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With the imminent release of the new Star Wars film, The Force Awakens, many theatergoers are re-watching the original movies to reacquaint themselves with those stories from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. This time, however, they may find themselves surprised by how much the film's characters and themes echo the current War On Terror. According to Jonathon Last, in the Star Wars films (not the Expanded Universe) the Empire is good and is engaged in a fight for the survival of its regime against a violent group of rebels who are committed to its destruction. Now an interesting article on the Star Wars films at Decider takes the re-interpretation a step further, arguing that the films are actually the story of the radicalization of Luke Skywalker. From introducing Luke to us in A New Hope (as a simple farm boy gazing into the Tatooine sunset), to his eventual transformation into the radicalized insurgent of Return of the Jedi (as one who sets his own father's corpse on fire and celebrates the successful bombing of the Death Star), each film in the original trilogy is another step in Luke's descent into terrorism. According to the article Luke Skywalker is just the kind of isolated disaffected young man that terror recruiters seek out. Obi Wan — a religious fanatic with a history of looking for young boys to recruit and teach an extreme interpretation of the Force — tells Luke he must abandon his family and join him, going so far as telling a shocking lie that the Empire killed Luke's father, hoping to inspire Luke to a life of jihad. In The Empire Strikes Back, Luke is ordered to travel overseas to receive training and religious instruction from Yoda, an extremist cleric who runs a Jedi madrasa on Dagobah. Yoda's push to radicalize Luke, rob him of an identity, and instill obedience are apparent when at various points he instructs Luke to "Clear your mind of questions," "Unlearn what you have learned" and, most grimly, "Do, or do not, there is no try." Armed with new combat training and cloaked in a hardline religious fervor, Luke leaves Dagobah, impatient to put his terror training to use.Finally in Return of the Jedi, we see a darker, hardened Luke, fittingly dressed in black and eager to use violence as a tool to enforce the twisted "judge, jury, executioner" value system of the Jedi. "With Darth Vader the final casualty of Luke's jihad, Obi-Wan and Yoda have succeeded in catching yet another young man in their web of Jedi extremism," concludes the article. "Star Wars is clearly a cautionary tale of the dangers of radicalization, and how even a seemingly harmless young man who kept to himself on Tattooine can become the terrorist next door." |
For many rap fans, The Cool Kids defined an era. The Chicago-based duo of Sir Michael Rocks and Chuck Inglish rose to prominence at a time when your Myspace song said everything about how you were feeling that day and your Top 8 could make or break real life friendships. On songs like "Black Mags," Inglish and Sir Michael combined old-school sensibilities with late-aughts swagger for the internet generation. Shortly after their 2011 debut studio album - When Fish Ride Bicycles - the duo split ways to pursue solo endeavors. ADVERTISEMENT Today, Chuck Inglish and Sir Michael Rocks have announced that they are getting their seminal group back together. In a press release shared today, Chuck Inglish wrote, "I called Mikey and realized nothing would feel better than us being the originators again.The Cool Kids are back forreal." Sir Michael Rocks added on Twitter: "Everything else can wait. The world is fuckin trippin right now I just want shit to feel good again." Representatives for Chuck Inglish and Sir Michael Rocks confirmed the news of the reunion to The FADER. |
"The powers of financial capitalism had a far-reaching plan, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole...Their secret is that they have annexed from governments, monarchies, and republics the power to create the world's money..." - Prof. Carroll Quigley, renowned, late Georgetown macro-historian (mentioned by former President Clinton in his first nomination acceptance speech), author of Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time This 2-volume, 3.5 hour, fast-paced, non-fiction, historical documentary explains how international bankers gained control of America. "Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create money." - Sir Josiah Stamp, Director of the Bank of England (in the 1920s); reputed to be the 2nd wealthiest man in England at that time. The Money Masters > View More Multimedia You Won't Find on TV |
Welcome to the Head Covering Movement‘s guided study of 1 Corinthians 11. We’d like to walk you through this passage of Scripture to show you how the Bible teaches that head covering is to be practiced in all churches, no matter the time or culture. We believe that when men worship with a bare head, and women with a covered head that it symbolizes to both angels and the gathered church, how God has created men and women differently. For too long this doctrine has been neglected and stereotyped. Unfair associations with cults, legalism, unsophisticated theology & frumpiness have turned many people off. We want to move past these stereotypes and into Scripture because contrary to those views, head covering is biblical, beautiful and relevant. LET’S BEGIN STEP #1 – INTRODUCTION / HEART CHECK: We’d like tell you why this topic is important and also encourage you to have an open heart so that you can get the most out of this study. Please start by reading or watching an introduction to head covering. STEP #2 – BIBLE: Before we present you with a positive case for head covering, please give 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 a good read (preferably in at least two translations). This section of Scripture is where this teaching comes from. STEP #3 – CASE FOR HEAD COVERING: Now it’s time to learn the positive case for head covering today. Please select your preferred study method below (listening or reading). QUESTIONS & OBJECTIONS After you’ve heard the case for head covering, we understand that you’ll have questions and potentially unresolved objections. To go deeper and find those answers, head on over to the articles section and read the ones that are of interest to you. WE’RE HERE FOR YOU! TALK TO US We’d love to help assist you in your study in any way we can. If you can’t find what you’re looking for or if you’d just like to let us know what you’re thinking, feel free to contact us below: |
The 49ers are considering Eric Mangini for their defensive coordinator opening, a league source confirmed today. Mangini served as the team’s tight ends coach last season and was an offensive consultant with the 49ers the year before that. His background prior to 2013, however, has been on the defensive side of the ball, especially with defensive backs. Mangini, 44, was the Patriots secondary coach from 2000-04 before being promoted to New England’s defensive coordinator in 2005. He was a head coach for the five years after that, first with the Jets (2006-08) and then the Browns (2009-10). He spent two years as a television analyst before joining Jim Harbaugh’s staff in 2013. The 49ers already have interviewed former Raiders defensive coordinator Jason Tarver, although Tarver’s possible role on Jim Tomsula’s staff is not known. Tarver coached outside linebackers with the 49ers for four years before becoming Stanford’s defensive coordinator in 2011. He joined the Raiders the following year. Sign Up and Save Get six months of free digital access to The Sacramento Bee Mangini, meanwhile, already has interviewed with Washington for their opening at defensive coordinator -- which today went to San Diego linebackers coach Joe Barry -- and reportedly was in Oakland today to discuss the Raiders’ defensive coordinator opening. Mangini did not make a mark as a tight ends coach. The 49ers offense was decidedly more wide-receiver heavy in 2014 than it had been in years’ past. The top player at the position, Vernon Davis, finished with only 26 catches for 245 yards and two touchdowns. Vance McDonald, a second round pick in 2013, had two catches for 30 yards and finished the season with a back injury. The 49ers could tap Geep Chryst, who served as quarterbacks coach from 2011-2014, to coach the tight ends, something he has done in the past. Chryst, however, has drawn interest from both the Bears and the Raiders. His son, Keller, is a quarterback at Stanford, which may prompt Chryst to remain in the Bay Area. |
Share. SEGA will start releasing the games in July. SEGA will start releasing the games in July. SEGA has revealed that Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Streets of Rage 2 and Gunstar Heroes will become part of the company's 3D Classics for Nintendo 3DS. The 3D remaster for Streets of Rage 2 will launch first in July in North America and Europe, followed by 3D Gunstar Heroes in August and 3D Sonic the Hedgehog 2 in September. Before then, SEGA also will release previously announced 3D Fantasy Zone II on April 16 and 3D Thunder Blade on May 14. Exit Theatre Mode Along with 3D support, SEGA is promising new modes and features for the trio of games. And Sonic 2, Streets of Rage 2 and Gunstar Heroes are just the latest additions to the 3D Classics lineup, which started in 2013 with eight titles. Each game will cost $6/€5/£4.50 upon release in the Nintendo eShop on 3DS. Evan Campbell is a freelance news writer who streams games on his Twitch channel, talks about Nintendo weekly on the NF Show, and chats about movies and TV series on Twitter. |
The video will start in 8 Cancel Get the biggest Liverpool FC stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email Liverpool defenders Nathaniel Clyne and Dejan Lovren took part in Wednesday's training at Melwood, as the Reds prepare for Monday's showdown with Manchester United. Clyne and Lovren were both withdrawn from their respective international squads after picking up knocks in the win over Swansea 11 days ago, but the duo showed they were working hard to be fit for the return ahead of the huge clash at Anfield. There was no sign of Adam Lallana or Gini Wijnaldum, however, who continue to be major doubts for the visit of Jose Mourinho's side. Jurgen Klopp also welcomed back the likes of Divock Origi from international duty, although Brazilian pair Philippe Coutinho and Roberto Firmino are yet to return, while Daniel Sturridge and Jordan Henderson only played for England on Tuesday. You can view the best pictures from Melwood in the video at the top of the page. |
Conservative activist Jesse Lee Peterson joined Virginia talk radio host Rob Schilling yesterday to discuss how “evil” LGBT rights are in the process of destroying America, “especially in the last eight years”: Schilling: I want to go back, first of all, just to God having created them man and woman, because we seem to lose track of that. That’s the honest truth given to us in the Bible, so I think that’s a good starting point for all of this. Peterson: I absolutely agree, and I have to tell you, if we don’t return to that, we’re going to lose total sight of man and woman because the children of the lie, they are pushing for no gender. They don’t want you to identify as a man or as a woman. And we should not be surprised because, as you know, Rob, our battle is a spiritual battle, it’s a warfare between good and evil. Absolutely everything we do is spiritual. So we need to realize that once you give evil power by letting it have its way, it will destroy you. It will destroy you personally, it will destroy your family, it will destroy your community and your country, and that’s what it’s been doing especially in the last eight years. It’s just been out of control, to a point that they are pushing men and women that are confused about their identities to go into whatever bathroom of choice. That’s not even common sense, you know that has to be evil. |
But precisely because the international community acted in time—before Qaddafi retook Benghazi—we never saw what might have happened had they not acted. Today in eastern Libya, there are no columns of refugees marching home to reclaim their lives; no mass graves testifying to the gravity of the crisis; no moment that symbolizes a passing from horror to hope. The sacking of Benghazi was the proverbial dog that didn’t bark. And so, just days into the military operation, commentators have moved on to a new set of questions—some serious (Is the mission to protect civilians or to remove Qaddafi? Will NATO be stuck patrolling a divided country?), and some trivial (Should Obama have gone to Brazil when the bombing started? Did the interventionist “girls” in his administration out-argue the cautious boys?) But before the debate moves on, as it must, we should acknowledge what could be happening in eastern Libya right now had Qaddafi’s forces continued their march. The dozens of burned out tanks, rocket launchers, and missiles bombed at the eleventh hour on the road to Benghazi would have devastated the rebel stronghold if Qaddafi’s forces had been able to unleash them indiscriminately, as they did in other, smaller rebel-held towns, like Zawiyah, Misrata, and Adjabiya. Qaddafi’s long track-record of arresting, torturing, disappearing, and killing his political opponents to maintain control suggests that had he recaptured the east, a similar fate would have awaited those who supported the opposition there. Over a hundred thousand Libyans already fled to Egypt fearing Qaddafi’s assault; hundreds of thousands more could have followed if the east had fallen. The remaining population, and those living in refugee camps abroad, would have felt betrayed by the West, which groups like Al Qaeda would undoubtedly have tried to exploit. Finally, Qaddafi’s victory—alongside Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s fall—would have signaled to other authoritarian governments from Syria to Saudi Arabia to China that if you negotiate with protesters you lose, but if you kill them you win. And the United States would still have been embroiled in Libya—enforcing sanctions, evacuating opposition supporters, assisting refugees, dealing with an unpredictable and angry Qaddafi. But it would have been embroiled in a tragedy rather than a situation that now has a chance to end well. Of course, even if Benghazi is now safe from Qaddafi’s tanks, his thugs still have free rein to shoot demonstrators in Tripoli and other cities he controls. For the moment, Libya is indeed divided in two. But just a week ago, it looked likely to be reunified under a vengeful despot with a long record of violent abuse. Now at least a large part of the country has escaped that fate. As for the rest, we should not underestimate the non-military measures that the United States, the European Union, and the United Nations have implemented even without a dangerous armed assault on Tripoli. After all, the men around Qaddafi, who may well decide his fate, now know something that they didn’t just a couple of weeks ago: that their leader will never again be able to sell a drop of Libya’s oil, or to retake the parts of Libya he has lost. It is legitimate to challenge the Obama administration about its objectives and how it plans to achieve them. It’s reasonable to be concerned about the impact the air war will have on civilians if it continues indefinitely. We do not know what will happen next in Libya, or where this all will lead—we never do. But we do know what has likely been averted. And for that we should be grateful. |
HAS THERE ever been a better time to have a midlife crisis? You can raid your pension pot and blow it on a sports car. And now that car doesn’t have to be a Porsche. Mercedes has come up with a rival to the 911, the sports car that for so long — together with ponytails and black polo necks — defined men of a certain age searching for their lost libido. It’s significant because for more than half a century nothing has been able to knock the spots off the Porsche 911. The simple, zesty formula of flat-six engine in the rear, bags of power and no excess weight has seen off every challenger. Browse the used Mercedes-Benz for sale on driving.co.uk The new machine created by AMG, the high-performance division of Mercedes, is called the GT S (Gran Turismo Sport). Along with a slightly tamer version, the GT, it is designed to go head to head with the 911 in price and performance. You may think you’ve heard this kind of thing before, and it’s true that car enthusiasts’ magazines seem to thrive on “911-killer” headlines. But this time even Porsche seems rattled. Mercedes, one of the world’s biggest car companies — albeit a name more associated with luxury than speed — has made no secret of having its rival squarely in its sights. A lavish unveiling at last month’s Paris motor show was followed by a marketing campaign with the tagline “Handcrafted by racers: a sports car in its purest form”. An unusual frostiness now exists between employees of Porsche and AMG, who work less than 20 miles apart, in Stuttgart and Affalterbach respectively. Porsche even has a new GTS of its own, an updated variant of the 911, which was released the same day last week as the new Mercedes. Both launch events were in California — the biggest market for this type of car. Cue the grudge match of the decade. Only something with the performance of the Bloodhound SSC rocket car could live up to that kind of build-up, so as one of the first journalists to drive the new “Porsche killer” I found the surprisingly conventional looks of the GT S something of a letdown. With its long bonnet, two seats in the middle and hunkered-down haunches, it closely resembles the now-discontinued Mercedes SLS AMG supercar. The good news is that the GT S has an all-new 4-litre bi-turbo engine and an exhaust note that sounds like a powerboat tethered at a jetty. The car is categorised as front-engined but in fact the V8 unit sits just behind the front axle, with power directed to the rear wheels and the gearbox at the back for better weight distribution. In corners it feels more of an athlete — the SLS was a brawler — with the engine, brakes and gearbox working smoothly in unison on the twistiest sections of road. When you’ve finished making the optional ceramic brakes think they’re back in the kiln, you can drive it as a true Gran Turismo should be driven. Slow down, switch the mode from Sport to Comfort — there are three settings, selected with a button on the central console, the third being Sport Plus — and it’s a supple drive. After an hour behind the wheel, though, I ached to be able to stretch out my right foot from the cramped throttle position. The decision by the company’s designers to move the engine towards the rear may have improved balance and handling but it also seems to have eaten into the footwell. When I pointed this out to the maintenance crew they said my feet were too big. After an hour behind the wheel, I ached to be able to stretch out my right foot from the cramped throttle position. The maintenance crew said my feet were too big. Apart from that, it is comfortable enough, with supportive bucket seats and easy-to-reach switches arranged on a broad centre console, with two rows of buttons flanking the gear selector. There’s an 8.4in touchscreen borrowed from the new C-class for entertainment and climate functions. Seat heating, hazard lights and the extendable spoiler are controlled by buttons in the roof. The boot, accessible through a decent-sized tailgate, is 350 litres. How big is that? Enough for two sets of clubs, says Mercedes, though I struggled to fit a couple of flight cases in there. Normally, when loaned a £110,495 car to test, you might treat it gently, but Mercedes had asked for no quarter to be given, so after pootling round downtown San Francisco and the surrounding roads I headed to the Laguna Seca racetrack in Monterey. The GT S’s engine — in effect the motors from two AMG A 45 hot hatches welded into a V8 — pushes it to 62mph in 3.8 seconds with no evidence of turbo lag. Maximum power delivery — 503bhp — is at 6250rpm, and it redlines at 7000rpm. And it felt fast on the perimeter road. Like the Aston Martin Vantage and the Ferrari 458 Italia it has variable exhaust flaps that allow it to tiptoe through the traffic and then howl through the hills when you push hard on the throttle. There’s no detectable understeer and even when you’re going flat-out at the grip limit there’s no fear that the car will suddenly bite back in the way that rear-engined cars are prone to. The GT S is two-tenths of a second quicker to 62mph than the cheaper GT (£97,195), but the GT may appeal to those who prefer their sports cars more understated. It comes with 19in wheels at the rear instead of the overblown 20in ones at the back of the GT S and eschews the red brake callipers — a sort of hangover of the bankers’ red braces of the 1980s. With the money you save, you can pay for the ceramic brakes — a £6,000 option. For marketing reasons, perhaps, Mercedes seems keen to distance the GT S from its predecessor, the SLS, saying it’s a completely different car. But that’s not quite true since it uses basically the same platform and many of the same components. If the SLS was a no-holds-barred driver’s car, the GT S is what you get when you rein it in for the more lucrative “mid-sized sports car” segment. You could argue that accountants have triumphed over petrolheads, and that would be true, but you can hardly blame Mercedes. Porsche makes an estimated 50% gross profit from each 911 sold (compared with a car industry average of 10%-15%). So is this the end of the 911? Nothing that has survived half a century will surrender that easily. Having been at the launch of both cars, I’d say there’s also a good case for stating that the GT S is the car the SLS should have been all along — and nearly £50,000 cheaper than any version of the SLS. Mercedes has ditched the bad bits of the SLS — the thirsty 6.2-litre engine, the delightfully eccentric but heavy gullwing doors (the GT S is more than 50kg lighter than the SLS) — and kept the good bits. The hydraulically assisted power steering, for example, was developed for the SLS, and, unlike the electronically assisted steering on the latest-generation 911, gives much more of a feeling of being connected to the road. So is this the end of the 911? Nothing that has survived half a century will surrender that easily. At £120,598, the 911 Turbo may cost £10,000 or so more, but it’s four-tenths of a second quicker to 62mph and is all-wheel drive. Despite being nicknamed “the Widowmaker”, the Porsche is still the more planted car too. But Mercedes has raised its game and the competition is closing in. For the same money as a 911 Turbo, or thereabouts, you now have the option not only of the Mercedes GT S but also the Jaguar F-type R, Nissan GT-R and Aston Martin V12 Vantage. By the time you’ve finished test-driving that lot, McLaren’s new two-seater, the Sports Series, will be along, followed by Maserati’s Alfieri. There’s also a GT S convertible due, though Mercedes won’t confirm dates. That car promises to combine the coupé’s comfort and looks with the open-top allure of a long-distance cruiser. So keep booking those test drives. They’re even cheaper than a polo neck. Verdict ★★★★☆ Mercedes v Porsche – the battle begins 2015 Mercedes-AMG GT S specifications Price: £110,495 £110,495 Release date: April April Engine: 3982cc, V8, bi-turbo 3982cc, V8, bi-turbo Power/Torque: 503bhp @ 6250rpm / 479 lb ft @ 1750rpm 503bhp @ 6250rpm / 479 lb ft @ 1750rpm Transmission: 7-speed dual-clutch automatic 7-speed dual-clutch automatic Performance: 0-62mph: 3.8sec 0-62mph: 3.8sec Top speed: 193mph 193mph Fuel: 30.1mpg 30.1mpg CO2: 219g/km Cash in your pension pot: There’s never been more choice of midlife-crisis cars Porsche 911 Turbo Price £120,598 £120,598 Engine 3800cc, flat six, twin turbo, 514bhp 3800cc, flat six, twin turbo, 514bhp Performance 0-62mph: 3.4sec 0-62mph: 3.4sec Top speed 195mph Once upon a time, the 911 Turbo had a nickname: “the Widowmaker”. These days it has been put on a short leash, with four-wheel drive and one of the best electronic stability systems going. The Turbo has matured into a sports car that’s as happy nipping to the shops as it is steaming around Silverstone in the rain. Browse the used Porsche 911s for sale on driving.co.uk Audi R8 V10 quattro Price £114,835 £114,835 Engine 5204cc, V10, naturally aspirated, 518bhp 5204cc, V10, naturally aspirated, 518bhp Performance 0-62mph: 3.9sec 0-62mph: 3.9sec Top speed 197mph The R8 V10 might belch out CO2 like students at a party where the beer is on the house, but drivers who can put that to the back of their mind will find it is one of the most thrilling yet surefooted machines on the road. And despite bodywork that has been designed to turn heads as much as to keep the car stable at close to 200mph, an R8 is surprisingly easy to live with. Browse the used Audi R8s for sale on driving.co.uk Aston Martin V12 Vantage S Price £138,000 £138,000 Engine 5935cc, V12, naturally aspirated, 565bhp 5935cc, V12, naturally aspirated, 565bhp Performance 0-60mph: 3.7sec 0-60mph: 3.7sec Top speed 205mph The Vantage dates back to 2005, making it just about pensionable in the world of sports cars, but this has given the engineers at Aston Martin plenty of time to perfect the model — greatly to the driver’s advantage. As poised as it is powerful, this is one of the most beautiful sports cars on sale. Browse the used Aston Martin Vantages for sale on driving.co.uk Jaguar F-type R coupé Price £85,000 £85,000 Engine 5000cc, V8, supercharged, 542bhp 5000cc, V8, supercharged, 542bhp Performance 0-62mph: 4.2sec 0-62mph: 4.2sec Top speed 186mph The first time you floor the throttle and give the V8 engine its head, you realise that this is the antidote to ruthlessly efficient German machines: growling, angry and a handful on road or race track. A four-wheel-drive version goes on sale next year. It is to be hoped it won’t entirely tame Jaguar’s wildcat. Browse the used Jaguar F-types for sale on driving.co.uk Nissan GT-R Price £78,020 £78,020 Engine 3799cc, V6, twin turbo, 542bhp 3799cc, V6, twin turbo, 542bhp Performance 0-60mph: 2.7sec 0-60mph: 2.7sec Top speed 196mph True, the GT-R is a bit of a thug compared to the others, but for raw performance it’s hard to beat. The fact that the GT-R can carry four adults comfortably, has a boot that will hold more than a washbag and costs £40,000 less than the 911 Turbo makes it all the more astonishing. Browse the used Nissan GT-Rs for sale on driving.co.uk |
A New Zealand man is on a mission to save the country's native flightless birds by launching an anti-cat campaign that calls for the animals to be kept inside at all times and slowly allowed to die out. Cat-loving New Zealand does not appear to be particularly interested in placing their pets under house arrest, however -- even if doing so will supposedly save the country's struggling bird population. The initiative is the brainchild of Gareth Morgan, described by Jezebel as a "Kiwi economist," referring to an endangered flightless bird native to New Zealand. His new "Cats to Go" campaign does not mince words, stating: "That little ball of fluff you own is a natural born killer." Despite his anti-cat rhetoric, the Associated Press called Morgan an "animal advocate." In this case, the epithet has a distinctly Darwinian spin -- he appears to be a selective animal advocate. Here's the deal: Bird-catching cats are not native to New Zealand, so their ready adaptation in thousands of New Zealand homes threatens the nation's once-flourishing native bird population, among them the flightless Kiwis, said AP. Morgan therefore wants fewer cats in the country. He says feline pets should be registered, kept inside, neutered, and not replaced when they die. With nearly half of New Zealand households owning a cat, one they presumably love, Morgan's movement is not likely to take off. The nation boasts a total of 1.4 million cats, according to Jezebel. Morgan thinks that makes for way too many Sylvesters to New Zealand's poor flightless Tweetys, to pull in the old Looney Toon cat-and-bird routine. Reaction to the initiative has been swift and to the point. Jezebel nodded to a column in New Zealand's National Business Review characterizing Morgan's cause as nothing short of "animal racism." (The piece already generated 82 fiery comments, a figure likely to grow.) The Royal New Zealand Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals' Bob Kerridge was equally blunt, telling local TV: "I say to Gareth Morgan, butt out of our lives," according to AP. "Don't deprive us of the beautiful companionship that a cat can provide individually and as a family," he added. Morgan counters that by saying on the site: "Imagine hearing birdsong in our cities." You know who has something to say about this? GlobalPost's mascot, Boris The Cat. Here's a graphic, to boot: Seems the chase is on in New Zealand. Cue Merry Melodies! |
