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President Obama warns in a new interview of a future in which a U.S. president could engage in perpetual covert wars “all over the world.” But he claims that the accountability and transparency measures he is instituting will make that less likely. In the interview, with New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait, Obama expressed agreement with one of the most salient critiques of his drone war, that it risks creating “institutional comfort and inertia with what looks like a pretty antiseptic way of disposing of enemies.” Obama explained that he had looked at “the way in which the number of drone strikes was going up and the routineness with which, early in my presidency, you were seeing both DOD and CIA and our intelligence teams think about this.” He continued: “And it troubled me, because I think you could see, over the horizon, a situation in which, without Congress showing much interest in restraining actions with authorizations that were written really broadly, you end up with a president who can carry on perpetual wars all over the world, and a lot of them covert, without any accountability or democratic debate.” [See update below, in which the White House press secretary says Obama was actually talking about how he felt before he instituted his reforms.] The president expressed a sense of urgency to rein in these powers that seems particularly appropriate given that both candidates for the White House have indicated receptiveness to intensifying the use of military force abroad, with Donald Trump going so far as expressing openness to killing the families of suspected terrorists. “By the time I leave here, the American people are going to have a better sense of what their president is doing,” Obama said. “Their president is going to have to be more accountable than he or she otherwise would have been. The world, I think, will have a better sense of what we’re trying to do and what we stand for. And I think all of that will serve the American people well in the future.” But the one existing transparency measure Obama touts as an example in the interview — the administration’s release of its tally on civilian casualties from drone strikes in Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia — was viewed by many in the human rights community as a farce, largely because it pointed to a death toll far lower than outside observer tallies. The release, made public on the Friday afternoon of Fourth of July weekend, reported that between 64 and 116 civilians were killed during Obama’s two terms. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, by comparison, has estimated that between 492 and 1,077 civilians have been killed by drone strikes during the eight years of Obama’s presidency. And critical questions about those operations remain unanswered, such as the circumstances that led to the death of Momina Bibi, a 68-year-old Pakistani grandmother killed in an October 2012 airstrike; or the reason for the attack that took the life of Salim bin Ahmed Ali Jaber, an anti-al Qaeda imam in Yemen a month earlier; or the full story of how American forces came to target a wedding convoy, also in Yemen, a year later, killing 12 people. Those questions remain unanswered, in part because when the administration released the civilian casualty report, it did so without detailing a single specific incident in which the deaths of civilians were confirmed — thus foreclosing any possibility for follow up or public accountability for those operations. (See The Intercept’s series The Drone Papers describing the secret military documents that exposed the inner workings of Obama’s drone wars.) What’s more, the alarming changes that Obama describes as over the horizon are already here. “What’s so interesting is that President Obama acknowledges this problem — that future presidents will be empowered to kill globally, and in secret. What he doesn’t acknowledge is how much of a role his administration had in making that a bizarre normal,” Naureen Shah, director of national security and human rights at Amnesty International, told The Intercept. “There is something so strange about the person who many would say is very responsible for this situation actually acknowledging it and saying he tried to plan for it,” Shah added. “What we’ll be left with from the Obama administration is a far more dangerous precedent of secret, global killings than what we started with.” From the very beginning of his presidency, Obama tightly embraced legal arguments, including the “state secrets privilege,” to deflect inquiries into the government’s use of lethal force in foreign countries; he fought vigorously for years to keep his rationale for assassinating an American citizen secret; he never explained how the U.S. came to kill that same American citizen’s 16-year-old son; and he has never once forced his premier intelligence agency to publicly answer for the deaths of non-Western civilians — of which there have been many — during an eight-year covert bombing campaign. In the New York magazine interview, Obama gave human rights groups and “the left” credit for pushing him on issues of transparency in targeted killing — but at the same time indicated they had little impact on his own decisions. “I’m glad the left pushes me on this,” Obama said. “I’ve said to my staff and I’ve said to my joint chiefs, I’ve said in the Situation Room: I don’t ever want to get to the point where we’re that comfortable with killing. It’s not why I wanted to be president, to kill people.” “Do I think that the critiques are fair or fully informed?” the president went on to say. “Not always. Sometimes they are. Much of the time they’re not. To give you the most basic example: People, I think, don’t always recognize the degree to which the civilian-casualty rate, or the rate at which innocents are killed, in these precision strikes is significantly lower than what happens in a conventional war.” While the Obama administration characterizes drones as a surgically precise weapon, the facts don’t always support that conclusion. In 2013, for example, research by Larry Lewis, a former research scientist at the Center for Naval Analysis, found that drone strikes in Afghanistan were 10 times more likely to kill civilians than piloted airstrikes. Obama’s critique of Congress — that it doesn’t seem to care enough to rein in the drone program — is both on point and ironic, coming from him. Far from encouraging Congress to weigh in, the Obama administration has actively fought Congress’s attempts to even get basic information about drone strikes. The White House, for instance, refused to show the legal memos authorizing the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki to Congress until 2014, when Obama nominated the memos’ author to become a federal judge, and a group of senators threatened to hold up the confirmation until they could read the memos. Chris Anders of the American Civil Liberties Union said he was not impressed by Obama’s own sense of restraint. “The president has left behind very broad claims of executive authority to order lethal strikes away from traditional battlefields. Even if he’s instituted some processes, and some minor levels of transparency — such as aggregate levels of casualties — it is still a very broad power with almost no meaningful checks on it.” Update: 6:15 p.m. ET White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest on Monday told reporters that Obama’s comments about a future president potentially waging perpetual wars actually referred to a state of affairs in the past, which he has since averted. “He was talking about the situation he inherited,” Earnest said. “In the early days of the administration, he was considering the tools that had been made available to him, and considering the way in which they were being used, and he was considering how, over the horizon, was a scenario in which there would not be sufficient transparency in place to contain this extraordinary authority that, based on new technology, could be wielded by the president of the United States.” Earnest insisted that “what the president and his team have steadily worked to do is to try to impose greater transparency and to impose constraints that would address those concerns that the president had from his earliest days in office.” But rather than wind down a Bush-era program, Obama dramatically escalated the pace of drone warfare, conducting nearly nine times the number of strikes as his predecessor. Obama’s moves toward increased transparency and accountability are, as mentioned above, limited. And Congress has neither conducted oversight nor passed legislation that would restrain a future president. And as Obama himself said in the interview, he has not arrived at “a perfect solution.” He told New York magazine that the country still needs to find a balance between “not elevating every terrorist attack into a full-blown war” and “pretending as if we can just take shots wherever we want, whenever we want, and not be answerable to anybody. What I’ve tried to do is to move the needle in the right direction, to set some trends in the right direction. But there’s gonna be a lot more work to do.” |
By Bradley Depew We are not providing an effective outlet for employees’ philanthropic energy, and this is cause for concern. Employees want to give, and the statistics show that they are giving in great numbers and to great effect. Companies have long recognized the value of providing employees with opportunities to make donations to charitable organizations through the workplace. In many cases, companies will even match employee donations up to a certain amount (for example, up to $10,000 per year). But not enough giving is happening through the workplace. Around 88 percent of American households give to charity each year, and that giving accounts for nearly 75 percent of all charitable donations. That works out to $227 billion given by individuals in 2012. Yet, workplace giving only amounts to around $5 billion each year. More worryingly, average participation in employee giving programs has fallen from 41 percent in 2006 to 33 percent in 2012. And an estimated $10 billion is left on the table every year because employees do not take advantage of company matching programs. So, for every dollar funneled to charity through workplace giving programs, two dollars are being left on the table. Millennials bring new expectations These statistics should alarm us. What they tell us is—despite employees’ clear interest in giving—we are failing when it comes to offering employees meaningful giving experiences through the workplace. What’s more, workplace giving programs that do not inspire employees to participate are a strategic failure: money left on the table represents a missed opportunity to build relationships within our communities. If we don’t take steps to increase engagement and participation, then these problems are likely to get worse as Millennials increasingly make their presence felt in the workforce. Millennials are bringing new expectations to giving, including the expectation that their giving will take place online. They want websites that are sleek and look contemporary, they want charities to keep them informed with stories about successful projects and programs, and they want to be able to quickly and easily connect and share the impact of their contributions with friends and colleagues. If workplace giving does not offer them that experience, they will simply find it somewhere else online. Improving accessibility Too many companies bury employee giving opportunities in obscure corners of their intranet—somewhere between the information on changing insurance providers and updating emergency contact information. The result is that too many employees are not even aware of the opportunities that are available to them. Clearly, employees are not going to participate in workplace giving programs if they do not know that those programs exist, or if they don’t know how to find them. Millennial employees simply have no patience for limited accessibility. They grew up with smartphones and laptops: they are accustomed to constant connectivity, and they expect a wealth of information at their fingertips. Why would they wade into the murky backwoods of the company intranet when they could pull out their phones and find accessible, enjoyable giving opportunities within seconds? If finding workplace giving opportunities is not as easy as a quick search on Google or Wikipedia, then Millennials are not going to bother. Promoting the spread of information Employees know what issues matter most to them, but they may not know which nonprofits are working in those issue areas, much less which nonprofits are doing the best work. We know that giving employees more options for which charities they can support through workplace giving leads to an increased rate of participation in workplace giving programs and an increase in the amount raised. But we risk overwhelming employees by presenting them with too many options and not enough information about these options. Millennials are more interested in supporting causes than in supporting specific organizations, and they want to see concrete evidence that their contributions are making an impact. They are only going to be attracted to workplace giving programs if those programs help them to feel like informed, effective donors to the causes that matter most to them. That means that workplace giving programs will need to provide Millennial employees with a wide range of information about which charities are out there and what kinds of results they are producing. Millennials want transparency about what nonprofits are doing and how donations are used. Empowering employees to improve the world The folks behind services like Bright Funds or Give Something are beginning to see the need for sleek, intuitive platforms that put informed, high-impact giving at people’s fingertips. These platforms are designed to take the confusion and frustration out of the process of donating to charity by connecting people with opportunities to engage in informed, effective giving that produces tangible results. They do this by analyzing nonprofits to determine which ones are doing high-impact work, and by providing evidence of results in the form of regular updates from these high-impact nonprofits. This means when users give through these platforms, they do so with confidence that they are making a real impact and improving lives. That confidence is empowering. To realize the potential of workplace giving, we need to make it about offering employees this feeling of confidence and empowerment. Company matching is one way to do this, because it enables employees to put more funding in the hands of their favorite nonprofits than they would be able to do on their own. But the $10 billion left on the table every year shows that company matching is not enough. Empowering employees is also about making sure that they know exactly what workplace giving opportunities they have available to them. And perhaps more importantly, empowering employees is about making them feel like giving through the workplace will enable them to locate and donate to the nonprofits doing the best work in the issue areas that matter most to them. This provides them with a reason to give through the workplace rather than on their own. Companies give employees the opportunity to select from among the highest-performing 401Ks. This empowers employees to maximize the return on their investments. Employees should also be given the opportunity to select from among the most effective nonprofits. After all, isn’t giving to charity making an investment in a better world? We owe it to our employees, our communities, and the world to help workplace giving programs fulfill their potential. Bradley Depew is a seasoned writer for Bright Funds, an innovative platform that works to change the way we think about giving. For more information visit brightfunds.org. [image credit: windwaerts, Flickr] |
Loner who built network of tunnels out of rubbish in his home dies 'after getting lost in labyrinth' An eccentric loner is believed to have died of thirst after becoming trapped in a bizarre and intricate network of tunnels built from rubbish in his home. Investigators believe the labyrinth was so complicated that Gordon Stewart, 74, may have become lost inside it. It is thought he may have died as a result of dehydration, after becoming unable to find his way out of the stinking mass. Neighbours had become concerned that they had not seen him for several days and raised the alarm. Gordon Stewart is believed to have died of dehydration after becoming trapped in tunnels built from rubbish in his Buckinghamshire home According to witnesses, the officers were faced with mounds of foul-smelling garbage which he had used to construct tunnels around his home. Police called in a specialist diving team last Friday afternoon because the smell from the house in Broughton, Buckinghamshire, was so overpowering. They discovered a confusing system of tunnels networking around the interior of the building, with Mr Stewart lying dead inside. Locals say Mr Stewart, who wore a ponytail, was often spotted riding his bike around the streets. Officers discovered him entombed in his own creation, built from discarded carrier bags, boxes, old furniture and other assorted junk. Foul-smelling: Mr Stewart's house was filled with rubbish One neighbour, who asked not to be named, said: 'He was slightly eccentric, but very clever. He was just a collector. He came home with a load of cardboard boxes and lived in his own world.' A second described his death as a 'tragedy'. Neighbours said Mr Stewart's home had been accumulating rubbish for at least 10 years. This week, plastic bags were clearly seen piled across his front window, while outside further bags, broken furniture, computer parts and even an old TV set spilled over his front lawn. A car dating back to the 1950s stands in the garage believed to have been left untouched for years as garbage built up around it. A spokesman from Thames Valley Police, said: 'Police were called on Friday at 12.26pm by a member of public who was concerned for welfare of a resident on Narbeth Drive. 'Police forced entry where they found a man's body. There are no suspicious circumstances.' It is believed Mr Stewart lived alone and has no next of kin. A post mortem examination is due to be carried out at a later date. |
Should you rely on a certificate? Sometimes you can't believe everything you read. Do You Need an Appraisal? Jewelry Appraisal If you are making a major purchase and you feel unsure, you may want to have a gemstone independently appraised to double-check that it is as represented. An appraisal is an estimate of a gemstone's value by a third party. But ask yourself: why are you buying from a store that you don't trust? Maybe the answer is to go to a well-established jeweler who will be there if you have any problem. Most of the problems consumers have with fine jewelry or gemstone purchases are a result of trying to get something for less than it is worth. This is particularly true with purchases made on vacation, "at the mine," or "on the border." Would you buy on the street in New York City? Buying on the street in Rangoon (Yangon) will probably have the same result. In some cases, an appraisal is helpful in building your confidence in the buying decision. It can also be helpful if you are considering selling an item or want to insure your jewelry. However, be aware that the appraisal industry is not regulated, so the appraiser is just giving you an opinion about value which may or may not be correct. Some appraisers are very skilled and reputable but, because anyone can call themselves an appraiser, some unfortunately are not. Exercise extreme caution with appraisers who have a commercial interest in the value they assign to the piece. A Certificate is not a Guarantee Grading Certificate In some countries, in particular Japan, all gemstones are sold with a laboratory certificate. A certificate or identification report confirms the gemstone variety and natural origin of the stones. In some countries, a certificate may also include information about where the gemstone was mined, based on a study of its inclusions. But although certificates from a major laboratory provide support for your purchase, in many countries, including the United States, there is no official regulation of who can offer a certificate. Some certificates are reliable and some are just fancy letterhead with the signature of some unknown person. Even certificates from reputable labs can be forged. Certificates are a common feature to gemstone investment scams, especially common in sales pitches over the telephone or, increasingly, on the Internet, so be careful about accepting them as some kind of guarantee. Never buy a gemstone in a sealed package and never buy a gemstone by cert alone, over the telephone, as an investment. Gemstones are not a liquid investment and you should be very wary of anyone who sells them as if they were a security. Offers to repurchase the portfolio whenever you want to sell will not do you much good if the firm has disappeared. So buy a beautiful gemstone, do not buy a piece of paper. Gemstones do store wealth and are an excellent way to pass down something fine and valuable to the next generation, but do not think of them as an investment for the future: enjoy them today as well! |
When will Marvel’s The Punisher be on Netflix? When will Marvel’s The Punisher be on Netflix? by Bryce Olin Peaky Blinders Season 3 will soon be available to stream on Netflix. Tommy Shelby and Alfie Solomons will be back with new episodes of the BBC crime drama Peaky Blinders with Season 3 available to stream on Netflix on May 31. The news was first reported by Deadline. Peaky Blinders Season 3 premieres on BBC2 in the U.K. on May 5, 2016. Cillian Murphy stars as Shelby, the leader of the Peaky Blinders gang in Birmingham, England after the events of World War I. He is willing to do whatever it takes to rise to prominence and see the Shelby family empire grow. He is a former Sergeant in the military and experiences nightmares and has a reputation for being as dangerous as he is ambitious. Tom Hardy plays Alfie Solomons, the leader of the Jewish gang in Camden Town and uses his bakery as a front for a distillery. He’s brilliant but wildly unpredictable and violent, which is what I want Tom Hardy to be in every role! Sam Neill, Helen McCrory, Noah Taylor, Paul Anderson, Iddo Goldberg, Annabelle Willis, Charlotte Riley, Joe Cole, Sophie Rundle, Ned Dennehy, Aimee-Ffion Edwards and Tony Pitts also star in the series. The series was created and written by Steven Knight. He also serves as an executive producer alongside Caryn Mandabach, Greg Brenman, Jamie Glazebrook and Frith Tiplady. Peaky Blinders was nominated for Best Drama Series at the 2015 BAFTA Awards. The first two seasons are available to stream on Netflix. Each series is only six episodes long so if you haven’t seen the show before now is a perfect time to catch up on one of the most popular British shows on Netflix before Season 3 on May 29. Peaky Blinders also ranks on our list of the 50 best crime TV shows on Netflix, so check out how high it ranks and make sure you get caught up with the crime drama in time for Peaky Blinders Season 3 on Netflix. |
I side with Andrew Sullivan in his denunciation of torture, but I contest his attempt to define modern torture as a historical aberration, as if it weren’t common behavior for the United States until George W. Bush rode into Washington. Sullivan says modern torture advocates are “junking the entire history of Western jurisprudence and the laws of war,” later condemning their “radical assault on one of the central pillars of our civilization.” The “pillars of our civilization” sit on land stolen from the natives, who we tortured and exterminated, and they were constructed by African slaves, who we whipped and murdered. This was the situation in America from 1492-1865. At what point, exactly, do we start the clock on Western Civilization? At the turn of the 20th century, “United States soldiers were torturing Filipinos with water” in a war planners thought “might serve as an effective ‘stepping stone'” to controlling China’s growing markets. In the latter half of the same century, the U.S. was supporting (PDF) Ferdinand Marcos, a Filipino head of state notorious for … you guessed it … torture. In fairness, torture practices were more radical under Bush, in the sense that his reign saw them “admitted into the mainstream,” (as Sullivan puts it). This doesn’t mean that torture wasn’t widely practiced before, only that influential people didn’t advocate it in public. And, crucially, it wasn’t performed by American soldiers. Instead, we paid others to do it for us. The result, however, is the same. Sullivan tries to pin torture on the current G.O.P., but the historical narrative shows us that it’s a long-standing practice. A return to the pre-Bush norm – where torture is illegal but practiced anyway – cannot be the answer. |
You must sign in or register to continue reading content. MARYSVILLE – Three new auto dealerships are planning to open along Smokey Point Boulevard in north Marysville. A new Toyota dealership is expected to apply for a building permit for a lot with 46,512-square-feet for the store and other buildings within the next week, said Planning Director Dave Koenig. “The idea is when we met with them they wanted to start construction this year,” Koenig said. “They purchased the property at the end of 2016.” That dealership is the furthest along of the new stores. The other two are Rairdon’s Chrysler-Dodge and Campbell Nelson Nissan. All three have submitted initial paperwork for the lots and are expected to sell new vehicles, Koenig said. There are several dealerships already operating along that stretch of Smokey Point Boulevard, including Honda of Marysville and Marysville Ford. And Rairdon’s currently owns a dealership just a couple of blocks away in Arlington. The area is attractive, because Marysville has secured funding to build a new interchange at 156th Street NE. That project is several years in the future, Koenig said. The Toyota dealership is planned to be built on 6 acres at 16120 Smokey Point Boulevard just south of the Harley Davidson dealership. The dealership is expected to be able to display 267 vehicles. Rairdon’s is planned on 7 acres at 16320 Smokey Point Blvd. Initial plans call for the store to be 37,759 square feet. The dealership hasn’t announced how many stalls would be at the lot. Campbell Nelson is planning to build its lot in several phases. The land hasn’t been assigned an address, but it’s planned on 5 acres on the east side of Smokey Point Boulevard. The store portion is expected to be 30,000-square-feet. The car dealerships will bring more jobs to the community, and also boost the city’s sales tax revenues. Just to the south of this area, the now vacant Kmart store is expected to get a new tenant. The Marysville location was the chain’s last store in Snohomish County when it closed last summer. Oregon-based chain Coastal Farm and Ranch has filed permits to take over the 87,406-square-foot store on State Avenue. Smokey Point Boulevard becomes State Avenue near 140th Street NE. Coastal Farm and Ranch sells pet and livestock supplies, clothes like work wear and footwear, outdoor supplies such as lawn and garden, heating and cooling systems, safes, fencing, tools, automotive and farm supplies. The company has 15 stores in Washington and Oregon, with the closest one in Mount Vernon, according to its website. At Monday’s City Council meeting, Mayor Jon Nehring, various council members and city staff also talked about a recent gathering of builders and developers. “Marysville’s the place to be,” Nehring said. “There’s not much else available. Finding land to the south is rare.” He added that more economic diversity to this region could be coming soon. “The road we’ve been on the past few years is starting to pave,” he said. Public Works Director Kevin Nielsen added that, “Developers can’t believe how much is going on in the city of Marysville.” The Marysville Globe contributed to this report. |
A Republican recount official involved in the Newport News race that was decided by one vote had second thoughts about a ballot that wasn't counted. Republicans hope to force a tie in the race in a bid to maintain their majority in the House of Delegates. WASHINGTON — A three-judge panel declared a tie in a Newport News House of Delegates race one day after the Democrat had declared victory. The tie decision – 11,608 votes – would put the 94th District race in the hands of the State Board of Elections, who would draw lots to determine the winner. The race could also decide the balance of power in the House. Shelly Simonds’ apparent win Tuesday by a single vote would have given Democrats enough seats — 50 — to challenge Republicans for control of the chamber. After the Nov. 7 election results, Republicans appeared to maintain their majority 51-49. That all changed again Wednesday morning when the judges agreed to count a vote for Yancey from a ballot that recount officials decided not to count, neither for Simonds nor for incumbent Del. David Yancey. The voter had filled in bubbles for both candidates but put a slash through Simonds’ name. Republicans argued that the voter had intended to pick Yancey because he or she had voted for the Republican candidates in other races on the ballot. Lawyers for Yancey told the three-judge panel that a Republican-appointed recount official had second thoughts overnight about a ballot that was not counted Tuesday. The recount was one of four that followed the November election. Two others were scheduled this week and a recount in Fairfax and Prince William counties confirmed the re-election of Del. Tim Hugo. According to a statement from Republican House leaders, the State Board of Elections will set a public meeting to determine the winner. That drawing — such as picking a name out of a hat — was not expected to happen Wednesday. No date has been set. “Once the (recount) court has issued a final order, we can better evaluate what next steps are necessary for the State Board of Elections or Department of Elections to take,” said Edgardo Cortes, commissioner of the Department of Elections. James Alcorn, elections board chair, tweeted that “we should find a nice hat for the drawing.” A reporter from the Virginian-Pilot tweeted a photo of the ballot: BREAKING: We obtained the actual ballot submitted to the court. Dissect away.https://t.co/cQneTM0tUk pic.twitter.com/Eeq4mEOtd9 — Jordan Pascale (@JWPascale) December 20, 2017 A Democratic wave in November flipped more than a dozen seats blue and severely eroded the power of Republicans, who have dominated the House for 20 years. A 50-50 tie in the House would force the two parties to broker a power-sharing deal – something that hasn’t happened since the late 1990s. Like WTOP on Facebook and follow @WTOP on Twitter to engage in conversation about this article and others. © 2017 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. |
