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Decades into the war on drugs, the world doesn't have much to show for it. The US is now in the middle of an opioid painkiller and heroin epidemic that has killed tens of thousands each year, despite tough-on-crime policies enforced under the drug war. Mexico has suffered from tens of thousands of deaths annually as the black market for drugs finances drug cartels that are so powerful they can wage war against governments and conquer cities. And drug use and trafficking haven't declined by an appreciable amount for decades. These circumstances led more than 1,000 world leaders, including Bernie Sanders, to call for an end to the "disastrous" war on drugs in a recent letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. But what exactly does it mean to end the war on drugs? Surely, almost no one wants to see cocaine or heroin sold at CVS. Some of the letter's signatories, such as Sanders, are just now coming around to marijuana legalization. It's hard to imagine they're willing to go much further with more dangerous drugs. At the same time, there is a great interest in pulling back or eliminating some of the unintended consequences of the drug war. In the US, the focus typically falls on the incarceration of nonviolent drug users and militarized expansion of police powers. Around the world, the war on drugs has an even more destabilizing impact: It creates a black market for drugs that finances criminal groups' violent operations, especially in poorer countries where drugs are produced and trafficked to wealthier nations (like the US). And this market is so lucrative that criminal groups are willing to go to war over it. But is it actually possible to draw back the harsh, punitive criminalization of drugs in America without ending up at full commercial legalization and gravely risking public health? Through interviews with some of the world's smartest drug policy experts and my review of the research, I put together three of the best ideas on dismantling the current system. These are by no means the only options for ending the war on drugs. But they are the ones that seemed, based on my reporting on the issue and data, to have the most merit. There were some points of agreement. Experts agreed that, regardless of how legal regimes change, countries should boost public health programs for drugs, including treatment and prevention. And whether drugs have medical use, such as marijuana or hallucinogens, is also something that can be evaluated separately. But there was a lot of disagreement about what legal regimes for drugs should look like. So here are the three plans that came from my conversations. Approach 1: Pull back harsh enforcement, but keep criminalization The most restrictive approach, from drug policy expert Jon Caulkins at Carnegie Mellon University, would potentially scale back the enforcement of some drug crimes to eliminate excessive penalties for nonviolent drug offenders, while keeping criminalization in place to, in theory, keep drugs less accessible. The idea is that the severity of punishment doesn't matter much to stopping drug use. A 2014 study from Peter Reuter at the University of Maryland and Harold Pollack at the University of Chicago found there's no good evidence that tougher punishments or harsher supply-elimination efforts, such as crop eradication, do a better job of pushing down access to drugs and substance abuse than lighter penalties. So increasing the severity of enforcement or punishments doesn't do much, if anything, to slow the flow of drugs. But the simple act of making something illegal does make drugs more expensive and less accessible, Caulkins said. His 2014 study suggested that prohibition multiplies the price of hard drugs like cocaine by as much as 10 times. And illicit drugs obviously aren't available through easy means, since drugs aren't easily sold. So the drug war is likely stopping some drug use: Caulkins estimated that legalization could lead hard drug abuse to triple or more. Still, Caulkins said, "There's a lot of opportunity for rejiggering enforcement to get the whole mindset shifted from 'let's maximize the amount of punishment inflicted' to 'let's minimize the amount of punishment inflicted subject to the constraint that we do suppress the flagrant [drug] markets.'" "There's a lot of opportunity for rejiggering enforcement to get the whole mindset shifted" Caulkins said the idea is that the public will clearly signal to law enforcement that they only want police and prosecutors to go after drug dealers and traffickers, especially violent ones, but not users. He believes police can be trusted with this kind of discretion, without any changes to the law, as long as they get clear guidance on priorities from the public. Caulkins acknowledges that this idea would run into a major criticism: Many people believe that police can't be forced to act less punitive unless policies change. That belief is one driver for support for decriminalization, when harsher criminal penalties (jail or prison time) are replaced with a civil fine for possession of small amounts of drugs. Supporters argue that since the research shows severity of punishment doesn't much matter, keeping drugs illegal but decriminalizing small amounts of them could maintain the benefits of prohibition (making drugs less accessible through illegality) but also cut down on arrests of nonviolent drug users. But Caulkins argued against using the research on severity of punishment to support decriminalization. "It is possible to over-learn that story," he said. "If you switch from something truly being a crime to something having a $10 ticket — like if robbery were only punishable by a $10 civil ticket, like a parking ticket — that might make a difference to some robbers." Caulkins said decriminalization could make it much harder to crack down on drug dealers, because law enforcement often uses simple possession laws to go after dealers when they can't prove an intent to sell. "It will complicate enforcement against sellers at the retail level," he said. "Sellers at the retail level are not so often observed to be in the process of making a sale. Often, the sellers get arrested for possession, because they are possessing the amount they're out there to sell. So decriminalizing possession makes it harder to enforce against retail sellers." "[Decriminalization] will complicate enforcement against sellers at the retail level" So if law enforcement can continue using possession crimes to go after dealers, then they can be kept off the streets — and not engage in the violence and turf wars that tend to come with outdoor drug markets. Caulkins also worries that decriminalization could lead to more drug use in general. If this holds, decriminalization could actually make drug-related violence worse — since demand (and subsequently the profitability) of drugs would go up, making them more lucrative for violent criminal groups. The data on this is mixed. After Portugal decriminalized all drugs in 2001, the country saw a decrease in drug-related deaths and drops in reported past-year and past-month drug use, according to a 2014 report from the Transform Drug Policy Foundation. But it also saw an increase in lifetime prevalence of drug use, as well as an uptick in reported use among teens after 2007. Caulkins said these statistics are weak, since they don't control for other variables. So it's possible that decriminalization pushes up drug use, but other factors — changing cultural fads and other policies — push down use more than decriminalization pushes it up. For example, when Portugal decriminalized drugs, it also adopted special commissions that attempt to connect drug addicts to treatment. Although the success of these commissions has yet to be thoroughly evaluated, it is possible that even as decriminalization increased drug use, the commissions and more access to treatment got so many people off drugs that drug use still fell overall. The uncertainty makes Caulkins, who characterizes himself as "a worrier" and "a father of teenagers," cautious of moving too far ahead with relaxing drug laws. So he prefers, instead, to tweak the current model instead of moving too far away from it. Approach 2: Decriminalization, smart prohibition, and smart legalization Another possibility is to pull back the drug war even further through decriminalization, but significantly alter how governments enforce prohibition and regulate legal drugs. Mark Kleiman, a drug policy expert at the New York University's Marron Institute, calls this approach "smart prohibition" and "smart legalization." "Smart prohibition would try to maintain the gains we have made in terms of drug abuse compared to the legal market with as little ancillary damage as possible," he said. "And smart legalization would try to eliminate the ancillary damage with as little harm on the public health side as possible." Kleiman elaborated on the two pillars: Smart prohibition would focus on penalizing and preventing problematic behaviors and actions surrounding drugs, rather than punishing mere drug use. For example, drug users could be punished for repeatedly stealing things to pay for a drug habit, but they would not be strictly punished if their drug habit was not harming anyone. And to the extent someone is punished, sentences would be generally lower and not carry as many punishments after jail or prison time (so convicted drug offenders wouldn't be barred, as they are today, from obtaining student loans or voting). would focus on penalizing and preventing problematic behaviors and actions surrounding drugs, rather than punishing mere drug use. For example, drug users could be punished for repeatedly stealing things to pay for a drug habit, but they would not be strictly punished if their drug habit was not harming anyone. And to the extent someone is punished, sentences would be generally lower and not carry as many punishments after jail or prison time (so convicted drug offenders wouldn't be barred, as they are today, from obtaining student loans or voting). Smart legalization would allow the use and sales of certain drugs, while minimizing the commercialization of legal drugs — by, for example, putting the state government in charge of drug sales or only allowing nonprofits to sell drugs. Generally, smart prohibition would apply to all the illicit drugs except marijuana and hallucinogens, and smart legalization would apply to alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and hallucinogens. In defense of this, Kleiman cites the research that shows harsher punishments don't deter criminal behavior much more than simply making something illegal does. "You need to distinguish between the effects of prohibition and the effects of enforcement," he said. "You'd be able to get a lot of the benefits of prohibition with relatively mild enforcement." In terms of actually accomplishing smart prohibition, small amounts of drug possession for any drug would be outright legalized to prevent the arrest of simple drug users. But trafficking and selling drugs would remain illegal to prohibit the establishment of legal markets that could increase access to drugs. And special systems would be put in place to discourage problematic drug-related behavior. Kleiman cited the 24/7 Sobriety Program that's seen success in curtailing alcohol abuse in South Dakota. The program effectively revokes people's right to drink if a court deems it necessary after an alcohol-related offense, such as drunk driving. To enforce this, officials monitor offenders through twice-a-day breathalyzer tests or a bracelet that can track blood alcohol level, and they jail offenders for one or two days for each failed test. Studies from the RAND Corporation have linked the program to drops in mortality, DUI arrests, and domestic violence arrests. "You'd be able to get a lot of the benefits of prohibition with relatively mild enforcement" Although this program has been applied to alcohol, it could also be used for legal and illegal drugs. Kleiman emphasized that this should not be used only for drug use — but rather people whose drug use has led to bad behavior, like intoxicated driving, theft, or violence. Kleiman's hope is to use these programs to ensure someone isn't engaging in harmful drug use, while letting social controls and public health programs address if someone has addiction and needs to be treated for it. Meanwhile, Kleiman said the drugs that are already legal — and substances that would become legal under his plan, such as marijuana and hallucinogens — would be strictly regulated. "Smart legalization would look a bit like what we're doing with tobacco today," he said. "Yeah, this stuff is legal, but it's not really okay." Generally, tobacco enforcement would remain the same — with high taxes, restrictions on sales and marketing, and so on. There would be one difference: The regulations and taxes on e-cigarettes could be purposely lower, since these devices seem to be much safer than their combustive counterparts. This would hopefully push people to a safer form of consuming nicotine. Alcohol and marijuana would be sold in much more regulated outlets than they are today, with a focus on limiting marketing to stop for-profit companies from pushing the heaviest drug users to use even more alcohol or pot. (One of Kleiman's favorite ideas is to let people set quotas for how much of a drug they can buy. So someone would say, for instance, that they can only buy 40 grams of marijuana a month, and after that amount vendors wouldn't be allowed to sell anymore to that person. "This is to give your long-term self a fighting chance against your short-term self," Kleiman said.) "Smart legalization would look a bit like what we're doing with tobacco today" As for psychedelics, these drugs would only be available to buy and use in licensed and regulated facilities with supervisors that can guide someone through their experience. This would, hopefully, mitigate the chances of an accident or bad trip, while letting people take drugs that can lead to serious therapeutic benefits. (For more on how this would work, check out Vox's explainer.) All of this, Kleiman said, could be paired up with public health programs that should be by and large free from the criminal justice system. So whether the country ramps up prevention, treatment, and harm reduction programs — such as clean needle exchanges, easier access to the opioid overdose antidote naloxone, or medication-assisted treatment like methadone and Suboxone — should be left to the health care system, not police and courts. One gap in Caulkins's and Kleiman's plans is they would leave fairly large black markets for drugs in place, and these markets have fueled huge levels of violence around the world, particularly in Latin America, over the past several decades. Kleiman argued that this could be largely addressed by demilitarizing anti-drug policies. That seems plausible: Although Mexico has always dealt with some drug-related violence, its conflict wasn't as bloody and deadly as it is now until President Felipe Calderón in 2006 declared a ramped-up, militarized drug war, with significant amounts of US aid through the Mérida Initiative. The result: One study found life expectancy for men in the country dropped for the first time in decades. So a reversal of militarization could undo much of this escalation in violence. Governments could also signal to criminal groups that while they will generally prohibit drug trafficking, they will really prohibit drug-related violence through much harsher enforcement. Over time, this could encourage drug trafficking groups to avoid violence. Still, it's true that many countries have dealt with drug-related violence before they militarized their conflicts, and the incentive to avoid violence — to avoid government attention — has always existed. To address much of the violence, then, some argue drug policy may need to go even further. Approach 3: Legalize and tightly regulate all drugs The most radical approach — and one most Americans don't agree with — is legalizing and regulating all drugs. This is something no country has done in modern times, as many recreational drugs remain illegal to sell virtually everywhere in the world. So it's difficult to say for certain what would happen. Still, there was one consistent group that drug policy experts and historians pointed me to when I asked whether anyone had a realistic legalization model: the Transform Drug Policy Foundation. While many don't agree with Transform's plan, it was consistently cited as the most detailed, evidence-based proposal. Explaining his approach, Steve Rolles, senior policy analyst for Transform, said his group applied what we already know about other vice markets — particularly alcohol, tobacco, and gambling — to illegal drugs. To be clear, this would not mean letting people buy any drug they want at the grocery store. "Different drugs would be regulated in different ways," Rolles explained. "The determinant of how you would regulate a drug would be what the risks and behaviors associated with that particular drug were. So the more risky a drug is, clearly, the more justification you have for more intrusive or intense regulation." In its very detailed blueprint, Transform lays out its regulatory models based on tiers that ramp up restrictions based on a drug's dangers. Here's a quick summary of the five tiers, which divide up where and how the drugs would be available based on how potentially dangerous they are: Medically supervised venues: Drugs put in this category, including heroin or amphetamines, would only be allowed with a prescription (typically for people with drug use disorders) and the direct supervision of a trained expert, like a doctor in a controlled facility. Drugs put in this category, including heroin or amphetamines, would only be allowed with a prescription (typically for people with drug use disorders) and the direct supervision of a trained expert, like a doctor in a controlled facility. Pharmacies: Drugs in this tier, such as MDMA, powder cocaine, or amphetamine, would only be dispensed through pharmacies with a prescription or over the counter. While it is currently the case that pharmacies focus on medical applications, the blueprint suggests that pharmacists could also act as trained and licensed gatekeepers for drugs used in recreational settings. Drugs in this tier, such as MDMA, powder cocaine, or amphetamine, would only be dispensed through pharmacies with a prescription or over the counter. While it is currently the case that pharmacies focus on medical applications, the blueprint suggests that pharmacists could also act as trained and licensed gatekeepers for drugs used in recreational settings. Licensed sales: Drugs in this classification, like marijuana and stimulant-based drinks, would be dispensed by licensed, regulated vendors. These sellers don't have to be for-profit entities; they could be nonprofits or government-controlled. Drugs in this classification, like marijuana and stimulant-based drinks, would be dispensed by licensed, regulated vendors. These sellers don't have to be for-profit entities; they could be nonprofits or government-controlled. Licensed premises: These regulated establishments would dispense drugs, such as smoked opium, psychedelics, or poppy tea, much like alcohol is sold and consumed in bars today — although in some cases, as with psychedelics, the vendors would need training to help guide people through their experiences. These regulated establishments would dispense drugs, such as smoked opium, psychedelics, or poppy tea, much like alcohol is sold and consumed in bars today — although in some cases, as with psychedelics, the vendors would need training to help guide people through their experiences. Unlicensed sales: Drugs in this category, like coca tea, would be available easily, much like caffeine. Rolles emphasized that commercialization should be avoided. So even the drugs that are more accessible could still fall under strict regulations, such as a ban on marketing, taxes to keep the prices high, and even price controls. This could make up for at least part of the price drop that comes with the end of prohibition. The new regulations could also be applied to alcohol and tobacco, as well as marijuana in states that already legalized the drug. (Rolles said he doesn't like that marijuana is moving to a commercialized legal model in parts of the US.) But why go for legalization and regulation? There are two main reasons for this, Rolles argued: One, it completely eliminates the black market for drugs that enables so much violence around the world, particularly Latin America. Two, it could potentially make drug consumption safer. The first point is relatively uncontroversial. It is clear that the war on drugs has had an enormously negative effect in several countries around the world, particularly Mexico in recent years. Again, a study found that violence from the drug war caused Mexico's life expectancy to stagnate — and, in men's cases, drop — after decades of increases. On the second point, Rolles argues that legalizing and regulating drugs could make for safer drug use. So if people get their drugs from a regulated source, governments can ensure there's nothing that would make an already dangerous substance even more dangerous (such as fentanyl in heroin). It may also eliminate the incentives in the black market to make drugs as potent as possible, since in a black market it's much easier to smuggle a highly potent pound of a drug (such as heroin) than it would be to smuggle a few pounds of something that's not as potent (such as smoked opium). A similar black market phenomenon occurred during Prohibition, when the US banned alcohol from 1920 to 1933. During Prohibition, the market quickly went to spirits. After Prohibition, it has shifted toward wine and beer. "The less risky, less potent products are more available, and the higher risk products are increasingly less available or not available at all" Using heroin as an example, Rolles argues that many opioid users could satisfy their desires by smoking opium. But because the illicit market has moved toward the much more potent heroin, they largely don't have that option. So under Transform's model, smoked opium would be more accessible than heroin — in what Rolles calls harm reduction, since it acknowledges people are going to use drugs anyway but pushes them toward doing the safer version of those drugs. "The idea that we're trying to promote in the blueprint is that a regulatory model can tilt the market the other way," Rolles said. "So the less risky, less potent products are more available, and the higher risk products are increasingly less available or not available at all." Of course, this runs the risk of getting people hooked on the less harmful substances and leading them to progress to harder drugs. So someone could start on opium, because it's now potentially more accessible, and eventually climb to heroin. This is similar to what's happened with the opioid epidemic, in which some people went from opioid painkillers provided by doctors to the more potent opioids heroin and fentanyl. But if someone does get hooked on heroin, Rolles said this could be safer under legalization — since heroin would be available in controlled venues, where users would have access to clean needles (without a risk of HIV or hepatitis infection), and supervisors would have access to naloxone, which reverses opioid overdoses. In several countries, these kinds of injection sites for drug users who prove resistant to treatment have been credited with reductions in drug-related crimes and overdoses, as well as improvements in social functioning through stabilized housing and employment. Rolles acknowledges Transform's model won't fix every problem related to drugs. But he said it could lead to better results: "All regulation can do is to reduce the harms associated with the market and harms associated with using behaviors. We have to be realistic about what we can achieve. Legalization and regulation does not get rid of the drug problem. It doesn't necessarily deal with addiction. It doesn't stop people dying from drugs. But it may reduce harms; it may reduce deaths. It just won't eliminate them." The big takeaway: Drug policy is a balancing act As you can probably tell from the diverse opinions, it's still not clear which drug policies may be best for the United States and the rest of the world. It's possible the final solution may not even be one of these three plans, and governments may land on a different solution after tinkering with all sorts of policies — if they choose to end their drug wars at all. But whatever policy prescription governments land on, even if it's one of the three plans above, there will always be drawbacks and risks. For one, anything short of legalization would likely fail to address all or perhaps most drug-related violence in the developing world, even if countries do demilitarize their anti-drug policies. After all, drug trafficking organizations always fought among themselves. So while the escalation and militarization of the war on drugs in Mexico did lead to much more violence, it was in part exacerbating an already-bad situation. (There is also the question of whether the genie can be put back in the bottle now that drug cartels are built to be highly violent.) But with legalization, it's unclear if the US can actually sustain a strict regulatory model for dangerous drugs, since the country simply doesn't have a good track record for doing this with already legal substances. Anything short of legalization would likely fail to address all or even most drug-related violence Consider what happened after Prohibition when the US ended its short-lived ban on alcohol: Many states ended their bans by creating tightly regulated models for alcohol. But these models fell apart over time as big alcohol companies lobbied states to loosen their regulations, particularly by pressing them on the potential tax revenue and jobs that could come if the private market took over and was allowed to flourish. Now 88,000 deaths each year are linked to alcohol, on top of the many non-deadly accidents, illnesses, and poisonings that occur as a result of booze. (It's worth noting that Prohibition appeared to reduce alcohol consumption and some forms of alcohol-related deaths, at least temporarily. A 2003 study from economists Angela Dills and Jeffrey Miron found Prohibition likely reduced liver cirrhosis deaths by about 10 to 20 percent. But that didn't, according to experts, outweigh the rise in violence and crime that surrounded the black market for alcohol during Prohibition. This conflict between public health and safety is essentially the same debate we're having today with other drugs.) Or consider what's happened with the opioid epidemic. In the 1990s, companies like Purdue Pharma pushed their opioid painkillers on doctors and patients through a very aggressive marketing campaign. Doctors, who were concerned with treating pain as a serious medical issue, prescribed the drugs in huge droves, letting them proliferate. As a result, the US is in the middle of an opioid epidemic — one that has led to people using stronger, more dangerous opioids, like heroin and fentanyl — that's killing tens of thousands a year. All this time, one would expect a regulatory body, like the FDA or DEA, to step in and stop the proliferation of dangerous medications. But they only did so after tens of thousands of deaths. Regulation failed. Something similar could happen with newly legal drugs. Once big companies get a taste of selling poppy or coca tea, they could start lobbying for the ability to sell more of their products or even cocaine and heroin. Given how powerful alcohol and pharmaceutical companies have proven to be, it's not totally unfeasible that coca or opium companies couldn't similarly succeed. And that could lead to tens of thousands of drug deaths — except under legalization, Americans may be desensitized to these deaths, much like they have been for alcohol. The big counterpoint to commercialization supplanting public health interests is how America has responded to tobacco. Here, the US has sustained a fairly strict regulatory approach toward a big for-profit industry, largely thanks to pressure from public health groups and Americans who were furious at the way the tobacco industry had gotten so many people hooked and killed. It is possible — even likely — that a similar sentiment toward hard drugs like heroin or cocaine would sustain a very strict regulatory approach. After all, it's hard to imagine mainstream America ever embracing these clearly risky drugs. At the same time, the US only adopted a harsher approach to tobacco after the tobacco industry created one of the biggest public health crises in the country's history. And 480,000 Americans still die each year due to tobacco. It shouldn't take a huge death toll to get regulation in motion, but that's what tobacco — and now opioids — required. All of this is to say that the best approach may be to proceed with caution. The war on drugs slowly ramped up over decades, from the prohibit-through-taxes model of the early 20th century to President Richard Nixon's declaration of the modern drug war to President Ronald Reagan's incredibly punitive, militarized escalation. Similarly, its end may come over time through incremental reforms. |
Paul McCullough 2016-11-05 00:09:35 -0400 AGW IPCC IPCC AGW IPCC IPCC IPCC AGW I still see climate cultists quoting that 97% climate consensus nonsense as if it has any real meaning. Every survey that made similar claims fell apart on inspection. They either consisted of cherry picking a very small data sample or, as in the latest Cook consensus fraud, pooled every scientist with an opinion ontogether & tried to pass it off as a consensus with the garbage coming from theShortly before thereleased it’s 5th 5 year climate assessment we had John Cook et al come out with their 97.1% “scientific consensus” on. This was trumpeted by global warming alarmists & corrupt politicians as further “proof” of the “proven science.” The problems with it occurred immediately upon viewing it.Cook considered the standard definition: that Man had caused most post-1950 warming. A somewhat weaker definition than that of the– the true consensus among published scientific papers is now shown to be not 97.1%, as Cook had claimed, but only 0.3%. Of the 11,944 papers Cook examined, he had only flagged 64 of them as explicitly supporting his phoney consensus. It was then found, upon investigation, that 23 of those papers had not supported it at all. Also found upon investigation, Cook used 3 distinct definitions of climate consensus interchangeably instead of defining the survey question clearly, as a survey of this type requires. He arbitrarily excluded about 8000 of the papers on the unacceptable ground that they expressed no opinion on the climate consensus. He misclassified papers by prominent skeptics such as Willie Soon, Craig Idso, Nicola Scafetta, Nir Shaviv, Nils-Axel Morner and Alan Carlin in order to support his findings.Oh, but that’s not all. The University of Queensland are so sure of Cook’s work that they threaten legal action against anyone that dares to even try to look at his data. Brandon Shollenberger came across this information on a third party, unencrypted, unprotected website & got a letter from the university threatening to sue him if he released the data (which he did) or even posted their threatening letter (which he also did.) From this we found, among other things, that the vast majority of the rating were not done independently, as claimed, but instead by his co-authors. There was also no ethics approval for the rating program, as was claimed.According to Sarah Green, one of the most active raters – “But, this is clearly not an independent poll, nor really a statistical exercise. We are just assisting in the effort to apply defined criteria to the abstracts with the goal of classifying them as objectively as possible. Disagreements arise because neither the criteria nor the abstracts can be 100% precise. We have already gone down the path of trying to reach a consensus through the discussions of particular cases. From the start we would never be able to claim that ratings were done by independent, unbiased, or random people anyhow.” Yet the claim from Cook & the University was “Each abstract was categorized by two independent, anonymized raters.”Mr. Nuccitelli, one of the authors of the Cook paper, has written a posting on the “Skeptical Science” blog in which he sought to justify the discrepancy between the abstracts of Legates et al. & the Cook paper (which had assigned to the “explicit endorsement with quantification” category and the “97.1% based on abstract ratings that the conclusion of the Cook paper had claimed endorsed the “scientific consensus” as defined) – “Theposition (humans causing most global warming) was represented in our categories 1 and 7, which include papers that explicitly endorse or reject/minimize human-caused global warming, and also quantify the human contribution. Among the relatively few abstracts (75 in total) falling in these two categories, 65 (87%) endorsed the consensus view.” – So the 11,944 paper survey showing a 97.1% “consensus” has become a 75 paper survey showing an 87% “consensus.” A 75 paper survey is not viable. What Cook et al showed was that there is almost no support at all for the/ warming alarmist position onSo why do these climate cultists still insist there’s a “consensus”? Maybe so they’ll have somewhere to retreat to when the “science” fails. |