PRLog (Press Release) – Jul. 18, 2013 – NEW YORK, New York., July 18, 2013 — Blasting to Earth on July 18th comes the new book Dragon Ball Z “It’s Over 9,000!” Cosmovisiones en colisió n,forever changing how Spanish speaking Dragon Ball fans view their favorite series. Written by Derek Padula, webmaster of The Dao of Dragon Ball blog (http://thedaoofdragonball.com/ blog/),“It’s Over 9,000!” reveals the inner psychology and colliding worldviews of series protagonist Goku and his rival Vegeta, showing the reader how their conflict and competition for ultimate power is necessary for profound personal growth and character development. Framed through the popular Internet meme that brought us the phrase, “It’s Over 9,000!”, Padula explains how social media allowed Dragon Ball Z a second opportunity to influence pop culture around the world. The original best-selling book in English, Dragon Ball Z “It’s Over 9,000!” When Worldviews Collide has been translated into Spanish, and is now available for Spanish speaking Dragon Ball Z fans around the world. With foreword’ s by Japanese actor Ryo Horikawa, the voice of Vegeta, and Castilian Spanish actress Ana Cremades, the voice of Goku, Dragon Ball Z “It’s Over 9,000!” When Worldviews Collide is the first book to explain the origins of the “It’s Over 9,000!” meme, how the original video went viral, and why it continues to be such a popular catchphrase. Referencing an East Asian belief system and high tech futuristic paradigms, the book provides a deeper understanding of this epic story and the inherent values within it. Dragon Ball Z “It’s Over 9,000!” Cosmovisiones en colisió n is available in e-book format through Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/ dp/B00DP4E2NE), BN.com, Apple’s iBookstore and Kobo. A print format of the “It’s Over 9,000!” book will be available through Amazon.com and through Baker & Taylor one week after the date of this release. The original English book is also available through Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/ dp/B0092HRZCI) in both e-book and print book. Press and media outlets may request a review copy of the e-book or print book by emailing Derek Padula: derek(at)thedaoofdragonball( dot)com. About Derek Padula: Derek Padula is the author of The Dao of Dragon Ball, the first book series and website to reveal the deep history, philosophy and ancient cultural roots of the world’s #1 anime and manga. Derek has been a fan of Dragon Ball since 1997 when he first watched the anime, and has seen every episode and read every chapter of the manga dozens of times. His love for Dragon Ballinspired him to begin martial arts training in Shaolin Gong Fu and study abroad in Beijing to train with Shaolin monks. He speaks at anime conventions about Dragon Ball and wants to share his understanding of this profound series that continues to influence the lives of millions |
The memories remain fresh and overwhelming. The trembling ground, the wall of smoke that shut off the sun, the choking dust, the ghastliness of the jumping people — the grievous loss of life and the epic acts of heroism. Exhausted phone lines that wouldn’t connect to those who might have answers. People listening to car radios, reports of more planes in the sky, fears of more killers to come. Also, the aching days and weeks and months after. In Lower Manhattan, cordoned off with sawhorses for blocks around the smoldering World Trade Center, the odious scent that persisted for months and wafted through the city. Was it burning tires? Unsettled souls? Residents moving about in dust masks. The rats dislodged from their homes. The flatbed trucks and garbage trucks panting back and forth, loading the seemingly limitless detritus. People buying parachutes and canoes, a way to get out the next time. Buying bulletproof vests and ammunition. The prolonged hunt for remains. Funeral after funeral. And Gary Condit and Chandra Levy and the past tumble of news excised from the nation’s front pages, because the news — all the news — was 9/11, everything twisting and turning out of that day. The attacks unhinged the lives of families — the fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, children of the nearly 3,000 people who did not return home. There was also more nuanced, distanced loss: A man lost two former Navy shipmates from back in the day. A man in England lost two online Scrabble partners. Paul Simon said he didn’t know if he could ever complete another album. A woman wrote on a remembrance site that she regretted that she had had children, that she had brought their innocence into a world no longer fathomable to her. Advertisement Continue reading the main story But there has been a chasm between expectations and reality. The prophecy of more attacks on the United States has not been the case, not yet at least. Bumbling attempts got close — involving underwear and a shoe and a 1993 Nissan Pathfinder — but the actuality has been that terrorist acts on American soil in the succeeding years have been, as always, largely homegrown. So many things were expected to be different that have not been. Time passes, and passes some more. Exigencies of living hammer away impatiently. People — most of them, at least — began to become themselves. New York, which by its nature accommodates so much, was willing to absorb 9/11 and keep moving. Already we have fifth graders not yet born on that day. The people known as “Wall Street,” celebrated as martyrs and heroes in the days after the attacks, have been vilified for boundless greed. We are back as a nation of ideological divides and uncivilized political intransigence. Bridges fall, roads crack. What has stuck? Shedding shoes and getting patted down at the airport. Navigating barriers to enter big buildings — smile for the camera. Every so often, the police rummaging through selected bags at the subway station. All this information being collected on who we are and what we do, snooping that is more accepted than objected to. A nagging suspicion of Muslims. A pair of distant wars that refuse easy endings, with a price tag of $1.3 trillion and climbing. The certainty that any full reckoning must include the cost of shortchanging the country’s future. An underlying sense of the sinister out there somewhere. See something, say something. The killing of Osama bin Laden has not closed the book. Nor has 10 years. Yet a lot crowds into 3,600 days in a speeded-up, interwoven world. For most people, the influence of 9/11 on day-to-day life is felt much less intensely than the arrival of Facebook and Twitter. Or the eruption of nagging, pontificating voices on cable TV. Or the suffocating recession. Ultimately, each person attaches an individual meaning to 9/11, if possible. Outside of the families of the victims, most people’s lives may not present themselves as remarkably different. But there is residue, lingering wisps of Sept. 11. A Birthday to Hate Angela Landon, sitting in her house in Bangor, Me., that day, feeding a bottle to her 10-month-old. Pregnant with the third of what would be four children, all girls, and her mother calling. The terrible news. On her birthday. Advertisement Continue reading the main story “My mother used to call me every year and say, ‘What a beautiful day to be born,’ ” she said. “After 9/11, what was I supposed to say? ‘It’s a beautiful day to die’?” She hated her birthday for a while. A tiny price in the scheme of a wicked day, but a price paid. The year after, Ms. Landon had no appetite for celebration, but her family insisted, even dressed up as the Wiggles, the Australian children’s entertainers. “They tried to make me feel good,” she said. “But I didn’t feel good.” She doesn’t hate her birthday anymore. Last year, on her 40th, it was everyone out to Chuck E. Cheese’s, and a merry time. But she gets emotional. “Ten years later, it’s really hard,” she said. “My little ones don’t understand yet. They know my birthday is 9/11, and they know something happened on 9/11 and I’ve explained it, but they don’t get it.” For the first couple of years, whenever she had to display her ID to cash a check or give her birth date over the phone to the bank, people would suck in their breath. That doesn’t happen now. “It’s kind of out of sight, out of mind,” she said. “And that bothers me.” Her oldest daughter, Erika, 17, got on the phone, and she said it was a hard story to tell and a hard story to hear. What did Sept. 11 mean to her? “I grew up in a proud-to-be-American household,” she said. “So I love my country. It was scary. I remember getting off the bus and my mother running and hugging me. My friends don’t talk about it now. It’s not a big ordeal here. But it’s always my mother’s birthday, so it’s always, always there.” Civic Life Even Nastier People shake their heads when they think back. Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of education and history at New York University, said: “I remember people saying, ‘We’re all going to be New Yorkers.’ People said we’re all going to be serious. That’s hilarious to talk about. Reality TV was in its infancy. There was no ‘Jersey Shore.’ Imagine if it did spawn a new seriousness.” He said what we all see: “Civic life is even more frayed, even more polarized, even nastier.” Dalton Conley, dean for the social sciences at N.Y.U., said, “I think the ironic thing is, the area less affected in terms of daily life and fundamental change is actually New York City, the epicenter of the event. Our own university expected we would fall off the map.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story Did he know anyone who had taken the narrative of that day and done something really bold, gone the distance? He said he did. The father of a friend of his daughter, a Wall Street man who went to war. Crossing the Line Out of the shock and the ruin, Gerard Decatrel tried to imagine New York’s tomorrow, the twists it might take, because there had to be something transformative. Imagination, in those days, could take you a lot of places. He worked at Morgan Stanley in Times Square, a trader of foreign exchange options. He was 30. He lived in Manhattan, a family man. As he constructed outcomes, he decided there were some he could accept and those he couldn’t. “I drew a line,” he said. “I could bear it if New York became like Jerusalem and there were conventional attacks going on all the time. But if there were any biological or chemical attacks, I said I would join the military.” He couldn’t entirely explain the impulse. He didn’t know anyone who had perished in the towers. Taking up arms would mean entering an alternate space, leaving behind a wife, a 4-year-old daughter, a 1-year-old son. “I don’t know, but I took it personally,” he said. “I’d been a New Yorker all my life.” That fall, the mysterious anthrax attacks visited the wrung-out and quaking city. There it was. His line had been crossed. He joined the Marines. Morgan Stanley said it understood; go, and his job would be waiting for his safe return. His wife said all right. He didn’t know then that she was humoring him. She thought they would reject him because he was too old. He had to commit to training and six years in the service, eight years of his life altogether. He moved to Virginia, Florida, California. And then, indeed, Iraq for three seven-month deployments as a pilot of a Cobra attack helicopter. He flew more than 500 missions. He shot at the enemy and the enemy shot back, but “they weren’t very good shots,” he said. “And they didn’t have the best weapons.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story The weather, he felt, was the biggest danger, the blinding sandstorms that could reduce visibility to zero and yet you flew, flew on hope. He felt old — almost everyone else was so young. Two pilots in his squad were killed. But he made the sort of permanent friends you made in no other context. He was discharged from the Marines last September. He is back in his city. He works again for Morgan Stanley, trading options once more, battling the cranky markets. Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. He had done something. He had served. Everything adds up to something. He would say he was different. “I feel I have more confidence and a different perspective,” he said. “Something goes wrong in the market and everyone’s freaking out. Well, I’m not. No one’s dying. The market can’t freak me out.” Reshaping History George W. Bush understood 9/11 as a declaration of war. To others, it was an immense hate crime. Either way, it catapulted the country into what seems a permanent state of war. David Blight, a history professor at Yale University, observed that an event’s meaning is always made by the subsequent history. “That’s how memory works,” he said. “Memory is always about the present.” He added: “That innocence that we live above history, that we’re not vulnerable, that we control our own fate, got a big, big hit. I think this still lingers. But I think we are pleasantly recycling that.” Which is not to say the day didn’t leave obligations, impose debts some people felt they had to pay. Opening Tiny Doors The sorrow needed to go somewhere. There were places to receive it, online receptacles, and the flutter of contributions arrived from all over. On Sept. 19, 2001, one came from Colleen Casey of Bolingbrook, Ill. She expressed the accepted condition that many people felt: “I do not expect my life to ever be as it was before.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story She offered up a poem, “I Needed the Quiet,” that she had discovered when she was 14 and her father died of a heart attack. It helped her; maybe it could help others. And she wrote, “I will try to live my life better.” Americans had died by going to work. She felt she had to earn their sacrifice. Now Ms. Casey lives in Addison, Ill., a materials license reviewer for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Same job, new home. She is 54 and single. Had she lived her life “better?” You don’t remold yourself easily. She knew that. But there were tiny doors that she could open. She was shy. But she began to do more, not be moony about her own troubles, go to places she hadn’t gone, feed the fires. She mentioned participating in a diabetes walk, another for a homeless shelter, one for suicide prevention. She started doing water aerobics, wanting to improve her health. “I’ve tried to spend more time listening, really listening to people I come across in daily life,” she said. “People need to be validated and heard.” She has had her scrapes with adversity — two bad car crashes, her Subarus totaled. She bought a third Subaru. One had been white, one blue and now she was on red, completing the colors of her country’s flag. She tries to be a little kinder. Now she gives money to those professing need, like men she spots at roadway intersections. The ones squatting there with the hand-scribbled signs: “Homeless” or “Help.” It was just something she got in her head to do. She always has a spare $20 and bottled water in the car to hand over. Advertisement Continue reading the main story “Although some of my friends think I’m nuts for doing this,” she said, “I’ve never, ever had any kind of adverse outcome. Just gratitude.” She said: “We’re all trying to slog through life together. I’m trying to do a little more. That’s all I can do.” ‘We’re Wired to Cope’ The day burrowed into the mind, and who knew how deep and how long it would stay. But deep and long. That’s what so many accepted. People slack on couches, struggling to push the ache out of them. But the lasting psychological toll, studies suggested, was nowhere as bad as many experts predicted. The preponderance of people, they got on. “I think we are innately resilient,” said George A. Bonanno, professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University, who studies grief and trauma. “The norm is to be resilient.” In part, this is because we get so much practice, from less singular but still powerful traumas like divorce or disease. “We’re wired to cope with traumatic events,” he said. So 33 Chilean miners buried deep in the ground can come out of it with their sanity. People can watch a mudslide scoop up their home. They can see tall towers fall and keep going. “Human history is full of tragedy, and within these tragedies there is room for growth,” said Grady Bray, a disaster psychologist based in Texas. “There is no growth in human beings without struggle. I’m convinced of that.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story A 5-Year-Old’s Premonition Sasha Vaccaro finished cooking camp — shish kebab today, lots of fun — and was free for the afternoon. He slid into a seat at the Starbucks across the street from his Upper East Side home, sipped Passion Tea Lemonade. He was dressed cool, in a T-shirt and shorts. He is 15. Sasha has a complicated life. He suffers from depression that can be crippling. He has been given diagnoses of aspects of Asperger syndrome, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. His younger brother is autistic. His parents are divorced. He explained some things he copes with. “If I touch my body on one side, I have to touch it on the other,” he said. “If I have an itch, I have to scratch on the other side too. But I’ve gotten better at it. I try to ride out the wave.” He overreacts to criticism. When he hears sad things, he gets very sad. His Sept. 11 was this. He was in kindergarten four blocks from the trade center, playing the tambourine in music class. His father clutched him in his arms, carrying him away as the second plane of the suicidal fanatics sliced into the flank of the tower. He watched both buildings aflame. His father cried; so did he. “Before, I thought the world was perfect and everyone was nice,” he said. “It’s when I stopped believing in God.” The World Trade towers had been of outsize importance to the family. They used to go down there and lie flat on their backs, their feet grazing the base of a tower, and look up at the majestic presence. What does 9/11 do to someone a decade later? Everyone has complications, and how do you filter them out and assign one cause to one effect? How would you ever do it in a boy with so much going on? Year after year, Sasha didn’t talk about 9/11. Then in March, he wrote a graphic novel to satisfy a school assignment to relate a pivotal moment. It was his 9/11 day, from morning pancakes to music class to calamity and tears. And also his sixth-sense moment: At school he had a premonition that something awful was imminent in the towers. He looked toward them and said to his father, “Daddy, twin tower alert! Twin tower alert!” Advertisement Continue reading the main story In getting it out, he thought, maybe he was finally confronting what no child should have to see. The graphic novel got a good grade. The class was absorbed. On all fronts, he has been doing better of late. Therapy has helped his mass of issues. His medications are being cut back. His last school year was his best. He wants to be a neurosurgeon or a veterinarian. He had a gecko once. He has not been back to ground zero. Maybe when it’s done, he’ll go see how it came out. Down at the site, things were happening, 3,000 workers a day — the equal of the dead — belatedly putting together the replacements for the vanished buildings. A sandwich-board peddler promoted $22-per-ounce cash for unwanted sterling silver. The tourists jostled past, peering through the fence, watching steel sprout on a land of ghosts. That day was 10 years ago, and one day it will be 20 years ago and 50 and 100, sinking further into history. What does 9/11 mean? Sasha wanted to think on that for a moment. His face tightened into deep thought. “I honestly don’t know,” he said. “I can’t understand why people would do that. I don’t know what to say. It’s just sadness. That’s all it will ever be. Lots and lots and lots of sadness.” |
In her new book Street Fight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution (which she wrote along with her former aide Seth Solomonow), Sadik-Khan ponders what the streets of the future will look like. She spoke to The Verge recently about the pace of technology, the declining need for parking, and Finland’s futuristic transportation model. Janette Sadik-Khan, New York City transportation commissioner from 2007 to 2013, oversaw what may have been the most turbulent period for the nation’s biggest city in decades. She built over 400 miles of bike lanes and transformed some of the most congested pockets of the city into pedestrian plazas. But arguably, with the rise of ride-sharing and automated vehicles, the radical transformation of the next decade may trump the last. Andrew J. Hawkins: What do you see as being some of the most significant changes that are happening now and that will change how cities look? Janette Sadik-Khan: I think a lot of people don’t realize how close we are to seeing autonomous vehicles on the street. I think that it’s five or ten year technology horizon. It’s like one of those objects in the rearview mirror that’s closer than it appears ... I think that we need to be really smart about transition and integration of technology and I think the important thing is that for us to adapt our cities to the opportunities that are offered by technology, not the other way around. But as new technologies come up on us I think cities have been consistently flat-footed. How quickly do you think cities will adapt to autonomous vehicles and electric vehicles? Well, I think it remains to be seen. I think we need to protect what makes cities great and make places function in the first place and not repeat the mistake of giving up our city centers to an ever-expanding number of cars. But the technology is there and I think in some ways the real challenge is political more than anything else. And technology’s funny in transportation. When you think about it, technology is what changed so many aspects of our lives, but when you look at our transportation network and the public realm it’s still early 20th-century stuff. And you’ve got Uber and Lyft and Zipcar, but what we need is a fundamental change of the entire network. It’s not just about what’s on our smartphones, which is what everyone’s focused on, but it’s also about what’s on our streets. As someone who’s been a regulator, you know that government can move slowly at times. Is this something we’ll see starting in cities then spreading across the country? Or will it come from DC and move from the top down? The last great transportation idea we had from Washington was the Interstate Highway system, and that was 1956. And now we are in 2016 and I think what you’re starting to see is the innovation is really coming at the city level and it’s kind of bottom-up. And I think that cities are really at the frontline of the future of our streets. The federal government can certainly help and I think we need real leadership. The problem is with mass transit and regulatory policies in place that turn [autonomous vehicles] and [transportation network companies] into first- and last-mile solutions, rather than the whole business. And we need to learn to love bigger and denser cities because that’s [how] transit will compete with [autonomous vehicles built by] Google and Tesla and everything that comes after. I think we can reuse parking. You think about the space that’s sort of trapped between lanes in cities — 50 to 85 percent of real estate could be repurposed. I mean think about that: that’s a whole city that you could use for affordable housing, you could use for better walking, cycling, and more efficient, safer use of our streets. I think it’s a really golden moment. So you think parking is losing its relevance? I don’t think we need to build to build any more parking lots, and maybe we don’t need to build any more roadway expansions. And so the transformation that I think people are only getting a glimpse of right now — it’s actually going to make railroads of the 19th century and the highways of the 20th century look like a very subtle shift by comparison. I’m a city champion and I think that that’s where a lot of these solutions lie. The sort of regulatory regimes that we fear are, in some senses, the private sector has been much further along than the public sector on this. But whether it’s [congestion] pricing, whether it’s data ... I think for all of this we need to start planning now because we stepped back a while ago while people sold us on Futurama, and our cities and people suffered for it. And that’s I think why we have to get to work on this right now … otherwise we’re not planning for the future we want and we’re going to be scrambling and reacting to the one that happens to us. Can you talk a little about pedestrian plazas and public plazas? Is the sky the limit on these things, or will there always have to be space for cars? I think it’s about building in choices for people, that’s really what it’s about. What kind of choices do people have for for getting around. I think a lot of people in cities say, "Well, we drive." They don’t take a bus, walk, or bike, but the demographics tell a very different story. You take a look at the number of young people getting their driver’s license, it’s significantly down. If you take a look at the numbers of people that even want a car, it’s significantly down. We can see the numbers of the incredible increases in the market share for Uber and Lyft. People are really into the shared economy on all sorts of levels. I think that is the wave of the future and that’s the new mobility genie and it’s not going back in the bottle no matter how many people want to push it away. At the same time you talk about how the private sector is spurring these changes and the cities have to plan for that. Do you think there needs to be a better understanding between cities and these companies, given the pugnacious relationship we've seen with Uber? Yeah, I think it gets back to that notion of what’s the city that you want to be in, right? And what does that transportation network look like in five or ten years. I think also the rise of Uber and Lyft wasn’t some kind of historical quirk, right? They came of age during a resurgence of city centers and their popularity shows that there was a lot of demand that traditional taxis and transit operators weren’t meeting. And I think the future’s gonna be a lot less hand hailing and a lot more demand in your hand. But we don’t seem to be getting there without a lot of hand-wringing. And ride services raise as many questions as they answer and I think there are a lot of details that these companies and planners haven’t figured out, that the market hasn’t figured out. But you can’t shrug your shoulders and say, "Oh but it goes away," I think. Uber and Lyft and other TNCs [transportation network companies] have great benefits for cities and anything that can get people out of their cars and keep them from drinking and driving could be a force for good. What was your take on the fight Bill de Blasio got in with Uber? No comment. Well I mean it’s not something you were unfamiliar with; Bloomberg had his share of fights with the taxi industry. Maybe this was lost in translation, but no comment. |
DENVER — A 2-3 year old girl was left alone after the busy Civic Center Park Independence Day Eve celebration on Friday night, Denver Police reported. After the firework festivities on July 3, a little girl was found alone in a stroller by police without her parents around 2 a.m. Denver Police reported that the little girl’s mother was located out of state just before 9 p.m. on Saturday night. The child was in left in the care of her grandma, according to police. Authorities were investigating why she was not reported missing. Police said that the child will remain in the custody of Human Services. Denver Police released a photo of the girl 12 hours after she was found. ALERT: Does anyone recognize this child? She was found in Civic Ctr Park last night. Call 720-913-2000 pic.twitter.com/5XimQR3wld — Denver Police Dept. (@DenverPolice) July 4, 2015 |
Tweet By Thomas Weber Finally the breakthrough came: I had identified beyond doubt the anonymous author whose 1932 newspaper article attacked full on Hitler’s account of his First World War years. For two years I had been working through pile after pile of archive documents in Bavaria, Northern France, the U.S., and Israel. As I did so, it had become increasingly clear to me that Hitler’s own version of his war experiences – which had never seriously been challenged by Hitler’s many biographers – were close to fictional. An anonymous 1932 newspaper article was a key document that undermined Hitler’s account; but historians had long dismissed it as a desperate attempt by his political opponents to derail his career with made-up allegations about his war record. To me, though, it increasingly had the ring of truth; but the word ’anonymous’ really did make it unusable. My research already meant I could prove that a huge gulf existed between Hitler’s claims and the reality of how most of the men in his unit actually experienced the war. I had enough evidence to lift the cloud of secrecy that Nazi propagandists had put over Hitler’s war years. Enough to develop my argument that Hitler was, in fact, not ‘made’ by the First World War, that he returned from the war still a man with fluctuating political ideas of the Left and Right, and that lying about his war years was central to his rise to power. But I did not want to go public with an argument that was essentially ‘suggestive’, however persuasive it might be. I wanted to identify the author of the newspaper article that was so critical of Hitler’s version of his war tales, and to show that the author knew exactly what he was talking about. And then finally, one day, as I sat in the Bavarian War Archive in Munich, I realised that I had got there. As I weighed up all the clues about the author I had extracted from the newspaper article – his rank, the region he came from, and the time he joined up – and tested them rigorously against the officer files of Hitler’s Regimental Archive, just one officer fitted the bill: Korbinian Rutz, Commander of 1st Company, in which Hitler had served. And what was more, Rutz had started the war in the same role that Hitler would fill for its entire duration – a dispatch runner. I felt ecstatic. I finally had the proof that all the accusations which had been dismissed as fabrications by historians to date indeed originated in a soldier from Hitler’s regiment. And not just any soldier, but one who knew what it meant to be a dispatch runner in the Regiment and who had encountered Hitler during the war. It did not take me long before I found many other ‘smoking guns’ that revealed what Hitler did not want us to see of his war years. For instance, one day, as I was checking the names of hundreds of veterans of Hitler’s regiment against the Nazi Membership files in the U.S. National Archives in College Park, MD, I browsed through a collection of miscellaneous letters sent to Hitler from the Nazi Party archives. Suddenly I had in front of me a letter written to Hitler in 1932 by one of his peers from the support staff of regimental HQ reminding him that the frontline soldiers of their unit had indeed looked down at them as ‘rear area pigs’. A chance chat with a local archivist from a small Bavarian town, meanwhile, helped me to find the great-granddaughter of Jakob Weiss, one of Hitler’s closest peers from the war. A postcard sent to Weiss in 1934 by the wife of another veteran confirmed that a great number of the veterans of Hitler’s regiment cold-shouldered Hitler even after he had come to power. Then in spring 2010, through sheer serendipity, I finally found the family of Hugo Gutmann, the regiment’s highest serving Jew, who I had been trying to find for years. The ‘Postscript’ to my book tells his story and confirms that some of the Jews of Hitler’s regiment were integrated and accepted by the men of the unit in a way that had never been true for Hitler himself. And the story continues. Just last month, in response to pre-publication news stories about the book, the son of a Jewish soldier from Hitler’s regiment living in Israel contacted me and sent me the recollections of his father. Again they confirmed Rutz’s and Gutmann’s observations about the making of Adolf Hitler, and the relative lack of tension between Jews and non-Jews in Hitler’s regiment. Was Hitler a hero of his Regiment? No. Was anti-Semitism rife in the Regiment? No. Did his fellow soldiers support his rise to power? In the large majority, No. Discovery after discovery confirmed that the received wisdom was wrong. |