The police department in Birmingham, Ala. has seen a 71% drop in citizen complaints -- and a 38% drop in use of force by officers -- since deploying 319 body cameras two months ago. The cameras have been so effective that the department plans to buy another 300 cameras from Taser International. "The chief's goal is to get a camera on everybody who wears a uniform," said Capt. William Brewer, who heads up Birmingham Police Department's Technology Division. [ Further reading: How to use OneDrive in Windows 10 to sync and share files ] Birmingham is among a growing number of police departments that are rolling out body cameras, spurred in large part by public pressure in the wake of a series of controversial police shootings of civilians. That pressure first began to mount nationally last year in the wake of the shooting death of Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Mo. Several other high-profile police shootings since Ferguson have added fuel to the body camera fire. Even so, there's been little focus on the larger ecosystem needed to make the cameras useful, including potentially high storage costs -- petabytes of video are now being uploaded annually -- and file management concerns. In Birmingham, for instance, the the video cameras themselves cost about $180,000, but the department's total outlay for a five-year contract with Taser will be $889,000. That's because the pact not only includes a hardware replacement warranty, but the necessary cloud storage and file management service to deal with terabytes of content the cameras are producing. The Birmingham police initially purchased 5TB of online storage on Evidence.com, Taser's file management cloud, which is built on Amazon's Web Service (AWS) platform. In just two months, however, the department has already used 1.5TB of its allotment -- and it's on track to exceed the 5TB limit in about six months. "That's the biggest problem with this system...the cost of the storage," Brewer said. "They do offer unlimited storage, but it's quite costly -- well above $1 million for the package we had looked at." Traditionally, police departments saved dash camera footage and other videos on CDs stored away in an evidence room or on an onsite server. But with the increasing use of body cameras, dashboard cams and cameras within the police department itself, the amount of video content now being generated is far more difficult to manage locally. The cameras are just the start Body cameras are the fastest growing segment of the police video camera business. The two largest police body camera manufacturers today -- Taser and VieVu -- say they've shipped devices to 41% of the nation's 18,000 police departments. VieVu VieVu's LE3 body camera mounts to an officer's vest or shirt. But it's not the cameras that generate the most money. Glenn Mattson, who follows Taser as an equity analyst for Ladenburg Thalmann, said the company makes a far bigger profit on its storage service than hardware. Last year, Taser's gross profit margins on hardware were 15.6%; the gross margins for video storage were 51%, Mattson said. "There's no contest. They don't care about making money on the cameras," Mattson said. "If they can just break even on them, it's fine, because they're going to create this high margin stream of revenue on the video side." Mattson believes that, on average, police departments pay Taser from $25 to $30 per officer per month right now. But he expects that to rise, and compared the police video storage business to cable subscription services. While the initial cable subscription is usually a great deal, once new services are added, rates climb. Mattson believes Taser's plan is to add features so it can become a police department's default system for every kind of digital evidence, including photos, police reports and forensics data. The cost of data storage has forced the Birmingham Police Department to make hard decisions when it comes to deleting videos to free up space. Since Alabama records retention laws haven't caught up with video technology, police departments are left to determine their own policies. Taser International Taser's two camera models, the Axon Body, a self-contained unit worn on a vest or shirt, and the Axon Flex, which can be affixed to an officers cap or glasses. Birmingham has come to a consensus with its district attorney on a general retention period of two years, but it's still "battling" with its own legal department. "We're still trying to make sure we don't delete them in violation of Alabama records retention laws," Brewer said. "Unfortunately, our state, along with probably many other states, has not caught up yet in dealing with this type of technology." How long police departments store video varies widely depending on local policies. But in some cases, such as a murder investigation, the video will need to be stored forever. Brewer said his department will likely have to extend the video retention period from two to two-and-a-half years, not because of criminal investigations, but because of lawsuits and civil litigation. "In our state, [citizens] have up to two years to file a lawsuit. So we need to realistically keep everything two-and-a-half years to give us time to be notified of an impending suit," he said. "They're always wanting that video after it's rolled off the server." A sales chart 'like a hockey stick' Taser, which got its start in the law-enforcement video business by affixing cameras to the company's handheld electroshock weapons, has seen brisk body camera sales. The company ships about 7,000 camera a quarter, according to Mattson. In all, about 35,000 have been shipped to date, he said. As of the first quarter of this year, more than a petabyte (one million gigabytes) of police video has been uploaded to Taser's Evidence.com service, according to Taser spokesman Steve Tuttle. "A video is uploaded every 2.9 seconds," Tuttle said. In the second quarter of this year, Taser's Axon camera and Evidence.com cloud storage service saw $30.6 million in sales, up 170% compared to a year ago, according to the company's earnings call. "You can see it's growing like a hockey stick," Mattson said about Taser, which now has 26 major cities on its Evidence.com platform. Seattle-based VieVu, which was acquired earlier this year by police and military supplier Safariland Group, was the first to introduce a police body camera. The privately-held company recently introduced its hosted evidence management service called VERIPATROL, which is based on Microsoft's Azure Government cloud platform. The VERIPATROL evidence management service comes in three iterations: an onsite software model, a fully hosted cloud model or a hybrid of the two. VieVu CEO Steve Ward said he doesn't know how exactly many videos have been stored to date on the VERIPATROL service. But "it's in the millions." For example, VieVu's largest client, the Oakland, Calif. police department, has already stored one million police videos in the five years its officers have been using VieVu's body cameras. "Over the last eight to 10 months, we've seen a dramatic shift in police agencies realizing, 'We're not IT shops. We need to make a shift to the cloud,'" Ward said. |
HILLSBORO -- After 58 days in jail as an accused rapist, Mohamed M. Garare, 19, stood outside in the bright sunshine this afternoon a free man. But the Beaverton teen said his sudden freedom didn't make up for two months lost due to unsupported accusations, which has shaken the Kenya native's faith in American justice. "You can never get time back," he said. "Time is precious, and I wasted precious time." Garare's trial was scheduled to begin Wednesday morning, but instead Chief Deputy District Attorney Rob Bletko dismissed the charges. Garare's accuser was not a reliable source, he told the judge. Bletko said despite the teen's time in jail, the system worked in keeping Garare from a wrongful conviction. As a prosecutor, Bletko said, "if you don't believe the defendant is guilty, you don't take that defendant to trial." And in this case, he said, "I don't believe he committed this crime." Bletko said the 22-year-old Seaside woman who told police she was sexually assaulted and cut with a razor didn't show up to court Wednesday, nor could she be found last week when detectives needed to serve her with a subpoena. When authorities finally tracked her down and interviewed her on Tuesday, she took a break to smoke a cigarette and never returned. On May 12, the woman told police she was looking for a ride near the Beaverton Transit Center back to the coast when she willingly got into a vehicle and was taken to Garare's apartment. Once there, the woman said Garare raped and cut her with some type of blade. Beaverton Police Detective Pam Yazzolino said the woman reported the alleged attack after she escaped from the home and ran to a local business. The woman was examined, Bletko said, and she did have lacerations on her face. However, forensic tests revealed the only blood found in Garare's apartment wasn't hers but Garare's. The victim's lack of cooperation and a lack of any forensic evidence led Bletko to question Garare's guilt, he said. Additionally, Garare took two polygraph tests – one for his attorney and one for the prosecution – and he passed both. While polygraph test results cannot be submitted as evidence in court, the results caused Bletko to further question the case, he said. Before his May 12 arrest, Garare was attending community college part-time, working at a new job and supporting himself on his own in his first apartment. He was living the life his family hoped for when they moved to the United States from Kenya in late 2000. The biggest reason for the move, Garare said, was a polio-related surgery he needed for his left leg. The surgery worked, and Garare became acclimated to a new country, learning fluent English before entering Aloha High School. "I had to learn quickly," he said. "I'm a people person." In the months since his arrest, Garare has lost his job, his apartment and a few friends, said his brother, Abdi Garare. Garare said he and his family's faith in the justice system and the opportunities this country has to offer has been shaken. "I believed in the government," he said. "But I lost that respect." Jail wasn't a kind place for an alleged rapist, Garare said. Many inmates wanted nothing to do with him. Convicted felons complained about sharing space with an alleged rapist. One man even punched him in the face, he said. In high school, Garare said, he was the friendly class clown. An outgoing teen, Garare said being treated as an outcast made his time in jail even lonelier. But Garare said the worst result of the allegations has been the damage to his reputation. When he discovered his 2-year-old niece had seen his jail mug shot on the TV news, his heart sank. "That kills me," he said. Garare and his family worry that the far-reaching accusations won't disappear soon enough. Although he said he has a lot of supporters in the community, he's also seen some friends and neighbors believe the early police reports. "The first thing I'm going to do is take a warm shower – a bath maybe – eat real food and get on Facebook and clear my image," he said. -- |
Highlights Rajnath Singh makes statement in Rajya Sabha on Pak visit He said 'India took strong stand against terror at SAARC meet' Indian reporters weren't allowed to enter SAARC meet, he confirmed Home Minister Rajnath Singh, in an acerbic comment on Pakistan while telling parliament about his brief and tense visit to Islamabad, said today: "All our PMs have done their best to improve relations with our neighbours but yeh padosi hai ki maanta hi nahin hai (this neighbour never learns)."Mr Singh said that at the SAARC meeting of home ministers, India took a strong stand against terror and urged all members that "there is a need to take strongest action not just against terrorists but also those who support terrorism."He described Pakistan as the "biggest violator of human rights" - a response to his Pakistani counterpart's allegations yesterday of rights violations in Kashmir.Mr Singh returned yesterday after his two-day visit that was replete with messages and gestures telegraphing bitterness on both sides.Opposition parties rallied behind the government and condemned Pakistan for "the way the home minister was treated" and what they called a "blackout" of his speech; Mr Singh's statement was not broadcast by Pakistani media but India's foreign ministry has denied that it was a blackout."The home minister did not receive respect and honour due to him in Pakistan during his visit as per protocol, we condemn it," said Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad."I strongly condemn how Pakistan didn't maintain protocol and treated our home minister, the entire nation stand united," Janata Dal United leader Sharad Yadav said.The home minister replied: "It is true that reporters who had come from India were not allowed to enter."Amid cries of "shame" from the house, he continued: "I will not comment whether Pakistan was right or wrong in not allowing coverage. I did not register any protest there. I will need to ask the foreign ministry about protocol of past occasions."At the summit, the home minister used his speech to criticize Pakistan for inciting the recent unrest in Kashmir which has left at least 50 people dead in clashes that began with last month's shooting of 22-year-old terrorist Burhan Wani by security forces. "I urged all (SAARC) members that terrorists should not be glorified or patronized," the home minister told the Rajya Sabha. |
Gran Turismo 5, King of all Driving Sims The votes are in! The good news is Gran Turismo still holds the crown for best driving simulator on the market. Recently media conglomerate CNET did a readers poll which pitted the driving jauggarnaut, GT5 vs. the “Johnny come lately” Forza Motorsport 3. Well contrary to what others have reported, Gran Turismo has reigned supreme. This is in spite of Forza’s Community Manager greasing the palms of Forza forum users with rare DLC for Forza 2. Some may feel that this is merely an incentive, but the publisher or the developer had to be aware of this. Who else would have green lighted giving away DLC in such quantities? The forum thread netted well over 2,200 replies, the majority were requests for the DLC. Gran Turismo 5 52% (15731 votes) vs. Forza Motorsport 3 48% (14530 votes) [Source] Related: Forza Developer Using Bribes to Skew CNET Poll |
Looking for an excuse to go to southern Italy? Want to feed your love of classical guitar at the same time? Here’s an exciting new destination: Casa Museo Mauro Giuliani. Mauro Giuliani (1781-1829) is widely regarded as one of the most brilliant guitarists and composers of guitar music of the early 19th century—he wrote more than 300 works for the instrument, ranging from solo pieces to concertos to duets with other instruments; his output is well-represented on modern recordings by Julian Bream, Angel Romero, Nigel North, Sonja Prunnbauer, and many others. Those who were lucky enough to see him play during his lifetime—in his native Italy, in Vienna (where he settled in his mid-twenties), or on one of his tours in Europe—attested to his blazing virtuosity. He was also said to have been a wonderful guitar teacher, who tutored members of the Austrian royal family (and others), and a concert-quality cellist. Now, one of guitarist’s descendants, Nicola Giuliani, has opened a museum dedicated to the guitarist in the beautiful coastal Italian city where Mauro Giuliani was born—Bisceglie, clear across the “boot” from Naples, on the Adriatic Sea, in the region of Puglia. The “house museum” contains numerous pieces from Nicola Giuliani’s large collection of artifacts from his ancestor’s life and times, including several first-edition music manuscripts, engravings, prints, private documents, and even an 1804 guitar purportedly built for Giuliani by the noted Neapolitan luthier Gennaro Fabricatore, credited by one Giuliani biographer (in 1836) as the inventor of the sixth string on the guitar. Advertisement Nicola Giuliani, who has written his own books about his famous relative, says the museum, which was innaugurated December 20, 2014, also plans to hold regular master classes, seminars and conferences as part of its larger mission to popularize classical guitar and encourage both historians and players to look into the instrument’s rich history. At this time, the museum is only open by appointment. For more, go to www.associazionegiuliani.com/, or the Casa Museo Mauro Giuliani page on Facebook. (Below, one of the master’s guitars housed at the museum.) |
It's official – the rogue adventurer known as Goblin Slayer has acquired a party. While this is fairly normal within the realm of standard fantasy, particularly when it takes on the flavor of a role-playing game, tabletop or otherwise, the first book in Kumo Kagyu's light novel series went out of its way to establish that Goblin Slayer himself was a loner. Given what we know about his past, that makes perfect sense: his family and most of his village was slaughtered by goblins, so keeping his distance from others is his way of ensuring that he never goes through such emotional trauma again. This has, of course, proved frustrating to Cow Girl, his remaining childhood friend with whom he lives, but even that fit with the character. But then Priestess came along. In book one, Goblin Slayer saved her when her fledgling party was decimated by goblins and before he seemed to quite figure out what was happening, she became his adventuring partner. Later on in book one he also ended up teaming up with High Elf Archer, Dwarf Shaman, and Lizard Priest, and in this sophomore outing the five have officially become a party. While the book does work to flesh out those three later additions, more of its character focus is on Priestess and Goblin Slayer's relationship, showing how the girl is beginning to get under his armor in a way that he hadn't planned for. Not that there's really much in the way of romantic development, although there is one scene that puts the two of them in bed together. (It's a healing ritual! Really!) But we do begin to see that Priestess is the person he watches out for the most, and not just because she's the weakest party member. He and the others absolutely rely on her skills (called “miracles” in the text) and treat her as valuable; however, if she's in trouble or needs even a little helping hand, it's Goblin Slayer who jumps in, whereas if High Elf Archer or Dwarf Shaman need help, he lets someone else do it. While we could read this as a result of two smaller parties merging into one larger one, the camaraderie between Priestess and the three newer additions to the group suggests otherwise. She and High Elf Archer in particular are developing a real friendship, and both Dwarf and Lizard treat her with fatherly concern. Goblin Slayer, on the other hand, seems more aware of her in general, and by the end of the volume there's a clear closeness between them that feels warmer than before. This character development is intertwined with the actual dungeon delving that makes up the plot of the book. The party is summoned to Water City by Sword Maiden, a renowned hero who now functions as the high priest of a major sect. She has been trying to get to the bottom of a goblin invasion in the sewers beneath the city, but everyone she's hired before has failed to return. Now she asks Goblin Slayer and his party to investigate…even though she clearly knows more than she's letting on. Goblin Slayer seems aware of this, but the party goes down anyway and quickly learns that the goblins did not come to the city under their own power. That this story will tie in with a larger tale about the entire world is obvious, and there is a nice connection to the previous volume in the reveal about where the goblins are actually coming from that helps the book to build its world. The major attractions, however, are the brutal battles and the evil cunning of the goblins themselves. Kagyu's basic premise for the series – that goblins are not the easy low-level monsters everyone assumes them to be – makes for a subversion of a very standard fantasy trope in both Eastern and Western fantasy, and it is used well. While there isn't as much of a shock value at their brutality as there was in volume one (although there is evidence of some true horrors), the fights are gruesome and the unrelenting viciousness of the monsters comes across keenly. As we learn more about what happened to Sword Maiden in the first place – and why she retired from adventuring – we can see not only the danger Priestess and High Elf are in specifically, but also why Goblin Slayer continues to be so adamant in his personal quest to eradicate goblinkind. There are a few fights where it feels uncertain who will come out the victor, and as we get to know the party better, there's more of a feeling of suspense as to who will live through the fights. Kagyu is successfully building up his world book-by-book, holding back details until they're needed to make this as engaging as possible. It doesn't always work – High Elf and Dwarf's banter gets stale very quickly, for example, and Sword Maiden never quite feels like a real person, with a few of her actions seeming contrary to how she's initially introduced – but for the most part this is a grittier fantasy than some of the comparable light novels currently being translated into English. I'm still not keen on the naming convention, but it seems to be working thus far. The afterward indicates that next book will take place at a harvest festival, so we'll see if Kagyu can maintain the story in a softer setting – or if the festival will, like so many other things, become the stage for another tale of goblin gore. |
AUTOVAZ (Lada) rotary powered cars from Russia/USSR Introduction / FF&R magazine article / The Lada range of cars / The Lada range of engines / More interesting facts / More Information / SovAvto webring Introduction LADA logo (actually the Vaz parent company logo) Several years ago there was a short article eluding to the existence of Wankel Rotaries made by Lada published in Fast Fours and Rotaries magazine. Since reading this article I found additional information on the Internet and have sourced a few pictures and tables of various engines produced. See below. AutoVaz (or often reduced to just Vaz) is the parent company of Lada, kind of like GM with Chevrolet or Opel. The first rotary car was made in 1978 - a single rotor powered Lada sedan based on a licensed Fiat design. I understand that at least 8 different models of Lada sedan have been converted to rotary power and around 20 different variants of engine produced of 1, 2, 3 and reportedly 4 rotors. I speculate that some of the engines are surprisingly similar to the Mazda 13B family; with some of the 2 rotors engines being 1308cc and the same rotor housing width as the 13B. Perhaps AutoVaz used Mazda parts as a template for their own early experiments? (Note, this is only speculation. I have not seen nor heard anything that would confirm this). Fast Fours and Rotaries article Note - This article appeared in Fast Fours and Rotaries magazine, sent to me by the author; see acknowledgements. I believe that it is based on a letter sent to the magazine from a reader in the USSR. Text is unedited by me (Unless noted). Russian Rotaries Quick, think of all the car manufacturers in the world that have produced rotary engined cars, bet most of you thought of Mazda. Many of you would have thought of NSU/Audi, and the odd really keen enthusiast may be aware of the Comotor/Citroen unit but almost no one would have thought of Lada. During the summer of 1980 the Volga auto works of Tagliatti (called Auto-Vaz) sold about 250 rotary equipped Lada cars to customers under the imaginative Vaz-21018 designation. In this case a single rotor Vaz 311 rotary engine was installed in a basic Vaz-21011 body. The power plants geometrical data will look surprisingly familiar to Mazda enthusiasts: Engine type Vaz 311 (Single rotor) RE = 102 mm (Craig comment - rotor eccentricity/trochoid dimension.) ECC= 15 mm (Craig comment - Eccentric shaft/Rotor journal offset from centreline) Rotor width = 80 mm 70 bhp @6000 rpm 95 Nm @3500-4000 rpm Comp = 9.5:1 The compression is very high by Eastern bloc early 80s standards considering the 'high octane' Russian petrol was only rated for 93 RON. The vehicles electric’s were considered sensational for the time. A black box which analysed inputs from the load, speed & rotor position transducers triggers a thyristor (Craig comment - electronic ignition), which fired the ignition coils. The spark plug design featured twin side electrodes. A most unusual feature of this car was it’s cold starting device, an anti-freeze injection system. This part of the world can be very cold & when trying to start the thing at minus 25 Celsius some of the liquid anti-freeze needed to be squirted in, hoping to stop the plug electrodes from icing. A manual which came with the car suggested that this be tried only twice; three times and you flood the system with anti-freeze. A standard down draught carburettor was used but with altered jet sizes and a two stage air cleaner was employed as well. The apex seals got their share of oil through a lubricator, and the oil level in the sump was maintained automatically. A belt driven fan was upgraded to an electric type for latter versions. I personally had no experience in performing a 'low temperature start'. In warm weather the rotary fired instantly & after warming it a bit, settled to steady idle of about 950 rpm. This particular car was fitted with a tacho by the owner (a racing driver) as none of these 21018 model cars received one at the factory (big mistake) . Performance of the rotary seemed as good, or perhaps better than any 1.3 lt. Lada, but keeping the revs up was a must and a tacho becomes invaluable for better driving. What I instantly noticed, was the almost insignificant engine braking available from this tiny power plant, so the brake pedal got an extra work out as a result. The revs matched the accelerator pedal inherently. No where near the inertia of a piston engine, you lift the accelerator and the revs disappeared instantly. Required driving style changes apart, it was a pleasant experience, but according to the little statistics that became available, many rotaries didn’t last to the first 10000 km filter change. Maximum engine life up to 20000 km was seemingly as per normal. In many cases the rotary was thrown out and replaced with a conventional four cylinder 1.3 Lada/Fiat motor. End of and era, you suppose? With model 311, yes, but not with Autovaz’s aspiration within the Wankel league. Then came a long flirt with 2 rotor models. In 1982 some where seen installed in rally cars and those were as fast as 1.6 Ladas. Fed through 2 twin throat Webers DCOE’s meant at least 150 bhp was available from those developed for racing. A long silence followed, but suddenly in 1988, several engines were put on display at an exhibition in Moscow. A twin rotor Vaz 411-01 which had an equivalent capacity of 2300 cc & the same 120 bhp on tap. The model Vaz 413 with fractionally larger dimensions was rated 20 hp higher. No torque figures were given but both had 9.4:1 compression and weighed in at 130-140 kg per engine. Some 411 engines were seen in Ladas, indexed as Vaz 21019. The more powerful models became available for Latvian made RAF buses & Ambulances. The KGB got some Volga sedans fitted with the larger rotary as power was about 1.5 times the standard 2.5 lt engine. Also, a 3 rotor Vaz 513 was released (equivalent to 3900 cc) and rated at 280 hp for it’s 200 kg engine weight. Max power of all said engines was quoted between 5500-6000 rpm. So who in the USSR needed that sort of power? Good question. The answer is people in uniforms, 280 hp from a 3 rotor and at least 350 from a 4 rotor engine (which did exist as well) in a light weight package was a real day time dream for designers of lightly armoured fighting vehicles. We can say that perhaps Vaz 21018, 21019 were spin offs of some military program. There was never an intention to let Mr & Mrs average Russian behind the wheel of a rotary engined car. The few hundred produced were just a lucky break. The Lada/Vaz range of cars The AutoVaz company is parent to many divisions, including Lada, UAZ, ZIL, GAZ, and Volga. There is a research centre called the GENDR (Short for the full Russian name). A subdivision of GENDR is the SKBRPD (Rotary Research Division) - This name comes from SKB = Special Design Agency, RPD = Rotary Piston Engine. The Russians usually refer to rotaries as "RPDs". They seem to make about 100 rotary engined cars per year. Picture of Car Information about the car (300x185) The VAZ-21108 Car (first made in 1978) was powered by a single rotor VAZ-311 engine. The VAZ-21109 Car was a minor update to this body shape but powered by a two rotor VAZ-411 engine. This car was licensed from Fiat (Fiat 124 sedan) The base model 4 cylinder engine was the VAZ-21101 (picture 289x200) (260x167) The VAZ-21059 Car (first made in 1980) was powered by the two rotor VAZ-411M engine, and also the two rotor VAZ-4132 engine Transmission was a 4 speed manual and the car had an optional extra fuel tank. Again, this car was licensed from Fiat (based on the Fiat 131 sedan) Price of car when new: Roubles 51,975 / $US 8316 / $AUS 13513 (259x196) The VAZ-21079 Car (first made in 1982) was basically an updated version of the VAZ-21059 except it used the two rotor VAZ-411-01 engine, and the two rotor VAZ-4132 engine Transmission was a 5 