The inhabitants of a small Greek island live on average 10 years longer than the rest of western Europe. So what's the secret to long life in Ikaria? It could be the fresh air and the friendly, easy-going, open-door lifestyle. It could be fresh vegetables and goat's milk. It could be the mountainous terrain. Everywhere on Ikaria is up, or down, so getting around keeps you fit. It could even be the natural radiation in the granite rocks. But Stamatis Moraitis thinks he knows what it is. "It's the wine," he says, over a mid-morning glass at his kitchen table. "It's pure, nothing added. The wine they make commercially has preservatives. That's no good. But this wine we make ourselves is pure." Stamatis celebrated his 98th birthday on New Year's Day. He says he's older, but his documents put his date of birth as 1 January 1915. Outside his whitewashed house are his beloved olive trees, his fruit trees, and his vines. He makes about 700 litres of wine a year, he says. "Do you drink it all yourself?" I ask. "No!" He's shocked at the suggestion. "I drink it with my friends." The wine, and convivial days spent with friends and family, helped make Stamatis a poster-boy for the healing effects of Ikaria. Forty-five years ago, living in the US, he was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and given nine months to live. Ikaria The island, also spelled Icaria, is named after Icarus, the son of Daedalus, who fell into the sea near the island after flying too close to the sun, according to the myth Its population is just over 8,000 2.5 times as many people reach the age of 90 as in the US Greece country profile "At the time it was very expensive to have a funeral there," he remembers. "So I said to my wife 'I'm going home to Ikaria to be buried with my parents.'" By now he has a twinkle in his eye, and is in full flow. It's a story he has dined out on many times, and he clearly doesn't tire of telling it. "I found my friends in the village where I was born, and we started drinking. I thought, at least I'll die happy." "Every day we got together, we drank wine, and I waited. Time passed by and I felt stronger. Nine months came - I felt good. Eleven months came - I felt better. And now, 45 years later, I'm still here!" "A few years ago I went back to the US and tried to find my doctors. But I couldn't find them. They were all dead." There are lots of stories like this one on Ikaria. Some may well be just stories, but in recent years scientists and doctors have beaten a path to the island not far off the coast of Turkey to find out the real story. Ikaria got its name from the Greek myth of Icarus who, legend has it, plunged into the sea close to the island when his wax and feather wings melted. For centuries it was known as a health destination because of natural hot springs on the island. More recently it has been identified as one of a small number of so-called "blue zones" by the author Dan Buettner and National Geographic, where residents enjoy great longevity. Other places include Okinawa in Japan, Sardinia in Italy, and Loma Linda in California. A life less ordinary Born in Evdilos, Ikaria, in 1915 Shot in the arm in WWII and escaped to Turkey, then spent time recovering in Chatham, UK, before settling in the US in 1943 Met Greek-American wife Alice and had three children, settled in New Jersey and later Florida Established a painting and decorating firm operating in New York, now run by his son Diagnosed with lung cancer in the 1960s, given nine months, returns to Ikaria Says his father was 117 when he died Tends his 200 olive trees, harvests olive oil and produces about 700 litres of red wine a year Wife Elpiniki - known as Alice - dies, in January 2012 aged 84, after 68-year marriage Grandson Christopher now spends a lot of time looking after him, helping with the olive trees The most comprehensive work on Ikaria has been done by the University of Athens, whose researchers studied islanders aged over 65. On average, the 8,000 residents live 10 years longer than most Europeans and in much better health to the end. There are many significant factors about the islanders' lifestyle which might contribute to their longevity. Even compared to a typical Mediterranean diet, Ikarians eat a lot of fish and vegetables, and relatively low levels of meat. Six out of 10 of people aged over 90 are still physically active, compared with about 20% elsewhere. Most food is cooked in olive oil. Large quantities of wild greens and herbs are gathered from the hillsides for both food and medicinal purposes. Many older people make a daily brew of mountain tea from dried herbs such as sage, thyme, mint, and chamomile, and sweeten it with honey from local bees. "It cures everything," claims Stamatis. Many of the wild herbs are used by people all over the world as traditional remedies. They are rich in antioxidants and also contain diuretics which can lower blood pressure. The researchers believe other elements of lifestyle are also significant. Rates of smoking are relatively low, mid-day naps are the norm, the pace of life is slow and people socialise frequently with friends and family, drinking moderate amounts of wine. Extended families give older people an important role in society. Levels of depression and dementia are low. Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Stamatis Moraitis: "Here it is clean, you breathe pure oxygen" Dr Christina Chrysohoou, a cardiologist from the University of Athens who has studied the islanders, says they suffer the same sorts of diseases like cancer and cardiovascular problems as others elsewhere, but later in life. "Ikaria gives us an opportunity to study why these people enjoy these beneficial effects. We can't avoid these diseases, but they manage to preserve the quality of their life for many years. The mean age for cardiovascular disease is about 55 to 60. In Ikaria it comes about 10 years later." Future lines of enquiry for the university include geological studies into whether naturally occurring radioactive elements such as radium could have an effect on cancers. Image caption Stamatis, shown here in the early 1920s, was born on the island to which he returned in later life There is also genetic research which compares islanders with Ikarians who have emigrated and therefore live a different lifestyle. Meeting some of the oldest islanders makes you appreciate their span of time. The dining table is laden with delicious Ikarian delicacies. "It's just a little snack," insists Voula, wife of 102-year-old George Kassiotis, as he pulled out his identity card showing his date of birth in 1910 and talked about his early life. On his sideboard are photos of him in the Greek cavalry in 1931. He fought the Italians in Albania during World War II and later helped build the first metalled road on the island before retiring in 1970. "I don't eat processed food, I don't smoke and I don't get stressed," says George Kassiotis. "I'm not worried about death. We know that we all are going to go there." Other 'long life' spots Island of Okinawa, Japan Loma Linda, California, US Nuoro province, Sardinia Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica The younger generation seem to be keeping traditions going. We ate another meal at the home of Nikos Karoutsos, a hotel owner in his 50s, and witnessed the sight of many friends and family, popping in for a drink and something to eat. "We don't have nightclubs or discos," he says, as people chinked glasses filled with red wine poured from large plastic flagons. "The door is always open, there's no need to call and ask to come." Meanwhile, the teenage children drifted between the table and the computer in the corner to chat on Facebook. Back at the home of 98-year-old Stamatis Moraitis, we left him up a ladder picking olives from one of his trees. "I'm happy I can still do it," he says with a laugh. "I feel so much healthier up here." |
Golden Geek RPG of the Year 2012 Indie RPG 2012 Winner: Best Game, Best Support, Best Production ENnie Award Winner 2013: Best Rules - Gold Winner Combining high-action dungeon crawling with cutting-edge rules, Dungeon World is a roleplaying game of fantasy adventure. You and your friends will explore a land of magic and danger in the roles of adventurers searching for fame, gold, and glory. Dungeon Worlds rules are easy to learn and always drive the action forward in unexpected ways. A missed roll is never a dead endfailure introduces new complexities and complications. Life as an adventurer is hard and dangerous but its never boring! Designed to be ready for you to hack, remix, and build new content, Dungeon World includes systems for changing everything to suit your group including creating new races, classes, and monsters. To play, youll need this rulebook, 35 players, some polyhedral dice, and 24 hours. Explore fantasy adventure roleplaying in a whole new way with Dungeon World! This package includes the entire game in both portrait and landscape PDFs as well as .mobi and .epub files compatable with the Kindle and other ereaders. |
European Commission [Check Against Delivery] Viviane Reding Vice-President Reding, EU Commissioner for Justice Roma Integration: From polemics to small miracles EU Roma Summit – Press Conference I remember very well: 8 April 2010, in Córdoba, Spain. A Ministerial meeting on Roma – without Ministers. Exactly four years later, I stand here with the President of the European Commission, the President of Romania (Traian Băsescu), the Deputy Prime Minister of Bulgaria (Zinaida Zlatanova) and Ministers, mayors and State secretaries from many other EU and non-EU countries. From Córdoba to Brussels: a wind of change is blowing. Roma integration is on the radar screen of politicians. And it is not only on the radar screen. Ministers have made commitments. And these commitments are slowly but surely translated into actions. What started maybe as a wake-up call in France in the summer of 2010, has become an irreversible process: Thanks to the EU Framework for national Roma integration strategies that the Commission put on the table in April 2011, every Member State now has a national Roma action plan. Thanks to the EU Framework every Member State now has a national Roma contact point to coordinate work between the different actors and make sure the national strategy remains more than just a paper. These national contact points also get together in Brussels regularly to exchange experiences and discuss what works and what doesn't. And then we – the European Commission – analyse progress, every year, and report to Parliament and Council on the progress made in the 28 Member States on Roma integration. The Commission is in the driving seat. But we can only drive if there is an "engine". And there is – 28 actually: last December, national ministers unanimously committed to implementing key recommendations put forth by the European Commission to further Roma integration in the four main areas of education, employment, healthcare and housing. And to use when necessary positive actions to close the gap between the Roma and the rest of the population. While, a lot of work remains to turn recommendations into reality, progress is visible. We see many small miracles – Europe-wide. Concrete actions and projects on the ground, in the 28 Member States that can improve the life of Roma people. Let me give you a few examples. Starting with education: Although the situation differs between EU countries, studies show that on average only around 40% of Roma children complete primary school - compared to an average of 97% for the general population across the EU. That is why the Commission's Framework called on all Member States to make sure all Roma children complete at least primary school. To break the vicious circle of Roma who have no education and who later cannot find a job and therefore end up living in sheer poverty; to ensure Roma children get education today, to find work tomorrow. Progress on this front has been good. In Finland for example, over the past years, the participation of Roma children in pre-primary school increased from 2% to 60%. Or take Hungary: it passed a new law making 2 years of pre-school compulsory and the enrolment rate of Roma children in pre-school is now as high as 79%. Also Bulgaria passed a law to make pre-schooling compulsory. And in Ireland there are "travelling teachers" moving with Travellers' communities. One of the main challenges that remains in the area of education is segregation. Yes, Roma children do sometimes require specific care and attention but sending them to schools for people with disabilities is not a solution which will help their integration. Instead, what seems to work very well, and what we are seeing more and more across Europe, is the use of mediators. In the area of employment for example, EU-funded Roma employment mediators exist in Finland, the 'UusiTaito'; and in Spain the Acceder programme uses work counsellors to advise Roma in their job searches. In the area of health, Romania and Spain employ mediators to improve access to healthcare of the Roma community, while France cut the registration tax for State Medical aid therefore removing financial barriers for Roma. Or in the area of housing, where in Belgium, for example, there are around 38 mediators working to gain the trust of both Roma and non-Roma for acceptable housing interventions. Other positive efforts in the area of housing include Hungary where cities are required to prepare a desegregation plan as part of city development strategies; and Croatia and Slovenia, where the legalisation of Roma settlements is a condition for the construction of basic infrastructure. All of these examples are small steps. But taken together and rolled out Europe-wide, they can lead to a great leap forward in the integration of Roma. It's about learning from each other by copying successful projects. But it is also learning by doing. What I have certainly learned – as a former City Counsellor but also during my many talks with mayors from Europe – is that unfortunately the money that is available for integration is either not known of; or it simply does not arrive where it is needed. I also know that with Roma integration politicians unfortunately do not win elections. As a next step, I could therefore imagine more targeted rules and a funding facility specifically dedicated to Roma - a centralised EU fund that would be reserved for concrete projects benefitting Roma. This is an area where the Commission can go further in our commitment. In turn, we will however expect Member States to make sure Roma strategies do not remain on paper only. Roma integration is a common challenge. Roma people are Europeans. Member States, politicians and European institutions have a joint responsibility to put an end to Roma exclusion – from schools, jobs, healthcare and housing. Tackling this challenge, will take time. You may not see the results when you visit Roma camps where people still live in poverty, but results – all these small miracles – are there. This is the first EU Roma Summit which gives me reason for hope. |
In 1774 Rhode Island had forbidden the importation of slaves into the state, however slavery was still legal within the state. In 1784 the the state legislature passed an act for gradual emancipation, where all children born after March 1 were to be apprentices, with girls becoming free at 18 and the boys at 21. This would allow for a gradual shift away from slavery, that while taking a bit of time, would minimize harm to the slave owners economically. Ship-owners could still participate in the foreign slave trade undisturbed. Quakers took an active role in combating slavery within the state and in 1787 a law was passed banning Rhode Islanders from participating in the buying and selling of slaves in foreign markets, and later in 1789 the Providence Society for Abolishing the slave Trade was founded. While Rhode Island began shifting away from slavery, towns began to purify themselves racially, “warning out” blacks from communities, and a decrease in the black population can be seen within the state. This can be seen in Providence after 1785 when the city began evicting blacks who they believed could potentially become dangerous. While Rhode Island was against the concept of slavery and supported emancipation, many citizens obviously were not comfortable with the concept of equality. When compared to other northern states Rhode Island proportionally had the largest black population with 6.4 percent being black in 1790. This was because in the pre-revolutionary era Rhode Island had the largest slave trade of any northern colony, buying and selling slaves. However the Revolution ruined the trade and guaranteed its decline in the following decade. Works Cited http://www.rihs.org/mssinv/Mss313.htm http://sharondraper.com/timeline.pdf http://www.slavenorth.com/rhodeisland.htm Greene Lorenzo. The Negro in Colonial New England. New York: Atheneum, 1968. |
“What do your tattoos mean?” When I first started getting tattoos, I enthusiastically jumped to answer this question. I loved to talk about my chest tattoo in particular. It looked like an ecstatic yin yang, swirling inward and exploding outward simultaneously. I would explain to others how it was an “ancient” Maya symbol that stood for their highest god, Hunab Ku, who was associated with the supermassive blackhole at the center of our galaxy. I loved how it looked and how others praised me for my “cultured” aesthetic. Despite my intentions, this tattoo put my ignorance and privilege on full display. In contrast to my enthusiasm, I knew nothing of Maya cultures, knew no one who was Maya, and lived on the west coast of Canada, on Coast Salish Territory, thousands of miles away from Maya territory. What I did know was the symbol made me feel assured in my attempted rebellion against my own whiteness and privilege. Despite my intentions, this tattoo put my ignorance and privilege on full display. Over the years, I began to feel there was something wrong with a white person sporting an Indigenous symbol as a tattoo and developed a quiet, passive shame. Suddenly the question, “What do your tattoos mean?” didn’t bring about the same enthusiasm as before. Instead, I’d sullenly reply, “You know, I mostly just like how they look. Why do they need meaning?” I just let my ignorance fester. Despite my shame, I did nothing to address my appropriation. I intended to get the tattoo removed or covered, but it was never a high priority. I never learned more about Maya people and cultures. I never learned more about the symbol. I just let my ignorance fester. A photo of the author before her shoulder tattoo was covered. Image: Becca Carroll / Rivkah Photography When my topless photos from the “Do I have boobs now?” project went viral, I was finally forced to address my ignorance and appropriation. On social media, Indigenous people began commenting: Is that a hunab ku tattooed on their chest?? like what? Shocked, but not shocked actually. White folks appropriating Indigenous imagery is nothing new. Still, the myth of solidarity was first to enter my mind. How could this TRANS persyn, someone who is supposedly marginalized, be so Anti-Native? Colonization nearly erased our people, we don't need to be nice about our reactions to people who are so far removed from it that they can comfortably flaunt it as fashion. My intention for the project was to challenge systems of oppression and our complicity in them. In the process, I exposed my own unchallenged complicity in oppression and colonialism. By widely sharing these photos, I was engaging in and normalizing cultural appropriation. Many people rallied to defend me from these Indigenous commenters, saying things like, “You shouldn’t be so offended;” “She’s doing something great, calm down;” and “But she didn’t know any better.” These comments continued even after I made posts supporting and agreeing with the Indigenous critiques, showing that my supposed defenders were truly more interested in silencing Indigenous people. Those who weren’t defending me praised me. While a white person was being praised for trying to combat racism, Indigenous people were being silenced for the same reason. I’ve been silenced in similar ways, though the oppression white transgender people and Indigenous people of all genders face is very different. A few months ago, I went out with friends and was misgendered throughout the night. Worn down and afraid of someone turning a request to use proper pronouns into an argument about the validity of my gender, I said nothing. When I got home, I sat on my bed and cried. After some thought, I wrote a Facebook post explaining how much it sucks to be misgendered and requested that people try harder to use the correct pronouns. When I woke up the next morning, I had received multiple messages that amounted to “You shouldn’t be so offended;” “We’re trying, calm down;” and “I didn’t know any better.” We must support and follow the lead of Indigenous people. Regardless of our intentions, our actions can hurt people. Explaining our intentions or our ignorance does not change that hurting, and it does not absolve us of responsibility for those people’s pain. When people tell us our actions have hurt them, we should not discredit their pain or explain it away; we should instead examine our intentions, work to relieve our ignorance and complicity, and engage in a conversation with those people about how to move forward constructively. With this tattoo, that meant learning about the symbol and the people it came from, and seeking guidance from Indigenous people of Central America and of the land I live on about how to address my appropriation. The Mexica Mantle of the Lip Plugs, whose symbol was later modified by new age authors and said to be the Maya symbol for Hunab Ku. Image: Los Angeles County Museum of Art I learned that this symbol was not Maya, but instead a Mexica symbol from a ritual cloak that had been slightly altered and given a whole new meaning by new-age authors in the 20th century. Though these authors took “Hunab Ku” as a great Maya god, “Hunab Ku,” which means “The only god,” is actually the name given in Yucatec Maya, one of more than two dozen Mayan languages, for the Christian god that many Maya were forced into worshipping. This was the same god in whose name colonization and massacres were committed against Indigenous people of the Americas, and in whose name Europeans attempted to wipe out their religion and culture. Map of Maya territory Image: Penn museum I learned that, before colonization, Maya and Mexica civilizations had developed large cities, created vast political systems, and were particularly noted for their architecture, art, mathematics and astronomy. Far from being an ancient, “dead” culture, there are currently an estimated 7 million Maya people (comprised of many groups that share linguistic and cultural histories) and 2.5 million Nahua people (also comprised of many groups, including the Mexica), many fighting to gain civil rights and reclaim their land and culture. These numbers are very rough estimates, and there are many people who are denied their indigeneity and are struggling to reclaim it, especially the descendants of Indigenous women who were raped by Spanish men and those whose ancestors took up European languages and names. Two Maya girls from Guatemala in traditional dress Image: Wikimedia commons I’m still only starting to learn and explore Indigenous histories, and their depth can barely begin to be covered here. Thanks to these Indigenous critiques, I’m beginning to engage with my own complicity in colonialism and racism instead of ignoring its existence. Trying to listen to Indigenous voices and deciding how to proceed has been a difficult, messy process littered with missteps. I’m only beginning to learn how to be an ally, and those missteps will likely continue. Not everyone has been satisfied with my decisions, and that’s completely fair. The harm has already been done, and no amount of work can fully heal that wound. So it goes with decolonizing work done by white allies. Colonialism nearly destroyed the peoples and cultures indigenous to the Americas and continues to oppress them. No amount of work we do can fully heal that wound. But the work we can do to support decolonization and dismantle racism must be done. We must support and follow the lead of Indigenous people in their continual resistance against colonialism, which is as old as colonialism itself. We must work to relieve our ignorance while acknowledging our inability to fully understand the experiences of Indigenous people. We must recognize and call out racism and colonialism when we see it. We must resist congratulation for allyship and accept that despite our best intentions, we may make mistakes, cause harm and deserve to be criticized for those mistakes. For now, I’m getting my tattoo covered and have blurred it in the photos that were already taken. Now when someone asks “What do your tattoos mean?” I can tell them about my chest tattoo. I can tell them it means our ignorance is not an excuse and our intentions mean shit. I can challenge them to examine their own complicity with colonialism and reexamine their allyship. It’s not enough, but it’s a start. Where will you start? Special thanks to Juste Tara, Draco Recalma (Pentlatch and Kwakwaka'wakw nation), and Chema Pineda-Fernández (Nawat) for their guidance and feedback addressing this issue and writing this article. Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments. |
Firesheep lit a figurative fire under the feet of folks who otherwise weren't concerned with the security of their data as it passes to and fro over a WiFi network in a public place. That's good. You're at risk whenever you use WiFi on a public network, but thankfully it's never been easier or cheaper to secure yourself thoroughly. Firesheep's threat is that it allows anyone with a Firefox browser to hijack the sessions of anyone on the same network using a few dozen popular content, commerce, and social-networking sites by snarfing cookies that pass in the clear. But Firesheep is only the easiest to use of a series of freely available tools that can extract and record data passing openly over networks. The only way to defeat all of them is to secure all the connections over which you pass anything personal, financial, or confidential. You have a variety of strategies to choose from, some of which are free and some of which have a modest cost attached. None are terribly complicated, but just require a commitment on your part if you feel at risk. Which you should. In a companion piece to this article, we'll provide advice to cafes and other public venues on how to enable basic password-security to provide an additional level of difficulty for fair-weather crackers, who will be deterred by a bar to sniffing traffic easily. The full Monty: a VPN connection. A virtual private network (VPN) connection encrypts all the data between a device and a VPN server on the other end. For those of us who don't already have a VPN service through work, you can rent the service by the month or year. I've long used and recommended WiTopia, which has services ranging from $39.99 for the lowest-end VPN service to $69.99 for a bundle of offerings, including SSL, IPsec, and PPTP connections. There's also the veteran security provided Anonymizer, which has a $79.99-per-year offering that includes a VPN connection and anonymized browsing. VPN clients are built into nearly every operating system, including mobile OSes like Apple's iOS that don't allow third-party software that interacts with low-level networking protocols. Depending on what set of devices you own, make sure the service has support for the right protocols. (Apple's client supports five popular kinds of VPN, but omits a couple you might encounter.) With a rental VPN, the server isn't located in the office of a company with which you work, but rather in a data center somewhere else in the world. This defeats any local hacking and sniffing on the WiFi network, the Ethernet network to which WiFi is connected, and even the Internet service provider offering broadband to the venue in which you're working. (It also bypasses local filtering and governmental intrusion, so long as the VPN itself isn't blocked.) Some people still don't find that reassuring, because once your data pops out at the data center, there's no further encryption from the VPN portion until it reaches its destination; the same is true for data making the return trip. Still, at that point, you're up at the peering level of the Internet, where sniffing and hacking is much less likely. You can layer encryption with a VPN, relying on encrypted connections with websites and file-transfer servers to protect vital communications, and the VPN to cloak everything else. There's no incompatibility there. You can set up your own VPN server using free Linux software, or built-in options in Windows Server (several versions) and Mac OS X Server (since 10.4). This may be more trouble than it's worth, however. You typically need multiple static and publicly routable IP addresses, and more knowledge than you care to acquire. Further, because every packet routes in and out of the server (in to the VPN, which decrypts the data, and then back out to the destination), unless you have high-speed upstream rate where your server is located, your roaming download speeds could be constrained by the detour. VPN-for-hire services in data centers don't suffer that problem, as they're backed by massive pipes. If you work for a company that handles legal, medical, or financial data, or a corporation of any scale, your work laptop and mobile should already be protected when on the go by a VPN (virtual private network) connection. In fact, you might be forced to use a VPN by software that double-checks whether such a service is active before allowing you to communicate over the 'Net. Secure your e-mail. Just a few years ago, you could not assume that an Internet service provider would offer SSL/TLS-protected POP, IMAP, and SMTP. Now, it's de rigueur, although no provider I'm aware of requires it. (SSL, Secure Sockets Layer, is the name for an older security spec now known as Transport Layer Security or TLS: together, SSL/TLS. The spec lets a client and server negotiate a secure connection using a third-party verification step to confirm the server's identity. It's used with the open Web, e-mail, and many other service types.) You may already have secured your e-mail. Check your various e-mail clients on computers and mobile devices. Depending on the program, you may need to manually change the port number over which you connect to incoming and outgoing mail. Some clients just let you check a box labeled "Use SSL" or something similar to reconfigure settings to use the right ports. This is typically port 995 for POP and 993 for IMAP. SMTP commonly uses 465 or 587. With SMTP, you sometimes have to monkey around with finding the right port and setting for obscure and outdated reasons. One port might require setting a mail client to request but not require a secured connection, for instance, while another only allows connections in which the client assumes security will be in place. Many mail hosts and ISPs have a guide or wiki for troubleshooting if your first pass doesn't work. When setting up a new mail connection, most e-mail clients are smart enough to ask whether or not you want to use SSL/TLS or "security." Say yes! If your host doesn't offer security, it's time to find a new provider. Webmail is now also widely available with SSL/TLS for an entire session. Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, and Gmail resisted that for a while, securing just the login portion, and only offered less obvious ways to have a secured session. Reality has hit, and it's much simpler. In Gmail, for instance, you check a box in the General settings screen to "always use https." From then on, every time you log in (which is always done securely), you're redirected to an SSL/TLS-protected page. Force secure Web browsing. This is an area still in its nascence. An extension for a browser or a built-in feature forces an SSL/TLS connection to a website that offers a secure alternative to a plain http connection even when you click a link or type in a URL to the unsecured location. As the cost and complexity of offering an SSL/TLS site has dropped for Web firms and the desire for security among users grown, an ever-growing number of major sites have both secured and unsecured flavors. This includes editorial sites such as the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wikipedia, where you would reveal more about your browsing habits than provide a lever for someone to crack open your behavior or act maliciously in your name. (Sure, they could leave ugly comments and bad wiki edits, but that seems rather childish unless you're being targeted individually.) The ultimate path for making this work is a proposal at the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force), with the HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) specification, which is the basis of a built-in forced-secure connection in Firefox 4, currently in beta. When this is finalized and adopted, and browser makers and website operators take heed, the general problem of unsecured connections will disappear, but only for websites that choose to recognize the problem. This may wind up being all of them. In the meantime, you have to cobble together a solution. A VPN is the best alternative, but you can always layer this sort of protection on top of the VPN. Only Firefox (before 4.0) has true integration with an extension that changes the URL path before a connection is made. (If a connection is made first, then cookies and other data are sent insecurely, making the redirection less meaningful.) For Firefox, you can opt for ForceTLS, an extension that interacts with sites that use the proposed HSTS method above. You can also opt for HTTPS Everywhere, an extension developed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and The Tor Project. HTTPS Everywhere comes with a built-in list that can be modified. (An adaptation of HTTPS Everywhere for Apple's Safari, SSL Everywhere, is undownloadable at this writing, although its development project is still alive at github. Safari doesn't allow extensions to intercept URLs, only redirect, so there's some exposure.) Chrome users could opt for Use HTTPS, which can redirect specified sites to SSL/TLS versions, but according to the developer's site requires some modifications by Google to make it work as intended. Opera 11 users can install Redirect to HTTPS, which connects to the non-secured site before redirecting for a modifiable list of sites. The developer says Opera 11 doesn't provide interception of the request. Internet Explorer seemingly has no good way to offer interception or redirection. Opt for secure sessions in other services. Checkboxes to secure services are everywhere, although you may have to hunt for them. For instance, the interaction between a standalone Twitter desktop client and Twitter's interface for retrieving tweets and other data for that user can be secured separately from the always-encrypted login portion. In the client I use, Echofon for Mac, I have to open up preferences, click the Advanced button, and check Use SSL for All Requests. Newer services tend to be designed with SSL/TLS encryption as an integral part. The cloud-sync file manager Dropbox, for instance, always uses encryption for all its communications, on top of encrypting the data it stores for you on its servers. Likewise, all the major Internet-hosted backup services, like Crashplan, Carbonite, and Mozy, employ at least one level of encryption for data transmission; some offer additional layers, such as PGP-based encryption for data is transferred. Given the level of risk that's currently understood, and the ease of a casual black hat or vandal hijacking information, sessions, and identifies, it's hard to imagine that any company would make the bad decision to design and budget for an Internet-based service that wasn't start-to-finish secured. It's the first question any IT department would ask for business sales, and home and small-businesspeople have been sensitized because of the wide coverage of Firesheep. The best advice we can offer is the first advice: a VPN connection. Anything else is partial, second best, or complementary. While it increases your hassle, it also removes the local-network risk that your sessions will become someone else's property. Firesheep icon uses elements from Shutterstock. |
Indian cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar has been criticised by many for being an ‘inactive’ member of Rajya Sabha. Some even blamed him to take up the position to avail the benefits that come with the prestigious position.But his recent act will surely pacify many of his critics.In the Sangamner taluka of Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra, there is a special needs school for deaf and mute children. It was in dire need of funds for many important things like erecting new buildings and scholarships for students. The school administration had written to several government officials and even met some of them to request for some help but the situation didn’t seem to look up.The New Year, however, came with a good news that gave the school a new lease of life. They woke up in 2016 to find that Rs 50 lakh have been deposited in their account by an anonymous source. It took them two days to realise that their benefactor was none other than the ‘god of cricket’.Tendulkar came to know of the plight of the school from one Devendra Vohra, who is a doctor and hails from the village where the school is located, during an informal meeting and he immediately decided to do help the school that has been taking care of children with special needs for the past 30 years.Though Sachin sent the monetary help through his aides and the school management and children couldn’t manage to meet him to express their gratitude, the act has strengthen their belief in the humanity and genuine human beings like the Master Blaster.In a time where Members of Parliament are accused of not utilizing the funds allotted to them for the development of their areas, Tendulkar’s judicious use of funds is an example for all the politicians.In fact, recent findings show that Tendulkar, in terms of utilising funds under the Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS), is one of the best performing nominated lawmakers.He has used 98 per cent of his MPLADS funds, making allocations for flood relief in Jammu and Kashmir and Tamil Nadu and rebuilding a school and bridge in Chamoli in the aftermath of the Uttarakhand floods.Not only that, Tendulkar posed as many as seven questions in the Rajya Sabha in a fortnight during the winter session.He has also been known to invest substantial amounts to build toilets in Mumbai’s Goregaon and school infrastructure in remote parts of Maharashtra and West Bengal. His crowning glory as a Parliament member, however, is the village of Puttamraju Kandriga in Andhra Pradesh, a village he had adopted and transformed in terms of roads, water, electricity and sanitation.Sachin had to know about Puttamraju Kandriga from a former district collector on a flight. As a result of a similar chance meeting with a doctor, a needy school with a genuine need has received timely help from the legend of all seasons. |
Slack is updating its ‘Posts’ feature, which brings formal editing tools to its chat service. Posts 2.0 is a “ground-up rewrite” for Posts, which Slack says has been left to wither since inception around the time Slack was introduced. With it, you’ll be able to do things like add headers, create bulleted lists and add checklists. Posts are also coming to Slack’s native apps (the desktop app is first, and I can verify it’s working in the Mac app). Prior to the update, Posts forced you to open a web-based editor. All posts are private until you decide to share them with individuals or a channel. Slack also writes “Posts will auto-expand tweets and show previews of web site URLs optionally. If you paste a link to an image from the web, the image will appear in your post (and you can delete the original reference if you prefer to keep things tidy).” All posts will show up in the ‘your files’ menu option, too. It likely won’t have a major impact for personal chats, but for managers who want to keep posts pinned to channels — it might be just what they’ve been looking for. ➤ Refreshing: Posts 2.0 [Slack] Read next: Sonos' all-new Play:5 is loud, beautiful and serious about great sound |
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent the views of Townhall.com. It is fitting that 2017, a year of the unexpected, ends with more unexpected news. In an attempt to crack down on sexual harassment on the job, NBC has reportedly issued strict new guidelines which call for employees to rat out the miscreants in their midst. Not only so, but NBC has allegedly banned shared taxi rides for employees and even issued instructions on how to hug. Yes, NBC is going the way of sexual prudery – or perhaps the way of wisdom? As reported on Page Six, “NBC employees have been ordered to report any inappropriate relationships in the workplace — and if they fail to do so, they could be fired for covering up for colleagues. “Detailed rules also have been issued about conduct in the office, including how to socialize and even how to hug colleagues.” What about romantic relationships in the workplace? Not anymore. There is zero tolerance for this. “Staffers have been told that if they find out about any affairs, romances, inappropriate relationships or behavior in the office, they have to report it to human resources, their superior or the company anti-harassment phone line. Staffers are shocked that they are now expected to snitch on their friends.” Is NBC overreacting? Perhaps. But the reaction is understandable. The allegations against NBC’s Matt Lauer do not stand alone. Others either enabled Lauer to commit his alleged offenses over a period of years or simply looked the other way. So, it is not just Lauer with lots of egg on his face. Many others at NBC are not looking too good. Not only so, but Jeff Zucker, a former NBC executive who claimed to be unaware of Lauer’s actions, participated in a 2008 roast of Lauer which contained lots of sexually explicit humor – at Lauer’s expense, with him as the subject. In other words, his behavior was apparently well-known, even to Zucker, who told his own bawdy jokes about Lauer. Of course, only NBC knows what it does and doesn’t know, but many people have been badly hurt, the great majority of them women, and it would only seem logical that the company would be facing its share of major lawsuits in the coming days. They certainly don’t want more of these. So, it’s good that NBC wants to clean house and reverse the culture of abuse that was able to thrive in its midst (at least, in some places and with some people). But has NBC gone overboard? To quote from Page Six again, “there’s been a series of ridiculous rules issued on other office conduct. One rule relates to hugging. If you wish to hug a colleague, you have to do a quick hug, then an immediate release, and step away to avoid body contact.” Hugging guidelines, to be strictly enforced, for adults in the workplace? Had a major church or ministry issued such guidelines earlier this year, the general public would have mocked such prudery, calling it legalistic bondage. But this is NBC. Who saw this coming one year ago? And this is where conservative Christians can only shake their heads and smile. What NBC needs is not simply guidelines and rules. NBC needs to promote a culture of honor rather than a culture of domination, a culture that respects members of the opposite sex rather than objectifies and abuses them. With that culture in place, you don’t need to mandate the reporting of workplace abuse because it is so rare as to stand out on its own. And when it does raise its ugly head, people won’t need to be told to report it. They will do so as a matter of conscience. That’s why it was Harvey Weinstein, not Mike Pence, who was exposed for years of alleged abusive acts against women. Pence already had guidelines in place as a committed evangelical Christian, because of which there was not a ready environment for him to transgress. And he didn’t build relationships with the opposite sex in a way that would open the door to such transgressions. That’s also why, in the circles in which I have traveled for years, we don’t need to issue hugging guidelines. They come naturally to us out of respect for the differences between the sexes and the danger of certain kinds of physical contact. So, while the watching world might mock us for our “side hugs” and our purity guidelines, it turns out we weren’t so crazy after all. And inevitably, when we hear of someone falling in our midst – we certainly have more than our share of failures to deal with – it’s because our common-sense guidelines were violated, probably repeatedly. And followers of Jesus also know this. We may be mocked today but we’ll be admired tomorrow. That’s not because we’re special, but because God’s ways are ways of life and God’s ways are best. And while it’s good that NBC is addressing a very real problem in its midst, the solution goes beyond rules. A change in culture and mentality is even better. In fact, I know someone who could teach them a lot. He’s just quite busy these days serving as Vice President. |
WASHINGTON — A Georgia Republican Party official was thrown out of a Donald Trump event last week, according to two sources. Michael McNeely, the first vice chair of the Georgia Republicans, was escorted out of Atlanta's Fox Theatre by Secret Service after being told there was "no more room for you" by Trump campaign state director Brandon Phillips, according to a party official briefed on the incident. The official requested anonymity said they were not authorized to speak on behalf of the party. McNeely was stopped while trying to enter an area where Trump had been greeting supporters, the sources said. Neither Phillips, the Trump campaign, nor the Georgia Republican Party returned messages seeking comment. McNeely is considered a rising star of the Georgia Republicans. Earlier this month he was named as an at-large delegate to the Republican National Convention and is a past chair of the Georgia Black Republican Council. Reached by phone regarding the incident, McNeely told BuzzFeed News, "I'll have to get back to you" before hanging up. On Wednesday, McNeely provided a statement to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, offering a different account of what happened. "Last week, an event staffer and I had a discussion about room access. Security surrounding a Presidential candidate being what it is, he couldn’t relent from protocol and I left the building. There were no ill feelings. We’re looking forward to defeating Hillary Clinton and working together to elect Donald Trump as the next president of the United States. Efforts made by the media to question our unity is nonsense and has no basis in fact." It's not clear why McNeely wasn't allowed to mingle in the area. Bruce LeVell, the executive director of the National Diversity Coalition For Trump who did greet Trump that day, said he was only vaguely aware of the incident that resulted in McNeely's ouster from the event. “Anyone that goes to a Trump rally, I don’t give a damn who you are, if anyone even if looks at you and [the campaign] points their finger, you’re out of there," he said. "They’re real strict about [acting] if something doesn’t look right. They just make a judgment call.” |
Story highlights Trump's cabinet picks for the most senior positions are all white males, a first since 1989 He has selected women and minorities for other positions (CNN) — By selecting ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson to serve as secretary of state, Donald Trump on Tuesday guaranteed that his four most influential departments will, if confirmed, be led entirely by white males for the first time since George H.W. Bush's first Cabinet was approved in 1989. Tillerson, who faces headwinds even among Senate Republicans, would be the nation's top diplomat, while retired Marine Gen. James Mattis has been tapped to run the Defense Department, Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions is the pick for attorney general and ex-Goldman Sachs banker Steve Mnuchin will be nominated to run the Treasury Department. All four are white. The first round of top appointees in the Obama administration included an African-American man -- Attorney General Eric Holder -- and a white woman -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Colin Powell, then a retired general, became the only person of color in former President George W. Bush's top four when he was nominated and confirmed as the first African-American secretary of state. Of Trump's 18 choices to date -- excluding his vice president and senior White House staff -- 14 are white, of which 12 are male. None are Latino. By comparison, 11 of the the corresponding positions in Obama's first Cabinet were white -- with seven men and four women -- along with Latino labor and interior secretaries and three African-Americans, two of whom were women. Trump's lone African-American choice, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, will run the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which primarily deals with city planning. Of his four female appointees, the highest profile is billionaire Republican donor and "school choice" activist Betsy DeVos. Fast-food titan Andy Puzder will run the Labor Department and billionaire businessman Wilbur Ross is the choice for commerce secretary. Read More |
Last weekend a few dozen young mothers threw a party in the historically poor but gentrifying neighborhood of East London. There was food, music, and face paint, and then they went ahead and moved the celebration somewhere a little more clandestine—four boarded-up “abandoned” flats. The mothers, who are homeless and all younger than 25, are part of a group called Focus E15, named after the hostel where they used to live. Focus E15 provided shelter for young people and parenting programs, but all 210 residents were forced to leave one year ago. Since getting evicted from their hostel because of budget cuts, they have been organizing against gentrification and for public housing. The Newham council attempted to rehouse the women but would only do it outside London—isolating them from their friends and families. The area near the closed hostel was part of a “regeneration” effort during the London 2012 Olympics and has become more expensive. Local government in East London has been turning subsidized housing—the type of apartments the women were evicted from, as well as the units they occupied last weekend—into rental housing. According to The Guardian, the mayor of Newham has said he wants 3,000 more rental homes. After organizing and speaking out against their eviction, the women were rehoused nearby. But the group says the new apartments are in poor condition and expensive (around £1,000 a month, they told Vice), and their leases are short-term. There are around 600 empty homes in the area, and local officials are trying to develop more affluent housing, The Guardian reported. “Have you seen the buildings that are being built?” Sam Middleton, who is 20 and a founding member of the Focus E15, asked a reporter from the Evening Standard. “They’re all for rich people. It’s disgusting, it’s disgraceful that you can tear a community apart for your benefit.” At the party this weekend—which was a one-year-anniversary celebration of the initial fight against eviction—the women turned four boarded-up flats into a social center and open housing for other homeless people, Vice reported. “People need homes, and these homes need people. We were all told there were no places in the borough for us. Well, we found them sitting empty,” Middleton told Vice. “There are people sleeping on the streets in Newham and empty, boarded-up homes everywhere around here. They say there is no housing and they’re regenerating the area, but why do these houses need to be empty while they do it? The places have been boarded up for years. We’re just doing what the council won’t.” Though they’re abandoned, the buildings seem to be in good condition—they have new kitchens, electricity, and running water. The group will likely not be allowed to continue to occupy them, however. The local government has plans to knock down the buildings and sell the land to a private developer, the Evening Standard reported. “It is disappointing to see empty homes in the Carpenters Estate being occupied by agitators and hangers on,” said Councillor Andrew Baikie, a mayoral adviser for housing. “The tower blocks are simply too expensive to renovate and will need to be demolished.” Expressing no patience for the activists, he continued, “Now it looks as though we will have to spend more money to get protesters off the estate. It is clear that on the Carpenters Estate, the needs of the wider people of Newham are being ignored for the sake of petty, expensive stunts.” |
This article is over 7 years old • Manchester City defender abused on social media site • Police believe the offender to be from the Lincolnshire area Police are investigating reports of racist abuse towards the Manchester City defender Micah Richards. Angry fans contacted the police following a comment posted on the 23-year-old defender's Twitter page. The Twitter user WillMadine94 tweeted: "You big fat n***** u r s***. Martin Kelly over u all day for england. Play for africa!!!" on the footballer's page. Richards later replied: "Love the racist abuse. Keep it coming." The matter is being investigated by Lincolnshire police, who believe the offender to be from the Lincolnshire area. The force thanked fans for reporting the matter to them and said on their Twitter page: "Thank you to all those who helped earlier – we will not tolerate racist comments. Also a warning to all that deleting comments does not work." Today the user's Twitter account was unavailable. A spokesman for Manchester City said they were aware that police were investigating the matter and did not want to comment further on the incident at present. |
Last Tuesday I took a closer look at the Concept TS. This followed a discussion about the power and usefulness of concepts regarding a replacement for TMP (shout-out to @irrequietus and @Manu343726). So after compiling the GCC trunk that has concept support, I’ve specifically looked in a way to use concepts alone for doing arbitrary calculations. Attention: This is completely pointless. You’ve been warned. For that, I tried to implement a Prime_number concept that checks whether a given number is a prime number. It should use only concepts and require to do the calculation. And well, I’ve succeeded… somewhat. It doesn't compile with concepts - only with the equivalent `constexpr` functions. I'm not a language lawyer, but I think it should compile. Most likely, GCC doesn't like it because I'm completely misusing abusing the feature. And there *is* also a more complicated version that works, so you can definitely do it with concepts. @CoderCasey has pointed out that there is a special rule preventing such code. More on that below. Before I show the concept version, let me take you on a little journey backwards through time. At each point we’ll take a look at the ways to do compile-time programming to implement the prime number check. C++14 constexpr solution C++14 provides a very powerful constexpr , so it is basically the trivial CS 101 solution, just with constexpr at the front: constexpr bool is_prime_number ( int i ) { if ( i == 1 ) return false ; else if ( i == 2 ) return true ; else if ( i % 2 == 0 ) return false ; for ( auto div = 3 ; div * div <= i ; div += 2 ) if ( i % div == 0 ) return false ; return true ; } Yes, I’m using the div * div check as opposed to going to the square root of i . Yes, this can overflow. No, I don’t care. But it is too simple. Everybody can write code like this. So let’s go back to C++11. C++11 constexpr C++11’s constexpr doesn’t allow loops so we need to do it via recursion. For that, I’ve extracted the search for a divisor into a different function: constexpr bool is_prime_number_helper ( int i , int div ) { return div * div <= i ? ( i % div == 0 ? false : is_prime_number_helper ( i , div + 2 )) : true ; } constexpr bool is_prime_number ( int i ) { return i == 2 ? true : ( i == 1 || i % 2 == 0 ? false : is_prime_number_helper ( i , 3 )); } I like this implementation. It’s elegant and compact. And as bonus: Completely unreadable. Note how the two conditionals in is_prime_number_helper() correspond to the inner loop conditional and the outer loop termination. Also note how I’ve re-ordered the conditionals in is_prime_number() to group the two trivial false cases. But let’s go even further back in time. C++98 metaprogramming Remember the time before constexpr ? Where you had to do compile-time calculations via template specializations? I don’t. Well, here we are now: template < int I , int Div , int Rest > struct is_prime_number_helper // I % Div != 0 { enum { value = is_prime_number_helper < I , Div + 2 , I % ( Div + 2 ) >:: value }; }; template < int I , int Div > struct is_prime_number_helper < I , Div , 0 > // I % Div == 0 { enum { value = false }; }; template < int I > struct is_prime_number_helper < I , I , 0 > // I == Div { enum { value = true }; }; template < int I , bool Even > struct is_prime_number_nontrivial ; template < int I > struct is_prime_number_nontrivial < I , true > // I even { enum { value = false }; }; template < int I > struct is_prime_number_nontrivial < I , false > // I not even { enum { value = is_prime_number_helper < I , 3 , I % 3 >:: value }; }; template < int I > struct is_prime_number // general case { enum { value = is_prime_number_nontrivial < I , I % 2 == 0 >:: value }; }; template <> struct is_prime_number < 1 > // special case 1 { enum { value = false }; }; template <> struct is_prime_number < 2 > // special case 2 { enum { value = true }; }; Yes, I got nostalgic wanted to give the impression I’ve been using C++ for ages and used the anonymous enum technique to create static constants. I have carefully created many template specializations to let the compiler stop instantiation as early as possible. Note that the divisor check runs until Div == I , there is no easy way to specialize for Div * Div > I . And now we jump 18 years forward and write the same code but with concepts instead of class templates. I’ve told you it’s pointless. Concepts I’m going to assume you have already heard of concepts. Otherwise you wouldn’t probably read this. I mean: we’re implementing compile-time prime number checks in an overly complicated way! A concept can take any constexpr value, so writing the Prime_integer concept is very straightforward: template < int I > concept bool Prime_number = is_prime_number ( I ); And that’s how you use concepts for arbitrary computation. Thank’s for reading. … Yeah, but that’s cheating. Also it is boring. I’ve explicitly stated that I only wanted to use concepts for the calculation. Again: that is completely pointless. I just want to prove a point. The overall strategy is very similar to the C++98 solution. Branches are implemented through requires , not template specialization, and the syntax is different, but the technique is basically the same. As before, first of all the Prime_number_helper that does the divisor check: // Div * Div > I template < int I , int Div > requires Div * Div > I concept bool Prime_number_helper () { return true ; } // I % Div == 0 template < int I , int Div > requires Div * Div <= I && I % Div == 0 concept bool Prime_number_helper () { return false ; } // I % Div != 0 template < int I , int Div > requires Div * Div <= I && I % Div != 0 concept bool Prime_number_helper () { return Prime_number_helper < I , Div + 2 > (); } I’ve used function concepts because GCC seems to like them a little bit more than variable concepts regarding their requires statement. Note that it is needed to split this part up into the three conditions. Putting it all into one and using the ?: operator would leed to infinite recursion when the compiler tries to calculate. Infinite recursion at compile-time leads to very long compilation times. And then the Prime_number concept is very easy: template < int I > requires I <= 1 concept bool Prime_number () { return false ; } template < int I > requires I == 2 concept bool Prime_number () { return true ; } template < int I > requires I > 2 && I % 2 == 0 concept bool Prime_number () { return false ; } template < int I > requires I > 2 && I % 2 == 1 concept bool Prime_number () { return Prime_number_helper < I , 3 > (); } You only need to watch out that the all overloads have disjunct conditions. Otherwise you get an ambigous call to overloaded function error. Update: This code is actually ill-formed due to a special rule that prevents requires with concept s for exactly that reason. But you can still write them as “normal” constexpr functions, i.e. write constexpr instead of concept and it works. So actually you can do arbitrary compile-time calculations with requires , not with concept . But still: pointless but cool. So this is useful for what? It isn’t useful. It is completely pointless. We’ve used bleeding edge technology to create something in the same way we could in 1998. And it doesn’t even compile! (Only if I replace some all concept with constexpr .) But this was a fun afternoon for me. Apart from the hours spend compiling GCC trunk, made worse by a little issue with tmpfs. And it yet again proves that C++ features can do much more than probably intended. Concepts are obviously limited in that they can only give true / false answers but they alone allow powerful computations. Also you have another fun C++ story you can share at parties. |