The infamous Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, December 7, 1941. (Photo: Paul Walsh)The support of readers like you got this story published – and helps Truthout stay free from corporate advertising. Can you sustain our work with a tax-deductible donation today? Since you’re probably wondering why the Canadian Parliament was shot up and your friendly neighborhood police officer is driving a tank and your savings account is a sad joke and your road is littered with potholes and you can’t find a job and three of your friends who joined the Army to pay for college died in Iraq and Afghanistan and two others have brain trauma from IED explosions and won’t ever be the same and your tap water is flammable and the ocean is coming for your home, well… …let me introduce you to the concept of “blowback,” which author Chalmers Johnson explained as “another way of saying that a nation reaps what it sows,” which basically means that when you punch someone in the face, odds are very good that you’re going to get punched back, and maybe they land that counterpunch, or maybe they don’t, but that fist is going to come whistling at your face, count on it, and if it misses, there is always another fist, curled and hard and ready to fly… …so let’s talk about blowback, the story of which began seventy-three years ago at Pearl Harbor, when we were attacked by the Japanese Empire, and the United States entered the war in Europe and Asia simultaneously, and President Roosevelt endeavored to manufacture the Reich and the Empire out of existence, and placed the American economy on a wartime footing to do so, and in the fullness of time, it worked, and the war was over… …but actually, it never ended, because the manufacture of war materiel made the manufacturers rich beyond the dreams of avarice, and they began to exert influence over American politics, and then FDR died, and Harry Truman took the big chair, and then George Kennan, the American Ambassador to the Soviet Union, wrote what has come to be known as the “Long Telegram,” in which he described the bedlam of Stalin and Soviet intentions, and Truman along with a bunch of other people read it, and it scared the cheese out of them, and so the National Security Act of 1947 was passed, making America’s economic wartime footing a permanent thing that endures to this day, and thus the Cold War was born… …which was bully news for the weapons manufacturers who got rich on WWII, because now they were indispensable as a matter of policy, “national security” assets, and before long, tank after tank and warship after warship and nuclear missile after nuclear missile and bullet after bullet and rifle after rifle and bomb after bomb rolled down the production lines, each and every one paid for with tax dollars collected from an American populace which was led to believe this was all vitally necessary because the readers of Kennan’s telegram decided the thing to do was to make sure everyone felt threatened because a fearful populace is easily controlled… …and so the Cold War unfolded, and in the words of Stephen King, O my Lord how the money rolled in, because conflict for conflict’s sake became the operational ethos in Vietnam and Laos and Cambodia and Africa and South America and Central America and especially in the Middle East for decades, and in the process of this multi-generational permanent state of conflict the weapons manufacturers became wealthier and wealthier, and more and more powerful, and exerted that power on the body politic of the United States to such a degree that they eventually began purchasing the news media brick by brick, so the people would hear day after day how the corporations who profit from war are actually keeping them safe and stuff… …and this went on and on, growing and expanding, even to far-flung places like Afghanistan, where big brains like Zbignew Brzezinski decided in 1978 to give the USSR its own Vietnam, and began a process that Reagan eventually took over to underwrite the Mujeheddin, who took on the Soviet Union and learned, with the help of American money and American weapons and a CIA ally named Osama bin Laden, how to take down a superpower, which they eventually did before metastasizing into the Taliban and al Qaeda… …because Brzezinski’s original plan was to arm, train and fund anti-Soviet fighters in Pakistani religious schools to destabilize Afghanistan and dare the Soviets to invade, and that plan was executed, and it worked, and the word “Taliban” when translated means “Religious student,” so congratulations, Zbignew, for kicking the pebble down the hill that turned into an avalanche which came in the fullness of time to deprive the New York City skyline of two very tall buildings and the thousands of people who were in them on a perfect blue Tuesday thirteen years ago… …which led, of course, to another decade of war after all the other decades of war that came on the heels of Pearl Harbor and the National Security Act, which has in this brave new moment led to ISIS, as well as a dementedly paranoid United States that doesn’t blink at cops dressed and armed like soldiers while driving tanks down Main Street because OMG TERRORISTS YOU GUYS… …but when you stop and think about it, really think about it, when you attach thread to thread and event to event and actually put context to history, you realize that everything that has gone wrong and sideways in this country – the lack of money for roads and bridges and education and health care and old people and veterans and schools, the hyper-militarization of the police, the end of big dreams and the permanent establishment of big fears and eternal war… …can be traced back to the process by which the United States stopped being a country and was transformed into a war-financed empire, an exporter and importer of violence, a creator of enemies it has to fight in order to feed the machine, which creates more enemies, which creates more reasons to fight, and all the while the weapons dealers sell their products as fast as they can, until we arrive at the present moment when American warplanes are dropping American armaments on American weapons in Iraq and Syria to the tune of billions of your taxpayer dollars and with wall-to-wall television coverage, again… ….so, when you sit in the darkness of your personal night and wonder what happened to your country, to your aspirations and dreams, to the potholed road you drive every day to the job that has no chance of letting you retire in comfort, to your barren savings account, when you turn on your television and see paid shills shriek about how and why you’re about to die while your neighbor’s kid comes home in a flag-draped box and you have to ask again where your black suit is so you can go properly dressed to yet another funeral… …remember that history exists, and actions have consequences, and this event is tied to that event is tied to the other event in a tapestry of escalating cascading fallout, which is called “blowback,” which always carries a dear price unless you’re getting paid for it, which is why you think very hard before making a lethal national decision, because every lethal decision always comes knocking at your door someday… … which is why we as a people must absolutely endeavor to do better from here on out, because we are already in a deep hole, and The First Law Of Holes says, “When you’re in a hole, stop digging…” …so, please, put down the shovel. |
They exposed abuses at roadside zoos, uncovered controversial government-funded animal experiments, and revealed the mistreatment of circus elephants. They confirmed dog breeders weren't running puppy mills and that horse trainers weren’t exploiting their racers and jumpers. The records in U.S. Department of Agriculture’s online animal welfare database allowed journalists, investigators, and the public to look up inspection reports and violations of animal welfare laws. But nearly three months ago, the the USDA removed its database of animal abuse records from its public website, with no explanation. National Geographic wanted to know why. We filed a Freedom of Information Act request in February for records relating to the decision to take the database offline. In bold disregard for transparency, the department’s response Friday consisted of 1,771 pages of completely blacked-out documents. “The lack of transparency,” says Kate Dylewsky, program associate at the animal welfare nonprofit Born Free USA, “is as astounding as it is bewildering.” These redacted records, released by the department’s Office of General Counsel, which provides legal services to the USDA, cover February 23 to March 10—after the database was taken offline. The FOIA officer handling the request said that all 1,771 pages were redacted because they’re related to ongoing lawsuits. They include one by the Humane Society and one filed on behalf of six organizations, including PETA, Born Free USA, and The Physicians Committee For Responsible Medicine. Ongoing litigation is a common reason for redactions in FOIA responses, but Doug Haddix, executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors, says these full-page blackouts seem “excessive. No effort has been made to determine precisely what content in these 1,700 pages may legally be redacted. FOIA requires agencies to disclose materials—even portions of documents—that are not exempt from release under the law. The FOIA law generally prevents agencies from withholding an entire document just because a portion of it is exempt from disclosure." Delcianna Winders, of Harvard’s Animal Law & Policy Program, agrees. “While these bases may be legitimate for deleting portions of the records at issue, they absolutely cannot be used to withhold 1,771 entire pages,” Winders said in an email. She is part of the lawsuit against the USDA. View Images These retired lab chimps hang out at Louisiana’s National Chimpanzee Sanctuary, but most lab animals don’t have such a relaxed ending. The USDA animal welfare records helped the public, journalists, and advocates identify and expose abuses. PHOTOGRAPH BY MELANIE STETSON FREEMAN, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, GETTY IMAGES The FOIA officer said she will be releasing the remaining documents in batches on a monthly basis. It’s unclear whether documents will continue to be fully redacted. National Geographic is also waiting on documents from another USDA office on the same topic—why the USDA decided to take down the records. (Read more: What we know about the purge of animal welfare records.) The department assured the public in February that the records in the database would still be available via a Freedom of Information Act request, a much more time-consuming process than simply looking up a name in a public online database. National Geographic has also filed FOIA request for the entire animal welfare database. The USDA has not yet released any records in response to that FOIA. ASSESSING THE DAMAGE? Three months after the purge, those who work to protect animals from abuse are feeling the impact. John Goodwin, with the Humane Society of the United States’ Stop the Puppy Mill campaign, says that seven states and several municipalities mandate that pet stores cannot do business with breeders without demonstrating that they have clean USDA inspection reports. Goodwin says that many breeders are now skirting this policy—because the reports simply aren’t available—and are “doing business in the dark.” The takedown has prevented PETA from knowing the status of several crucial animal cruelty cases, including its eyewitness investigation of Primate Products, Inc, a Florida-based primate dealer funded by the U.S. government. Undercover PETA investigators and USDA inspection reports revealed sustained cruelty by workers towards primates at the facility, including violently yanking their tails, hurling them into nets, pushing their anuses into their bodies, and yanking teeth without anesthesia. The facility provides primates to research labs at several universities, including the University of Maryland and Columbia. Without USDA inspection reports, PETA cannot update PPI’s customers on ongoing inspections or violations at the facility. A PETA investigation into the unlawful use of a paralytic drug at two roadside zoos revealed that animals were administered the drug, succinylcholine, without pain meds. The drug leaves animals fully conscious but trapped in a state of panic, unable to blink, in extreme respiratory distress. Delcianna Winders says that despite repeated USDA citations, the zoos had not been charged, and any further action on the part of the USDA is now impossible to know. Kate Dylewsky of Born Free USA says that the past three months have slowed down the organization’s work on multiple fronts. They keep an ongoing registry of abuse incidents at exotic animal exhibitors across the country. Many of these incidents are pulled from USDA records. Without new records, Dylewsky says that the database is simply not up-to-date with recent transgressions. It hampers her ability to build a case for increased protections, especially at the legislative level. She’s currently working to restrict the use of wild animals in circuses, by compiling testimony of which circuses still use wild animals and whether they have violated the Animal Welfare Act. She no longer has access to new or old information. Winders today filed an appeal to the USDA, arguing that withholding entire documents is in “total contravention of the law.” The Humane Society’s John Goodwin believes the only beneficiaries to continued secrecy are abusers. “We want [the database] back up, the American Zoological Association wants it back up. The entire research community wants it back up. The only people who don’t are extremists who want to bury the truth.” |
Floridians must register as democrat to vote for Bernie! No spam, ever. See our Privacy Policy . Only send me important updates, not the newsletter Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Washington, DC Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Puerto Rico Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming It's still very early in the election season, and dates often change. Please sign up below for Voter Alerts in Florida and we'll send you an email if the dates change! Help Get Out The Vote in Florida by sharing this page: People are planning to vote for Bernie in Florida, but they will not be able to! Florida Voter Information Get Registered Florida has closed primaries — Floridians must register as democrat to vote for Bernie! Register as a democrat now! You must be registered by Tue, February 18. Not sure if you are registered, or what you're registered as? Check your current registration status online. Eligibility To vote in the Florida Primary you must meet the following criteria: Be a U.S. citizen. Be a Florida resident. Be at least 18 years old (you can pre-register to vote at 16 years old, but you’ll need to wait until you’re 18 years old to vote). Have never been convicted of a felony (unless your civil rights have been restored). Have never been legally judged ineligible to vote, for either mental incapacitation or crime. Early Voting Vote Early in Florida! Floridians can vote in-person before election day! If you'll be out of town on March 17 or simply find it more convenient, vote early! Early voting in Florida begins January 1 and ends on January 1. Over 1 million Floridians have cast their ballot already with early voting! Find your early voting times and locations here. College Students If you are a college student not living in your home state, you can vote for Bernie in either your home state or in the state in which you are attending school! Military/Overseas Voters If you are a Military Voter or a US Citizen living abroad, you are able to request a ballot here to vote for Bernie. If you have any questions about voting in Florida you may contact your state official elections office or Democratic party. Find local Bernie supporters and get help from /r/FloridaForSanders |
Toronto police have charged a man for driving in a high-occupancy-vehicle (HOV) lane with two mannequins. The lanes are for cars carrying at least three passengers during the Pan Am/Parapan Games. On Wednesday, an officer saw a Dodge pick-up truck driving eastbound on the Gardiner Expressway, just east of Kipling Avenue in the HOV lane. There appeared to be a person in the front passenger seat and one in the back, in addition to the driver. As the vehicle drove past the police cruiser, the officer noticed that the front-seat passenger did not appear to be lifelike. The driver was pulled over and two mannequins, both dressed up in clothing and wearing seatbelts, were discovered. "On a positive note, everyone in the vehicle was wearing a seatbelt," say police. The man was charged with the appropriate HOV violation. The HOV lanes are in effect during the Pan Am/Parapan Games. The lanes have inspired businesses like passengers-for-rent and mannequin passengers to get around the three-passenger rule. |
Published online 23 February 2011 | Nature 470, 437 (2011) | doi:10.1038/470437a Column: World View Some effects diminish when tests are repeated. Jonathan Schooler says being open about findings that don't make the scientific record could reveal why. Many scientifically discovered effects published in the literature seem to diminish with time. Dubbed the decline effect, this puzzling anomaly was first discovered in the 1930s in research into parapsychology, in which the statistical significance of purported evidence for psychic ability declined as studies were repeated. It has since been reported in a string of fields — both in individual labs (including my own) and in meta-analyses of findings in biology and medicine. The issue has been recognized in some circles within the scientific community, but rose to wider prominence last December when it was discussed in an article in the magazine The New Yorker. Some scientists attribute the decline effect to statistical self-correction of initially exaggerated outcomes, also known as regression to the mean. But we cannot be sure of this interpretation, or even test it, because we do not generally have access to 'negative results': experimental outcomes that were not noteworthy or consistent enough to pass peer review and be published. How could the availability of unpublished results be improved? I suggest an open-access repository for all research findings, which would let scientists log their hypotheses and methodologies before an experiment, and their results afterwards, regardless of outcome. Such a database would reveal how published studies fit into the larger set of conducted studies, and would help to answer many questions about the decline effect. Availability of unpublished findings could also address other shortcomings of the current scientific process, including the regular failure of scientists to report experiments, conditions or observations that are inconsistent with hypotheses; the addition or removal of participants and variables to generate statistical significance; and the probable existence of numerous published findings whose non-replicability is shrouded because it is difficult to report null results. To address the decline effect, such a database could pinpoint whether the phenomenon reflects how scientists design experiments, how they write them up or how journals decide what to publish. It could be used to explore whether genuine changes in studied phenomena could stem from conventional mechanisms; for example, in social sciences, decline effects could be the result of participants no longer being naive about the effect under investigation. Less likely, but not inconceivable, is an effect stemming from some unconventional process. Perhaps, just as the act of observation has been suggested to affect quantum measurements, scientific observation could subtly change some scientific effects. Although the laws of reality are usually understood to be immutable, some physicists, including Paul Davies, director of the BEYOND: Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science at Arizona State University in Tempe, have observed that this should be considered an assumption, not a foregone conclusion. More prosaic explanations for the decline effect include the previously mentioned regression to the mean. If early results are most likely to be reported when errors combine to magnify the apparent effect, then published studies will show systematic bias towards initially exaggerated findings, which are subsequently statistically self-corrected (although this would not account for the typically linear nature of the decline). Publication bias could also be responsible. Researchers might only be able to publish initial findings on an effect when it is especially large, whereas follow-up studies might be more able to report smaller effects. Other potential answers include unreported aspects of methods, exclusive reporting of findings consistent with hypotheses, changes in researcher enthusiasm, more rigorous methodologies used in later studies, measurement error resulting from experimenter bias and the general difficulty of publishing failures of replication. “We need a better record to learn how well science distinguishes truth from fallacy.” An open-access database of research methods and published and unpublished findings would go a long way towards testing these ideas. For example, both the regression to the mean and degradation of procedure explanations assume that early published studies benefit from being at one statistical end of a larger body of (unpublished) findings. Publication bias and selective reporting of data are similarly difficult to investigate without knowing about unpublished data. An open-access repository of findings would be difficult to introduce. It would need an automated protocol to enable study methods and results to be entered and retrieved. Some way to assess the quality of the work would be required — perhaps through open-access commentaries moderated in a manner similar to Wikipedia. We would need to assure the qualifications of researchers who use it, and maintain a blackout period to protect hypotheses and findings prior to publication. Reluctant scientists would need incentives — and perhaps new rules from funders — to take part. Such challenges would not be insurmountable. Similar, if more narrowly defined, databases have already been set up for clinical trials (http://clinicaltrials.gov) and educational research (http://pslcdatashop.web.cmu.edu). A good starting point might be to develop a host of subject-specific repositories. However it is implemented, we need a better record of unpublished research before we can know how well the current scientific process, based on peer review and experimental replication, succeeds in distinguishing grounded truth from unwarranted fallacy. Jonathan Schooler is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. e-mail: schooler@psych.ucsb.edu |
WASHINGTON -- A Republican member of the Tennessee state legislature emailed constituents Tuesday morning with a rumor circulating in conservative circles that President Barack Obama is planning to stage a fake assassination attempt in an effort to stop the 2012 election from happening. Rep. Kelly Keisling (R-Byrdstown) sent an email from his state email account to constituents containing a rumor that Obama and the Department of Homeland Security are planning a series of events that could lead to the imposition of "martial law" and delay the election. Among the events hypothesized in the email is a staged assassination attempt on the president that would lead to civil unrest in urban areas and martial law. Keisling appears to have forwarded a more widely circulated email from Joe Angione, a Florida-based conservative blogger. Angione prefaces the rumor by saying it has not been confirmed but likewise notes it has not been denied. Angione also writes that people need to work to prevent the rumor from becoming reality. The conspiracy theory started with an article written by Doug Hammon and posted on CanadaFreePress.com, which he said arose from conversations he had with an informant within the Department of Homeland Security. The Constitution Party of Florida posted the same Angione story on their website this week. Party chairman Mark Pilling wrote a note saying that he believes some sort of unrest will occur this year. Pilling wrote: Personally, I believe something will happen the last quarter of this year. Financial unrest or another false flag event that causes civil unrest. Now is the time for all Americans to band together against the financial influences that are running our puppets in Washington and the mass media that keeps us distracted to that and their treasonous actions. Here is the rumor. Based on alot of factors, I think it has potential. Divide and Conquer. Below, there is a link to one of the other more recent false flag events. Keisling's assistant, Frankie Anderson, confirmed that the email was sent "at Keisling's request" from a state account under the name of Holt Whitt, who is identified in the email as Keisling's assistant. Anderson said he is filling in for Whitt. Anderson said that Keisling did not offer an explanation for why he wanted the email sent. It went to residents across the 38th district, which includes Clay, Jackson, Pickett and Scott Counties, along with part of Anderson County. Keisling has not returned messages left at his Byrdstown insurance office, and there was no answer at his home. Janet Moore, one of the recipients of Keisling's email, said she called the lawmaker Tuesday morning to express her disagreement with his decision to send the email. Moore, who lives in an adjoining legislative district in rural Tennessee, told HuffPost that Keisling told her that the rumor was "pretty ridiculous, isn't it?" When she asked Keisling why he sent the email, if he found it ridiculous, she said that Keisling told her, "I wouldn't put anything past anybody." Anderson did say that Keisling regularly sends out emails to his constituents using the state account. A copy of the email obtained by HuffPost did not contain an explanation from either Keisling or Anderson. The subject line of the email is "FW: Unbelievable election rumor....." The email also contained a note below Whitt's contact information from a woman identified only as Ruby, who may have sent the email to Keisling. Ruby's name and contact information were not included. "PLEASE SCROLL DOWN," Ruby wrote. "Something to think and PRAY about. Interesting times...Blessings, Ruby." Keisling, who owns an insurance agency, was first elected in 2010. In an online profile on KnoxNews.com, Keisling noted that he favors job creation, allowing voters to pick local school directors and that he opposed abortion. Keisling, a former Pickett County executive, serves on the agriculture and transportation committees. UPDATE: 8/1/2012 -- The Tennessean reported Wednesday that Keisling released a statement Wednesday morning through a Republican legislative spokesperson expressing regret for sending the email to his constituents. |
Historians and former Secret Service agents have created a documentary shedding new light on the JFK assassination. MONTHS before the 50th anniversary of US President John F Kennedy's assassination, a retired Australian detective has suggested a US Secret Service agent fired one of the bullets that felled Kennedy. JFK: The Smoking Gun is a television documentary based on the work of retired Australian police Detective Colin McLaren, who spent four years combing through evidence from Kennedy's death on November 22, 1963. The two-hour docudrama will be broadcast in the US, Australia and Canada in November. It suggests that agent George Hickey fired one of the bullets that hit Kennedy. Hickey, who is now dead, was riding in the car behind Kennedy's limo that day. It is not suggested Hickey was involved in a conspiracy, rather that he wasn't fit to be guarding the president as he had been out drinking with fellow agents the night before and was handling a firearm without adequate training. The documentary suggests the firearm accidentally discharged when Hickey's car stopped suddenly after the first shots were fired by Oswald. The program is ReelzChannel's second Kennedy-related offering. In 2011, the cable channel aired The Kennedys, after History Channel dropped the miniseries. This story was updated on August 1 to clarify that Hickey's alleged shooting of Kennedy was believed to be accidental. ### |
My guest this week is Anthony Ling. Anthony is founder and editor of Caos Planejado, a Brazilian website on cities and urban planning. He also founded Bora, a transportation technology startup and is currently an MBA candidate at Stanford University. He graduated Architecture and Urban Planning at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul and worked with Isay Weinfeld early in his career. Read more about the ideas discussed in this week’s episode: Be sure to check out Caos Planejado. Whether Portuguese is your native language or you’re interested in Brazilian urban planning issues, it’s a fantastic resource. Learn more about the emergent order of informal favela development. Everyone interested in urban planning should, at the very lease, read the Wikipedia article on Brasilia. Learn more about on-demand transit. Help spread the word! If you are enjoying the podcast, please subscribe and rate us on your favorite podcasting platform. Find us on iTunes, PlayerFM, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, and Soundcloud. Our theme music is “Origami” by Graham Bole, hosted on the Free Music Archive. |