speed manual and the car had an optional extra fuel tank. I believe the 4 Cylinder version of this model was made by Lada as a cheap car until as late as 1997! Price of car when new: Roubles 57,870 / $US 9259 / $AUS 15046 Weight of Car: 1430 kg Top Speed: 180 km/h, 0-100 km/h time: 9 Seconds Fuel consumption, at 90 km/h: 9.5 litres per 100 km, and at 100 km/h: 12.5 litres per 100 km (300x225) The VAZ-2108-91 Car (first made in 1984) was powered by the two rotor VAZ-415 engine. Transmission was a 5 speed manual. This was the first Russian designed model, and was sold in several western markets as the Lada Samara. The car in the photo seems to be some 1997 race champion. Price of car when new: Roubles 56,300 / $US 9008 / $AUS 14638 Weight of Car: 1050 kg Top Speed: 200 km/h, 0-100 km/h time: 8 Seconds Fuel consumption, at 90 km/h: 7 litres per 100 km, and at 100 km/h: 10 litres per 100 km (300x181) The VAZ-2109-91 Car was an updated VAZ-2108-91 (same drive train) The car in the photo was a normal police car (called the MUD, this is not the KGB) Price of car when new: Roubles 58,100 / $US 9296 / $AUS 15106 The VAZ-21099-91 Car was an updated VAZ-2108-91 (same drive train) Price of car when new: Roubles 62,300 / $US 9968 / $AUS 16198 (no large picture available) (460x231) The VAZ-2115-91 Car was an all new design and was powered by the two rotor VAZ-415 engine. Transmission was a 5 speed manual. Price of car when new: Roubles 75,700 / $US 12112 / $AUS 19682 (450x266) (450x266) The VAZ-2110 Car was supposedly powered by the two rotor VAZ-415 engine. Unfortunately I can't find any more information on the rotary version. (Picture of crashed Racing Model) (350x208) The GAZ-3102 Car (First made in 1981) also known as the "Volga". Powered by the two rotor VAZ-411-01 engine (as used in the VAZ-21079 car above). This car was also available with the 210hp 3 rotor VAZ-431 engine, supposedly used by the KGB. Length 4960mm, Width 1800mm, Height 1422mm, Weight (4 Cyl version) 1850kg. The 4 cylinder engines used were the ZMZ-406 (2.3l, 150hp, 170 km/h top speed) or the ZMZ-402 (2.445l, 100hp, 147 km/h top speed) (Unconfirmed information about large sedans) Regarding the GAZ-3102, it appears that this may have been updated to the GAZ-3105 There was a new car in 1994 called the GAZ-2410 which also used the rotary engine. This may have had variants GAZ-31029 , GAZ-31022 , GAZ-31023. Note, regarding the price of the cars, this is what the car cost in Russia, in Roubles, when new. Despite the apparently cheap prices, no doubt these would have been fairly expensive for the average Russian citizen. I have no idea what the exchange rate was at the time. (The rates used were correct in July 1998) All rotary engine cars in Russia for private (non government) use are sold through a company called "SPAR". I think they are in the same town as the AutoVaz headquarters. (Toliyatti). As of November 1998 there are apparently two 'Unofficial' - whatever that means - dealers in Moscow. Main Dealer 445032, g.Toliyatti, str. Zastavnaya, 9 JC "SPAR", tel. (8469) 37-17-27 Moscow#1 ph 485-18-54, 484-74-07 Moscow#2 ph 232-75-02 (Kraevskiy Alexander Borisovich, apparently better than the first) I can't quite figure out what the story is with private citizens buying these cars. It seems that the normal man in the street can only get front wheel drive cars but there seems to be a loophole that you can buy a car but not register it with GAY, who I presume are some kind of police authority. I'm pretty sure that the early cars were for official use only, but the later ones may have been publicly available (after VAZ-2108-91 but I'm not sure) The Lada/Vaz range of Engines & non-car applications. VAZ-311 engine; 1 rotor (300x237) VAZ-411 engine; 2 rotor (300x241) VAZ-413 engine; 2 rotor see note (300x160) VAZ-4305 aero engine; 2 rotor (300x242) VAZ-415 engine; 2 rotor See note (300x256) VAZ-426 aero engine; 3 rotor (300x283) VAZ-426 aero engine; 3 rotor (300x273) VAZ-426 engine on test rig (300x309) VAZ-426 engine on test rig (300x195) VAZ-426 powered helicopter (300x196) VAZ-1187 powered ultra light (300x220) "Volga" rotary engined boat (300x178) Notes about above pictures: The VAZ-413 picture shows the engine on the right hand side. (I think the engine on the left is a Volga 2.5 litre 4 cylinder that made less power). The VAZ-415 two rotor engine, was a new design used from the mid 1980s. As of 1998 this engine is apparently still in production and used in the VAZ-2115-91 Car (see above). In August 1998 the company produced a fuel injected version with 206hp @ 7500 rpm and 180hp under 6000 rpm. (The "Normal" version of this engine is 140hp) I understand there is also a high performance version of 240hp (Reported by Canadian enthusiast - see More facts of interest below) The VAZ-426 engine was approved for aero use on March 30, 1998. The cost is 120,000 Roubles - approx $US20,000 / $AUS 30,000. There is a cut down 2 rotor variant of this motor called the VAZ-416 (I think, but am not sure, that by 2005 they plan to sell 2100 VAZ-426 engines and 900 two rotor VAZ-416) This boat - called Volga - was powered by a two rotor VAZ rotary, exact model unknown. Note that while the boat is 'flying', this effect is limited to just above the surface. This would have been an experiment in the 1970s for a high speed low cost alternative to an aeroplane. (The Russians had an enormous 6 jet engine transport craft built on the same principle. It could fly just a few feet above the surface at nearly 500 km/h). Engine Model Horsepower Torque (kgm) Fuel Consumption (gram/hp*hour) Production or Experimental Engine used in this model VAZ-311 1 rotor 70hp 9.7 215 Production engine VAZ-21018 (above - car 1974-1978) VAZ-311-10 1 rotor 70hp 9.7 215 Pilot Model (Unknown) VAZ-411 2 rotor Variant of 311 115hp 14 217 Production engine VAZ-21019 (above - car around 1978) VAZ-411M 2 rotor Variant of 311 120hp 15 217 Production engine VAZ-21059 (above - car around 1980) VAZ-411-01 2 rotor Variant of 311 130hp 15 217 Production engine VAZ-21079 (above - car around 1982) GAZ-3102 (above - car) (+Unknown application) VAZ-413 2 rotor Update of 411 140hp 19 217 Production engine GAZ-31028 (Unknown - perhaps an update of the GAZ-3102) GAZ-24-10 (Earlier version of the Volga, a "5+2 seated caravan") VAZ-421 140hp 19 220 Pilot Model RAF-2915 VAZ-430 270hp 38 220 Pilot Model Aeroplane VAZ-4305 210hp 28.5 220 Pilot Model Aeroplane VAZ-431 3 rotor 210hp 28.5 220 Pilot Model (Production?) GAZ-3102 (above - car) GAZ-14 (Limousine, probably based on the Volga) VAZ-541 280hp 38 220 Pilot Model Unknown *note2 VAZ-1181 1 rotor 45hp 5.5 220 Pilot Model Unknown *note1 VAZ-1182 1 rotor 45hp 5.5 220 Pilot Model VAZ-1111 VAZ-1184 1 rotor 45hp 5.5 220 Pilot Model Unknown *note1 VAZ-1187 1 rotor About 1991 45hp 5.5 220 Pilot Model (Above: Used in Ultralight plane) VAZ-3184 80hp 11 220 Pilot Model Unknown VAZ-4132 140hp 19 230 Production engine VAZ-21059 (above - car) VAZ-21079 (above - car) VAZ-415 2 rotor 1990s 135hp Also 206hp and 240hp versions. 18 230 Production engine VAZ-2108 (Above - car) VAZ-2109 (Above- car) VAZ-21099 (Above - car) VAZ-2115 VAZ-2110 VAZ-2115-91 (Above - car) VAZ-416 2 x 654cc rotors H*W*L (mm) 600x600x835 125 kg About 1993-1996 160 19 210 Pilot Model (In production now I think) Aeroplane Engine VAZ-426 3 x 654cc rotors H*W*L (mm) 600x600x1050 145kg About 1993-1996 240 32 210 Pilot Model (In production now I think) Aeroplane & Helicopter Engine (Experimental variants of this engine have made 300-350 hp) *Note1: VAZ-1181 / VAZ-1812 / VAZ-1184 / VAZ-1187 all same hp and VAZ-1187 definitely used in plane. *Note2: The VAZ-543 may be a 4 rotor engine as the power output is consistent with being double that of most of the 2 rotor engines and 4/3 that of the 3 rotor engines - however I have no hard data to confirm this. More detailed comparison of VAZ-4132 and VAZ-415 engines. (VAZ-4132 was an early 80's engine; VAZ-415 was the more mature 1990s 2 rotor engine) Engine Model VAZ-4132 VAZ-415 Number of rotors 2 2 Total engine size, cc 1308 1308 Compression Ratio 9.4 9.4 Engine power kW(hp) at RPM 103(140)/6000 103(140)/6000 Torque Nm (kgm) at RPM 186(19)/4500 186(19)/4500 Minimum idle speed, RPM 1000 900 Engine weight, kg 136 113 Height, mm 560 570 Width, mm 546 535 Length, mm 495 665 Fuel Consumption, first unit unknown (grams/hp*hours) 312.2(230) 312.2(230) Percentage oil-fuel mixture 0.7% 0.6% Kilometres until first rebuild (?) 125 125 Car models this engine was used in VAZ-21059/21079 VAZ-2108/2109/21099/2115/2110 More facts of interest November 1998 update from an enthusiast in Canada: I've been dealing with the AutoVaz (Lada) rotary lab for the past 3 months, trying to import a rotary engine for my Niva. Here's some of the updated/corrected info for your section on the Lada rotaries. The UAZ model 415 is STILL in production, as of Oct.1998. It has been available, as a special cost option, in the European Samara front wheel drives, for the past 6 years. In standard trim, the current generation displaces the same 1308cc's as the Mazda 13B engine, and is rated at 180 HP, running on sequential port injection. A high performance model is also offered, that has the port timing redone, and is rated to 240 HP, using sequential port FI. Apparently they do not offer a turbo version for automotive use at this time. As I intend to prep my Niva for weekend Rallying, they also Hinted at a racing/aviation only motor that is (supposedly) capable of 300+ HP. From the way they phrased it, these engines are still experimental, and may use a peripheral port design: they specifically stated that they were 'unsuitable' for street use. My contact at the lab was Alex Shenayakin, but e-mail service to the lab has apparently been cut off, so I can't get you in touch with him. He did confirm the existence of both the three, and four rotor Russian engines, and described them as being designed for scout car/APC applications for the military. They have not been in production for at least the past 6 years, and were only ever available in carburetted, non-emissions forms. He additionally described a dual turbo, 4 rotor engine, rated to 680 HP for use in a 5 tonne amphibious APC, that never went into production. He didn't work on that project, but believed that it was set up using mechanical injection. (Maybe a knockoff of the Bosch CIS system?) That was circa 1984-85. I haven't been able to find any shots of a rotary engine in a Niva, but here are the shots (see below) of the rotary engined Tundra buggy. They are manufactured by an aftermarket company, and use a completely swapped driveline from (I believe) a Soviet military UAZ. (The Russian military jeep). These things are designed for use in the Russian north, over Muskeg, and as surface vehicles for the Russian research stations in the Antarctic. "Monster" Lada Niva (287x178) "Monster" Lada Niva (285x194) "Monster" Lada Niva (449x239) Note the above pictures and info were emailled to me. I have since found they are called the Bronto 1922 Marsh Niva. Bronto is the company that does the modifications and 1922 is the model number. I have only been able to find references to them being powered by the 4 cylinder piston engine of normal Nivas (but maybe there is a rotary version? If you know anything let me know.) More Information There are a few Russian sites with information about these engines and cars. By far the most useful was the VAZ rotary history page which someone on the RX7 mailing list pointed me to. Based on the number of different models of cars and engine, it would seem that these cars would have been made in reasonable volumes, so may not be especially rare in their home country. Please note that most of this page was created by me matching data from multiple sources and should not be held as nessecarily correct. Where I have made a guess or estimate this is noted. Further reading and acknowledgements: * Special thanks to David Morris, a writer for Fast Fours and Rotaries for sending me the FF&R article. * Special thanks to a Canadian enthusiast for data in the 'more facts' section. He was trying to get a genuine factory rotary to fit to his Lada Niva. (risely@excite.com or wandering_mage@geocities.com): * The AutoVaz website for many of the photos and raw information about models and engines. * I have not seen any other information about these engines or cars in any books. Other relevant reading at Craig's Rotary Page (Please go via the INDEX page): * There is no other content at this site relevant to Lada/AutoVaz Other relevant sites on the Internet (Please go via the LINKS page): * AutoVaz website, especially the rotary history page(s) * David Morris' web pages (a.k.a. DMRH - David Morris Rotary Historian; although I do not know if he has any relevant content accessable on his site) * Bronto website (Russian, translate with Altavista's Babelfish) * SovAvto webring (bottom of this page) [TOP OF THIS PAGE][TOP PAGE OF SITE] This page last updated 22/8/2002 Update History: 22/8/2002 - Changed SovAvto webring style to match Mazda Rotary style 5/5/2002-Joined SovAuto webring 13/12/2001 - Minor tidy up, fixed a few broken pictures. 19/3/2001 - Major revision of this page; a lot of tidying up and bad links fixed; no new content. Converted all text to new standard (Headings as Heading1, Some sub-headings (e.g. tables) as 14 point normal bold italic, Most text as Normal, Internal page links at top not all uppercase) Changed from Netscape to FrontPage. Background image changed to PG00_02B.JPG 2/12/1998 - Previous known update (May have been some before this) SovAvto Webring - All about all soviet and Russian Vehicles [ Join Now | Ring Hub | Random | << Prev | Next >> ] |
Why the project cost so much — and where that money went — is still a big mystery. The latest report from the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) singled out the facility as an example of profligate Pentagon waste. In the case of the Sheberghan station, "doing capitalism" meant going over budget by $42.5 million to build a little-used gas station. An equivalent facility just across the border in Pakistan cost just $500,000. The station was conceived of and paid for by the Task Force for Business and Stability Operations (TFBSO), a Department of Defense program that has since been disbanded. "We do capitalism," said Paul Brinkley, the program's former head. "We're about helping companies make money." Somewhere in Sheberghan, a medium-sized Afghan city in the northern province of Jowzjan, lies a simple gas station with just a handful of pumps. The humble facility, which was supposed to provide cheap natural gas to local Afghan drivers, cost $43 million to build — and the US Department of Defense footed the bill. Read more Somewhere in Sheberghan, a medium-sized Afghan city in the northern province of Jowzjan, lies a simple gas station with just a handful of pumps. The humble facility, which was supposed to provide cheap natural gas to local Afghan drivers, cost $43 million to build — and the US Department of Defense footed the bill. The station was conceived of and paid for by the Task Force for Business and Stability Operations (TFBSO), a Department of Defense program that has since been disbanded. "We do capitalism," said Paul Brinkley, the program's former head. "We're about helping companies make money." In the case of the Sheberghan station, "doing capitalism" meant going over budget by $42.5 million to build a little-used gas station. An equivalent facility just across the border in Pakistan cost just $500,000. Why the project cost so much — and where that money went — is still a big mystery. The latest report from the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) singled out the facility as an example of profligate Pentagon waste. Related: US Aid to Afghanistan Has Largely Been Wasted and Stolen, Report Says "The Department of Defense charged the American taxpayer $43 million for what is likely the world's most expensive gas station," said John Sopko, the head of SIGAR. According to SIGAR, nobody at the Pentagon wants to talk about the gas station, or the $800 million TFBSO program that has been offline for just over a year. SIGAR has repeatedly asked the Department of Defense to explain why the Sheberghan facility cost $42.5 million more than was required, and the agency is now accusing the Pentagon of stonewalling. "[The Pentagon] now says it knows nothing about the project," Sopko told VICE News. The Pentagon, for its part, does not dispute the charges of waste, but said Sopko and his team have full access to the cache of documents associated with the project. "I don't have basis to dispute the dollar figures in the SIGAR report," said a senior Defense Department official, who agreed to speak about the program on the condition of anonymity. He noted that SIGAR can pull the files on the station at any time at a secure "reading room" in Washington, DC. Meanwhile, the money pit is drawing the attention of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. "There's few things in this job that literally make my jaw drop," Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill told VICE News after she saw the SIGAR report. "But of all the examples of wasteful projects in Iraq and Afghanistan… this genuinely shocked me. It's hard to imagine a more outrageous waste of money than building an alternative fuel station in a war-torn country that costs more than 8,000 percent more than it should." 'It's hard to imagine a more outrageous waste of money.' On Monday, McCaskill sent a letter to Defense Secretary Ash Carter asking him to cooperate with the SIGAR investigation to get to the bottom of the waste. She also demanded that the Defense Department make Joseph Catalino, the most recent head of the TFBSO, available for questioning by the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations. The senior defense official told VICE News that Catalino already spoke to SIGAR during his tenure as head of the Pentagon task force, but that he has little knowledge of the project because it was completed before his tenure. Chuck Grassley, a Republican senator from Iowa, was also pissed off reading the SIGAR report. "This is shocking in multiple ways," he said after viewing the report. "The cost of an unnecessary gas station in Afghanistan skyrocketed to a ridiculous height. Now, the Department of Defense is blocking access to documents and personnel that would shed light on how the money was spent." Related: The Pentagon Keeps Changing Its Story About the Hospital it Bombed in Afghanistan When VICE News asked the Pentagon if it could provide any more details about the funding for the facility, the senior official said such information wasn't immediately available. What we do know is that the Department of Defense awarded an initial $3 million construction contract to Central Asian Engineering — a multi-national construction firm that describes itself as doing "the hardest jobs" in "the toughest places" with "the best people." The company failed to respond to repeated requests from VICE News for comment, and the phone in their DC office did not have an answering machine. When Central Asian Engineering finished the project in May 2014, it turned over operations to Qashqari Oil and Gas Services, a business that is not registered at all with any Afghan government agency and has no discernable presence in Afghanistan. According to SIGAR, the company's business license has lapsed. Watch Shane Smith Interviews Ashton Carter: The VICE News Interview: The Pentagon, SIGAR said, did not perform a feasibility study on the gas station project before it broke ground in 2011. But defense officials did tell Congress in January 2015 that demand for natural gas filling stations had convinced Qashqari Oil and Gas Services to construct a "sister station" in the nearby city of Mazar-i-Sharif. No such station has yet been built. One possible reason for this, SIGAR noted, is that the type of natural gas vehicles that would fill up at the station are too expensive for most Afghans to afford. Converting a car to run on natural gas costs around $800; the average Afghan makes $690 per year. The Pentagon itself paid to have about 120 vehicles converted, and it's possible paying for these vehicle conversations contributed to the bloated bill for the project. But aside from the $3 million worth of construction contracts, there's no paper trail to explain what happened to the rest of the Pentagon's money. Related: The Islamic State Is Making America's Breakup With Afghanistan Awfully Messy Since SIGAR and the Pentagon were short on details, VICE News called up the filling station in Sheberghan and asked to speak to the manger. He'd never heard of Central Asian Engineering, or Qashqari Oil and Gas Services. He said the station is operational and owned by Afghan Gas Company. The manager estimated that the station now serves around 250 natural gas-converted cars in the province of 500,000. It's unclear how or when the ownership of the station was transferred to Afghan Gas Company. SIGAR was unable to visit the facility because of security concerns, and the Pentagon has not turned over any information related to the transfer of ownership. 'Handing over large sums of money to powerful local warlords has been a norm rather than an exception.' "There are methods people use for budget tracking, and budget monitoring, so it's a fair question: why are those tools not being used?" said Rukshana Nanayakkara, the regional outreach director for Transparency International, a leading corruption and waste watchdog group. "Are there other external circumstances? Did you not use those tools because of the complications involved on the ground level?" In other words, Nanayakkara suspects that the contractors may have paid bribes. Integrity Watch Afghanistan, the country's leading corruption watchdog, estimated that 50-90 percent of foreign aid is siphoned off into somebody's pocket. "You may have to pay intermediaries to have access to certain ground level deals," Nanayakkara explained. Related: The Taliban Is Fighting for Control of an Opium-Rich Provincial Capital in Afghanistan Sayed Ikram Afzali, executive director Integrity Watch, claimed that the Pentagon's task force was known to grease palms. In 2011, Afzali exposed how the TFBSO's chromite mining initiative, a program that spent hundreds of millions of dollars to encourage Afghans to extract and export the valuable minerals, funnelled money into the hands of militiamen in Kunar province. "TFBSO does not have a good track record in Afghanistan," Afzali said from Kabul. "Their inefficiency is well known to many people. In addition, they have facilitated corruption and misuse." Afzali speculated that the money for the gas station could have found it's way into the hands of some unsavory characters, which could explain why the Pentagon is so reluctant to get into the details. "Handing over large sums of money to powerful local warlords has been a norm rather than an exception," he said. In the end, Afzali seems unfazed by the Sheberghan fiasco. "We have heard of even worse stories," he said. "Such as paying millions of dollars for buildings that were built only on paper." Aleem Agha contributed reporting from Afghanistan Follow Avi Asher-Schapiro on Twitter: @AASchapiro |
LONDON (Reuters) - Physicist Stephen Hawking found himself in a war of words with Britain’s Conservative government after he said it had caused a crisis in the state-run National Health Service (NHS) and was leading it towards a profit-making U.S.-style system. FILE PHOTO: Physicist Stephen Hawking sits on stage during an announcement of the Breakthrough Starshot initiative with investor Yuri Milner in New York April 12, 2016. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson Writing in the Guardian newspaper on Saturday, the British cosmologist, who was diagnosed with motor neuron disease aged 21, also accused the government’s health minister Jeremy Hunt of cherry-picking scientific evidence to justify policies. Hunt hit back saying that Hawking, author of the bestselling book ‘A Brief History of Time’, was wrong and that his criticism was a “pernicious falsehood”. “The care I have received since being diagnosed with motor neuron disease as a student in 1962 has enabled me to live my life as I want, and to contribute to major advances in our understanding of the universe,” wrote Hawking. Founded in 1948, the NHS is a source of huge pride for many Britons who are able to access free care from the cradle to the grave, but in recent years tight budgets, an ageing population and more expensive, complex treatments has put the system under huge financial strain. Hawking, a supporter of the opposition Labour Party, said the NHS was “a cornerstone of our society” but was in crisis because of political decisions. It was also facing a conflict between the interests of multinational corporations driven by profit and public opposition to increasing privatization, he said. “In the U.S., where they are dominant in the healthcare system, these corporations make enormous profits, healthcare is not universal, and it is hugely more expensive for the outcomes patients receive than in the UK,” he wrote. “We see the balance of power in the UK is with private healthcare companies, and the direction of change is towards a U.S.-style insurance system.” Last year, English doctors staged their first strikes in four decades over government plans to reform pay and conditions as part of moves to deliver what it said would be a consistent service seven days a week as studies showed mortality rates were higher at weekends when staffing is reduced. However, Hawking, who communicates via a cheek muscle linked to a sensor and computerized voice system, said Hunt had cherry-picked research to justify his arguments. “For a scientist, cherry-picking evidence is unacceptable. When public figures abuse scientific argument, citing some studies but suppressing others to justify policies they want to implement for other reasons, it debases scientific culture,” he wrote. Hunt responded on Twitter saying no health secretary could ignore the “comprehensive” evidence and said his government had put more money, doctors and nurses into the NHS than ever before. “Stephen Hawking is brilliant physicist but wrong on lack of evidence 4 weekend effect,” Hunt wrote. “Most pernicious falsehood from Stephen Hawking is idea govt wants US-style insurance system. Is it 2 much to ask him to look at evidence?” |