In a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters (arXiv.org), astronomers from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and the University of California have reported the discovery of a distant star-forming galaxy powered by pristine hydrogen, matter left over from the Big Bang. To detect hydrogen stream near this galaxy, the astronomers made use of a cosmic coincidence – a bright quasar acting as a ‘cosmic lighthouse.’ In the current narrative of how galaxies like our own Milky Way formed, scientists postulate they were once fed from a vast reservoir of primordial hydrogen in the intergalactic medium, which permeates the vast expanses between galaxies. About 10 billion years ago when the Universe was one-fifth its current age, early proto-galaxies were in a state of extreme activity, forming new stars nearly one hundred times their current rate. Because stars form from gas, this fecundity demands a steady source of cosmic fuel. In the past decade, supercomputer simulations of galaxy formation have become so sophisticated that they can actually predict how galaxies form and are fed: gas funnels onto galaxies along thin cold streams which, like streams of snow melt feeding a mountain lake, channel cool gas from the surrounding intergalactic medium onto galaxies, continuously topping up their supplies of raw material for star formation. However, testing these predictions has proven to be extremely challenging, because such gas at the edges of galaxies is so rarefied that it emits very little light. Instead, astronomers systematically searched for examples of a very specific type of cosmic coincidence. Quasars constitute a brief phase in the galactic life-cycle, during which they shine as the most luminous objects in the Universe, powered by the infall of matter onto a supermassive black hole. From our perspective on Earth, there will be rare cases where a distant background quasar and a stream of primordial gas near a foreground galaxy are exactly aligned on the night sky. As light from the quasar travels toward Earth, it passes by the galaxy and through the primordial gas, before reaching our telescopes. The cosmic gas selectively absorbs light at very specific frequencies which astronomers refer to as absorption lines. The pattern and shape of these lines provide a cosmic barcode, which astronomers can decode to determine the chemical composition, density, and temperature of the gas. Using this technique, Dr Neil Crighton of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy with colleagues has found the best evidence to date for a flow of pristine intergalactic gas onto a galaxy. The galaxy, labeled Q1442-MD50, is so distant that it took 11 billion years for its light to reach us. The primordial infalling gas resides a mere 190,000 light-years from the galaxy – relatively nearby on galactic length-scales – and is revealed in silhouette in the absorption spectrum of the more distant background quasar QSO J1444535+291905. “This is not the first time astronomers have found a galaxy with nearby gas, revealed by a quasar. But it is the first time that everything fits together. The galaxy is vigorously forming stars, and the gas properties clearly show that this is pristine material, left over from the early Universe shortly after the Big Bang,” Dr Crighton said. ______ Bibliographic information: Neil H. M. Crighton et al. 2013. Metal-poor, Cool Gas in the Circumgalactic Medium of a z = 2.4 Star-forming Galaxy: Direct Evidence for Cold Accretion? ApJ 776, L18; doi: 10.1088/2041-8205/776/2/L18 |
For many Yemeni students and businesspeople in Germany, the year 2017 began with a nasty surprise. For some time now Deutsche Bank and a series of other credit institutes have been canceling the current accounts of dozens of these individuals, without giving any reason. Yemeni diplomats, all of them Commerzbank customers, have also been affected by the wave of cancellations. "All Yemeni diplomats received the same termination letter from the Commerzbank in mid-October," Yahia Mohammed Abdullah Al-Shaibi, the Republic of Yemen's Ambassador to Germany, told DW. According to Al-Shaibi, Yemeni representations in other European countries and diplomats representing other countries in Germany are not affected. The cancellations have not only caused "great difficulties" for Yemeni diplomats, Al-Shaibi continued. Yemeni students and businesspeople have also been adversely affected by the move. "For our students it's a disaster if they can't pay their rent or transfer their tuition fees," said Abdulhameed Al-Mahfadi, Chairman of the Association of Yemeni Students in Germany, in an interview with DW. "It feels like a deportation." Al-Shaibi, the most senior Yemeni diplomat in Germany since September 2016, emphasized that business relations with the Commerzbank have already been in place for two decades. There had been no problems until October last year, he said. When approached by DW for a response, the Commerzbank replied that they are allowed to cancel accounts "without giving any reasons". The bank was not prepared to make any further comment on the issue. Like that of the Commerzbank, the Deutsche Bank cancellation letter also referred to prevailing contractual freedom in Germany which states that service providers such as banks - as well as customers - have the right to terminate accounts without giving any reason. There was also a cautious response from the Berliner Sparkasse, a bank that this article will return to at a later point. Its reply does at least contain an initial indication of why the move is affecting people from Yemen in particular. Applications to open a current account, says the Sparkasse, are reviewed in consideration of "compliance-relevant aspects." "These also include, alongside requirements pertaining to banking and money-laundering acts, sanctions and embargo regulations on the part of the EU as well as the American authorities, so far as they are relevant." Indignation at the cancellations After conducting a Facebook group poll, Abdulhameed Al-Mahfadi says there are at least 74 cases of accounts being canceled. According to the responses to this poll, all those affected received a similarly formulated termination letter over a period between the summer of 2016 and the end of January this year. DW has seen four such termination letters from the Deutsche Bank. Most of the accounts were cancelled in the latter half of January, and cannot be used after the end of March when the two-month notice period expires. Abdulhameed Al-Mahfadi came to Germany from Yemen in 2012 and is in the seventh semester of a mechanical engineering degree at the University of Hanover Al-Mahfadi says that following the cancellation of his account, no other bank has been willing to open another in his name. The only exceptions are the Sparkasse Hannover and the Turkish-Kuwaiti KT Bank headquartered in Berlin. Just as in the case of the diplomats, the student representative says the move has not affected Yemenis in other European countries or students of other nationalities. This explains why many Yemeni students feel discriminated against and placed under general suspicion, says Al-Mahfadi. "Most of our students are afraid that they'll be given a hard time socially and by other banks. That's why many of them didn't take part in the poll," says the 24-year-old student. In 2013 during the nuclear standoff with Iran, the accounts of more than 2,000 Iranian students in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic were frozen. Most of them were customers at the Commerzbank, the Deutsche Bank and the HypoVereinsbank. This is a large number in comparison to the fewer than 100 known Yemeni cases, but then far more Iranian nationals live in Germany than Yemenis (c. 70,000 as opposed to 2,000). And at the time, Iranian diplomats were not affected. In an interview with DW, Omid Nouripour, foreign policy spokesman for the Green Party in the Bundestag expressed indignation at the cancellations. "If people are losing their accounts just because they come from a particular country, then that's simply discrimination. The government has to make this unequivocally clear to the banks," he said. Nouripour has announced his intention to contact the government over the matter. When Ambassador Al-Shaibi turned to the German Foreign Ministry directly following the cancellations in October, the ministry expressed surprise and assured him that the decision had not been taken by any government authority Other banks refuse to open new accounts The German foreign Ministry has promised to review the situation and referred Al-Shaibi to other banks such as the Sparkasse. But, says the Ambassador, not a single Sparkasse bank was willing to open accounts for Yemeni diplomats. On paper at least, this procedure is legal in the case of private banks in Germany, which are not obliged to grant new account applications. But in the case of the Berliner Sparkasse, a state-owned lender, things look rather different. By its own account, the Berliner Sparkasse is obliged by the Savings Bank Act to issue every customer with a current account. In two cases, according to Al-Shaibi, applications by Yemeni diplomats were also granted in early November - but the accounts were cancelled again after one month. Responding to a query from the Yemeni Embassy, the Berliner Sparkasse stated that it was unable to provide the reasons "in accordance with banking industry practices." German Foreign Ministry sources say that the ministry is in contact with the Yemeni embassy and is at the present time trying to offer support in resolving the problem. In response to the question of whether this support has been sufficient, Ambassador Al-Shaibi replies: "regrettably, no." Speculation over possible reasons The cancellations prompt a host of controversial questions: What is the reason for the wave of cancellations across the banking sector? Do the banks know which Yemenis have had their accounts terminated, as well as when and why? And why has the move only apparently targeted Yemenis? One possible explanation could come from enhanced due diligence obligations in the banking sector in the case of what are termed "politically exposed persons" (PeP) such as diplomats, as well as a heightened risk of money laundering and terrorism funding from certain countries. Information on this is provided by, among other sources, the country lists of the supranational Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) distributes to the German banks under its supervision. The FATF currently views Yemen as a "high risk and non-cooperative jurisdiction". Nine other nations are on the FATF "blacklist", among them North Korea, Iran and Syria. The current risk assessment of Yemen by the FATF issued last October does however state that Yemen has made "progress" since 2010 in its efforts to counter money laundering and the financing of terrorism. In a separate circular from May 2016, BaFin instructed German banks to "give appropriate consideration to the situation in the nations named and persons from those nations respectively" when appraising country risks. But as the BaFin also told DW, originating from a "high-risk nation" meant neither the automatic "presence of a suspicious case" nor that an account owned by the person concerned "should be automatically cancelled." What is significant is the "individual risk situation in consideration of all circumstances of the individual case." In other words: An enhanced risk does not justify the unfounded termination of individual customer relationships, and certainly not those of all citizens of a particular nation. Based on this information at least, it appears doubtful that all the aforementioned banks would have simultaneously given Yemen a poorer rating in their risk evaluation process and that this is why they cancelled accounts and refused new applications. But there are indications that the cancellations fall within the area of "risk minimization measures". One of these is the currently heightened uncertainty and risk-averse approach among banks due to negative PR and financial penalties. In particular the Deutsche Bank, Germany's largest credit institute, recently had to pay huge fines in the US for failings in its money laundering safeguards. But this also doesn't address the apparent singling out of Yemeni citizens. What about the applications rejected following the initial cancellations - despite banking secrecy laws do banks in Germany have access to information on people who have had their accounts cancelled, and when and why this happened? When approached by DW for a response to this question, a spokeswoman for the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection (BMJV) said the ministry did not have any information about "whether and to what extent banks have access to the banking history of potential customers who want to open an account." Thus far, none of this has done anything to help most affected Yemenis, who continue to face the daily challenges of managing their lives without a bank account. |
Situated in central North Carolina, Greensboro is the state’s third largest city, with a population of more than 275,000 as of 2012. While many think the city is named for its greenery, it is actually named after General Nathanael Greene, a general who led American forces during the Revolutionary War. According to 2012 Ersi data, Greensboro is 49 percent white, 39 percent African American, 8 percent Latino, and 4 percent Asian. These numbers make Greensboro, for the first time, a “majority minority” city, an important milestone for a city with a storied civil rights movement past, including, famously, the lunch counter sit-in campaign to integrate restaurants and hotels, which began in 1960 at Woolworth’s department store in downtown Greensboro. Greensboro today is a city of contrasts. The city boasts a vibrant downtown known for its art galleries, antique stores, parks, and public art displays. It is also home to five colleges and universities, a community college, and a law school—together employing 6,000 people and educating more than 47,000 students a year. While the city’s economy remains dominated by textile, furniture, and tobacco, it has become more diversified over the years with sizeable insurance, printing, publishing, nanotechnology, health care, transportation, and global logistics industries. As a result, Greensboro has experienced population growth over the past decade of roughly two percent a year. Yet poverty has increased significantly. Between 2000 and 2009, the number of “middle class” households (i.e., those with incomes between $25,000 and $75,000) fell 28 percent. By contrast, the number of households with incomes of less than $15,000 a year increased by 30 percent. This growing poverty has had a disproportional effect on the city’s non-white populations—nearly a quarter of all African American and Hispanic families were considered poor in 2009 compared to just six percent of white families. Greensboro and its residents, however, are not observing these trends from the backseat. Rather, they are actively creating and implementing innovative programs and strategies that capitalize on the city’s strengths to help address these challenges and foster a healthier, vibrant local economy. In fact, just last year, the city won a federal grant, which enabled it to kick off its Strong Cities, Strong Communities Challenge, which offers cash rewards to groups or individuals who develop the best plans to nurture the city’s economic growth. Similarly, at the community level, the Welfare Reform Liaison Project (WRLP), which provides workforce training and job placement services, recently initiated new programs in digital imagery/paper reduction and “green” hospitality to help more residents connect to the city’s growing green economy. Greensboro universities are also working in partnership with the community to help area residents rebuild wealth. For example, The North Carolina Entrepreneurship Center at the University of North Carolina Greensboro supports community members working to create and grow sustainable enterprises. An overview of these and other community wealth building efforts follows: |
CHICAGO (CBS) — An Indianapolis police officer mistakenly shot an armed homeowner, while responding to a robbery call early Tuesday morning. Indianapolis Police Assistant Chief Randall Taylor said a woman called police around 4:30 a.m., saying she had been robbed on her driveway. “Female victim apparently was returning home from work; at one point, the victim was threatened with a weapon. A gun was pointed towards her head,” he said. The woman gave up her keys, and then went into her house and called 911. Her husband went outside with a gun. “The husband was out with the weapon, and unfortunately the husband was shot by one of our officers,” Taylor said. Police said the man was in serious but stable condition at the hospital, and was expected to survive. The suspect left the victims’ car in the driveway and fled the scene. |
Liverpool Sound City 2018 to return to its award winning metropolitan roots for May festival. Liverpool Sound City have today confirmed that they will return to their roots for the 2018 edition of the festival, releasing details of a city centre-based weekend of music in May 2018. As well as returning to the city centre, the festival will also be brought forward to the first May Bank Holiday; 5th-6th May. UPDATE: Liverpool Sound City have revealed the more precise location for May 2018’s Festival as the area surrounding the Baltic Triangle and Cains Brewery. The festival will utilise iconic warehouses, intimate spaces, outdoor stages and pop-up places to put on performances of over 250 emerging artists and headline names, all in the shadow of the Anglican Cathedral, with the first names to be announced soon. Becky Ayres, Sound City’s COO, adds: “We are all very happy to be bringing Sound City back to its roots and hosting 2018’s weekend in May in the Baltic Triangle. It’s the perfect place to really capture the magic of what Sound City was always built upon, and what we are bringing back – taking in lots of inspiring and wild shows, all within minutes’ walk from each other, with a vast range of live artists, DJs, label heads, creatives, industry icons, producers, performers and more. We are working with what we know are some of Liverpool’s finest venues so everyone has a plenty of choice over the weekend, from cavernous spaces to truly intimate hideaways, and are currently putting together a suitable eclectic and forward-thinking lineup which mirrors the Baltic Triangle’s spirit. We are bringing back the spirit of discovery to Sound City, and can’t wait to release our first wave of names soon.” Early bird tickets for Sound City 2018 are on sale now. It’s a welcome return to the Sound City of years past, which would see people dash across town, darting venue to venue to catch some of the world’s greatest emerging artists. After all emerging artists is what Sound City is all about. With their move to a bigger site and set up prompted by uncertainty surrounding many of the festival’s established city dwelling venues, changes had to be made and although giving a platform to new music always remained at the heart of Sound City, some of it became lost in the expansion, as fewer stages with bigger audiences resulted in bigger acts being drawn the event. “We delivered three hugely ambitious and successful years of Sound City on the north docklands of the city,” said Sound City COO Becky Ayres. “Sound City was the first to shine a beacon on this neglected area of the city and, by doing so, we’ve even encouraged Everton FC to relocate to our former festival site.” That result was no bad thing as thanks to the step up in stature we got to enjoy sets from likes of The Flaming Lips, Belle & Sebastian, The Human League, Peaches, John Cale and Swans as the ambition of the festival grew. Having gone as far as they could in that direction, Ayres said that the festival is ready for the next stage of its journey. “2018 will all be about re-establishing new links and a new feel. This will also lead us into the hugely ambitious plans that we have for 2019, which will be revealed over the coming months.” The last time Sound City took place in its old format was in 2014 when names such as Courtney Barnett, Clean Bandit, The Wytches, Kodaline, Fat White Family and more attracted masses of festival goers to three days of events. The return to the city now puts the spotlight firmly back on emerging artists. With a greater number of stages and variants in venues to suit a range of genres and audiences, Sound City 2018 promises to take what was great about the original set up and the experience of running a much larger festival and marry them up, the prospect of which could be the best Sound City so far. Now that the city’s venues are experiencing a more stable environment it makes perfect sense that Sound City make their metropolitan come back, something that can only be a positive for the venues and city economy too, bringing the music as well as the money back into the city streets. Sound City +, the conference element of the festival which almost acts as the heart of the entire event – has also been confirmed to return on Friday 4th May, the day before the main festival kicks off. Conference Director Jo Whitty said: “The conference programme will be packed with the usual mix of influential music names and innovative panels and programmes. We will work closely with our national and international partners to encourage even more business to come out of it as a result. Our core aim is the same as it was when we started, that is to offer an environment to foster belief in the region and encourage business to stay here in the North.” A new venture has also been announced; Sound City Satellite. Sound City CEO David Pichilingi said: “If there’s one thing that Brexit taught us, it’s that there is a sense of social disenfranchisement between the significant suburbs that lie between the cities of Liverpool and Manchester, and along the M62 corridor. This should not be the case when you consider that this great region has been responsible for some of the most important pieces of pop culture over the past 50 years. Going back further, the region has been responsible for some of the greatest innovations of the 20th century.” As a result of this, Sound City will be taking their model to key towns between Manchester and Liverpool as well as along the M62 corridor in the North of England in April and May of next year. The team will work with key stakeholders in each location such as promoters, record labels and artists to design and deliver a targeted business conference and live music programme. Their core aim is to shine a national and international spotlight on these towns, demonstrating their business, creative and cultural credentials to a national and international audience. “Sound City Satellite is a hugely ambitious project,” Pichilingi continues. “It strikes right at the heart of what we originally set out to do: to champion emerging business and artistic talent from our region and give them the belief that they do not need to move away in order to fulfill their potential and run successful businesses. The aim will be to foster a spirit of inclusion. That we are all in this together. It is not meant as a snub to London, but it is meant to help people view the bigger picture as well as encourage artists and businesses to stay in the North and build a real business economy outside of the capital.” Instrumental to this initiative were Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram, the two Mayors of the Manchester and Liverpool city regions, who came together on the Sound City stage last summer for an emotional tribute to the victims of the Manchester Arena attack, which took place mere days before this year’s festival began. Liverpool Mayor Rotheram said: “Music and the music industry have always straddled the rivalries between our two great cities and have flourished in many towns across our region. It’s an expression of a shared creative DNA that has continued to nurture and launch world-class talent. This is a great idea and a great opportunity to celebrate and enjoy something that unites us.” Sound City weekend has always been a central point in the city’s musical calendar. Whether we felt the line-up as a whole appealed to us or not, there was always something to peak your interest and more often than not have a great and memorable weekend. But we are glad to see it make a triumphant return to the set up that made it a annual highlight for so many. Happily, Planet Slop is among the names assisting with the curation of the new look Sound City, and it is refreshing to see names such as Africa Oye, Positive Vibration, Nothin’ But The Music and No Fakin’ alongside the likes of the more standard Louder Than War and Skeleton Key. Many of them may have contributed in the past, but having Sound City send out all of the names at once, and in alphabetical order at that, seems to send a message of unity. Nobody is more important than anybody else, and everybody has a voice to be heard. It is an outlook that we can very much support. And it bodes well for Sound City 2018. For three years they went and held their own with the big boys, but never forgot who they were, or where they came from and now they’re coming back. More details about Sound City, Sound City + and Sound City Satellite will be revealed in the coming months. Limited edition Early Bird tickets for Sound City‘s main festival and Sound City + go on sale Friday 29th September 2018 at 9am. |
Share this... 3 Linkedin Digg Reddit 11 Tumblr 0 StumbleUpon 0 SunLine introduces two new fuel cell buses that will operate in California SunLine Transit Agency, a transit operator based in Riverside County, California, will be holding a ribbon cutting ceremony in order to honor the winners of its SunLine Student Art Contest. The ceremony will also unveil the organization’s new hydrogen-powered buses, which will be clad in the winning art from those that have won SunLine’s contest. The buses are powered by hydrogen fuel cells, which use hydrogen to generate electrical power. Fuel cell buses are becoming more prominent in the state as California works to embrace clean transportation SunLine’s new buses bring California’s total number of fuel cell buses to 16. California has been working on embracing the concept of clean transportation for some time, but has only very recently made any significant progress in this endeavor. The state aims to reduce the emissions it is responsible for by limiting the emissions that are produced within the transportation space. As such, clean vehicles are being heavily promoted and the state has begun investing in the establishment of a working hydrogen fuel infrastructure as well as an infrastructure capable of supporting battery electric vehicles. New legislation aims to establish a zero emission bus program Legislation focusing on the matter of clean transportation was recently introduced in the state as well. Senate Bill 1204 aims to create a zero-emission bus program. This program would be funded through the state’s cap-and-trade initiative and would be populated with electric buses, some of which would make use of hydrogen fuel cells. The legislation draws upon a roadmap outlined by the California Fuel Cell Partnership, which calls for some 40 fuel cell buses to come to California’s roads. Automakers see a great deal of promise in California when it comes to their clean vehicles Fuel cell buses are part of California’s ongoing endeavor to embrace clean transportation. The state is also supporting the adoption of clean vehicles among consumers, of course. Many of the world’s automakers plan to launch their own fuel cell vehicles in the near future and California will be one of the most attractive markets for these vehicles. |
New York Democrats actually have to pay attention this time. Presidential primaries in New York have been relatively uneventful for decades, but with Bernie Sanders fighting to catch up to Hillary Clinton, that’s going to change this year. After Sanders swept the caucuses in Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii this weekend, Clinton’s lead is down to about 230 pledged delegates. Next week, the Democrats will hold a primary in Wisconsin and a caucus in Wyoming, but the next big prize is New York on April 19, where 247 delegates will be awarded in a closed primary. Sanders’s first public move in his attempt to take on Clinton in New York came on Sunday’s Meet the Press, when he challenged her to yet another debate. “I would hope very much that as we go into New York state, Secretary Clinton’s home state, that we will have a debate — New York City, upstate, wherever — on the important issues facing New York and in fact the country,” he said. When Chuck Todd asked if he’s worried that Clinton will refuse, Sanders answered, “Yeah, I do have a little bit of concern about that. But I certainly would like to see a debate in New York State.” The Democrats had previously agreed to hold a debate in April and another in May, and CBS News reports that on Sunday, Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver sent a letter to Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook formally requesting that the former take place in New York — and suggesting that Clinton is dragging her feet because she’s afraid of holding a forum in her home state. Related Stories Sanders Crushes Clinton in Sweep of 3 Western Caucuses “It is difficult to understand your motivation,” Weaver told Mook. “Can you please explain why New York should not host the April debate? Is the Secretary concerned about debating before the people who twice elected her to the U.S. Senate? Perhaps there is some tactical advantage you are seeking by avoiding a debate in New York.” Aside from boosting Sanders’s delegate count, a defeat for Clinton in her adopted home state would be a humiliating blow. But New York presents a huge challenge for the Vermont senator. A recent poll had Clinton at 71 percent to his 23 percent. Nevertheless, the Sanders team believes that if he can turn things around in Michigan, he can do the same in New York. According to the Washington Post, he plans to “barnstorm the state as if he were running for governor,” and play up his Brooklyn roots. His campaign is looking into issues that could potentially resonate with New York voters, such as Clinton’s Wall Street ties and failure to come out strongly against fracking, which is banned in New York. “We’ll be the underdog, but being the underdog in New York is not the worst situation in politics,” Tad Devine, the Sanders campaign’s chief strategist, told the paper. “We’re going to make a real run for it.” So, the next few weeks should be exciting for New Yorkers — we’re finally going to get some attention from the national media! |
Washington, DC. After some Republican leaders doubted the gender and sexual preferences of the US President, the White House has issued a press release and a medical certificate clarifying that President Barack Obama was indeed a male human being with straight sexual preferences. Earlier, a survey had showed that a large number of Americans, especially those supporting the Republican Party, suspected Obama to be lesbian woman. “The President is obviously a man, a male human being; he stands to pee and that’s a daily activity witnessed by many of us,” White House spokesman Bill Burton clarified and further displayed a medical certificate issued by a Doctor in Hawaii that clearly showed the President’s gender as “male”. The medical certificate has also been uploaded on the White House website for the general public. US President, arguably the strongest “man” on earth, was forced to take this decision after Donald Trump, a billionaire and a potential Republican presidential candidate in the next year’s elections, had recently doubted if Obama was a woman living with another woman called Michelle Obama. Such images circulated on the internet convinced many Americans that US President was a woman “I think Obamas are an all-woman family. Two women – Barack and Michelle – and two girls – Malia and Sasha,” Trump is reported to have claimed three weeks back, after which the internet was abuzz with rumors that President Obama was a “secret woman” masquerading as a man. As one of the “proofs” of Obama’s sexual preferences, Trump had cited his decision to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy last year, which prevented openly gay and lesbian people from serving in the United States Armed Forces. Although Donald Trump welcomed the clarification and certificate by the White House and has claimed that he was proud and honored to have achieved this feat, most of the Republican supporters were still not convinced of Obama’s gender and sexual preferences. “Why have we never seen any father, brother, or son of Barack Obama all these years?” George Palin, a Republican supporter argued, “He is definitely a woman making out with another woman and raising girls. He must be a misomanist (sic.) – a man hater. Oh God! How can we trust someone like him to lead our country!?” “He is definitely gay, a gay woman!” he added. |
