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President Obama’s pick for secretary of health and human services, Tom Daschle, filed amended tax returns and paid more than $100,000 in back taxes on Jan. 2, administration officials said on Friday. (Related news article.) Mr. Daschle concluded that he owed the taxes for free use of a car and driver that had been provided to him by Leo Hindery Jr., the founder of a private equity firm known as InterMedia Advisors, the officials said. Mr. Daschle was chairman of the firm’s advisory board. In a financial disclosure statement filed this month with the Office of Government Ethics, Mr. Daschle reported that he had received large amounts of income from InterMedia, including more than $2 million for consulting and $182,520 in the form of “company-provided transportation.” The belated tax payments help explain delays in the confirmation of Mr. Daschle, a former Senate Democratic leader who had been expected to win swift approval from the Senate. An administration official said that Mr. Daschle had paid $31,462 in back taxes and interest for 2005, $35,546 for 2006 and $34,935 for 2007. The official said that Mr. Daschle’s failure to pay the taxes was “a stupid mistake,” but should not derail the nomination. The confirmation of Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner was held up only briefly following the disclosure that he had failed to pay more than $34,000 in taxes owed to the federal government. The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, is expected to stand behind Mr. Daschle, a close friend. |
American actor, singer, and director Scott Stewart Bakula (; born October 9, 1954)[1] is an American actor, singer and director best known for his lead roles in two science-fiction television series: as Sam Beckett on Quantum Leap (for which he received four Emmy Award nominations and a Golden Globe Award), and as Captain Jonathan Archer on Star Trek: Enterprise. Bakula starred on the comedy-drama series Men of a Certain Age, and guest-starred in seasons two and three of NBC's Chuck as the title character's father Stephen J. Bartowski. From 2014 to 2015, he played entrepreneur Lynn in the only two seasons of the HBO show Looking. In 2014, he began playing Special Agent Dwayne Cassius "King" Pride on NCIS: New Orleans. Early life [ edit ] Bakula was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Sally (née Zumwinkel) and J. Stewart Bakula, a lawyer.[1][2][3] He has a younger brother and a younger sister.[4] His surname comes from partial Czech ancestry.[2][5][6] He attended Jefferson College,[7][8] followed by the University of Kansas for a time, but left, saying: ...because I was offered a tour of Godspell, a national tour that was from St. Louis. I thought that sounded great, and I went to my parents and I said "I want to do this tour", and they said, "Go ahead, maybe it will get it out of your system. And you come back to school in a year or two, you come back." The tour was gonna start in August and the tour never started and school did, and then the tour fell apart, and there I was sitting at home. So I was left holding the bag, basically, and then had to decide where to go from there. And I applied, was applying to other schools. I was gonna go to a Mormon theatrical kind of school, and the more I looked at it the more I spent time examining the school side of it. I just realized what I really needed to do was just pick up, pack up and go to New York.[4] Career [ edit ] Bakula moved to New York City in 1976, where he made his Broadway debut playing baseball legend Joe DiMaggio in Marilyn: An American Fable, and appeared in the well-received Off-Broadway production Three Guys Naked from the Waist Down; he would later appear in its Pasadena Playhouse production.[9] The success of Three Guys Off-Broadway brought him attention, and when his next show, the musical Nightclub Confidential, which co-starred his wife Krista Neumann, moved to Los Angeles, he moved there at the urging of his California agent, Maggie Henderson, and his New York agent, Jerry Hogan. As Bakula recalled in 2000, I call [Henderson] up and said I got a show, I'm gonna be out there, I'm coming out in January. So it'll work out because it's time for pilot season and I'll be doing something so people can come and see me. ... And then I coincidentally had done a Disney Sunday Night ABC movie that was gonna come out some time in the winter. It was the time to go. Came out here on New Year's Day, 1986. The show I did turned out to be a big hit out here. It got me a lot of attention out here and I jumped onto the TV sitcom Designing Women in the beginning and was able to do that pilot ... and things kind of took off.[10] He was cast in two short-lived series: Gung Ho and Eisenhower & Lutz. During a Hollywood writers' strike, he returned to New York to star in Romance/Romance,[10] and then afterward landed the lead role opposite co-star Dean Stockwell in the science fiction television series Quantum Leap (1989-1993). Bakula played time traveler Dr. Sam Beckett, who was trapped by a malfunction of his time machine to correct things gone wrong in the past.[11] His performance in the show earned him a Golden Globe Award (along with three nominations) and four Emmy Award nominations for Best Actor, as well as five consecutive Viewers for Quality Television Awards for Best Actor in a Quality Drama Series.[citation needed] In 1995, Bakula appeared on the cover of Playgirl. He voiced Danny Cat in the animated film Cats Don't Dance (1997), singing in one number with Natalie Cole. He played the aging veteran pitcher Gus Cantrell in Major League: Back to the Minors (1998), the final movie in the Major League trilogy. He also played Jim Olmeyer, the same-sex partner of Sam Robards' Jim Berkley, in the film American Beauty (1999). Bakula played Jonathan Archer, the captain of Earth's first long-range interstellar ship, on Star Trek: Enterprise from 2001 to 2005. In 2006, he reprised the role of Archer for the Star Trek: Legacy PC and Xbox 360 video games as a voice-over. Bakula starred in the musical Shenandoah, a play which also provided his first professional theatrical role in 1976, at Ford's Theatre, in 2006. Bakula is heard singing "Pig Island" on Sandra Boynton's children's CD Philadelphia Chickens, which is labeled as being "For all ages except 43." Scott Bakula said that he might be starring as Sam in a Quantum Leap film as stated in TV Guide Magazine along with Dean Stockwell. At Comic Con 2010, he announced that a script was being worked on and that while he would be in the movie, he would not have the main role.[12] Bakula performed various songs from his career for a one-night-only performance entitled An Evening with Scott Bakula at Sidney Harman Hall on January 18, 2008, as a benefit for the restoration of the historic Ford's Theater.[13] Bakula had three appearances in 2008. He appeared as Atty. Jack Ross in an episode of Boston Legal, "Glow in the Dark", which aired on February 12, 2008 on the ABC network.[14] From March 4 – April 20, he starred as Tony Hunter in the world premiere of Dancing in the Dark at The Old Globe in San Diego, California. Dancing in the Dark is based on the movie The Band Wagon (1953), which starred Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse.[15] Bakula appeared as the character Chris Fulbright in the five-episode run of the Tracey Ullman sketch comedy series State of the Union on Showtime. Bakula appeared in the dark comedy film The Informant! (2009) as Brian Shepard, an FBI agent working with the title character Mark Whitacre, (played by Matt Damon).[16] In April 2009, he began a recurring role on the television series Chuck as Stephen J. Bartowski, the eponymous character's long-lost father. From July 31 to August 2, 2009, he starred as Nathan Detroit in three performances of Guys and Dolls at the Hollywood Bowl. Beginning in December 2009, Bakula began appearing as Terry, one of the three lead characters, along with Ray Romano (Joe) and Andre Braugher (Owen), in TNT's hour-long comedy/drama Men of a Certain Age. In 2011, Bakula performed a voice cameo in the film Source Code as a slight nod to his character on Quantum Leap, with his catchphrase of "Oh, boy."[17] and appeared in the feature-length documentary The Captains, which was written and directed by William Shatner, Bakula is interviewed by the original Star Trek captain about his life and career leading up to his performances as Captain Jonathan Archer in Star Trek: Enterprise. In the movie, Shatner interviews Bakula at his ranch in California where the pair ride horses and discuss the pitfalls that come with a career in television.[18] In September 2011, Bakula starred in Terrible Advice by Saul Rubinek at the Menier Chocolate Factory.[19][20] In April to May 2012, he guest starred in the last five episodes of Desperate Housewives as Bree Van de Kamp's criminal defense lawyer and third husband. In April 2013, he made a guest appearance on Two and a Half Men as a car dealer. In August 2013, it was announced Bakula would have a recurring role in the first season of HBO's new series, Looking.[21] He also appeared in the film Geography Club (2013). In February 2014, Bakula was cast as the lead in a backdoor pilot for the current NCIS spin-off series, NCIS: New Orleans, which began as a two-part episode of its parent series in the spring season of 2014.[22] The third season of NCIS: New Orleans premiered on September 20, 2016. In 2016 Bakula appeared as a guest judge on the HGTV show Brothers Take New Orleans with Property Brothers Jonathan and Drew Scott.[23] He made a cameo appearance on the season 12 opener of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia as himself. Personal life [ edit ] Bakula married Krista Neumann in 1981 and had two children, Chelsy and Cody. They divorced in 1995.[1] He married actress Chelsea Field in 2009 and they have two children, Wil Botfield and Owen Barrett.[1] Bakula says he was "...hardly ever home for four and a half seasons" of Quantum Leap, so he chose to prioritize his family life on later projects. His Star Trek: Enterprise contract required that filming be completed by 6 PM every Wednesday so he could have dinner with his family. During filming of NCIS: New Orleans, he returns home to Los Angeles every weekend to spend time with his wife.[24] Filmography [ edit ] Film [ edit ] Television [ edit ] Awards and nominations [ edit ] |
Published with permission from AlterNet It used to be that people like this only got backstage passes to the GOP’s big doings. Now they’re part of the show. Since the 1980 takeover of the Republican Party by its right wing, backstage passes to party proceedings and hijinks for its kooks, cranks and stealth operatives has been the norm. Think professional woman-haterPhyllis Schlafly writing the 1996 GOP platform. Or Roger Stone organizing a near-riot in 2000 at the Miami-Dade election board during the recount of presidential election returns, effectively stopping the proceedings. With the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump, however, no kook is deemed too crazy, no crank too cranky, no dark ops too dark for public view—as long as their efforts serve the candidate’s quest to foment fear and mayhem. But don’t take our word for it. Here’s Stuart Stevens, who ran the GOP’s 2012 presidential campaign, talking to Bloomberg Businessweek‘s Joshua Green this week: “Trump is a nut, and he likes to surround himself with nuts. It’s a disaster for the Republican Party.” Here we present a list—by no means comprehensive—of the fear-mongering, conspiracy-spinning and violence-inciting characters surrounding the Republican Party’s standard-bearer. 