brooks on Twitter @BuckyBrooks. |
A dolphin remained stranded in a New Jersey river for a second day, despite rescuers' efforts to coax it into deeper water Thursday. Brian Thompson reports. (Published Thursday, Aug. 6, 2015) A dolphin remained stranded in a New Jersey river for a second day, despite rescuers' efforts to coax it into deeper water Thursday. The dolphin was first spotted Wednesday in the South River, near Old Matawan Road, in Old Bridge. Shelia Dean of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center said Wednesday they hoped it would go back into the ocean with the high tide. When the dolphin remained for a second day, workers from the Raritan Riverkeeper organization went into the water with a baykeeper boat to try to gently push and guide the dolphin down the river. They wanted to "discourage the animal from sticking around the area and try to encourage him to move to deeper water, a little bit closer to the ocean," said Jay Pagel of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center. Dolphin Spotted in River in New Jersey A dolphin was spotted in the South River in Old Bridge. Chopper 4 was above the scene. (Published Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2015) But the dolphin totally ignored the efforts. For the community, it meant another day of dolphin-watching. Hundreds of people came and went through the course of the day to watch the apparently healthy dolphin swim in the narrow section of the South River. For onlookers, it was a delight to watch a dophin in the suburban community roughly 10 miles from the ocean. "I like dolphins and I like looking at them," said young Giuliani Bonomo. "We've got skunks, we've got deer, we've got raccoons, we've got dogs -- but never a dolphin," said Kelli Bonomo. |
SHARE By of the Madison - Gov. Scott Walker used his broad new powers to reshape a rule to lower inflation-based raises that public unions can negotiate by 30% or more for teachers in public schools and technical colleges. The rule change would not use an individual's actual salary as a "base salary" to calculate raises and would exclude factors such as a teacher's higher degree. For instance, a teacher with a master's degree might make $45,000 a year while a teacher in the same district with a bachelor's degree might make $35,000. A 3.2% cost-of-living raise on $45,000 would be $1,440 - or more than $300 higher than the same raise on $35,000. Under the new rule, the teacher with the master's degree would have his or her raise calculated off the $35,000 instead of his or her actual salary. A spokeswoman for the Walker administration said that the change was necessary to properly implement the labor legislation signed by the Republican governor last year. Under that law, unions' bargaining is limited to cost-of-living adjustments, and Walker's change would limit that bargaining more than the original rule proposed by his own appointees. Katy Lounsbury, a Madison labor attorney, said the rules effectively neuter teachers unions in their bargaining over salaries. She said the rules may result in legal action because she believes they violate people's rights to associate. "It certainly seems worthy of a challenge," she said. "It penalizes members of a union." The rule took effect just a month after Walker put in place a program for merit increases, allowing nearly 220 state employees to receive an extra $765,000 in bonuses and merit raises. Early last year, Walker changed state law to give him more control over administrative rules. State agencies - including those not controlled by the governor - must get his approval before writing and implementing such rules, which have the force of state law. Democrats called that change a power grab. Walker's legislation limited any union-negotiated salary increases to the rate of inflation as applied to the employees' base salaries unless voters approved a higher increase in a referendum. The dispute centers on how base wages should be calculated. The emergency rule as revised by the Walker administration will still be subject to eventual review by lawmakers. Walker's fellow Republicans control the Assembly and the Senate is evenly split between Republicans and Democrats. The original rule was sent unanimously to the governor's administration in February by the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission, which oversees issues involving public employee unions and which is controlled by Walker appointees. That version of the rule called for casting a wider net in terms of what wages could be used for figuring raises. That total wage amount would then be multiplied by the recent increase in the federal Consumer Price Index. For July 2012 contracts, for instance, that increase would be up to 3.2%. But Walker's administration ordered changes to the rules that would limit base wages to exclude pay given to workers such as teachers to reflect factors such as having a graduate degree. The rules were approved with those changes by the governor's two appointees on the board, James Scott and Rodney Pasch, with the commissioner appointed by Walker's predecessor Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle, Judith Neumann, voting against them. Under the governor's rules, none of the educational credit would count for teachers, said Peter Davis, the longtime general counsel of the WERC, who said the change would mainly affect unions in K-12 schools and technical colleges. Jocelyn Webster, the spokeswoman for the state Department of Administration, said that the administration made changes to the rule because the original version didn't properly implement the law. The law called for excluding bargaining over merit pay and extra pay based on education, she said. "What they clearly put into their definition of base wage was not a legal definition," Webster said. Webster said that she did not have an exact number on how much on average the change would affect salary increases for school districts, saying it would vary by district. Davis agreed, but said that a commonly used "guesstimate" for the effect of the changes was that about 30% of the wages actually paid to teachers would not be counted as part of the total wages. The Wisconsin Association of School Boards said in a memo to members this month that legal challenges of the rule are likely. That memo also noted that although the new law limits what unions may bargain over, employers can unilaterally offer higher pay with merit pay, step increases or other compensation. Lounsbury, the Madison labor attorney, said she believes the rules could allow districts to actually cut wages for teachers by offering an increase to teachers' base wages but then cutting by a larger amount the remaining wages related to educational attainment that are not subject to bargaining. Webster disagreed. "To be very clear, there will be no salary decreases. Unions can bargain with employers at the state and municipal level for base wage increases for represented members," Webster said. Davis noted that districts would be free to offer teachers more wage increases beyond base pay but could not bargain with a union over that. The rule would only affect unions that continue to have official state status. Many unions have decertified over the past year because they could not meet the high bar for a yearly vote set by Walker's legislation or have chosen not to try. |
NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- A series of blasts ripped nearly simultaneously Thursday through crowded areas of a remote state in India, killing 62 people and wounding 300, an official in Assam state told CNN. A man tries to extinguish a fire after one of the blasts in northeastern India on Thursday. more photos » Assam Home Commissioner Rajiv Kumar Bora said other small blasts occurred in the northeastern state in addition to the nine bombs; authorities believe those may be from kitchen gas cylinders, he said. Following the explosions, black smoke poured into the air. On the ground, charred and burned vehicles, their windows punched out and their metal frames mangled, remained on the streets. Police officers combed areas afterward for unexploded bombs, authorities said. Watch more about the blasts » No one claimed responsibility for the attacks, some of which police said occurred in the state capital, Guwahati, in Kamrup district. Other bombs exploded in the Kokrajhar, Barpeta and Bongaigaon districts, police said. Bora named the United Liberation Front of Asom -- a separatist group that has waged a 20-year rebellion demanding more autonomy from the central government -- as a suspect in the attacks. ULFA denies wrongdoing, he said. Images from the devastating blasts » "Although ULFA has denied involvement, it is one of the suspects," he said. Earlier, Assam's superintendent of police said both local insurgents and separatist organizations were being investigated. India's president, Pratibha Devisingh Patil, condemned the attack in a written statement. "There is no place for violence in our society," the statement said. The prime minister, Manmohan Singh, also condemned the blasts. "Such barbaric acts targeting innocent men, women and children only highlight the desperation and cowardice of those responsible," he said in a written statement. "I am confident that the people of India will rise unitedly against these attempts to disturb peace and harmony and to destroy our social fabric. We will take all possible steps to maintain peace and bring the perpetrators of such acts to justice." Three other blasts in Assam this year were blamed on the ULFA. iReport.com: Are you there? Share your photos, videos The group is also blamed for the deaths of 42 migrant workers in a series of small arms attacks in January 2007 and for bombing an Indian paramilitary forces bus in 2004. There also have been clashes between local tribal people, known as the Bodo, and immigrants from Bangladesh, with which Assam shares a porous border. Fighting between the two groups killed at least 47 this month. -- CNN's Harmeet Singh and Bharati Naik contributed to this report. All About India |