When Morgan Spurlock famously spent a month eating large portions of McDonalds for the purposes of his documentary Supersize Me, he gained weight, damaged his liver and claimed to have suffered addictive withdrawal symptoms. This was popularly attributed to the toxic mix of carbs and fat plus the added chemicals and preservatives in junk foods. But could there be another explanation? We may have forgotten others who really don’t enjoy fast food. These are the poor creatures that live in the dark in our guts. These are the hundred trillion microbes that outnumber our total human cells ten to one and digest our food, provide many vitamins and nutrients and keep us healthy. Until recently we have viewed them as harmful – but those (like salmonella) are a tiny minority and most are essential for us. Studies in lab mice have shown that when fed an intensive high fat diet their microbes change dramatically and for the worse. This can be partly prevented by using probiotics; but there are obvious differences between us and lab mice, as well as our natural microbes. A recent study took a group of Africans who ate a traditional local diet high in beans and vegetables and swapped their diet with a group of African Americans who ate a diet high in fat and animal proteins and low dietary fibre. The Africans fared worse on American-style food: their metabolism changed to a diabetic and unhealthy profile within just two weeks. The African Americans instead had lower markers for colon cancer risk. Tests of both groups showed very different microbiomes, the populations of microbes in their guts. Home testing Surprisingly, no one has specifically investigated the effect of junk food on westerners from the perspective of the microbiome. For the sake of science and research for my book The Diet Myth, I have been experimenting with several unusual diets and recorded their effects on my gut microbes. These include fasting, a colonoscopy diet, and an intensive unpasteurised French cheese diet. My son Tom, a final year student of genetics at the University of Aberystwyth suggested an additional crucial experiment: to track the microbes as they changed from an average western diet to an intensive fast food diet for over a week. Tim Spector , Author provided I wasn’t the ideal subject since I was no longer on an average diet, but Tom, who like most students enjoyed his fast food, was. So he agreed to be the guinea pig on the basis that I paid for all his meals and he could analyse and write up his results for his dissertation. The plan was to eat all his meals at the local McDonalds for ten days. He was able to eat either a Big Mac or Chicken nuggets, plus fries and Coke. For extra vitamins he was allowed beer and crisps in the evening. He would collect poo samples before, during and after his diet and send them to three different labs to check consistency. Tom started in high spirits and many of his fellow students were jealous of his unlimited junk food budget. As he put it: I felt good for three days, then slowly went downhill, I became more lethargic, and by a week my friends thought I had gone a strange grey colour. The last few days were a real struggle. I felt really unwell, but definitely had no addictive withdrawal symptoms and when I finally finished, I rushed (uncharacteristically) to the shops to get some salad and fruit. While it was clear the intensive diet had made him feel temporarily unwell, we had to wait a few months for the results to arrive back. The results came from Cornell University in the US and the crowdfunded British Gut Project, which allows people to get their microbiome tested with the results shared on the web for anyone to analyze. They all told the same story: Tom’s community of gut microbes (called a microbiome) had been devastated. Tom’s gut had seen massive shifts in his common microbe groups for reasons that are still unclear. Firmicutes were replaced with Bacteroidetes as the dominant type, while friendly bifidobacteria that suppress inflammation halved. However the clearest marker of an unhealthy gut is losing species diversity and after just a few days Tom had lost an estimated 1,400 species – nearly 40% of his total. The changes persisted and even two weeks after the diet his microbes had not recovered. Loss of diversity is a universal signal of ill health in the guts of obese and diabetic people and triggers a range of immunity problems in lab mice. That junk food is bad for you is not news, but knowing that they decimate our gut microbes to such an extent and so quickly is worrying. Many people eat fast food on a regular basis and even if they don’t get fat from the calories, the body’s metabolism and immune system are suffering via the effects on the microbes. We rely on our bacteria to produce much of our essential nutrients and vitamins while they rely on us eating plants and fruits to provide them with energy and to produce healthy chemicals which keep our immune system working normally. We are unlikely to stop people eating fast food, but the devastating effects on our microbes and our long term health could possibly be mitigated if we also eat foods which our microbes love like probiotics (yogurts), root vegetables, nuts, olives and high-fibre foods. What they seem to crave, above all else, is food diversity and a slice of gherkin in the burger just isn’t enough. This article was written with the assistance of Tom Spector |
Proposals to replace the Official Secrets Act with beefed up legislation could create a “new journalistic ice age” and have been condemned as like something from Stasi-era East Germany. The Guardian has said it believes the recommendations for new legislation from the Law Comission were prompted by Edward Snowden’s mass leak of information about UK and US government surveillance techniques to the paper. The Law Commission recommends that the original Official Secrets Act of 1911 should be repealed and replaced with an Espionage Act. The current legislation was drafted to protect Britain’s secrets from Germany before World War One and states that defendants “engaged in the espionage type conduct, must have intended for it to benefit an enemy”. The new proposed law states this offence can be committed by “someone who not only communicates information” but also “by someone who obtains or gathers information” – i.e. a journalist. The consultation also suggests that maximum sentences for breaching Official Secrets Act style offences should be increased from two years to 14 years in prison. The current maximum sentence “does not reflect the relative ease with which individuals may, by digital means, disclose vast amounts of sensitive information”, the Law Commission notes. No related posts. The consultation also suggests a broadening of the scope of information covered by secrecy legislation. It states: “We invite consultees’ views on whether information that relates to the economy ought to be brought within the scope of the legislation. One way to define this category is to specify that it only encompasses information that affects the economic wellbeing of the United Kingdom in so far as it relates to national security.” This suggests that journalists could be imprisoned for obtaining and publishing information about the Government’s Brexit strategy. Current legislation states prosecutors must prove “information disclosed damaged or was likely to damage specified interests”. Again the the Law Commission wants to toughen and broaden this: “We suggest remodelling the offences so that they focus not upon the consequences of the unauthorised disclosure, but upon whether the defendant knew or had reasonable cause to believe the disclosure was capable of causing damage. “It is the culpability of the defendant in making an unauthorised disclosure being aware of the risk of damage that should be the core of the offence; not whether damage did or did not occur.” The Law Commission has ruled out including any statutory public interest defence for journalism. It states: “Such a defence would allow someone to disclose information with potentially very damaging consequences. “The person making the unauthorised disclosure is not best placed to make decisions about national security and the public interest; the person would not be guaranteed the defence if they did make the disclosure because the jury might subsequently disagree that it was in the public interest and by then the damage has been done.” The Law Commission suggests whistleblowers should raise concerns in the first instance to an Investigatory Powers Commissioner, rather than a journalist. The review states: “It is our view that the introduction of a statutory public interest defence solely for journalists could be considered arbitrary, given that there are other professionals who might violate the criminal law in the pursuit of their legitimate activities.” The Guardian said in a leader column that the Law Commission “proposes powers that would herald a new journalistic ice age”. “Anyone that published an intelligence- or foreign affairs-related story based on a leak would be open to criminal charges,” the paper said. “Reporters, as well as the whistleblowers whose stories they tell, would be under threat of sentences of up to 14 years, regardless of the public interest and even if there were no likelihood of damage.” The Times said in a leader column on the same issue: “There was once another country that considered economic wellbeing and policy as matters of national security, and outsiders who delved too deeply into them punishable as spies. “It was called East Germany and it was the most oppressive police state in history. “Cybersecurity is not a matter to be taken lightly and the government is naturally anxious not to jeopardise Brexit negotiations, but neither of these considerations justifies putting legitimate whistleblowers or journalists who publish their information at risk of jail. “There is no shortage of laws on the statute book with which to punish those who steal or misuse official secrets. But official Britain is already far too fond of secrets and public interest journalism is already under grave legal and commercial threat. “The Cabinet Office should thank the Law Commission for its ideas, and reject them.” The Law Commission has invited responses on its proposals to change the law and the submission deadline is 3 April. |
A 98-foot crucifix constructed to honor Pope John Paul II’s 1998 visit to a small town in northern Italy collapsed Thursday and killed a visitor three days before the late pope is set to be canonized. The Italian news agency ANSA reported that the 21-year-old victim was visiting the 1,320-pound sculpture near the town of Brescia with a group of young Catholics. The news agency reported that another person was taken to the hospital. The BBC reported that a group of children witnessed the incident. Pictures on ANSA’s website appear to show the crucifix somehow splintered. The Polish-born pope, who died in 2005, is set to be canonized this weekend. Reuters reported that on Wednesday, a group of vandals threw paint on a stone memorial commemorating the pope in southern Poland. The Associated Press reported that back in 2004 a 72-year-old woman was crushed by a 7-foot metal crucifix in a town in southern Italy. This story originally appeared on FoxNews.com. |
COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Hours before he's set to walk across the stage for a college degree he was never sure he'd get, Marcus Lattimore sits in his living room, watching a post-NFL draft show. As highlights of former Ohio State standout running back Ezekiel Elliott appear, Lattimore isn't sold. He likes Elliott's power and play away from the ball, but his overall speed needs work, Lattimore says, and he doesn't see him as "the complete back" yet. "Not like Fournette," Lattimore says, speaking of LSU junior star Leonard Fournette, who will no doubt be a Heisman favorite again in 2016. Lattimore should know. Just five years ago, he was Fournette, a record-setting freshman of the year tailback and Heisman contender for the Gamecocks with a bright NFL future ahead of him. Then came a torn left ACL as a sophomore and a catastrophic right knee injury as a junior -- dislocated kneecap, torn ligaments, nerve damage -- that effectively ended his career. He's arguably the most talented player of his generation never to play a down in the NFL. "I think there's always those players that get put in a category like Cam Newton or Deshaun Watson who dominate the game," Alabama coach Nick Saban said. "Marcus Lattimore was one of those guys in that category." And yet he now looks upon those injuries as a blessing. "Life is a little bit more enjoyable now because of what I've been through," Lattimore said. "... I wouldn't change a thing that happened -- put those knee injuries back in my life. I'm such a better person, overall. I'm wiser and I'm grateful for every single day that I get out of bed and I can walk, and I can run if I want to. The little things, they matter a little bit more than they did in the past." Lattimore drifts back into football mode and sounds like an ordinary fan as he offers his opinion on multiple running backs. He gives praise and criticism, without a hint of bitterness in his voice. Lattimore loves Fournette, but wonders what Trent Richardson sees on the field sometimes. Rashad Jennings has all the tools, but his vision is questionable, which frustrates the armchair coach. "I'm critiquing everybody," Lattimore says with a laugh. "I can do that because I don't play." As he says that, his right hand drifts toward his right knee, rubbing over a long, vertical front scar and then a horizontal one on the outside. Just two games into Marcus Lattimore's South Carolina career, Steve Spurrier compared him to NFL great Emmitt Smith. Kim Klement/US Presswire These are permanent reminders of what Lattimore used to be and what he has become. Before those scars were etched into his skin, Lattimore was poised to be one of the all-time greats. He committed to Steve Spurrier as one of the Head Ball Coach's signature recruits in Columbia, and in Lattimore's second game, he broke 42 tackles as he romped for 182 yards on 37 carries in a win over Georgia. Afterward, Spurrier said Lattimore reminded him of Emmitt Smith. By the end of that season, Lattimore had set South Carolina freshman records for rushing yards (1,197), rushing touchdowns (17) and total touchdowns (19). As a sophomore, he was preseason favorite for college football's most prestigious award. "I wanted that Heisman," says the Duncan, South Carolina, native. And he crept closer to winning it with 779 yards and nine touchdowns through the first seven games of 2011. But during the fourth quarter against Mississippi State, Lattimore went out wide to block on a direct snap to Bruce Ellington (38 Sweep) and was hit low, tearing the ACL and MCL in his left knee. "I think there's always those players that get put in a category like Cam Newton or Deshaun Watson who dominate the game. Marcus Lattimore was one of those guys in that category." Alabama coach Nick Saban After a full recovery, Lattimore looked like the same future NFL franchise runner, rushing for 627 yards and 10 touchdowns through eight games as a junior. The night before the Tennessee game, Lattimore stood in front of his teammates and told them to play every play against the Vols as if it was their last. The irony is cruel. With just under five minutes remaining in the third quarter, Lattimore took a handoff and sprinted left. Just as he crossed the line of scrimmage, linebacker Herman Lathers crashed into Lattimore's right knee. Though Lattimore said he didn't feel pain, his right knee was dislocated. The right knee ligaments were torn and nerves were damaged. Doctors worried about being able to save his leg and later gave him a 20 percent chance of ever walking normally again. Famed surgeon James Andrews told Lattimore it was the worst injury he'd ever seen. "At that point, I couldn't get any lower," Lattimore said. Yolanda Smith, Lattimore's mother, was in the stands and remembers going cold as her son's lifeless leg dangled in front of thousands inside a silent Williams-Brice Stadium. "That was my baby -- he is my baby -- and I protected him all his life, but I couldn't protect him on that football field," Smith said. *** Flash forward to graduation day, May 6, 2016. Smith is bouncing around her son's three-bedroom house in Columbia. Lattimore's 2016 Chevy Silverado sits in the driveway and there's a back yard big enough for a small game of pickup football. Nearly four years ago, Lattimore was in a dark place, with his life crumbling because the sport he thought was everything had once again been taken away from him. After declaring early for the NFL draft following his injury, Lattimore was chosen in the fourth round by the San Francisco 49ers. Halfway into his second year, Lattimore retired after pain and a lack of confidence on a ravaged knee that rendered his football ability obsolete during only a few days of practice with the 49ers. "I'm thankful for those knee injuries," he said. "They really saved me and now I feel like I can do anything" Marcus Lattimore "Those three days were the worst days of my life," Lattimore said. Through all that darkness, Lattimore found light in his reinvention. His decision to give up football allowed him to start his foundation and run football camps, while affording him time to speak to those in need. It also allowed him to go back to school -- something he doesn't think would have happened if he had made it in the NFL -- to earn the degree he promised his mom he'd get. "I'm thankful for those knee injuries," he said. "They really saved me and now I feel like I can do anything. Every time I go speak, every time I'm able to stand in front of a crowd, I heal personally." Lattimore's gruesome injury against Tennessee derailed his potential NFL career, but he now looks at it as a blessing. Jeff Blake/US Presswire Lattimore first thought about starting his foundation following his second injury. He thought helping others was the right direction for his life. He met with South Carolina school administrators and local Columbia businessmen, who helped him file for a 501(c)(3), which is the most common type of tax-exempt nonprofit organization. Lattimore's stepfather, Vernon Smith, would join him, becoming the president, while his mother served as vice president and treasurer. The Marcus Lattimore Foundation, started in August 2013 with $15,000 of Lattimore's money from his NFL signing bonus, was created with the goal of helping high school athletes who might have trouble paying for treatment and rehabilitation for major injuries. It also provides college and life preparation. Lattimore and various speakers meet with high school students to discuss topics such as NCAA rules, preparation for the ACT and SAT, how to work with school guidance counselors, how to conduct job interviews, résumé building and the importance of credit, debt and loans. "It's fun being able to go to a city and see your work and feel the pride in what you do," he said. "I can tell you I've never had that feeling on the football field." But Lattimore stays connected to football. He just recently took a job as assistant coach for Heathwood Hall's varsity football team in Columbia. It's welcome news after the NCAA ruled he wouldn't be allowed to serve as an assistant coach at South Carolina because his foundation gave the Gamecocks an unfair recruiting advantage. He's excited to be part of a team again, and will be able to run his foundation directly from Heathwood Hall's campus. There are outreach programs to help the needy during the holidays, and Lattimore estimates his foundation has helped more than 3,000 student-athletes. One of those is Johna Robbins, who suffered two ACL injuries (the second came during her senior season) while playing high school volleyball. Fearing her daughter's playing career was over, Robbins' mother, Cynthia, drove to Duncan to find Lattimore's family. She later called Lattimore, who spoke to Johna, trying to encourage her and drag her out of the brief depression caused by her injuries. After speaking with Lattimore, Johna played out her senior season and underwent surgery afterward. She later attended Presbyterian College to play volleyball. "Who goes to play professional ball and then takes time to call a kid you don't know?" Cynthia Robbins asked. "Anything he's set out to do is not for himself. It's unconditional [love] for others." Lattimore speaks three to four times a month around the state, with compensation ranging from $2,000 to $7,500. On the day before his graduation, he was in North Augusta, South Carolina, speaking about his faith and football journey in front of a few hundred people on the National Day of Prayer. People paid $12 to see Lattimore and hopefully get an autograph and picture. Some waited for an hour after he spoke. "I don't think Elvis would have required such attention," mayor Lark Jones said. Lattimore discussed how he went from bemoaning his injuries to thanking God for them. He praised a 9-year-old girl who helped him rediscover his faith before his sophomore season when she asked him how he balanced football, academics and his faith. Lattimore went from being a "Facebook Christian" to getting saved a week later. "I really had to check myself and start shifting gears and doing things better," he told the crowd. "I look at that little girl as a miracle." Another miracle came in the form of teammate Dylan Thompson, who helped Lattimore get through the death of his grandparents only months apart after his first knee injury, which threatened to derail his rehab. "I love you, and you know God doesn't make mistakes," Thompson told Lattimore. Lattimore's extended family, shown here before his graduation, has been the rock that got him through his toughest times. Edward Aschoff Lattimore's life has been full of little miracles. Some obvious, some gut-wrenching, but the biggest ones come from the close-knit people joining him on graduation day. In addition to his wife, Miranda, mother and stepfather, Lattimore is surrounded by cousin Octavius Love (who's more like a brother), close family friend Cynthia Robbins and Doretha Long, the family matriarch who took in Smith and her children years ago despite not being related by blood. Love tells stories about a younger Lattimore who was too slow for Love's liking, so he tripped him one day and hoped Lattimore would chase him. "Did you feel faster?" Love asked. "Yeah," Lattimore replied. "Well, you need to run like that. Run with a little bit of anger in you. Go a little harder." Love also talks about the determined youngster who played a football video game for days until bedtime just so he could beat Love. When Lattimore finally won, Love retired from facing a smarter, more seasoned little brother. "I haven't played any football games against him ever since," Love said. On the ride to Lattimore's graduation, his sister, Eboni Samuel, FaceTimes in from Germany. She can't be there, but she's still watching over him -- protecting him -- just like she did when they were growing up. "At the end of the day, family's all you got," Lattimore said. *** Strutting into the Colonial Life Center on the outskirts of South Carolina's campus a few minutes past 3 p.m., Lattimore's family sits four rows from the stage, prime location to see their baby get his diploma. It takes nearly two hours before Lattimore reaches the stage and calmly strolls across to shake President Harris Pastides' hand. The announcer barely says the word "Marcus" before the crowd of about 19,000 erupts in cheers and applause. Lattimore receives a 20-second standing ovation; tears stream down his mother's face. "He's one of the most important people who represents the integrity and passion and joy of our university," Pastides said after the ceremony. "We'll be following this man for a long, long time. As much as I loved him [in] No. 21, I preferred seeing him in a black cap and a black gown today." Lattimore's graduation is fulfillment for Smith, who grew up in the East Atlanta projects and has now seen four of her children earn degrees. It's a gift for the woman who sometimes crammed seven people into a two-bedroom apartment and sacrificed every Christmas. After raising her children to have better lives than she did, Smith has validation for everything that happened to her youngest. "Nothing in our lives has been by far any way that I planned it, but everything so far has been everything I've hoped it would be," Smith said. It certainly wasn't easy getting to this point. Football stressed her out. She even threatened to pull out Lattimore after his tooth was knocked out during a game in high school. College was frightening, she said. The threat of injury was everywhere. While she says she never missed a game, the fear of her son getting hurt caused her to never watch him play in real time, opting to take pictures (22,000 she estimates), talk with friends and watch replays. "I never saw my son run [in] a touchdown," she said. "I saw the replay, but to watch the field, I couldn't do it." Marcus Lattimore burst onto the scene in 2010 for the Gamecocks, earning freshman of the year honors and setting a school record for rushing yards. Frankie Creel/US Presswire So when Lattimore ended his playing career, Smith was relieved. She knew her son would miss playing, but she soon saw his happiness grow as he drifted away from the field. Lattimore fulfilled his graduation promise to his mother. All the what-ifs and anguish that came from his two knee injuries and eventual retirement washed away. "The thing that satisfies me the most is knowing that my mom is proud of what I've done and what I've become," he said. *** The Original Pancake House down the street from his house is busy, but as Lattimore attempts to finish off a plate of scrambled eggs next to three pieces of bacon and a plate of buttermilk pancakes, just about everyone approaches him. It reminds him of his second knee injury and the compassion showed by both South Carolina and Tennessee players who rushed from their respective sidelines to crowd him and deliver one last salute while he was carted off the field. That lets him know he did things the right way, and people respected him for that. Miranda doesn't care for the attention, but welcomes the love and support for her husband. It helped both of them when they struggled to get past his injuries. It reminds her of Lattimore's increasing happiness. She knows he has found solace in charitable efforts, especially when he's running around with kids at his football camps on his tattered knee. "Here he is, inspiring 150 kids at each camp and all of them are looking up to him," Miranda said. "I'm looking at him like this is true happiness here." He has joined a kickball league and tends to his foundation every day. And if his positivity dips, Lattimore thinks back to the athletes he has helped and the estimated 250,000 letters of support he has received from fans over the years. On the morning of his graduation, Lattimore received an email from an aspiring football player in England who suffered a similar knee injury. He wanted Lattimore to know how much he inspires him. After finishing breakfast, Lattimore heads outside, finding fans everywhere. He speaks quietly with one before a group of women swarm him for a picture. He happily obliges; they thank him and offer more congratulations. A few photos later, he departs. It's just another day in the happier life of Marcus Lattimore. Things move a little slower now, but he couldn't be more thrilled with where his life is. Unexpected turns have put him on the path to peace. "There's always light on the other side of the tunnel," he said. "I'm living proof of it." |