1. Stephen K. Bannon. The CEO of Breitbart News LLC is many things: a former special assistant to the chief of naval operations at the Pentagon, a former Wall Street player, a moviemaker, and holder of a stake in the wildly popular comedy show “Seinfeld,” whose syndication royalties helped make Bannon the wealthy man he is today. Now he’s added something new to the list: he’s the newly named chief of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Gannon has coalesced a right-wing propaganda and investigative operation around himself that includes right-wing news named for its late founder, Andrew Breitbart, as well as the Government Accountability Institute (an investigative nonprofit) and Bannon’s own media forays: a radio program on SiriusXM and his output of propaganda films, several of them for Citizens United. In 2015, Bloomberg Businessweek headlined its profile of Bannon: “This Man Is the Most Dangerous Political Operative in America.” In the right-wingosphere, Bannon is credited with the exit of former House Speaker John Boehner from Congress, and at least since last year, he’s set his sights on Hillary Clinton. It was Bannon the coolly calculating operative who advanced the ongoing mudslinging narrative suggesting a too-cozy relationship between the State Department and the Clinton Foundation during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state. But it was also Bannon the over-the-top filmmaker who wrote the script for Torchbearer, the “Christian war movie” starring Phil Robertson of “Duck Dynasty” that features footage of murders by members of ISIS and Boko Haram. Bannon also directed the film, which he screened in Cleveland during the Republican National Convention. Bannon also co-wrote the screenplay for the political snuff film Clinton Cash, based on a book commissioned by his Government Accountability Institute. The film was screened at the Cannes Film Festival where, shockingly, it did not win the Palm d’Or. 2. Roger Stone. This operative, message-maker and dirty trickster has a long history in the GOP, going back to the small part he played in the Watergate scandal. Now he appears to be managing the messaging for the Trump campaign, despite having officially left the campaign last year, reportedly over a disagreement with Trump and then-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski over Trump’s Twitter assault on Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly. Stone, however, maintained ties to the campaign, running a pro-Trump super PAC dubbed Committee to Restore America’s Greatness. Ultimately, he outmaneuvered Lewandowski by convincing Trump to hire Stone’s old business partner, Paul Manafort, as a fixer for the campaign, a move that led to Lewandowski’s ouster. (Update: In an apparent zap of instant karma, Manafort resigned from the Trump campaign today, either because of news reports of his dealings with the ousted pro-Putin former president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, or his apparent demotion when Bannon came on board, or both.) He is also credited with getting Trump to appear on the InfoWars radio show and podcast of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who has proven to be a very useful tool for Trump, organizing inhabitants of the right’s fever swamps and spreading conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton that Trump often references without confirming their veracity. Although Stone reportedly no longer works directly for the campaign, when he apologized for his late arrival at a rally he co-hosted with Jones in Cleveland during the Republican National Convention, he told the audience he had been delayed by meetings with the Trump campaign staff. Read more about Stone on AlterNet. 3. Alex Jones. In Donald Trump, Jones has found the best friend he ever had, a bona fide major-party candidate for the top job in the nation to confer legitimacy on his truly insane enterprise. Working from Roger Stone’s playbook, Jones is seeding conspiratorial narratives about the state of Hillary Clinton’s health and organizing so-called “poll-watchers” for Trump (no intimidation there!) via his video podcast, which had 7.4 million global unique views over the last month, according to Quantcast. During the RNC, Jones hired planes to fly over Cleveland trailing a banner reading, “Hillary for Prison.” At the rally in Cleveland, his audience was bedecked in T-shirts bearing the same slogan, which Stone lauded from the stage. Later that evening, the convention floor erupted in chants of “Lock her up!” As despicable as all of that is, it doesn’t begin to touch the depth of crazy Jones represents. In 2011, Alexander Zaitchik reported on Jones for Rolling Stone, visiting Jones in his studio in the days following Jared Loughner’s mass shooting at a meet-and-greet conducted by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in her Arizona congressional district—an assault that took the lives of three people and left Giffords with a catastrophic head wound. From Zaitchik’s article: Jones being Jones, he’s not sure the Tucson rampage is as simple as a psychotic snap. Turning over the possibilities sends the tendrils of his anti-government imagination into wild motion. “The whole thing stinks to high heaven,” he says. “This kid Loughner disappeared for days at a time before the shooting? My gut tells me this was a staged mind-control operation. The government employs geometric psychological-warfare experts that know exactly how to indirectly manipulate unstable people through the media. They implanted the idea in his head by repeatedly asking, ‘Is Giffords in danger?’” In December, at the urging of Stone, Trump appeared on Alex Jones’ show, during which Jones heaped praise upon the candidate, comparing him to George Washington. Trump returned the favor: “Your reputation’s amazing,” Trump said. “I will not let you down.” 4. Phyllis Schlafly. While it might seem surprising at first for an old Cold Warrior like Schlafly to support a candidate so cozy with a former KGB chief, it’s important to remember that what Schlafly opposed was communism, not authoritarianism. Trump surely fits the latter bill, as does Vladimir Putin, who is no longer a communist, having seen the light to become an oligarchist. Schlafly cut her political teeth working on the 1964 Goldwater campaign, hoping to make a career in foreign policy. When the men of the New Right failed to let her into that club, she found her calling in the right’s ladies’ auxiliary, spearheading—and winning—the fight against the Equal Rights Amendment. Since then, she’s been a stalwart in every fight against women’s equality, and was instrumental in seeing a no-exceptions anti-abortion plank added to the Republican Party platform. As Right Wing Watch’s Brian Tashman describesSchlafly’s relationship with Trump: Trump was quite honored to receive the endorsement of Phyllis Schlafly, who introduced him at a St. Louis rally and repeatedly praised his plans to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. In an April appearance on NBC’s “Today” show, Trump said he wanted to change the GOP anti-abortion plank to include exceptions for the life of the woman, as well as for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. The right-wing backlash to those comments apparently taught him a lesson because Schlafly ultimately won the day on the plank. At a luncheon hosted by her organization, Eagle Forum, in Cleveland during the RNC, Schlafly assured attendees that Trump was on the same page as they are when it comes to opposing a woman’s right to choose. Schlafly opposes equal pay for women, and has said she actually hopes the pay gap widens. In April 2012, AlterNet reported that she told a room full of college students at George Washington University that the reason women don’t earn as much as men is that they don’t want to do the kind of work that would get them dirty. On Monday, after Trump called Schlafly to wish her a happy 92nd birthday, she tweeted that she expected to be at his inauguration in January. 5. Ann Coulter. Much like Donald Trump, right-wing author Ann Coulter will say anything to get attention. She has said she opposes women’s suffrage, that women who claim to have been raped are mostly “girls trying to get attention,” and once described abortion clinic workers gunned down by right-wing zealots as having “had a procedure performed on them with a rifle.” Coulter was an early supporter of Trump’s candidacy, going back to the primaries, because in her mind, it was apparently all about her. Trump, she said, gleaned his anti-immigrant rhetoric from her writing. Trump tweeted: .@AnnCoulter‘s new book– “Adios, America! The Left’s Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole”– is a great read. Good job! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 26, 2015 6. Pamela Geller. Best known for her opposition to the opening of a mosque near the site in lower Manhattan where the 9/11 terrorist attacks took place, Geller boarded the Trump train once the candidate jumped aboard her anti-Islam caravan. It took the Donald a minute to get on the same page with Geller: In 2015 he chastised her for conducting a contest for artists to draw images of the Prophet Mohammad, which is anathema to Muslims. During the fight over the mosque, often referred to as Park51 (referencing the Park Place address it was slated to occupy), Trump offered to buy out the investor in the building who had made the deal with the religious community behind the Islamic community center they meant to build there, but his offer was deemed by many to be little more than a publicity stunt. (It was not accepted.) On the May 4, 2015 edition of the morning television show “Fox & Friends,” Trump said: “I watched Pam earlier, and it really looks like she’s just taunting everybody. What is she doing drawing Muhammad? I mean, it’s disgusting,” he said. “Isn’t there something else they could be doing?” Geller has since forgiven Trump, persuaded by his call for a ban on Muslims entering the United States. In June, she endorsed her fellow New Yorker, saying, “Trump must win for this nation to survive.” 7. Milo Yiannopoulos. Described by Right Wing Watch’s Peter Montgomery as “the gay enfant terrible” of the right, Yiannapoulos, who works for Breitbart, is Donald Trump’s LGBT champion. At a rally in Cleveland sponsored by Roger Stone and Alex Jones during the RNC, Yiannapoulos offered this outpouring,according to Montgomery’s report: “I might be a dick-sucking faggot, but I f**king hate the left.” In what was viewed on the alt-right as a public relations coup, Yiannopooulos received word during the Republican National Convention that Twitter had banned him for violating its terms of service because of his racist tweet-hounding of “Ghostbusters” actor Leslie Jones. Two nights later, he hosted a Gays for Trump party (headlined by Pamela Geller), which was described by journalists who covered it as a Muslim-bashing extravaganza that drew white supremacists Peter Brimelow and Roger Spencer for the free booze and bon mots. 8. Pat Buchanan. A longtime ally of Phyllis Schlafly, the former Reagan White House communications director has made no secret of his contempt for non-white people. His essay, “A Brief for Whitey,” asserts that slavery was good for African Americans and they should be grateful that it brought them Christian salvation. In 2012, he was fired from his commentator position at MSNBC for chapters in his book, Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?,that were widely regarded as homophobic, antisemitic and racist. Buchanan is himself a former presidential candidate, though he never won his party’s nomination, even after winning the New Hampshire primary in 1996. His candidacy, however, did threaten a rupture in the GOP, so much so that control of the platform was given over to his campaign officials—Schlafly and Buchanan’s sister, Bay—in order to keep him from marching his delegates out of the convention and into the waiting arms of the U.S. Taxpayers Party (later rebranded as the Constitution Party). In a recent essay, Buchanan darkly warns of a brewing “revolution” should Donald Trump lose the 2016 presidential election. In his screed, “Yes, the System Is Rigged,” Buchanan quotes President John F. Kennedy, writing: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” Kennedy was referring to the authoritarian governments of Latin America at the time, which stood to protect the interests of landed families. 9. Rev. Pat Robertson. The founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network and the now-defunct Christian Coalition is having a major bromance with Donald Trump, promoting the GOP presidential candidate on his television program, “The 700 Club,” and elsewhere. Robertson is famous not only for building a network of politically motivated right-wing evangelicals, but for his fanciful explanations for various natural disasters and horrors. He said Hurricane Katrina was evidence of God’s wrath for the way in which the topic of abortion was addressed during the nomination hearing for Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, and that Haiti’s 2011 earthquake was “divine retribution for Haitian voodoo doctors enlisting the help of Satan to free their country from the French some 200 years ago,” as reported by Time magazine. He’s said an aim of feminism is to make women practice witchcraft, and claimed that Satanism and homosexuality “go together.” Trump, nonetheless, has sought Robertson’s blessing, sitting in February for an interview with the rev at Robertson’s own Regent University. “You inspire us all,”Robertson told Trump in that interview. In July, Robertson told his CBN viewers that Trump would win in a landslide. Then, on August 10, as Trump grappled with the backlash following his apparent invitation to violence against Hillary Clinton during a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, Robertson signed onto the Trump campaign’s spin that its candidate had been misunderstood—or his words deliberately misinterpreted by the media. As reported by Right Wing Watch: These supposed lies about Trump and himself, Robertson explained, are inspired by the same source: Satan. “Every time they’re going to twist the words, I know what it’s like, he has my profound sympathy but these people are profound liars and they’re set up as liars,” he said. “The devil is a liar and the father of lies, according to the Bible.” 