Alliance have moved forward to The Premier League Grand Final, beating Virtus.pro 2-1. Virtus.pro will move down to the lower bracket, where they will face Team Liquid. Both the lower bracket final and the Grand Final will be taking place tomorrow, with games beginning at 18:00 CET. Alliance are the first finalist in the Premier League, having booked their place with a 2-1 victory over Alliance. Game Three of the series was a particularly impressive match, with many twist and turns and a big comeback by Alliance. Virtus.pro will play Team Liquid tomorrow at 18:00 CET in a best of three match. The winner of this match will advance to face Alliance in the grand final which will take place at 21:00 CET and will be best of five. By advancing to the final Alliance have guaranteed themselves at least three thousand dollars in prize money. If they win the final they will win $5000 for finishing in first place. Both Team Liquid and Virtus.pro are guaranteed at least $2000 for playing in the lower bracket final. Upper Bracket Round 1 - Best of 3 Fnatic. 0 Alliance 2 Liquid 0 Virtus.Pro 2 Round 2 - Best of 3 Alliance 2 Virtus.Pro 1 Lower Bracket Round 1 - Best of 3 Fnatic. 0 Liquid 2 Round 2 - Best of 3 Virtus.Pro 1 Liquid 2 Final Best of 5 Alliance 3 Liquid 0 Live broadcasting is provided by Blaze. The Premier League prizes Placing Teams Prizes 1st place $5,000 2nd place $3,000 3rd place $2,000 |
CBS also reported that Armstrong was considering returning part of the millions of dollars that his team received in sponsorship from the US postal service. Choked up ... Lance Armstrong. Credit:Reuters It comes after earlier reports that Armstrong "choked up" in an apology to staff at his cancer foundation ahead of his mooted tell-all interview. Armstrong, 41, apologised to Livestrong foundation staff for "letting them down," the organisation has confirmed. Quoting "a person with direct knowledge of the meeting", AP reported that several employees cried during Armstrong's comments, which were made during a meeting. It was also reported that Armstrong, who did not make a direct confession about using banned drugs, urged staff to fight to continue helping cancer patients and their families. Armstrong, a seven-time winner of the Tour de France who was stripped of the titles because of doping charges, created Livestrong in 1997 after his battle with testicular cancer. He is now battling to rebuild his reputation, according to USA Today. The newspaper reported that in the interview with Winfrey, Armstrong would acknowledge using performance-enhancing drugs. After the interview, Winfrey tweeted: "He came READY!". The interview is scheduled to air on Winfrey's own television channel on Thursday, US time (Friday Australian time). Two unidentified people with knowledge of the situation reportedly told the newspaper that Armstrong would not give any detail on specific cases and events. In August, the US Anti-Doping Agency banned Armstrong from competition for life for "a career fuelled, start to finish, by doping". He lost his seven Tour de France titles after refusing to take the USADA case to arbitration. The agency's report found that Armstrong forced teammates to take performance-enhancing drugs or be fired from his team, and himself transfused blood and used testosterone and erythropoietin, also known as EPO. The head of USADA, Travis Tygart, last week told CBS that the evidence against Armstrong was strong. Tygart said that Armstrong had rejected an opportunity for redemption by refusing to co-operate with the USADA investigation. Asked what he would tell Armstrong if they were to meet, Tygart said: ‘‘It’s never too late to tell the truth and make it right.’’ Winfrey will appear on CBS This Morning on Tuesday (US time) to promote her interview. The CBS program is co-hosted by Winfrey’s long-time friend Gayle King. It comes about one month after British newspaper The Sunday Times started legal action against the cyclist to recoup money it paid him to settle a legal case. In 2004, the paper published claims from a book that Armstrong took performance-enhancing drugs but after Armstrong sued, the paper, owned by Rupert Murdoch, paid him about £300,000 [$456,000 Australian]. The newspaper is seeking about £1 million [$1.5 million Australian] for a return of the settlement payout, as well as interest and its costs in defending the case. It says Armstrong’s proceedings were ‘‘baseless and fraudulent’’. During a weekend jog, Armstrong told AP: "I'm calm, I'm at ease and ready to speak candidly." Loading He also told AP via text message that: "I told her [Winfrey] to go wherever she wants and I'll answer the questions directly, honestly and candidly. That's all I can say." The USADA case led to a wholesale review of Cycling Australia's operations in light of admissions from two key local administrators that they had doped during their own cycling careers. Follow SportsDay Live for breaking news |
The largest Kings Cross hotels and nightclubs will have to scan the identification of customers every night of the week and for 24 hours on Fridays, weekends and public holidays under rules designed to reduce alcohol-fuelled violence. Hoteliers had been pushing to restrict the system - whereby patrons must have photo ID scanned upon entry - to Friday and Saturday nights and only for venues with a history of violence. Desperate need for change: The death Thomas Kelly, an innocent victim of alcohol-fuelled violence, has increased awareness about the need to make Kings Cross a safer place. But hospitality minister George Souris will announce the state government plans to implement the system for the majority of opening hours and for all venues with a capacity of 120 or more that trade past midnight. The decision means scanners will be in operation at 35 venues in Kings Cross from 7pm on Thursdays until 7am on Mondays and between 7pm and 7am on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. |
Joe Paterno suffered a hairline fracture of his pelvis and shoulder this weekend in practice, the victim of a blindside run-in with 5'7", 157 pound WR Devon Smith. The fractures require no surgery, but undoubtedly hurt like hell and will be yet another physical ailment for the 182 year old coach to grin and bear going into the 2011 season. As Sports By Brooks said: "WHY IS JOE PATERNO HIDING THE DETAILS OF HIS OWN ASSAULT?" [picture with arrows] There were no details about protection specifically designed for Paterno, or whether Devon Smith managed to weave through bodyguards charged with protecting the Penn State coach. Given the pattern, though, we have no choice but to assume Penn State continues to provide inadequate institutional security for the coach. Thus EDSBS, as a public service, will fill in the gaps that those in State College Pennsylvania refuse to, and provide solid, reasonable proposals for the protection of our greatest living coach and national football treasure. 1. TERRARIUM We'd make sure he had everything he needed: food, water, and even a little toy castle in there he could call his own. Oh, maybe we could get him his own retro deep sea diver, too! Please, don't mock the man with memories of his childhood spent scraping mussels off the hull of the U.S.S. Monitor. Fish secretly loathe those little bubbling bastards, and so does Joe Paterno. The clear plexiglass allows him to send in plays, and provides a warm, comfortable environment even on the coldest of days. 2. PROTECTIVE BUBBLE The bubble has its advantages. Like a hamster in a plastic ball, Paterno will possess full mobility, albeit one that makes a really annoying crinkling noise as he walks. It could get really muggy in there, too, so he'll have to wear one of those baseball caps with the built in fan or something. <---BTN SPONSORSHIP IDEA HELLO ROTEL HAT 3. A REALLY HUGE HAND Jadevon Clowney cannot assume this role, so someone else with a Frost Giant-sized physique will have to stand in, sit like a bored schoolchild on the lip of Beaver Stadium, and manually pluck Joe Pa out of the way of any impending harm. If you have a giant hand, or know someone with a giant hand capable of picking up Joe Paterno, please contact Jay Paterno immediately via Twitter. |