The Nintendo Switch has changed public perception across the board. Though many were quietly hopeful that Nintendo’s console would represent a change of pace for the legendary company following the Wii U’s poor performance, few were expecting it to be as well-received as it has been. With two Game of the Year contenders under its belt in the form of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey, along with a slew of hugely popular releases from Splatoon 2 through to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, the Switch has exceeded expectations and continues to surprise heading into the new year. But while it’s performing well now, looking back prior to its launch and it’s clear to see that many publishers and developers didn’t have a whole lot of faith in Nintendo’s portable / home console hybrid. With that being said, let’s take a look at what those in the gaming industry thought about the Switch prior to its launch, and how those perceptions changed after it became apparent that the console was going to be a runaway success. Capcom Capcom expressed reluctance with the Nintendo Switch ahead of the console’s launch, with them having initially appeared skeptical at how well their games would perform when compared to their PS4 and Xbox One releases. “We are currently carrying out research with regards to multiplatform implementation of software for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on to the Nintendo Switch,” a Capcom spokesperson said in an investor Q&A in 2016 (via Videogamer). “However, we do feel that there are differences in the desired direction and the play-style of the Nintendo Switch and those of the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One.” It seems that only recently has the company realized that it dropped the ball with the Switch, with the publisher posting a mammoth 248.4 % year-on-year increase for last quarter that was predominantly the result of Monster Hunter XX and Ultra Street Fighter II The Final Challengers, two Switch games. The high-profile Marvel vs Capcom Infinite was mentioned, though its underwhelming sales caused it to be a footnote on its earning postings. Capcom has now argued that their lack of new releases for the Switch to be expected. “A company spokeswoman said releasing older games on a new console is normal procedure for third-party software developers because there isn’t enough time to make new games for a console within a year of its launch,” an October report from Nintendo Everything reads. According to Wall Street Journal’s Takashi Mochizuki, Capcom is now “starting to prepare” multiple Switch-version titles. Koei Tecmo Koei Tecmo has been overwhelmed by their success on the Nintendo Switch, with company president Keiko Erikawa saying she is “extremely happy” with their performance on the platform and that the Switch business is an “extremely long tail one” in a call to investors. Additionally, its co-founder and CEO Yoichi Erikawa said: “We bet big on the Switch as a game changer so we began making games before the Switch’s launch, but many software companies showed reluctance in releasing Switch games before they witnessed the current success.” Koei Tecmo’s gamble on the Switch has paid off, and they remain one of very few companies to have supported the Switch since the console’s launch. With more Koei Tecmo games such as Attack on Titan 2 set to release on the handheld system, it seems their partnership is only going to grow stronger throughout the console’s life cycle. The Pokemon Company Skepticism surrounding the Nintendo Switch wasn’t solely limited to third-party companies, with Nintendo’s veteran collaborator and first-party studio The Pokemon Company also raising a few eyebrows prior to the console’s launch. According to The Pokemon Company’s CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara, he reached out to Nintendo to express concern over the future of the system. “I told Nintendo that Switch wouldn’t be a success before it went on sale because I thought that in the age of the smartphone no one would carry around a game console,” Ishihara told Bloomberg in a video interview. “It’s obvious I was wrong. I came to realize the key to a successful game is quite simple: software with absolute quality leads sales of hardware. Playing style can be flexible if the software is attractive enough.” However, Ishihara was still cautious about the future of the Switch. “Currently, it’s popular among the early adopters and there needs to be one more step to attract a wider audience,” he added. “I see more potential in Switch, but one shouldn’t overestimate its potential.” The Pokemon Company are currently working on a Pokemon RPG for the console, though there are few available details regarding the mysterious project. Bandai Namco Unlike Capcom, Bandai Namco have been more forthright about dropping the ball with the Nintendo Switch. This week company president Mitsuaki Taguchi revealed that they would be ramping up their resources for Switch development, with them aiming to start releasing more Switch games starting next April. “We have put out three games on the Switch so far and all of them are doing well,” Taguchi said (via Gematsu.) “It’s a shame, but we didn’t think the Switch [would] be accept this fast.” Namco is now working on three Switch-exclusive titles that will release between spring and summer 2018. EA EA is still reluctant to dedicate more resources to the Switch, with the publisher’s target audience still mainly existing on the PS4, Xbox One and PC. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, EA’s finance chief Blake Jorgensen said that the company would be waiting until the Switch had been on the market for a full year in order to “fully understand what the demand is.” It’s difficult to know whether or not FIFA 18‘s release on the Switch was successful for EA, with it only accounting for 1% of its overall sales in the UK and specific data not being released for its Switch version elsewhere. Although sports and online-focused games remain the majority of EA’s output, there are still plenty games in its library that Switch owners would likely want to see released on the console. Whether EA believes it will be advantageous to do so in the future remains to be seen. Konami Konami was responsible for one of the most disappointing Switch launch games in the form of Super Bomberman R, and while the company chose not to release Pro Evolution Soccer 2018 on the platform, they haven’t written off the console just because one of their games didn’t perform so well on the system. In an interview with Miketendo64, Konami Europe’s Brand Manager Richard Jones said: “All I can say is that there is lots of internal discussions going on within Konami regarding what games we can bring to the Nintendo Switch, other than Bomberman, a game which we are well aware of its heritage and how loved it and Castlevania is.” “So much so that Castlevania is getting is getting its own show on Netflix and because of that, we’re hearing a lot of desires from our fans for a new Castlevania series,” he added. “So we do know there is a demand for a new game, but right now nothing is set in stone as the discussions are still on going.” Square Enix Square Enix is bringing Project Octopath Traveler to the Switch, though it seems that the power of the console is holding its games back from being released on it. Speaking to us in an exclusive interview, Final Fantasy XV director Hajime Tabata asked GameRevolution’s Heath Hindman: “Hey did you read this story online that says I’m bringing Final Fantasy XV to Switch, using Unreal Engine?” When Heath asked Tabata if Final Fantasy XV could run on the Switch, Tabata replied simply: “No, it can’t.” Bethesda Bethesda have been one of the most surprising supporters of the Nintendo Switch, though they only became aware that there was an audience for their games on the console following the success of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. “We haven’t done anything on a Nintendo platform in forever,“ Bethesda’s VP of marketing and communication Pete Hines told VentureBeat. ”Breath of the Wild being the runaway colossal hit that it is, there’s certainly some belief like, “Hey, if you like open-world RPGs where you can explore and do what you want, Skyrim might be a good fit for you.” Bethesda has Doom, Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus and the aforementioned Skyrim each releasing on the Switch, though they’re not stopping there. “We’ve been in constant conversation with [Nintendo],” Hines continued, “and not just about the two games we have now, but about our whole approach to the platform going forward – what we can do, best practices, what things are a good fit, what they’re excited about in what we’re doing. “We’re obviously excited about these two games, but it’s not as if we’re going to just do these two games and that’s it. We want this to be the start of a relationship that we build with Nintendo and Nintendo fans.” It seems that Bethesda aren’t the only developers looking at the Switch and seeing dollar signs. |
One of the biggest upgrades to Samsung’s Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge line-up is the battery, with Samsung managing to add a battery that is 18% and 40% larger than the predecessors respectively. Both handsets scored highly in their respective reviews, but suffered in the battery department so a year on, just how much has Samsung managed to improved the battery by? Taking a look at common tasks such as WiFi browsing and Video Playback, coupled with an extrapolation of expected battery life, it’s time to put the smaller of the two phones to the test. With two different processor options on offer, is one superior to the other, and how does the Galaxy S7 compare to the competition? Let’s find out. In the charts below, we tested both versions of the Galaxy S7 three times and recorded an average of the three as the reported battery life. For the Galaxy Note 5 and Google Nexus 6P , each smartphone was tested once during the last Best of Android and the data from that result has been used below. The Exynos version of the Galaxy S7 we are using is the SM-G930F model, while the Snapdragon variant is the SM-G930V model for Verizon Wireless. As such, the latter comes with some Verizon preloaded apps, and these may have had a small affect on the battery life. Each handset was tested at the same display brightness and under the same testing conditions to ensure a fair result. WiFi Browsing Test To kick off our testing, we charged each handset to full, removed the charger and ran our custom WiFi browsing test tool until the battery drained to 0. We then recharged the phone to between 2 and 10 percent, and recording the Screen on Time recorded by the Android OS. During the test, each smartphone was connected to the same WiFi network with no accounts or data syncing. The Exynos Galaxy S7 proves to be slightly better in this test, recording an average screen on time of 6 hours and 48 minutes, versus 6 hours and 30 minutes on the Snapdragon model. What is particularly interesting, is that the Nexus 6P splits the two handsets, but all fall well short of the 9 hours and 32 minutes offered by the Galaxy Note 5. Video Playback Test From WiFi browsing to video playback and again, we tested from full to empty. Looping the same 5-minute video over and over on each of these handsets, we ran the test and then recharged the phone to get the SoT listed by the Android OS. During the test, each device was put in aeroplane mode to prevent any syncing or connections preventing the video from playing. Whereas both versions of the Galaxy S7 struggled in the WiFi browsing test, they excelled in the video playback test. The Snapdragon version beat both, the Galaxy Note 5 and the Nexus 6P, with an average battery life of 11 hours and 52 minutes, but the Exynos S7 went a whole lot further at 15 hours and 11 minutes. Standby Test Our third and final test involves testing the longevity of each handset, as an indicator of the maximum standby life. Each smartphone was charged to full and WiFi was turned on with the same set of apps syncing data and notifications (11 apps in total). After exactly 24 hours, the remaining battery life was measured and this data used to extrapolate the total potential battery life. The first thing you’ll notice is that the Galaxy Note 5 offers a considerably lower potential standby time than the other three handsets, and the reason is quite simple; at the time of testing, it was running the Lollipop OS and didn’t have the benefit of Doze Mode on Marshmallow like the other three handsets. To those running Marshmallow, and Samsung seems to have done a rather good job with the 3,000mAh unit inside the Galaxy S7, which is considerably smaller than the 3,450mAh unit powering the Nexus 6P. Both versions exceed the 9 days 2 hours offered by Google’s flagship, with the Snapdragon version scoring 9 days and 10 hours and the Exynos model, 10 days and 2 hours. My personal experiences Testing under these conditions isn’t always indicative of day-to-day usage, where variables such as network coverage, usage on other apps and more, can all impact the actual battery life offered by a smartphone. To this effect, does the battery life live up to its billing above? From my personal experience, you can expect a day’s usage out of either of the two models, which will offer you between 4 and 6 hours’ Screen on time from a full charge. The actual battery life does vary, and the maximum I’ve got out of either handset is 6 hours, but the minimum is as low as 2 and a half hours. The standby time is mostly impressive as, with low to medium usage, I’ve had a full charge last me between 1 and 2 days. For the most part, light users should be able to eek out two days from a full charge, while even heavy users should get around 4 hours Screen on Time. Particularly, the Exynos unbranded SM-G930F model does seem to last between 10 and 20 percent longer than its Snapdragon cousin. Wrap Up What does the data show us? There’s a few things we can take away from this test, not least that the Exynos version of the handset does offer better battery life than the Snapdragon version. There’s a couple of reasons for this; first, as we discovered in our Galaxy S7 review, there is a noticeable difference between the two handsets (which was around one hour). Secondly, carrier bloat has an effect on battery life, but just how big the effect is something we’ll test and answer in a future piece. The data also shows that the Galaxy S7 battery life is vastly improved over the Galaxy Note 5, with both versions of the S7 outscoring Samsung’s phablet king in two out of the three tests. The last is that Doze mode definitely makes a difference to the standby offered by a handset – as our final test shows – and as noted in our Galaxy S6 Marshmallow hands on, Marshmallow OS definitely improves the overall battery life of a handset. What battery enhancements and tweaks will the latest Android N OS bring, and what do you think of the Galaxy S7 battery life? Report your findings in the comments down below guys! |
Sales of the Quran skyrocketed in the United States following 9/11. Perhaps it was a search for answers, or a desire to parse out certain stereotypes, that made some people turn to the Muslim holy text. But the increased circulation of the Quran due to the recent Paris attacks and rise of the Islamic State has not always helped people to better understand and respect the faith. If anything, fear and prejudice toward Islam has risen. This is one example of the “widespread illiteracy about religion that spans the globe,” said Diane Moore, director of Harvard Divinity School’s Religious Literacy Project to The Huffington Post. To combat this illiteracy, Moore and five other religion professors from Harvard University, Harvard Divinity School and Wellesley College are kicking off a free, online series on world religions open to the masses. The courses are being offered via an online learning platform called edX, which Harvard University launched with Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2012. For those interested in earning a certificate of achievement at the end of the series, edX offers a non-audit track for $50. The timing is ripe for such a course, Moore said. Religious illiteracy “fuels bigotry and prejudice and hinders capacities for cooperative endeavors in local, national, and global arenas,” Moore told HuffPost. The edX series will include six classes on different subjects that will each run for four weeks. Moore is teaching the first course in the series on “Religious Literacy: Traditions and Scriptures,” which begins on March 1. The next five will dive into specific faiths, covering Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism and Judaism. Religious literacy entails more than just knowing the Five Pillars of Islam or Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths, Moore said. Such an approach “reinforces the problematic assumption that religions are internally uniform and ahistorical,” she added. Instead, Moore suggested that religious literacy should include an understanding that religious traditions are “internally diverse,” ever-evolving, and play complex roles in people’s lives. To that end, the course aims to offer participants an understanding of the history and interpretations of religious texts and why some were designated as “sacred.” Students will also dive into contemporary and historical interpretations of the texts to get a feel for just how “internally diverse” the traditions are. Moore said she and the other facilitators anticipate up to 50,000 people will enroll for the series, given that it is online and free for students who audit the courses. The course is especially aimed at educators, Moore said, as well as members of faith communities interested in multi-faith engagement and dialogue. She added, “I’m excited to provide a platform for more informed discourse about religion.” Check out the animation about the series above. Also on HuffPost: |
Buy the Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor GOTY Upgrade to unlock the exclusive Guardians of the Flaming Eye Warband mission and gain early access to the Trials of War challenge series. GOTY Edition Upgrade Includes: Guardians of the Flaming Eye Exclusive Warband Mission: Face Sauron’s elite Defenders before the Black Gate and earn the Wolf's Head rune Trials of War Challenge Series: Play the full series of 4 challenge modes: Test of Power, Test of Speed, Test of Wisdom and the Endless challenge. Earn points for power, skill, speed and efficiency and build your Legend on the Leaderboards. Lord of the Hunt Story Mission: Dive deeper into Mordor’s living world and hunt the wild beasts of Mordor to earn unique runes. The Bright Lord Story Mission: Battle against Sauron as Celebrimbor, the great Elven Lord of the Second Age, to unlock powerful runes and the ability to wield the One Ring. Future content including additional Warband Missions, Runes, & Skins: Enhance your weapons with powerful Runes and customize Talion’s appearance with unique skins MIDDLE-EARTH: SHADOW OF MORDOR © 2014 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. Developed by Monolith. In association with WingNut Films. © 2014 New Line Productions, Inc. © The Saul Zaentz Company. MIDDLE-EARTH: SHADOW OF MORDOR, THE HOBBIT, and the names of the characters, items, events and places therein are trademarks of The Saul Zaentz Company d/b/a Middle-earth Enterprises under license to Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. MONOLITH LOGO, WB GAMES LOGO, WB SHIELD: ™ & © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (s14) |
More than 100,000 gallons of estimated wastewater has overflowed from the City of College Station's public water system on Saturday and Sunday. The City of College Station has experienced multiple wastewater overflows Saturday and Sunday after more than 12 inches of rainfall. The exact volume of the overflow is unknown at this time. Once volumes and locations are verified, updated information will be provided. The city says the College Station public water system is not threatened, as no known domestic or public drinking water wells nor surface water intakes are within a half mile of the spill’s location. To maintain health and safety for our customers, the City of College Station has the following precautionary statements about wastewater overflows: - People using private drinking water supply wells located within a half mile of a wastewater spill site, or within the potentially affected area, should use only water that has been distilled or boiled at a rolling boil for at least one minute for all personal uses, including drinking, cooking, bathing and brushing teeth. - Those with private water wells within a half mile of a wastewater spill area should have their water tested and disinfected, if necessary, prior to discontinuing distillation or boiling. - People who purchase water from a public water supply may contact their water supply distributor to determine if the water is safe for personal use. - The public should avoid contact with waste material, soil or water in the area potentially affected by the spill. - As a precaution, it is recommended to avoid contact with the waters of Carters and Alum creeks. - Do not bathe, swim or wade in floodwaters. - If the public comes into contact waste material, soil or water potentially affected by the spill, they should bathe and wash clothes thoroughly as soon as possible. The public should continue to report wastewater spills, power outages and problems with water service to 24-Hour utility dispatch at 855-528-4CSU (4278). |
Top 14 Toulon close in on Ma'a Nonu ESPN Staff Ma'a Nonu could be Toulon's latest big-name signing © Getty Images Enlarge Toulon are reportedly closing in on a deal for All Blacks centre Ma'a Nonu. Nonu was heavily linked with a switch to Clermont Auvergne last season but eventually settled on a further year in New Zealand ahead of next year's Rugby World Cup. But Monday's Midi Olympique claims Toulon are on the verge of agreeing a two-year contract with the All Blacks centre that will see him arrive in the Top 14 after next year's global gathering. The newspaper has also linked Toulon with moves for South Africa back-row Willem Alberts and Australia fullback Israel Folau. Toulon owner Mourad Boudjellal has previously said he is keen to add a quartet of world-class players to the team following next year's World Cup. The newspaper also claims Toulon are close to agreeing new deals with Carl Hayman, Sebastien Tillous-Borde and Chris Masoe. © ESPN Sports Media Ltd |
The driver of a Subaru tried to stop a Jeep from passing on the shoulder of Highway 516 in Kent, according to the Washington State Patrol. Both drivers were issued traffic tickets. A Subaru driver frustrated with cars illegally passing her on the shoulder of Highway 516 in Kent on Tuesday slammed — three times — into a Jeep as it rolled by, according to Washington State Patrol. Traffic was backed up about 1:30 p.m. Tuesday outside of Kent, and several vehicles were using the shoulder of the highway to pass, Trooper Rick Johnson said. The driver of the Subaru Impreza stuck in traffic later told an officer she got frustrated with the passing cars, Johnson said. When a Jeep Cherokee pulled onto the shoulder behind her, she moved partially onto the shoulder, causing the Jeep to move over even farther. Then, the driver of the Subaru struck the Jeep “at least” three times, she later told an officer, according to Johnson. The two vehicles then got entangled. Johnson said the trooper who sent photos of the incident wrote in an email, “You’re not going to believe this.” Johnson said both drivers were in the wrong and received tickets for noncriminal negligent driving in the second degree, an infraction of over $500. “I understand having someone pass you illegally is frustrating,” he said, “but don’t take it into your own hands.” |
AUSTIN, Texas—Just two companies—Verizon Wireless and AT&T—control 60 percent of the U.S. wireless market. Four companies control 90 percent. A thriving marketplace this is not. And while the lack of competition partly explains why cell phone service in the U.S. is slower, less reliable and more expensive than in other developed countries, a perhaps more important reason is that the Federal Communications Commission, the federal agency tasked with protecting the rights and interests of consumers, chose to neuter itself a decade ago. Unfortunately, the stakes are higher for the U.S. than just lousy service and exorbitant bills. The current state of affairs threatens the ability of citizens to speak freely in a democracy. Such was the consensus of a panel of legal and policy experts who here spoke at the annual South by Southwest Interactive conference this week. "AT&T and Verizon don't really compete with one another—they copy one another," said Parul P. Desai, the communications policy counsel for Consumers Union, the policy and advocacy division of Consumer Reports magazine. As an example, she noted that AT&T recently began to place limits on the amount of data that consumers are allowed to download in any given month. "Then Verizon followed suit," she said, "except with higher prices." Price isn't the only principle in peril. People now use their phones to share information and news directly with one another, bypassing traditional big-media gatekeepers. Yet the power to censor news or information isn't going away, it's just shifting to the owners of the network. "The ways that we're creating news or connecting with other is under the control of big quasi-monopolistic forces that don't have the same interests as us," said Josh Levy, the Internet campaign director of the non-profit advocacy organization Free Press. "AT&T, Comcast and Verizon are the enablers of free speech, and they can turn off the spigot if they feel like it," he said. As an example, he cited Verizon's 2007 decision to block text messages sent by a political advocacy organization to its members. Perversely, speech over old-fashioned analog telephone service is far better protected than speech over the Internet, or any device (like a smart phone) that connects to the Internet. In 2002, the FCC under then-president George W. Bush decreed that the Internet wasn't a so-called "telecommunications service," and thus subject to federal laws protecting free speech and competition. Instead, it was an "information service," much like a television channel. The owner of the information service determines what kind of information he would like it to host. In practice, this means that the companies that own the infrastructure—cell-phone companies and Internet service providers more generally—decide what content gets through. In a response to an audience question, Desai said that the FCC could perhaps reclassify the Internet as a telecommunications service, a step that Scientific American has championed multiple times in the past. But until then, consumers in the U.S. are subject to the whims of the wireless carriers. "I don't know if there's ever been anything so important to so many people that's under the control of such abstract forces," said Nilay Patel, managing editor of the technology Web site The Verge. Until the FCC decides to reassert its authority, consumers will continue to suffer. Let's hope democracy doesn't as well. Photo by Ryosuke Takeoka on Flickr. |
Pin 545 Shares (ANTIMEDIA) Washington, D.C. — A former capital city police officer has been indicted for allegedly attempting to aid the Islamic State (ISIS), the Department of Justice announced late last week. According to a press release issued on Thursday by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Eastern Virginia: “Nicholas Young, 37, of Fairfax, who was formerly employed as a police officer with the Metro Transit Police Department, was indicted today by a federal grand jury on charges of attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization and obstruction of justice.” Young was first arrested in Virginia in August. ABC News reported at the time that he had been charged with “attempting to provide material support to ISIS.” According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office: “The material support and resources that Young attempted to provide included, but was not limited to: Protection of ISIL personnel from capture or harm by attempting to mislead the FBI as to what Young believed to be his friend’s travel to Syria to join ISIL; and the provision of gift cards for ISIL.” The friend Young sought to protect was actually an undercover FBI agent operating as a “confidential human source.” The informant had led Young to believe he was working on behalf of the ISIS, a mistruth that ultimately led Young to defend him. “During an FBI interview, Young was told the FBI was investigating the attempt of his associate (the CHS) to join ISIL. Nevertheless, in an attempt to thwart the prosecution of the CHS and himself, Young attempted to deceive investigators as to the destination and purpose of the CHS’ travel.” According to official allegations, Young “attempted to obstruct, influence, and impede an official proceeding of the Grand Jury by sending a text message to the CHS’ cell phone in order to make it falsely appear to the FBI that the CHS had left the United States to go on vacation in Turkey. In actuality, Young believed the CHS had gone to Turkey and then to Syria in order to join and fight for ISIL.” He now faces up to 60 years in prison. It’s evident Young is disturbed; he reportedly told an undercover agent he enjoyed torturing animals. It’s also apparent that he harbored sympathy for the ISIS. What’s less clear is the extent to which the FBI encouraged this support. Young had been on the FBI’s radar since 2010, and according to the Justice Department, over the years he had “repeatedly expressed his interest in terrorism-related activity,” ABC News reported in August. On one occasion, he met with an undercover agent, as well as Amine El Khalifi, who plead guilty to planning a terror attack in Washington D.C. in 2012. By this measure, Young was mingling with a dangerous terrorist. The problem with this narrative, however, is that the FBI has made a habit of facilitating terror plots — only to break them up and tout their vigilant protection of the United States. Though the FBI and federal government take credit for having stopped hundreds of terror plots since 9/11, a report by Human Rights Watch in 2014 found that “In some cases, the FBI may have created terrorists out of law-abiding individuals by suggesting the idea of taking terrorist action or encouraging the target to act.” That report detailed a “system that features not just the sting operations but secret evidence, anonymous juries, extensive pretrial detentions and convictions significantly removed from actual plots.” The Daily Beast considered Khalifi’s arrest in the context of the FBI’s fabricated terror plots: “If federal authorities thought Amine El Khalifi was a clear and present danger to America, they could have easily solved the problem by deporting the 29-year-old Moroccan, who had been living as an illegal immigrant in northern Virginia for years, having overstayed his visitor’s visa by a decade.” Rather than outright solving the problem, however, the FBI encouraged him to plot an attack before arresting him: “Instead, he was arrested Friday in a garage outside the U.S. Capitol for allegedly planning to set off a fake suicide vest and shoot people with an inoperable automatic weapon—both provided to him by his government handlers.” [emphasis added] Though the FBI gave Khalifi fake materials, the agency has targeted mentally ill individuals and provided them with actual weaponry. In at least one case, the FBI targeted “a mentally ill man who was doing nothing more than ranting about violent jihad and talking (admittedly in frightening ways) about launching attacks—until he met an FBI informant. At that point, he started making shopping lists for weapons,” The Intercept reported, noting the FBI supplied him with weapons and then charged him possessing them. Evidently, the FBI is guilty of providing “material support” to terrorists — the same charges Young now faces. This article (A Former Cop Was Just Indicted for Helping ISIS: What You’re Not Being Told) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Carey Wedler and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11 pm Eastern/8 pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, please email the error and name of the article to edits@theantimedia.org. Pin 545 Shares |