10. Ralph Reed. Once known as the boy-genius at the helm of Pat Robertson’s then-mighty Christian Coalition, and now known simply as a besmirched, middle-aged political operative, Reed signed on to the Trump cause the minute the thrice-married, foul-mouthed, authoritarian showman won the GOP nomination. Say what you will about Reed, who now runs a non-profit outfit called the Faith and Freedom Coalition, he always knows where the power lies. And the money. (Reed still runs a for-profit political consulting firm, Century Strategies.) Reed’s reputation as a Christian choirboy took a beating in the 1990s, when it was revealed that he took part in the scandal that brought down lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Essentially, Reed was paid to organize evangelicals opposed to gambling to block gaming operations that would have gotten in the way of the casino interests who were paying him. Trump being a casino guy himself, he likely doesn’t have a problem with this. 11. Al Baldasaro. While not a particularly significant player, it’s hard not to include Baldasaro, a New Hampshire state representative, on this list, since he’s the only one—so far—in Trump’s orbit known to be under investigation by the Secret Service for a threat against the life of Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton. After leading the charge against same-sex marriage in the Granite State, Baldasaro won some limelight in the Trump campaign during that mess over whether or not the candidate ever contributed any of the cash he collected at a fundraiser for veterans’ organizations to any actual veterans’ organizations. A former U.S. Marine, Baldasaro also made some news in his home state when he lauded the negative audience response, during a 2012 presidential town hall, to a gay Marine who submitted a question about the military’s don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy on sexual orientation. “I thought the audience, when they booed the marine, I thought it was great,” he told reporters. In a radio interview conducted during the Republican National Convention, Baldasaro, who is described as one of Trump’s “key advisers” on veterans’ issues, called for Hillary Clinton to be “put in the firing line and shot for treason” because of the aftermath of the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The conclusions of the Secret Service investigation have not been released, and Trump has yet to condemn Baldaraso’s remarks. Photo: Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump attends a campaign rally at the Erie Insurance Arena in Erie, Pennsylvania August 12, 2016. REUTERS/Eric Thayer |
MANAGEMENT consultants, investment banks and big law firms are the Holy Trinity of white-collar careers. They recruit up to a third of the graduates of the world’s best universities. They offer starting salaries in excess of $100,000 and a chance of making many multiples of that. They also provide a ladder to even better things. McKinsey says more than 440 of its alumni run businesses with annual revenues of at least $1 billion. The top ranks of governments and central banks are sprinkled with Goldman Sachs veterans. Technology firms, though they are catching up fast, have nothing like the same grip on the global elite. Which raises a pressing question: how do you maximise your chances of joining such elite professional-services firms? Lauren Rivera of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management has spent a decade studying how these firms recruit. The result, “Pedigree: How Elite Students Get Elite Jobs”, is an academic book with the requisite references to gender theory and Marxist concepts of inequality. But read it carefully and it becomes something far more useful—a guide on how to join the global elite. Get our daily newsletter Upgrade your inbox and get our Daily Dispatch and Editor's Picks. The bad news is that by far the best way to get into the tiny group of elite firms is to be studying at the tiny group of elite universities—Ivy League colleges in America (where Ms Rivera did her fieldwork) or Oxford and Cambridge in England. The firms spend millions of dollars love-bombing these institutions with recruiting events: students can spend the recruitment season wining and dining at their expense. However, as Ms Rivera notes, firms reject the vast majority of elite students they interview: so even the most pedigreed need to learn how to game the system. Thomas Piketty's "Capital", summarised in four paragraphs The most important tip is to look at who is doing the recruiting. Whether in consulting, investment banking or the law, firms use revenue-generating staff rather than human-resources people to decide who has the right stuff. The interviewers are trying to juggle their day jobs with their recruiting duties: they seldom spend more than a minute or so reviewing each application form. In the interview room they behave predictably: they follow a set script, starting with some ice-breaking chit-chat, then asking you about yourself, then setting a work-related problem. That makes them desperate for relief from the tedium. Be vivacious. Hang on their every word. And flatter their self-image as “the best of the best” and the most jet-lagged of the jet-lagged. The most important quality recruiters are looking for is “fit”: for all their supposedly rigorous testing of candidates, they would sooner choose an easy-going person with a second-class mind than a Mark Zuckerberg-type genius who rubs people up the wrong way. Staff in professional-services firms spend most of their time dealing with clients; so looking the part is essential. They also expect their employees to spend extraordinary amounts of time together—learning the ropes in boot camps, working late in the office, having constant work dinners, getting stuck together in airports in godforsaken places. Recruiters repeatedly told Ms Rivera that they looked for people who could be their friends as well as their colleagues. One compared hiring to “picking a team on the playground growing up”; another described his firm as “a fraternity of smart people”. It is easier to give the impression you will fit in if you have swotted up on the firm in question. Speak to any friend-of-a-friend you can find on the inside, to learn about its internal culture and its inside gossip. One candidate in Ms Rivera’s sample passed the interview by adopting the persona of a successful consultant that he knew at that firm. Even if you do not go that far, you must at all costs avoid appearing nerdy or eccentric: there are plenty of jobs with tech companies for those types. The old-fashioned belief still prevails that playing team sports, especially posh ones like rowing, makes for a rounded character. The final key to success is to turn your interviewer into a champion: someone who is willing to go to bat for you when the hiring committee meets to whittle down the list. Emphasise any similarities that you can find between the two of you. If the interviewer sees a little bit of himself in you, a phenomenon known as “looking-glass merit”, he will regard any attempt to eliminate your name as a personal slight. Minority margaritas As for those who have not got into the elite universities, all hope of joining the bulge bracket of professional-services firms is not lost. As Ms Rivera’s book demonstrates, even the most tenuous connection with insiders can be of help. If you belong to an underrepresented group and meet a recruiter over cocktails at a “diversity event”, exploit the connection ruthlessly. Ms Rivera notes that coming from an underprivileged background can actually be a plus, if sold well. Recruiters love to hear stories about gritty candidates triumphing against the odds. She also notes that there are organisations that can help non-elite candidates to sell themselves. Sponsors for Educational Opportunity, an American outfit, has an excellent record of pre-selecting ethnic-minority youngsters and getting them internships that can lead on to full-time jobs. America’s armed forces play a similar role of giving a career leg-up to the disadvantaged. “I’ve spent two years in a job where any minute might be my last,” one military candidate told an interviewer coolly. “Yes, I think I can handle high-pressure situations.” But don’t harp on about the odds being still stacked against you, or reveal that you have a sick mother or a demanding child, or you kill the Horatio Alger buzz. This overwhelming emphasis on style rather than substance may seem an odd way to select members of the 1%. But those at the top of the consulting, investment-banking and legal professions know that the most prized possession in uncertain times is not brainpower, but self-confidence. For all the talk of the world becoming dominated by a “cognitive elite”, in reality it appears it is nothing more than a “confidence elite”. |
Play around with various city combinations for India and China in Google Maps, and the aboveshall almost certainly repeat itself. Indeed, while I am not sure about Google Maps' legend/key, the software (a screenshot is at the top of this article) blankets eastern China, where most of its population lives, with umpteen thick yellow lines but in India we see very few of those - Mumbai to Pune, Delhi to Lucknow, Hyderabad's Ring Road etc. These, I suspect, roughly correspond to that mythical creature for most Indian eyes: controlled-access, fast-speed, dual carriageway, multi-laned "expressways". These roads are not your mother's slow national highways (with many intersections) or your grandmother's super-slow-and-unsafe state "highways" (often just two-laned or worse). Why are good highways (and where needed, bridges/sea-links) important? Visualize a simple example of an engineer in Mumbai or Chennai earning Rs 10 lakh(about $15,000) a year. She works downtown, and lives just five km away in a residential neighbourhood. For this "convenience" and given her large family, she pays half her salary in rent. If only she could live in the suburbs or that upcoming "twin city", she could instead pay just a quarter of her salary in rent and save or consume the additional quarter. However, the catch is that her one-way commute would triple from her current 30 minutes - that is, to one-and-a-half hours. Adding two hours of daily two-way commute for an additional Rs 20,000 a month may not be worth it. But say our lady is in luck. Consider that a new peripheral expressway opens, or the existing bypass is widened and railed off - then a few miraculous things happen. First, increased speed means that the commute may just be twice as long now instead of thrice which may make the new trade-off worth it (one instead of two hours "wasted") freeing disposable income, increasing national investments and consumption when repeated and aggregated. Second, the company itself - or one of its competitors may decide to relocate to a location with lower rent and pass on some of the savings as higher pay. Third, along with more commercial development, more residential real estate with increased choice regarding price points and square footage is also created and the virtuous cycle continues. While some urban planners and environmentalists see suburbanisation as sacrilege and want to focus on "walkable cities", the reality is that most people's revealed preferences (if not stated ones) are for bigger houses, all else being equal. What looks great for a tourist is not what works best for a resident, no matter how monotonous suburbia - whether in the form of standalone houses or apartment complexes - seems to outside commentators and experts. Before cars and trains were invented, cities were even denser - and now that we are on the brink of driver-less or self-driving cars, it is only logical to expect even more spread out urban areas. This is because such cars would be much cheaper to use (either directly if you currently hire a Uber or taxi, or indirectly if you currently drive yourself given your cost of time.) With such cars only a decade or so away, even three hours of two-way commute may be acceptable to some (they may simply use it to catch up on some work or entertainment). Hence, rents would fall even further as a fraction of income (for the same size of homes.) Now, the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP)/National Democratic Alliance(NDA) government at the centre has always been relatively better at physical infrastructure; it is a bit of a cliche that "strongman" governments are better at imagining broad highways and interconnected rivers. However, all cliches contain a kernel of truth in them. The Modi-Gadkari duo today is replicating what Vajpayee-Khanduri achieved with the Golden Quadrilateral. But we are