HOME RECORDING GUIDE UPDATED FOR 2019 TECHNOLOGY CAN HELP YOU OVERCOME THE LIMITATIONS OF MONEY GETTING STARTED BRINGING YOUR MUSIC AND YOUR MESSAGE TO THE WORLD HOW TECHNOLOGY IS BREAKING FINANCIAL CHAINS The power of the spoken word is the most powerful form of communication in history. The power of music goes back to the beginning of history. Today, you can get your messages and your music directly to a global audience. You are no longer dependent on big media corporations. This guide is to show you that you have power. The value of you and your message is not defined by money. Modern technology has cut the costs of creating audio works. The internet enables you to reach a global audience. It is really not that hard to create an MP3 file and simply upload it to your web site. You can also post it on a site like Soundcloud that enables it to be heard all over the world. Soundcloud also enables you to interface with the world's major social networking sites. Most music is posted to You Tube. You can easily create a one picture video with an audio track. Even if your financial resources are limited, opportunities are available to jump start your recording career by using the cheap technology that is now on the market. All it takes is your own creative spark, a little money, and an Internet connection. This guide points the way for artists, composers, DJs, and musicians who would like to move their recording careers from ground zero. The advice in this guide is based upon our experience with certain kinds of equipment and software. It does not represent the final word in recording at home. We may recommend a certain computer program or piece of equipment, but our recommendation does not mean that other kinds of equipment and software are bad choices. Quite the opposite is true, in fact. Although we do not guarantee the results you will get, all of the software listed below, as well as much of the equipment available on the web sites we list, is worth using. We have no financial connections with any products mentioned here and make no guarantee that these products will work for you. You can learn a lot from looking through what is available at a site like Musician's Friend . NOTE: GOOGLE DOCS SUPPORTS VOICE TYPING Some people are not aware that you no longer need expensive voice software like Dragon. You can now talk directly into Google docs. You simply go to tools and hit "voice typing". We find it very accurate. WEBCAMS PORTABLE RECORDERS PHONES SOFTWARE WHERE TO BUY WFF AUDIOS LINKS WEBCAMS AND MICROPHONES So how can you get started recording if you don't have any recording tools? If you're reading this from a modern laptop, you probably have the basic tools needed to get started. Most laptop computers come with built in webcams these days. Simply find the webcam program on your laptop's desktop, open it and click the record button to get started. Most audio recording software will recognize your webcam's microphone. Important: The audio quality of better webcams such as the Logitech 920 is really quite good and we would strongly advise getting one unless you have a very good laptop. See below: EQUIPMENT Webcams Logitech Headphones, Headsets, Microphones and Webcams Microphones Only The Blue Mic (Quality USB Microphone) CAPTURE THE MAGIC OF THE MOMENT Creativity does not fit nice, neat schedules. If you want to capture the spontaneity of the moment, we recommend using a portable recording device such as the Zoom or the Olympus portable audio recorders. Zoom is a great choice for bands. It is capable of capturing sound from multiple directions. This is great if you are trying to record your home garage band. The Olympus also carries a reliable line of products that we have been using over the years. More expensive audio recorders will allow you to plug in a guitar directly. We are huge believers in the low cost audio recorders. They are safer to use in cars. (No typing in password, hunting for app.) You can capture that one magic idea or riff. EQUIPMENT Zoom Products Olympus: Digital Voice Recorders PORTABLE RECORDING STUDIOS These can do multitrack. Low cost starting at under $100.00. TASCAM DP-008EX Digital Portastudio 8-Track TASCAM DP-006 Digital Portastudio 6-Track AUDIO INTERFACES FOR PC Here are two examples: Focusrite Behringer You can look up more of these here. Musician's Friend Guitar Center Find what you want and then check the price on Amazon. Amazon If you can't afford to buy a portable recording device, but have a smart phone, you may want to explore the option of using your phone as a recording device. There are a number of programs. Your phone may not have the same sound quality as the digital recorders mentioned above, but it can still get the job done. For example: If you have an idea for a creative guitar riff at 3 in the morning, you can record it on your phone with the click of a button. A number of good programs are available for Iphone and Android. Go to app stores to find what your need. Here is a rather arbitrary collection of links. LINKS The Recorder for iphone The Recorder for Android Trouble Shooting for the Android Voice Recorder RECORDING SOFTWARE Stage Light GarageBand Presonus Capture for iPad HARDWARE Zoom Microphone for Iphone Tascam PCM Recorder RECORDING INTERFACE FOR YOUR PHONE Can be used for guitar. Low cost version. Other more expensive products are available. Here is one for Iphone You can search for more on Amazon or Google. WEBCAMS PORTABLE RECORDERS PHONES SOFTWARE WHERE TO BUY LINKS WARNING: When downloading any kind of software from the internet, make sure you have a reliable firewall and virus detection program. APPLE GARAGE BAND It is $4.99 for the mobile app, and free with any Apple computer. Very popular. Our problem with this is that Apple refuses to make it available on PC. GarageBand Stage Light Mooo Voice Recorder (FREE) A simple to use recording program that can save in MP3 or WAV formats. AUDACITY (FREE) Okay, so you want to get a bit more technical, but you don't have a lot of money. Audacity is one of the most prominent free audio software products today. It is easy to use and contains a large number of audio effects. Audacity The only problem with Audacity is that you can't automatically save a file as an MP3. You have to download the encoder listed below to do this. Click here for Mp3 Plugin. How To Record A Song With Audacity WikiHow WHERE TO BUY ONLINE Musician's Friend Amazon IN PERSON Guitar Center Best Buy Click here for our Home Film Making Guide Encouraging great art and music to discuss serious issues about our planet's future. World Future Fund Multimedia Page Creative videos and audios. Check out our site for artists and musicians. Underground Web World WEBCAMS PORTABLE RECORDERS PHONES SOFTWARE WHERE TO BUY WFF AUDIOS LINKS CREATIVE LINKS FOR MUSICIANS |
ES News Email Enter your email address Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid You already have an account. Please log in or register with your social account Huge queues formed on Blackfriars Bridge this morning as cyclists were forced into single file while passing through anti-terror barriers installed after terror attacks on the capital. Commuters have complained that the new safety precaution is causing congestion in the area while cyclists battle to “squeeze” through them. Londoners were pictured crossing the bridge, which is on the route of Cycle Superhighway 6, with the sturdy new structures in place on their way to work this week. The barriers were installed to protect pedestrians from car ramming following two terror attacks on the capital, but campaigners have since raised safety concerns. Safety campaigners spoke of “serious safety concerns” amid the increased security measures. Footage from the bridge shows cyclists being forced to slow down completely before entering the barriers in single file as they made their way to work. Pictures from the scene appear to show TfL officials manning the installation as commuters pass over River Thames crossing this week. Campaigners say that, while they recognise the importance of the barriers, they need to be “properly” installed. Commuters took to social media to vent their outrage about the barriers they feel are too close together. One witness wrote on Twitter: “Security barriers on Blackfriars. Good idea. But they've made bus lane unusable + bike highway and footway way over capacity. Needs review.” They added: “Four traffic officials needed to man new security barriers on the cycle highway over Blackfriars. [People] are going to get hurt when it's busier.” Posting a video of the chaotic scenes, another wrote: “@SadiqKhan & @TfL Please can the #barriers on #blackfriars-bridge be wider apart. I appreciate they need to be close but #notthisclose.” A spokesman for London Cycling Campaign spoke of the “real safety risk” as he said cyclists were being forced into “often quite fast traffic” as a result of the barriers. He told the Standard: “These barriers had to go up very fast indeed. We hope that something can be done to modify or change them to provide security and not make things worse for cyclists.” A TfL spokesperson said: “The Met has installed barriers to increase security on London’s busiest bridges. “We are working with them to ensure that these barriers affect cyclists and pedestrians as little as possible, while ensuring the security of all road users.” The Metropolitan Police has been approached for comment. Police, TfL, and council officials have faced serious questions over why barriers were not installed immediately after the terror attack in Westminster. Khalid Masood killed four pedestrians and injured about 50 others on March 22 as he ploughed into people in a grey Hyundai while they walked on Westminster Bridge. On June 3, London saw another vehicle-knife attack that left seven dead and 21 in critical conditions after a white van swerved down the wrong side of London Bridge, mowing down terrified pedestrians before the three attackers began stabbing passersby. |
New research reveals that the limbs of the earliest four-legged vertebrates, dating back more than 360 million years ago, were no more structurally diverse than the fins of their aquatic ancestors. The new finding overturns long-held views that the origin of vertebrates with legs (known as tetrapods) triggered an increase in the anatomical diversity of their skeletons. The research was carried out by Dr Marcello Ruta from the School of Life Sciences at the University of Lincoln and Professor Matthew Wills from the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath in the UK. The authors found that fish and early tetrapods developed similar levels of anatomical diversity within their fins and limbs, despite the fact that their skeletons were constructed in very different ways. Published in the leading scientific journal Palaeontology, the findings challenge some long-standing assumptions about evolution. It is generally expected that when organisms evolve new features – or 'key innovations' – that enable them to exploit new environments, the rate of evolution and diversification will speed up. This is believed to have happened with the evolution of birds from dinosaurs and, most iconically of all, in the transition from finned aquatic fish to limbed tetrapods. The evolution of limbs was thought to have opened up a whole new realm of possibilities for tetrapods, so the scientists set out to examine just how substantial the evolutionary transition from fish to tetrapods really was by analysing a variety of different fin and limb skeletons from the fossil record. Dr Marcello Ruta said: "Our work investigated how quickly the first legged vertebrates blossomed out to explore new skeletal constructions, with surprising results. We might expect that early tetrapods evolved limbs that were more complex and diverse than the fins of their aquatic predecessors. However, although radically different from limbs, the fins of the distant fish-like forerunners of tetrapods display a remarkable array of subtly varying traits. This variation may point to a previously unsuspected range of biomechanical functions in their fins, despite the fact that those ancestors lived exclusively in water." Professor Matthew Wills explained: "It has usually been assumed that when organisms evolve novel attributes that enable them to colonise fundamentally new environments – as in the move from water to land – this should trigger rapid evolutionary diversification and be accompanied by an increase in structural variety. Our work challenges this received wisdom, and shows that, at least in the case of the evolution of early tetrapods, key innovations did not quickly lead to greater anatomical variety. For the first time, legs had evolved to fulfill new functions. Not only must they be able to support the weight of the body on land, but they also needed to enable the animal to walk. Perhaps these dual requirements limited the number of ways in which these first legs could function and evolve, thereby constraining their range of variability." Dr Ruta concluded: "This study has profound implications for the analyses of biological systems, past and present, especially when we deal with major diversification events. Perhaps early tetrapods did something different from other organisms, and this makes this finding even more fascinating and challenging. Or perhaps we are forced to recast our notions of evolutionary success and concede that, in some cases, key innovations enable changes that have nonetheless taken many millions of years to play out." Explore further: The evolution of fins to limbs in the land invasion race More information: Marcello Ruta et al. Comparable disparity in the appendicular skeleton across the fish-tetrapod transition, and the morphological gap between fish and tetrapod postcrania, Palaeontology (2016). DOI: 10.1111/pala.12227 |
Some students in the country illegally have complained that the millions of dollars the University of California system recently pledged to help them earn a college degree will come by way of student loans instead of grants. As UC officials discuss specifics on how the $5 million UC President Janet Napolitano recently budgeted to support undocumented students will be allocated – much of which will go to student loan programs, it’s been decided – some student activists have bemoaned that it’s not fair to strap stressed out, disadvantaged students in the country illegally with college debt. “We think that the 5 million dollars will have an impact if the money goes directly into the pockets of undocumented students,” By Any Means Necessary campus activist group leader David Douglass told The Daily Californian in an email. The Californian goes on to report: Sophomore Ivan Villasenor Madriz, an undocumented student, spoke with representatives from the UC Office of the President and other undocumented student representatives across the UC campuses in a conference call the evening of Dec. 18. Madriz said the students raised concerns about the use of the funds for loans rather than other types of aid such as grants and work-study. He said loans should not be considered “aid” because they are only increasing student debt and putting more pressure on students. “The loans that are given out are making one hole to fill another,” he said. “It defeats the purpose of so-called ‘financial aid.’ ” IMAGE: Chris Gold/Flickr Read More Like The College Fix on Facebook / Follow us on Twitter |
This is one of the weirdest game-related news I've ever seen in my entire life. So let me see if I got this right - You want to "expand" the universe created by a game by entirely removing any and every connection it has with said game, and wanting to further develop this universe separately, while linking remotely the in-game characters to it? Why not just make a new IP? I'm sorry if I'm being too forward, but this is one of the most grotesque displays of complete and total misunderstanding of the most basic and fundamental concepts of game writing I've ever seen, in an industry that is already horrible at it. Namely: Lack of structural cohesion. The game/story dichotomy is one of the reason game plots are so criticized, and games that connect both tend to be praised. This is why Braid and Portal are such huge acclaimed games. You don't remove Portals from the Portal plot and make it "about the characters" - the plot already is about the characters, and it never needed to remove the in-game mechanics to do it. In fact games that do a perfect, flawless 1:1 gameplay to story tend to have the most interesting stories, while usually also having non-intrusive storytelling mechanisms (again, Braid and Portal come to mind). Even when the stories are generic and bland they're enriched by the fact the players are experiencing them in a unique medium. Look at all crazy theories that spawn from the fact Path of Exile's story is so inherently linked with the gameplay aspect (while, again, being non-intrusive - most people don't even care or know about it). Look at how EVE Online Chronicles mix flawlessly player actions (to the point of Dark Horse releasing a comic based on the players) with the in-game universe, while also managing to explain every aspect of gameplay (even to the point that it's explained you hear sound in space because there's an engine in your spaceship simulating it in your brain). They're rich, interesting stories. Some of us care because we're playing the game. Most of us don't care directly, but are affected (on a subconscious level) by a deeper immersion, because things make sense. The little details add up. You could see the last level of Sonic 2 on the background of Sonic 3, destroyed. No one needed to spell it out to you, and most kids didn't notice it, but you didn't have to - that's the beauty of it. That non-intrusive simplicity in level design is elegant and rich. Instead, you want to take this wealthy universe created to support the game and turn it into something not connected with the game at all, all for the sake of a lore no one asked for. Again, not many players care about the lore, but the few who do do so because the lore explains our actions as players. You're removing the League of Legends out of a game called League of Legends, and you somehow think this is a good idea, as if you're making some fine art, a classic literature that needs to get rid of its roots to work. This is completely insane. This is a game about 10 people punching each other in an arena. If you're gonna write any story, you need to write a story that supports that, that revolves around that, or that ultimately links to that without any holes to fill. That's the raison d'être of any plot related to this game, it's such a basic and fundamental concept, linked intimately both to common sense and good game design practices and readily observable on the best games of the past decades that it blows my mind that the creative writers of a game would choose to ignore, and that such a decision could even be approved. The best case scenario - which is you somehow manage to pull this off and make wonderful stories unconnected to Summoner's Rift gameplay that aren't complete shlock - is still bad, because you're alienating everyone involved with the game. From an outside perspective it looks like a bunch of people want to turn an IP into their creative writing fantasy and the existing lore wasn't allowing it. You're not doing the game or the players any favor, and this looks both selfish and irresponsible. Even a complete gameplay-centric theme-park like WoW has the decency to try to marry both aspects. The people who read Christie Golden books are the people who read in-game quests and ask lore questions in Blizzcon. You live it, you experience it in the game. You care about the outside characters because you know they have a link to what you're doing in the game. Even if you want to start from zero, remove the concept of summoners and what not, the lore should still support the in-game events. That's the whole point. Also, you don't need to remove Summoners to make the story interesting or expandable. The thought of writers giving up on the task hurts my mind far more than thinking innumerable ways to expand the LoL lore without breaking the existing connection with the gameplay. |
OTTAWA – In a rare move, the Conservative Speaker of the Senate publicly lashed out at NDP Leader Tom Mulcair Wednesday, deriding questions the Opposition leader made about the appropriateness of the senator’s housing expense claims as an “unfounded personal attack”. In an extraordinary statement released to the media, Conservative Sen. Noël Kinsella noted Muclair “lives for free in a lovely house” in upscale Rockcliffe Park at Stornoway. Stornoway is the official residence of the leader of the Opposition in the nation’s capital. There is nothing in the Senate’s housing rules that forbids a senator from owning a house in Ottawa before joining the upper chamber. Nor do those rules require senators to spend a certain amount of time at their declared primary residence (in Kinsella’s case, New Brunswick) in order to qualify for a secondary housing allowance of $22,000 a year for their Ottawa home. Kinsella went on to say in his statement that the rules allowing senators to claim a housing allowance if their home is more than 100 kilometres from Parliament Hill are similar to ones in place for MPs. “However MPs are not required to maintain a home in their ridings,” he wrote. “Mr. Mulcair’s unfounded personal attack on a Liberal and a Conservative senator from New Brunswick amounts to an attack on his own NDP members,” Kinsella wrote. “While Thomas Mulcair as the Leader of the Opposition is given a house in Ottawa, the Leader of the Government in the Senate, the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate and the Speaker of the Senate all must make their own housing arrangements in Ottawa.” Senators have told reporters at various points during the spending scandal that has engulfed the upper chamber for almost a year that tough questions should also be asked of elected representatives in the House of Commons. But Kinsella’s statement was the first time he stepped into the political fray that until recently he has avoided. Unlike his counterpart in the House of Commons, the Speaker of the Senate is appointed by the prime minister and has the right to vote on bills and take part in debates in the upper chamber. Kinsella avoids doing both as a matter of principle, believing he needs to have an air of neutrality, yet he remains a partisan like any other senator. Kinsella came under fire in the House of Commons Wednesday because he has claimed a secondary housing allowance for a home he bought in Ottawa before becoming a senator. Kinsella, who also oversees the Senate committee that supervises senators’ expenses, represents New Brunswick, where he also owns a home. Kinsella was defended in the Commons by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who said neither his case – nor that of a Liberal Sen. Pierrette Ringuette who has a similar housing arrangement – should be compared to that of Sen. Mike Duffy. Duffy was found to have inappropriately claimed a secondary housing allowance for his Ottawa residence while representing Prince Edward Island. Conservative Sen. Noël Kinsella and Liberal Sen. Pierrette Ringuette pulled the exact same trick as Mike Duffy, the trick that, on Oct. 24, the prime minister said was the reason for getting rid of Mike Duffy. Why are Noël Kinsella and Pierrette Ringuette still in the Senate? Kinsella and Ringuette are both long-time residents of the province of New Brunswick, Harper said. In contrast, Duffy claimed his primary residence was in Prince Edward Island, when it was not, Harper told the Commons. Harper was responding as Mulcair demanded to know why Kinsella and Ringuette were still in the upper chamber, given the housing claims. Mulcair asked, “Conservative Sen. Noël Kinsella and Liberal Sen. Pierrette Ringuette pulled the exact same trick as Mike Duffy, the trick that, on Oct. 24, the prime minister said was the reason for getting rid of Mike Duffy. Why are Noël Kinsella and Pierrette Ringuette still in the Senate?” Harper said, “Mr. Duffy was living at a long-time residence and claiming travel expenses. The two senators in question are long-time residents of the province of New Brunswick.” Kinsella bought his home in Ottawa in 1989 while he was on leave from his job at St. Thomas Aquinas University to work as a senior foreign affairs civil servant. At the time, Kinsella also owned a home in Fredericton, N.B., a city he has had ties to since 1965. In 1990, Brian Mulroney appointed Kinsella to the Senate. Ringuette bought her Ottawa home in 1998, the year after she lost her seat in the House of Commons in an election. In 2002, Jean Chretien appointed Ringuette to the Senate. Both told Postmedia News that they filed the proper paperwork with the Senate to support their expense claims. As well, neither sparked any concerns from the committee that oversaw a review of housing expenses. Kinsella said earlier this week that the red chamber still had work to do on its spending rules to make them “crystal clear.” In his statement attacking Mulcair, Kinsella wrote that Mulcair’s views “on Canada’s bicameral parliament and the Senate of Canada are well known” — a reference to the NDP’s position that the Senate should be abolished. |
10 Unbelievable Urban Legends That Are Actually True Urban legends are the stories told around the campfire or the subject matter of your favorite horror flick, but the one thing you don’t expect them to be is true. Here are 10 stories that will creep you out once you realize they are actually all fact. On September 12, 2008, at 4:22 p.m. an incident known as the Chatsworth crash occurred which killed 25 people. A commuter train collided with a freight train, and the scene left 135 people injured as well. One of the deceased was 49 -year-old Charles E. Peck. He had come to L.A. wed his fiancée, Andrea Katz, who was on the way to the station to pick him up. Peck’s body was recovered from the wreckage 12 hours after the accident. However, for eleven hours prior, his cell phone placed call after call to his loved ones, calling his son, his brother, his stepmother, his sister, and his fiancée. In all, his various family members received 35 calls from his cell phone. When they answered, all they heard was static; when they called back, their calls went to voice mail. But the calls gave them hope that the man was still alive, just trapped somewhere in the wreckage. Search crews continued to trace the whereabouts of the phone through its signal and to once again look through what was left of the first train, the location the calls were coming from. They only found Peck’s body about an hour after the calls from his cell phone stopped. He had died on impact. They never found Peck’s cell phone. You see this in every horror movie. Some unfortunate souls are stuck in an elevator and one of them decides to hop out only to get split in half just as the elevator starts to move again. Unfortunately, that’s just what happened to Dr. Hitoshi Nikaidoh. He was a 35-year-old surgical resident decapitated on August 16, 2003, in a freakish elevator accident at Christus St. Joseph Hospital in Houston, Texas. The circumstances of the accident were certainly strange. As we’ve all experienced, elevators should not shut when something is blocking the way due to the sensors mounted in the doors. Also, a set of contacts in the door should keep the elevator from moving if the doors are not closed. Yet both these things reportedly happened. Another fright night flick favorite is the amusement park scare, but for Danielle Foti, a fifth grader at East Bridgewater Middle School, it became a reality. She was severely injured when her hair caught in a motor behind the seat on the Mini Himalaya ride at the now-defunct Bonkers 19 park in Weymouth. Her head was reeled in with such force that it smashed the back of her fiberglass seat. A piece of her scalp was caught in the motor and she had to undergo four rounds of reconstructive surgery. Fortunately, she was awarded $7.5 million in an out-of-court settlement. It was Halloween and the stunt had worked on other nights, but things did not go as expected for Brian Jewell. There was no indication of foul play, prosecutor James Holzapfel said. “He’s supposed to have the noose around his neck, but it’s not a noose that tightens,” said Holzapfel. Jewell would step down about one foot to the ground, making it appear he had been hanged, Holzapfel said. During the ride, about 40 people drive past, but the tractor driver became concerned when Jewell failed to give a speech he normally made. Imagine your medical diagnosis being the real life inspiration for an episode of the X-Files. Unfortunately, for Gloria Ramirez this was the case and she became known as “the toxic lady”. Several Riverside General Hospital workers became ill after exposure to her body and blood. She was brought into the ER of Riverside General Hospital suffering from the effects of advanced cervical cancer. The ER staff noticed an oily sheen covering Ramirez’s body, and some noticed a fruity, garlic-like odor that they thought was coming from her mouth. A registered nurse named Susan Kane attempted to draw blood from Ramirez’s arm, and noticed an ammonia-like smell coming from the tube. She passed the syringe to Julie Gorchynski, a medical resident who noticed manila-colored particles floating in the blood. At this point, Kane fainted and was removed from the room. Shortly thereafter, Gorchynski began to feel nauseated. Overall, 23 people became ill and 5 were hospitalized. A skeleton crew stayed behind to stabilize Ramirez who later died from kidney failure. They never came to a solid conclusion as to why she caused such a mass illness in the ER. Snakes, rats, and a whole lot more can be found in your toilet lines apparently. Every year, the Roto-Rooter Corp. collects stories from its people about the goodies they find on house calls in the United States and Canada. Tree roots are the most common, however, they have heard 7-foot boa constrictor, 8-foot rattlesnake, a complete bedspread, women’s lingerie, long underwear (two sets), assorted automobile parts, 2.5 lb trout, 20 sets of false teeth, a six-pack of Budweiser, keys and, vibrators Jean Hilliard was literally frozen stiff, ”like a piece of meat out of a deep freeze,” when a friend found her in the snow after a night of 22-below-zero temperatures. Her body was so stiff that Mr. Nelson loaded her ”diagonally” in the back seat of his car and headed for the hospital. However, she made an unusual recovery. Her skin was too hard to pierce with a hypodermic needle, and her temperature was too low to register on a thermometer. Her face was ashen and her eyes were solid and did not respond to light. Her pulse, hardly registering through her frozen skin, was about 12 beats a minute. Regardless they wrapped her in an electric heating pad and she began to revive. Even more remarkable, she didn’t lose any digits to frostbite. Gerald Bettis was known as Dog Boy and was always known as a difficult child. “His parents were good people, but Gerald was a brat, vicious and cruel,” Holabird said. Bettis also developed some unusual habits early on, including collecting cats and dogs which lead to his nickname. “He would catch stray animals and torture them. We could hear them howl, “said Holabird. Bettis’ actions allegedly turned more sinister. “He kept his parents virtually imprisoned in the upstairs part of that house,” Holabird said. “He would feed them, but only when he decided it was time for them to eat,” she said. By the time he was an adult, locals say Bettis towered over his elderly parents at 6’4′, and weighed close to 300 pounds. It was also regularly reported that he beat up his father and even threw him out of an upstairs window one time during his teen years. Although he was in his 70s at the time, the elder Bettis hung onto the ledge until the local police showed up, Holabird said. According to the Heber Springs Sun Times, Floyd Bettis died in 1981 after an illness at his home. Others say he was pushed down the staircase and died of a broken neck. Arkansas Democrat-Gazette archives confirm Gerald Floyd Bettis death in May 1988 at age 34. Another feature of the fireside horror story is the perpetrator is calling from within the house. This time a man in Japan found out this was actually the case. The man installed security cameras after becoming puzzled by missing food. It turns out, a homeless woman was living in the top compartment of the man’s closet. The camera captured her crawling down and moving inside his home after he left. The police found the woman later and arrested her for trespassing. This is a real life nightmare and the worst way to lose weight. Supposedly a gang in the remote Peruvian jungle was killing people for their fat and draining it from their corpses. The gang confessed to cutting off its victims’ heads, arms, and legs, removing the organs, then suspending the torsos from hooks above candles that warmed the flesh as the fat dripped into tubs below. They told the police it was worth $60,000 a gallon in the cosmetics industry, but medical experts doubted their story. Related Comments |