We sent Cara Ellison to EA to play some Crysis 3. We would like to formally apologise to Crytek and EA for having sent Cara Ellison to play some Crysis 3. Here is why: Crysis games have always been beautiful. The Crysis series is a handsome, well-buffed man with grace and presence, one you’d never say no to being photographed with, one you’d proudly say you’d dated. You probably keep all the photos of him in a drawer, ready to pull out when your friends come over so that you can say that you hit that once and wow he was amazing. But the secret is that whenever he opened his mouth he told jokes so embarrassingly unfunny and garbled it was never worth taking him to meet anyone, and your utter confusion at what he meant by anything was the final nail in the relationship coffin. Though sometimes you gaze at his face from afar and remember that time you went to space because of reasons. From what I played, and it wasn’t for very long (less than an hour, I’d say), Crysis 3 is voluptuous as hell in the looks department. The feeling of richness and closeness and dare I say it – verisimilitude – in the environment remains unrivalled. The New York of 2047, 20 years after the events of Crysis 2, is in a big mad bio-dome, and you are dropped into a jungle-covered Chinatown at one point to have a sit down dinner with your girl and attempt to make her laugh at your interpretations of the fortunes from fortune cookies. I’m joking – you’re there to murder stuff. At some point after asking Michael Read, the producer of Crysis 3, about the plot, I realised I’d stopped listening. Luckily I had a recording of the explanation. It came out something like this: “We’ve taken on a whole new form when it comes to storytelling with this one. One of the new things that actually ties into it is a new piece of technology called performance capture. We actually released a video online of Psycho. We have a new writer – we had Richard Morgan for Crysis 2, now it’s a British writer by the name of Stephen Hall who has done some sci-fi writing, he’s been working with us on Crysis 3. We have Prophet – the leader of the squad in Crysis 1, had a small cameo role in the beginning and the end of Crysis 2, and now you’re playing him in Crysis 3. So you also have another character called Claire Fontinelli, she’s one of the leaders of this rebel group that’s operating inside the dome fighting Cell and Psycho fights alongside her in this quest to basically shut CELL down. Prophet’s goal ties into this as he’s having visions of the future and things that are potentially going to happen -” My brain somehow thinks that he has said “Prophet’s goat” which I immediately perk up at: I imagine this goat having visions and attempting to draw them in Crayola with its tiny goat hooves for this high-tech douchebag Prophet in ten kinds of body armour waiting arms crossed – “What, goat, what?”. Fifty infinitely customisable weapons lie behind Prophet, totally pointless as this is a scene about a goat and its dreams. But sadly this is not about a goat. It is about this guy we seem to have little reason to give a shit about, because the game industry spits out dudes like Prophet every day and they land on my front lawn and make a mess. I shouldn’t have begun asking about the story, because I really quite liked the shooty-killy parts. “He’s trying to explain to the rebels that there’s more to what’s going on than just, you know, CELL fighting for these energy resources and what they’re doing under the Dome to do this.” God I wish there was less to what’s going on. I really do. I’ve become horrifyingly more aware in the time it took me to play the Crysis 3 single player demo that videogames seem to borrow meandering, convoluted features and terms from genre fiction in order to have more weird missions to go on, and more outlandish stuff to do, without ever actually giving you a reason to do them. There is a complete lack of narrative focus. I don’t care that the planet is melting down right now, because you told me that last time and it was just a set of deus ex machina and some nice looking trinkets. Look at that game affectionately known as Portal plants you into an easy to understand situation that immediately compels you to explore – and to escape. It then proceeds to tell you a more detailed story gradually through every facet of its environment – level design, audio, decals on the walls, even the glimpses of Chell’s body via a portal. Because the information comes in small doses, you have time to let it dissolve slowly in your mouth like a really piquant cola cube. Sometimes at night I would dream of those brand new sugary doses of story scrawled on the wall of a test chamber. But it seems like Crysis 3 will just jack open your mouth and hose down your gullet with thousands upon thousands of Jelly Babies until you’re sick on your mum’s brand new cream carpet. We’ve got to the third installment of this and it is still having us bowf up disembodied jelly heads. “There’s a lot of character interactions that happen in this game, more so than previous games.” I hope this means that there will be a god damn you Psycho! line somewhere in the game. “I’ve been asked to sum up this Crysis in the past and the word I’d use to describe it is human.” That’s interesting – perhaps this will be the departure from Crysis 2 to story. But from what I’ve seen, it still has a little way to go. Gruff cockney men called Psycho seem suspiciously familiar to me. Prophet has a nicely pressed Nanosuit and apparently thinks a lot of himself what with the name and everything. The suit makes you godlike, as in the previous instalments, and it seemed from the demo that far from being about story or characters, this game is primarily about the relationship between your Nanosuit and Prophet’s extremely limber Predator Bow. Throughout the demo I got a lot of purchase and satisfaction from that bow – cloaking and arrowing people in the face was my signature move. The bow was a pleasure to use – pulling an arrow back was such a viscous tease, and the arc of the arrow would appear before you release your finger, sending the arrow THUNK into an eyeball. The one thing I couldn’t figure out though, was exactly why I could click at any time to mod any number of stats on my bow. I haven’t got time, I thought. I don’t want to spend all day fiddling with the string on this thing when I am getting shot at. “You’ve got under-barrel attachments you’ve got scope attachments, different clips, you’ve got different types of ammo – the bow itself you can change the draw range, you can have a different tip type…” Mike elaborates. You can insta-mod pretty much any weapon in the game, which I think is a nice touch if you’ve got the time to sit around like Psycho who kept telling me to do stuff in the demo instead of doing it himself. Lazy sod. Your suit has also been upgraded so that you can toggle to see where enemies are situated and how best to take them out – a sort of threat detector system, which I did like – although I have a bit of a weird aversion to being told what to do by a HUD, so I only used it a minimal amount. I’m stubborn like that. And the suit can hack towers, which is new. But there’s a combination chart for that too, you can pick and choose the highlights of your suit just like you can with the weapons. It’s about customising the way you approach things. The only thing that’s really new here is a slight tweak to clothes and some new accessories and how it looks shinier. It’s a hollow shell of glamour, where you boot it up to render a ridiculous sandbox kill arena full of brocessories. Bro bling. This game is crawling with brotrinkets and brotrinketmongers. Nothing to do but kill bros all day, in a very stylish way, and at the end of it you go to bed having learned absolutely nothing at all about anything, but it was very nice to look at and kill bros. If Arnie had a wet dream about some armour and a bow this’d be it. It’s just bro central. So little did I have to ask about Crysis 3 after playing the demo that I got rather antsy. Craig Pearson was floating about being point man for PC Gamer that day, and had just finished interviewing Michael, the producer I’ve already quoted above. But the poor guy didn’t know what was about to happen to him. Craig tapped me on the shoulder as he left the interview room, in the manner of what I now understand was a signal that we were in a good-cop bad-cop scenario, and tipped me to ask him why he is into PC BDSM, as he didn’t have the time. Oh yeah? I think. I will. So I went a little off track down a path that is quite shady and is probably populated with headcrabs. “Why do you hate PCs so much,” I ask, darkly. “I don’t hate PCs!” he says, and bless him, I really like him, but he has no idea who has the wheel now. “You hate them so much because you make them work really hard,” I say. “That’s the ‘cry’ part in Crytek, right,” he smiles, slightly uneasily. I mentally give him points for the pun. “I was going to say, I don’t know if you know that you have misspelt ‘crisis’ again,” I say, with a straight face. “Uuuuuh yeah,” he says, “Just a little bit. But that ties in with ‘Crytek’ you know.” “Yeah?” I say. I look expectantly at him. He carries on. “So…. with PC gaming itself, when Crysis 1 came out we were known for this game that melted PCs, and it wouldn’t run, and… you know, but underneath all that, underneath the graphical abilities of what this game pushed I mean there was still a fantastic game in behind it. For Crysis 2 it was a whole new learning process – it had a new engine that we were iterating on for the Cry Engine 3, and in addition to that we were also developing for consoles, something we had never done before. So now we learned from those experiences, through Far Cry, Crysis 1 and Crysis 2, and really compiled all that together, and go okay how can we make this development process go smoothly but still push it out. So you start off looking at it and going, well developing for consoles is the baseline, and when you build up to a certain point you can separate the two out and really focus like – how hard can we push PCs. And we wanted to make that future-proof as well, not only for the game, but also for the engine and our licensees and all of these things that tie in together on that front.” “So… you want to push PCs as far as they can go,” I say. “Well you know, our CEO came out and said ‘Crysis 3 will melt your PC’ and it does push it very, very hard. We are pushing really on the boundaries of the consoles as well and what the capabilities were and what we were able to do for PS3. The amount of detail that our art guys – we have one guy who is really dedicated to lighting and any time he asks for something in the engine he typically gets it. Lighting has really become a big focus in a lot of the engines… trying to achieve that realism and pushing the graphical qualities. It also enables our designers to do more with the levels.” “With all this customising and pushing the PC as far as you can go this really sounds a lot like PC BDSM,” I say. “Like you are fetishising technology.” I think Mike was sort of flustered by this statement so he rambled about the engine sort of repeating himself for a little while in a bit of an adorable way. I wait until he peters out. “Are you into BDSM?” I ask. “…..No.” “But you have a… relationship with your PC at home?” He sort of smiles, and hesitates. “…….I beat my PC up a lot.” My eyes begin to glint. I HAVE DONE IT, I think, feeling victorious. Oh press junket sheen, I have messed you all up! “You know, occasionally you have to throw your PC across the room,” he continues, with a sly grin, “and be like work and then it magically works again.” “I bet your PC is very sexy because it has to deal with Crysis all the time,” I say. “It’s about me dominating my own PC,” Mike says. He’s taken a flying leap into Cara territory now. I am eating him alive. “How good is your PC at home?” I ask, rubbing my hands together. “Uh… it’s okay. I think I’ve got a Core I7 with a 460 in it, and like 12 gigs of RAM.” I nod. “How big is your screen?” (Oh come on it is the obvious question.) “Uhhhhhhh 24 inch screen.” 24 whole inches. “Yeah.” He nods, because he knows he just said it in a context he never wanted to even dip his toes into. “I’m happy with it,” he says, slightly apologetically. I try to nod understandingly. “I’m just waiting to upgrade it to the next level.” Upgrade huh. “You know… even on the low and medium settings [Crysis 3] still looks fantastic.” I ask him why I can’t play a girl hero in it. “There was actually a female Nanosuit designed,” he said. “That’s a big secret. Nobody’s seen it and I probably shouldn’t say it. …It actually looks really cool.” “Does it have special boob padding?” I ask. “Well of course.” He got his own back. A few hours ago Crysis friendzoned me. |
While having some of the wobbliest finances in Europe, here’s how a Spanish county built an airport nobody—except one lucky politician—wanted. Six hundred thousand dollars is a lot to spend for eight ferrets. Administrators at Spain’s Castellón Airport announced the establishment of the ferret contract late last year. The job had been awarded to an animal handler, to control birds and rabbits that might endanger aircraft. The contract will pay the ferret wrangler 450,000 euros, or a little over $600,000. The money buys the weasels, plus a team of falcons, that will work six hours a day. The contract was to start as soon as planes start landing at the airport, which its operators predicted, at the time, would happen this April. In December, the airport’s operators announced the ferrets would be showing up early, in January, to control a plague of rabbits that could “bite cables.” The ferrets will have three months to clear the area before the opening, which, if it happens, would finally come after 15 years of planning and delays. ADVERTISEMENT Thanks for watching! Visit Website It’s a big if. By December, officials in Castellón, a region of orange groves and long beaches near the city of Valencia on Spain’s Mediterranean coast, had not yet received permission from Spain’s central government in Madrid to take off and land large passenger jets in the area. And the airport’s director had made a public appeal to the local government for more funds — to offer incentives to airlines. Because, four months before opening day, not one airline had signed a deal to operate flights to Castellón. ADVERTISEMENT Thanks for watching! Visit Website ADVERTISEMENT Thanks for watching! Visit Website Just a few months before the scheduled start of operations, and more than a decade after the plan’s conception, few in the little region of Castellón had demonstrated interest in having a local airport. Who had? Ask that in Castellón, and one name comes up: a local politician named Carlos Fabra. Fabra, 66, is the latest patriarch in a line going back centuries in Castellón. A leader of the local Populist Party — the same center-right party that won Spain’s national elections in November — he had first assumed leadership of the local legislature in 1995. It was a position his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and various uncles had held on and off since the 19th century. Fabra soon announced a legacy project: an airport for Castellón. “In 1997, Castellón’s unemployment rate was technically zero. You used to read about it in the paper,” said Pedro Barba Lujan, a lifelong Castellón resident who runs a travel agency, GiraMondo, in the county seat of Castello de la Plana, a sunny town full of classical architecture. “It was a different era. The airport was to bring people to Castellón and spend money. They built a lot of hotels and [a resort called] Marina d’Or. They were planning an amusement park.” The airport project would in theory bring the tourists directly to Castellón’s door. In 2003, the Spanish government refused to aid Fabra’s project with federal money, so airport backers decided to go semi-private — a first for Spain at the time. The proposal went before the local legislature, which Fabra led, and to a larger regional body in Valencia. The political wheels took years to grind, but the process inched forward. The next year construction crews were able to break ground — with backing from the equivalent of the state and county governments, an investment from Banco Santander, one of Spain’s largest banks, and FCC, the country’s largest construction company. An airport was built over the next five years, at a cost of nearly $200 million (including the ferret bill). Today it sits, quiet, in a patch of olive-farming land, amid some pretty hills overlooking the Mediterranean shore. But today Castellón is a different place than it was in the late ’90s. The province now has more than 20 percent unemployment. And though back then, backers had convinced local governments and businesses to build the airport, they had not convinced the rest of the world it was necessary. I visited Castellón late last fall to ask its airport operators, politicians, and residents one question: was a 15-year effort to build an airport without planes a case of epically bad public administration, or had it crossed the line into corruption? I wanted to understand what, at bottom, was causing the European financial crisis, much of which is hitting hardest along the continent’s southern coast. Could identifying the line between fecklessness and graft in one lovely Mediterranean valley help explain why this nation — among others — now faces insolvency? • • • Few inside Spain call the country “too big to fail.” Rather, they say it already has. The Iberian nation of 46 million is the Eurozone’s fourth-largest economy, after Germany, France, and Italy. But it has the European Union’s highest youth unemployment rate — at the new year, a shocking 49.3 percent. For all adults, el paro, as unemployment is called in Spain, was more than 22 percent in January. The government long ago ran out of money, leading to a round of cuts last year for services including hospitals and schools. That sparked national protests by groups of tens of thousands of Spaniards who called themselves indignados, or “indignants,” who occupied plazas across the country for nearly two months — long before American protesters occupied Wall Street. It had been a long time coming. As far back as 2008, it was common to hear the country named among Europe’s “P.I.G.S.,” a banker’s epithet for Europe’s problem children: Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain. “I believe that the basis for economic recovery, and the foundations of a new stage of growth in Spain have been laid,” then-Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero said during an emergency press conference back in July. It turned out to be wishful thinking. Widespread disapproval of Zapatero’s handling of the crisis led him to call early elections that same summer day. And last November, Spanish voters threw the leader of eight years out of office by a huge margin, handing his center-left Democratic Socialist party its worst defeat in 30 years. Spain has only been a democracy for 35 years. The party that took over, the center-right Partido Popular, or Populist Party (PP), warned of an austerity program: hard choices to get the country back on its feet. “Austerity is not enough; reforms are needed for growth,” the incoming prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, promised in his victory speech. In Castellón, though, the words carried some irony: it was a PP stronghold, having held the presidency of the local provincial legislature for decades. Where would an empty $200 million airport, throwing six-figure contracts at bird and rabbit exterminators, fit into austerity? The airport itself sits between two olive groves, a half hour from the Mediterranean shore. At the end of a curving road, the passenger terminal is a white, two-story rectangle with rib-shaped accents along the roofline. The marriage of tackiness and functionality recalls an IKEA. Inside the glass vestibule where the air traffic controllers will sit, the radar screens and radios and computers were still in boxes in September, and the air conditioning did not work. (Even in fall, a glass box 10 stories in the air is an oven.) An empty airport is eerie. A cargo hangar was empty of machinery. The debarkation area, despite space for nine jets, had none. The only proof that Castellón Airport was an airport at all came from the tower, runway, and dozens of bright blue road signs that claim so along the nearby highway. Unlike most airports in Spain, Castellón is run by a private company, Concesiones Aeroportuarias S.A. The company is actually a small consortium anchored by Banco Santander, which had arranged most of the financing for the airport, and FCC, which has done most of the heavy work to build it. Along with a handful of local, finance, and construction interests, Santander and FCC will recoup their investment by taking a percentage of fees that passengers pay to fly there. Someday. With a private airport, the investors — through their company Concesiones Aeroportuarias SL — could undercut fees charged by nearby airports, which are owned wholly by the local and federal government and subject to stricter regulations. “We charge less,” said Nacho Salom Pérez, Concesiones Aeroportuarias’ chief marketer. The private approach was a competitive strategy. At the end of October, Salom Pérez had agreed to give me a tour of the airport. He had climbed out of his car a few moments earlier with his arms full of files and notebooks, papers sticking out here and there. He was harried. “At the end of this year, we have to have this [federal] authorization,” he said (translation from Spanish; Salom Pérez does not speak much English). In order to have planes flying by April 2012, Salom Pérez explained, the airport would need to be cleared by the regulators in Madrid within the next few weeks. Which meant they needed to finish construction, and have an inspector come out. Once that happened, they could reach deals with interested airlines, which they would need by December. He later amended that to November. (A month later, in mid-December, the airport had yet to announce any deals with airlines.) That day, Salom Pérez said, most of the airport’s sales team had just jetted off — from nearby Valencia Airport — to a travel industry conference in Berlin, where they would attempt to woo anyone with an airline. By then we had walked inside the empty terminal, and Salom Pérez was showing off the baggage carousel and explaining what would happen at the travel conference: “The airlines sit there, you ask for meetings, and you’ve got 20 minutes to make a few contacts,” he said. The team was in Berlin to make contacts, he said. Eastern Europe was a promising market. Russia. Poland. Salom Pérez is a likable, sharp, 30-something MBA from Barcelona, with the go-along manner of a professional salesman. But he seemed to realize a bit late that he’d misspoken. Making cold calls at sales conferences a month before his deadline wasn’t a great sign, 15 years into the effort. He claimed they had some deals in the works. He wouldn’t give details. Salom Pérez headed into the main concourse, a long, white, echoing space. He had been on the project the past seven years, and 2011 had been a tough one: “Ghost Airport of Castellón Spends €5.5 Million on Security Guards,” a local news website, El Confidencial, had worried in August. “Firm Running Castellón Airport in Default,” said a daily in Valencia, Las Provincias, after the local government announced 22 million euros ($28.7 million) in public funds lost on the airport in 2010, the latest figure available. “Council Cuts First-Year Passenger Estimate by Half,” said the front page of the region’s main daily, Levante de Castelló, a few days before the Concesiones team left for its last-minute pitch to the airlines in Berlin. • • • A week before, in late Septemberat a hearing with an increasingly hostile Valencia legislative committee, the airport administration had announced a cut in its projections for the coming year from 600,000 passengers to 300,000, an estimate Salom Pérez confirmed. In theory, the airport would earn money, and pay back its loans, by charging airlines a fee for every passenger who arrives. So a 50 percent cut in passengers would mean a 50 percent cut in income, which in part goes to the government. At 6 euros, or $8, a passenger, which Salom Pérez said was a likely number, the airport had just told the government that over 2 million more bucks had disappeared. Salom Pérez remained optimistic but vague: “We’re negotiating with Ryanair. ... We’re in a process of pre-closing negotiations.” He strolled through the terminal showing off the porcelain benches, reaching a bit for good news. “The ceramic industry is very important in Castellón,” he said. It would bring business travelers, and that would help convince the airlines, too. And the beaches: Castellón had more than 300 days of sun a year, he said. He was not able to explain how the airport’s management, of which he was a member, had reached their estimates of the local air travel market — or how, after years of study, they had gotten it wrong by 100 percent in the same week they needed to sell the airport to both the airlines and their own government. They had come to 600,000, then 300,000, by “looking at similar airports,” he said, without naming any. “Seeing what movement they’ve had. And with that we have expert assessors who circulate in this world, and contacts with the airlines. Our estimates are estimates, but they also go with what we understand from the airlines.” A spokesman for Ryanair, the Irish discount airline, as well as representatives of two other airlines Salom Pérez later named — a Spanish domestic line called Air Nostrum, and a Hungarian carrier called Wizz Air — would not confirm any discussions with Castellón Airport. Air Nostrum has just pulled out of a similar airport named Ciudad Real that was four hours away, near Madrid, citing lack of passengers. Back in the early 2000s, the British consulting firm Mott MacDonald had carried out initial studies for Castellón Airport and predicted a potential market of 2 million passengers per year. But the Mott MacDonald spokesperson, reached by phone and email, wouldn’t comment on how it had reached those figures or whether they remain accurate. Despite describing its work for Castellón in detail in its marketing materials, the company took pains to distance itself from its previous work with the project, saying it was a long time ago. “We cannot comment on the performance of the traffic development work undertaken by the developer of the airport or other parties,” a Mott MacDonald spokeswoman, Christina de Burgh-Milne, said by email. Tersely. Twice. (A few weeks after the exchange, all mention of Castellón Airport had disappeared from Mott MacDonald’s website.) Meanwhile, the economic news worsened. Eighty miles away — about 15 minutes by jet — administrators at a competing Spanish airport, in Reus, had spent the year worried about rumors of its client airlines cutting back flights. Three other airports — one near the coast in Murcia, one in the dusty inland town of Lleida, and one in Giorna, on the French border — were locked in difficult negotiations to keep their own airlines. • • • Those airports have now become symbolsof Spain’s so-called “white elephant” problem. Across the country, local governments have been flailing. While in the United States, the real estate crash has hit private homeowners hardest, in Spain it was the city governments that gorged themselves, committing to massive projects on the assumption that taxes, like home prices, would always rise. In 2007, the market crashed, and Spain’s cities were buckling under bills for empty swimming pools, shuttered sports facilities, and unpopular vacation complexes that had been promised generous tax assistance. All are too expensive to maintain and too valuable to just knock down. Castellón Airport proved a special case — but not a unique one. As the crisis deepened, the project emerged in the Spanish media as the most outré example of a toxic mix of real estate speculation and local corruption that was producing embarrassing legal cases across the suffering country. Fabra’s associates were turning up in the most notorious of the cases: a web of influence peddling in nearby Valencia, Spain’s third-largest city, and a longtime PP stronghold. Fabra himself came under investigation for at least five counts of graft and influence peddling, the largest involving permits to establish a fertilizer factory. After successfully fighting the charges, Fabra learned in December 2011 that the case would be reopened, with prosecutors seeking a 15-year sentence. His allies were doing no better. Fabra’s closest associate, the local governor, Francisco Camps, faced a long list of charges, and would eventually be forced from office in July 2011. A young, attractive governor, Camps had fought the case — which involved widespread rumors of graft — for years. The only example of corruption that seemed to stick, in the end, involved the payment of more than $16,000 for tailoring of Camps’ suits, by associates of Francisco Correa, who was famous for gifting expensive watches to politicians. Correa was imprisoned on corruption charges in 2009. He, too, had been in contact with Fabra, whose name surfaced in court documents. The case of the tailored suits had turned out to be just one thread, as it were, in a corruption investigation Spanish prosecutors and the national press had followed for years. Connections between Camps and Correa had been made via a mysterious bagman known as El Bigotes, “The Moustache,” who also, it appeared, had contact with Fabra. Fabra’s public persona didn’t help. A self-proclaimed addict of the local lottery, he has won jackpots a curious five times since 2004 — most recently the 2011 edition of El Gordo (or The Fat One), a nationally televised lotto that Spaniards follow religiously at Christmastime. A report by La Vanguardia, the daily newspaper in Barcelona, claimed Fabra won more than 2 million euros ($2.5 million) in 2008’s El Gordo. His most recent Christmas winnings were not disclosed, but several Spanish reports claimed he had split a ticket worth $100,000 with a second Castellón official. Despite his luck, Fabra often seemed to be glowering behind dark glasses, which he wears to hide an eye injury from a childhood accident with a pair of scissors. Meanwhile the airport, Fabra’s obsession, just keeps getting more expensive: take the commission of 300,000 euros ($382,000) for a seven-story bronze statue of Fabra. After a hiccup that included the theft of the statue’s arm by copper thieves, the likeness will be installed in the airport rotunda early this year, said Nacho Salom Pérez. Custom furniture by Porcelanosa, a local brand of high-end ceramics, continued to arrive at the two-story terminal into late 2011 (in October, most of the benches were pushed against a wall, for construction workers’ post-lunch siestas). Europe’s only full-body X-ray scanner — the controversial “backscatter” machines — sat waiting on the second floor. Salom Pérez explained: “It’s not required by law, but I like it.” A month later, the EU banned that machine. • • • Castellón airport, envisioned as a gateway for tourists, is surrounded by other failed projects. Without the beach development, the airport had no reason to exist. But without the airport, the beach developments were harder to reach. Add the financial crisis in 2008, and the result was disaster. Half an hour from the airport is the beachfront development the travel agent had told me about. Located on a beach visible from the airport highway, the Marina d’Or, or Golden Harbor, resort is one of the largest boom-era developments built in Castellón. It is just over 10 million square meters (the Mall of America is 390,000). The property, with its tagline “Vacation City,” is a private investment by a land developer named Jesus Ger, who is also a close associate of Carlos Fabra. Ger’s company has sales offices in the Persian Gulf and the U.K., and similar resort developments in Morocco and Ecuador. Ger lives in Castellón, where he sells seafront flats in more than a dozen seven- and eight-story apartment blocks. The apartments were built at about the same time as the airport. I rented a two-bedroom, two-bath unit, with an en suite kitchen in Marina d’Or for $50 for a night. I spent about an hour walking around the empty resort, and my notes are a list of mixed metaphors: Dubai after the oil’s gone. Vegas after the money’s gone. A cruise ship caught in a storm, run aground, and then reopened, if slightly listing, as a circus. Anchored by two luxury hotels with more than 600 rooms each, Marina d’Or looks like its chief design influence was the price of cement. Along with the thousands of flats, the resort boasts an unused driving range; a loud but empty disco; a comfortable but abandoned spa; an indoor swimming pool lined with Roman columns but no swimmers; two wide avenues strung permanently with Christmas lights, still turned on every night; a visitor’s center; three real estate sales offices; one foreclosure resale billboard (“Now Is Your Opportunity”); too many restaurants; not enough bars; and an oceanfront stage hosting concerts by Raphael — Spain’s Liberace. All of Marina d’Or is painted in garish colors. Along the shore are gardens decorated with fake Mirós and Dalís, and beyond those is a strand with gorgeous sea views. Like the airport, Marina d’Or is hopelessly abandoned, except for the staff. The place still opens every morning and closes every night, with dozens of weary employees putting out chairs and terrace umbrellas, firing up grills and leaf blowers, lighting the Christmas lights, and even renting out the occasional flat to the occasional, usually foreign, visitor. “It’s beautiful here. But I thought there’d be people,” said Adam, a tourist from Brighton, England, who asked that I not use his last name because “this has really turned out quite strange.” He was on vacation with his girlfriend, Rachel, who had liked the pictures online. They sat amid 200 empty chairs in a terrace by a lawn. “Bit empty, ’innit?” he said. Carrying people from the cold of Scandinavia, England, and Eastern Europe to Marina d’Or was supposed to have been the job of planes landing at the Castellón Airport. • • • “Since the crisis has come, we’ve seen how tourism has fallen, in all the projects,” said Marina Albiol of Castellón’s United Left party. Albiol is a representative in the local legislature, and the airport’s most vocal critic inside the government. “I doubt much that an airport will work. I hope it works now that it’s done. I hope there is activity, that it’s economically productive. But we doubt it.” Seated in a café in Castello de la Plana, it didn’t take the 29-year-old politician long to move on from tourism statistics. “The entire project is part of the personality of Carlos Fabra,” she said. After undergoing liver surgery, Fabra left office in March last year. But a week later, he and Francisco Camps, were — in a surreal twist — inviting thousands to an inauguration of an airport without planes, complete with ribbon cutting in the arrivals hall. At that event, he boomed to news cameras: “This is not a land of failure! … I give you just three words! Castellón! Castellón! Castellón!” He and Camps announced an open house effective immediately, inviting the community to come wander through the halls for the next month and a half. The doors were open, he declared. Within days of the perplexing inauguration, 6,000 Castellón residents had joined a Facebook group proposing a rave on the 3,000-yard-long runway. The invitation was adorned with a doctored photo of Fabra in a pink flight attendant’s hat, and Camps blowing confetti from a pipe. That canceled the open house, and since, no one has entered the facility without permission from Concesiones Aeroportuarias S.A. • • • Even though the Castellón airport is run by a private company, the local government did, some years back, create a public entity to act as an overseer, with regulatory powers. Called Aerocas (“Airport of Castellón”), the public agency is supposed to ensure that the private one, Concesiones Aeroportuarias S.A., complies with the terms of its government contract, according to Salom Pérez. In the fall, Aerocas announced its new head of operations: Carlos Fabra. The government Fabra led established an oversight body that he now runs, which signed a contract with the company he helped found. Concesiones Aeroportuarias will run the airport, still empty as of this writing, for the next 40 years. |