Dungeon’s Master Spotlight Interview on Wizards of the Coast About a month ago Bart Carroll from Wizards of the Coast asked the Dungeon’s Master team if we’d be interesting in doing an interview. Needless to say we were flattered to receive the offer and ecstatic about the possibility of getting some props from Wizards. Well, today they published the interview. If you visit the Wizards of the Coast website you’ll find a little article called Dungeon’s Master — Spotlight Interview. The Dungeon’s Master team wants to thank Bart Carroll and Wizards of the Coast for giving us the opportunity to talk a little bit about our site and to share a little bit more about the team behind the scenes. We’d also like to thank all or our reader who continue to visit every day. It’s because of your continued support that Dungeon’s Master has been so successful and so much fun. For those just discovering Dungeon’s Master (thanks to Wizards) we encourage you to visit regularly and comment often. We welcome your feedback and your ideas. Looking for instant updates? Subscribe to the Dungeon’s Master feed! Pin 0 Shares |
CARTAGENA, Colombia — Twelve Secret Service agents assigned to this port city in advance of President Obama’s arrival for the Summit of the Americas were relieved of duty, amid accusations of misconduct that is said to have involved prostitution, a government official confirmed Friday. The misconduct is said to have occurred before Mr. Obama arrived here on Friday afternoon for the meeting of more than 30 world leaders that begins Saturday. White House officials would not comment, referring all questions to the Secret Service. News of the accusations was first reported by The Washington Post. In a statement, a Secret Service spokesman, Edwin M. Donovan, acknowledged that agents had been recalled because of accusations of misconduct and that they would be replaced by other Secret Service personnel, but he did not address the issue of prostitution. Advertisement Continue reading the main story “The Secret Service takes all allegations of misconduct seriously,” he said, adding that the matter had been turned over to the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility. Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. Prostitution is legal in designated areas of Colombia. President Obama’s security detail has been involved in other incidents in recent months. A federal agent with the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security was charged with second-degree murder last November after shooting a man in Honolulu, according to news reports at the time. The agent was off duty, but was on the island to provide advance security arrangements for Mr. Obama’s visit to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. |
Please enable Javascript to watch this video Utility crews restored power to most of the downtown Long Beach on Saturday night, officials said, more than two days after underground electrical fires prompted outages that affected thousands of customers. Following the restoration, which occurred about 9 p.m., residents and businesses were encouraged to reset their circuit breakers, Southern California Edison said in a news release. The area of the original outage remained without electricity. The underground fires began shortly before 3 p.m. Wednesday and resulted in manhole covers near Third Street and Chestnut Avenue flying into the air as flames and plumes of black smoke emanated from below the street. Police advised residents in the area to avoid falling debris by remaining indoors while firefighters extinguished the fires. Meanwhile, power was shut off for about 6,000 customers, according to Southern California Edison. The outages and restoration of power continued intermittently through Thursday, and by Friday morning 3,474 were still in the dark, the utility said. "If you don't have to be in the downtown area, stay from the downtown area," Long Beach Fire Department Deputy Chief Rich Brandt advised commuters and pedestrians. Not far from where he was standing, firefighters and Edison workers were attending to a smoldering manhole. "As Edison starts bringing up power, once in a while they'll have a little glitch or maybe a circuit that has a problem. That's what happened here," Brandt explained. He added that utility workers had "brought the system back down again" and were "going to fix their little issue that they have and then bring the power back up again." In a news release, Edison apologized for the inconvenience and duration of the outages but did not specify when power would be fully restored. "Underground systems are more difficult to evaluate, test and repair than overhead wires and work is progressing as quickly and as safely as possible," the statement said. Updates were available on Twitter, by phone at 800-611-1911, online at sce.com/outages and via the utility's smarphone app. The website also includes a page on which customers can file a claim for losses endured due to outages. Check out the photos of our crews restoring power in #LongBeach. We're happy to hear customers have light!💡 pic.twitter.com/MArkOScr4m — SCE (@SCE) July 18, 2015 Power is back on majority of DTLB -- area closes to original incident still without power. More info: http://t.co/B6wv3oO3YR #lbpwrout — City of Long Beach (@LongBeachCity) July 18, 2015 More video: Please enable Javascript to watch this video Please enable Javascript to watch this video |
Email Share +1 17K Shares The U.S. on Sept. 29 voted against a U.N. Human Rights Council resolution that includes a provision condemning the death penalty for those found guilty of committing consensual same-sex sexual acts. The resolution — which Belgium, Benin, Costa Rica, France, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia and Switzerland introduced — passed by a 27-13 vote margin. Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Rwanda, South Africa, Togo, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Albania, Croatia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Slovenia, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, El Salvador, Panama, Paraguay, Venezuela, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland and the U.K. supported the resolution. Botswana, Burundi, Egypt, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, China, India, Iraq, Japan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates joined the U.S. in opposing it. Kenya, Nigeria, Tunisia, Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea and Cuba abstained. The resolution specifically condemns “the imposition of the death penalty as a sanction for specific forms of conduct, such as apostasy, blasphemy, adultery and consensual same-sex relations” and expresses “serious concern that the application of the death penalty for adultery is disproportionately imposed on women.” It also notes “poor and economically vulnerable persons and foreign nationals are disproportionately subjected to the death penalty, that laws carrying the death penalty are used against persons exercising their rights to freedom of expression, thought, conscience, religion, and peaceful assembly and association, and that persons belonging to religious or ethnic minorities are disproportionately represented among those sentenced to the death penalty.” ILGA in a press release noted Egypt, Russia and Saudi Arabia sought to amend the resolution and “dilute its impact.” These amendments failed, even though the U.S. supported two of them from Russia that stated the death penalty “does not per se mean a (human rights) violation, but may lead to . . . (human rights) violations” and “in some cases the (death penalty) leads to torture, rather than that many states hold that the (death penalty) is a form of torture.” The U.S. also backed a proposed amendment from Egypt that stated “a moratorium (on the death penalty) should be a decision after domestic debate.” The U.S. abstained from voting on a proposed amendment from Saudi Arabia that said countries have the right to “develop their own laws and penalties (in accordance with international law.)” A U.S. official told the Washington Blade on Tuesday the U.S. “did support language in the resolution against the discriminatory use of the death penalty based on an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity, while also requesting changes to make the larger resolution in accordance with U.S. law” that says the death penalty is legal. “Unfortunately, the main sponsors did not take those edits onboard, so we were unable to support the larger resolution, which called for a global moratorium on the death penalty, in spite of the fact that it included parts that we support,” said the official The official said the U.S. “voted against” the final resolution “because of broader concerns with the resolution’s approach to condemning and abolishing the death penalty in all circumstances.” “Capital punishment is legal in the United States,” the official told the Blade. “We reaffirm our longstanding position on the legality of the death penalty, when imposed and carried out in a manner consistent with a state’s international obligations. The United States supported some amendments and voted against others when the HRC considered this resolution.” The U.S. in 2014 and 2016 also voted against U.N. death penalty resolutions. U.S. officials insist vote not about LGBT rights. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Mauritania and Sudan are among the handful of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual activity remains punishable by death. The so-called Islamic State has executed dozens of men in Iraq, Syria and Libya who were accused of committing sodomy. “It is unconscionable to think that there are hundreds of millions of people living in states where somebody may be executed simply because of whom they love” said ILGA Executive Director Renato Sabbadini in a press release, referring to the resolution. “This is a monumental moment where the international community has publicly highlighted that these horrific laws simply must end.” State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert and other U.S. officials on Tuesday said the vote against the resolution was not about LGBT rights. “There was a vote at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, and we have seen a lot of reporting about that, press releases that have criticized the U.S. government’s vote at the Human Rights Council on the question of the death penalty,” Nauert told reporters at a State Department press briefing. “The headlines and much of the reporting that has come out of that has been misleading.” “As our representative to the Human Rights Council said on Friday, last Friday, the United States is disappointed to have voted against that resolution,” she further noted. “We voted against that resolution because of broader concerns with the resolution’s approach in condemning the death penalty in all circumstances, and it called for the abolition of the death penalty altogether.” “We had hoped for a balanced and inclusive resolution that would better reflect the positions of states that continue to apply the death penalty lawfully, as the United States does,” added Nauert. “The United States unequivocally condemns the application of the death penalty for conduct such as homosexuality, blasphemy, adultery and apostasy. We do not consider such conduct appropriate for criminalization.” The vote took place nine days after Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, Costa Rican Vice President Ana Helena Chacón and other world leaders attended a U.N. LGBT Core Group event that coincided with the opening of the U.N. General Assembly. Kelly Currie, the U.S. representative to the U.N. Economic and Social Council, attended the event but did not speak. Former Vice President Biden is among those who spoke at last year’s U.N. LGBT Core Group event. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley in April said the U.S. remains “disturbed” by the ongoing crackdown against gay men and lesbians in Chechnya. Caitlyn Jenner in July met with Haley at her office in New York. President Trump traveled to Saudi Arabia in May. He made no mention that consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death in the kingdom in a speech he gave in the Saudi capital of Riyadh. Trump has also not publicly commented on the ongoing crackdown against LGBT Chechens. The U.S. and 24 other countries in 2014 voted for a resolution against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender the U.N. Human Rights Council adopted. The body in 2011 narrowly approved a resolution in support of LGBT rights that South Africa introduced. |
It's not the locker room pep talk you'd expect, but new research from the University of Arizona suggests that athletes might perform better when reminded of something a bit grim: their impending death. In two studies, the results of which will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, basketball-playing participants scored more points after being presented with death-related prompts, either direct questions about their own mortality or a more subtle, visual reminder of death. Researchers say the improved performance is the result of a subconscious effort to boost self-esteem, which is a protective buffer against fear of death, according to psychology's terror management theory. "Terror management theory talks about striving for self-esteem and why we want to accomplish things in our lives and be successful," said UA psychology doctoral student Uri Lifshin, co-lead investigator of the research. "Everybody has their own thing in which they invest that is their legacy and symbolic immortality." The reason people don't live in constant fear of their inevitable death is because they have this system to help them deal with it, Lifshin said. "Your subconscious tries to find ways to defeat death, to make death not a problem, and the solution is self-esteem," he said. "Self-esteem gives you a feeling that you're part of something bigger, that you have a chance for immortality, that you have meaning, that you're not just a sack of meat." Participants in the studies were male college students who indicated that they enjoy playing basketball and care about their performance in the sport. None of them played for a formal college basketball team. "Our idea was that the study effect should only work for people who are motivated to perform well in sports. For individuals that derive less self-esteem from sport, whether they win or lose shouldn't matter as much," said UA doctoral student Colin Zestcott, the other lead investigator. The Proof Is on the Court In the first study, 31 participants played a pair of one-on-one basketball games with Zestcott, who posed as another study participant. In between the two games, which lasted about seven minutes each, participants were randomly assigned questionnaires to complete. Some participants received packets that included prompts about death: "Please briefly describe the emotions that the thought of your own death arouses in you," and, "Jot down, as specifically as you can, what you think will happen to you as you physically die and once you are physically dead." Others were asked instead to think about playing basketball: "Please briefly describe the emotions that the thought of playing basketball arouses in you," and, "Jot down, as specifically as you can, what you think will happen to you as you play basketball." The questions were followed by several delay tasks to allow death thoughts to work outside of conscious attention. Researchers were blind to which prompts each player received. Those asked about death improved their personal performance in the second game by 40 percent, while those asked about basketball saw no change in performance. Those who thought about death also performed 20 percent better as a whole in the second game than those in the other group. Before the questionnaires, the performance of both groups was roughly even. "When we're threatened with death, we're motivated to regain that protective sense of self-esteem, and when you like basketball and you're out on the basketball court, winning and performing well is the ultimate way to gain self-esteem," Lifshin said. The researchers' second study looked at how participants performed in an individual basket-shooting challenge when presented with a more subtle reminder of death. For the study, Lifshin wore a black T-shirt emblazoned with a large white skull, made up of several iterations of the word "death." Study participants were brought one-at-a-time onto the court, where Lifshin gave each person a 30-second description of the challenge and rules. He wore the skull T-shirt in front of half of the participants. With the other half, he had his jacket zipped up to cover the shirt. A coin flip was used to randomly determine which participants saw the skull. Participants then completed a one-minute basket-shooting challenge, in which they could score one point for a layup, two points from the free-throw line and three points from the three-point line. To ensure that