0 SHARES Facebook Twitter Google Whatsapp Pinterest Print Mail Flipboard Calling President Trump’s denial of Russian attack on our election “dismaying and objectionable,” former Ambassador Nicholas Burns said it’s the President’s duty to be skeptical of Russia and that his refusal to take action is “a dereliction of the basic duty to defend the country.” “I don’t believe any previous president would argue that your own hearings in the Senate are a waste of time, or a ‘witch hunt’, in the words of President Trump. They’re not (a witch hunt). You’re doing your duty that the people elected you to do. It’s his duty, President Trump’s, to be skeptical of Russia, it’s his duty to investigate and defend our country against a cyber offensive, because Russia is our most dangerous adversary. And if he continues to refuse to act, it is a dereliction of the basic duty to defend the country,” former President Bush 43 Nato Ambassador Nicholas Burns said during a Senate Select Intelligence Committee hearing on Wednesday. Bush 43 NATO Amb @RNicholasBurns: It's not a witch hunt, Russia is our most dangerous adversary; if Trump refuses to act—dereliction of duty pic.twitter.com/q2e6B2wYDu — Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) June 29, 2017 Full clip here: Trump denies that Russia attacked the U.S. election that he won. If he entertains the idea of accepting the unanimous conclusion of all 17 U.S. intel groups that Russia did interfere in the election on his behalf, he then blames former President Obama, Hillary Clinton or the Democrats. What Trump does not do is move to protect the U.S from Russia. Trump did not ask Comey about Russia’s attack; instead he focused on the more salacious parts of the Steele Dossier, getting Comey to say Trump was not under investigation personally, and pressuring Comey to drop the FBI investigation into Trump’s former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn. The only pushback for the attack was implemented under former President Obama, and that was sanctions that Russia wants lifted and that the Trump team told Russia not to worry about at the time. The Washington Post reported at the time the discussions were revealed after they had been denied, “Flynn’s communications with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak were interpreted by some senior U.S. officials as an inappropriate and potentially illegal signal to the Kremlin that it could expect a reprieve from sanctions that were being imposed by the Obama administration in late December to punish Russia for its alleged interference in the 2016 election.” Former acting CIA directorJohn McLaughlin said of the attack on the U.S. by Russia, “You’ve got to restore some measure of deterrence. You hit ’em back, punish ’em in some ways, which I don’t think has been done by the last administration or this one. They are kind of on the offense, and we’re not pushing back.” Former President Obama authorized the planting of digital bombs in Russian infrastructure during the final weeks of his presidency that President Trump could have chosen to deploy, but he has not. The project was not completed when the transition took place. Why won’t Donald Trump act to protect the United States, as is his duty? Furthermore, why don’t Republicans care? Republicans are currently trying to undermine the Senate and House investigations into the Russian interference in our election. The Russians are still attacking the U.S. and will interfere in our next election, experts warn, unless we stop them. If you’re ready to read more from the unbossed and unbought Politicus team, sign up for our newsletter here! Email address: Leave this field empty if you're human: |
Story highlights Richard Roberts was pulled over early Tuesday, authorities say Arrest report: He was allegedly traveling 93 mph in a 65-mph zone A breath test showed Roberts' blood alcohol level at .11%, the report says The son of late evangelist Oral Roberts and former president of Oral Roberts University was arrested early Tuesday on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol and speeding, authorities said. Richard Roberts, 63, was stopped by the Oklahoma Highway Patrol just after midnight after a trooper observed him traveling at about 93 mph on a turnpike in his Mercedes-Benz sedan, according to an arrest report. The speed limit on the road is 65 mph, the report said. The trooper "detected the strong odor of an alcoholic beverage about Roberts' breath and person," the report said, and Roberts failed field sobriety tests. Roberts consented to a breath test, which showed his blood alcohol level at .11%, higher than the .08% limit for legal intoxication. He was booked into the Tulsa County Jail. CNN affiliate KOTV in Tulsa said he posted bond and was released a few hours later. Roberts was president of Oral Roberts University until 2007. Oral Roberts died in 2009. Roberts appears on the television show "The Place for Miracles: Your Hour of Healing," according to the Oral Roberts Ministries website. "Our prayers go out to Richard and Lindsay Roberts and their entire family as they face this life challenge," said Jeremy Burton, spokesman for Oral Roberts University. "May God's grace help them as they work toward healing." |
A marbled murrelet, one of the species threatened by the US Navy’s jet noise. (Photo: US Department of Agriculture; Edited: LW / TO) When it comes to getting its way with war-gaming in the Pacific Northwest, nobody is better at the concept of “distributed lethality” than the US Navy. In 2015, the Navy introduced this concept “that promised to add more fire power to all manner of Navy vessels and operate them in a way that would spread thin enemy defenses.” The Navy seems determined to move forward with planned military activities like increasing jet dogfighting, electromagnetic warfare training and other actions, regardless of how many animals it kills. Internal emails show how the Navy has been working to manipulate the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) biologists into bending the law, then proceeded to break the law, whilst the consultations between the two entities are ongoing. An anonymous Navy source leaked several internal emails to Truthout that reveal how the Navy is trying to redefine “harm” to wildlife, in a way that would allow the Navy a potentially far greater rate of “takes” to marbled murrelets and other endangered and/or threatened species. A “take” is defined by the Endangered Species Act as to “harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect” any threatened or endangered species. Marbled murrelets are secretive diving seabirds that nest in old-growth forests, which makes them vulnerable to both jet noise and sonar. The emails show that while the Navy is aware that exceeding authorized levels of harm to species is illegal, it is nevertheless going to great lengths to move forward with its actions — regardless of their toll on wildlife. “There’s been no coverage on endangered and threatened species the FWS manages, on all of that activity, for who knows how long.” The emails, from August and September 2015, reveal in detail how Navy personnel from the Pacific Northwest to the Pentagon pressured an apparently overwhelmed and cash-strapped FWS to complete its biological opinion (BO) in ways that would benefit the Navy. A BO is a legal document from the FWS that is required in order for the Navy to obtain the permits it needs under the Endangered Species Act, while conducting exercises and war games. As of publication of this article, the BO, covering marbled murrelets, northern spotted owls, bull trout and other species, is not complete. A series of email threads outlines the Navy’s concern about the FWS not adhering to Navy deadlines, and its intent to influence an overdue draft BO for the final environmental impact statement on its Northwest Training and Testing Range, which covers an area spanning from Northern California to southeast Alaska. “We also discussed how we might help FWS in completing their BO,” read an email from August 2015, showing how the Navy aimed to cross the line and influence the permitting process for their own activities, “and most specifically agreed to help them write the Proposed Action part of the BO.” The emails show the Navy’s impatience with an anticipated delay in the process required for it to be permitted to pursue training that would most certainly result in deaths of large numbers of animals, including endangered and threatened species. In November 2015, after the emails, the Navy received a permit from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for take of whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals and sea lions. The total number of takes for marine mammals only in Pacific Northwest waters, not including the Gulf of Alaska, is more than 1.2 million. For the Gulf of Alaska: 2.1 million, and for Hawaii-Southern California: 9.4 million. Going to Any Lengths While specific examples from the internal emails themselves will be detailed below, what is clear overall is the extent to which the Navy is willing to pressure the FWS to stretch the law — and to actually violate federal law itself. Navy personnel even proposed writing portions of the biological opinion for the FWS, which clearly subverts the purpose of having the FWS oversee plans to protect endangered species from naval activities. One email expressed concern over whether the Navy’s ongoing activities not covered in the expiring BO could continue, including “pierside sonar … and various NAVSEA [Naval Sea Systems Command] testing activities. We are conducting these activities without coverage …” The communications show that the Navy was pushing for the release of the final environmental impact statement without the completion of the consultation with the FWS required by law. The Navy advocated that the statement be released via a waiver from the deputy assistant secretary of the Navy, hence giving itself permission to do what it wants to do. Other actions that were either questionable or illegal included: – attempting to have the FWS separate harassment and animal behavior changes from the definition of “harm”; – exerting influence over how the FWS analyzes acoustical information; – using a non-peer-reviewed Navy student thesis to evaluate marbled murrelet thresholds for sonar (meaning how much damage sonar has on the bird, impacting hearing and its ability to navigate and recover from damage caused by the sounds); – an outright refusal to take FWS-requested mitigation measures for marbled murrelets; – a discussion on the intimidation factor of high-level direct calls from the Pentagon to FWS field staff who were working on the BO. Knowingly Breaking the Law Karen Sullivan, former assistant regional director at the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s Division of External Affairs and a retired endangered species biologist, said the Navy’s emails reveal what she believes are blatant attempts to circumvent laws and procedures required in order for the Navy to obtain the “take” permits needed for its testing and training. Sullivan worked for the FWS for 15 years, is an expert in the bureaucratic procedures the Navy is supposed to be following and is now part of the West Coast Action Alliance, one of two large multistate and international citizen groups that have tasked themselves with watchdogging the Navy, due to what they believe are ongoing violations of the law, blatant acts of disrespect toward human and environmental health and bellicose behavior toward members of the public who speak out. Her group has logged multiple instances of naval personnel carrying out online verbal attacks on residents who make complaints about extreme noise levels near their homes that are generated by naval aircraft. “They won’t even tow hydrophones to listen for marine mammals in advance of commencing bombing exercises.” “In my experience working for the US FWS, it was unusual and very inappropriate for an Interior Department-level political appointee or his staff to call a field biologist, and even more so for a political appointee or their staff from another agency to do that from Washington, DC, because it bypassed the normal chain of command where more politically astute senior-level FWS employees in either DC or the Regional Office could vet such requests,” Sullivan told Truthout, in reference to what was revealed in the emails. “It was also intimidating to field staff to have to deal directly with Washington, DC, big shots. So, to have this Pentagon-level staffer calling the field biologist is bad right off the bat. Not only that, it appears she even had the deputy assistant secretary of the Navy on one call with a field biologist.” Emails from John Mosher, the US Pacific Fleet Northwest environmental program manager, confirm that the FWS was concerned about the safety of the marbled murrelet, and that the Navy carried on with its “games” regardless. In one of the emails, Mosher clearly admits, “We are conducting these activities without coverage, so I assume they could continue, but we need to come to legal consensus.” This is a frank admission of breaking the law. Activities not covered (that is, not permitted by law) included pierside sonar: According to the Navy’s Northwest Training and Testing activities, use of pierside sonar is going from an unknown number of instances to 22 events per year, and is likely happening already. Another “not covered” activity is the Transit Protection System, in which large numbers of pilings (heavy posts hammered into the seafloor to support infrastructure like piers and buildings atop the water) are being driven (pile-driving noise can carry 18 miles underwater), and NAVSEA Testing, which includes the use of explosives. “There’s been no coverage on endangered and threatened species the FWS manages, on all of that activity, for who knows how long — unless some extraordinary and legally questionable measures were taken,” Sullivan said. “This email was written in August and it’s been eight months since then, with what coverage of incidental takes? What numbers limit them? How has the Navy been reporting them?” An email from Susan Levitt of the Naval Surface Warfare Command also admits, “… we have consensus that NAVSEA risks remain the same until the new permits are in hand.” This is another stark admission that the Navy was proceeding without proper permits. The email chain reveals how Mosher explores the possibility of a former assistant secretary of the Navy, Donald Schregardus, letting him publish the final EIS without state and federal consultations completed, which, according to Sullivan, “is a phenomenal departure from Navy policy.” But that’s exactly what the Navy did, in early October 2015. “They never put out a final EIS without the required consultations until this one, and another recent one at Boardman Range in Oregon,” Sullivan explained. “The fact that the Navy wanted assurances in advance from FWS that their activities would not cause ‘jeopardy,’ or imminent threat of extinction, to any species, which could stop the project, is underhanded and may be illegal.” Mosher goes on to suggest that the Navy itself should move forward with helping write the biological opinion. “This would completely remove any neutrality from the consultation,” Sullivan said. “By writing the environmental baseline as Mosher suggests, the Navy would also get to control the results of the entire evaluation.” Blatant Disregard for Endangered Species Naval emails reveal how the Navy asked the FWS to use 42-year-old information from a US Department of Defense study called “The Tolerance of Birds to Airblast.” Considering the fact that there is much more recent and accurate data available about the impacts of noise on wild seabirds than the 1974 study on domestic chickens, ducks and geese, this is further evidence that the Navy is not doing everything it can to make sure it minimizes impacts to wildlife where it carries out its exercises. Another email from this thread suggests that the Navy was even performing the mathematical calculations it wanted the FWS to use. The internal communications reveal several areas of disagreement between the Navy and FWS, including the impacts of airblast on albatrosses (all 22 species of which are either endangered or of “concern,” as well as the question of what constitutes temporary versus permanent harm to certain birds. “In the absence of better data, the FWS usually tries to err on the safe side with a species, but the Navy pushed them to do otherwise,” Sullivan said of this portion of the email thread. “What follows is an attempt by the Navy to force the FWS to eliminate temporary hearing loss from assessed impacts, which would be illegal. You can’t separate that or behavior changes from the definition of harm.” The emails also reveal that the Pentagon’s Danielle Buonantony, a marine resources specialist for the Pentagon’s chief of naval operations, attempted to inform a FWS biologist about what constitutes an injury — in a species that she knows very little about. Buonantony wrote: “We have a difference of opinion on Permanent Threshold Shift (PTS) vs Temporary Threshold shift (TTS). Navy position is that PTS is permanent as a result of hair cell loss and would cause a loss in hearing at certain frequencies. This would be considered injury. In contrast, TTS is auditory fatigue and would not result in hair cell loss and thus is temporary and non-injurious. USFWS maintains that TTS is hair cell loss and thus is injury.” The email thread reveals Buonantony’s clear concerns about public perception of the Navy’s impacts on wildlife, and how she and the Navy went to great lengths to show that “behavioral harassments” of animals, despite the fact that they often cause harm and are included in the legal definition of harm, “should not be quantified as harm.” “This is an attempt to apply standards from the Marine Mammal Protection Act to the Endangered Species Act,” Sullivan said of Buonantony’s actions. “It cannot be legally done.” Buonantony also informed her Navy colleagues that the Navy turned down the measures for mitigation suggested by the FWS. One of the suggestions was to have federal wildlife agencies train the Navy’s lookouts, but this too was refused. “The Navy’s methodology for its lookouts is consistent with 17th century standards,” said Sullivan, who is also a sailor. “They won’t even tow hydrophones to listen for marine mammals in advance of commencing bombing exercises.” Ongoing Naval Refusal to Protect an Endangered Species The marbled murrelet is listed as a threatened species by the US FWS in Washington, Oregon and California, but is considered globally endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN red listed). The Navy has been debating noise impacts to the bird with the FWS since at least 2011, when the FWS published a Navy-backed study titled, “Environmental Science Panel for Marbled Murrelet Underwater Noise Injury Threshold.” In the summary of the report, the FWS stated: – There is a dearth of information on sound impacts on seabirds. – We must give benefit of the doubt to the species, apply best available information, and make legally defensible decisions. – Given the declining status of murrelets it is important to avoid reductions in productivity (i.e., injury). – The USFWS cannot afford type II errors (i.e., concluding there is no effect when there really is an effect). This science panel, composed of seven Navy employees and contractors, four academics, one FWS biologist and two National Marine Fisheries Service biologists, had convened “to develop recommended interim criteria for evaluating onset of injury to the marbled murrelet from underwater sounds resulting from pile driving.” The panel concluded that budgerigars (a species of parrot) and sea lions were acceptable surrogate species for establishing surface and underwater injury standards for marbled murrelets. In a 2013 presentation to Washington State Department of Transportation biologists and consultants, when discussing budgerigars as an example, the same FWS biologist said about survey protocols, “If monitoring is required, follow USFWS protocol and utilize certified observers.” This means that if the Navy were to follow these protocols, they too would need to follow the same FWS protocol and have certified wildlife observers during their activities. It could be assumed that the FWS again expected the Navy to follow these safety protocols and said as much to the Navy when the Navy requested mitigation measures, because one of the same Navy employees who was on that 2011 science panel contributed to these 2015 emails. Yet, in the emails, Navy personnel declared that using FWS-certified observers would not be possible. “This makes no sense, if interim standards had been actually agreed upon, but it does make sense if the Navy is uncomfortable with having FWS-trained observers aboard who might notice that perhaps the standards for measuring onset of injury are inadequate,” Sullivan said of this seeming contradiction. “The major reason cited by the Navy for not allowing civilians aboard their ships is national security, but it is common knowledge that civilians are allowed aboard in other capacities, such as fitness instructors. The FWS no doubt offered to train Navy personnel, too, so the Navy’s refusal makes no sense except as tacit acknowledgement that harm at greater levels than predicted may be possible.” Sullivan said that if an evaluation of harm to a species rules out standard definitions of harm, encourages use of data more than 40 years old and prohibits the presence of adequately trained observers, then it neither gives the benefit of the doubt to the species nor uses the best available information — and thus does not contribute to legally defensible solutions. Interestingly, and not coincidentally, the first person listed for the Navy representatives on the 2011 science panel for the report on the underwater noise injury threshold is Danielle Buonantony, the Pentagon staffer who put the deputy secretary of the Navy on a phone call with a FWS field biologist. Throughout the emails, the Navy displays a consistent trend toward disregarding harm its actions might cause to an endangered species. For example, the Navy’s Andrea Balla-Holden wrote: “They [FWS] asked if we could limit our action to 5 years and we said no.” Meanwhile, a slideshow by a FWS biologist shows the nuances of measuring hearing in various seabirds, especially marbled murrelets. The slideshow reveals substantial concern within the FWS over how the Navy is conducting pile-driving all over Washington State’s Puget Sound and up and down the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Concerns about harm to birds and other marine life abound, particularly because the 5,300 pilings the Navy has been driving and continues to drive all throughout Washington’s inland waters are all split up into dozens of small environmental assessments that do not require biological opinions. Truthout has previously reported on potentially unlawful actions the Navy has taken, regarding its war games and training exercises, its secret conduction of electromagnetic warfare training on Washington roads, and its own documents, which revealed the aim to use US citizens as pawns in Navy SEAL war games operations. |
Welcome to our helpful guide for Germany. Should you be looking to travel, live, relocate or do business in the sovereign state, we will give you a helpful head start on understanding the country and its cultures. Facts & statistics Germany (officially the Federal Republic of Germany) is a country in Western-Central Europe, and as its full name suggests is a confederation of different constituent states, 16 to be exact. Germany is considered a great power in the modern world, and currently has the world’s 4th or 5th largest economy. It is also the second most popular country for immigrants, after the USA. The Capital: Berlin Main Cities: Hamburg, Munich, Cologne Population: 82.2 million Size: 357,168 sq km (137,847 sq miles) Major Religion: Christianity Main Language: German Climate: Temperate seasonal climate Life Expectancy: 79 years (men), 83 years (women) Dialling Code: +49 Emergency Numbers: 110 (Police), 112 (fire and ambulance) Local culture The culture of Germany is largely defined by the cultures of the constituent states of which it is formed, as well as the other prevalent cultures within Europe. Germany has its origins in the various Germanic tribes that populated the region during the classical era. By the 10th century, most of Germany had become part of the Holy Roman Empire, until its dissolution in the 19th century. Germany as we know it today first came into existence in 1871 when the German states, under the leadership of Prussia, unified into s single country. Germany has also played a major part in the development of Christianity throughout the Western world, with the protestant reformation initiated by Martin Luther having its origins in the northern German regions. Germany has been home to some of the most popular and influential writers, artists, musicians and philosophers in the history of Western civilisation, including Rubens, Bach, Handel, Beethoven, Goethe, Kant, Nietzsche, and the Brothers Grimm, to name but a few. Clothing German dress is typically Western, and in a business context, dark and simple suits with shirts and ties are the norm. Germany does also have a rich heritage of traditional dress, with significant variation throughout the different parts of the country. Perhaps the most famous of these are the costumes traditionally associated with the state of Bavaria, in the south of the country. This costume typically includes Lederhosen for men: leather trousers which end above the knee. For women, the famous outfit is known as the Dirndl, a traditional type of dress incorporating a bodice, blouse, full skirt and an apron. These sorts of traditional costumes will generally only be seen in tourist areas or during celebrations, such as the popular Oktoberfest. The German Language The official language of Germany is, perhaps unsurprisingly, German. German is from the West Germanic family of languages, which also includes Dutch, Afrikaans and English, and is also a major language in Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Belgium, amongst others. The German language has also been influenced by the languages of other European countries, including English and French. In recent history, more and more English words are entering into or affecting the German lexicon, and such terms are commonly referred to as “Denglisch”. The German language has also itself had an impact on many other languages. For example, here are some words commonly used in English that are German in origin: Aspirin Deli Doppelganger Abseil Poltergeist Rucksack Seltzer Eiderdown Bagel Hamster Etiquette & customs One of the core principles of German life is organisation. German people pride themselves on being highly organised, both in their professional and personal lives and in maintaining a balance between the 2. As such, a respect for rules and laws in Germany goes without saying. One thing that often catches out foreign visitors is the rules on jay-walking, which are often strictly enforced and can result in on-the-spot fines if you cross the road somewhere other than at a designated pedestrian crossing. In Germany, work and personal lives are generally kept quite separate, and therefore if you are invited to a dinner or a social gathering with colleagues, it may not be appropriate to try and use the occasion as an opportunity to continue discussing business. German houses are generally considered part of the sphere of private, rather than personal life, so if you are in the country on business, it would be unusual for you to be invited to someone’s home. If you are invited over for a meal, then make sure to arrive on time, as punctuality indicates respect and good organisation. It would also be a good idea to bring a small gift, such as flowers, wine or chocolates. Expect any gifts you give to be opened straight away. Religion The majority religion in Germany is Christianity, with about two thirds of the population adhering to Protestantism and one third to Roman Catholicism. As mentioned, Germany is the home and centre of the protestant reformation, a major schism from the Catholic Church, and ever since Protestantism has been by far the most popular religion in the country. Advice for doing business in Germany Introductions When meeting Germans for the first time in a business context, short and firm handshakes are the normal greeting. Make sure you maintain eye contact throughout, though avoid staring for uncomfortably long. German people set great store by titles and qualifications, so if someone does have a doctorate or a degree, make sure you refer to them as DR. or whatever their title may be. This point is also worth bearing in mind for business cards – the more letters you can put after your name the more impressed your German colleagues will be. Business Meetings Plan meetings well in advance, so that people have time to work them into their schedules and do any necessary preparatory work. Punctuality is very important in Germany, so make sure that you arrive on time and ready to start. Being early could be considered as much of a misstep as being late, as it shows poor planning, so do not arrive more than a few minutes before the scheduled time. Germans like to analyse and review information in detail before coming to a decision. Make sure you have plenty of facts and information prepared to aid this process and to support the points that you are trying to make. Be patient, and do not try to rush people to make a decision, as they may feel that you are being overly aggressive and trying to circumvent the application of proper process and procedure. Also, avoid surprising German colleagues with unexpected information or a change in direction, as in doing so you would be taking away their opportunity to plan how to deal with the topic, which will not make you any friends. Advice and tips for relocating to Germany Germany is the second most popular country in the world for immigrants, with its h3 economy and burgeoning culture acting as major draws for expats. If you are thinking of relocating to Germany, then here are a few useful tips that may come in handy: If you are moving to Germany, then it is possible you may want to bring a lot of your stuff with you. If this is the case, then be aware that your possessions, including cars and electronics, will be expected to conform to the letter to all the rules and regulations that govern them, so you may need to get things modified to meet the standards. Visa requirements for moving to Germany vary from country to country. Germany is part of the EU and the Schengen Area, and as such nationals from other EU member states do not need a visa to enter the country. If you are planning to stay in the country for more than 90 days, then you must register at your local registration office (Einwohnermeldeamt) within the first 2 weeks after your arrival. If you move to a different municipality within the country, you will also need to go through this registration process again in the new location. You also need to de-register when you leave. German Translation Services From Kwintessential If you’re conducting business or relocating to business we can help with any German translation needs you may have. We have a certified translation service for important documents, legal translations and even business translation services available. Get in touch for more information today. |