Telstra's NBN deal raises competition concerns with the ACCC Updated The competition watchdog has raised concerns that Telstra may benefit against its rivals from the information it gains while helping to build parts of the NBN. Telstra today announced its latest deal with the NBN, worth around $1.6 billion, for planning and construction services on part of the NBN network. The deal relates to areas currently covered by Telstra's existing Hybrid Fibre-Coaxial (HFC) network footprint in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Adelaide and Perth. Telstra will be in charge of planning the construction works and performing building work within its exchanges, while construction work in the field will mainly be undertaken by the NBN's existing partners. However, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has raised concerns with the deal, warning that it might give Telstra an unfair advantage over its competitors in selling NBN services. "We have raised several concerns with Telstra and NBN Co, including that Telstra may receive a competitive advantage if it has access to better information than other service providers or if it is able to use infrastructure built for the NBN network before that infrastructure becomes available to other retail service providers," said the regulator's chairman Rod Sims in a statement. Mr Sims acknowledged that Telstra's participation in construction, and use of its HFC network, could speed up the NBN rollout, so the regulator is assessing proposals made by Telstra and NBN Co to address its competition concerns. NBN Co has responded to the ACCC's statement by clarifying that its agreement with Telstra is not subject to regulatory approval. It also said it was mindful of these "perceived issues" when structuring its deal with Telstra and sought to address remaining concerns through additional measures, including reporting back to the ACCC on a regular basis. Topics: telecommunications, company-news, regulation, australia First posted |
Apple’s blockbuster Q4 pushed the company’s valuation to $900 billion, but it also saw the firm return to growth in key market China following a challenging past couple of years. Analysts already reported that Apple saw shipment growth in China during the last quarter with a 41 percent increase, but now the company’s latest financial report confirmed that revenue was up, too. Total sales in Greater China — the region that Apple defines as China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan — grew by 12 percent year-on-year to $9.8 billion. That figure was up 22 percent quarter-on-quarter. An increase in iPhone sales thanks to the newly-released iPhone 8, CEO Tim Cook told investors in an earnings call that Apple sold a record number of Macs during the quarter. Likewise, earnings from services — where Apple made huge strides globally — also hit at an all time high. “We increased market share for iPhone, Mac, and iPad during the quarter. We hit all-time revenue records for services — for Mac and for the PRC during the quarter. We had very strong iPad revenue growth. We had double-digit unit growth iPhone and both the upgraders and Android-switchers were both up on a year-over-year basis during the quarter. And so the results were broad day,” Cook said in response to one question. While growth is of course positive, Apple’s China revenue was still some way short of its peak two years ago, when the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus — the firm’s first phablet-sized devices — helped revenue jump to $12.51 billion. Analysts are less sure on the impact that the iPhone X will have in China. While it has generated attention for a design that represents a clear departure from other devices — and emphasizes luxury, a point that has served Apple well with previous phones — opinions are divided on whether a starting price of $1,000 for the cheapest model and limited supply will play out in Apple’s favor. “Apple is unlikely to sustain this growth in Q4,” Canalys analyst Mo Jia said earlier this week. “While the iPhone X launches this week, its pricing structure and supply are inhibiting. The iPhone X will enjoy a healthy grey market status, but its popularity is unlikely to help Apple in the short term.” |
Share. But first, a "multiplayer sports game" early next year. But first, a "multiplayer sports game" early next year. The co-founders of Criterion Games, the studio best known for creating hit arcade racing franchise Burnout, have announced they're working on a spiritual successor to the series. Alex Ward and Fiona Sperry departed Criterion back in 2014 to set up Three Fields Entertainment, leaving the rights to the Burnout franchise behind them. Despite this, they're clearly aware there's a demand out there for a new entry in the series that EA and Criterion aren't interested in fulfilling. Exit Theatre Mode "Two things. Our first game is a multiplayer sports game. Coming Spring 2016. Then we make a driving game," a series of Tweets explains. "What sort of driving game you ask? A spiritual successor. Speed. Traffic. And Crashing. Lots and lots of crashing. "Spiritual successor to which one though??? The second, the third or the fourth one??" The last entry in the Burnout series came in the shape of 2008's Burnout Paradise, which was the fifth installment so clearly isn't being considered for inspiration. It's the third entry, Burnout 3: Takedown, that's widely regarded as the high point. Exit Theatre Mode Criterion, meanwhile, is working on another racing game, details of which have been thin on the ground since originally being announced at E3 2014. Luke Karmali is IGN UK News Editor. You too can revel in mediocrity by following him on Twitter. |
OTTAWA—Last spring, school boards grappled with the practical issues that came with welcoming thousands of new Syrian students: finding them desks, pencils, books. But as they gear up for this school year, Muslim organizations hope they can turn their attention to another problem: warding off the dirty looks — and worse — that many Muslim students say they get at school. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau greets members of a Syrian refugee family. The NCCM, the Islamic Social Services Association and the Canadian Human Rights Commission have developed a guide for educators to help them understand the impact of the trauma Syrian kids have experienced abroad and also the experience they, and other Muslims, have of Islamophobia in Canada. ( Justin Tang / THE CANADIAN PRESS file photo ) Amira Elghawaby, communications director for the National Council of Canadian Muslims, says schools have wrestled with Islamophobia since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, but there was never intense educator interest in combating the problem until now. Schools have wrestled with Islamophobia since the terrorist attacks of 9/11 but there was never intense educator interest in combating the problem, said Amira Elghawaby, communications director for the National Council of Canadian Muslims. That’s changed, she said. “The previous federal election where Islam and Muslims were at the forefront for all the wrong reasons, combined with the arrival of Syrian refugees, suddenly this is on people’s radars,” she said. Article Continued Below As upwards of 25,000 Syrians have arrived in Canada since November, her organization has begun fielding far more calls about the issue — ranging from people ranting about refugees seeking to change Canadian culture to parents panicked about their child experiencing Islamophobia on the playground. Teachers, too, were phoning, seeking resources to help them understand the issue and how to respond. So the NCCM, the Islamic Social Services Association and the Canadian Human Rights Commission have developed a guide for educators to help them understand the impact of the trauma Syrian kids have experienced abroad and also the experience they, and other Muslims, have of Islamophobia here. One Winnipeg woman said she welcomes the fact the Syrian arrivals are forcing a discussion. Two years ago, her then-ten-year-old daughter was taunted by a substitute teacher for wearing a head scarf. The teacher went so far as to try and grab the girl’s hair through the scarf. It was the same school the woman herself had attended decades earlier, a school where she wore a hijab without attracting a second glance. “We like to think we’re getting more tolerant,” the woman said, speaking on condition of anonymity to protect the identity of her children. Article Continued Below She said the fact her daughter was comfortable going to the principal — the teacher was later disciplined — shows the power of a school taking the time to create an environment that’s inclusive of Muslims. She hopes the guide can help lay that groundwork elsewhere. “What if this had happened to someone with immigrant parents, who maybe don’t speak the language, who’d been taught teachers were always right?,” she said. The guide discusses the psychological impact of hate and discrimination, offering by way of an example a U.S. news story about Muslim children running to pack up their dolls and toys in response to rhetoric there about a ban on Muslim immigrants. It also takes people through some of what newly arrived refugee children grapple with, such as issues of grief and mistrust, and how that can play out in the classroom. “The biggest take away is just to put yourself in the shoes of a Canadian Muslim student or a newly arrived refugee or immigrant student who is Muslim,” Elghawaby said. Many schools are adding teachers, interpreters, orientation sessions and other programs this fall to continue assisting with the emotional and social integration of Syrians. But finding enough pencils still remains a problem. Last year in Ottawa, the Somali Centre for Family Services needed backpacks filled with school supplies to help 63 kids in need. This year, they said recently, they have 300 children on that list — 97 per cent are Syrian. |
May 10, 2016 Great Lakes anglers enjoy second surge of steelhead fishing as warmth dominates By By Brian Lada, AccuWeather.com Meteorologist May 10, 2016, 5:52:16 AM EDT Anglers around the Great Lakes had an early start to steelhead fishing season this spring following a warmer-than-normal winter, and recent warming conditions have brought the season into full swing. Steelhead are one of the top sport fish in the country that can grow up to 30 inches long and weigh over 10 pounds depending on their age and which of the Great Lakes they live in. Although most steelhead don’t grow quite this large, they are still a challenge to reel in once hooked, making them an exciting catch for anglers who travel to tributaries around the Great Lakes to fish. The spring months are the most active time for steelhead in Minnesota as the fish swim from the waters of Lake Superior into the lake’s tributaries to spawn. Usually, Minnesota steelhead don’t make their way upstream until April or May when water temperatures in the rivers rise to around 40 degrees Fahrenheit. However, the fish made their way upstream earlier in this year due to the milder winter. “This year, we started in March,” Davin Brandt, director of Minnesota Steelheader, said. “We had such a light winter that the rivers opened up a bit and we had a push of fish." Minnesota Steelheader is a nonprofit group of volunteers dedicated to preserving the state's steelhead fisheries and educating the community. “The warm weather in March really improved the fishing,” Brandt added. In Duluth, Minnesota, for example, which is located right along the shore of Lake Superior, temperatures in March averaged more than 5 degrees above normal. The warmer air allowed the water temperatures in Lake Superior’s tributaries to rise to favorable levels for the fish earlier than normal. However, a flip in the weather pattern sent colder air across the region during the first half of April. This caused water temperature in rivers to drop, which sent steelhead swimming downstream back into Lake Superior. According to Brandt, steelhead fishing in Minnesota slowed down for about two weeks during the first half of April, but the fish have begun to swim back upstream. "Right now it’s in full swing. It’s just getting to the point where we’re seeing serious numbers [of fish],” Brandt said. This spike in steelhead fish will drive anglers to the rivers over the next few weeks, especially with the upcoming weather. According to AccuWeather Meteorologist Evan Duffey, the weather in northeastern Minnesota looks to be warmer and drier than normal in the next two weeks, which is favorable for fishermen that will be out in the weather for several hours at a time. RELATED: AccuWeather fishing index Interactive weather radar 15 most annoying pests to watch out for this spring The best time for steelhead fishing is different in other parts of the Great Lakes, such as the tributaries of Lake Erie. “We’ll get people fishing all through the winter time,” James Markham, senior aquatic biologist for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, said. “The bulk of our fishing activity is October, November and half of December,” Markham explained. “It tends to slow down in the winter time but will turn up again in March and April and top out in May.” This year brought the earliest start to the spring run on Lake Erie in years thanks to the mild winter. According to Markham, the creeks were frozen during early spring over the past two years due to the bitterly cold winter weather. When the creeks are frozen, the fish stay in the lake. Steelhead fishing conditions should remain fair for anglers for the next few weeks until the steelhead are finished spawning. Playlist used for trending content. Questions or comments? Email Brian Lada at Brian.Lada@accuweather.com and be sure to follow him on Twitter! Follow @wxlada You can also follow AccuWeather on Twitter or on Facebook. Report a Typo |
The roadside assistance company American Automobile Association announced its annual list of the nation's best restaurants and hotels today. After giving the now-closed Noisette Four Diamonds in 2014, AAA appears to have given up on Portland for 2015 and doesn't include a single Portland restaurant. That said, AAA does include two Oregon restaurants. The Painted Lady in Newberg continues its impressive run—really, a full-on stampede—receiving AAA's Four Diamond ranking for the fifth year in a row. Also receiving Four Diamond status—and for the first time—is Lincoln City's The Bay House. Owned by Stephen Wilson, The Bay House serves a seafood-centric menu under the direction of executive chef Kevin Ryan. Ryan interned at the restaurant in high school and took over the kitchen in 2012. Menu items include pork belly served with parmesan polenta, quail egg, and salted caramel apple butter, and Muscovy Duck Confit, with black beans, roasted squash, parsnips, frisee, and carrot-cardamom purée. |
Sealy (formerly the Sealy Corporation) is a brand of mattresses marketed and sold by Tempur Sealy International. It draws its name from the city where the Sealy Corporation originally started, Sealy, Texas, United States. History [ edit ] In 1881, cotton gin builder Daniel Haynes lived in Sealy, Texas, located west of Houston. He began making cotton-filled mattresses for his friends and neighbors. In 1889, he patented an invention that compressed cotton for use in his mattresses. Eventually the mattresses became so popular he was able to sell the patents to manufacturers in other markets. The term "Mattress from Sealy" was coined to describe what was produced. During 1906, after much success as an advertising executive, Earl Edwards purchased the patents and gained manufacturing knowledge from Haynes. Edwards took the name "Sealy" for his new company and expanded it to a national market. Due to lack of funding for manufacturing, Sealy expanded using a licensing-expansion similar to that of Coca-Cola. By 1920, Sealy had 28 licensed plants and was the first mattress company to expand using a licensing program. During the Great Depression the mattress industry was hit hard. Sealy lost most of its licensees and narrowly escaped bankruptcy itself. The company consolidated with the surviving licensees and created what is now known as Sealy, Incorporated. Sealy operated as a franchisor out of its Chicago headquarters. Its licensees were, under the terms of their licensing agreement, only supposed to sell in a designated trading area that did not conflict with those of other franchisees. The largest licensee, Cleveland-based Ohio Mattress Company (founded by the Wuliger family and still operated by Ernest M. Wuliger), defied these restrictions and sold into markets reserved for other franchisees. The conflict resulted in Ohio Mattress filing an antitrust suit against Sealy in 1971. The issue was decided fifteen years later with a near-total victory for Ohio Mattress. Unable to come up with the $77m award, Sealy Incorporated and all but one of the other franchisees were forced to sell to Ohio Mattress, and the company became the world's largest bedding manufacturer by sales.[1][2] Merchant banking firm Gibbons Green Van Amerongen took Sealy private in an April 1989 leveraged buyout, a deal which netted Sealy shareholders US$965m. First Boston made a bridge loan to the buy-out firm just as Drexel Burnham Lambert was running into trouble and the junk bond market was drying up, and was stuck with the loan. The failed deal, known as "burning bed", led to a dramatic slow-down in leveraged buy-outs. Gibbons Green dissolved and First Boston was forced into the arms of Credit Suisse.[3] In 1990 Ohio Mattress assumed the Sealy name that it had acquired when it purchased Sealy Inc. In 1998 Sealy announced that it was moving from Cleveland to the High Point, North Carolina area. Bain Capital and a team of Sealy's senior executives acquired the company in 1997. In 2004, the company was acquired by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and a team of Sealy management. The deal was valued at $1.5 billion but included significant debt.[4] The company operated as a privately held corporation until 2005. On June 30 of that year, it announced an initial public offering of common stock. The company said proceeds from the IPO would go to paying down debt, funding global operations and paying private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts to "terminate our future obligations under our management services agreement."[5] In September 2012, Tempur-Pedic International (TPX) announced an agreement to purchase Sealy (NTSE:ZZ) for about US$229 million.[6] Sealy's corporate headquarters are located in Trinity, North Carolina. Although Sealy's website claims that they are the largest manufacturer of mattresses in the world, Tempur-Pedic had greater revenue than Sealy in 2011.[6] Sealy has 25 U.S. plants and a 17.8 per cent share of the country’s mattress sales.[7] Sealy sells the majority of its mattresses under its three main brands: Sealy Posturepedic, Stearns & Foster, and Bassett. Overseas markets [ edit ] There are licensees operating in Australia,[8] Argentina, Bahamas, Colombia, Israel, Jamaica, Japan, New Zealand, South Africa, Thailand and the United Kingdom. In 1995, direct export business began to South Korea. In 1996, Sealy began manufacturing and selling in Mexico. In 2001, Sealy began manufacturing and selling in its brand South Africa. In 2011, Sealy opened its first manufacturing plant in China. The 100,000-square-foot factory outside Shanghai is a joint venture of Sealy China, which is owned and operated by Sealy Inc., and licensee Sealy Australia.[9] |
Statue of Richard Schirrmann in Altena Richard Schirrmann (15 May 1874 – 14 December 1961) was a German teacher and founder of the first youth hostel. Born in Grunenfeld (today Gronówko), Province of Prussia as the son of a teacher, Schirrmann studied to become a teacher himself. In 1895, he received his qualification, and was sent to Altena, Westphalia in 1903. In 1909, he first published his idea of an inexpensive accommodation for young people, after he noticed the lack of such places on a school trip when he had to spend the night in barns or village school buildings. Schirrmann received considerable support and donations, and in 1912 he opened the first youth hostel in the recently reconstructed Altena castle. Schirrmann described a Western Front Christmas Truce in December 1915: "When the Christmas bells sounded in the villages of the Vosges behind the lines .. something fantastically unmilitary occurred. German and French troops spontaneously made peace and ceased hostilities; they visited each other through disused trench tunnels, and exchanged wine, cognac and cigarettes for Westphalian black bread, biscuits and ham. This suited them so well that they remained good friends even after Christmas was over.[citation needed] Schirrmann served in a regiment holding a position on the Bernhardstein, one of the mountains of the Vosges - separated from the French troops by a narrow no-man’s-land, which his account describes as "strewn with shattered trees, the ground ploughed up by shellfire, a wilderness of earth, tree-roots and tattered uniforms". Military discipline was soon restored, but Schirrmann pondered over the incident, wondering whether "thoughtful young people of all countries could be provided with suitable meeting places where they could get to know each other". German Youth Hostel Association [ edit ] In 1919, he founded a nationwide youth hostel association, and in 1922, he retired from teaching to focus entirely on the youth-hostel movement. From 1933 to 1936, he also served as President of the International Youth Hostelling Association (now Hostelling International), before the Nazi government forced him to resign. After the Second World War, he worked on the rebuilding of the German association, for which he received the Bundesverdienstkreuz in 1952. Schirrmann died in Grävenwiesbach (Taunus) in 1961. See also [ edit ] References [ edit ] |
I’ve never had a near-death experience and don’t know anyone who has, but according to a poll that’s quoted throughout the NDE literature, at least 5 percent of Americans have returned from one and told the tale. That may be a small percentage, but it’s a lot of people—given today’s population, over 15,000,000. Other estimates are lower, but they’re still huge. And most of these people seem to be writing books. The current front-runner is the omnipresent Heaven Is for Real by Todd Burpo “with” Lynn Vincent—and don’t underestimate that “with”: Lynn Vincent has been, among other things, the ghostwriter for Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue, and she knows what she’s doing. (I imagine that after dealing with Palin, dealing with Colton Burpo—who, before he turned four, almost died of a ruptured appendix, went to heaven, and came back with a detailed report—must have been a piece of cake.) Actually, she’s not little Colton’s collaborator, she’s his dad’s: it’s Todd, Colton’s father, who tells the story. Todd Burpo is the pastor of the Crossroads Wesleyan Church in Imperial, Nebraska, population approximately two thousand. He also owns a company that installs garage doors, and is a wrestling coach for junior high and high school students and a volunteer with the Imperial fire department. His wife, Sonja, works as an office manager, has a master’s in library and information science, and is a certified teacher. When Colton, their second child, suffers his burst appendix—his condition had been misdiagnosed—the family undergoes an agonizing period of suspense during the time he’s close to death before making a full recovery. Lynn Vincent jerks every tear in recounting this frightening story—“Daddy! Don’t let them take meeee!”—but has room for touches of humor, too. At a crucial moment: “That night might be the only time in recorded history that eighty people [Todd’s parishioners] gathered and prayed for someone to pass gas!” (“Within an hour, the…prayer was answered!”) Colton’s remarkable story is really two stories. One is his account of what he sees when, under anesthesia, he looks down from the hospital room ceiling and observes the doctors working on his body, his Mommy praying and talking on the telephone in one room, and his Daddy praying in another. When, days later, he casually mentions this to his father, “Colton’s words rocked me to the core…. How could he have known?” Actually, this kind of out-of-body experience—in which the presumably unconscious person still has the faculties of sight, hearing, and memory—turns out to be a fairly common phenomenon. The other story is what Colton experienced in heaven while he was being operated on, a story that emerges only four months later when, under Todd’s gentle questioning, Colton’s parents learn… |
WARNING: The themes of the following story are disturbing. The language includes racial and religious slurs. CNET has edited some of the wording because of its ugly nature but preserved the intent to present a clear picture of attacks on real people. Mikey Weinstein knows about online harassment. He also knows what it's like when digital threats cross into real life. About 10 years ago, someone shattered the windows of his suburban home in New Mexico. Twice. He's found a swastika and a cross painted near the front door. But Weinstein says the decapitated rabbits are the worst. On one occasion, somebody dropped a severed rabbit's head in his driveway. Last year, a gutted bunny appeared by his front door. Police say they've been called to the Weinstein residence many times over the years. Weinstein doesn't scare easily. Yet the Air Force vet and former Reagan administration attorney has hired armed bodyguards after enduring years of vicious emails, hateful social media posts and hostile phone calls related to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation , the nonprofit he founded in 2005 to protect military members regardless of their faith. The digital assaults come through his personal Facebook page, the MRFF's website and plain old email. Almost all are filled with anti-Semitic slurs and intimidating language. Sometimes he gets threatening phone calls. You're probably a good, decent person. Sure, you might not agree with everyone, but you wouldn't start swearing at someone or slurring his religion. And you certainly wouldn't use some of the most racially charged language in English in an email, text or tweet. Other people do. We've cleaned up most of this email Weinstein got in December 2013, but it still gives a sense of how brutal many people are on the internet: "Hey jewboy Mickey Whinerstein. The Air Force Base in S. Carolina should make a naitivity scene out of your dismembered f----- body parts. You stinking k--- commie athiest liberal d--- sucking Obummer loving Jesus hating f----- lawyer. Who worships satan queers and abortions and muslims sand n------ like Obummer more than your own country. TRAITOR JEW!" Weinstein gets dozens of crude emails like this every week, according to a longtime assistant and a private security guard who have sorted through his messages for years. Both say they haven't grown immune to what they see or hear, such as an anonymous caller telling Weinstein, "We're going to slash your head off and roll it down the street like a bowling ball." Mikey Weinstein says he faces a constant barrage of threats online while advocating for religious freedoms in the military. Mikey Weinstein/MRFF It's only getting worse. "We are very careful with all the threats that come in," Weinstein says. "The shit we get is unbelievable." Online abuse is as old as the internet. Being anonymous encourages people to say things they'd never say in public and push the boundaries of accepted behavior because they feel they won't be held accountable. Distance adds to the problem. It's a lot harder to pull out all the stops when you're looking someone in the eye. On the internet, you don't see your target or the emotional devastation you leave behind. Racial minorities often get the brunt of the abuse online. Black Lives Matter activists, including DeRay McKesson , have been harassed in tweets, emails and posts. And there's enough hatred out there to ensure feminists, Jews, Muslims and the LGBTQ community are constant targets. The internet amplifies the effect, organizing the haters into packs of digital attack dogs. Step on a cultural tripwire -- try mentioning Barack Obama, standing up for immigrants or expressing support for abortion rights -- and the intolerant assemble into swarms, creating what are known as troll storms , which zero in on individuals and upend lives. Facebook pages and Twitter feeds dedicated to hatred spring up as fast as the social networks can stamp them out. The suspect in the May stabbing death of a black Army lieutenant in Maryland belonged to a Facebook group called " Alt-Reich: Nation ," where members reportedly posted and swapped racist memes. (The page was shut down after the attack.) And the man accused of stabbing three people after a racist tirade in Oregon later in May had reportedly expressed sympathy for Nazis on his Facebook page One racist forum, Stormfront.org, has attracted a particularly violent membership from all over the world since it was founded in 1995. Anders Behring Breivik, the man who killed 77 people in Norway in 2011, was a member for three years and emailed a racist manifesto to other members just hours before he began his rampage, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center , a civil rights group. Over a five-year period ending in March 2014, Stormfront members killed almost 100 people, the SPLC says. Stormfront didn't respond to a request for comment. Its founder, Don Black, a former Ku Klux Klan member, called the SPLC's report " ludicrous " after it was released, and said the figures were inflated. Graphic by Aaron Robinson/CNET It's hard to quantify how pervasive online assaults have become, but experts say the number is growing. Four out of every 10 internet users have experienced some form of harassment, according to a 2014 Pew Research Center report . The figure leaps to 65 percent for those between the ages of 18 and 29. The situation has gotten worse thanks to a divisive presidential campaign punctuated by race baiting, religious jabs and anti-immigration appeals. Donald Trump's inflammatory words during the campaign -- he called Mexican immigrants " rapists " and " criminals ," and at one point said, " I think Islam hates us " -- helped embolden the "alt-right," a loose movement of white nationalists and neo-Nazis who largely supported his immigration policies. Shortly after the vote, then-President-elect Trump disavowed the movement. Nevertheless, its members remain energized, particularly when the president recognizes them. That happened over the July Fourth holiday, when President Trump tweeted a video of him tackling a wrestler whose face had been replaced with CNN's logo. The source of the video: a Reddit user with a history of posting racist and anti-Semitic comments. The man, who was contacted by CNN, has since apologized and deleted his account . The White House didn't respond to a request for comment. The SPLC says the number of recognized hate groups in the US began rising in 2009, when then-President Obama took office. It reached a peak of 1,018 in 2011 and then began to decline as extremists moved "to the web and away from on-the-ground activities." Over the past few years, however, the hate group count has started rising again " in part due to a presidential campaign that flirted heavily with extremist ideas ," the SPLC says. The number stands at 917 as of last year, up from 892 in 2015, with the number of anti-Muslim groups nearly tripling last year to 101. Mark Potok, who edits the SPLC's quarterly Intelligence Report magazine, calls this the " Trump Effect ." He says it's galvanized groups to use the internet to spread their messages. "The Trump phenomena has been electrifying to the radical right wing," Potok says. "They lurk on the internet." Weinstein agrees, saying the attacks against him and his family have gotten worse since the election. deletes 66,000 hateful posts every week Efforts to curb hatred online have gone nowhere. Facebook, which now has 2 billion monthly users, said last week that itbut acknowledged it's not yet where it needs to be. Last week, too, Germany passed a law that could bring fines as high as 50 million euros ($57 million) against social media companies if they don't block or remove hate speech within 24 hours. Worse, people trying to stop the hatred may become targets themselves. Click to see more from iHate. Aaron Robinson/CNET