still way behind China, which in turn has overtaken America, when it comes to its expressway network. Depending on how you count it - the official websites maybe slightly outdated - India has, give or take, around 1,000 to1,500 odd km of controlled access expressways (though even that seems to be an optimistic figure - see the third para in this piece) Hence, not even one-tenth of a per cent of India's approximately five million kilometres road network is something that one would actually visualize as a decent "highway" or motorway by global standards. Two-lane and four-lane pucca roads, while a massive upgrade over earlier single-lane half-pucca roads, still do not cut it in terms of safety or efficiency given the booming sales of four-wheelers. Advertisement China's and America's overall networks are also around 5 million kilometres long but their expressway networks are more than 100,000 km - hence, two to three per cent of their roads are expressways. While China's speed of execution has been remarkable, America is still ahead on a per capita basis. More worryingly, unlike our ambitions when it comes to say renewable energy or the digital economy, our expressway ambitions are modest. Our total expressway length is stated to reach around 20,000 km by 2022 whereas China is aiming yet higher. At one level, this is understandable. While the government tries to underplay costs, a good expressway in India will cost US$2 million per lane per kilometre, including (very expensive) land acquisition and all the bells and whistles. This could be reduced a bit through models such as land pooling and cutting some corners, but we might as well create an asset that would last us for decades instead of being perennially behind the curve. A very rough cost for 100,000 km of expressways even at six-lanes is $1.2 trillion - about half of India's GDP (real costs could be slightly lower since most highways won't be completely greenfield developments. Still no small amount, for sure.) Moreover while China may occasionally over-invest in a few highways or bridges to "nowhere", India (starting from a much lower base now and with a population that continues to grow) is far from that frontier. Some innovative financing mechanisms are now being discussed. With the toll-operate-transfer (TOT) model being seriously considered by the government, existing highways built under the engineer-procure-construct (EPC) mode by the government can be monetized by selling toll rights to long-term investors for a fixed number of years. This will allow private and foreign capital such as pension funds, insurance companies, and university endowments to effectively finance India's expressway construction without increasing India's fiscal deficit or crowding out domestic capital excessively. There are some quibbles of course - the investor will apparently be made responsible for maintenance (which they are likely to outsource to contractors) - it might in some cases be better for the government to simply seek pure financial equity. With the coming of investment infrastructure trusts (InvITs) and real estate investment trusts(REIT), each project can simply be listed and institutional investors can co-invest with retail ones. Of course, we should be open to a mix of all models, including the occasional government-to-government contracts (as is being discussed with UAE). Another notable development is that the introduction of radio-frequency identification(RFID) chips on cars going forward should further help streamline toll collection. We then have the “perfect storm” to accelerate top-end highway development in India. Many in India have taken solace that we are "just" 10 to 12 years behind the Chinese growth story. But if we have just around 20,000 km of expressways by the middle of the next decade, then we are almost a generation behind. It is time to be more ambitious and get down to work fast. The good news here is that Nitin Gadkari, probably India's best minister currently along with Piyush Goyal, is aware of the benefits of good highways. Gadkari says that he goes by John F Kennedy's quote: |
BAGHDAD — It's beginning to look like Iraq won't make it to the polls on time — again. Though Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi just announced Dec. 5 that parliamentary and local elections will be held even earlier than scheduled — on May 12 instead of May 15, to avoid a conflict with Ramadan — several events may be coalescing to delay voting. The legislature is still struggling with disputes over an election bill that must be approved by Dec. 15 if parliament members want to see its contents put into effect in time. At the same time, lawmakers are also busy hashing out a budget bill. The current session is already in overtime; it was supposed to have ended Nov. 30. The Independent High Electoral Commission says it needs six months to prepare for elections based on any new laws. Otherwise, the current law will remain in effect. The law as it pertains to legislative elections isn't the main problem, since parliament agreed to abide by the Sainte-Lague method of parliamentary seat allocation. But there are disagreements over local elections (provincial councils), especially regarding the disputed Kirkuk province. Differences raised among the province’s Arab, Turkmen and Kurdish components would be difficult to settle in such a short time. Rahim al-Daraji, a member of parliament’s Legal Committee and a member of the parliamentary Shiite National Alliance bloc, told Al-Monitor, “The dispute over the elections in Kirkuk is the main obstacle. The province hasn’t witnessed elections since 2005, and several proposals have yet to be settled in the absence of a population census. These proposals include holding elections in the province based on the equation that Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs [each] have 32% of the seats, while the remaining 4% of the seats are allocated to Christians for one round.” Daraji said the only option he sees now is to extend the legislative term until a new electoral law is approved, and to postpone the elections for weeks or even months. The Sunni blocs are already seeking a six-month delay in the elections, until the Sunnis displaced by the Islamic State (IS) can return to their areas, according to Mutashar al-Samarrai, a member of the parliamentary Mutahidoun bloc. The parliamentary elections have already been postponed once because of IS; they originally were scheduled for September. “Millions of Sunnis are living in camps and are unable to participate in the elections. Meanwhile, the Sunni blocs will not be able to conduct their electoral campaigns in destroyed cities. We do not see a problem in delaying the elections," Samarrai told Al-Monitor. “The liberated Sunni cities are suffering from a lack of services, security and transport. Insisting on holding the elections under these circumstances serves the interests of specific political parties. In this case, the Sunni blocs will fail to secure parliamentary seats, like in previous elections,” he said. Samarrai said, “Those who are talking about the sacred constitutional timing [of elections] should be reminded of the many times this constitution has been violated. They should apply all the constitution’s articles before insisting on holding the elections under such circumstances.” The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq said in a Nov. 22 statement that even though it would like to keep to schedule, “The elections cannot be held while the situation in Iraq remains troubled and many Sunnis are displaced.” Kurdish blocs agree the elections should be delayed. Jamal Kojar, a member of the parliamentary Kurdistan Alliance bloc, said in a statement to the New Sabah paper that the “postponement of elections is the best option in light of the current conditions.” He added, “The current situation makes it difficult for Iraqi citizens to cast their vote under a democratic atmosphere and away from security [threats].” However, it seems some parties of the Shiite National Alliance insist on holding the elections on time. The State of Law Coalition, headed by Vice President Nouri al-Maliki, said, “Postponing the elections will threaten the political process in Iraq and lead to a constitutional vacuum.” Maliki stressed the need to commit to the constitutional deadlines. Issues not addressed in the election bill could also create problems, such as a push by the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) and political parties close to it to allow its members to participate in the elections. If the PMU gets permission to participate, it's likely to gain much of the majority Shiite vote because of the PMU's work to push IS out of the country. Abadi is trying to keep political parties with armed factions, such as the PMU, from participating, as they are prohibited from doing by existing laws. But PMU leaders are insisting, and there are some gaps in the law they can exploit. For example, some have begun "resigning" from their military positions in the PMU so they can participate in elections. But these moves are just for show, as they are retaining their influence within their factions. |
This article is from the archive of our partner . With the entire world on edge over (possible) impending airstrikes on Syria, it seems that Israel decided to freak everyone out and start launching ballistic missiles into the sea. Around 6:00 a.m. ET on Tuesday morning, Russian news services began reporting that Russian-based radar systems detected two ballistic "objects" over the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. With multiple U.S. warships already in the region, and Barack Obama threatening an attack on Syria, officials naturally wondered if this was the planned assault they were worried about. When nothing fell out of the sky on Damascus, it soon became apparent that whatever was shot into the air had fallen harmlessly into the water. However, that didn't answer the questions about who was behind it. France says they had no information. The United Kingdom said they knew about the missile, but had nothing to do with. NATO had no clue. The U.S. was keeping its mouth shut. And Israel told Reuters they were "not aware, at this time, of such an event having occurred." Then less than 30 minutes later the Israelis changed course, admitting that they actually did fire the missiles as part of a joint operation with the United States. |
Introduction to teachers who are looking to teach in the UK Teaching in England can be a great move for teachers to develop their careers however you should be made aware of the various factors to consider as a consequence of teaching in a completely new curriculum in a foreign country before starting your new teaching post. Choosing the right school, learning a new curriculum, resourcing valuable teaching resources and lesson plans, and understanding teaching practices are key factors to consider before that all important first day at school. Accommodation has to be found, finances managed and a host of other matters to be dealt with and we consider all of these issues and many more and how Uteach helps the teachers to have a rewarding experience teaching during their stay in England. |
UPDATE (8/31/16): Wilson lost the Republican primary by a wide margin to Graham Harbold. Back in 2014, we reported that Richard Mack, a former sheriff from Arizona who now heads the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA), had signed on to a plan to move to Navajo County, Arizona, to run for office and create what he called a “constitutional county.” He urged supporters to consider moving to the county as well to support him as sheriff in 2016 and begin to establish a “blueprint” county that would operate according to his vision of county-level resistance to federal laws that he believes are unconstitutional. “I want you to carefully, prayerfully consider moving there with me, and I’m serious,” he told an anti-gun-law rally that year. “You want to live in a free county? You want to live by constitutional law? You want to not be worried about federal government coming in and ruining your lives and families and hauling you off at midnight? Come live with us there.” Mack didn’t show up on the ballot, so we assumed that the project was off, or at least delayed. But late last month Mack announced that while he had dropped his plan to run for sheriff because of health problems he had signed on as a candidate for “under sheriff” in Navajo County alongside “constitutional” Republican candidate Dawn Wilson. Wilson made her ideology clear in a joint radio interview with Mack earlier this month, saying that once elected, “I want to first of all train our officers on the Constitution, train our citizens to know their rights, and then I want to build a barrier between the citizens of Navajo County and the federal government to keep them out. They don’t need to be coming into our county and harassing us, they don’t need to be calling for gun control. The sheriff needs to stand up and put their foot down and say, ‘No, it’s not going to happen here.’” Mack and his followers contend that county sheriffs are the highest law enforcement officers in the nation, having authority over the federal government in their respective counties. This idea emerged from the racist and anti-Semitic “Posse Comitatus” movement of the 1970s and ‘80s but has since taken on a separate life of its own in today’s far-right. As we wrote in 2014: Mack said in a late July radio interview that his and Wilson’s candidacy was a “long shot.” Wilson is up against one opponent in the August 30 GOP primary and then would face the Democratic incumbent in the general election. Mack mentioned in the interview that his and Wilson’s chances would improve if they gained the support of the Navajo Nation. The county, which includes large parts of several Indian reservations, is about 45 percent American Indian. |