they kept moving, they were told they couldn't attempt the same types of shots back-to-back. They were scored by a different experimenter, who didn't know who saw the shirt. Participants who saw the shirt outperformed those who did not by approximately 30 percent. They also attempted more shots — an average of 11.85 per minute versus an average of 8.33 by those who did not see the shirt. "They took more shots, better shots, and they hustled more and ran faster," Lifshin said. UA psychology professor Jeff Greenberg, one of the originators of terror management theory, said the research provides important new support for the theory. "We've known from many studies that reminders of death arouse a need for terror management and therefore increase self-esteem striving though performance on relatively simple laboratory tasks. However, these experiments are the first to show that activating this motivation can influence performance on complex, real-world behaviors," said Greenberg, who was another co-author of the studies, along with UA psychology doctoral student Peter Helm. Coaches Already Tap Into Death While it may seem strange that something as dark as death could be motivating, coaches have in some ways intuitively known this for years, the researchers note. For example, a coach at halftime who says, 'You win this and they’ll remember you forever,' plays into the human desire for immortality, Zestcott said. And while the researchers looked specifically at basketball, they think the effects aren't limited by sport. "There's no reason why it shouldn't work in soccer as it does in basketball. We don’t believe this is sport-specific and we don't believe this is gender-specific," said Zestcott, a former student-athlete who played football as an undergraduate at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. Zestcott and Lifshin hope future research might replicate their studies in collegiate or professional athletes and look at other sports, as well as possible effects on team performance. They say that their findings might be applied in other areas as well. "This is a potentially untapped way to motivate athletes but also perhaps to motivate people in other realms," Zestcott said. "Outside of sports, we think that this has implications for a range of different performance-related tasks, like people's jobs, so we're excited about the future of this research." |
Tokyo, the world's most populated city, is also the safest according to a 2015 Safe Cities Index by The Economist. The index, which looks at digital security, health security, infrastructure safety and personal safety, ranks the Japanese capital ahead of Singapore second and Osaka third. European capitals Stockholm and Amsterdam complete the world's top five safest cities. Australia's most populous city, Sydney, just missed out the top five (by less than a point) coming in at number six in the Index. The habour city was followed by Zurich in seventh place and Toronto in eighth. The world's friendliest city and arguable Australia's "hippest" city, Melbourne, was named the ninth safest city in the world. Only one USA city made the top 10 in the Index; the city that never sleeps – New York – rounded off the top 10. On the other end of the scale, Jakarta, with an urban population of over 10 million ranked at the bottom of the list of 50 cities in the Index. Cities which also tipped the other end of the scale from 45th to 49th spots, respectively, are: Mexico City, Riyadh, Johannesburg, Ho Chi Minh City and Tehran. The Index noted that people living in Mexico City felt as safe as residents living in Zurich. By comparison, it noted in US cities people tend to be more fearful even though its cities ranked at the upper end of the Index. Tokyo scored the highest in the digital security category, but that category was dominated by US cities: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago making the category's top ten. By contrast European cities performed poorly, with London at 16, being the highest-ranking European city in the digital security, and Rome is the lowest, at 35. Tokyo, with a population of 38 million people according to the UN, proves that megacities can be safe cities. The five other megacities that made the top half of the Index include: Osaka, New York, Los Angeles, Paris and London. Apart from Buenos Aires, the remaining 14 megacities ranked in the lower half of the index are all in countries with emerging economies. These include Brazil, Russia, India, China, Mexico, Indonesia and Turkey. However, being among the safest cities in the world doesn't necessarily equate to being the best city in which to live. Tokyo was ranked at 16 when it comes to the question of the best place to live. That title goes to hockey-loving nation, Canada, with Toronto named the best place to live, followed by Montreal. European cities Stockholm and Amsterdam, the only two cities to make the top five in the overall Index, came in at three and four, with San Francisco rounding up the top five. Melbourne came in at six, with Sydney at nine after Zurich and Washington DC. Despite its gritty reputation, Chicago made the top 10 best places to live (at number 10). TOP 20 CITIES: SAFE CITIES INDEX 2015 1. Tokyo 2. Singapore 3. Osaka 4. Stockholm 5. Amsterdam 6. Sydney 7. Zurich 8. Toronto 9. Melbourne 10. New York 11. Hong Kong 12. San Francisco 13. Taipei 14. Montreal 15. Barcelona 16. Chicago 17. Los Angeles 18. London 19. Washington DC 20. Frankfurt Safe Cities Index 2015 is an Economist Intelligence Unit report. To read the full report and the complete Index ranking, click here. Traveller |
Sen. Sasse: Comey Firing 'Troubling' Amid 'Crisis Of Public Trust' Enlarge this image toggle caption Eric Thayer/Getty Images Eric Thayer/Getty Images When President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday, Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska was one of several Republicans in Washington voicing concern. As details unfolded throughout the week, Sasse, who sits on the Judiciary Committee, continued to call the timing of the firing "troubling," though he maintains there is not yet a need for an independent investigation or special prosecutor to look into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Of utmost importance, he tells NPR's Steve Inskeep, is shoring up the public's waning trust in American institutions. "The timing of this firing I think is very troubling because there's obviously an active investigation into the president's campaign and organization and associates," he says. "And I just wish the president would spend much more time tending to this crisis of public trust." Interview Highlights On what troubles him about the firing of Comey We have a crisis of public trust in this country that is much deeper than just the last four months or the last 18 months. We have an erosion of a shared narrative about what America is about. And we have the huge unpopularity of almost all of our governing institutions. That should trouble everybody. The FBI is a really important institution in American life. We believe in three separate but equal branches. But our founders distinguished between legislative functions and executive functions and judicial functions. And so investigative and prosecutorial functions are in the second branch and so ultimately they report up to the president, but the FBI director has a 10-year term for a reason. He or she is not supposed to be thought of as a Republican or a Democratic actor but as an impartial investigator who doesn't really report through a chain of command that is ultimately political. On future election meddling and the further erosion of trust We need to know a lot more about 2016, but the thing that keeps me up at night is 2018 and 2020. We know what the Russians are trying to do. We know that technology around [information operations] is getting better and better. Here's what I think comes next: I think you're going to start seeing data leaks in the 2018 and 2020 cycle that'll be Steve Inskeep's [as a fictional example of a candidate for office] credit card records. ... And it'll be 93 percent real stuff and 7 percent fabrications. And so it'll all be very plausible because you were in the city at that time and then you were away from work for this travel and you did X, Y and Z but then 7 percent of the credit card records will be "Why are you buying so much clothes at a women's clothing store in Chattanooga? That's weird, Steve. Your wife isn't in Chattanooga." And I think what's going to happen is you're going to have a drip-drip-drip erosion of trust in almost every public official and almost every public institution. We should be losing sleep about that now before it starts happening, because Russia is doing this stuff to their near neighbors now. And the technology is going to get better and better. On why there is not yet a need for an independent investigation I'm not calling for that at this time. I'm open to that deliberation as we go forward because I think that would be a vote of no confidence in the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation, and I think what the American people need is to have a restoration of their trust that some of our institutions can work. Morning Edition editor Miranda Kennedy and producer Phil Harrell and Web producer Heidi Glenn contributed to this story. |