Massachusetts Congresswoman Katherine Clark , who's pushed the tech industry to face the problem, found that out firsthand on a cold Sunday night in January 2016. Clark and her husband were watching " Veep " when she noticed flashing lights outside her house. Police cars had blocked off the street and armed officers faced her front door. The representative knew immediately she was the victim of a dangerous prank known as " swatting ." She was right. The police had received an anonymous report of an active shooter at her home. Clark fell afoul of trolls because she had introduced five bills in Congress to combat online abuse. The two-term representative became involved in fighting online hate after one of her constituents, game designer Brianna Wu , became a target of rape and death threats during 2014's GamerGate controversy . That's the online campaign against activists, like Wu, who challenge the way women are portrayed in video games. Wu told Clark she had received more than 100 death threats, prompting the congresswoman to call the FBI. She was astonished by its response. "It wasn't a priority," Clark says. The FBI didn't respond to a request for comment. One of the bills Clark introduced calls for $20 million in training for the Department of Justice so it can go after people violating provisions of 2013's Violence Against Women Act , which outlaws online abuse. The money would be used to teach police and prosecutors how to identify violations and collect evidence. Clark also drafted the Interstate Swatting Hoax Act , which would make it a federal crime to falsely report an incident that leads to the dispatch of a SWAT team. Right now such incidents are covered by state laws. The bill includes provisions for life sentences in swatting incidents that result in death. At the end of last month, Clark tweeted that she and two other members of Congress had introduced a new bill to address these and other issues, the Online Safety Modernization Act Targeted In 2015, Renee Bracey Sherman co-wrote a 30-page manual on how to deal with online abuse. It wouldn't be long before the abortion-rights activist would be following her own advice. Abortion rights activist Renee Bracey Sherman briefly left social media after continuous harassment online. Renee Bracey Sherman "Speak Up" details simple ways to prevent harassment, including how to combat "doxxing," when trolls post your personal documents and information online so others can harass you. It recommends creating multiple email accounts with different, complex passwords, as well as using two-factor authentication, which requires you to pass multiple tests before getting to your account. In December 2016, Bracey Sherman wrote an open letter to Rep. Tom Price, who was on his way to becoming President Trump's Secretary of Health and Human Services. The letter, published on Refinery 29 , called on Price to keep abortion legal and safe. Bracey Sherman recounted her own unplanned pregnancy and her decision to have an abortion. She called it "one of the best I have ever made." It wasn't long before the trolls lashed out. About a half-dozen right-wing blogs, including 100percentfedup.com and the now-defunct republicannation.com, picked up her letter. Soon after, derogatory posts hit her Facebook and Instagram pages as well as her email inbox. Then her Twitter account was flooded with angry tweets calling her, among other things, "a racist bitch" and "c---." She was also ridiculed for being biracial. She reached out to Twitter and, according to Bracey Sherman, the social network determined that about 15 percent of the tweets met its definition of a violation, so it removed those. But that only provoked the harassers, who posted new tweets, some saying "this bitch reported me to Twitter." Twitter confirmed it worked with Bracey Sherman after she reported the harassment. The company declined to provide details, citing privacy and security concerns. Experts say Bracey Sherman's experience is typical of the way social media magnifies hatred online by giving people who might not be affiliated with organized hate groups a sense of community. "You don't have to be a card-carrying member of a local skinhead group or local [Ku Klux] Klan group," says Brian Levin, who runs the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. Social media, he says, has become a "force multiplier" of hatred. As the ugly tweeting intensified, Bracey Sherman grew anxious and depressed. She stopped answering her phone and was afraid to walk down the streets of her Washington, DC, neighborhood. The worst: the feeling that hundreds of anonymous eyes were on her at all times. Graphic by Aaron Robinson/CNET "I know they hide behind avatars [online] and they are lying in wait, and so it was that sort of a feeling, that feeling I was being stalked and they might be watching me," she says. "You never know who that person could be and where they are." By mid-December, Bracey Sherman decided to quit social media altogether. As she left her home online, she also ditched her home in DC, leaving the capital for her parents' place in the Midwest. "My dad picked me up from the airport, and as soon I got home, I crawled into bed with my mother and started crying," Bracey Sherman says. "It brought me back to when I was in second grade, when I stood out from my classmates because I had big curly hair, a large forehead and this dimple in my chin. "I just really felt so defeated." Bracey Sherman stayed off social media for six weeks until the attacks against her subsided. For inspiration, she reread the anti-online abuse guide she co-authored. She started using Block Together , an app that lets you share lists of blocked Twitter accounts with friends. She also moved into a building with around-the-clock security. The time offline re-energized Bracey Sherman, who returned to DC just before Inauguration Day on Jan. 20. The following day, she joined hundreds of thousands at the Women's March , sporting an ironic T-shirt that said "Petty Black Feminist" and a red bomber jacket that said "Team Abortion" on the back. Still, Bracey Sherman continues to be a target of hatred. On June 14, a man at Reagan International Airport used Apple's AirDrop file-sharing feature to plop an image of Pepe, a cartoon frog that's been appropriated as a symbol by white supremacists , onto Bracey Sherman's Mac while she waiting for a flight. Her computer was visible because she was using Bluetooth wireless headphones and AirDrop identifies the model of a device. "It was quite unsettling and jarring to not only see this racist meme, but it was scary that it was showing up on my computer," she said in an email. "I freaked out a little." But not too much. Gathering her wits, Bracey Sherman did a quick lap around the airport looking for someone on a MacBook Pro. She found him -- his name is Jacob, based on what Bracey Sherman could see on his computer -- in an airport bar. Jacob acknowledged sending the racist meme to Bracey Sherman's computer though he wouldn't apologize. Nonetheless, she's glad she confronted him. "Racism is real," Bracey Sherman's email read. "And this is one of the many ways it looks in the digital age." Attack of the trolls Norma Zahory doesn't like Trump and wanted to join the protests on Inauguration Day. But she didn't feel comfortable leaving her sick father in their suburban Maryland home. Her absence from the protests didn't prevent the web from accusing her of assaulting a Trump supporter. Though she was miles away from downtown Washington, people on the internet were convinced Zahory had lit a Trump supporter's hair on fire during a tense standoff on the 700 block of Pennsylvania Avenue. The incident was captured in a YouTube video that's been viewed more than 1.5 million times. The video was immediately dissected and frames capturing a face -- one that bore a passing resemblance to Zahory's -- were passed around the web. A proposed bounty to identify the perpetrator was set up on WeSearchr, a site founded by two right-wing provocateurs that pays people to research topics. (WeSearchr said the information would be turned over to law enforcement and wasn't a call for "vigilante justice.") "She should be arrested for attempted murder," read a Jan. 24 post on image-board website 4chan . "You know what to do /pol/," it continued, referencing a board dedicated to politics. Enlarge Image Efforts to track down an anti-Trump protester devolved into an ugly witch hunt, as this screenshot of the Daily Caller's comments section shows. On Jan. 25, Fellowship of the Minds , a conservative website that has sections labeled "Black Racism" and "Leftwing Pathology," identified Zahory as "most likely" the assailant. It used comments and photos from Zahory's Facebook and Instagram pages to make the connection. The site also identified the nonprofit where Zahory worked, publishing its address, email and telephone number; naming its CEO; and listing the companies that support it. Zahory is an Afghani-American and believes many of the people who attacked her online may have mistaken her for Hispanic. She thinks the intense national debate over immigration contributed to the onslaught on social media. The comment section in the conservative Daily Caller filled up with demands that the culprit be deported. Some readers sent the website email naming Zahory as the responsible party. The website debunked the suspicion , telling readers to "leave her alone." "I don't want to be scared, but at the same time, I don't want to compromise my safety and peace and sanity," she says. At first she thought the attacks were the work of a random internet troll. Then her boss told her the office was getting calls about the incident. She decided to keep a low profile, shutting down her Facebook page while her friends rallied to her defense online. "There were all of these usernames attacking me, my character," Zahory says. "I kept saying I didn't do it. I was asking myself, 'Why do all of these people hate me based on the little info they have?'" Then fear set in. In early February, her sister and brother-in-law moved into her studio apartment to keep vigil. Her parents, nervous their home could be targeted, moved into a hotel for a week. Through a friend, Zahory reached out to Brittan Heller, a cybersecurity and hate crimes expert at the Anti-Defamation League, a civil rights organization. Heller, a former federal prosecutor, agreed to help. Zahory told Heller that she hadn't been near the incident and could prove it. Her uncle and a nurse's aide who helps take care of her ailing father provided photos they'd taken with smartphones. The timestamps clearly showed Zahory with her father at the time. The evidence convinced the DC Metro Police, which put out a press release on Feb. 16 clearing Zahory. Still, the emotional damage was done. Zahory hasn't returned to social media, and she just started listening again to songs on Spotify, which requires her to use her Facebook password. She's also grieving for her father, who died in March. "Anyone who thinks harassment does not have long-term effects has never been a victim," Heller, who had been a target of online abuse during law school, wrote in an email. "It makes it harder for you to trust people." Therapy has helped reduce some of her panic attacks. Her employer reached out to Reputation.com to scrub the web of at least some of the negative attention she received. Of course, Zahory longs to go on message boards to defend herself. She'd like to give those who smeared her reputation a piece of her mind. But she knows that probably won't help and could make things worse. "I miss being online, but that ugly side of the internet -- it's hard to move on from that," she says. "I'm forever changed by this." In the meantime, DC police say no one has been arrested for the Inauguration Day attack. Bodyguards and bulletproof vests Mikey Weinstein began advocating for religious freedom in the military in February 2004, when he learned Protestant faculty members at the Air Force Academy were strongly encouraging the institution's more than 10,000 students and staff to see " The Passion of the Christ ." The Mel Gibson-directed movie, which chronicles the final hours of Jesus, was popular at the box office. But it also drew criticism for being violent, graphic and, to some, anti-Semitic. Enlarge Image An anti-MRFF tweet equating the organization's activities with the work of the devil. Weinstein was concerned his alma mater was pushing students to see a religious movie. So he reached out to the administration to inquire about the reports. He got no response. An Air Force Academy spokesman didn't respond to an inquiry about the incident when contacted by CNET. He said the academy has no official relationship with Weinstein or the MRFF. Four months later, Weinstein's youngest son, Curtis, a cadet at the academy, asked to meet him at an off-campus McDonald's for a chat. "I'm going to beat the shit out of the next guy that calls me a 'f------ Jew.' I'm going to beat the shit out of the next guy that accuses me, or our people, of killing Jesus Christ," his son told him. "I just thought that before it happens, you and Mom should know." That's when Weinstein decided he had to do something. When he founded MRFF, Weinstein expected the organization to generate some blowback. America's armed forces have embraced a more diverse set of recruits but remain conservative cultures. Still, he reckoned the repercussions would be brief. He was wrong. The barrage of intimidation -- blistering phone calls and eye-watering emails -- prompted Weinstein to hire armed bodyguards about 10 years ago. He also keeps attack dogs on his property. He and his wife both carry firearms. Sometimes that causes problems. In two separate incidents in 2014, police detained and questioned Weinstein and his wife, Bonnie, for carrying loaded weapons into an airport security zone. Weinstein says they simply forgot they were carrying the guns. No charges were filed. Bonnie, who also gets threats, assembled some of the hatred into a 254-page book called " You Can Be a Good Speller or a Hater, But You Can't Be Both ." The title is a reference to the spelling, punctuation and grammar errors that pepper the emails, tweets and posts the couple receives. The communication, Bonnie says, is notable for its hatred of Jews. "The 'Jew bashing' that is presented here is just incredible to me," she writes in the book. Over its 11-year history, MRFF's membership has grown to more than 51,000. It includes members of all branches of the military, both active duty and veterans, of all religious backgrounds and sexual orientations. Weinstein has testified before Congress on defending a soldier's right to religious freedom and safeguarding the military from endorsing a single faith. Weinstein says he got his first hate email in 2004, nearly two years before MRFF opened its doors. He didn't save the message and can't remember the details; he's been attacked so many times they all sort of run together. But he says its contents included multiple references to blood libel, a widely spread medieval myth that Jews use the blood of Christian children to bake Passover matzoh. That's similar to this one, which he received in late 2014: "Jewboy don't you evercome back to our state. Your not wanted here. Keep you godam mffr hands off our Holy Univ. of No. Georgia Cadets corps. you f------ jew muslam queer loving jew. servant of satan. Why don't you eat some of your jewbread soked with the blood of innocent Christian children? To make it tasty … " Imagine getting a voicemail like this? This is the kind of message military religious freedom rights activist Mikey Weinstein gets regularly. / by CNET News.com 1:00 Close Drag Autoplay: ON Autoplay: OFF That's only a snippet of the email. It doesn't get nicer. Many of the emails and voice messages reference Nazi Germany, specifically mentioning concentration camps. That's particularly troubling to Weinstein, who lost family members in the Holocaust. The barrage has taken its toll on Weinstein. He's always on edge. You can hear it in his tight voice and the staccato clip of his speech. The hate he's exposed to makes him careful. "I don't want the last thoughts in my head, after I've been shot or blown up, [to be] 'You were a stupid idiot and you weren't ready for this,'" he says. In April, bodyguards accompanied Weinstein when he participated in a debate on religious freedom with Christian speaker Alex McFarland at Colorado Christian University in Denver. Weinstein wore a bulletproof vest. Why the precautions? Because a campus security guard sent Weinstein a disturbing email before the event. Weinstein reported the email to the debate's sponsors, the Centennial Institute, which notified the school and wrote a letter apologizing. The security guard wasn't allowed to work the event. The school added metal detectors and local police worked alongside Weinstein's private security personnel. The debate went off without incident. Weinstein, however, didn't escape judgment. A female attendee later sent a polite email, praising Weinstein for his intelligence and demeanor. "We expected the worst," she wrote. "I must say however that you were very pleasant and nice." But she questioned why he needed so much protection and what he had to fear from followers of Jesus Christ. "Was all of that really necessary," she asked, "as this debate was held at a Christian university campus where love is King and not hate?" She labeled him "the Number One persecutor of Christians who fight" for the US, and she also offered a warning. "Hell is a real place," she wrote. "It looks like you are going to be a permanent resident there." Editors' note: This story was originally published July 6. |
By all accounts, Dragon Age: Inquisition looks set to right all the wrongs wrought by the disappointing second game of the series, and it's impossible to deny that the game is looking truly spectacular. What's more, it was recently revealed that the game will have around 200 hours of single player content, making it a mammoth RPG, possibly one that can challenge the mighty Skyrim for dominance in the genre, at least in terms of size. The latest trailer focuses on the player, as the Hero of Thedas, and depicts just some of the intense battles and titanic bad guys you'll need to take on in your fight against evil. Dragon Age: Inquisition will arrive on November 18 for Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 ad PC. Please, if you can, support our charity horror stories ebook, Den Of Eek!, raising money for Geeks Vs Cancer. Details here. |
By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Contributing Writer In Showtime’s BILLIONS, now in its second season on Sunday nights, Damian Lewis stars as up from the streets but now very wealthy Wall Street businessman Bobby “Axe” Axelrod. Bobby has drawn the wrath of Deputy District Attorney Chuck Rhoades, played by Paul Giamatti. Their situation was considerably complicated by the fact that Chuck’s wife Wendy (Maggie Siff) has been Bobby’s professional advisor and coach. At the end of Season 1, Wendy separated from Chuck and quit her job with Bobby, disturbing both men. At the start of BILLIONS Season 2, Bobby embroils Chuck in a massive lawsuit, but the tactic may backfire. The London-born Lewis, who won both an Emmy and a Golden Globe for his portrayal of U.S. Marine-turned-terrorist-turned-spy Nicholas Brody on Showtime’s HOMELAND, fills us in on where Bobby and Co. are going this year. ASSIGNMENT X: Can you talk about the evolution of Axe? DAMIAN LEWIS: I think Axe is a man who wants to be left alone. He’s a libertarian, he believes that a man should be able to make money. The goal posts in that industry move all the time, so what’s legal, what’s illegal is very hard to prove or disprove a lot of the time. They all take advantage of that all the time, and he a past master at it. I think he just feels indignant and disgruntled that this man has decided to come at him so aggressively, which he has. He’s not going to go away. I think Axe feels that, in order to thrive, he needs to dispose of Chuck Rhoades, so he files this lawsuit against him, and that’s how we start Season 2. After that, there are hard decisions. I think a lot of people are concerned that this show will burn out because [they think] it’s just going to be a show about two men cracking skulls. But actually, I think what they’ve done quite artfully this season is, there’s a whole investigation by his own people into his own office, and I in the meantime am looking at an investment. AX: Why does Axe spend his money so conspicuously? LEWIS: That’s all about status, that’s all about acceptance, that’s all about being a blue-collar working-class guy, self-made billionaire, a nouveau-riche guy who wants to be accepted by the Establishment, by the East Coast, old money guys. And so these different stories have emerged this year in an interesting way. It just turns out that there’s a longer game being played. And I get played in the end. So we just see the way in which the emotional lives of these characters is finally what undoes them. So when they’re irrational, emotional, envious, angry, needy, then they perform less well. When Axe is dependent on the algorithm, when he’s rational, when he’s clear-headed, then he’s better at what he does. He has more chance of taking him [Rhoades] down and more chance of just doing his job well. But certainties are eroded. Season 1 was a great ride. It was being in this playground with these powerful people in the playground that’s New York. And of course there was an effect to the way they behaved, but there was no real consequence. I think there’s more consequence this year. So it goes deeper. AX: In what way? LEWIS: Axe has a significant birthday in the course of the season, and I think he examines where he is, what he is, what he’s achieved and what he wants from life. He then gets pushed into a position which is a little bit like the gunslinger who’s put down his guns having to make one last kill. And he does something abominable, which is a place he’s pushed into because of his fight with Chuck. There is a shifting in his self-awareness of who he is. There’s a little more introspection, which is something you could never accuse Bobby of normally. AX: Does Bobby ever look at the ethics of the companies he’s acquiring? Things like whether they pollute, or cure people, or ignore worker safety, things like that? LEWIS: The short answer is, at the moment, no, but it’s not made absolutely clear. And we also don’t get into the mechanics of what happens to a company when someone like Bobby Axelrod comes in and makes it work more “efficiently.” That’s not something the guy seemed particularly concerned with, until this moment that I was just alluding to, which is later in the season, where there is a brief discussion about the way in which government, local communities, have a responsibility to take care of their own towns, and then there is a little riff on what happened in Puerto Rico recently, about the way in which an entire country has effectively been privatized, because the hedge fund guys have been able to go in and invest and start to take over huge numbers of assets, hard assets, and infrastructure in the company in order to rebuild it. This show never wants to become too didactic, because there are people, of course, who will understand it, there are people in New York who will understand it, but mostly, I think you need to understand the show through the prism of people’s emotional beats, you need to know that someone has won and you need to know that someone has lost, and you know to know what’s the cost. And I think the show will work most successfully in that realm, without becoming too didactic, I suspect. AX: Can you tease at all where Axe and Wendy’s relationship goes this season? LEWIS: Yes. As the paranoia increases, their relationship is challenged, too. Wendy is quite capable of taking care of herself, as we saw at the end of last season, when she plays Axe in that last moment and runs away with the Maserati and a five-million-dollar bonus. Was it five million? It suddenly doesn’t seem like very much in the world of BILLIONS. And she doesn’t work with Axe anymore. Axe relies on her heavily, though. Of course, there’s always going to be a question of pride with him, and he attempts to lure her back. But it’s because, I think, there is some truth in the fact when she says, “We built this company together.” I think she is good counsel for him, and he needs her. He feels more confident with her. There certainly isn’t, for now, any kind of romantic interest between them. AX: What’s the strangest audition that you’ve ever had? LEWIS: The strangest audition I ever did was, when I was a younger actor, and I was auditioning for a commercial, and there was a sleeping bag at the end of the room. And they said, “Go and get into that sleeping bag.” I said, “Okay.” They said, “Now, turn away from us, face the wall.” I said, “Okay.” And they said, “On ‘Action,’ roll over towards us.” And I said, “Okay.” And I rolled over in my sleeping bag, and they said, “Okay, thanks so much for coming in.” And that was it. It was the last commercial audition I ever went out for, because I felt it was such a waste of time. AX: Do you get recognized out on the streets, when you’re in airports, walking around? LEWIS: Yeah. AX: Mostly for BILLIONS, or HOMELAND, or something else? LEWIS: I’m old, I get recognized for everything. I get recognized just for being me now [laughs]. This interview was conducted during Showtime’s portion of the winter 2017 Television Critics Association (TCA) press tour in Pasadena, California. Follow us on Twitter at ASSIGNMENT X Like us on Facebook at ASSIGNMENT X Related Related Posts: |
We also have a spoiler-filled version of this review, which you can read by clicking right here. Inevitably, the arrival of a new series of Doctor Who, not least one with a new Doctor at the controls of the TARDIS, comes coated with a generous dose of goodwill. Certainly at the Cardiff-based world premiere of series 8, there was no shortage of that on show. Streets were lined, autographs were signed, and the moment Peter Capaldi entered the room, it might just have made One Direction turn around and remark "that was a bit loud." The reaction was always more likely to be upbeat than not. That notwithstanding, few are going to feel shortchanged by "Deep Breath." There's a sense that the show has changed a little certainly, yet perhaps the biggest surprise is how relatively quiet much of the feature-length opener is. It might be that it's that extra running time ("Deep Breath" runs to nearly 80 minutes), but it feels like there's space and room afforded to talk, to put the brakes on more, and to more evenly space out action sequences. Even more importantly, it feels - and that wasn't always the case, particularly last series - that it's the right length for the right story. Again, you don't need us to tell you that the main attraction is the new Doctor himself, so let's start there. We're strictly spoiler-free here, so we'll go light on the specific details. However, it's fair to say that much of "Deep Breath" is about a new Doctor finding his feet, his identity and his mind. Thus, whilst David Tennant sat in his pyjamas playing with satsumas, and Matt Smith tried some unusual recipes (and Syvlester McCoy got, well, lumbered with "Time And The Rani"), Capaldi comes across as quietly broken, and really quite mysterious. He is also, and no bones about this, very Scottish. He's also every bit as good and as interesting as you'd hope. Granted, off the back of one episode, it's hard to pin down just what his Doctor's going to be. Yet thus far, he doesn't run much, he rarely shouts, and he has amazing eyebrow dexterity. He carries himself more like the Doctors of old, and he's seemingly more interesting doing some proper detective work, rather than pegging it from place to place. "Deep Breath" does walk a tight line, as it deliberately holds back too much warmth until it needs it. But the slower (and that's slower, not slow) pace, and Capaldi's rich performance are both very big positives. Arguably, though, this is as much, if not more, Jenna Coleman's episode. Clara has been a different companion for the Doctor, in that she's more than once proven to be one step ahead of him. Here, though, she's just as broken as the Doctor, and Steven Moffat's script calls for some hard acting work from Jenna Coleman to put that across, crucially giving her the screen time to do so. She delivers, not in a bombastic way, but quietly and gradually, building up her performance and the mix of sadness and confusion in her character. It would be fair to say her faith has been rattled, and Coleman - and this is very much a good thing too - is a wonderfully uneven match for Capaldi. Romance, as has been widely flagged beforehand, is not on the table, either. At least not between those two. Moffat's script also has a theme of age running through it, and the judgement of it. It's still got some quality laughs - including more than one excellent physical comedy moment involving a certain Sontaran - and it's still very much Doctor Who, with a family audience in mind. There are tips of the hat to episodes and lines of old, and some welcome quality time with the Paternoster gang, particularly Jenny and Vastra. But then there's the injection of unease from director Ben Wheatley. Known for films he wouldn't be allowed to let his children see, Wheatley proves a strong match for the material, lending Deep Breath a cinematic identity without showing off to do it. Unusual camera angles, holding his shots, and with a sharp eye for character (and, yep, eyebrows), Wheatley brings something extra here. It'll be interesting to see if he holds the same tone for his second episode. "Deep Breath" may be a slightly quieter introduction for Peter Capaldi in some senses than people are expecting. Yet it's hard to avoid an underlying confidence that all concerned know they're onto something here. And with some flat out brilliant moments in the last third, there's an old fashioned ethos of putting in the foundations, doing the ground work, and building on substance. As such, the big moments really hit. You're unlikely to remember too much about the on-the-surface foes of "Deep Breath," as fun as they are. But you are likely to take away a good, promising start for a new series, that leaves ceiling room, takes a bit of time getting out of the traps, yet also leaves you yearning to jump in a time machine yourself to spend some more time with the Doctor and Clara. And to everyone involved in the casting of Peter Capaldi? We think we might just owe you a drink or two. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for all news updates related to the world of geek. And Google+, if that's your thing! |
Belgians pride themselves on lambic, and rightfully so. Early recipes show that this way of brewing dates all the way back to 1559. With the rest of the world turning to industrially-produced lagers in the late 20th century, traditional sour lambic was a dying breed. By the 1990s, only three blenders in the whole of Belgium remained. Fortunately, winds of change blew, and today lambic is a very sought-after style among craft beer drinkers. Best known in the category is probably Brussels-based Cantillon, which has reached iconic status. Happily, lambic’s modern-day popularity has encouraged many of the breweries who previously only produced sweetened versions to add unsweetened lambics to their lineup as well. After a 70 Euro cab drive we arrive in Gooik at 8:28 AM, two minutes prior to our scheduled meeting with Karel. The cab takes off and we're left standing in a desolate, quiet, gravel-covered courtyard. People in the beer business that I've met have all had something to say about Karel — generally painting a picture of a great guy, but somehow veiled in mystery. Standing there in that small village in the middle of Belgium I mostly think: "honestly, I don't know if he will show up". At 8.30 AM exactly, a white minivan spins into the parking lot and Karel steps out. He's welcoming, chatty, and passionate. Any worries I might have had disperse immediately, like the clouds in the blue sky above. As early as it is, initially Karel treats us to Pottekeis, a Brussels gueze cheese spread. It's a tangy, creamy fresh cream spread made from soft cheeses, young spring onions, and gueze. Using an old oak barrel as a table, we stand in the Flanders morning sun feasting on our unlikely breakfast. Karel is a serious character when it comes to his lambiek (Flemish spelling), but otherwise a relaxed and cheerful guy who quickly immerses us in his stories. DeCam (Cam is an Old-Dutch word for a brewery) was originally started in 1997, by Belgian beer legend Willem Van Herreweghen. When Willem left three years later to pursue his career as technical advisor for Palm Breweries (among others), Karel saw his chance to acquire the company. |