With a popular reality TV series and a high public profile, he's certainly well known. In a March Gallup poll, 90% of respondents knew enough about the real estate mogul to have an opinion on him. Trump has further elevated that profile in recent weeks, appearing more frequently on talk and cable news shows than any other potential candidate. Trump has also repeatedly flogged the misleading and discredited claims about Obama's citizenship, even going so far as to say he'd dispatched an investigative team to Hawaii. And with a big television platform to present those claims, Trump has quickly gained praise from the party's birther wing. • He supported Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) in his reelection bid against Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle, donating $4800 in 2010, giving him over $10,400. • He has supported Democrat incumbents in his neck of the woods: Congressman Charlie Rangel (D-NY) who received $10,000 in 2006, Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) who received $12,000 total, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) who received $8,900, and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (R-NY) who received $5,850. • $7,000 to former Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) • $5,500 to Senator John Kerry (D-MA) including $2,000 during his 2004 presidential run • $4,000 to former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) • $1,000 to Vice President (then Senator) Joe Biden (D-DE) • $116,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee • $10,000 to the Democratic Party of New York Yes I understand he’s given to Republicans and conservative organizations as well such as disgraced former Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL), Senator John McCain (R-AZ) received a donation during his presidential run, former President George W. Bush, Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Republican Governors Association, and National Republican Senatorial Committee. At best this “bipartisan” giving that seems to lean toward liberals and moderates make him look like somebody who puts his business’ bottom line over principles. It certainly doesn’t show somebody who shares tea party values. Do the Republicans and tea partiers infatuated with him right now really want somebody like this residing in the White House? Likely Iowa Republican Caucus goers and tea partiers who are infatuated with this man, please wake up. He is not one of you. Over the years we've pointed out a number of cases where Republicans have actually chosen their own "opponents," shills whose primary victories were financed by forces eager to make sure the Republican incumbent had no challenger. Earlier today we ran a guest post for Michigan Democrat Lance Enderle, who first challenged corrupt Republican Congressman Mike Rogers when Rogers' handpicked shill, some guy from Pennsylvania named Kande Ngalamulume, was exposed and fled the state (and subsequently withdrew). Last year the Senate's most extremist incumbent at the time, Jim DeMint, picked up 63% of the vote, not because South Carolina is so overwhelmingly red but because he managed to manipulate a deranged felon, Alvin Greene, into the Democratic nomination. (McCain only drew 54% against Obama 2 years earlier.) In 2006helped expose Jerry Lewis (R-CA) putting up his own pet "Democrat," Louie Contreras. With the cooperation of the Wall Street-backed DCCC, Paul Ryan (R-WI) was able to ride to reelection in 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2006 by placing an old friend, Jeffrey Thomas, in as the Democrat. In a Democratic-leaning district Thomas averaged roughly a third of the vote. He spent $11,374 in 2000 (against Ryan's $1,055,707). Thomas refused to do any fundraising Ryan developed an undeserved reputation as being both popular and unassailable. In Thomas' last race against Ryan in 2006, he spent a grand total of $1,687 (compared to Ryan's $1,316,881). Anyway, you get the point. When Republicans can get away with this, it becomes standard operating procedure.I have no proof that this is strategy is what the devious minds of Rahm Emanuel and Jim Messina have hatched in regard to a Trump candidacy. No one really even expects Trump to be the nominee, although he's leading the weak field right now. But he is certainly playing havoc with their nutty primary.Jon Terbush dismissed the Trump dominance of the GOP primaries as a way for Republican voters to just register None Of The Above . "Trump's high support may not be so much a sign of his strength, but of a sign of the overall field's weakness," he points out. And most of the motley crew of Republican candidates... well no one-- not even Republicans-- have ever heard of them. Who's supposed to have an opinion of political hacks like Tim Pawlenty, Michele Bachmann, Jon Huntsman, Mitch Daniels, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich or Haley Barbour? More Republicans would probably support Halle Berry. And that's the same kind of support Trump is garnering in poll after poll of GOP voters.Now Trump is giving GOP insiders furtherby threatening to run as an independent if they try to deny him the nomination. That would work great for Obama. “I think the Republicans are very concerned that I [may] run as an Independent,” Trump told theTuesday. “I am very conservative. The concern is if I don’t win [the GOP primary] will I run as an Independent, and I think the answer is probably yes.” Could his clown routine do for Obama what Perot's did for Bill Clinton?Republican power players and propagandists are starting to push back. His public campaign contributions were a good place to start:As Krugman wrote on his blog yesterday, "The sheer absurdity of his candidacy doesn’t seem to matter. The modern Republican base is deeply unserious, and that’s a fundamental fact of American politics." Labels: 2012 GOP nomination, Paul Ryan, Trump |
This image released by NBC shows Andrew Rannells as Bryan, left, and Justin Bartha as David in a scene from "The New Normal," premiering Sept. 11, 2012 at 9:30p.m. EST on NBC. A Mormon church owned NBC affiliate in Utah has rejected "The New Normal," the sitcom about a single mother's journey through life as a surrogate for a gay couple. NBC introduced the sitcom to American audiences earlier this month in a two-minute preview during coverage of the London Olympics. "For our brand, this program simply feels inappropriate on several dimensions, especially during family viewing time," says Jeff Simpson, CEO of KSL parent company Bonneville International, which is owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (AP Photo/NBC, Trae Patton) SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Mormon church-owned NBC affiliate in Utah won't air an upcoming sitcom about a gay couple that invites a surrogate mother into their home as they try to have a baby because the station deems the content inappropriate for its audience. "The New Normal" is set to debut Sept. 11 on NBC. "For our brand, this program simply feels inappropriate on several dimensions, especially during family viewing time," Jeff Simpson, CEO of KSL's parent company, Bonneville International, which is owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said in a statement. "The dialogue is excessively rude and crude; the scenes are too explicit and the stereotypes are offensive on all sides," Simpson added. NBC defended the program, noting it makes "a statement about the changing definition of the nuclear family." "The show is against bigotry and hatred in every form and will make that point whenever characters say outrageous or unacceptable things about race, religion, sexual identity, disability, or tolerance of people outside the definitions of 'normal,'" the network said in a statement Monday. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation sharply criticized KSL's decision. "Same-sex families are a beloved part of American television thanks to shows like Modern Family, Glee and Grey's Anatomy," GLAAD President Herndon Graddick said. "While audiences, critics and advertisers have all supported LGBT stories, KSL is demonstrating how deeply out of touch it is with the rest of the country." KSL immediately took issue with the criticism on Monday, noting its decision to pull the show is wrongly "being reduced to a single issue." "KSL did not cancel this show because it features gay characters," the station said in a statement. "We have viewed the pilot and this program contains sexually explicit content, demeaning dialogue and inciting stereotypes." Over the years, KSL has deemed several other shows inappropriate for its viewers, including "Saturday Night Live," which instead airs on Salt Lake City's KUCW. Last year, the station declined to air the short-lived 1960s period drama "The Playboy Club," noting it, too, was inappropriate material for its audience. In 2002, KSL decided not to broadcast an episode of the "Tonight" show because it was set to feature the creators of a stage act called "Puppetry of the Penis." A year later, KSL joined WNDU-TV, the NBC affiliate owned by the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., in declining to air the short-lived new sitcom, "Coupling." The show was a remake of a BBC sitcom focusing on the sex lives of a group of friends. The university-owned station noted at the time that the show's sexual jokes "push the envelope well beyond the boundaries of our community's standards." KSL officials said their decision came after a barrage of Utah viewer complaints over network promotions for the show. Bonneville International, KSL's parent company, also owns radio stations in Los Angeles, Seattle and Phoenix. ___ NBC is controlled by Comcast Corp. |
by marathemara GC: 1F YOU S33 WH4TS 1N YOUR M1ND CL34RLY 4ND UND3RST4ND TH3 POW3R YOUR THOUGHTS H4V3 GC: TH3N YOU UND3RST4ND R34L1TY WH1L3 3V3RYON3 3LS3 1S RUNN1NG 4ROUND CONFUS3D 4ND 4NGRY 4ND UPS3T GC: B3C4US3 TH3Y TH1NK R34L1TY 1S SOM3TH1NG H4PP3N1NG TO TH3M GC: R4TH3R TH4N SOM3TH1NG TH3Y 4R3 M4K1NG 3V3RY MOM3NT W1TH 3V3RY THOUGHT (http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004997) Terezi Pyrope is among the coolest of the beta trolls. Not only is she clever, and has a wicked sense of humor, and can smell colors, but she also has near-total control of her life and her personal narrative. Even better, we get to see how her understanding of control changes as she matures, as well as her understanding of her other cardinal value, justice. When we first meet Terezi, before the start of SGRUB, her understanding of control is kind of superficial: I know the rules of the game and can manipulate them so that I always come out on top. We see her act on this in her introductory scene, the trial of Senator Lemonsnout, in which Terezi plays prosecutor. She tortures her stuffed animal defendant, accuses him of the murder of a witness, and finally gives him false hope of acquittal through a coin flip whose outcome she can make irrelevant by being blind. Lemonsnout hangs, alongside a crowd of other slowly decaying scalemates outside Terezi’s treehouse which shows her commitment to being the one who wins. This seems to simply be a child acting childishly, but over the course of Act 5 it is revealed that the Alternian legal system also uses these simplistic concepts, with the foundation of the “justice” that Terezi claims to pursue being simply “the goal is to stay alive, and those with control over others outlive those without.” These concepts of justice and control follow Terezi into her interactions with other characters, particularly Vriska. Technically, Terezi “wins” the perpetual back-and-forth of vengeance between her and Vriska, or at least she scores more points. She is able to contact Doc Scratch directly with Sollux’s help, while Vriska usually waits for him to contact her. Terezi is able to goad Doc Scratch into destroying Vriska’s magic cue ball, grievously wounding Vriska in the process. After Vriska, still