The American National Policy Institute (NPI) is to hold its 2013 Leadership Conference in Washington on the 26th of October with the title "The Future of Identity". Speakers will include: ALAIN DE BENOIST TOMISLAV SUNIC PIERO SAN GIORGIO ALEX KURTAGIC JACK DONOVAN SAM DICKSON RICHARD SPENCER and more. The event will take place on Saturday, October 26th, 2013 at The Ronald Reagan Building, Washington, DC. Related events will be held on the evening of October 25 and morning of October 27. Previous NPI conferences have proved immensely successful and the NPI looks to be on the road to out-doing itself this year. For more details and to register now, visit NPIAmerica.org. Dickson's and Kurtagic's speeches from NPI's 2011 conference can be viewed here and here. Richard Spencer's video preview of the 2013 conference is available here. Content on the Traditional Britain Blog and Journal does not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Traditional Britain Group |
They’re among the most powerful tools for shedding new light on cancer growth and evolution, but mathematical models of the disease for years have faced an either/or stand-off. Though models have been developed that capture the spatial aspects of tumors, those models typically don’t study genetic changes. Non-spatial models, meanwhile, more accurately portray tumors’ evolution, but not their three-dimensional structure. A collaboration among Harvard, Edinburgh, and Johns Hopkins Universities including Martin Nowak, director of the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics and a professor of mathematics and of biology at Harvard, has now developed the first model of solid tumors that reflects both their three-dimensional shape and genetic evolution. The new model explains why cancer cells have a surprising number of genetic mutations in common, how driver mutations spread through the whole tumor, and how drug resistance evolves. The study is described in an Aug. 26 paper in Nature. “Previously, we and others have mostly used non-spatial models to study cancer evolution,” Nowak said. “But those models do not describe the spatial characteristics of solid tumors. Now, for the first time, we have a computational model that can do that.” A key insight of the new model, Nowak said, is the ability for cells to migrate locally. Spatial model of solid tumor evolution Images and videos generated by Bartek Waclaw. “Cellular mobility makes cancers grow fast, and it makes cancers homogenous in the sense that cancer cells share a common set of mutations. It is responsible for the rapid evolution of drug resistance,” Nowak said. “I further believe that the ability to form metastases, which is what actually kills patients, is a consequence of selection for local migration.” Nowak and colleagues, including Bartek Waclaw of the University of Edinburgh, who is the first author of the study, and Ivana Bozic of Harvard University and Bert Vogelstein of Johns Hopkins University, set out to improve on past models, because they were unable to answer critical questions about the spatial architecture of genetic evolution. “The majority of the mathematical models in the past counted the number of cells that have particular mutations, but not their spatial arrangement,” Nowak said. Understanding that spatial structure is important, he said, because it plays a key role in how tumors grow and evolve. In a spatial model cells divide only if they have the space to do so. This results in slow growth unless cells can migrate locally. “By giving cells the ability to migrate locally,” Nowak said, “individual cells can always find new space where they can divide. The result isn’t just faster tumor growth, but a model that helps explain why cancer cells share an unusually high number of genetic mutations, and how drug resistance can rapidly evolve in tumors. As they divide, all cells — both healthy and cancerous — accumulate mutations, Nowak said, and most are so called “passenger” mutations that have little effect on the cell. In cancer cells, however, approximately 5 percent are what scientists call “driver” mutations — changes that allow cells to divide faster or live longer. In addition to rapid tumor growth, those mutations carry some previous passenger mutations forward, and as a result cancer cells often have a surprising number of mutations in common. Similarly, drug resistance emerges when cells mutate to become resistant to a particular treatment. While targeted therapies wipe out nearly all other cells, the few resistant cells begin to quickly replicate, causing a relapse of the cancer. “This migration ability helps to explain how driver mutations are able to dominate a tumor, and also why targeted therapies fail within a few months as resistance evolves,” Nowak said. “So what we have is a computer model for solid tumors, and it’s this local migration that is of crucial importance.” “Our approach does not provide a miraculous cure for cancer,” said Waclaw. “However, it suggests possible ways of improving cancer therapy. One of them could be targeting cellular motility [local migration] and not just growth as standard therapies do.” |
Fascinated with what it takes to run a record label out of Lafayette, Indiana, I met with Max Campbell and Joe Yakamicki of Oi! the Boat Records to discuss the ins and outs of operating a punk label in flyover country. And then, inspired by our conversation, I spent the next two days researching the history of local punk music and fell down a Google vortex, finding myself alone on Saturday night reading old blog reviews of Tramlaw and Gadfly albums of yore. Oi! the Boat Records Maybe the first thing to know about how Oi! the Boat, a local independent record label specializing in punk, oi!, ska, and hardcore bands, and how it fits into the Lafayette music scene, is that Lafayette has a long history of nurturing a punk aesthetic. Early bands like Dow Jones & The Industrials (70s) and Gadfly (80s) experienced notoriety and brushes with fame, and later emo and hardcore bands like Walker, Summerfield, and Scab, among others, commanded numerous shows around town and around the Midwest in the 1990s. After 2000, bands like The Mans and The Sweet Sixteens carried the torch. Dozens of other excellent bands have come in and out of the scene, staffing and overlapping the same seasoned musicians in a Venn diagram of notable people looking to make good music. During the late 80s and early 90s, there were also venues almost exclusively dedicated to live music for young people that had a punk-heavy lineup. Semi-legal house parties were abound with great bands from the 80s through the present. Door #3 (90s) in downtown Lafayette hosted many, many local punk and metal shows, as well as University Church, the Wesley Foundation, the Vons parking lot, and Garcias Pizza (subsequently Roxys). Downtown Records, Tazzmas ROCK-O-RAMA, and Zoolegers hosted in later years. I asked Max about his favorite memories of the scene in his earliest days in Lafayette. I was personally always a huge fan of Chris Benedyks bands, he says. Indian Boys, the Places, the Mans. The shows were always an entertaining shit show that usually involved more than one bodily fluid and some nudity. The first time I came to play a house show in West Lafayette, my band Bastards Choir was playing after the Indian Boys, which was also the first time I met Chris. After watching an incomprehensible set, Chris punctuated it by vomiting on the microphone for their last song. They walked away from the gear at the same time the sound guy let us know that there was, in fact, only one microphone, but didn’t seem to understand why that was an issue. Joe and Max both assert that Lafayette is a hotbed of experienced musicians eager and willing to collaborate, despite the challenges of building and sustaining a live audience. Joe has taken the time to digitize some of the rarest recordings from some of the shorter-lived bands so others can enjoy them too : I still listen to The Turners demo (best thing ever recorded in Lafayette) pretty often. Eric and the Happy Thoughts LP still makes it to my turntable as often as a few times a week I liked checking out bands like Walker and the Smegmites when I first moved here and then, later, sharing bills with other local bands like Usurp Synapse. Nearly all of the best times happened during