Continuing a tradition that I’m hoping other release managers will pick up (some have so far, but not all), here’s some notes about the epigraph I included with the email announcing Perl 5.17.7. The epigraph itself is from R. Scott Bakker’s The Darkness That Comes Before, which is the first in a somewhat grim speculative fiction trilogy called The Prince of Nothing. One of the main characters is a sort of intellectual warrior-philopsopher monk (this is bad description but it’s very hard to summarize this character) who underwent very intense mental and phyisical training as a child. The epigraph is a description of some of that training. No thought. The boy extinguished. Only a place. This place. Motionless, the Pragma sat facing him, the bare soles of his feet flat against each other, his dark frock scored by the shadows of deep folds, his eyes as empty as the child they watched. A place without breath or sound. A place of sight alone. A place without before or after . . . almost. For the first lances of sunlight careered over the glacier, as ponderous as great tree limbs in the wind. Shadows hardened and light gleamed across the Pragma’s ancient skull. The old man’s left hand forsook his right sleeve, bearing a watery knife. And like a rope in water, his arm pitched outward, fingertips trailing across the blade as the knife swung languidly into the air, the sun skating and the dark shrine plunging across its mirror back . . . And the place where Kellhus had once existed extended an open hand—the blond hairs like luminous filaments against tanned skin—and grasped the knife from stunned space. The slap of pommel against palm triggered the collapse of place into little boy. The pale stench of his body. Breath, sound, and lurching thoughts. I have been legion . . . In his periphery, he could see the spike of the sun ease from the mountain. He felt drunk with exhaustion. In the recoil of his trance, it seemed all he could hear were the twigs arching and bobbing in the wind, pulled by leaves like a million sails no bigger than his hand. Cause everywhere, but amid countless minute happenings—diffuse, useless. Now I understand. Since this release was on Perl’s 25th birthday, I was looking for an epigraph that at least had something to do with birth. I chose this one because it can be seen as a sort of birth, or perhaps a rebirth of a character. He has achieved enlightenment of his sect’s teachings. I didn’t remember it when I first thought of this passage, but the fact that his teacher is called “the Pragma” really makes this a nice quote for a Perl release. If you’re interested in complex, weird, philosophical speculative fiction I highly recommend these novels. However, be forewarned that while the trilogy does tell a somewhat self-contained story, there’s an even larger story which is being told in further sequels, and the author hasn’t finished all of those. Supposedly there will be at least 5 (or maybe 6) additional novels, and only two have been released so far. |
At the PDC and TechEd EMEA last year we described our new editor support built on the WPF technology in .NET Framework 4.0. Today I’m happy to reveal the new UI for Visual Studio, also built on WPF: In this image you can see several areas of concentration: Reduced clutter and visual complexity by removing excessive lines and gradients in the UX and modernized the interface by removing outdated 3D bevels Placed focus on content areas by opening negative space between windows and drawing attention to the current focus with a dominant accent color and a distinctive background Added an inviting new palette to make VS 2010 more distinctive In the following image you can see floating documents which allows you to utilize multiple monitors while designing your project and writing code: This image shows new support in the editor for outlining: Triangle glyphs in the margin are used to collapse or expand your code blocks Collapsed sections of code are marked with an empty triangle (pointing straight) as well as a set of ellipses Colors on the margin indicate edits that have been made The New Project dialog has also gotten an update to include online template viewing, a search box, and easier navigation. Multi-targeting remains in this version but now with .NET Framework 4.0 included as an option: Visual Studio has a very broad and rich ecosystem of extensions written by our partners and folks like you. In VS2010 we wanted to make it easier for you to find those extensions and install them. We’ve enabled the new Extension Manager for this purpose: With the Extension Manager you will be able to browse for templates and tools online and install them easily into the Visual Studio environment. The next public release of VS will have this new functionality and we’ll be hooking up the online capabilities through the Visual Studio Gallery as part of the final release. These designs were developed and tested for user feedback by our User Experience team and implemented by the VS Platform team (excellent job!). We hope you like the new look and feel of Visual Studio 2010. You’ll be able to play with these bits when we release Beta 1 which we are working hard on right now (no formal announce date just yet, stay tuned). Enjoy! |
Last month, we noted that acting poor is all the rage among the rich. Sort of like reducing your carbon footprint was the big thing last year. Vanity Fair's Michael Shnayerson brings us more obnoxious examples of the wealthy complaining about how poor they are now. For instance, the laidoff Lehman executive who is cutting her maid's rather than sell her handbags or the ghastly idea of flying commercial. Now many bankers, along with discovering $15 bottles of wine, are finding other ways to cut back—if not out of necessity, then from collective guilt and fear: the fitness trainer from three times a week to once a week; the haircut and highlights every eight weeks instead of every five. One prominent “hedgie” recently flew to China for business—but not on a private plane, as before. “Why should I pay $250,000 for a private plane,” he said to a friend, “when I can pay $20,000 to fly commercial first class?” But here's the thing, the problem facing the economy right now is the lack of demand. So, if you have money, you should be spending it and enjoying it and keeping your maids employed. We'll still think you're assholes, but we're gonna think that no matter what. |
For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: – Revelation 22:18 I’ve seen some incredibly stupid and misguided initiatives by “conservatives” in my day, but this one takes the cake. Because the Bible has been rewritten to conform with the agenda of “liberals,” a self-described “conservative” is spearheading an effort to rewrite it to his liking. If you think I’m joking, read on. Andy Schlafly, the son of the heroic Phyllis Schlafly, has begun the Conservative Bible Project, an effort to rewrite the Bible to the tastes of conservatives online, Wikipedia-style. What does he have in mind? Do you appreciate the beauty and accuracy of the King James? Check out WND’s line of Bibles Here are some examples: He doesn’t like what Jesus said in Mark 10:25 about it being “easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” His “Conservative Bible” changes “a rich man” to “a man who cares only for money.” I’m sure Jesus will appreciate this politically incorrect update. He was probably confused when he made that statement. Schlafly explains: “I don’t think Jesus is saying, ‘Let’s all be lazy so we can get to heaven.’ That’s not the message. And, if you translate the word rich as simply rich, some people are going to get the message that ‘I am going to be lazy so I can get to heaven easier.'” How’s that for scholarship? He is cutting out the ending of Mark’s gospel altogether. Why? Because he says it is not found in the oldest texts. But that’s not true. It is not found in manuscripts doctored by Gnostics in Alexandria – manuscripts that form the basis of the most “liberal” translations of the Bible. So, in effect, he is emulating the enemy here. The end of Mark has already been eliminated in the New International Perversion, as I like to call it. He also recommends cutting the adultery story in which Jesus says: “He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her.” What’s wrong with that? Well, apparently, Jesus was showing Himself to be soft on crime! He doesn’t like the idea of the Bible talking about wine. He turns it into grape juice. It’s nutty. Basically, those “conservatives” participating in this idea weren’t really upset when liberals messed with the Holy Scriptures. They were upset only with how they messed with them. I’m almost too embarrassed to write about this kind of trivialization and politicization of the Scriptures, but something needs to be said. Either the Bible is the Word of God, or it’s not. If it is, how dare anyone rewrite it? If it’s not, why bother? Personally, I am very comfortable with the King James Bible. I know how scrupulous the translators were. I know they spent hours in prayer over their work. I know they used the best resources available to them. I know they didn’t assume that the “oldest” manuscripts available were always the most accurate. I know they took into consideration that heretics were busy editing Scripture – probably as early as the first century. Enough of this foolishness! Rewriting the Bible to fit man’s ideas is always a bad idea – no matter who the man is or what his beliefs. It’s also a profoundly dangerous practice spiritually. There’s certainly nothing “conservative” about rewriting the Bible. The “conservative” thing to do would be to preserve, or conserve, the Scriptures as they were originally written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. A plague on the houses of anyone and everyone who would tamper so frivolously with God’s Word. |
The previous winners of the Canadian Satellite Design Challenge. This image belongs to Space Concordia. After winning the first Canadian Satellite Design Challenge (CSDC), Space Concordia is returning with a new satellite project focusing this time on testing an amazing self-healing material in space. We are a large multi-disciplinary engineering student team that won the first edition of this national competition to launch a satellite. ConSat-1 has been accepted in European Space Agency's Fly Your Satellite program and it is currently in the final stages of completion. Our payload this time, for ConSat-2, will help the future of space flight by testing the effects of the vacuum of space on the revolutionary self-healing material! Astronaut Julie Payette's message to Space Concordia after winning the first CSDC in September 2012: What is the Self-Healing Material? Self-healing in action. Credit to Dr. Suong Hoa & Asgar Khan Developed at Concordia University by Dr. Suong V. Hoa, the director of the Concordia Centre for Composites (CONCOM), in collaboration with other shareholders such as MPB Technologies and the Canadian Space Agency, the self-healing material is a fiber-reinforced composite. Composites are materials that are made from two or more ingredients: Matrix and reinforcement. The self-healing material uses carbon fiber for reinforcement and an epoxy resin for its matrix. The self-healing material uses an autonomic polymer healing process based on a three-step process that starts with a trigger response immediately after the material is damaged. The second step allows for the transport of a healing agent to the affected area. Microcapsules are placed throughout the resin to facilitate this step. The third step is the chemical repair process. Click here for more information Why is Self-Healing Material important for Space Exploration? Impact of a paint chip on the window pit of Space Shuttle during STS-7. Credit to NASA. This kind of material predates Dr. Hoa's research. For example in the paint industry, self-healing paints were used to repair minor surface scratches. This patented technology has yet to be tested in space, this is where Space Concordia comes into play. Our mission is to conduct a comprehensive study of the self-healing technology for spacecraft applications by sending a 3U CubeSat (34 cm x 10 cm x 10 cm) in orbit . Specifically, the behaviour of the healing process will be observed in a microgravity environment. Capillary action (when surface tension forces + adhesion forces move liquid in narrow spaces) mainly drives the healing agent into the cracks in microgravity, since the cracks are very small. Thus, doing our experiment in microgravity is crucial because we want to see how the self-healing material would react in the vacuum of space. Studying the long-term effects of radiation on the material is necessary as well. Our team has designed a method to autonomously conduct this experiment in space in a small satellite. This self-healing material is of high interest within the aerospace community such as the Canadian Space Agency and the European Space Agency. If viable, it would be capable of increasing the lifetime of space structures. Prolonging the life of a spacecraft will decrease the required maintenance over its lifetime, which is impossible in many cases. For example, the ammonia leak that happened on the International Space Station (ISS) in May was probably caused by a MicroMeteoroid and Orbital Debris (MMOD) impact. if a self-healing shield is implemented in the ISS, the advantage would be to reduce the amount of manual repairs needed on the exterior of the craft and generally improve its lifespan in orbit. This would allow for an overall cost reduction for the spacecraft. One of the most dangerous issues about sending a manned mission to Mars is the passage of the spacecraft through clouds of space dust. NASA is currently working on a protective shield for a future Mars spacecraft. Self-healing material could be a good candidate to be one of the layers of this shield. That's why we think this payload is the next necessary leap in spacecraft design. Smithsonian Magazine: How do you shield astronauts and satellites from deadly micrometeorites? The experiment Three-point test simulated on a MTS machine. This image belongs to Space Concordia. All the ground tests indicate its successful feasibility in space. However, this material has never been sent into orbit yet. Our experiment includes two different samples, one with and one without the healing agent to be used as control. Once in orbit, the samples will be subjected to a three-point bending test. Our test will follow a proposed standard test of ASTM that is “Recommendations for an ASTM Standardized Test for Determining GIIc of Unidirectional Laminated Polymeric Matrix Composites”. This test was chosen to conform to the results obtained from the ground tests. Asgar Khan, Dr. Hoa's PhD Student, has been working with us to develop this experiment. The current ConSat-2 model. This image belongs to Space Concordia. A thermal actuator will be used to apply a load on each sample until the first crack appears. Load cells will be used to determine the amount of applied load from the actuator. Fiber-Bragg Gratings will be used to measure the strain on the sample at any given time. By measuring the acoustical propagation with the FBGs, the initiation of a crack can be detected and thus, the actuation can be stopped as soon as cracks appear. The sample will be allowed 1 week to heal and the experiment will be repeated to measure how much strain can the sample endure after it has been healed. The process of cracking and healing is repeated many times to generate more data points. The same process is done on the sample without a healing agent alternatively to compare the results from the sample with a healing agent. The one-week period between each experiment is chosen in order to allow the batteries to fully charge before each experiment and to allow the data from each experiment to downlink to Space Concordia’s ground station in Montreal, Canada. The experiment is terminated after the material does not heal itself anymore. Here is a breakdown of where the funds will go to: Allocation of Funds percentage is done assuming we successfully reach our target goal of $15,000. We know that this is not an enough goal to build our entire CubeSat, but this modest goal is to help ensure that we can finish our satellite. Your contribution will allow us to buy the crucial components that we need to complete this small satellite. Together, we can contribute to the advancement of space exploration. Here is a simple cost breakdown of our satellite: A simple cost breakdown of our satellite The Team Project timeline (CDR: Critical Design Review, PDR: Preliminary Design Review, PMP: Project Management Plan) Our team of 25 engineering students (+ 1 physics student) is dedicated to devoting our time to build a functional satellite. We come from different backgrounds and are connected by our passion for space. We have experience from having participated in the first Canadian Satellite Design Challenge. This experience along with the talents of the team members of different engineering backgrounds, will make sure the project is finished by May 2014. This is when we have to deliver our engineering model to the competition to undergo different tests such as vibrations, thermal-vacuum and a functional test. What is Space Concordia? Marc Garneau donated 5 autographed pictures to Space Concordia for our fundraising campaign. Space Concordia is an engineering student-run society in Concordia University whose interest lies in astronautical engineering and space. We have a huge involvement in our university as well as a school outreach program to promote space exploration. We are also building two satellites, one rocket, and a Martian rover. By helping us buy the equipment we need for our satellite, you’ll be offered numerous types of perks, from Twitter shout-outs to Marc Garneau (1st Canadian astronaut in space!) signed photos to invitations to dine with the team and check out our lab and satellite. The choice is yours, thank you! For articles from Space.com, CTV News, La Presse, The Gazette, Canal Savoir, etc. on Space Concordia, click here. Current sponsors Current sponsors of ConSat-2 Contact Info If you'd like to contact us, you can send an email to: kickstarter@spaceconcordia.ca For sponsorship purposes, please contact: sponsorship@spaceconcordia.ca Songs Used in the Video Coral Reef by Psychadelik Pedestrian Night Out (Instrumental) by Silence Is Sexy Acknowledgements Concordia Center for Composites, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Concordia University Department of Smart Materials and Sensors for Space Missions, MPB Technologies Inc. Shock Waves Physics Group and Department of Mechanical Engineering, McGill University Center for Applied Research on Polymers (CREPEC), Mechanical Engineering Department, École Polytechnique de Montréal Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Concordia University The Quality Engineering Test Establishment, Department of National Defence Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, INRS-Énergie, Matériaux et Télécommunications Engineering Development, Canadian Space Agency References [1] P. Merle, Y. Guntzburger, E. Haddad, S. V. Hoa,G. Thatte, "Self Healing Composite Material and Method of Manufacturing Same," U.S. Patent 0 036 568, Feb 5, 2009. [2] G. Thatte et al., "Development and Characterization of Self-Healing Epoxy Systems for Space Applications," in Proc. 1st International Conference on Self Healing Materials, Noordwijk aan Zee, Netherlands, 2007. [3] B. Aïssa et al., "The Self-Healing Capability of Carbon Fibre Composite Structures Subjected to Hypervelocity Impacts Simulating Orbital Space Debris," ISRN Nanomaterials, Volume 2012, Article ID 351205. [4] Davidson, B.D. and Teller, S.S., "Recommendations for an ASTM Standardized Test for Determining GIIc of Unidirectional Laminated Polymeric Matrix Composites," Journal of ASTM International, Vol. 7, No. 2, 2010, pp. 1-11. |
LONDON (Reuters) - A British private security company is being sued in the United States over the death of a U.S. soldier hit by one of its convoys in Iraq, according to court documents. In this file photo U.S. Army Sergeant Dennis Duell of Mexico, New York, who was the platoon leader of sniper victim Private First Class Shawn David Pahnke, mourns near Pahnke's boots, rifle, helmet and identification tags during a memorial service in Baghdad June 20, 2003. REUTERS/Chris Helgren The case, believed to be the first of its kind, comes six weeks after Iraq accused the U.S. security company Blackwater of using excessive force in an incident where 17 Iraqis were shot dead in Baghdad. The case against Erinys, filed in a court in Houston, Texas, on Wednesday and also in London, was brought by the Perry Monroe, father of Christopher Monroe, a U.S. soldier who was struck by an Erinys vehicle while on duty in southern Iraq in October 2005. The lawsuit accuses the Erinys convoy of ignoring warnings and traveling at excessive speed after dark without lights fully on, leading to an accident in which Monroe was hit, suffering severe injuries that led to his death. “Even though warned that the remainder of the U.S. convoy was ahead, the Erinys PSD team employee with reckless disregard accelerated to a high rate of speed and struck Christopher with his armored Suburban, tearing off his right leg. “Mr. Monroe has been compelled to file this lawsuit to require the Erinys PSD team to account for its action that led to the death of his 19-year-old son,” reads the suit, which also seeks unspecified damages. Erinys, which provided security to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at the time of the incident, denied any wrongdoing. “This was nothing but a very, very tragic accident,” its chairman Jonathan Garratt told Reuters in London on Friday. “There was a full and very thorough investigation by the U.S. military into the case at the time, and both Erinys and its employees were fully exonerated.” The case is the latest to shine a critical light on the work of the two dozen or so private security companies operating in Iraq, some of which have earned hundreds of millions of dollars from contracts awarded by the U.S. government. While Blackwater, which the Iraqi government wants to ban from Iraq, has received the most high-profile criticism, other companies have also been accused of using excessive force or of having little regard for Iraqi civilians. The case filed in Houston is the first time that a private security company has been accused of negligence in the case of the death of a U.S. soldier, lawyers said. Asked why the suit was being brought now, Tobias Cole, the lawyer who filed it, denied it had been motivated by the Blackwater incident. “There’s not necessarily some strategic timing to this lawsuit,” he said. “The family wanted answers and under Texas law you only have a certain amount of time to seek those answers.” Garratt said he believed the case had been filed within one day of the expiry of the statute of limitations. |
No entrance fee on Aug. 25 at state parks. And more free days are coming up this year at state and national parks. Go play for free in Washington’s state parks on Aug. 25. Visitors won’t need a Discover Pass to enjoy the parks on that Tuesday. It’s one of the annual free days at state parks — there can be up to a dozen a year — when visitors don’t need a Discover Pass. The pass costs $10 for a day or $30 annually for visitors with vehicles who wish to use parking lots in state parks. The Aug. 25 free day honors the 99th anniversary of the establishment of the National Park Service (on Aug. 25, 1916). National parks also will be free on Aug. 25 in honor of that anniversary. Washington State Parks will have two more free days in 2015. They will be on Sept. 26 (in recognition of National Public Lands Day) and Nov. 11 (in honor of Veterans Day). The National Park Service also will offer free-entrance days this year, on Sept. 26 and Nov. 11, including at popular national parks in Washington such as Mount Rainier and Olympic. |
Lord Sugar, the entrepreneur and Apprentice star, has quit the Labour Party after becoming disillusioned with its "negative business policies" and "anti-enterprise concepts". The peer said that he repeatedly told the "most senior figures" in the party about his concerns over proposals should the party be elected under Ed Miliband's leadership, but they failed to act. Lord Sugar said his resignation was accepted as the party had been "aware of my disillusionment for some time". Lord Sugar took up his seat in the House of Lords in 2009 (PA) He said: "In the past year I found myself losing confidence in the party due to their negative business policies and general anti-enterprise concepts they were considering if they were elected. I expressed this to the most senior figures in the party several times. "I signed on to New Labour in 1997 but more recently, particularly in relation to business, I sensed a policy shift moving back towards what Old Labour stood for. "By the start of this year I had made my decision to resign from the party whatever the outcome of the general election." Lord Sugar said he informed the party of his decision on Friday and kept his intentions quiet during the election campaign rather than use them to "possibly damage" Labour's election chances. He was initially appointed a peer by the previous Labour administration in 2009, but launched a scathing attack on the vision outlined during Mr Miliband's tenure. In his statement he added: "I am a loyal person and rather than use my decision to possibly damage the party's chances in the election, I decided, as a relatively high profile individual, to keep my intentions quiet for the duration of the campaign. "In the past few weeks I have declined hundreds of media requests to talk about the proposed policies of the party, particularly in relation to business, and instead opted to remain quiet. • Labour is facing at least a decade in the wilderness, party grandees warn He added: "I have no wish to stick the boot into the party. There are many good people in Labour working hard every day to serve the public and I wish them all the best of luck. I am grateful for all the experiences being a member of Labour has brought me. "I intend to continue in the House of Lords, representing the interests of business and enterprise in the UK. I will be making no further comment at this time." • Lord Sugar: 'We’ve turned into a nation of wastrels’ It came as Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, went on holiday to Ibiza with his wife Justine leaving the children in London. He was spotted at City of London airport, shortly after SNP MPs arrived from Scotland ahead of their first day in Westminster. • David Cameron's new cabinet |