bleeding, blinds Terezi through a complex sequence of mind control, Terezi is able to pick up the pieces and learn from her lusus how to see through smell. And finally, much later, Terezi kills Vriska to punish her and to stop her from endangering the remaining trolls. The game deems Vriska’s death just, but Terezi is haunted by it nonetheless, because by now her interaction with humans has begun to change her understanding of control. As Seer of Mind, she has the power to influence other people’s choices. Sometimes she does this to help the alpha timeline, such as when she convinced John to meet his denizen early, making it obvious to Rose and Dave that their timeline was doomed and forcing Dave to travel back in time to prototype himself and create Davesprite. At this point, though, she mostly influences people to mess with them or to score points on them. She does this with Dave, giving him the chance to kill one of his doomed selves to show him the cost of going God Tier; and she does it with Vriska, limiting her options to dying on the one hand and dooming everyone else on the other. But Dave’s rejection of the non-choice she’s given him upsets her, and after that her simple concepts of justice and control begin to fall apart around her. Her investigation of Tavros’ death may or may not be colored by Gamzee’s chucklevoodoos, leading her to oversimplify the situation even further than she might anyway and blame deaths caused by Eridan and Gamzee on Vriska as well. Gamzee has begun to chip away at Terezi’s control of her own life, and at her sense that she is always right and will always come out on top, but things get even worse after Terezi starts meeting the alpha trolls. She is intimidated by Latula’s RADGIRL persona, but it’s Aranea who notices and takes advantage of her. Not only does Aranea talk Terezi into regretting her earlier choices even more, but she also begins to manipulate Terezi through her control over Gamzee, pushing her into an abusive kismesissitude with him which pulls Terezi’s self-esteem lower and lower until she falls apart completely. Aranea then takes advantage of Terezi’s weakness to “cure” Terezi’s blindness, which up to this point had been an important part of Terezi’s identity. Terezi’s childhood belief that she could win every time has been destroyed. She feels like every part of her up to this point was somehow wrong. Having hit rock bottom in this way, it takes her a little while to start picking up the pieces and taking control over her life again. But the control she starts to take back is a more complicated and mature kind of control. It comes in pieces: the first thing she does is blindfold herself, to control her senses and retake that part of her identity. The second thing is to find her abusive kismesis and serve Alternian-style justice on him. This goes less well: once Aranea’s hold over Gamzee is broken, he attacks her of his own accord, and during [S] Game Over, Aranea adds insult to injury by stabbing Terezi with her own blade. Justice is not so easy to carry out when the defendant has some power. Ironically enough, after [S] Game Over, which seemed to be rock bottom for the Homestuck cast as a whole, Terezi is on her way back up. She’s mortally wounded, but she realizes that she’s the only person left who can fix the things that have gone horrible wrong. She flies after John, finds him in despair, and intimidates him into going to his denizen and learning to control his retcon powers. By helping John to repair their ruined timeline, Terezi shows that she’s ready to use her Seer powers for completely unselfish purposes. But she’s not done taking her life back. For her last trick, Terezi Pyrope takes back her death. The chalk outline is symbolic of Terezi’s courtroom dramas, outlining the body of the victim in the place and position in which they died. Terezi has been victimized by Gamzee, by Aranea, and perhaps even by Vriska, but in accepting her victimhood she sets her own terms for it. She may not be the victorious prosecutor anymore, but she has accepted that she doesn’t have to be. Not only has Terezi matured, she has matured enough to make decisions that might sacrifice all this wonderful character development for the sake of the whole rest of the universe. I can only hope this sacrifice does not go unrewarded. TEREZI: GOOD LUCK, 3GB3RT >:] TEREZI: NOT TH4T YOU’LL N33D 1T JOHN: why not? TEREZI: B3C4US3 W3 M4K3 OUR OWN LUCK TEREZI: 4ND YOU'R3 4BOUT TO PROV3 TH4T (http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=009082) Edit: This post was written several weeks ago. It now looks like the changes John is making are geared toward enhancing and speeding up Terezi’s character development and making her less susceptible to Gamzee’s influence. To which I can only say hooray. |
Ever since Radiohead released "Kid A" in 2000, it had become very clear that Thom Yorke had a need, make that an urge, to dive into the electronic side of music, as opposed to the more straight-forward guitar-oriented rock side of music. It eventually lead Thom to release "The Eraser" in 2006, an excellent foray into minimalist electronic music which I absolutely loved. Thom took it a step further by then fronting Atoms For Peace, a touring (and eventual recording) band which ultimately released "Amok" in 2013, in all but name a sequel to "The Eraser". Then came this recording, for reasons unknown originally released as a vinyl-only in 2014, and now 4 years finally later getting an official CD release. "Tomorrow's Modern Boxes" (8 tracks; 38 min.) opens with "A Brain In a Bottle", and at first sound it continues the electronic noodling that we have heard on "The Eraser" and "Amok". It's more about the sounds than it is about the melody, more abstract than it is a song as such. This continues on subsequent tracks such as "Guess Again!" (where Radiohead's Colin Greenwood makes an appearance). I love the 6 min. mini-opus "The Mother Lode", with its nervous underlying rhythmic piano beat. It sets us up for a superb last third of the album, starting with "There Is No Ice (For My Drink)", a 7 min. pulsating exercise in electronic beats, which then sequences into the short abstract "Pink Section" (where Yorke's vocals are massaged and manipulated in the strangest of ways), which then turns into the album-concluding "Nose Grows Some", with vinyl scratches and all. Bottom line: "Tomorrow's Modern Boxes" marks no significant departure from "The Eraser" or "Amok", so if you like those albums, you know exactly what you are signing up for when you get "Tomorrow's Modern Boxes". A darn shame that musical snobbery kept this from being released on CD for 4 years, but better late than never I suppose. I had the great fortune of catching Thom Yorke in concert with his Atoms For Peace cohorts (including Flea on bass) at the 2010 Coachella music festival. They were billed as "Thom Yorke ????", no kidding, and played all tracks from "The Eraser" and some new material that would eventually finds its way on "Amok". Surely one of the highlights of the festival for me. One could only wish for more solo touring by Thom Yorke, but in the meantime we'll gladly take his solo recordings. "Tomorrow's Modern Boxes" is a WINNER. |
The Belgian startup was born out of one of Hollywood's greatest catastrophes: the Ben Affleck–Jennifer Lopez train wreck Gigli. ScriptBook CEO Nadira Azermai was a college student when she got the chance to intern on the film for a couple of weeks. Inspired by the film's failure, she wrote her thesis in applied economics on a way of using machine learning to develop a tool that would enable producers to avoid box office bombs. And then, in her own words, she "left it [the idea] in my bottom draw to go work for a bank" for a few years. When she decided to revisit the idea, it took her (and her burgeoning team) a year of research and development. The finished product was ScriptBook, a machine-learning platform that -- so Azermai claims -- knows what makes a good screenplay. "In the first six months, we did a lot of exploration, taking 4,000 scripts and 10,000 movies with metadata to see what parameters came out," she said. The result is an algorithm that knows what has worked before and can judge a screenplay against 220 parameters that are used to calculate its theoretical financial performance. The sort of report a studio executive using ScriptBook could expect to receive. Some of the insights were derived from common sense as well as the established "rules" of screenwriting sold by Robert Mckee, Syd Field and Blake Snyder. That means following Joseph Campbell's monomyth structure, ensuring that your lead character is sympathetic and goes on a hero's journey. But likability was a hard substance to quantify, and one that ScriptBook's algorithm initially struggled with. Azermai cited Die Hard as an example, since, on paper, "the lead character -- he's not a scumbag, but he's an unlikeable, disgruntled cop." So, to teach ScriptBook, "we hired people to annotate the data set and answer questions on if the main character was likable." Once the system had looked at the human input, it can then classify these traits automatically, as is the case with most deep learning systems. Scripbook isn't about picking winners so much as it is about avoiding losers, which is a huge issue for even a big studio. "We did an impact analysis" on the slate of major studio movies released in 2014 and 2015, says Azermai. "ScriptBook would only have green-lit 42 out of 70," with only a handful of false positives, but she claims that her product avoided the biggest flops. And saving studio cash could be a big business: the cumulative deficits caused by 2016's ten biggest flops -- as charted by Forbes -- was a whopping $100.9 million. Azermai references the 2015 remake of Point Break as evidence of the sheer power of the platform that she's put together. A fan of the original film, she ran the screenplay for the remake as soon as she got her hands on it. The algorithm, however, determined -- months before release -- that the film would gross only $31 million in the US. In her telling, the result "made me really doubt our system," because the remake seemed like a slam dunk. When the film debuted that December, its domestic gross, as calculated by BoxOfficeMojo, was just $28.8 million -- more of a flop than even her system could determine. There's a boatload of ifs and buts, but if ScriptBook works, then Azermai believes she could have a massively successful product. After all, spending a million dollars on script analysis is chump change compared with eating a hundred times that in losses. Even if the studio was used only 20 or so times a year, that's still enough for ScriptBook's creators to kick back and relax. If you look at some of the studios' lineups (oh hey, Warner Bros.) for the next few years, it's clear that there's a need for this sort of QA checking. Nadira Azermai and her team at ScriptBook. ScriptBook isn't the only game in town: Tools such as ScripThreads can analyze a screenplay and visualize its storyline and character interaction, while Slated offers screenplay analysis based on the pooled review scores of three unnamed studio development team employees. But Azermai's product is the only one that offers an apparently concrete prediction of a movie's potential success. The platform will be launching in the near future, and while its initial pitch will be to studios, it won't stay that way. Azermai told Engadget that the company is "working on" a more limited tool that'll be offered to screenwriters. Rather than the more detailed financial analysis, it'll offer a generic metric of a script's quality and likelihood of success. Thankfully, Azermai promises that it'll also be cheap enough for most dirt-poor typewriter junkies to afford. ScriptBook's claims are big and broad, and if it works, it certainly has the potential to upend the way movies are made. The only problem, for now, is that it's nearly impossible to demonstrate or prove that the results it produces are legitimate -- for instance, Slash Film decried its claims as "complete and utter B.S." Azermai isn't worried about the "older creatives," who are skeptical, because it's Hollywood's decision makers -- the accountants -- who will determine the product's success. There are still a thousand unanswered questions as to how ScriptBook actually works, and few are currently forthcoming. We were allowed a day to play around with the firm's embryonic user interface, but any attempt to test the system with a fresh screenplay was resisted. All the same, the company is getting ready to unleash itself upon an unsuspecting world, and if we see the quantity of flops decreasing in five years or so, we'll know who to thank. |