times when most people wouldnt be caught dead anywhere other than in front of the stage during the opening and headlining bands. Oi! the Boat was very much borne of this time and era. Both Max and Joe came to Lafayette separately as Purdue students, and both stayed in Lafayette because, as Max put it, the cost of living is low enough to extend yourself, to say, support a band tour, or to run an internationally-loved record label out of your home. Their assimilation into the local music scene was swift. During his first week as a Purdue student in 1995, Joe saw a flyer promoting a show at Door #3 and figured out how to walk from campus to downtown Lafayette to catch a live show. Max, already a performing musician during high school, played a show at University Church during his first week as a freshman at Purdue in 2004. Joe and Max met through mutual friends as members of noted acts like Bastards Choir, Hudson Falcons and The Brassknuckle Boys. Joe started Oi! the Boat as a digital distribution-only record label to release recordings for The Brassknuckle Boys, and helped distribute digital records for local acts such as the Green Room Rockers. Today Oi! the Boat Records has grown into an internationally recognized independent label with a back catalog of vinyl and digital releases from some thirty acts from all over the world. Their fans are rabid superfans, sporting tattoos of the ship- and anchor-heavy label art, and signing up to receive digital and vinyl copies of new releases months before the release date. Their fans range from famous musicians like Lars Frederiksen of Rancid, who also signed with Oi! for his newest project Old Firm Casuals, to crusty old school connoisseurs who like the curated band list and personal, DIY vibe. They are, in addition to co-owners of the label, bandmates in The Gestalts. They are joined by fellow Gestalts TJ Maxfield, Richie Brumbaugh, and Trent Downey. Whats the most important aspect of their label? They both agree: the individual attention paid to choosing the catalog of artists and packaging a quality product. Joe emphasizes the boutique aspect of running a label your power is in curating a consistent, quality sound. If you like one band, the chances of you enjoying the rest of the catalog are high. When you become a repeat customer, you might find some special goodies in the box. Just as each band carried by the label is hand-picked by the team, each order is hand-packed by the team. Joe says: I recognize names of customers, constantly. Often, we will run into people when we are at shows across the country and we will recognize their name because they have ordered from us a bunch of times. Many times, Ill remember the city they come from. We often include little notes in packages and a host of other things that a regular business probably doesnt do. We do it because of a genuine connection we have with our fans/customers, not as a marketing ploy. Our customers like what we love. Thats a pretty good basis for genuine connections. Contrary to mainstream wisdom in a digital age, they believe in the viability of vinyl. As a serious collector, you want to hold something in your hands, Joe said. And the sound [on a record] is superior to digital. The process of putting a recording on vinyl is complex, but its a more enjoyable result for the listener. He explains: We, in one way or another, become aware that a band is really good and available to release new material. The band records, or more often than not, has already recorded. We get the music off for lacquer mastering thats where the music is adjusted to work on vinyl and then etched in to a lacquer. The lacquer is sent for plating thats where it is electroplated with metal. The metal parts are used to make stampers that will be used to press the actual vinyl records. The first run will be 3 to 10 copies that are sent to us [for testing]. We evaluate them and either give the plant approval to proceed with the full run or we fix mixing/stamping/whatever errors and do it all again. Max and Joe also do most of the album artwork, or have it printed here locally. By pre-ordering a record, you get access to an immediate digital version of the tracks. They arent worried about stealing, Joe says, or about the tracks getting dispersed digitally before the records ship. Its part of the landscape now. People steal music. It doesnt bother us we see it as a promotional opportunity. Max spoke at length about what makes Oi! the Boat different from some of their peer labels: The prevailing ethos behind everything we do comes from a DIY work ethic that [we learned] growing up in the punk scene. Whether it be web design, art work, shipping and receiving, customer service, or physically assembling the package—we’ve always taken on the various elements of the business ourselves and figured out the best and most cost effective method of producing our product. Because of our DIY emphasis, our label occupies a niche location in the punk landscape. We don’t put out the nicest product, our packaging isn’t the fanciest, and we don’t often do extravagant color vinyl configurations—there’s tons of labels that do that and their products are great, but we have a far more hands-on approach. The quality and sound of the records we put out stands up to anything anyone does, but after that we go down a separate path, sourcing as much material as we can locally (we’ve gotten about 98% of our 7” sleeves printed at Instant Copy on Main St.), we like to get as much material made in the USA as we can, and we hand-assemble most of our records ourselves. This process is obviously costly in terms of the time it takes to do everything ourselves, but it’s usually not hard to round up a couple friends to help if we have a few beers to offer. The end result is that we end up offering a product that’s highly stylized like Splunk ServiceNow because of the culture that we’ve created to bring our product to life. People can get records from lots of labels, and we hope they do, but when someone orders a record from Oi! the Boat—they know that they’re getting something that was put together by a couple guys busting their ass to make it work in their free time. What are the lows? Max was pretty candid. The amount of time it takes to run this operation in addition to doing your day job can be a strain on your personal life. I asked Joe what, other than seed money and passion, a person needed to run a outfit like Oi! the Boat. His answer: Money and passion. The money is important for obvious reasons, he says, but theres nothing that will keep you going when youre packing records in a freezing warehouse at 2am and you have to be at your day job at 8am the next day, without a real passion for the music and the people. What are the highs? The highs run pretty high. Max: |
And in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, the Fed’s new vice chairwoman, Janet L. Yellen, defended the decision in broadly similar terms. “I’m having a hard time seeing where really robust growth can come from,” she said. “And I see inflation lingering around current levels for a long time.” Ms. Yellen said she was “not happy to see us caught up in a political debate." The comments by Mr. Dudley, who is also the vice chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee, which sets monetary policy, and by Ms. Yellen amounted to an unusual rebuttal, the first by top Fed officials, of criticism of its decision this month to pump money into the banking system. The plan is to spur the recovery by buying government securities to lower long-term interest rates. Kenneth A. Froot, who teaches international finance at Harvard Business School, said, “The Fed needs to get the word out more clearly” because of the politically volatile times. Mr. Froot added, “This is a very rare circumstance where the basic authority we vest in institutions like the Fed has, more than ever, been challenged,” by politicians and economists who are often identified with political parties. The bond markets have been increasingly uneasy about the Fed’s actions. On Monday, bond prices fell and yields jumped as a result of the concerns. The criticism has tended to fall along three lines. Some have accused the Fed of deliberately weakening the dollar to make American exports more competitive. Others fear the Fed’s decision could ignite inflation down the road. Still others say the policy will be ineffective absent additional fiscal stimulus. Fed officials were clearly unsettled by an opinion piece by Mr. Greenspan in The Financial Times on Thursday, at the start of meetings of the Group of 20 nations in Seoul, South Korea. Mr. Greenspan said the United States was “pursuing a policy of currency weakening” and increasing the risks of trade protectionism. In an open letter to Ben S. Bernanke, the Fed chairman, on Monday, a group of conservative economists, writers and investors urged that the Fed’s action “be reconsidered and discontinued,” arguing that the bond purchases “risk currency debasement and inflation.” The group included Michael J. Boskin, a former chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers; the historian Niall Ferguson; Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office; and the economist John B. Taylor, one of Mr. Bernanke’s most prominent critics. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Mr. Dudley did not single out any critic, but suggested that the criticisms were unfounded. “There is no long-term conflict between what the U.S. is trying to accomplish and what other countries are trying to accomplish,” Mr. Dudley said, echoing statements by President Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner. “A strong economic recovery in the U.S. is in the interests of the global economy.” While Mr. Dudley said the effect on the dollar was not a consideration, he acknowledged that when interest rates adjust, “oftentimes there will be consequences for the dollar.” He added, “We have seen some dollar weakness in this period, but it doesn’t seem to be unusual, given the changes that we’ve seen in interest rates in the U.S. compared to interest rates abroad.” Mr. Dudley rejected the idea that the Fed might be setting the stage for uncontrollable inflation in years to come. He said the Fed had tools for draining the bank reserves sitting on its balance sheet. Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. “We are very, very confident that those tools will be completely effective at keeping inflation in check,” he said. “We are completely willing to use those tools, when the time comes, to prevent an inflation problem. Higher inflation is not a way out. It is not a solution.” Mr. Dudley argued that the Fed’s efforts had their intended effect. Since August, when the Fed first hinted that it might take further steps to spur the recovery, stock prices have risen and long-term interest rates have fallen. That makes it easier for consumers to buy homes or refinance mortgages, and for businesses to borrow and invest. “You’ve seen a significant easing of financial conditions over that time period,” he said. “I have to believe that the expectation of a second large-scale asset purchase program was the primary driver of those changes.” Even so, Mr. Dudley cautioned, “One shouldn’t view this instrument as a panacea or a magic wand that’s going to make the economy recover rapidly.” He said the Fed’s action, known as quantitative easing, was “not going to be extremely powerful” but was nonetheless necessary to reduce the risk, however slim, of a double-dip recession. “It’s going to be a long and bumpy road to a strong and vigorous expansion, but this will be helpful rather than hurtful,” he said. Uncertainty about fiscal policy — whether the Bush-era tax cuts will be extended, and in the long term, how the nation will rein in its record deficits — has complicated the recovery, Mr. Dudley said. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Asked whether fiscal gridlock had forced the Fed to act, he said, “We’re going to worry about what we can worry about, which is monetary policy.” The Fed, he said, has to “take the world as it is.” Mr. Dudley, who joined the New York Fed in 2007 from Goldman Sachs, where he was the chief United States economist, also provided details about how the Fed’s outlook had evolved. “We were going into the year expecting the economy to pick up steam,” Mr. Dudley said. In the spring, “We were starting to see the glimmers” of a healthy recovery in private-sector employment, he said. But by the summer, growth began to stall; it is now estimated at an annualized rate of 2 percent. Inflation, already low, fell further. The economy was “vulnerable to a shock that could tip us into deflation,” he said. In recent speeches, Mr. Dudley and Charles L. Evans, president of the Chicago Fed, mentioned the possibility of allowing inflation to run higher in the future to make up for inflation’s being too low today, an approach known as price-level targeting. But in the interview, Mr. Dudley emphasized that he had not endorsed that approach. “The problem with a price-level target is that it’s difficult to explain what you’re doing in a way that doesn’t create larger anxiety about the long-term inflation target,” he said. “We clearly want people to understand that we are committed to price stability over the long run.” Mr. Dudley declined to discuss the deliberations of the committee, but acknowledged that the decision was not easy. “Reasonable people can disagree about how big the costs are versus how big the benefits are,” he said. “It’s completely reasonable to expect that not everyone is going to see it exactly the same way, because these policies have not been used much on a historical basis.” |
PNP Chief Ronald dela Rosa. File Photo CHR says security forces have primary mandate but may come in if there are violations of international humanitarian law. MANILA (UPDATED) - Probe killings by Abu Sayyaf too. This was the message of Philippine National Police (PNP) chief, Director General Ronald "Bato" Dela Rosa, to the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) as he urged the organization to investigate beyond the police force. Video courtesy of Henry Atuelan, DZMM "Gusto nila mag-imbestiga? Sige. We are open. Sige imbestigahan natin yan. Sana pati yung mga pinuputulan ng ulo ng Abu Sayyaf iimbestigahan rin nila yun,"he said. Dela Rosa made the comment in response to the commission's doubts over the death of alleged Abu Sayyaf member Abu Saad who supposedly tried to escape from custody and was shot in the middle of his forehead. Dela Rosa said the CHR should investigate why the Abu Sayyaf behead their victims. "Sabihan mo yung CHR, huwag lang mag-limit dito sa side natin...Bakit pinuputulan ng ulo ng mga Abu Sayyaf yung biktima nila? Isama sa imbestigasyon nila," he said. CHR spokesperson Jacqueline de Guia, meanwhile, said they can come in if there are violations of international humanitarian law. International humanitarian law, or the law of armed conflict, seeks to "limit the effects of armed conflict" for humanitarian reasons, "protects persons who are not or are no longer participating in the hostilities, and restricts the means and methods of warfare," as defined by the International Committee of the Red Cross. De Guia cited the January 2015 Mamasapano clash, where the CHR investigated the death of 44 police commandos, 18 Moros and several civilians, centering on the possible use of excessive force in the gunfight. "Terrorism or counter-insurgency falls under the mandate of security forces of the state such as the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) and the PNP (Philippine National Police), but if there are violations of international humanitarian law, the CHR conducts investigations as it did in Mamasapano," De Guia told ABS-CBN News. She said that the ASG "must also observe international humanitarian law" as "a non-state actor." The Abu Sayyaf, an extremist group known to be hiding in the marshlands of Mindanao, are known for beheading its kidnap victims who fail to pay ransom. A word war between Dela Rosa and the CHR ensued earlier this month following the commission's discovery of a hidden jail cell in a police station in Tondo. Dela Rosa blasted the commission and told them to conduct surprise visits to stations on a daily visit and not just ahead of the country's hosting of the ASEAN summit. He, however, later on apologized for his remarks. The Commission on Human Rights has the power to investigate human rights violations involving civil and political rights and exercise visitorial power over jails, prisons, or detention facilities, according to its mandate. -with a report from Jeff Canoy, ABS-CBN News |
One Ukrainian soldier has been killed and four wounded in attacks over the past 24 hours by Russia-backed separatists in the east of the country. Speaking to reporters on July 1, military spokesman Andriy Lysenko did not disclose further details on the fresh casualties. The conflict in eastern Ukraine has killed more than 9,300 people since April 2014 and NATO warned last week that the internationally monitored cease-fire there was barely holding. Under the cease-fire agreement reached last year in Minsk, the Belarusian capital, both the separatists and Ukrainian government forces pledged to pull back heavy weaponry as well as take other steps toward a peace settlement. In a statement on June 29, Ivan Simonovic, head of the UN Human Rights chief's office in New York, warned of a possible "reescalation of wide-scale hostilities if urgent action is not taken to separate sides and remove heavy weaponry." Based on reporting by Interfax and AP |
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