Tomato expert offers advice on sourcing the best produce Updated Did you know there is thought to be more than 7,000 varieties of tomatoes? While those usually found in supermarkets include generic varieties like Roma, field and cherry tomatoes, horticulturalist Paul Nicholson from the Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens said the best were those grown in the backyard. "The tomatoes you often buy in the supermarket have no taste," Mr Nicholson said. "They're watery, they have thick flesh — so grow your own tomatoes, and there's wonderful groups like diggers and heirloom seed savers." Tomato fun facts People have been selecting and breeding tomatoes since 500BC, originally the Mayans and then the Aztecs in central America. Tomatoes come from the western slopes of the Andes near Peru. Tomatoes are part of the nightshade family or solanaceae plants. It is one of the largest plant families with more than 90 genera and 2,000 species. The tomato is in the same family as the potato, eggplant, chilli and tobacco. Some nightshade plants produce alkaloids — chemical substances that are potentially very toxic, while others are used in medicine and modern pharmaceuticals. Mr Nicholson, a judge at this weekend's Tomato Festival, said tomatoes grown in Sydney should be harvested by January. Any later and the high humidity, strong sun and summer storms will cause "mashed-up tomatoes", while insect pests, particularly mites, can spread viruses to the tomatoes causing them to wilt and die. Mr Nicholson said some of the tomatoes best grown in Sydney included the black Krim and black Russian varieties. "They're both fairly large, beefsteak-style tomatoes, so very fleshy, quite soft skin," he said. "Most of the supermarket tomatoes will be F1 hybrids, they'll have names that don't have the romance of black Russian or mortgage lifter." The mortgage lifter tomato was bred in the United States and developed by a man known as "Radiator Charlie". "He developed it during the depression and the story is he paid off his mortgage with the proceeds of this tomato," Mr Nicholson said. How to pick the best tomato? To get the best colour and flavour, Mr Nicholson suggested tomatoes should ideally be ripened on the vine. "The sun helps to concentrate the flavour, so sticking it in the refrigerator is a little bit like death to the tomato," he said. "You're looking for an evenness of colour, no entry or exit holes from caterpillars, and you're looking for a size that's in proportion to what you'd expect from that variety. "Either oversize or undersize won't be ideal ... so growing the 10-kilo tomato is not necessarily the best." Mr Nicholson also said tomatoes should not be "spongy" or have any "soft spots". Thin-skinned tomatoes were best for eating fresh, while the thicker-skinned varieties, like the Romas, were best for storage and for creating sauces like passata, Mr Nicholson said. The best way to judge a tomato, though, was to eat it, he said. "It really comes down to taste. In the end that's the clincher." Topics: gardening, human-interest, sydney-2000 First posted |
Following the White Horse of Conquest, the second release in the Provident original series of Four Horsemen silver and copper rounds will be released on July 1st. You have only 10 more days to buy the White Horse round before it is discontinued. As of today, 13,578 silver White Horse rounds and 11,733 copper White Horse rounds have been sold. The Red Horse of War bursts onto the scene with this lively design depicting the horseman charging forward into war. He is said to have the ability to “take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other.” The horse’s red color is symbolic of the blood spilt during battle. Each of the Four Horsemen rounds is stamped with a unique privy mark. You’ll find a privy of crossed swords on this design. Creating an original bullion round like the Red Horse is an intricate process that begins with the artwork. Once a plan is in place, an artist draws out the design and then a sculptor creates a 3D model based on the original artwork. To the left, you can see an early sculpt of our Red Horse round. Notice that the sculpt contains no words or privy mark; these features are digitally added later in the process. Another key difference between the sculpt and the final design is that the horseman has long, flowing hair in the sculpt, which is covered by a bearskin headdress on the round. The Red Horse will be available as a BU silver round and a BU copper round beginning on July 1st. Additionally, beginning in August, we will have a limited number of NGC graded and slabbed Red Horse rounds available for sale. These graded rounds will be available in both a proof and antiqued finish, with grades of GEM BU, 69, and 70. Each comes individually numbered in a plastic holder with a custom label that was designed for this series. On July 1st, for one day only, you can buy both the White Horse and Red Horse rounds. The Red Horse round will be available from July 1st to October 1st. We encourage you to sign up for product alerts for the Red Horse and the subsequent designs in the series so you don’t miss out on this limited run of dazzling bullion rounds. For more information and a full release schedule of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse series, please visit our original blog post. And don’t forget—there are still a few days to participate in our June giveaway. One lucky winner will receive an NGC graded White Horse of Conquest silver round! |
Offshore Company Formation in Dubai & RAK (UAE) Offshore company is the term of a business organization that operates in other countries outside the judiciary of its own home country. Offshore companies are always flexible in their operations, they can integrate an adductive offshore financial center as per respective jurisdictions. One needs to follow a certain set of rules for registering themselves in an offshore jurisdiction. Following are the requirements for an organization to register in an offshore jurisdiction: If a business organization wants to incorporate or operate overseas, the company that is seeking for registration must fulfill the norms of respective country where they are willing to make expansion plans. Must meet the ostensible tax expenses levied by the offshore jurisdictions. The prime benefits for a company going offshore:- The first and foremost benefit for offshore companies is tax exemption. is tax exemption. Legal and asset protection of capital i.e. a firm assurance is made by a nation for protection of capital invested by offshore companies. Low maintenance and processing fee. Developing and underdeveloped nations usually charge low maintenance and processing fee from offshore companies due to large volume of investments made by these companies. due to large volume of investments made by these companies. Protection of privacy and confidentiality assets. Thin capitalization. Low cost of operation. Easy reporting structure. There several advantages of establishing such a company:- Consultancy, Professional Services, Agency: Gainful self-employed professionals and consultants can gain enormous experience apart from benefits by working as employee of offshore company, of which they may opt to be sole directors of company or they may become shareholders of that offshore company. Employment of Expatriate Staff: Not remitting the full salary, can minimize tax deductions and avoid exchange control challenge faced in the country of temporary residence. Usually, this arrangement seems attractive to emigrant working in politically unstable countries. Investment Companies: Offshore jurisdictions are less invasive facilitating aggressive and unrestrained financial enterprises that introduce the opportunity of global securities to the local citizens. Further, the tax benefits are incredible. EuroConsult is a professional offshore service provider and specialising in offshore company formation in Dubai & RAK, registration of free zone companies and offshore banking in UAE. The firm is one of the leading registered agents of RAK OFFSHORE to set up Offshore Companies. Our experienced professionals are carefully and continuously analysing available and emerging offshore tax havens and have selected those jurisdictions which offer the best opportunities and advantages to the clients. In the recent times, International Business Companies (IBCs) have gained prominence, and with Dubai and Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) in UAE the offshore world has been enriched with a white listed quality jurisdiction. To know more about us and our services please contact our German consultant Markus at +971 55 218 4269. |
Despite not owning a computer or even a router, a retired woman has been ordered by a court to pay compensation to a movie company. The woman had been pursued by a rightsholder who claimed she had illegally shared a violent movie about hooligans on the Internet, but the fact that she didn't even have an email address proved of little interest to the court. Guilty until proven innocent is the formula in Germany. The just-concluded case in Germany demonstrates perfectly that in some jurisdictions the standard way to deal with a file-sharing claim is guilty until proven innocent. At 09:10 during a cold January morning in 2010, the defendant in the case says she was tucked up in bed. A movie copyright holder, however, insists the retired single woman was illegally sharing files on the Internet. The settlement letter sent to the woman by the copyright holder stated clearly that on January 4th she’d been using the eDonkey network to share a violent film about hooligans. For this offense she must pay compensation of around 650 euros or face court, they said. Like so many claims of this nature, the accusation was problematic. Although she previously subscribed to a 2-year Internet and telephone package, six months earlier the woman had sold her computer and didn’t even maintain an email address. After refuting the allegations of the rightsholder, the case went to court. The Munich District Court handled the case, and heard evidence that not only is the woman computerless, she lives alone and doesn’t possess a wireless router either. How the alleged offense could have been carried out even by a third party remains a mystery. Nevertheless, none of the above protestations were of interest to the court. Despite the fact that the copyright holder and/or their tracking company could have made errors, or that the woman’s ISP could have identified her account incorrectly, none of these avenues were examined. “Normally the copyright holder has to prove who did the copyright infringement. As this is hard for him – because he has no chance to look into thousand houses – the courts in Germany alleviate this burden of proof,” explains Christian Solmecke, a lawyer with Wilde Beuger Solmecke, the law firm that defended the woman. Solmecke told TorrentFreak that initially all a copyright holder has to do is show that a protected work has been traded via a specific IP-address, then the accused has to prove their innocence. “In the next step the defendant has to prove, that neither he nor anyone else who had access to his internet account did the copyright infringement. In my opinion our client has proved that fact. If you have no computer and no W-LAN, there has to be a failure in the backtracking of the IP-address,” he added. The bottom line in Germany is that account holders are responsible for everything that happens on their account and if they can’t prove their innocence, they are found guilty. The woman must now pay just over 650 euros in damages to the copyright holder. There can be little doubt that German law is tipped heavily in the favor of rightsholders. Little surprise then that Germany is without doubt the worst place in the world for pay-up-or-else-schemes. So how often are people wrongly accused? “Every second person tells me, that he or she appears to be wrongfully accused,” says Solmecke. “Some of them lie even to their lawyer but most of them tell the truth. From my point of view, there has to be a big mistake in some of the different backtracking-systems.” So for now the formula for rightsholders seems incredibly simple. IP address. Accusation. Profit. |
Music sparks fatal taqueria shooting Police are investigating a shooting at a Mexican restaurant at 6401 Hillcroft near Sandspoint. Police believe the shooting was sparked over a dispute about a karaoke song. Police are investigating a shooting at a Mexican restaurant at 6401 Hillcroft near Sandspoint. Police believe the shooting was sparked over a dispute about a karaoke song. Photo: Johnny Hanson, Houston Chronicle Photo: Johnny Hanson, Houston Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Music sparks fatal taqueria shooting 1 / 1 Back to Gallery A man was shot to death inside a taqueria in southwest Houston early Monday morning. The shooting occurred at the Mexican restaurant at 6401 Hillcroft near Sandspoint about 2:30 a.m., according to the Houston Police Department. Police said the victim, identified only as a man in his late thirties, died at the scene. He had been shot in the head. According to media reports, the man had just finished singing karaoke when a group of men began arguing with the man over his choice of music. One of the men pulled out a gun a shot the man in the head, according to Fox 26. No other injuries were reported. Investigators have no suspects in the shooting. ABC 13 reported that police believe the man and his friends left in a red Chevrolet pickup truck. Two female friends of the suspects also left in a green Nissan Pathfinder. No other information was immediately available. |
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Monday that states may count all residents, whether or not they are eligible to vote, in drawing election districts. The decision was a major statement on the meaning of a fundamental principle of the American political system, that of “one person one vote.” “We hold, based on constitutional history, this court’s decisions and longstanding practice, that a state may draw its legislative districts based on total population,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the court. As a practical matter, the ruling mostly helped Democrats and upheld the status quo. But until this decision, the court had never resolved whether voting districts should contain roughly the same number of people or the same number of eligible voters. Counting all people amplifies the voting power of places that have large numbers of residents who cannot vote legally — including immigrants who are here legally but are not citizens, illegal immigrants and children. Those places tend to be urban and to vote Democratic. Had the justices required that only eligible voters be counted, the ruling would have shifted political power from cities to rural areas, a move that would have benefited Republicans. |
Ex-Polish presidents lead anti-government march in Warsaw WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland's two former presidents led tens of thousands of marchers Saturday in Warsaw to protest the right-wing government's policies and mark 27 years since the ouster of communism. The march was yet another in a series organized by a new civic movement, the Committee for the Defense of Democracy, or KOD, against the conservative government that took office in November. The government's policies have strained Poland's relations with the European Union and the U.S. and angered many in Poland. But the ruling party insists it has a mandate from Poland's voters. The nationalist government has focused on helping those left out of Poland's economic growth and increased its grip on state institutions. The moves have paralyzed the nation's Constitutional Tribunal, put state-owned media under government control and increased police surveillance powers. Former Polish Presidents Aleksander Kwasniewski, third from the right, and Bronislaw Komorowski, center, take part in a march to protest the policies of the right-wing Law and Justice government, on the 27th anniversary of the partly free elections that led to overthrowing communism, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, June 4, 2016. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) The EU says Poland's rule of law and democracy are in danger. The protests Saturday brought former presidents Aleksander Kwasniewski, a left-winger, and Bronislaw Komorowski, a centrist, together to remind the Poles about their attachment to freedom and to democracy, which they won on June 4, 1989, in an election that peacefully ousted the communists from power. "We want a free Poland because we fought for it, we dreamed about it and we built it," Komorowski, a dissident under communism, told the crowd. Warsaw authorities said 50,000 people took part. Smaller marches also took place in other Polish cities and in Berlin and Brussels, the E.U. headquarters. At the ruling Law and Justice party's regional meeting in Warsaw, party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski insisted Saturday that his policies are improving the lives of Poles and protecting Poland's independence in the 28-nation EU. Poles have the right to "a new, better shape (of Poland) that would better serve the vast majority of Poles and we will not give that right up," Kaczynski said Saturday, pounding the podium. People march throughout the downtown to protest the policies of the right-wing Law and Justice government, on the 27th anniversary of the partly free elections that led to overthrowing communism, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, June 4, 2016. (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz) People carry a Polish national flag as they march to protest the policies of the right-wing Law and Justice government, on the 27th anniversary of the partly free elections that led to overthrowing communism, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, June 4, 2016. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) People carry Polish national flags as they march to protest the policies of the right-wing Law and Justice government, on the 27th anniversary of the partly free elections that led to overthrowing communism, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, June 4, 2016. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) People carry a Polish national flag as they march to protest the policies of the right-wing Law and Justice government, on the 27th anniversary of the partly free elections that led to overthrowing communism, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, June 4, 2016. (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz) People carry a Polish national flag as they march to protest the policies of the right-wing Law and Justice government, on the 27th anniversary of the partly free elections that led to overthrowing communism, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, June 4, 2016. (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz) People march to protest the policies of the right-wing Law and Justice government, on the 27th anniversary of the partly free elections that led to overthrowing communism, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, June 4, 2016. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) A man takes part in a march to protest the policies of the right-wing Law and Justice government, on the 27th anniversary of the partly free elections that led to overthrowing communism, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, June 4, 2016. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) People take part in a march to protest the policies of the right-wing Law and Justice government, on the 27th anniversary of the partly free elections that led to overthrowing communism, in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, June 4, 2016. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) |
Introducing The First Portable Wind Turbines September 21st, 2015 by Roy L Hales The idea of taking your “office” outdoors has just taken on a new meaning, thanks to the manufacturers of the world’s first portable wind turbines. Janulus’ Portable Wind Turbines Janulus’ CEO, Einar Agustsson, carries one around in his backpack. He and his brother Agust own the Icelandic company Janulus. They started designing portable turbines in 2013, after finding there aren’t any on the market. They named it Trinity, after the shape. “We saw so much potential, so many ways a product like this could branch out,” said Agust Agustsson, Vice President of Janulus. “Renewable energy is close to our heart and we saw a way to do something that we thought was pretty cool,” said Einar. Smaller Models Their smallest version is 50 watts, and weighs one and a half pounds. It has a 7,500 milliamp-hour battery (7500 mAh) for the times there is no wind. “That’s less than one charge for a laptop, but you can charge your cell phone several times,” said Einar. “People are getting more power hungry when it comes to their smart phones. Trinity is very light weight, so you can carry it with you as a reserve battery wherever you are,” added Agust. They have sold about 200 of Trinity 50’s first generation. You can use the next size, 400 watts, to run small appliances or a portable entertainment system. “The 1,000 watt wouldn’t power your entire home unless you were very energy conservant, but you can definitely put a big dent in your bill,” said Einar. It also has an inbuilt grid tie, which allows owners to feed the grid. Kickstarter For A 2,500 Watt Model They have just launched their second Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds necessary to buy more machinery to manufacture a 2,500 watt portable turbine. “That is what this kickstart is for, to get the additional machinery and scale up the operation,” said Einar. The prototype has already charged a Tesla and they say it can supply enough electricity to service a large cottage. “When it is closed it is about one meter, or about 3 feet, and when it is opened it is it is about 3.2 meters, or just over 10 feet” said Einar. “You would want to set it up at the highest possible point, where there is the most clearance (from trees and other obstacles), but can set it up pretty much anywhere. We have designed a mount that you can put on your house.” This version uses a 300,000 mAh battery, which Agust says would power a laptop all day. Einar added that the 2,500 watt model fits into the trunk of a car. “So if you ran out of electricity somewhere, you would have your own personal power station,” he said. Follow this link to see their Kickstarter presentation: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/janulus/trinity-portable-wind-turbine-power-station Photo Credits: Testing a 50 watt version on one of Iceland’s glaciers & the video “Trinity Portable Wind Turbine,” – Courtesy Janulus, Inc |
Impressions of China, now restored and digitalized, is enjoying a second life, of sorts, in a very different geopolitical environment; this weekend it's being premièred in Montreal at the China Canadian International Film Festival. Dan and Elaine, who narrated the film, are there, at the invitation of festival organizers and the NFB. "I figured something was going to come of this (China trip) and if I have a camera, I'll have a leg up," says Dan. A leg up on history. "I belonged to the fledgling A-V club at Westdale. Video was immensely complicated back then." Nonetheless, the images he got were high quality and supplemented by footage shot in 16 mm by teacher Jack Parr. The only restrictions imposed by the Chinese, says Dan, were: Nothing on the subways and no military. "But the army was mingling everywhere so you'd capture that." The imprint of that trip is as clear today as then. "It was life-changing," says Dan. "For me, back then, Niagara Falls was the other side of the world. And here we were in this alien, taboo situation, people completely unlike you." And yet somehow utterly relatable. The Canadians were as alien to the Chinese as vice-versa. "I wore a scarf a lot," says Elaine. "It was so hot, and my (thick, curly) hair would get so big in the humidity I thought it would scare them." "The Chinese were very interested in us," remembers Dan, "Most had never seen a white person. One of the girls was six-foot-one with blond hair. They'd stand and stare. If you walked toward them, they'd move back to preserve the proper distance." No one in the group knew the Chinese better than Jim Forrester, school board superintendent of geography, whose idea the trip was. He'd visited China in 1966. A teacher then, he spent summers organizing world trips. He unbelievably got the Chinese to agree to let his group in at the end of a Hong Kong visit. When the group reached the border, they were rebuffed. The official Jim had been dealing with said he "forgot." But Jim Forrester, now in his 80s, is eight parts bull dog and would not let go. He wore the bureaucrat down, waiting out excuse after excuse, until finally the man said over the phone, "Get your people packed; the train leaves in one hour." But before they boarded, there was the matter of a "leaving fee." Wink, wink. Jim, ever the poker player, called the bluff and handed the man a bag of coins. "I don't suppose you have to count this, do you?" he said. Disgruntled, the man took it and they were in. Back then, westerners still used the anglicized city names — Peking, Canton, Nanking. And the tallest building in Shanghai was 15 storeys high. They spent 10 days amid one of the country's most repressive periods, the Cultural Revolution. "The Chinese stinted at nothing," Jim says. They showed the westerners what they wanted to see and were generous, though the officials were disingenuous. '"What's this about a 'Cultural Revolution?' they would say, and lie to your face. Fascinating. "But we would see the spontaneous marches and we'd be invited to join, and people would be dragged out of offices (if they were suspected of wrong thinking)." Upon returning, he was interviewed by the Globe and Mail, The New York Times, everyone hungry for news of China. The trip instilled a throbbing passion to return. When Jim and some students, on a trip to preview the building of Expo 67, ran into some Chinese at their in-progress pavilion, an idea took hold. School trip. It took five years, and the hidden hand of no less a champion than Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Elaine wanted to go, kinda, why not? — until she had to write a 5,000-word essay. Uggh. "But I did it. Then there were huge, long gaps." Jim had approval in principle for the trip, but the snags were innumerable and the delays — the "huge gaps" — endless. He visited Ottawa five times and still no departure date. Relations started thawing with China under Trudeau. And in the United States there was Nixon's ping-pong diplomacy and his famous visit. But at ground level, where Jim and the student candidates for the trip lived, it seemed nothing had changed, despite support for the project. John Munro, Lincoln Alexander, and many others got behind the trip (Linc managed to loosen up $2,500 for the trip from city lawyers in less than a week). But others vehemently objected. Why were our students going to a Communist country? With hopes flagging, Jim, ever the scrapper, got a ticket to a Hamilton dinner where Trudeau would be appearing and buttonholed him at the end. "People crowded around, I got as close as I could and just said, 'China!' He said, 'What do you want to know about China?'" Jim told him about the trip, Trudeau simply said "good luck," but the next day as he was mowing his lawn, Jim's wife came out with a message to call the Chinese embassy. "They told me, 'It is granted. You leave Saturday.'" Yikes. The trip. It became real. It was all so rushed ("We'd sleep all night on a train," Elaine recalls, "then wake up in a different city") but it was all so rich, and forever abiding. "The biggest impact for me was the people. So many moments, eye to eye. We could feel their eagerness to laugh, smile, share." So much still stays with her — for instance, visiting a hospital on the outposts. "We saw a camel. It was near the desert. In the surgery area, they were operating on people split open but still awake, with acupuncture (for anesthesia). I saw a tumour removed from a man's throat. He was conscious and blinking through the whole thing." Dan recalls the show of soldiers at the border as they came in from Hong Kong, "in special uniforms that made them look bigger" but once inside there was no intimidation. "The Cultural Revolution was over by this time and most of the excesses had ended, the pillorying of teachers and the 're-education.'" In fact, he muses, the only heavy hand came from Jim — and deservedly so. "They took us to a steel factory, rudimentary by our standards. We walked over a perforated floor with molten steel beneath us and I said, laughing, 'Stelco's got nothing to worry about.'" Jim, whose motto was "ignorance breeds arrogance," did not like the tone — they were visitors, after all. "He took me aside and dressed me down verbally," says Dan. "Of course, the irony is obvious now." Stelco had lots to worry about from China. Jim, who now has been to China eight times, remembers that the 20 students he took to China. They were hand-picked and exceptional. He can hardly find the words. "They were marvellous. They really spoke up for Canadian values." The next year a group of Toronto students went. Results? Not so good. China cancelled all student trips from the West after that. 'Impressions of China' Don McWilliams wasn't sure what he had on his hands. Some China footage from a Super 8, some from a 16 mm. A go-ahead from the National Film Board to produce something that would catch sparks from the historic nature of a Hamilton student trip. He decided to structure the movie around a voice-over narration. Dan Kislenko and Elaine (Krysko) Munro had both spent much time visiting organizations and other schools to talk about the trip. Elaine wrote a lengthy article about it that Chatelaine magazine published in 1972. So they were chosen. "They just talked about the trip, I recorded them and put the visuals to that. It was tricky, because it had to be cut to classroom length, 22 minutes." Once the distributors got hold of it, "Impressions" just took off. "School boards and libraries were buying it, not just in Canada but the U.S. It won a blue ribbon at the American Film Festival in 1975. It actually made money." Don credits Elaine and Dan. They were naturals. "People couldn't believe they were students. They were called 'frighteningly articulate.' "The film had its life for about five or six years," says Don. He was surprised as anyone when it was rediscovered recently. "It was so long ago." jmahoney@thespec.com 905-526-3306 |