The FFP Machine Implemented With An FPGA - Kevin Secretan : If you're interested in reduction machines for functional programs in general, especially ones that work and have had three years of development as opposed to three weeks, checkout these guys: The Reduceron : Also check out this Non-Von Neumann computer!As I previously hinted , I worked on an FFP Machine recently for a school project. Unfortunately I only had about three weeks to work on it (along with everything else going on), so that time was largely spent justthe FFP Machine, and I didn't get very far in the code. (The code referenced in the paper to download doesn't even compile to Verilog yet, and I've actually scrapped what's there in a new project that I'll share if I work more on it. Also, the school won't have copyright over the new project.)So my paper is largely a summarization of what the FFP Machine is and does, along with a collection of the best resources I found out there in case you want to learn more. I also may convert parts of it into a Wikipedia page since once does not currently exist for the FFP Machine. If you have any questions (or want any of the papers in the sources) feel free to email me (see the About page at the top), though I can't guarantee I'll be able to help. Anyway, below is my Paper in HTML form, for the benefit of Google and for my own word-count tracker. If you want to read on, I highly recommend reading the PDF version outputted from LaTeX. It is uploaded here Abstract 1 Introduction 1.1 Goal 1.2 Background 1.2.1 The FFP Language and Machine (+ :<4, 6, 8>) 1.2.2 Further Reading 2 Methods, Techniques, and Design 2.1 Software 2.1.1 Tools 2.1.2 Building top_level.py 2.2 FFP Machine Design While researching hardware specializations for functional programming such as the LISP Machine, I discovered several papers on the Formal Functional Programming (FFP) Machine. The architecture relies on a set of small-grain processors working concurrently on a program expression to reduce it to an answer, which made the project a good candidate for implementation on an FPGA. I proceeded to implement the necessary parts of the FFP Machine, however as of this writing I have not finished a programmable version. With a few more man-days of work, it would still be a limited implementation meant as proof-of-concept and groundwork for future projects. I found it difficult to build as this was my first large-scale project using an FPGA, though I can describe the intended functionality of program reduction in action and explain the parallelism. This paper will focus on a summary of what the FFP Machine is and some implementation details.The goal of this project was to implement the necessary pieces of the FFP Machine and demonstrate the functionality to an enough extent that it serves as a proof of concept. The project involved learning about hardware design languages in general, learning the architecture of the FFP Machine, and building it. Due to time constraints a fully general form of the machine could not be built, but I aimed to lay the groundwork to potentially build upon in the future. The source code is in Python using the MyHDL library so it can be extended and edited easily for future work.I first heard of the FFP Machine while researching hardware implementations for Scheme, a dialect of Lisp. I found the dissertation[3], which as its third implementation discusses compiling Scheme to the FFP Language for execution on the FFP Machine. To my knowledge, the FFP Machine has never before been implemented on an FPGA, and any implementations at all do not exist in a form that I can access. The dissertation[2] provides many useful implementation details for building and simulating the FFP Machine and reasoning about the performance of programs written for it, but nevertheless the paper does not reveal an actual implementation to "try at home".The FFP Machine is an architecture designed to execute programs written in the FFP language, first specified by John Backus in his Turing Award Lecture.[1] The FFP language is a (formal) functional programming language similar to Lisp but with many syntactic sugaring removed in order to make it suitable for machine execution. The language works via program reduction rather than evaluation, and by implementing it in a parallel environment such as an FPGA board it can do many operations normally considered to take linear time (such as summing a list of numbers) in constant time.A simple FFP program iswhich reduces to the value 18. From this simple program an intuition can be formed of what syntactical elements the FFP Language has available to it: all expressions start with a left parenthesis and are immediately followed by a function (or a sub-expression that reduces to a function), such as +, which will correspond to a "machine code" primitive executed by the FPGA, which for the case of this project is written in MyHDL. The colon separates the function from its arguments, and the angle brackets denote a list whose elements are separated by commas. At present the user of my implementation must write the FFP program in a slightly lower-level fashion, but a compiler to that lower-level shouldn't require too much work. Rather than spend time on that, however, it might be better to design a string interpreter directly on the FPGA to evaluate strings on the fly and avoid any compilation at all!Gyula Magó produced an excellent paper[6] calledwhich goes into the nitty-gritty details of the architecture and overall design of the FFP Machine and has served as my primary reference, and also is where the examples given in this paper come from. This paper presents a heavily summarized view of the FFP machine and deals more with the specific HDL implementations of the parts I got working rather than the system as a whole.Originally the goal was to use straight Verilog to implement the FFP Machine, since it was known and compilation was simple using Quartus' IDE. As I learned more about Verilog, however, I discovered MyHDL which provides a mechanism for writing Python code that compiles down to either Verilog or VHDL. I chose to use MyHDL instead as the syntax is cleaner, I have access to Python's power, and certain historical warts involving blocking vs. non-blocking statements and dealing with signed vs. unsigned integers in Verilog could be avoided. In the end I compile everything down to Verilog for final loading into Quartus' IDE which can program Altera's DE2 FPGA development board with my FFP Machine and some program to run.In order to build a program in the FFP Language and load it onto my FFP Machine, it is necessary to write the principal representation of the FFP expression yourself and stick it into themodule, then run Python with the MyHDL module to convert it into Verilog which you can then use to program an FPGA. Future work on this step includes having a routine in Verilog that can read the program off an SD card instead of bundling it with the FFP Machine itself.This is a summary of the FFP Machine architecture described by Magó in hispaper. At the highest level, an FFP Machine consists of an interprocess communication network of T-cells (Tree) connected at the Leaves to an array of L-cells. Figure 1: FFP high-level overview. (+ :<4, 6, 8>) Each L-cell holds exactly one symbol in the FFP expression, hence the programis represented in the array of L-cells, called the, as: Figure 2: Principal Representation of a program (TR : <<2, 4, 6>, <3, 5, 7>>) Note that since each L-cell holds one symbol this reduces the FFP language syntax, no longer requiring colons (since the first symbol after a parenthesis is either a function or a sub-expression that reduces to a function) or commas (since the boundaries of the L-cell act as delimiters).Theof a program is constructed dynamically within the L-cells, and it consists of three pieces of data: some number of, a(rln), and an. To illustrate this form of expression, I will use the more interesting programwhereis the matrix transpose function.Figure 3 helps explain selectors, which designate theto reach some node if the principal representation is made into a tree. Hence the path (2,1,2) represents the number 4, while the path (1) denotes the function TR. (The path could also be represented as (1,0,0), since 0's denote an end.) The RLN is seen as the height of the node in the tree, and the index is simply the index into the array of L-cells for each item. Table 1 shows both the principal representation of this program and the auxiliary representation information. Figure 3: The tree-form of the FFP expression (TR : <<2, 4, 6>, <3, 5, 7>>) . Edges of the tree are the selector values. Principal: ( TR < < 2 4 6 > < 3 5 7 > > ) 1st selector 0 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 0 2nd selector 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 0 0 3rd selector 0 0 0 0 1 2 3 0 0 1 2 3 0 0 0 rln 0 1 1 2 3 3 3 2 2 3 3 3 2 1 0 index 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 (TR : <<2, 4, 6>, <3, 5, 7>>) 2.3 Running a program 2.4 Message passing 2.4.1 T Cells : Auxiliary Representation ofComputing the auxiliary representation is described further on.One machine cycle consists of three: partitioning, execution, and storage management. This corresponds to having a global phase Signal in HDL that can activate different branches of code.Partitioning is where the machine locates any programs that can be reduced, then partitions the communication network of T cells to match up with the L cells to reduce. The actual actions it does in the T-network are described later on.Execution consists of initialization, which will only happen once, and actual execution which may be suspended and resumed in a further machine cycle. Initialization consists of requesting whatever primitive program is needed if an L-cell contains a function, creating the auxiliary representation of the program, and receiving the L-cell primitive. The execution part executes the local program it received by communicating in the T-cell network with message waves, and at the end either requests extra space and suspends execution. My implementation does not contain the space-request feature. The primitive code that is run is different than a standard program and may also use the T-cell network for processing, though not always.Storage management changes the principal representation in the L-array by erasing cells and rewriting values, also creating empty L-cells and moving things around if any were requested by the execution phase. My implementation just does the remapping then scans for any singular result it can bring back to display on the output.The partitioning phase sets the two partitioning switches (shown in Figure 4) in each T cell to one of four possible configurations (shown in Figure 5). The configurations determine which messages can be sent by the two children of each T cell, and they are determined by whether or not subtrees contain parentheses which denote reducible programs. Figure 4: Shows the partitioning switches. The inner circle is a message processor. Figure 5: The four partitioning configurations whose leaf nodes contain some portion of an application. -- : there are no parentheses in the subtree (): the leftmost parenthesis is "(" and the rightmost is ")" ((: the leftmost is "(" and the rightmost is "(" )): the leftmost is ")" and the rightmost is ")" )(: the leftmost is ")" and the rightmost is "(" Partitioning is done in a parallel operation where each L-cell sends its information about parentheses up the network of trees. Each T-cell in turn processes the information in the two child-messages and sends it up to its parent T-cell. By the time it reaches the root node, the partitioning has been completed.Switches are set according to whether subtrees contain parentheses: if the left (and correspondingly right) subtree contains no parentheses, the left (and respectively right) partitioning switch of the T cell is set to the inward position.Each message consists of one of five possible values (encoded as 0 through 4 (requiring 3 bits)) depending on the information about its children nodes:For the programs I'm interested in initially demonstrating the messages will be either -- or () at the top of the tree. A handy guide to determine which message packet should be sent to the parent is given in Table 2. (If a subtree contains only one parenthesis, then it's both left and rightmost, so this happens at the T cells closer to the L-cells.) R X L -- () (( )) )( -- -- () (( )) )( () () () (( () (( (( (( () (( ()* ((* )) )) )) )( )) )( )( )( )) )( ))* )(* 2.5 Computing Auxiliary Representation i i i 1 2 i i 2.6 HDL Representations 2.6.1 Primitive programs 1 2 3 3 Design Verification IP === <CMP,+,<ATA,*>,TR> (<CMP,f 1 ,f 2 , ... ,f n >:x) --> (f 1 :(f 2 :( ... (f n :x) ... ))) (<ATA,f>:<x 1 ,x 2 , ... ,x n >) --> <(f:x 1 ),(f:x 2 $), ... ,(f:x n )> apply (IP:<<1,2,3>,<3,4,5>>) (CMP,+,<ATA,*>,TR>:<<1,2,3>,<3,4,5>>) (+:(<ATA,*>:(TR:<<1,2,3>,<3,4,5>>))) (+:(<ATA,*>:<<1,3>,<2,4>,<3,5>>)) (+:<(*:<1,3>),(*:<2,4>),(*:<3,5>)>) (+:<3,8,15>) sum(k*v for (k,v) in zip(*[(1,2,3),(3,4,5)])) zip(*matrix) 4 Discussion 4.1 Scope 4.2 Implications for a successful implementation 4.3 Source code 5 Conclusions and Future Work 6 Acknowledgments Thanks to Nick Rivera, for instructing me on Verilog and HDL-in-general. Thanks to Jeremy Thomas, for providing me with some of the papers I needed. Thanks to Gyula Magó, wherever you are these days, for writing clearly on the FFP Machine and making it an interesting thing to learn about. References J. Backus. Can Programming Be Liberated from the von Neumann Style? A functional Style and its Algebra of Programs. Communications of the ACM, 21, 8, pages 613--641, 1978. URL: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.72.2622&rep=rep1&type=pdf. S. Danforth. DOT, A Distributed Operating System Model of a Tree-Structured Multi-processor. PhD thesis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1983. URL: http://www.cs.unc.edu/Publications/full_dissertations/danforth_dissertation.pdf. R. Kent Dybvig. Three Implementation Models for Scheme. PhD thesis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1987. URL: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.66.786&rep=rep1&type=pdf. Alexis Koster. Compiling APL for parallel execution on an FFP machine. SIGAPL APL Quote Quad, 15:29--37, May 1985. URL: http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=255315.255327. Gyula Magó. Data sharing in an FFP machine. In Proceedings of the 1982 ACM symposium on LISP and functional programming, LFP '82, pages 201--207, New York, NY, USA, 1982. ACM. URL: http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/800068.802151. Gyula Magó and Donald F. Stanat. The FFP Machine. In High Level Language Computer Architecture, pages 430--468. Computer Science Press, 1989. URL: http://www.amazon.com/High-level-language-computer-architecture-Advances/dp/0881751324. David Plaisted. An architecture for fast data movement in the FFP machine. In Jean-Pierre Jouannaud, editor, Functional Programming Languages and Computer Architecture, volume 201 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pages 147--163. Springer Berlin / Heidelberg, 1985. 10.1007/3-540-15975-4_35 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/3-540-15975-4_35. Posted on 2011-05-04 by Jach : Computing which message to send to the parent T-cell, the horizontal axis is the right subtree, the vertical axis is the left subtree. The four items marked with an asterisk designate that the sending T-cell is an effective "root".The auxiliary representation is computed using the T-cells. Each L-cell sends anmessage through the network and when that message hits a root node, that root broadcasts a message in aback to each L-cell which stores the necessary data. Thus it only takes logarithmic time in the number of L-cells to compute the values.On the upsweep, ifcomes in the left child of a T cell andcomes in on the right child communication channel, the T cell sendsup to its parent. On the downsweep, if the numbercomes in from the parent, the T cell sendsto its left child and(hence it must storeon the upsweep) to its right child. The root node starts withThe index computation for this implementation is trivial because it is already known at compile-time, and so it will just be "baked in" to the L cell on creation. (The user must feed in the principal representation as an array at compile-time.) As the program is reduced, however, calculating the index is as simple as making a cumulative sum through each element in the L array.The relative level number is trickier to calculate. For each elementin the L array, take the inputif the L cell holds an opening bracket or parenthesis,if the L cell holds a closing bracket or parenthesis, andotherwise. The cumulative sum gives the RLN at each node, except for those holding opening parentheses and angle brackets, which are one above what they should be, so subtract one from them to fix it. The highest RLN computed is the number of selectors there will be.Computing the selectors is done first by defining RLN' = 0 if the L cells hold closing parentheses or angle brackets, RLN' = RLN otherwise. A tuple of booleans is then sent as input to the L cell; the tuple's length is the max height of the tree, and the tuple's values are (if the height is 3) , which corresponds to (by summing up each element) . The tricky part here is that S2' resets to 0 if RLN' == 1, and S3' resets to 0 if RLN' == 1. After all is done, eachis the value of' if the RLN is larger than or equal to i, and 0 otherwise. (Thus for example a < at RLN level 2 will always have 0 as its third selector.)The source code implemented so far is fairly complicated, see below for where to retrieve it. For a brief summary, a T-cell contains 6 different Signals: a generic msg path, the signal line from its left child and from its right child, a signal line to its parent, a signal line controlling the direction of the sweep, and a signal line signaling the phase of the machine cycle. It has storage for its position switch status and whether or not it is a root node.An L-cell contains signals for the parent T-cell to send messages and the machine phase. It contains storage for the symbol itself, the index, the RLN, and its selectors (the last three determined in the execution phase with the help of the T-cell parent).L-cells request programs to act on or with them. The primitive programs implemented in HDL (or in this case, a mixture of Python and HDL) can be thought of as programmed in the Leaf-cell Programming Language (LPL).So far, only APNDL (append-to-the-left), LENGTH, and + are implemented. APNDL is defined as a simple boolean equation:, then erase the FFP symbol. LENGTH is defined as each L-cell sending its last selector up the tree, and the max is the result which is stored in the application symbol (all other L-cells are erased). + is defined as each L-cell sending itself and summing takes place along the way up the T-cell network, with the root node finally containing the result and sending it back down to store in the application symbol and erasing all other L-cells. These examples illustrate why the auxiliary representation is so important: it helps the LPL language be parallel and fast.The ultimate goal for demonstrating the FFP Machine in action is to reduce the programwhich computes the Inner Product of two arrays. The symboldesignates the Composition rewrite rule. It works as:. The symboldefines the rewrite rule "Apply to all" which works as:(this is analogous to Scheme'sprocedure). The symbolis the primitive function Transpose, which is the same as a mathematical matrix transpose.The program I wish to verify therefore is:. Following Magó in his article, the reduction is as follows. By the definition of, the program becomes (this should be done by the compiler but must currently be done by the user)By the definition of, this becomesBy the definition of, this becomesBy the definition of, this becomesBy the definition of *, this becomeswhich by the definition of + becomesIf a result can be obtained from the FFP Machine, its lowest bits are to be displayed on the red LEDs of the Altera FPGA demo board, with an on-light symbolizing 1. Hence after running the above the result should show the sequence "11010".Unfortunately this ultimate goal was too complicated to get working in the time available (rewrite rules are not implemented in the compiler or FPGA), so simpler programs are used instead, such as the final addition line, but even they do not yet run since the machine is not in a programmable state and needs further work.As a testament to the elegance of the FFP Language, however, here for comparison is an equivalent inner product program expressed in the Python programming language:. (acts as the transpose function.) Note that both Python and FFP support a language elegance not found in most low-level languages like C or various assemblies, and the FFP version enjoys a highly parallelized execution environment making it faster. (Magó actually defines a parallelized IP primitive in his paper.)This was really a semester-project at best rather than a month-long project (especially the final month of school), therefore the full objectives I had planned in the beginning were not realized and even my conservative estimates of what I would accomplish were not conservative enough. At best this is a starting point for a much larger project implementing the full machine with supporting tools, and may serve as a useful collection of resources for understanding the FFP machine and getting started on its implementation.The choice of MyHDL was also motivated by its heavy unit testing library in order to prove the correctness of my design, which if I had used it from the beginning may have helped get a programmable version up and running.One of the turn-offs from GPU programming is the low-level nature in which it must usually be done. A fully implemented FFP Machine provides a more pleasing interface to work with while maintaining the high parallelism people use GPUs for. It may even be worthwhile to explore implementing an FFP Machine on an existing GPU which may support certain optimizations a typical FPGA does not easily do.The source code, figures, and LaTeX file for this paper can all be found atWhile falling pretty far short of the original goals, I still consider the project to be useful as grounding for future improvements that I have mentioned off-hand previously. There is proof-of-concept here and the parallel execution can be demonstrated in argument through the use of the computed auxiliary representation.An immediate improvement (after getting it in a programmable state anyway) would be to extend the set of primitive instructions to the full richness described in Magó's paper. An interesting improvement would be writing a Scheme to FFP compiler, which presents interesting challenges due to high level features of Scheme such as continuations, closures, and recursive calls of anonymous lambda functions. In spirit with creating a Scheme compiler, another possibility is to implement an APL compiler which this paper[4] details.Another obvious improvement is designing a system for program loading from an SD card, which may actually be straight-forward using the NiOS core packaged with Quartus tools. One could further use SD as extended memory for holding all the L cells.The machine in general can be optimized as well. Magó discusses different compression methods for representing the FFP expression, though he does not use them later in his paper. Other optimizations have been outlined by other individuals, such as this paper[7] describing "An architecture for fast data movement in the FFP machine". Magó has another paper describing a more efficient method of data sharing within the FFP machine[5]. Tags: FFP Machine, FPGA, HDL, programming Permalink: https://www.thejach.com/view/id/172 Trackback URL: https://www.thejach.com/view/2011/5/the_ffp_machine_implemented_with_an_fpga Back to the top |
HOUSTON – The inauguration of the first American Spanish-language mosque in Houston six month ago has created a new understanding of the religion among Hispanics, with more reverts knocking its doors every now and then to learn about their faith. In its first months, Centro Islamico welcomed 28 new converts to Islam, according to Alex Gutierrez, Islam in Spanish’s development and operations director. “They were all Latinos – families, single mothers, couples with children,” he told Houston Chronicle on Tuesday, August 9. “We’ve had 10-year-old sisters; we’ve witnessed a grandmother accepting Islam.” The first Spanish-speaking Islamic center was opened in Houston, Texas, earlier this year in January. The new center followed years of hard work to provide Spanish translations of Islamic books by IslamInSpanish, a non-profit organization that educates Latinos about Islam in Spanish, and also to newly-convert Latino Americans. In its early years, IslamInSpanish issued more than 500 audio books and 250 videos, most of which were aired on public access television. More recently, it has directed attention to the internet. Sunday classes are streamed live, offering a worship option to Muslims unable to travel to the Houston mosque. “We reach viewers in Brazil, Spain, Argentina,” Gutierrez said. “We’ve had people tune in from Germany and Paris. We’re open to anybody, any Latinos anywhere in the world who are open to Islam.” In December, the non-profit will host the nation’s first Latino Muslim convention as part of the 2016 Texas Dawah Convention at the George R. Brown Convention Center. Latinos in the US are considered the fastest-growing demographic group of Muslims in America, according to a report by National Public Radio (NPR). New Life In the state where Latinos comprise almost 40 percent of population, stories of new reverts to Islam were recurrent in Texas. Mexican-born Maria Dawood is one of those reverts who grew up Catholic before embracing Islam about 40 years ago. She found it after a Muslim friend loaned her his Spanish-language Qur’an. “I couldn’t stop,” she said. “I continued reading. Once I finished, I started again. Every time I read it I found something new. This is what I had been looking for.” Like Dawood, Nahela Morales, 40, was born in Mexico to a Catholic family. “As far back as I can remember, I was always looking for God,” she said. But when she sought religious guidance from the most devout member of her family, her grandmother, she simply was admonished to “always believe.” “By my mid-20s, that wasn’t good enough,” said Morales, who today is “brand ambassador” for IslamInSpanish. Morales attended Mormon, Baptist and Jehovah’s Witness services. Angered by 9/11 attacks, she bought a copy of the holy Qur’an to know what Islam is about. What she found was surprising. “When I came across Islam, I was encouraged to ask questions. All my questions were answered,” she said. “I got a Bible to compare with the Qur’an. When I found that Islam didn’t disregard Jesus, that was a big deal with me. Islam doesn’t disregard any of the messengers and prophets – there’s room for Adam, Noah, Jesus and finally the Prophet Muhammad, peace be to them all.” For Dawood, the values of Islam comported with what she had been taught in her Catholic girlhood. “It teaches love and peace,” she said, adding that Islam offers direction on how to treat people, get along with parents, to engage in charity without judging the recipients. “When I travel and see someone in need, I give a dollar. What they do with it is up to them,” she said. IslamInSpanish founder Jaime Muhajid Fletcher, formerly a Houston gang member, was a searcher too. Classes at west Houston’s Elfarouq mosque brought him to the faith and saved his life. In a 2008 Houston Chronicle article, the Colombian native explained the transformative nature of his found faith. “I didn’t drink anymore. I didn’t smoke anymore. I didn’t go out,” he said. “Not because someone told me to stop, but because I would have felt dirty if I’d done it. It was a total change. … Deep inside, I wanted peace, and I wanted justice and for God to have given me Islam – it is what I hoped for all along.” |
Using a Soxhlet extractor to get out my highly fluorescent product from the tarry reaction mixture. The raw reaction product is placed in the upper part of the extractor in a paper thimble and it is continuously washed with fresh solvent (in this case acetone) till the extracted solution is fluorescent. The solution flows down to the flask at the bottom where it boils and gets back on the paper thimble. The extracted compound is concentrated in the bottom flask and at the end everything what I need from this mixture will be in that flask what already emits a very-very bright blue light under UV(: Soxhlet extractor is a piece of laboratory apparatus invented in 1879 by Franz von Soxhlet. It was originally designed for the extraction of a lipid from a solid material. Typically, a Soxhlet extraction is used when the desired compound has a limited solubility in a solvent, and the impurity is insoluble in that solvent. It allows for unmonitored and unmanaged operation while efficiently recycling a small amount of solvent to dissolve a larger amount of material. 9:30 pm • 6 October 2015 • 217 notes • View comments |
Buy Photo Claudia Perkins-Milton holds a copy of her Flint water bill at her home in Flint on Tuesday February 16, 2016. (Photo: Ryan Garza, Detroit Free Press)Buy Photo Officials say about half of residential Detroit water customers facing shutoffs in the past week have taken action to keep service. Detroit Water and Sewerage Department Director Gary Brown tells the Detroit News the department has been putting out 1,000 door hangers daily, alerting customers they have 10 days to take action on unpaid water bills or be cut off. Since the process began May 3, Brown says more than 3,000 — or about 50% — of tagged property owners came in and made a payment or enrolled in a plan. Brown says 1,860 had service interrupted, but 85% of them had service restored within 24 hours. Department officials have estimated that roughly 20,000 customers have defaulted on payments and are subject to having service turned off. Read or Share this story: http://on.freep.com/1T8KPje |