A jilted ex-boyfriend is behind at least eight of the threats made against Jewish Community Centers nationwide, plus a bomb threat to New York's Anti-Defamation League, in an effort to harass and vilify his former girlfriend, federal officials said Friday.Juan Thompson, 31, was arrested in St. Louis and will appear in federal court in Missouri on Friday afternoon on a charge of cyberstalking, authorities said.Investigators are working to determine the suspect's role in recent other threats against Jewish organizations across the country since January. The complaint uses the term "JCC threats" to also include wider incidents involving Jewish schools and institutions.Thompson is accused in what federal prosecutors called a "campaign to harass and intimidate." He's charged in New York with cyberstalking a woman by communicating threats to JCCs in the woman's name. Prosecutors said Thompson "appears to have made at least eight of the JCC threats as part of a sustained campaign to harass and intimidate" the woman after their romantic relationship ended.According to a federal complaint, Thompson dated the woman until last summer, when they broke up. The following day, her boss received an email purporting to be from a national news organization saying that she'd been pulled over for drunken driving.The harassment got worse from there, federal officials said. The Anti-Defamation League received an email on Feb. 21 that said she was behind the bomb threats to JCCs and there'd be more the next day. On Feb. 22, it received a phoned-in bomb threat He also claimed she was responsible for placing a bomb in a Jewish center in Dallas, and he emailed a JCC in San Diego saying she wanted to "kill as many Jews asap."Feb. 21 - ADL email threatFeb. 22 - ADL phone threatFeb. 21 - Council of American Islamic Relations emails threat, "bomb in the jewish center in dallas"Feb. 20 - JCC in San Diego, email threatJan. 28 - Jewish History Museum in Manhattan, received bomb threatFeb. 1 - Jewish school in Farmington Hills, Mich., received a bomb threatFeb. 1 - Jewish school in Manhattan, two separate bomb threats of "a Jewish newtown"Feb. 7 - JCC in Manhattan, received a bomb threatThompson is also a former journalist who was fired from the Intercept last year after he was accused of fabricating several quotes and creating fake email accounts to impersonate people, one of whom was the Intercept's editor-in-chief, Betsy Reed. One of the stories involved Dylann Roof, the Charleston, South Carolina, church shooter.The ADL said Friday that Thompson had been on its radar ever since he fabricated the story about Roof.Federal officials have been investigating 122 bomb threats called into nearly 100 JCC schools, child care and other similar facilities in three dozen states. Two law enforcement officials told ABC News that Thompson is not believed to be the main suspect behind the scores of recent bomb threats.The arrest comes as the FBI was growing increasingly worried about such incidents. Agents feared the volume could be lulling people and lead people to start ignoring the threats and stop evacuating facilities.The NYPD also was worried that evacuations were creating large groups outside that could become targets for shooting or ramming."The defendant caused havoc, expending hundreds of hours of police and law enforcement resources to respond and investigate these threats. We will continue to pursue those who peddle fear, making false claims about serious crimes," said New York City Police Commissioner James O'Neill. "I'm grateful for the collaboration between the NYPD detectives, FBI agents, and prosecutors whose cross-country investigation led to this morning's arrest." |
Image: FreePress This story was originally published on 1/17/17. It was updated 3/28/17 after Congress voted to repeal the FCC's privacy rules. Take a moment to remember the height of the net neutrality battles of 2014 and 2015. Remember the letter writing campaigns, the comments filed to the Federal Communications Commission (some of them handwritten), remember John Oliver's rant. Remember that the people fought, and the people won, and for a brief moment, big telecom monopolies had at least some limits placed on them by the federal government. Remember it now, because very likely, the anti-regulation commissioners of the FCC, reporting to an anti-regulation president, are about to undo the rules millions of Americans fought so hard for. Under Trump, big telecom and its sympathizers will call the shots. Net neutrality will be gutted, and FCC privacy rules will be repealed. This means that net neutrality protections that prevent internet service providers from slowing down certain types of traffic will very likely go away. It means Netflix may once again have to pay Comcast to ensure its customers can watch shows without buffering (it also means, for example, that ISPs would be able to charge you extra to stream Netflix as opposed to content on an ISP-owned platform). It means that the blatant net neutrality violations being perpetrated by wireless carriers—the "free data streaming" for certain types of data—will continue and will likely never be stopped by the FCC. And it means your personal data can and will be sold by the big telecom monopolies that you already hate. But the protracted net neutrality legal battle wasn't for naught. Important seeds were sown during those months of activism that raised public awareness about an important but obscure and relatively complicated telecom regulatory rule that could have easily gone unnoticed were it not for the protests, late-night television coverage, and information campaigns on sites like Reddit. "Because we have net neutrality now, those seeds are out there," Christopher Mitchell, director of the Community Broadband Networks Initiative, told me. "Our biggest enemy is ignorance, so when things go badly and cable bills go up under Trump, and we have to pay more to access certain sites, people will say 'Wait a minute, this is a violation of net neutrality.' We're in such a better position to fight now." The letter writing campaign to the FCC was good training for what will be needed in the future: Targeted, grassroots efforts that show politicians that access to the open internet matters to voters. "In the case of ensuring net neutrality by ISPs, that means creating fertile ground for more competition" The rhetoric and actions of the Republican-dominated FCC and Congress show that federal regulations that can be easily undone or ignored are not a long-term solution if we want to protect the open internet and consumer privacy. To preserve the open internet, there must be more broadband competition and more consumer choice. This goal is going to be accomplished through local- and state-level activism and entrepreneurship, not through federal regulations. Image: Free Press "The reality is we're not going to see much if any consumer protection policy from the next administration, so finding alternatives is a critical exercise to ensure social and economic justice prevails," Monica Webb, who runs government relations at fiber internet startup Ting, told me. "In the case of ensuring net neutrality by ISPs, that means creating fertile ground for more competition." America's largest internet and cable companies feel little pressure to sell limitless, unthrottled connections because, in many cases, they have a captive market. In many small cities and towns, there is only one real broadband choice that can remain profitable while offering a lackluster product. People who live in cities that have competition, meanwhile, get better service at a lower cost. Competition can come from both the private sector—we need more startup ISPs that have committed to net neutrality and robust privacy protections—or it can come from local governments, who are increasingly building their own broadband networks. Focusing on increasing competition from the public sector at a local and state level seems like the most obvious place for activists to get involved. The most obvious impediments to local broadband competition are laws that exist in 23 states that restrict local communities from building their own broadband networks. These laws were uniformly lobbied for by big telecom providers and help preserve the monopolies that these companies have in many cities and towns around the country. Anticompetitive state-level legislation can be repealed, and new restrictions can be defeated Because they have a mandate to encourage economic growth and education in their towns rather than make profits, many local governments are exploring building their own internet networks. This model has worked well in cities such as Chattanooga, Tennessee; Lafayette, Louisiana; and Wilson, North Carolina. President Obama and his FCC Chair Tom Wheeler supported a federal effort to preempt state laws restricting community networks, but an appeals court said the decisions must be made at the state level. Trump's FCC will not continue Wheeler's efforts, and a federal legislative fix seems out of the question with big telecom ally Blackburn newly in charge of the House Telecom Subcommittee. "These decisions will continue to happen at the state and local level for the foreseeable future," Jim Baller, who runs a law firm that helps communities navigate these laws, told me. For activists, this means supporting legislation like Colorado's SB17-042, the "Repeal Local Government Internet Service Voter Approval" bill that would remove a restriction requiring local communities to have ballot initiative votes anytime they would like to build internet infrastructure. Mitchell is also hopeful that repeal legislation will be introduced in North Carolina. In Tennessee, state Sen. Janice Bowling plans to introduce legislation that would repeal municipal broadband restrictions in the state. "I'm going to push fiber to the farmer, fiber to the physician, fiber to the scholar, fiber to any person that needs it," she told me, noting that AT&T lobbied heavily for the law that initially put restrictions. "We're going to stop [big telecom's] little game." "Blackburn and the administration will do what AT&T and Comcast want, and I'm guessing it'll be a disaster" Promoting competition also means telling lawmakers that legislation that will strengthen community broadband restrictions will not be tolerated. Already, bills have been introduced in Virginia and Missouri that would toughen already existing restrictions in those states. Tom Sloan, a Republican state representative in Kansas, says that public pressure is the best way to defeat this sort of legislation, which has not passed in his state thanks to voter outrage. "Lobbyists for the large broadband providers know that some conservative lawmakers are naturally sympathetic to the argument that it's anticompetitive," Sloan told me. "But when the communities demonstrate their needs are not being met, that changes." Beyond trying to overturn these laws, people can ask their city councils to research the feasibility of building community networks that would compete against incumbent providers. New ISP Startups can help Community networks aren't right for every city or town, and a handful of small internet service providers have successfully challenged big telecom companies by championing net neutrality and by offering a better overall customer experience. Where alternatives are already available, people can support small internet companies that are dedicated to preserving net neutrality simply because it's what customers want. Many ISP startups not only support net neutrality, they also have vowed not to sell customer data to advertisers. "We are selling a big, unimpeded pipe," said Dane Jasper, CEO of Sonic, an ISP that offers service in 125 cities and towns in California. "If I do things to impair access to the great stuff on the internet, that's a self-destructive thing to do. It works when you have market power, but I feel like we need to respect the internet ecosystem." So far, Sonic's total possible customer base is about 5 million people, while Ting is only available in a handful of towns across the country. It has slowly built up its infrastructure over the past two decades, first laying copper wire and then replacing it with fiber in its best-performing communities. "Can we find 100 people to do what Ting and Sonic are doing? I'm not sure" Many new startup ISPs seem to be doing quite well, but it's expensive and difficult to compete with the entrenched monopolies: "There should be three Sonics in every state," Jasper said. "We find it viable, but in the end you've got to build it, and then you have to convince people to switch." Jasper says he believes that if the Trump administration kills net neutrality it will make founding an internet service provider more difficult because it will strengthen the general economic situation of big telecom. Without net neutrality, Comcast and others can "exploit a double-ended market" by requiring companies like Netflix to pay for prioritization and perhaps by charging consumers extra to access it (alternatively, Comcast can funnel its customers to its own video on demand offerings). "Startups with low numbers of