A round of freeze warnings has been issued for parts of the Bay Area, prompting counties to open cold weather shelters to the homeless. Rob Mayeda and Chuck Coppola report. (Published Friday, Nov. 27, 2015) A round of freeze warnings were issued for parts of the Bay Area on Friday, prompting counties to open cold weather shelters to the homeless. The first warning lasted through 9 a.m. on Friday, with temperatures dropping below 30 degrees in some areas, according to the National Weather Service. The areas included the region's inland valley and mountain areas as well as Monterey County. A second freeze warning was issued late Friday and lasted until 9 a.m. Saturday. A frost advisory has also been issued for the same period for coastal areas and along the San Francisco Bay shoreline. Temperatures in those areas are expected to range from 32 to 35 degrees. “We need to provide shelter to as many people as we can and as soon as we can,” Santa Clara County Board President Dave Cortese said. “We may be in for a long cold and wet winter, which can be life-threatening to those struggling to survive outside.” A freeze warning will be in effect overnight until 9 a.m. Friday for most of the Bay Area. Photo credit: NBC Bay Area In response to the forecast, Santa Clara County is opening the South County "Cold Weather Shelter" in Gilroy starting Friday night, and, officials are working with local shelters to add up to 200 additional beds. Other shelters that will be opening up beds include: the Bill Wilson Center, City Team Ministries, Salvation Army, HomeFirst’s Boccardo Reception Center, and IVSN Montgomery Street Inn, all in San Jose; and Project WeHOPE in East Palo Alto.Typically, the shelters open on Nov. 30, but leaders decided to open them on Thanksgiving because of the forecast. In addition, 13 warming center will open Monday at public libraries, community and senior centers around Santa Clara County. Here is a list of shelter information in the South Bay: Gilroy Shelter Outreach Center National Guard Armory 8940 Wren Avenue Gilroy, CA 95020 (408) 848-8023 (during operating hours only) The Gilroy Shelter will serve adults and families, with beds for up to 130 people. The shelter will be open from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 a.m. daily. Clients must be onsite by 5:00 p.m. for intake. The shelter will provide a warm bed, two nutritious meals, and a hot shower. A variety of supportive services will also be offered, including counseling to help set short-term goals, employment resources, medical care, and referrals to other services. Volunteers often provide haircuts, and donated toiletries and clothing are often available to those who need them. Boccardo Reception Center 2011 Little Orchard San Jose, CA 95125 (408) 510-7502 The shelter serves adults only. All beds that are not in use by regular programs will be made available up to the shelter’s capacity of 250. Clients must be onsite by 3:30 p.m. to join the lottery for bed assignments, and the shelter opens at 4:00 p.m. Meals are served daily. Two Rounds of Freeze Warnings Prompts Shelters to Open For Homeless in Santa Clara County A round of freeze warnings has been issued for parts of the Bay Area, prompting counties to open cold weather shelters to the homeless. Kris Sanchez reports. (Published Friday, Nov. 27, 2015) North County Shelter (to open in early December) 1100 Innovation Way, Sunnyvale HomeFirst also has a wish list for what the agency needs to help the homeless this year. For more information on donations, visit HomeFirst's website. |
I recently had a problem (seems to be a very common one [1][2][3]) when building a hybrid HTML5 mobile app. As can be seen in this online demo (https://mobilehtml5.org/ts/?id=23), one can use the input html tag with type=”file” accept=”image/*” to quickly and easily bring up the user’s camera if they visit the site from a mobile web browser like Chrome. But, embed the above in an Android webview and… nothing. We could fiddle around with intents and Java – Javascript bridges, but there has to be an easier way. Reading through some solutions someone suggested simply replacing the webview with one that actually works consistently. The original suggestion pointed towards an “Android Advanced Webview” by a company named “Delight”. It is an excellent piece of code: https://github.com/delight-im/Android-AdvancedWebView And now clicking on the input tag brings up the native android chooser, allowing a user to upload an image they had already taken. Good, but not perfect. Ideally we allow the user to choose if they would like to upload a saved image they already took, or allow them to choose the “camera” option and take a picture on the spot. Out of the box, Android Advanced Webview doesn’t support this [4]. Bummer. But this solution reminded me of something similar I played with years ago: the Intel-funded Crosswalk Project. It has definitely matured and gotten a lot better since I last checked it out. It proved relatively simple to embed it in my native android framework by following their documentation: Embedding the Crosswalk Project Note: if you’re using Android Studio and maven/gradle, a much – very much – easier way of embedding Crosswalk can be found here: Embedding Crosswalk in Android Studio [5] That did the trick! Now clicking on the input tag gives the user a choice: Almost there. In my case, clicking on the camera option didn’t do anything :(. After some debugging and logging the intents being passed around, I noticed the android subsystem complaining of “revoked permission” even though I had the appropriate CAMERA permission in my manifest file: <uses-permission android:name=”android.permission.CAMERA” /> UPDATE: If you see only the “camcoder” option as in the screenshot above, adding the “android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE” resolved the issue Since I’m using Android 6.x, the permission scheme has changed and now requires you to ask for user permission at runtime . Following that realization, the below did the trick: References [1] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18568566/webview-input-of-type-file-camera-and-image [2] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13284903/upload-camera-photo-and-filechooser-from-webview-input-field [3] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/29290940/open-camera-for-input-type-file-in-webview-not-opening-android [4] https://github.com/delight-im/Android-AdvancedWebView/issues/10 [5] Reproduced here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15Lhg8de6hXmv0FVImu5OuWeqF1Dx5rcWUI0Hi08E78s/edit?usp=sharing |
The IRS has issued an advisory that is causing massive confusion among taxpayers in high-tax states who were planning to prepay some or all of their 2018 property taxes during the final days of 2017 because the tax bill Congress just passed sets a $10,000 limit on deductions for state and local property and income taxes combined. The bill explicitly disallows any prepayment of state and local income taxes but implicitly allows for prepayment of local property taxes, although that is not spelled out clearly. As a result, the IRS reported it has received “questions from the tax community concerning the deductibity of prepaid real property taxes,” which is why it issued its advisory. (Related: 4 Last-Minute Tax Strategies for Clients in High-Tax States) The advisory states that “a prepayment of anticipated real property taxes that have not been assessed prior to 2018 are not deductible in 2017.” In other words, taxpayers can only prepay 2018 property taxes that have already been billed — the IRS uses the words “assessed prior to 2018” — not taxes that they estimate themselves. “What would not be deductible is calculating your property tax liability independently and remitting that,” says Nicole M. Kaeding, an economist with the Center for State Tax Policy at the Tax Foundation. Even if the payment were based on a calculation using the official assessment of a taxpayer’s home multiplied by the official local tax rate it would not be allowed, explained Kaeding. Tax liabilities posted online would suffice as a tax bill. The confusion for many taxpayers is due in part to the IRS’ use of the word “assessed,” since assessments usually refer to property values, not tax liabilities. “Asessments relate to the value of a property and then the tax rate is applied to that,” says, Howard Gleckman, senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank based in Washington. “That language is not even in the tax bill.” Given the confusion, should taxpayers in high-tax states prepay their local property taxes? ThinkAdvisor spoke with a number of experts on tax policy and tax planning to develop a basic checklist on whether taxpayers should prepay their property tax repayments before year end, taking into account the latest IRS advisory. 1. “Taxpayers should talk to their tax professional,” says Megan Gorman, a founding partner of Chequers Financial Management in San Francisco. 2. Do they have the cash to prepay and are not subject to the Alternative Minimum Tax? “The first step is to consider is if they are in the AMT,” says Gorman. “If they are not, they should see what property taxes they are currently assessed and able to pay. Most tax professionals will be able to give guidance on this. Finally, taxpayers need to decide from a cash flow standpoint if prepaying makes sense.” 3. Do they know for sure the amount of property taxes owed for 2018, whether it be for one quarter, the first half or the full year? A tax bill or official posting on the tax collection site of a local government provides that information and taxpayers can contact their local tax authority to confirm that prepayments will be accepted and for what period of time. “When we called the Tax Collector of Orange County, California, they explicity told us what taxes we could pay — only those taxes that would be due by April 10, 2018,” says Gorman. “They would not accept anything beyond that.” She is advising California clients who are not subject to the AMT to prepay the second half of the current tax bill due April 10, 2018 and checking to see what property taxes are already assessed for clients in other states. Even if a taxpayer isn’t certain that prepayments will be accepted by the IRS he or she may want to prepay anyway. Even if the IRS eventually decides not to allow the tax deduction for the prepayment, it will only mean that the taxpayer gave an interest-free loan to its local tax authorty. There is no mention of a penalty in the IRS advisory. “You can take a shot and see what happens,” says Gleckman. Taxpayers don’t actually have to decide now whether to claim the deduction for the prepaid taxes until they file their 2017 tax return, which isn’t due until April 2018. “Hopefully by then it will all be sorted out.” — Related on ThinkAdvisor: |
Suspect believed responsible for attacks over the weekend is charged with bombing and using weapons of mass destruction – but not terrorism Barely a day after his apprehension following a dramatic shootout, the suspect believed responsible for attacks in New York and New Jersey this weekend was charged with bombing, property destruction and use of weapons of mass destruction – but not with terrorism or material support, as was expected. New York and New Jersey bombings: who is suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami? Read more Ahmad Khan Rahami left 12 fingerprints on one of the bombs he planted and purchased materials for his bombs under his own name on eBay, according to federal charging documents released late on Tuesday. The charges, filed in federal court in lower Manhattan, suggest that investigators were unable to connect Rahami to a terrorist group, though the documents quote a journal on his person referring to jihad and prominent jihadi figures. According to a criminal complaint by FBI special agent Peter Frederick Licata, Rahami was responsible for bombs constructed out of a pressure cooker and placed in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood on Saturday, as well as pipe bombs in New Jersey’s Seaside Park and Elizabeth, the latter of which is where Rahami resided. The bombs injured at least 29 people, and caused significant property damage. The criminal complaint alleges that Rahami left copious fingerprints on one of two bombs in Manhattan, on 27th Street, as well as on materials in the backpack containing the Elizabeth bombs. Licata’s review of surveillance footage near the other bomb location, on 23rd Street, found a positive identification of Rahami “pulling a small suitcase” two minutes before the detonation. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Photo provided by the Union County prosecutor’s office showing Ahmad Khan Rahami, who he is in custody. Photograph: AP According to the complaint, Rahami prepared for the bombings for months. Between 20 June and 10 August, Rahami allegedly purchased materials for the pipe and pressure cooker bombs under his own name through eBay, including citric acid, circuit boards, ball bearings and electric igniters, ingredients found in the 27th Street device. Responding to the allegations that Rahami bought materials for the bombs on eBay, the company said: “We’ve been proactively working with law enforcement authorities on their investigation. The types of items bought by the suspect are legal to buy and sell in the United States and are widely available at online and offline stores.” Also, an unidentified telephone service provider cooperating with the FBI indicated that it shipped two cellphones, used as detonators, to a store in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, near a residence Rahami claimed. Both phones were used in the Seaside Park and Chelsea bombs. Another phone used in the Chelsea bombs, the complaint alleges, “was subscribed in the name of a family member” of Rahami’s, although no one else has been charged as an accomplice. An unspecified family member’s phone, now in the possession of the FBI, contains videos showing Rahami in a backyard in Elizabeth showing Rahami “igniting incendiary material” two days before the bombings. The bombs themselves, while powerful, failed to kill anyone and appeared to investigators to demonstrate minimal technical sophistication, leading some to believe their designs emerged from al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula’s English-language web magazine Inspire. Although the Manhattan bombs reportedly used high-powered explosive – with one placed in a dumpster, a curious choice for a lethal device – they were “something any 12-year-old could do if he had access to Christmas lights, a phone and ball bearings,” a US official told the Guardian. Legally, a charge of use of weapons of mass destruction does not necessarily have to involve chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons. If the bombs were crude, the hunt for Rahami, an Elizabeth, New Jersey, resident who worked at his family’s fried-chicken spot, and the circumstances of his capture have proven extraordinary. Facebook Twitter Pinterest The alert sent to mobile phones about the bombing suspect. Photograph: Screengrab On Monday morning, the New York police department used an emergency-notification system, typically employed for information on disasters or severe weather, to broadcast onto mobile phones an alert for Rahami. Hours later, as Rahami lay sleeping in the vestibule of a bar on East Elizabeth Avenue in Linden, New Jersey, the bar owner contacted local police, who recognized Rahami. Using a handgun, Rahami shot and wounded one officer attempting to arrest him and wounded another with a bullet fragment during a chase that ended with Rahami shot and wounded himself several blocks west. By Tuesday, Rahami was out of surgery and facing initial charges, in New Jersey’s Union County, of five counts of attempted murder of police officers. The New York Times first reported that a notebook found on Rahami’s person contained writings praising the American al-Qaida propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki and the 2009 Fort Hood killer, army major Nidal Malik Hasan. According to the criminal complaint, the notebook refers to US “slaughter against the mujahideen be it in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sham [Syria], Palestine… Inshallah [God willing] the sounds of the bombs will be heard in the streets. Gun shots to your police. Death To Your Oppression.” Investigators were reportedly attempting to interrogate a stable but still critical Rahami on Tuesday morning outside the boundaries of the so-called Miranda warning, which protects against self-incrimination. Statements someone makes outside of Miranda cannot be used against them at trial, but can be used for intelligence purposes, to include determining any connection Rahami had to established terrorist groups. Ahmad Khan Rahami's father contacted FBI in 2014 over terrorism worry Read more Adding to the saga, Rahami’s father told reporters on Tuesday that he had tipped the FBI off to his own son. Mohammed Rahami said he contacted the bureau after his son was doing “really bad” following a violent outburst in 2014, but later recanted. Still, the admission that the FBI had Rahami brought to their attention presented a complication for the bureau, which came under sharp criticism for dropping a preliminary investigation into Orlando shooter Omar Mateen for lack of predication. “In August 2014, the FBI initiated an assessment of Ahmad Rahami based upon comments made by his father after a domestic dispute that were subsequently reported to authorities,” the bureau confirmed in a statement. “The FBI conducted internal database reviews, interagency checks, and multiple interviews, none of which revealed ties to terrorism.” The FBI did not clarify if it interviewed Rahami himself. A US official confirmed that Rahami was not on any US watchlist. Rahami is alleged to have taken a trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to published reports, though the timeline is unclear. The criminal complaint does not make any mention of a foreign trip. |
November 21, 2017 — Ron Chusid The accusations of sexual harassment being made against Democrats such as Al Franken, as well as Republicans, is causing conflict in the minds of many Democrats. Some are even reexamining the legacy of Bill Clinton. The usual mode of thought of many partisan Democrats is that bad things are only bad if done by Republicans, as they find ways to rationalize comparable behavior by Democrats. We have finally found an issue where many Democrats are breaking from strict party loyalty. As I discussed in a post earlier this month, most voters consider party over ideology. In 2016 most Republicans stuck with party and voted for Donald Trump despite his differences from conservative Republican orthodoxy. Similarly most Democrats stuck with party over principle and voted for Hillary Clinton, mostly oblivious to the fact that she backed essentially the same agenda which they protested when George W. Bush was implementing it. It is good to see that some Democrats are now questioning party loyalty in response to reports of sexual harassment. I wish more Democrats had questioned party loyalty when it came to backing a war monger, accepting Clinton’s far right wing record on First Amendment issues (which now extends to her calls for censorship post-election), and in ignoring the influence peddling by Bill and Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump probably would not be president today if more Democrats had stood for principle and refused to accept Hillary Clinton as their nominee. |
Since he’s posted it on Facebook, I’m guessing it’s not much of a secret anymore. Jim Starlin is preparing 'Breed III, the third mini-series of his creator-owned property. The 7-issue series will debut in the summer of 2011 from Image Comics. Jim will be writing, drawing and coloring the series. And, according to his Facebook post, “This mini will conclude the 'Breed storyline from the original 'Breed and 'Breed II series. The two previous 'Breed series will be collected, reprinted and on sale next summer also.” I can’t wait. ‘Breed #1 was the lead-off book for the Bravura imprint for which I was the Line Editor. That was my official title, but I was more like consulting editor. Starlin, Howard Chaykin, Walter Simonson, et al, don’t need story direction for their creator-owned projects; I was just there to check spelling and pagination and hang out with some of my favorite creators (until I was stolen away to work on something else). |
The Pirates optioned the right-handed reliever Dovydas Neverauskas to Indianapolis. Neverauskas made history himself two days earlier, becoming the first person born and raised in Lithuania to make the major leagues, according to MLB.com. Neverauskas pitched two innings in a 14-3 loss to the Chicago Cubs on Monday. Ngoepe, 27, was born in Pietersburg, South Africa, and attended high school in the suburbs of Johannesburg. Ngoepe signed with Pittsburgh in 2008 and was batting .241 in Class AAA when he was promoted. In his first at-bat on Wednesday, Ngoepe singled off Cubs starter Jon Lester. “It’s a great win for the organization and a great accomplishment by Gift,” Clint Hurdle, the Pirates’ manager, said of Ngoepe’s promotion. “I first saw him six and a half years ago in instructional league, and he’s completely changed. “I’m sure a lot of people have told him over the years that he would never make the major leagues: professional scouts, people in uniform, people out of uniform. But he didn’t listen, and persevered until he got here.” Ngoepe is considered the best defensive prospect in the organization. Pittsburgh is struggling defensively this season. Entering Wednesday, the Pirates were tied for the most errors in the majors, with 19. “It shows that you don’t have to be from a big country like the United States to reach your dream of making it to the major leagues,” Ngoepe said of the Pirates’ calling up both him and Neverauskas. Baseball is not a popular sport in Europe or in Africa, he said, “but if you work hard enough and dream a little bit, anything is possible.” |
Joel Osteen has become the butt of many jokes online for his delayed reaction to Hurricane Harvey. The televangelist has been widely criticized for failing to open his 17,000-seat church to flooding evacuees sooner. The multi-millionaire preacher tweeted Monday that his church was 'inaccessible' despite photos that showed it was mostly unharmed in the hurricane. Since then, many have been pointing out the hypocrisy of Osteen's Christianity online with hilarious memes. One of the memes shows Osteen crying during an impassioned speech, and reads: 'Lord, I will open the church for $50 a head.' Several memes are circulating online, making fun of televangelist Joel Osteen for his delayed reaction to Hurricane Harvey Osteen's church wasn't opened to flood evacuees until Tuesday, and many have called Osteen's delayed reaction to the crisis un-Christian Osteen defended his response, saying the city didn't initially ask the church to be a shelter and that there were safety concerns from a previous flood Joel Osteen shedding tears for the people who need his help in Houston. pic.twitter.com/93qcwzEJZL — Nick Jack Pappas (@Pappiness) August 28, 2017 Many of the memes drew attention to Osteen's enormous wealth. 'Osteen is now accepting donations for Harvey relief. Here is his house, in case you were wondering where your donations went,' one meme reads, showing a picture of his lavish home. Others were pointed out how un-Christian his delayed response to the hurricane was. 'I don't remember a scene in the New Testament where Jesus had to have his arm twisted before he'd help the sick & poor,' one meme read, including a picture of Jesus. Osteen has been blocking many of his critics on Twitter. He has also come out in several television interviews to defend his actions, saying he didn't open his doors immediately because the city had not asked Lakewood Church to act as a shelter and that there were safety concerns over a previous flood that happened at the church. The building is now being used as a temporary shelter and distribution center for hurricane relief. Joel Osteen: God be with my fellow Texans. Fellow Texans: Can we stay at your church. Joel Osteen: pic.twitter.com/d0SMUXdJF8 — Jackson (@realJaxonStone) August 29, 2017 Joel Osteen: "Praying for everyone in Houston!" Can we use your church? Joel Osteen: pic.twitter.com/zTtJJgUuhD — trigga trev szn (@TrevJSiemian) August 29, 2017 Twitter: Open your church for shelter, Joel! Joel Osteen: pic.twitter.com/6oPqAlJ9O9 — James Davis (@JDouglasDavis) August 29, 2017 Joel Osteen when people who funded his $56,000,000 net worth in his city are in desperate need for shelter. pic.twitter.com/zrJvmYAkvq — Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) August 28, 2017 Someone said that not only do Joel Osteen and Lord Baelish (Littlefinger) look alike, they also act alike pic.twitter.com/SUYgU4Rdz3 — N Y A W I R A (@GraceJustBeing) August 29, 2017 When you thought this 'man of God' (@JoelOsteen) was doing the right thing and then you see this video.. pic.twitter.com/wJCMousEuh — مانزا رشاد (@IllCx_22) August 29, 2017 When the beautiful people of Houston ask Joel Osteen for the same donations they've been giving his church pic.twitter.com/hrWun5DV56 — Trizz (@Tr1zz) August 28, 2017 “Pastor. I don’t understand why we don’t just open up the church for shelter. What would Jesus do?” Joel Osteen: pic.twitter.com/IuiVnkrkgD — Ryan Belk (@rbelk_94) August 30, 2017 LIVE footage of Joel Osteen while on top of the Lakewood Church during #HurricaneHarvey pic.twitter.com/13u7gEI3A9 — Maestro Hot Dog (@maestrohotdog) August 30, 2017 |
Michael Moore has proven again and again that he has a remarkable feel for where the zeitgeist is heading. He's like a zeitgeist divining rod. Roger and Me was way ahead of the curve on the collapse of the auto-industry. Fahrenheit 9/11 was way ahead of the curve on the collapse of the house of cards the Bush administration used to lead us to war in Iraq. Sicko was way ahead of the curve on the collapse of the US health care system. And now, with his new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story, he is riding the wave of the collapse of trust in our country's financial system. The film, which opens in New York and Los Angeles on Wednesday, and all across the country on October 2nd, is a withering indictment of the current economic order, covering everything from Wall Street's casino mentality to for-profit prisons, from Goldman Sachs' sway in Washington to the poverty-level pay of many airline pilots, from the tidal wave of foreclosures to the tragic consequences of runaway greed. Watching the film, I felt like Michael had climbed inside my head, made a list of all the things that have been obsessing me for the last 12 months, and brought them horrifyingly to life. It's one thing to know these things are happening; it's another to see them happening in front of your eyes. Right from the beginning -- after a funny set-up juxtaposing End of Empire Rome and Modern America -- Michael goes directly to the beating heart of the economic crisis, showing a hard-working, middle class family being evicted from their home. The knot in your stomach starts to tighten -- and the outrage starts to build. Watch for yourself in this exclusive clip: <0--1558--hh>0--1558--hh> And so it goes throughout the film, with Moore successfully walking a cinematic tightrope, alternating between a punch-to-the-solar-plexus critique of the status quo, heart-wrenching portraits of the suffering caused by the economic crisis, and laugh-out-loud social satire. The film also turns the spotlight on some underreported gems: an internal Citibank report happily declaring America a "plutonomy," with the top 1 percent of the population controlling more financial wealth than the bottom 95 percent; an expose of "dead peasant" insurance policies that have companies cashing in on the untimely deaths of their employees; and amazing footage of FDR, found buried in a film archive and not seen in decades, calling for a Second Bill of Rights that would guarantee all Americans a useful job, a decent home, adequate health care, and a good education. And Moore underlines the irony of Larry Summers being put in charge of fixing the crisis he helped create. A little like asking Kanye West to plan a Taylor Swift tribute. While taking no prisoners, and directing equal doses of ire at Republicans and Democrats alike, the film also features a number of heroes, including bailout watchdog Elizabeth Warren; Wayne County, Michigan Sheriff Warren Evans, who announced in February: "I cannot in clear conscience allow one more family to be put out of their home until I am satisfied they have been afforded every option they are entitled to under the law to avoid foreclosure"; and Ohio Rep. Marcy Kaptur, who took to the House floor and offered a radical solution to the foreclosure crisis: "So I say to the American people, you be squatters in your own homes. Don't you leave." In the film, Michael describes capitalism as evil. I disagree. I don't think capitalism is evil. I think what we have right now is not capitalism. In capitalism as envisioned by its leading lights, including Adam Smith and Alfred Marshall, you need a moral foundation in order for free markets to work. And when a company fails, it fails. It doesn't get bailed out using trillions of dollars of taxpayer money. What we have right now is Corporatism. It's welfare for the rich. It's the government picking winners and losers. It's Wall Street having their taxpayer-funded cake and eating it too. It's socialized losses and privatized gains. Which is why -- although you can bet many will try -- Capitalism: A Love Story can't be dismissed as a left-wing tirade. Its condemnation of the status quo is too grounded in real stories and real suffering, its targets too evenly spread across the political spectrum. Indeed, Jay Leno, America's designated Everyman, was so moved by the film he insisted that Moore appear on the second night of his new show, and told his audience that the film was "completely nonpartisan... I was stunned by it, and I think it is the most fair film" Moore has done. After a preview screening last week (at which I did a Q&A session with Michael), he came over to my home for a late night bite. Over lasagna, he told me about an incident that occurred while he was filming that exemplifies how the economic crisis cannot be looked at through a left vs right prism. It happened while he and his crew were shooting the climax of the movie, where Michael decides to mark Wall Street as a crime scene, putting up yellow police tape around some of the financial district's towers of power. While unfurling the tape in front of a "too big to fail" bank, he became aware of a group of New York's finest approaching him. Moore has a long history of dealing with policemen and security guards trying to shut him down, but in this case he knew he was, however temporarily, defacing private property. And his shooting schedule didn't leave room for a detour to the local jail. So, as the lead officer came closer, Moore tried to deflect him, saying: "Just doing a little comedy here, officer. I'll be gone in a minute, and will clean up before I go." The officer looked at him for a moment, then leaned in: "Take all the time you need." He nodded to the bank and said, "These guys wiped out a lot of our Police Pension Funds." The officer turned and slowly headed back to his squad car. Moore wanted to put the moment in his film, but realized it could cost the cop his job, and decided to leave it out. "When they've lost the police," he told me, "you know they're in trouble." There is a real sense of urgency to Capitalism: A Love Story. I asked Michael what impact he hoped the film would have. He chuckled and said that, in some way, he had made the movie for "an audience of one. President Obama. I hope he sees it and remembers who put him in the White House... and it wasn't Goldman Sachs." At the Q&A I did with Michael -- and, indeed, wherever he goes -- people who see the film are asking: What should I do to make a difference? There are obviously many things people can do. At HuffPost, we are asking everyone to bear witness by putting flesh and blood on the tragic human cost of the greed and corruption that have brought us to where we are. Tell us your story -- or the stories about people you know whose home has been foreclosed, whose job has disappeared, whose kids can't afford to go to college, whose credit card interest rate has been jacked up to 30 percent, etc, etc, etc. And tell us the positive stories too: the heroes -- judges, lawyers, volunteers -- who are helping people stay in their homes, the neighbors who are coming together to alleviate the pain and make their community a better place to live in. You can tell these stories in words, pictures, or videos. We'll collect them on a special Bearing Witness 2.0 section. |