Bernie Sanders is ready for a contested Democratic convention, especially with the 1,430 pledged delegates that nobody at FiveThirtyEight, The Washington Post, or The New York Times imagined he’d have at this point. The same people who predicted Sanders would be done by March, are also the same people telling you Vermont’s Senator can’t win on July 25, 2016. While Bernie has defeated Clinton in10 of the past 16 contests, and has the political momentum to force a contested convention, few progressive writers dare to address the biggest story of this election. It’s the ongoing FBI investigation of Clinton’s emails, and not merely delegate count, that will hand Bernie Sanders the Democratic nomination. The Titanic is sinking, and instead of asking relevant questions, many observers are commenting on the spaciousness of the lifeboats, and how wonderful half the ship looks above water. According to ABC News, four years of Bryan Pagliano’s emails during his tenure at the State Department have vanished: The State Department said today it can’t find Bryan Pagliano’s emails from the time he served as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s senior information technology staffer during her tenure there. Pagliano would have been required to turn over any official communications from his work account before he left the government. State Department officials say he had an official email account, but that they can’t find any of those records he would have turned over and continue to search for them. “The Department has searched for Mr. Pagliano’s email pst file and has not located one that covers the time period of Secretary Clinton’s tenure,” State Department spokesman Elizabeth Trudeau said today, referencing a file format that holds email... It’s unclear why the State Department does not have his email records for the time her served as her IT director or whether or not he purposefully withheld them. First, Clinton’s staff deleted 31,830 emails from her private server. No, they weren’t all about yoga. Second, Pagliano was granted immunity since he was the person who set up Clinton’s server. Third, Clinton didn’t own the server merely for convenience; to believe that would be to believe her Bosnian sniper story. Fourth, this is an FBI criminal investigation, not a security review. Most importantly, former attorney general Michael Mukasey explains that “gross negligence,” not simply intent, is all that’s needed to prosecute Hillary Clinton under certain laws. Attorney general Mukasey’s argument is presented in a Wall Street Journal op-ed titled "Clinton’s Emails: A Criminal Charge Is Justified": The current news, reported in the Journal and elsewhere, is that her server contained information at the highest level of classification, known as SAP, or Special Access Program. This is a level so high that even the inspector general for the intelligence community who reported the discovery did not initially have clearance to examine it. The server also contained messages showing her contempt for classification procedures. This was bred at least in part by obvious familiarity with exactly “how it works”—such as when, an email shows, she directed a staff member simply to erase the heading on a classified document, converting it into “unpaper,” and send it on a “nonsecure” device... Whatever the findings from that part of the probe, intelligence-community investigators believe it is nearly certain that Mrs. Clinton’s server was hacked, possibly by the Chinese or the Russians. This raises the distinct possibility that she would be subject to blackmail in connection with those transactions and whatever else was on that server by people with hostile intent against this country... The simple proposition that everyone is equal before the law suggests that Mrs. Clinton’s state of mind — whether mere knowledge of what she was doing as to mishandling classified information; or gross negligence in the case of the mishandling of information relating to national defense; or bad intent as to actual or attempted destruction of email messages; or corrupt intent as to State Department business—justifies a criminal charge of one sort or another. Super delegates exist to ensure that people like Hillary Clinton don’t propel Donald Trump into the Oval Office. With Bernie Sanders, there’s no risk of DOJ indictments, and he defeats Trump by a wider margin than Clinton. If Clinton is the nominee, Donald Trump will ask this very simple question, and a question that’s relevant during the ongoing “War on Terror.” If ISIS hacked into Clinton’s server, what are the ramifications to America’s national security? The reality that terrorists represent a genuine cyber threat is addressed in a 2012 New York Times piece titled "F.B.I. Director Warns Congress About Terrorist Hacking": “Terrorists have shown interest in pursuing hacking skills,” Mr. Mueller said Wednesday in written testimony to a House appropriations subcommittee reviewing the bureau’s budget. “And they may seek to train their own recruits or hire outsiders, with an eye toward pursuing cyberattacks. These adaptations of the terrorist threat make the F.B.I.’s counterterrorism mission that much more difficult and challenging.” Mr. Mueller said that the federal government must act swiftly to prevent such attacks and economic espionage from other countries because they pose a “potentially devastating” threat to the country’s businesses and infrastructure. “We tend to focus on protecting our databases, protecting our infrastructure, which is absolutely an appropriate focus,” he said. “But we should not forget that you want to identify these individuals who are responsible for these crimes, investigate them, prosecute them and put them in jail for a substantial period of time.” If ISIS is also a cyber threat, then why aren’t Democratic super edelegates worried about this terrorist group potentially hacking into Clinton’s server? This genuine concern is highlighted in a Fortune article titled "For 3 months Hillary Clinton’s Email Access Was Unencrypted, Vulnerable to Spies": Security firm Venafi has found that Clinton’s email server may have been open to foreign intelligence snoops when traveling abroad... Venafi, a Salt Lake City computer security firm, has conducted an analysis of clintonemail.com and determined that “for the first three months of Secretary Clinton’s term, access to the server was not encrypted or authenticated with a digital certificate.” In other words: For three months, Clinton’s server lay vulnerable to snooping, hacking, and spoofing... “Longterm access is probably ultimately the worst consequence here,” Bocek said, raising the possibility that hackers could have obtained Clinton’s compromised credentials and used them to continue accessing her email archive even after a digital certificate was added in late March. The most likely threat though, Bocek added, is spying. “If the Department of State had been eavesdropped on while on diplomatic mission that could have jeopardized a whole variety of activities.” In fact, during that three month window during which Clinton’s email server apparently lacked encryption, she had traveled abroad. Hillary Clinton’s private server was vulnerable for three months. Thus, even after encryption, Clinton’s email server remained open to spies. Again, Clinton’s server was open to hackers for three months. Democratic super delegates should remember that three months is a long time to own an unguarded private server. If we know that foreign nations have already tried to compromise Clinton’s server, what happens if ISIS also tried to hack into her emails? Bernie Sanders is an infinitely better candidate, and everything from matchups against Trump to national favorability ratings prove that Vermont’s Senator does better in a general election than Clinton. Furthermore, Hillary Clinton will be interviewed by the FBI very soon, signifying the last phase of a year-long investigation. Even without indictments, the media firestorm will tarnish her already dreadful image among independents and swing voters. Imagine what takes place after indictments. It’s this question, along with many other flaws pertaining to Clinton’s candidacy, that will enable Bernie Sanders to win the contested Democratic convention. [This article first appeared on The Huffington Post] |
The Green Room has closed its doors again, following a brief relaunch last weekend. Although I've yet to get in contact with Jessie Tong, the individual who claims to be the establishment's new owner, the reason for this latest closure seems pretty straightforward: the restaurant was operating without a license. Inquiries made with Municipal Licensing and Standards reveal that while the Green Room did recently apply for a new license, that application was refused based on what ML&S representative Bruce Hawkins calls "concerns stemming from City of Toronto investigations." Should the latest version of the once popular Annex hangout hope to operate again, ownership "has until March 24th, 2011 to request a hearing before the Toronto Licensing Tribunal." So the saga continues. For more on what we know about the current status of the Green Room, check out our freshly updated article Inside the new Green Room. |
In Seattle and Portland, camp residents discuss Hillary Clinton’s emails and whether Donald Trump would take us ‘back to the dark ages’ Amyann Darden believes Ronald Reagan was America’s last great president. This election, she’s voting for Hillary Clinton. Darden, 55, used to manage an accounting firm. But her life changed after a nervous breakdown. Now relying on social security, she was forced to leave her Seattle apartment when the rent went from $950 to $1,450 a month. She’s been staying outdoors at Tent City 3, an encampment operated by homeless residents, while trying to save for a rental deposit. Over the last year, Portland, Seattle and the state of Hawaii have declared a state of emergency on homelessness, with other cities considering it. But in the presidential election, the issue is receiving minimal political attention. At homeless camps Hazelnut Grove in Portland and Tent City 3 in Seattle, the issues that led people to become homeless reflect on the issues facing many voters this election: soaring rent, debt, access to healthcare, discrimination. We asked several camp residents for their thoughts. Amyann Darden, 55: ‘Retaining social security is an important issue to me’ Facebook Twitter Pinterest Amyann Darden in Seattle. Photograph: Annabel Clark I was going to vote Republican but when I watched the convention and saw what Trump stood for, I thought, “No way.” His platform’s based on hatred and fear. I’m horrified that some of my friends still support him. Seen and not heard: homeless people absent from election even as ranks grow Read more So I’m voting for Hillary. Retaining social security is an important issue to me. I worked for 30 years and paid into it and then became disabled. I’m very afraid it will be phased out during a Trump presidency. I was staying in motel rooms before I came to Tent City. I use my son’s address for everything; he’s in community living as he has schizophrenia. My ballot will be going there. I want to stay in Seattle to be close to my children and grandchildren. My daughter doesn’t know I’m at the camp. She has a lot of money and has helped me pay off some medical bills to raise my credit score and I don’t want to ask for further help right now; eventually I will be disabled to a point where I will need care and I’ll need to ask then. Zoe White, 34: ‘I’ll probably vote for Jill Stein’ Facebook Twitter Pinterest Zoe White in Portland. Photograph: Annabel Clark I’ve voted every year I’ve been eligible. Generally Green or Socialist, sometimes Democrat. I’ll probably vote for Jill Stein this year. There’s no representation of ecologists, left causes or democratic socialism anywhere else. I see Hillary Clinton as having a liberal wrapper around a traditionalist core. I don’t know whose interests she’s going to sell out to, but I’m pretty sure she’s going to sell out. I voted for Bernie Sanders in the primary election. Now he’s telling people to vote for Hillary; I’m disappointed in him. There are many misconceptions of houseless people. First of all, that we don’t work – we do. I had a job for a long time at a country club. I would say through that I’ve been subject to employment discrimination as a female who’s trans. There are also the insinuations that we’re lazy, use drugs, we’re all thieves. In Hazelnut Grove, where I’m lucky enough to live, we’re an intentional community. If you steal from someone, you’re run the hell out. Here there’s the idea that if you put into the community, the community reciprocates. I feel like that type of culture is being squeezed out during the gentrification process [of Portland]. Property values are taking precedence over community. Andrew Constantino, 41: ‘I have to watch the train wreck’ Facebook Twitter Pinterest Andrew Constantino in Seattle. Photograph: Annabel Clark I’m voting for Hillary. On her own merits, she’s committed to social issues and doing good. I would never even consider voting for Trump. But I have to watch the train wreck; I cannot stop myself. Some people think anyone getting government assistance automatically votes liberal, but that’s absolutely not true. You hear all these Trump lovers here. I try telling them, “Do you realize he’s the type of person who doesn’t care about anything that’s ever happened to you?” But it’s like being with your family at Thanksgiving; you try avoiding those conversations because they go nowhere. I’ve lived in Seattle for almost 20 years. It’s become more and more expensive to survive. When my girlfriend and I lost our jobs very close together, we burned through our savings. We’re both working full time again, but it’s just that there are no good options. I refuse to pay some exorbitant amount of rent to live in absolute poverty. I’d rather do this until there’s a reasonable option. Roxy Garske, 58: ‘I don’t trust Hillary after the emails’ Facebook Twitter Pinterest Roxy Garske in Seattle. Photograph: Annabel Clark I’m voting for Gary Johnson because he’s not one of the other two. I don’t like Hillary because I don’t believe what she says; I don’t trust her after the emails. I think she’s too rightwing. She’s more interested in the needs of the rich and powerful. If I could only vote between her and Trump, I’d choose her. The thought of him winning scares me, especially for women. I’ve got two daughters and two granddaughters. If he’s voted in, he’ll turn back the clock. He’s already stirring up trouble by getting people worried about immigrants. None of the candidates are addressing homelessness. It’s an invisible society. Lots of people here don’t know they can vote. But when we had a voter drive, around 30 people registered and were excited to find they could vote. I have peripheral neuropathy and spinal stenosis. This is the second time I’ve been homeless. About five years ago, my husband said, “I’m going to get stuck taking care of you.” He said he wanted a divorce, which is fine. I was homeless while I waited for the settlement but then I got a house. I had to go into hospital and while I was very unwell; I lost my house. It went into foreclosure in July. I stayed with friends but they’ve got some other people staying there now, but I’m going back when they’re gone. I’m just here for a month. Marvin Ross, 56: ‘A woman will be better off running the country’ Facebook Twitter Pinterest Marvin Ross in Portland. Photograph: Annabel Clark Donald Trump is not important to me. He’s not down for the people. He’s got all this money so he doesn’t care what happens to the United States. I don’t see how being president is important to him. Why would he want to step down? I think a woman will be better off running the country than a man anyway. Look at how long men have run this country and how they’ve messed it up. I haven’t always voted but when I have, it’s been Democrat. Right now, I’m living in a big tent. I’ve got a real bed. My clothes on hangers. All my CDs. I’m here for the long term. I’m building my own tiny house; I’m just waiting for more wood. I’ve never built a house before; I’m learning from watching others. I’ve got a criminal background for drug possession that keeps me from renting. But I’ve never tried to rent. I’ve lived with girlfriends and family members. I came here to be alone. Lori Perry, 39: ‘If I don’t vote, I’ve got no right to bitch’ Facebook Twitter Pinterest Lori Perry in Seattle. Photograph: Annabel Clark I don’t think about politics much. My priorities are spending time with my husband, getting away from the camp, my kids and grandkids. Mostly what goes through my head is flashbacks. I looked the candidates up on Google once. I can’t really do news. What’s happening in front of me right now, today, is what matters. But it’s still important to me to cast my vote because if I don’t vote, I’ve got no right to bitch. I want to vote for Bernie Sanders, so I’m going to write his name in. If I had to choose between Trump and Clinton, I’d choose Trump because I’m not sure about a woman having that much control yet. I respect Trump because he’s built everything from nothing. But I don’t think he’s the right guy for the job. It’s all kind of confusing in my head. I moved my husband and myself here in July. He has Parkinson’s and this is where he gets treated. We came from Alaska where we could get housing but we were in drugs real bad. We were doing marijuana and meth. We can’t afford rent here but if we return, I know he’ll go right back to it. He’s angry at me for keeping us homeless. But we’re doing good. We’ve been sober since July. I still drink once in a while. We got a room on Monday and I got six beers. Cierra Discher, 30: ‘I’m voting for Trump’ Facebook Twitter Pinterest Cierra Discher in Seattle. Photograph: Annabel Clark I’m voting for Trump. A woman in charge is probably not what we need. But I don’t know anything about it. I’ve got bigger fish to fry. It really doesn’t affect my immediate life. I mean if somebody else was president, would I still be sitting here? Probably. But I hear it’s better to vote for the wrong person than not at all. And I’m registered. Last night was my first night on the streets. I slept behind a building. This will be my first night at Tent City 3 – they’ve just given me a tent. I was staying at my boyfriend’s but I found out he was Mexican drug mafia. I left while he was at work and went to a hotel for two days. I used meth yesterday so I’m pretty emotional. I’m about to go into treatment. I’ve waited two months for that and hopefully it will get me on my feet. My ballot will go to my mom’s house. We don’t talk but I go to hers on the 10th of every month and she leaves me my mail. Leashia McDaniels, 24: ‘None of my friends vote’ Facebook Twitter Pinterest Leashia McDaniels in Portland. Photograph: Annabel Clark I’m not registered to vote. Politics has always seemed kind of boring to me. I don’t feel like it has an effect on my life. None of my friends vote. My mom’s side was more Republican but I don’t think she votes any more. I don’t know anything about my dad’s side. From what I’ve heard of Donald Trump, he’s an ass. I don’t know too much about Hillary Clinton. I became homeless three years ago. I got kicked out of my mom’s house because her boyfriend didn’t approve of the relationship I was in. I started using meth and kept on it for almost two years. I’ve been at Hazelnut Grove since March. Being here has kept me clean. A lot of people have helped and supported me. If I was somewhere else I’d be back where I was a year ago. I’m usually pretty much a loner; I’ve never been much of a people person. But I’m learning to get along with people better now. Joseph ‘Tequila’ Gordon, 36: ‘This earth is our home but home’s going to die’ Facebook Twitter Pinterest Joseph Gordon in Portland. Photograph: Annabel Clark Climate change is my number one issue. This earth is our home but home’s going to die. And we’re stuck on what? Bathrooms? Bernie Sanders was addressing the issues I was concerned with. He kept Hillary on her toes and changed her focus. I don’t see her as a leader, though. I don’t have anyone to vote for but I’m still sending in the ballot. I always vote. My mother’s white and my father was black. She always told us society is going to treat us black. She’d say: “The way your people have been treated? You’re going to vote.” If there’s a protest, I’m there. I used to protest by myself in Cincinnati, where I’m from. My first protest was in sixth grade to stop the drilling in Antarctica. I’d watched something on PBS about it. I tried to join the International Socialist Organization when they started a chapter there. But it was pretty bougie. They’d complain about the problems, then go to a coffee shop to buy a $7 latte, walking past a homeless person on the way out. I love Portland. The people are awesome. But there’s not enough housing for the population. And the housing policies are causing a lot of houselessness. Like no-cause evictions [in which a landlord can terminate a contract for no reason with 30 days’ notice] and the applications fee you have to pay every time you apply to rent somewhere. Some landlords keep a place vacant to take in lots of fees. Cody, 24, and Isaiah, 25: ‘We would go back to the dark ages with Trump’ Facebook Twitter Pinterest Cody and Isaiah in Seattle. Photograph: Annabel Clark [Cody Bowen] Hillary’s seen how people who are homeless are living. She’s helped non-profits that work with people in our situation. Trump’s attitude is more like, “If you don’t have money, you’re not worth anything.” Wealthy San Francisco tech investors bankroll bid to ban homeless camps Read more I was 16 when I first became homeless. It was because of my life choices, being homosexual. I come from a Southern Baptist family, where my father is a preacher and a chaplain in the army. I came home one day and he’d bought me a Greyhound ticket to Arizona, left my stuff on the front porch and changed the locks. [Isaiah Thomas] I’m voting for Hillary primarily to keep Trump out of office. I read that he’s planning on supporting supreme court candidates who want to overturn the marriage equality bill, which we’re planning on taking advantage of ourselves pretty soon. I never really cared much before about politics but as I’ve got older and realized how it affects our lives, I’ve started paying attention. We’ve come a long way in American society and I think we would go back to the dark ages with Trump. |
RICHMOND, Va. -- The highlight grab certainly jumps out -- not many could make a one-handed grab the way Terrelle Pryor did in practice on Tuesday. Then again, that’s a catch Pryor has worked on all offseason. During training sessions he’d make one-handed grabs, both with no one in front of him and then with a defender. It shows why Pryor should help Washington in the red zone -- and all over the field, really -- with his rare combination of size, speed and athleticism. Pryor can hurt teams on deep crossing patterns because of his speed. But don’t discount that he can fake a cross, break down and pivot back outside. He’s shown that ability, too. The key there is selling the initial route, and you can’t do that if you don’t have confidence you can pivot back out in time. Pryor can. He can hurt teams deep; because of that, corners must honor his speed -- and that leaves the comeback route open. Because he’s almost 6-foot-5, Pryor does not have the shiftiness of a smaller wideout. But he did show again Tuesday what he can do: After catching a deep inside route in front of corner Josh Norman, he was able to stop and cut back outside -- in part because he had a couple of yards of cushion -- to get past Norman. Pryor can run enough routes to be effective. It’s hard to say how productive he’ll be this season; the passing game still centers on tight end Jordan Reed, and receiver Jamison Crowder will get increased targets. Their consistency, and their familiarity with quarterback Kirk Cousins, matters. But even if Pryor is the third-leading receiver, he’ll get a lot of work. “I mean, he’s still one of the top guys in the league, and he just started playing,” Redskins coach Jay Gruden said. “He’s a physical freak. So we’re excited to have him, and we’re going to continue to work with him. We just have to keep working. Kirk and Terrelle just have to get together so they get on the same page -- get to know each other not only on the field but off the field.” That chemistry will matter for throws such as a back-shoulder one in the end zone (on which they connected Tuesday). Time will help with consistency. There’s been a lot of attention on Pryor in camp, but it’s warranted because of how he can contribute. Tuesday provided another reminder. Terrelle Pryor, a relative newcomer as a receiver, has shown he's a unique talent in Redskins training camp. Steve Helber/AP Other thoughts: 1. Another thought on the receivers. The Redskins lost one receiver with elite deep speed (DeSean Jackson) and another with extreme toughness (Pierre Garcon). Those qualities are tough to replace. Garcon could make those tough catches on third-and-4 surrounded by multiple defenders. It’s tough to say the Redskins will have a better passing game until we actually see players such as Pryor and Josh Doctson in games in this offense. But there’s no reason they can’t be very good in this area. They should be able to build an effective attack around Pryor, Crowder and Reed. Others can fill in gaps. Cousins needs to make it work. There’s change, but that doesn’t mean there should be issues. 2. Receiver blocking will be one area that’s greatly improved without Jackson. He wasn’t an effective blocker -- hardly a surprise to note that -- and it led to an imbalance. The Redskins had to compensate either by using Garcon more on the side the ball was going to or by inserting a wideout who was in games mostly to block (Ryan Grant). Defenses knew this, so they typically knew the Redskins would not run to Jackson’s side. Or if the Redskins did run his way, it might not be as effective. The Redskins like that all their receivers are willing blockers. It matters. Jackson’s playmaking ability will be missed, but in this area, the Redskins will improve. Play ESPN Fantasy Football More people play on ESPN than anywhere else. Join or create a league in the No. 1 Fantasy Football game! Sign up for free! 3. I wrote about this on Monday, but it bears repeating about rookie running back Samaje Perine. There’s a lot to like, but he’s also a work in progress in certain areas. During a blitz pickup drill, he struggled against linebacker Zach Brown, who powered through him and eventually knocked him to the ground. That’s clearly not a strength issue; it’s all about leverage and timing. It also says quite a bit about Brown. Perine catches the ball well, showing soft hands and good feet after the reception. But pass protection is a difficult task for rookie running backs, and until he gets that down, he’ll stay behind Rob Kelley. 4. Quarterback Colt McCoy led a crisp two-minute drill that served to remind of his value. McCoy clearly knows the offense well, which is why on this drive he was able to hit his plant step and release the ball. Yes, it came versus the No. 2 defensive unit, but McCoy was nonetheless effective. He’s a good insurance policy for Washington. 5. Rookie linebacker Ryan Anderson is another guy I harp on quite a bit. But it’s deserved. Anderson had several good rushes, one time getting around tight end Niles Paul, for a pressure. Anderson has plenty to learn (I mentioned Monday how he was more hesitant in some coverages; when he moves forward, he's more intuitive at this point), but the Redskins should feel good about his early work. |
Each year, we like to run a series of posts called "90-in-90." The idea is that we'll take a look at every player on the roster, from the very bottom to the top and break them down a few ways. This roster will certainly change, and some days we'll have more than one so it's not exactly 90 players in 90 days. At this point, it's a name we're keeping around for street cred. The San Francisco 49ers parted ways with Carlos Rogers, Tarell Brown, and Donte Whitner this offseason, opening the door for a lot of new faces in the secondary. One player who will compete to offer some depth in the secondary is Dontae Johnson. The 49ers used a fourth round pick in the 2014 NFL Draft to select Johnson out of N.C. State. The scouting reports are all pretty similar. Aside from some relatively short arms (31 1/2"), Johnson has all the physical tools. He stands 6'2 and weighed in at 200 pounds at the Combine. He ran a 4.45 40, and generally wowed. The primary negative, and it's kind of a biggy, is that he has a lot of work to do on his technique, and generally learning how to be a defensive back in the NFL. Johnson played both cornerback and safety in college. In the offseason workout program he focused primarily on cornerback. Given the work he has to do to improve at some of the basics, I could see the 49ers working him in slowly at cornerback, and maybe eventually getting him some more time at safety. Here are a few scouting reports: NFL.com ESPN.com CBS Sports NN Expected 2014 impact: Johnson will compete along the outside, but with Tramaine Brock locked in as one starting cornerback, Johnson is left to compete with Chris Culliver and Chris Cook for the other starting job. I would be surprised if Johnson claimed that role, and really, he could end up being a relatively frequent inactive player in his first year. Of course, if Culliver and/or Cook struggle this season, it opens the door for him. Culliver is trying to come back from a torn ACL, and Cook was wildly inconsistent during his time with the Minnesota Vikings. Odds of making the roster: A fourth round pick isn't guaranteed a lot of things, but it would be quite the surprise if he did not make the 53-man roster. The real question is how frequently he will be active. If the 49ers decide to get him some time at both cornerback and safety, that could boost his chances. If he focuses strictly on cornerback as a rookie and Cook and Culliver are holding their own, I suspect he will not be active too frequently. |
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