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The journalistic monitoring group Airwars is reporting that the U.S.-led war against ISIS has killed at least a dozen civilians every single day since President Trump took office. Their investigation found U.S.-led coalition airstrikes and shelling in Iraq and Syria killed more than 2,200 civilians during Trump’s six months in office, a far higher rate of reported civilian casualties than under the Obama administration. AMY GOODMAN: This comes as Amnesty International reports the U.S.-led coalition and the U.S.-backed Iraqi forces violated international law and may have committed war crimes during the battle to seize control of Mosul from ISIS. Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, who oversees the campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, has denied the U.S.-led coalition broke international law, claiming instead the campaign against ISIS is the, quote, “most precise campaign in the history of warfare,” unquote. Thousands of civilians were killed during the nine-month battle in Mosul, and nearly a million residents were forced to flee their homes. For more, we go to Beirut, Lebanon, to speak with Nicolette Waldman, an Iraq researcher at Amnesty International, co-author of their new report, “At Any Cost: The Civilian Catastrophe in West Mosul, Iraq.” Nicolette, welcome to Democracy Now! Talk about what you found. NICOLETTE WALDMAN: Thank you. What we found is that both ISIS and the Iraqi and coalition forces inflicted massive harm on civilians during the battle for west Mosul. On the one hand, ISIS systematically moved thousands of civilians directly into areas of active fighting, and then they trapped them there. On the other hand, Iraqi and coalition forces then subjected these very same areas to relentless attacks. These attacks used explosive and imprecise weapons that killed and injured thousands of civilians and left the city flattened. JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Nicolette, were you able to interview people in both east and west Mosul? And what were some of the things that they told you directly, the civilians in—trapped in these zones? NICOLETTE WALDMAN: This report focused only on the battle for west Mosul. And we had covered the battle in east Mosul in previous outputs. But this report really focused in on the battle that took place between February and then just ended officially days ago. And for this research, we visited west Mosul, we visited east Mosul, and then we talked to people in camps around the city who had fled either days or weeks before we spoke with them. And what they told us was that this battle was horrific. Basically, they had been rounded up and forced into the battle, and then they had no way out. And what actually happened for so many people is that because they were forced to move into the city, and then, as the battle continued, they were forced to fall back, so as the front lines went back, the civilians moved back with those front lines. And the area in west Mosul became increasingly packed with civilians. So, because ISIS was preventing people from escaping, this meant that they only had one way out, in most cases, and that was directly through the front lines of the battle. And what people told us time and time again is that they didn’t wait for the battle to subside or the fighting to calm down. Instead, they waited for the fighting to actually reach its peak, and that was the moment when they ran out into the middle of the street, usually. They would sit down, they would raise their hands, and they would say, “Civilians, families,” and sit and wait for the Iraqi forces to motion them forward. Only then would they literally make a run for it and make it out of this battle. So, the cost to civilians was extremely high. And really, what we want to do with this report is to bring attention not to the victory that so many are talking about in the last few days, but to the tremendous cost that civilians suffered during this battle. AMY GOODMAN: Speaking to NPR Thursday, Air Force Brigadier General Andrew Croft responded to the findings of your report, of the Amnesty report. BRIG. GEN. ANDREW CROFT: I think it’s an unfair accusation. They have not coordinated with the coalition. I’ll tell you that from the way we do our airstrikes, we use the most precise and discriminate weapons we can ever use and are available in the world to avoid targeting civilians. And I’ll tell you, if there’s ever a doubt of whether or not there’s a civilian involved, we will not strike. And so, this is the most precision, low-collateral level of warfare, especially in an urban environment like this, which has not been seen since World War II, that you could ever construct. And so, we have done, in my view, the absolute best job we can to avoid any civilian casualties. They’re going to happen, just based on the nature of the war. But I can tell you that to be effective, we’ve got to support the Iraqi security forces, and that’s what we’ve done. AMY GOODMAN: Nicolette Waldman, can you respond to Air Force Brigadier General Andrew Croft? NICOLETTE WALDMAN: That is not what we found on the ground. And basically, we spent weeks sitting with families, talking to them. And it seemed as if, to me, every third family we talked to had lost a family member in one of these Iraqi and coalition air force airstrikes or ground attacks. And it was actually so common for people to be full of shrapnel—I met whole families who were full of shrapnel—that they wouldn’t even seek medical attention. So, to his claims that this was the most precise campaign in the history of warfare, I would respond just with my experience with the civilians’ experience of what they went through, and basically would call on the Iraqi and coalition air forces to use their great technological advantages to better affect—to better protect civilians in places such as west Mosul, because what we found was quite the contrary. We found that Iraqi forces, in particular, were consistently using IRAMs, improvised rocket-assisted munitions. These are basically flying IEDs. They have a massive warhead, and they cannot be precisely targeted. So these were being flung into neighborhoods where people were trapped, where they had no way out, and where often people were packed in one house between groups of—groups between 15 and a hundred civilians. So, when this type of imprecise—these weapons that cannot be targeted are launched into areas like this, the cost is going to be high. And we would call on the U.S. and Iraq coalition, the coalition and Iraqi forces, to do better in the future, to prioritize civilian protection and to uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law, which requires them not to use the type of weapons they did, these imprecise explosive weapons, in these very densely populated areas. JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what did you find out about the reports from the coalition forces that ISIS was using civilians as human shields? How prevalent was that, from what you were able to find out? NICOLETTE WALDMAN: It was absolutely prevalent, and to a scale even we didn’t expect. What was happening is they weren’t just using humans as shields to protect their own forces. They were moving people in to the battle. So starting in even the months before the battle for west Mosul started, they rounded up civilians in buses, in trucks, and forced them sometimes to move by foot, by the thousands. So they moved them into west Mosul. Then, once they were there, they moved them back and kept them with them from neighborhood to neighborhood. So this could have been one of the most prevalent use of human shields, or using civilians just protect their own forces, in modern history. And what happened then, as well, is they didn’t just put them into this amazing risk. They kept them there so that people who would try to escape and save their own lives would be executed by snipers as they were running to safety. And then the bodies of these people would be hung by ISIS in public areas as a warning for those who might just consider trying to escape. So this meant that people could not escape. And in some cases, not just here or there, but again and again, we heard that people were being welded into their houses. So the front doors were actually being welded together. We heard that people had booby traps set in the exits of their houses so they could not leave. This meant that huge groups of civilians were sheltering in these homes and being used as human shields in such an egregious way and a deliberate away. But then what was happening is these very same areas, where these people were trapped, these areas were being barraged by air attacks and ground attacks by the Iraqi and coalition forces. And what we found was that most attacks weren’t actually killing the high numbers, of attacks like the Mosul al-Jadida attack on March 17th. Instead, they were killing between one and 20 civilians. And most of these deaths will actually go unnoticed and, so far, have not been acknowledged, because, actually, in Mosul, in west Mosul, ISIS had completely banned the use of mobile phones. And they don’t have the kind of infrastructure to rescue people to actually go after and document these deaths. So what we found when we were doing this research is that the scale of death was much, much higher than has so far been acknowledged. And Airwars, who you mentioned just at the beginning of your show, estimated that between just February 2017 and June 2017, as many as 6,800 people were killed in attacks by the Iraqi and coalition forces. And just during our research, so during the 151 interviews that we conducted with west Mosul residents, we documented 45 unlawful attacks. And these attacks killed at least 426 civilians and injured 100. So the scale of suffering and the scale of death and injury has really not been grappled with yet. And I’m afraid we’ll be finding out in the months and the years to come of the true toll of this operation. AMY GOODMAN: Nicolette Waldman, we want to thank you for being with us, Iraq researcher at Amnesty International, co-author of the new report, which we’ll link to, “At Any Cost: The Civilian Catastrophe in West Mosul, Iraq.” When we come back, Life on Parole, a new Frontline documentary that airs tonight on PBS looking at how states are trying to reduce their prison population by putting more people on parole. We’ll meet some of the former prisoners as they navigate challenges of their first year on parole, and speak with the director and The New York Times reporter behind the story. Stay with us. |
If you’d have asked me a few years ago to think up the most outlandish thing I might do in my life, running a mountain ultra starting and finishing at Dracula’s castle in Transylvania wouldn’t have even been close. It’s such a big departure from the norm but last weekend Ally and I were on the steps to Bran castle waiting to go at 6am. We signed up for the 50km race (there’s a 100k option too) a few months back and it would be our first overseas race to celebrate Ally’s 40th birthday earlier in the year and although it was a flying visit we planned to do the race (2 nights in Bran) and then have an extra night in Bucharest on the way back to at least sample the city too. Race Day Our target was to finish what we knew from last years race reports would be a brutally tough (11,000ft of ascent) mountain race so we made sure not to get caught up in any massed sprint from the castle start and settled into the power hike that we maintained for the duration of the race. The start and finish point – Dracula’s Castle in Bran The course runs you briefly though Bran (which is a very small town) before turning up towards the first climb of a very tough start that effectively sees you climbing from the start up to the highest point (6,500ft) of the course at about 12.5 miles. There’s some respite on the way but it’s as tough a start to a race as you could hope for. I knew roughly what to expect in terms of 30% gradient climbs but I think the first major climb took it out of Ally and Wane little more than they’d anticipated but once we’d eased our way up the mountain we all settled into the race. Our initial plan was to try and get around in around 12 hours but it’s always hard to guess how running in this sort of terrain will go and while we were ultimately 5 hours down, our main goal was to finish and to finish while enjoying the experience. The view from CP1 As it turned out, our power hiking pace was steady throughout the race and we got around 14 hours into the race before there were any real mental or physical issues and fatigue and we’d been very much enjoying the stunning route and mountains. We were pleased to see CP1 as we’d thought it was due sooner than the GPS showed which I think was a result of some route changes and general inaccuracy of the race maps but at no point were we lost. The course for the 50km race was sensationally well marked with tape the whole way around every couple of hundred feet would have some tape and combined with the remoteness of this area there are typically only single trails to follow anyway so navigation skills weren’t needed for us at this point. Later in the race when the mist rolled in and darkness descended there were a lot of people getting lost though. More on that later. It’s a remote race This is a remote mountain race, it’s over terrain that would rival anything you’d find in the Alps and one very noticeable bit from CP1 to CP2 and onwards to the main CP3 was that unlike the Alps where each trail often has multiple routes going off to link to other parts of a valley or mountain there are often just single routes here which highlights that it’s not as busy a region. It also brings home the fact that if you get into any trouble, it’s not always as simple as descending to the nearest Alpine village for a coffee and cake – descend in some of these valleys and there’s just nothing there. It’s very remote in places. After about 5 miles of this race, we didn’t see another competitor until we were joined by a runner who had got lost getting to CP3 and she joined us from there (about 20 miles) to the finish. Because of the remote nature of the race, CP2 literally was a couple of guys in a tent who had hiked up to 6,500ft carrying as much water as they could but it was a cup of water each and as the weather closed in at the top of the mountain we put on hats, gloves and jackets which were very much needed for this stretch even though it was generally a really nice and pleasantly warm day otherwise. Weather closing in at the highest point of the course – 6,500ft up to CP2 Once we’d been through CP2 the next push was a big 10 mile stretch heading back to lower ground and through some stunning alpine meadows and descending through farm fields with cows grazing and bells ringing – could have been France or Switzerland easily. The main CP3 is set up in a school and it was the first point where we could get a quick coffee and cup of soup along with the biscuits/sweets & cheese on offer. Having a warm drink and something savoury is always a nice break from gels and sweets and moods pick up quickly from there. The climb out of CP3 Leaving CP3 is harsh though, it’s a 600m climb straight out of the valley back up to a ridge line and from there to the finish you spend a lot of time in the thick forest which we knew from the race briefing did have bears(!!!) and as it turns out from a less fortunate competitor – wolves – who he eventually fended off with his poles before then being the victim of an attempted robbery too. You have to constantly make a noise, the bears are generally shy and the aim is to let them know you’re coming by regularly blowing on your race issue bear whistle. We didn’t spot any but can at least confirm that they do shit in the woods. Night falls Our original 12 hour plan would have seen us finish with a couple of hours of daylight but it was very clear that wouldn’t be happening. Progress however was solid and steady and we were covering the course well but the climb back up to the last CP (you loop back to CP1) was brutal. It just kept getting steeper and steeper but as long as you keep moving even if slowly then all is fine. We didn’t stop for long. Leaving CP4 gave us our only blip navigationally when the crew at the CP told us to go back along the trail we’d followed at the start of the race until we reached a junction about 500m into the forest where we’d then turn off to descend towards Bran. After about 1km heading through the woods we spotted nothing to indicate a turn off and decided to go back to the CP to double check distances as the map also showed we should have been past the turn. One of the CP crew kindly walked us to the junction (if they’d have said to walk until we spotted the flashing light and tape we’d have been fine) which was closer to 2km so take distance quotes and the map accuracy with a pinch of garlic salt. In fairness, the route was well marked and clear and had he not said 500m, we’d have been fine. The last of the daylight Not long after though, it got dark and we struggled a bit to follow the markers because the mist had settled into the forest and was just reflecting everything back off our head torches although there aren’t many junctions in the trails I can certainly see how a lot of the 100k racers got lost and disorientated. There were a couple of really nasty stings in the final few miles of this course. We descended a fair way only to find a newly marked part of the course essentially turning us 180 degrees and back up a stream running parallel to where we’d just come down. Not a welcome challenge and one where Ally had a real low physically and mentally as we were probably at about 45km at this point but to her eternal credit, she never stopped moving and as a team we all just ploughed on with talk of the ever escalating number of pizzas and coffee’s we’d be eating soon! There was another similar down and up climb before the last main descent towards Bran where you finally join a logging access road with the town lights in the distance although it’s tough descending the muddy and steep trails to this point. The final kick in the proverbial nuts is that you get to the outskirts of the town and can see the lights very near and the Suunto said we’d ticked over the 50km mark in the woods and we’d then been diverted by race crew off the track and started climbing back out of town. Head down, keep the legs moving. Sob quietly. That was it though, we eventually come through the back of town to the sports hall where we’d had kit check the day before and it was a walk around the corner to the castle and the finish in 16:57 and a hard earned medal and a little cry from Ally and Wane who both went a long way out of their comfort zones but did so in style! A nice medal to finish The organisation and race I’d heard a few racers had got into some potentially serious situations and mountain rescue had been out to help a couple of people and I guess that could happen in any race. This is a serious mountain race in a remote part of the world though and while it’s a well marked route and a GPX file and route map are provided, if you get into trouble on some parts of the course you can suddenly be aware you’re alone. The wildlife is also a real threat – bears were definitely in the woods and a few runners on the 100k reported seeing a mother and cubs we were lucky not to encounter anything but again it’s something to take seriously hence the bear whistle. I’d fit a little bell to my pack next time personally. There are also boars and wolves to think about. The required kit while not massively extensive did get thoroughly checked at registration and rightly so. I think I’d probably carry a little more real food next time as the CP’s aren’t well stocked due to their remoteness so total self sufficiency wouldn’t be a bad approach. Suggested improvements for the organisers We had a pretty drama free race really, the course was superbly marked and perhaps our only concern was when we crossed the finish line we had been on their list of runners they were “looking for”. I don’t think we were exactly M.I.A but due to the extreme remoteness of some parts of the course, it might be prudent to look at making this a race that works using trackers or at least if someone is considered missing or behind schedule they could text the competitor to ask them to check in when possible (phone signal is surprisingly good in many parts of the mountain!). The other improvement would be to mark the course with reflective tape and glowsticks as we found once it got dark the red/white road marking tape was hard to spot. Kit I tried out a Kalenji Trail pack because my normal Ultimate Direction AK vest wouldn’t hold all the required kit and it worked well although to be honest I don’t think I’d race with it as it just isn’t a snug enough fit for moving faster downhill especially and bounces around. We took poles (£15 from Decathlon) and used them the whole way around. I know some people complain using poles is cheating in some way. I’ve never felt that and they certainly made a massive difference both up and down the mountains. I doubt I’d race with them on much in the UK other than long races but in the mountains, they’re indispensable. Worth noting that if you’re planning on taking only hand luggage, poles aren’t permitted and they must be checked into hold baggage. As a holiday/adventure This was our first race overseas and we chose it because our friend Wane had lived for several years in Bucharest and had sung the praises of Romania to us so we thought why not! Our itinerary was very much a flying visit over a long weekend which made it tiring on top of the race but well worth it and was: Friday – Fly out Blue Air from Liverpool & hire car from Bucharest to drive to Bran which was insanely easy – it’s literally drive straight for 2 hours, turn left and then left again and you’re there. Saturday – We stayed in the Hanul Bran 200m around the corner from the start/finish for Friday and Saturday night. Very reasonable and clean although no kettle/coffee in the room and with a 6am race start was a pain not having a brew or being able to make porridge for breakfast. Sunday – We set off back to Bucharest to drop off the hire car and got a cab into the city centre where we’d treated ourselves to a night in the 5* Athenee Hilton for only £82. Had a meal out and a few beers hobbling around lovely Bucharest. Monday – We booked an afternoon flight back to Doncaster with Wizz Air so had the morning to walk around and went for a wander to keep the legs moving and saw the Palace of Parliament and had lunch in a half decent restaurant for about £10. Next year? We might be back, it’s a big race. Exceptional value in a stunning setting. Make no mistake though – it can be dangerous if you’re not careful so be prepared and train hard. As a short break it was superb – Romania is a country of contrasts between progress and patches of poverty but the people are very friendly and the cost of living in terms of going out for food and accommodation make it great value indeed. It’s about 3 – 3.25 hours flight from Liverpool/Doncaster so not too bad. Final word goes to Ally and Wane whos achievement in finishing in such style clearly gave them both a memory that will last a lifetime and probably result in more “holiday runs” ;) |
Out of seemingly nowhere, the Pangu hacking team has released an update to its jailbreak tool for devices running iOS 9.1. The tool, which is available for both Mac and Windows, allows users to jailbreak the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. More interestingly, the same team is promising to release a jailbreak for the 4th generation Apple TV next week. Synology RT2600ac: The AirPort Extreme replacement. Unfortunately, few people will be able to take advantage of this jailbreak that haven’t already. Why? Apple stopped signing iOS 9.1 back in late December, which means that anyone not currently running iOS 9.1 can no longer downgrade or upgrade to that particular version of iOS. Since many of those who are not jailbroken have since upgraded to newer versions of iOS, and those that are jailbroken are still running earlier version of iOS, it limits the scope of potential users. Pangu acknowledges that the kernel bug used for the 9.1 release was patched by Apple in iOS 9.2. In other words, it had nothing to lose by releasing the 1.3 update, and it gave the few users who might still be running iOS 9.1 an opportunity to enjoy a jailbreak. On its site, Pangu gave special thanks to Jung Hoon Lee, nicknamed Lokihardt, a South Korean security expert who’s well-known in hacking circles. Lee previously won a large bounty in the 2015 Pwn2Own hacking competition. Pwn2Own is where contestants are challenged to exploit mobile devices and software using new vulnerabilities. You can download the Pangu 1.3 tool for iOS 9.1 from Pangu’s official website. The tool only works for iOS 9.1 on 64-bit iOS devices. Earlier iOS 9 versions can be jailbroken on 32-bit devices using the same tool. Apple TV 4 jailbreak in the works Having an iOS 9.1 jailbreak is nice, but the news of an Apple TV 4 jailbreak is much more interesting. On its official Twitter account, Pangu noted that it will release an Apple TV 4 jailbreak for 9.o.x next week. We will release jb for Apple TV4(9.0.x) next week which only has SSH access. It's mainly for security researchers and jailbreak developers. — PanguTeam (@PanguTeam) March 11, 2016 The jailbreak will only include SSH access, so there won’t likely be any user-friendly GUI based features at the outset. Yet, this is still very good news, and will open the floodgates for new Apple TV modifications and enhancements. Remember, the third-generation Apple TV was never jailbroken, so there’s a lot of pent up demand for a new Apple TV jailbreak. Please be aware that jailbreaking come with inherent risks. By jailbreaking, you’re using a tool created by a team outside of Apple that exploits security flaws. That said, I personally choose to accept that risk and I still jailbreak, although not as often on my daily driver. What about you? For more details on the current state of jailbreaking, be sure to read our latest State of Jailbreak post. |
Tens of thousands of businesses have been caught polluting the air, water or soil, but rarely does the federal government prosecute the leaders of these lawbreakers. The Crime Report found more than 64,000 facilities in federal databases where there have been violations of U.S. environmental laws, but less than 0.5% result in prosecutions. That’s because the government has consistently preferred to take administrative or civil actions against corporate polluters, even though laws like the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act make it possible to charge executives criminally during investigations. “As a result, the vast majority of corporate environmental transgressions — even cases that involve the releases of large amounts of toxic chemicals — are relegated to civil and administrative enforcement,” The Crime Report’s Graham Kates wrote. Fines appear to be just another cost of doing business for some companies. Mining giant Massey Energy violated environmental laws 4,500 times in six years, according to the investigation. Massey was fined $20 million then was bought by Alpha Natural Resources, which continued to violate the law. Alpha has since been found to be in violation 6,000 times and was fined $27.5 million. A big reason why the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Justice avoid criminal cases is due to lack of manpower and resources. EPA spokesperson Jennifer Colaizzi told The Crime Report that the agency has decided to focus on “high impact cases,” and that “the reality of budget cuts and staffing reductions make hard choices necessary across the board.” Pennsylvania officials were forced to prosecute a company on their own after the EPA declined to do so, according to the Harrisburg Patriot-News. That state’s Attorney General has charged XTO Energy, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil, with violating Pennsylvania’s clean streams and solid waste laws after dumping about 50,000 gallons of fracking wastewater into a stream near Hughesville in 2010. The wastewater was found to contain barium, strontium, chlorides and total dissolved solids. -Noel Brinkerhoff, Steve Straehley To Learn More: Environmental Crime: The Prosecution Gap (by Graham Kates, Crime Report) AG's Office Explains Why It Criminally Charged Texas Natural Gas Driller When EPA Did Not (by John Beauge, Patriot-News) Environmental Crimes Section (U.S. Department of Justice) 9 States Oppose Federal Push to Gut Their Environmental Laws (by Ken Broder, AllGov) |
Departing Los Angeles early in the morning is always a great way to avoid getting caught up in any traffic congestion, but it also provides an opportunity for more, or longer, stops en route. Here are 5 things to see when driving from Los Angeles to Las Vegas that will make your trip more enjoyable: Hike to majestic sights at Mormon Rocks Hanging like a silhouette on the desert horizon, the Mormon rocks can be seen for miles in every direction, and these impressive rock formations make for the perfect place to stop for some photography, or a hike to some spectacular view points. Mormon Rocks can be found by turning west at the junction for Highway 138 and just a short distance further, you will reach the trailhead next to the fire station. Have lunch in Barstow Many people will have never heard of Barstow, but in actual fact, the town has an extremely unique attraction, along with a most appetizing option for a lunch stop. The Discovery Center is home to the oldest meteorite in the world, known as the “Old Woman”, and a captivating story lies behind the origins of the rock, which was essentially confiscated by the government, much to the disappointment of those you made the discovery. Having learnt all about the mysterious meteorite in Barstow, the town itself is an interesting place to explore and although it may not seem like this most cultural thing to do, the McDonald’s in Barstow is well worth visiting, with it being located inside an old train station with plenty of interesting things to see inside. Visit a modern day ghost town The old mining town of Calico may be a little touristy and bust at times, but it still provides a fun experience in a town which has an incredibly authentic feel. Calico has several of the original buildings from the original mining town which have been beautifully restored, and for anyone who likes Wild West movies in particular, the surroundings are sure to evoke images of gun slinger, horse and carts, and coal faced miners. Check out the worlds largest thermometer Barstow has the worlds oldest meteorite, but the town of Baker has the worlds largest thermometer. Being a desert, and given the novelty of every adventure to Las Vegas, the thermometer in Baker seems like a mandatory stop which if nothing else, is a great keepsake photograph. It stands over 120 feet tall, and was originally built as a landmark for the world record statistic which was recorded in Death Valley over a hundred years ago. Take a detour to the Bottletree Ranch Deep in the heart of the California desert, a man with a passion has created a truly awe inspiring attraction, which now attracts tourists and locals, in large numbers. Everybody seeks to express themselves and Elmer, the owner, chooses to do so by creating a modern art masterpiece which is akin to a small woodland full of trees, with only bottles in place of leaves. In many ways, the Bottletree Ranch encapsulates everything that makes a roadtrip from Los Angeles to Las Vegas so special; you just don’t know what you are going to find out there, until you seek it out. How much does it cost to rent a car from LA to Las Vegas? Click here for a free quote today! |
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