NOTE: After taking the Bible based Sex Quiz below, click here to read the Godly Scripture verses that support each correct answer. For a full list of Landover Baptist Bible Quizzes, click here. Contrary to popular liberal belief, promiscuity and deviance are not modern cultural creations but have their roots much deeper in human history. Take this quiz to see how Larry Flynt's magazines don't hold a candle to the Lord's original work! JavaScript is disabled Get Netscape 3.0 or turn it on! 1. If you retain the services of a prostitute, but are careless and impregnate her, what should you do for her in return? A. Nothing. Prostitution is a sin that makes the woman equally culpable for the pregnancy. B. Pay child support until the woman marries or the child reaches the age of maturity, whichever comes earlier. C. Kill the Godless whore! (particularly if you find out she’s a relative). D. None of the above. 2. Were sex objects used in Biblical times? A. They may have been, but that’s certainly not something we’d learn from the Bible. B. Yes. Women masturbated themselves with dildos made of gold and silver. C. No. People in Biblical times were aware only of sex with animate objects, such as humans and animals. D. None of the above. 3. Do Middle Eastern men have large “external appendages” and great sexual prowess? A.Whether they do or not, this is certainly not a subject the Bible would dare address. B. No. Differential size and performance is a media myth. C. Yes. In fact, Egyptians have penises the size of a donkey’s and ejaculations the volume of a horse’s. D. Yes. Jews are really small. 4. How can sin (or anything else that irks God) affect your sex life? A. Trick question. God doesn’t manipulate one’s sex life as a punishment for sin. B. Depending upon his anger, God may make you impotent. C. While you won’t be impotent, you may lose the ability to produce children. D. God may simply have your neighbor rape your wife. 5. Are there times when prostitution is acceptable? A. Yes. When the money raised is used to support needy Christians. B. No. The Bible never refers to “acceptable” prostitution. C. Yes. If the prostitute is providing “services” to a widower. D. None of the above. 6. Whom does God order sinners to marry? A. There is no answer to this question, for God never dictated whom anyone should marry. B. Whomever they fall in love with. C. Christians, so the deviants may come to know God’s love. D. Whores. 7. How does God feel about polygamy? A. The Bible demands that each of us have one spouse only. B. It’s OK for men. C. Not only is it unacceptable for women, but any woman who has more than one husband in her lifetime, notwithstanding divorce, is an adulterer. D. B and C only. 8. What should you do for your married mistress who bears your child if an angry God decides to kill the baby? A. For goodness sake, God would never kill an innocent baby, even if He got mad at the baby’s parents. B. Hold her, comfort her and make sure she knows you will always be there for her, despite your marriage to another. C. Rebuke her for angering the Lord (and for cheating on her husband and causing you to cheat on your wife). D. Just knock up your wife and quickly produce another offspring. 9. How does God punish whores (i.e., sexually active women)? A. We’ll never know until Judgment Day. B. He makes them barren. C. He pulls up their skirts and exposes their nakedness, thereby increasing their whoredom. D. He strikes them with a plague and makes them hideously unattractive so no man would ever engage their services again. 10. Before the days of notary publics, how did a man swear to a statement? A. Trick question. There have been notary publics since the inception of the Jewish race. B. They simply swore to God they were telling the truth. C. They proclaimed that, if they were being dishonest, their wives were fair game for other members of the community. D. They simply grabbed another man’s genitals. Click Here For Part I Of This Quiz! Click Here For Part II Of This Quiz! Click Here For More Landover Baptist Bible Quizzes Copyright 1998-2008, Americhrist Ltd. All rights reserved. Terms of Service The Landover Baptist website is not intended to be viewed by anyone under 18 |
Tea Party favorites such as Paul and Rubio won the hearts of the grass-roots activists, many of them young people, who attended the CPAC event. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., was the top vote-getter in the Conservative Political Action Conference's 2013 straw poll. (Photo11: Alex Wong, Getty Images) Story Highlights Conservative Political Action Conference annually draws thousands of activists More than a dozen potential Republican presidential candidates spoke at CPAC Rising GOP figures such as Sens. Rand Paul and Marco Rubio were featured OXON HILL, Md. — The next presidential election is more than three years away, but to thousands of conservative activists, the top contenders are GOP Sens. Rand Paul and Marco Rubio. Paul, R-Ky., edged out his freshman colleague from Florida as the top vote-getter in the presidential straw poll conducted at the Conservative Political Action Conference, which wrapped up its 40th gathering Saturday. Paul won 25% of the CPAC vote, while Rubio took 23%. The annual conservative convention is popular with college students: Of the 2,930 voters, more than half were aged 18-25 and two-thirds were men. STORY: Palin mocks Obama, Rove at CPAC Both Paul and Rubio — two Tea Party favorites elected in 2010 — were among the featured speakers at CPAC, billed as the largest gathering of conservative activists in the country. Though each has been in Washington only a short time, both senators have made their mark: Paul with his recent 13-hour filibuster protesting the Obama administration's drone policy and Rubio with a role in crafting a bipartisan proposal on immigration reform. Rubio was also among the candidates considered by Mitt Romney to be his running mate in 2012. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a third Tea Party favorite, wrapped up the CPAC event, held in the Washington suburbs. Cruz made headlines this week during a heated exchange with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., about guns and the Second Amendment. His hard-charging ways have rankled even some Republicans: Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called Cruz and Paul "wacko " for their stance on drones. McCain later apologized for the remark. "If standing for liberty and the Constitution makes you a wacko bird, then count me a proud wacko bird," Cruz told the CPAC audience, which gave him big ovations for his pledge to "stand with Israel'' and his desire to abolish the federal Education Department. Republicans must "focus every policy on easing the means of ascent up the economic ladder,'' Cruz said. CPAC regularly attracts the rising stars of the Republican Party, and it is often a place where potential White House contenders make an impact with the grass-roots activists who can help fuel a national campaign. Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum came in third in the straw poll with 8% of the CPAC vote, followed by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who was not invited to speak at the conference, with 7% of the vote. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the 2012 GOP vice presidential nominee, was supported by 6% of the CPAC voters. Lauri Dabbieri, a high school teacher from Fairfax County, Va., said she voted for Paul when she heard the senator say he would abolish the Education Department, which she called "completely useless." Education is a local issue, she said. So did Antonio de la Pena, a student at the University of Virginia, who called Paul "a more toned-down version of Ron Paul.'' Phil Johnson, 27, a technology project manager for a financial services company, said the senator is "the one candidate who has a grasp on liberty." Mary Powers, 26, of Arlington, Va., voted for Rubio because she likes his position on immigration. "That's what's really needed — a young conservative who is new in Washington, who can unite the conservatives and the Republicans and reach across the aisle.'' She also said she liked the way Rubio handled his awkward moment taking a drink of water during his State of the Union response, which he has since joked about repeatedly. "The way he's spun that is just so awesome," Powers said. There were 23 candidates in the straw poll, which was sponsored by The Washington Times and conducted by Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates. There were also 44 write-in candidates, including Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon, former Rep. Allen West, R-Fla., and ex-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. "The conservative movement hasn't quite come to a consensus," pollster Tony Fabrizio said Saturday about the wide field included in the poll. CPAC's straw polls typically don't match up with the results of presidential primaries or elections. The passionate followers of former Texas congressman Ron Paul — Rand Paul's father — helped the libertarian-thinking Republican win the CPAC straw poll twice, but that didn't translate when it came time to vote in GOP primaries. Since 1976, only Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush have won the CPAC straw poll and gone on to win the White House. Camia reported from Washington Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/Z69tS1 |
The responses of many to my post on Bitcoin reveal a powerful tendency to underestimate the ill-effects of deflation on a social economy. This tendency to underestimate deflation’s deleterious impact matters beyond debates on Bitcoin per se. For example, in Europe the incapacity of the European Central Bank (ECB) to act in the face of deflationary forces has revealed the same type of misunderstanding, as many commentators fail to recognise that deflation is a very serious threat and that the ECB’s lack of weapons against it constitutes a major weakness. In this post I return to the problem of deflation in a Gold Standard-like monetary system (e.g. Bitcoin or, indeed, the Eurozone itself) but conclude that, almost paradoxically, the technology of Bitcoin, if suitably adapted, can be employed profitably in the Eurozone as a weapon against deflation and a means of providing much needed leeway to fiscally stressed Eurozone member-states. Is deflation really a problem? In a recent debate, I was confronted with the argument that deflation is a godsend. “Poorer people crave lower prices”, I was told, “and they cannot understand why ‘elitists’, like yourself, oppose them”. Of course people, especially those who struggle to make ends meet, prefer lower to higher prices other things being equal. But under the heavy shadow of deflation other things are not equal . Deflation is indiscriminatory. Once it sets it, all prices subside, including the price for labour. In fact, wages tend to fall faster than prices of other goods during deflationary times, leaving the weak poorer. Worse still, deflation reduces investment which, in turn, raises unemployment. Some readers find it hard to see why wages must fall faster than prices and why jobs are jeopardised as prices fall. To see why this is invariably so, compare the degree of power over price that a corporation has (e.g. Walmart or Mercedes Benz) to the degree of power over the wage of a blue collar worker. As customers are no longer prepared to pay the same prices as before, the corporation can limit the decline in the price of its wares by restricting output. Its price will still fall, but not by as much as it would have done had the corporation not had a capacity to influence price through restricting supply. In sharp contrast, the blue collar worker has no comparable power to restrict her labour supply in order to arrest the fall in her wages. The result is twofold: As corporations restrict output (to reduce the rate at which prices fall) their demand for labour falls, the result being even greater wage reductions accompanied by layoffs which, in a never-ending recessionary circle, reduce further the demand for goods. Moreover, as prices fall, manufacturers face a timing problem. Assuming there is a time lag between ordering raw materials and shipping the final product to market, deflation means that firms buy their inputs when average prices were higher compared to their level at the time of shipping the final product. Thus the greater the rate of deflation the lower the profit rate and the larger the number of companies that are forced either to lay off workers or to close down completely. Lastly, as prices fall consumers with some savings have every reason to delay the purchase of durables (e.g. white goods or cars) since they know that their saved dollars or euros will buy them a lot more (or a better model) of these goods the longer they wait. But this is terrible for the manufacturers as well as for their workers and suppliers. On this last point, a reader challenged me that falling prices are a fact of life and they do not seem to be a problem: “I can think of many goods and situations”, he wrote “in any economy right now where if you delay a purchase, you’ll get ‘more’ for your dollar.” Of course. But these falling prices are not a problem when it is not all prices that are falling at once. The benefit from patience in the US today comes from actively searching for a better deal in a market where information is imperfect. Deflation, on the other hand, rewards the patient just for being patient, rather than being a reward to costly searching activity. Under deflation everyone benefits from waiting and aggregate demand thus collapses (penalising us all). If, under such deflationary circumstances, monetary policy cannot be loosened up to stop the decline of average prices, wholesale disaster is guaranteed. This was the terrible flaw of the Gold Standard, in the mid-war period. It is the Achilles Heel of Bitcoin today and, indeed, remains a design fault of the Eurozone too. Bitcoin and the euro Bitcoin is a hard-core version of the Gold Standard, in that the money supply is algorithmically fixed to grow at a pre-determined rate and, eventually, to reach a maximum quantity of Bitcoins that remains fixed forever. The Eurozone, on the other hand, is much closer to the original Gold Standard. The major difference with Bitcoin is that there is no fixed upper limit to the quantity of euros because private banks in the Eurozone are subsidised by member-states (through the availability of deposit insurance and the promise of bailouts, if need be) to provide credit lines (on the basis of fractional reserve banking principles). In other words, depending on the banks’ and their customers’ animal spirits (i.e. on how optimistic they are) the banking systems of the Eurozone effectively mint euros. Indeed, the private banks are responsible for more than 90% of the euro money supply. While this is a crucial difference between Bitcoin and the euro, the two are similar in one respect: whereas in Bitcoin there exist no monetary authorities that could expand the money supply in times of deflation, in the Eurozone the existing monetary authorities are constrained by the ECB’s charter in a manner that stops them from expanding the money supply in deflationary times. At this very moment in Europe’s history, with interest rates practically on the lower zero bound, and with inflation turning negative, the ECB is not allowed (for institutional and political reasons) to effect expansionary monetary policies through quantitative easing. What use are monetary authorities in a currency union if they cannot expand money supply in response to falling prices? In this regard, the Eurozone is no different to Bitcoin, without even featuring the zero transaction costs of Bitcoin or its New Age appeal. A potential application of Bitcoin’s technology in the Eurozone’s Periphery Governments in Europe’s Periphery are asphyxiating in a Gold Standard-like monetary union that is buffeted by the winds of recession and outright deflation. Their economies are in desperate need of greater liquidity and of a respite from austerity. The problem is that Europe’s leadership is refusing even to enter into a rational debate of the institutional reforms that can render the Eurozone viable again. The question is: Is there something that the peripheral countries can do to give themselves a chance to breathe better and to act as a bargaining chip that will make Berlin, Frankfurt and Brussels take notice? The answer is yes: They can create their own payment system backed by future taxes and denominated in euros. Moreover, they could use a Bitcoin-like algorithm in order to make the system transparent, efficient and transactions-cost-free. Let’s call this system FT-coin; with FT standing for… Future Taxes. FT-coin could work as follows: You pay, say, €1000 to buy 1 FT-coin from a national Treasury’s website (Spain, Italy, Ireland etc. would run their separate FT-coin markets) under a contract that binds the national Treasury: (a) to redeem your FT-coin for €1000 at any time or (b) to accept your FT-coin two years after it was issued as payment that extinguishes, say, €1500 worth of taxes. Each FT-coin is time stamped i.e. in its code the date of issue is contained and can be used to check that it is not used to extinguish taxes before two years have passed. Every year (after the system has been operating for at least two years) the Treasury issues a new batch of FT-coins to replace the ones that have been extinguished (as taxpayers use them, two years after the system’s inauguration, to pay their taxes) on the understanding that the nominal value of the total number of FT-coins in circulation does not exceed a certain percentage of GDP (e.g. 10% of nominal GDP so that there is no danger that, if all FT-coins are redeemed simultaneously, the government will end up, during that year, with no taxes). Once in possession of an FT-coin, you can either keep it in your FT-coin e’wallet or you can trade it. To make sure that the system is fully transparent and that transactions are completely free, FT-coin could be run by a Bitcoin-like algorithm designed and supervised by an independent non-governmental national authority. Just as in the case of Bitcoin, the total amount of FT-coins can be fixed in advance, at least in relation to a variable not in the government’s control (i.e. nominalGDP), while every single transaction (including the tax extinction using FT-coins) is monitored fully by the community of FT-coin users on the basis of the blockchain pioneered by the infamous Mr Nakamoto. As an FT-coin is about to ‘mature’ (i.e. to reach two years of ‘age’), the demand for it will obviously rise from those that do not possess FT-coins of that vintage (as it allows for a major reduction in their current taxes). FT-coin owners with equivalent tax liabilities will have no reason to sell (as they will want to use it themselves to extinguish their own taxes) but those who have ‘stocked up’ on FT-coins (to a tune beyond what they need to pay their taxes), as an alternative to putting their money in the bank or in the stock exchange, will be selling; possibly with a view to buying freshly minted FT-coins. The great advantages of such a scheme is that it creates: a source of liquidity for the governments that is outside the bond markets, which does not involve the banks and which lies outside any of the restrictions imposed by Brussels or the various troikas a national supply of euros that is perfectly legal in the context of the European Union’s Treaties, and which can be used to increase benefits to society’s weakest members or, indeed, as seed funding for some desperately needed public works a mechanism that allows taxpayers to reduce their inter-temporal tax bill a free and fully transparent payment system outside the banking system, that is monitored jointly by every citizen (and non-citizen) who participates in it. While the Eurozone’s most stressed governments get much needed degrees of fiscal freedom, taxpayers are offered an opportunity to reduce significantly their long-term tax burden and to make electronic payments in euros that bypass banks altogether. At a time of ultra low interest rates, large tax bills and high bank fees, these are benefits not to be scoffed at. Moreover, a liquid new market for FT-coins is created, with zero transaction costs, and good prospects for gains for those who participate in it, on the back of the underlying tax savings and the state guarantee of convertibility at par. Epilogue In summary, while Bitcoin is too deflationary by nature to act as a widespread currency alternative to the dollar or the euro, its design can be used profitably in order to help the Eurozone’s member-states create euro-denominated electronic payment systems that help them, at least in the medium term, overcome the asphyxiating deflationary pressures imposed upon them by the Eurozone’s Gold Standard-like (and, indeed, Bitcoin-like) austerian design. |
Shape-Shifting Glass Tubes Give Algae Biofuel A Second Life May 4th, 2015 by Tina Casey We bring this up because our friends over at the algae company Heliae are still fine-tuning their algae production process for maximum efficiency, with the latest development resulting in a 22 percent increase in output — just by changing the shape of a certain glass tube. The Changing Shape Of Algae Production For those of you new to the topic, commercial algae production is advancing in two basic directions, each with their own pluses and minuses. One relies on open ponds and natural climate. The other relies on more controlled systems called photobioreactors, typically in the form of long, round glass pipes or tubes. Heliae deploys elements of both methods, partly to take advantage of waste carbon dioxide to enhance algae growth. The company uses photobioreactors to produce algae seed, which ensures that only the most productive strain makes it to the growth part of the process. Heliae came across our radar a couple of years ago when it formed a partnership with the Arizona State University Center for Algae Technology and Innovation along with the legacy precision glass manufacturer Schott. ASU is also the lead agency for ATP3, a national public-private algae innovation testbed established by the Obama Administration, so a lot is at stake. As of last year, Heliae and Schott were anticipating a boost in productivity by replacing the round glass tubing in Heliae’s Helix (TM) algae seed photobioreactor with oval tubes. Good News For Algae Biofuel While Heliae has shifted its focus into high-value products, the new oval tubes bode well for more cost-effective algae biofuel production, too. According to Schott’s press materials, the maximum dry output from the photobioreactor increased by more than 22 percent daily, after the round tubes were replaced with oval tubes. The basic concept is simple. The oval shape creates a broader cross-section exposed to light, which promotes algae growth. The idea was tested out in computer simulations and now the real-world results are in. Here’s the rundown from Schott: An indoor study over multiple cycles in several months found that the algae growth rate per volume increased by more than 45 percent, while the oval shape reduces the total internal volume of PBR tubes by 15 percent compared to standard circular tubes resulting in the overall output-increase stated above. [snip] …Furthermore, the final maximum culture density boosted by over 25 percent, enabled by more efficient light exposure of the algae culture. If you’ve ever seen a photobioreactor facility, you know that they take up a lot of square footage, so being able to wedge more tubes into a tighter area while increasing production is a huge deal in terms of cost-effectiveness. We’re thinking that what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, so we’ll be looking out for those oval tubes to make an appearance in other systems. According to Schott, the oval tube endings are designed to be compatible with fixtures engineered for round tubes, making for an easy retrofit. The Future of Algae Biofuel As for those high-value products, last summer Heliae transitioned its business to encompass agroscience and animal feed as well as nutraceuticals. The company still has an interest in the algae biofuel angle, too. Its website features an article from the American Ceramic Society titled “Glass-Grown Algae May Be The Future of Biofuel,” featuring a detailed rundown of Schott’s glass tubing. Considering the source, it’s not surprising that the article makes the case for photobioreactors: …closed systems allow close monitoring and control of the creatures themselves and their environment—nutrient levels, temperature, pH, carbon dioxide levels, sunlight, etc—making it easier to prevent contamination and optimize growth of the algae themselves. And specifically, photobioreactors made from glass tubing: …at the beginning of its lifetime, glass transmits 10–15% more light than other materials. And in regards to how much light transmissibility changes with sunlight, glass also has an advantage—while other materials’ transmission can be reduced (by as much as 80%, depending on the material) by UV light, glass retains its transmissibility. Glass is also more durable (the oldest glass tubing that Schott has is almost 50 years old now), food and pharma grade, biosecure, and resistant to mechanical and chemical scratches, an important consideration considering that algae-filled tubing must be cleaned with chemicals, brushes, or such. However, the article also passingly notes that the algae biofuel R&D field is wide open. One key area on our radar is the use of flexible, floating plastic photobioreactors, and last year the Energy Department unloaded a cool $25 million in funding for advanced algae biofuel research. As for cost effectiveness, our sister site Gas2.org has noted that combining algae biofuel systems with municipal wastewater treatment could provide the kind of two-for-one deal that results in lower costs for both wastewater treatment and fuel production. In addition, as the Navy’s interest in biofuel demonstrates, energy security is driving federal policy in the direction of locally sourced renewable fuels, and algae biofuel fits the bill nicely. Not for nothing, but a couple of years ago we noticed that ExxonMobil was dabbling in algae biofuel, only to drop it like a hot potato. Perhaps they should rethink that. Stay tuned. Follow me on Twitter and Google+. Photo Credit (cropped and enhanced): Photobioreactors courtesy of Schott. |
In Clinton’s new memoir, What Happened , which came out Tuesday, the former presidential candidate describes her experience as the Democratic nominee in the 2016 election. In Clinton’s new memoir,, which came out Tuesday, the former presidential candidate describes her experience as the Democratic nominee in the 2016 election. We’ve already heard about one notable section in her book, in which Clinton says We’ve already heard about one notable section in her book, in which Clinton says Bernie Sanders did “ lasting damage ” to her campaign. But now, another passage is grabbing attention: Clinton comparing herself to Cersei Lannister. Yeah, that Cersei. In the section making headlines, Clinton claims that Trump supporters’ treatment of her leading up to the election was comparable to Cersei’s In the section making headlines, Clinton claims that Trump supporters’ treatment of her leading up to the election was comparable to Cersei’s Walk of Atonement , aka the Walk of Shame, in Season 5 of “ Game of Thrones .” According to According to Newsweek , the paragraph reads: Crowds at Trump rallies called for my imprisonment more times than I can count. They shouted, ‘Guilty! Guilty!’ like the religious zealots in “Game of Thrones” chanting ‘Shame! Shame!’ while Cersei Lannister walked back to the Red Keep. In the scene from the HBO show, Cersei (Lena Headey) is forced to walk naked through the streets followed by a Septa chanting, “Shame,” as the crowd mocks and throws waste at her. As Newsweek points out, actress Lena Headey talked to As Newsweek points out, actress Lena Headey talked to Entertainment Weekly about the moment: It’s not hard when people are screaming at you and you look like shit and you’re being f**king humiliated to figure out how that would feel. There’s a part of you that’s f**king terrified. I can’t even imagine people wanting your blood. Cersei has done wrong, but she doesn’t really deserve this. Subscribe to the Entertainment email Home to your favorite fan theories and the best movie recs. It’s powerful imagery and gives you insight into what Clinton was going through. However, she may want to rethink throwing her name in the ring with Cersei. Yes, Cersei Lannister is a powerful character. Rulers have come and gone on the show, but she has endured it all and is now sitting on the Iron Throne as the queen of Westeros. But, she’s not known for being diplomatic. |
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