customers don't have the leverage to extort money out of content providers, so you'd be artificially solidifying the monopolies," he said. So the question, then, is whether or not new companies will want to enter a market that is already rigged against them. "Can we find 100 people to do what Ting and Sonic are doing? I'm not sure," Mitchell said. "If the perception is Comcast can run startups out of business, it's not going to be where people will be putting their time." What happens now? Net neutrality advocates do not expect the next four years to be very good for consumers, broadband competition, or the open internet. The silver lining here is that consumers have grown used to having unfettered internet access and have shown a willingness to revolt when that general premise is threatened. So long as an open internet is an ideal that the masses want, then any steps taken to destroy it by politicians or by companies will be seen as unpopular. If conservatives on Capitol Hill, at the FCC, and in the White House are willing to deregulate the internet and hope that the free market sorts it out, we will likely see small towns and rural areas continue to be ignored with basic infrastructure that's necessary to live in a technologically advanced society. And Tuesday, the FCC's privacy rules were repealed by Congress. Mitchell said "the next four years will be worse than I expected them to be," but said the net neutrality movement continues to march forward. "In some ways, it's nice that there's no more excuses on the side of those promoting telecom interests. Blackburn and the administration will do what AT&T and Comcast want, and I'm guessing it'll be a disaster," he said. "I think that leads to our solutions being more politically popular in a few years." It also means that there's a constant appetite for new broadband companies that are committed to protecting the internet. If you're an entrepreneurial type, it might be a good time to start laying fiber. If you're an organizer, it's time to promote politicians and policies that support local competition. |
Win Strange Gifts! Win Strange Gifts! Monthly Contest - December 2017 Win A Smartphone Projector Take Look At This Pic Of The Spookoholic And Answer The Question The Spookoholic is looking at the ghost that blocks his way to the mysterious red mahogany door... What is he thinking? The contest ends on 30th or 31st of the month as the case may be. Two lucky winner would be picked by authormastho.com from the best answers in a draw. The decision of authormastho.com would be final in picking the winners. The winners would be notified by mail and the gift would be sent home. authormastho.com's decision would be final regarding the winners. Winners would be announced on the home page of authormastho.com on the consecutive month. By clicking 'Lucky Click' you are agreeing to the terms and conditions of the contest. You could unsubscribe whenever you want if you would not like to receive occasional information about free books, stories and contests. Kindly note: Write Your Wild Or Wacky Guess Below In One Line |
For the first time in the decade-long history of the Healthcare Equality Index, published annually by Human Rights Campaign, Johns Hopkins Hospital’s controversial reputation for transgender care has cost it valuable points in the highly-regarded national survey of more than 1,600 medical facilities serving America’s LGBTQ community. The deduction of 25 points out of a potential 100, according to HRC, was for its poor showing in the new category of “Responsible Citizenship,” and left Johns Hopkins Hospital with a final score of 40, about half of what most institutions were awarded. This might surprise some of those who read in LGBTQ Nation last October that the world-famous hospital would resume offering gender affirmation surgery for the first time in 40 years. But as HRC noted in its online explanation for the demerits, concern is warranted, given Johns Hopkins’ checkered history. “There are LGBTQ patients who either are going to Hopkins or want to go to Hopkins, who are fearful that the care they will receive is either substandard or subpar,” said Sarah McBride, HRC National Press Secretary, in a telephone interview with LGBTQ Nation. Facebook “Over the last year or so, we have seen an increase in the myths and the junk science peddled by Paul McHugh. We’ve seen increasingly Johns Hopkins’ name being utilized to back up the essays written by McHugh,” McBride said. “And we are seeing very clearly, particularly in the last year or two, in court cases and in legislatures, the harm that that’s having. She’s referring to Dr. Paul McHugh, professor of psychiatry, former chief psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and to this day a member of the faculty at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. As advocate Brynn Tannehill described him, McHugh has misused his position “to distort science and spread transphobic misinformation.” McHugh is a gun-for-hire for anti-equality activists that have been labeled extremist hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Among the words Dr. McHugh has used to describe transgender people over the years: “counterfeits,” “impersonators,” “confused” and “mad.” Johns Hopkins Medicine As Tannehill has extensively written, what makes McHugh dangerous is not just his so-called “expert” testimony and frequent citations in rightwing anti-trans propaganda, but how his conclusions influence others in a position of authority. In a 2016 “position statement” issued by an official-sounding but bogus pediatrics group calling transgender treatment child abuse, McHugh “distorts the facts” with “omissions, half-truths, outdated research, and motivated entirely by religious based bias against a group of people already heavily stigmatized by society,” according to Tannehill. “The fact that every last one of his points can be disproven by anyone with access to Google discredits the academic standards of the institution.” “I’m also already hearing from parents of transgender children that relatives and people hostile to them in the community are using this position statement to threaten to report them to child protective services and take their children away.” And then came last August’s “special report” by McHugh and biostatistician Dr. Lawrence Mayer: a 143-page article in a conservative magazine — not a scientific paper in a respected journal — that repeated disproven claims about transgender and LGB people. “For example,” HRC explained in its post about Johns Hopkins Hospital, “they suggest that LGBTQ people have inherent psychological difficulties, and that LGBQ sexual orientations may be caused by sexual abuse during childhood.” This Story Filed Under |
With the Jets being on bye this week after a 5-4 start to the season, it’s time to look ahead to the second half of the season and start thinking about what we can expect going forward. As much fun as it is to point out how the Jets have already exceeded the expectations of all the “experts” out there, what’s even more fun is to look at some of the players on this roster and envision where this group is headed. So that’s exactly what I’m doing with this week’s Stock Watch: I’m rating the roster from top to bottom based on what I expect from them the rest of the season. (I’ve listed 54 players because no roster move has been made yet for Winslow’s return. Also, it’s worth repeating that the list is based on the future 7 games, not necessarily what has already happened in 2013.) The “Pray We Never Them See on the Field” Group 54. Ricky Sapp – Not only the most useless player on this Jets team, but I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a more useless player in the entire NFL. The next time he even makes a play on special teams will be the first. 53. William Campbell – Why isn’t he on the practice squad? 52. Ben Ijalana – Who? 51. Oday Aboushi – At least he has some hope down the road. 50. Caleb Schlauderaff – A Mike Tannenbaum favorite. That’s not a compliment. 49. Matt Simms – I don’t hate Simms, but it’s unlikely he sees any meaningful time this year. And if he does, it means things have gone terrible wrong. 48. Alex Green – Strictly an insurance policy in case Ivory or Powell get injured, so unless that happens, we won’t be seeing much of Green. Let’s hope it remains that way. The “Only in Small Doses” Group 47. Troy Davis – I like Davis and think he has some potential, but he won’t be given much playing time on defense this season. 46. Rontez Miles – The newest Jet has a chance to be a major special teams contributor, and don’t be surprised to see Rex Ryan work him into some defensive packages as well. 45. Konrad Reuland – A solid blocker and a… well, that’s it. He’s just a decent blocker. Oh, and he’s friends with Mark Sanchez, so there’s that. He’s a candidate to be released with Winslow’s return next week. 44. Vlad Ducasse – I’ve noticed we’ve heard “62 is eligible” more often recently. In that role as an extra run blocker, Vlad is actually pretty decent, but his days as a starting guard are hopefully done forever. 43. Isaiah Trufant – He is actually decent as a dime corner against quicker slot receivers and solid on special teams, but he’s best kept in small doses. The “Hey, These Guys Can Contribute a Little Bit!” Group 42. Zach Sudfeld – With Winslow and Cumberland’s history of injuries, don’t be surprised if Sudfeld sticks and works his way into more and more offensive packages. With his size, he can be an effective weapon for Geno. 41. Ryan Quigley – There really isn’t much positive to say about Quigley, so I’m not even going to try. He’s a pretty bad punter and an upgrade should be brought in. 40. Tanner Purdum – This seems like a good spot for him, no? 39. David Garrard – I never want to see him step onto the field, but as a mentor for Geno he has tremendous value. 38. Josh Bush – Bush has a limited roll on defense, but he is a fixture on special teams and he does what is asked of him. 37. Tommy Bohanon – I was pretty down on Bohanon early in the season, but I’ve really come around on him. His blocking has improved dramatically and he is a useful component in Marty’s offense. 36. Nick Bellore – He’s not a contributor on defense, but he’s a terrific special teamer. He’s the kind of guy winning teams need to fill out their roster. 35. Ellis Lankster – Now that Lankster no longer gets on the field as a cornerback, I don’t have to hate him so much anymore. As terrible as he is as a corner (and he’s the worst), he’s the exact opposite of that on special teams. The “Horrible Disappointment” Group 34. Stephen Hill – Yep, Hill gets his own special category. For a team that has had a ton of injuries at the wide receiver position, you’d think last year’s 2nd round pick would be able to step up and help fill the gap. Well, if you thought that, you’d be wrong. Geno has no confidence in him. Marty has no confidence in him. I don’t think even Stephen Hill has confidence in Stephen Hill at this point. Hill needs to show something down the stretch of this season, or he’s going to be buried. The “Solid Role Players” Group 33. Greg Salas – I’ve long been a Salas fan and apparently Marty Mornhinweg is as well because the Jets brought in the former Eagle this year while he was injured just to stash him for later in the season. I think he’s going to be a pretty big contributor, especially with Kerley out. 32. Jaiquawn Jarrett – He’s been outplayed by Antonio Allen, but Rex has been using more 3 safety looks on defense lately and Jarrett has played pretty well. 31. Brian Winters – The rookie guard has had his ups and downs, but that’s to be expected for a guy who played a different position in college. I’m willing to live with his mistakes. 30. Leger Douzable – In a fairly limited role backing up the Jets studs on the defensive line, Douzable has been very impressive, especially rushing the passer. A perfect backup. 29. Garrett McIntyre – I used to refer to McIntyre as “Useless Garrett”, but that is no longer the case. He is solid against the run and manages to surprise you with his ability to get after the QB occasionally. Very solid backup. 28. Kenrick Ellis – He’s been awesome in a limited role and he’s part of the reason the Jets have been so dominant in short yardage situations this year. I expect him to continue his stout run defense the rest of the year, and if Snacks were to ever go down with an injury, Ellis would step right in. 27. Darrin Walls – I love Walls, but with Dee Milliner healthy and finally showing flashes of being the player we expected, Walls won’t see much time on defense. But if he has to, I think he will continue to do an excellent job. The “Real Contributors” Group 26. Jeff Cumberland – Cumberland has had his moments this year and can be a factor in the passing game, but it just always seems like something is missing with him. I keep waiting for him to put it all together. 25. Kellen Winslow Jr. – Before he got suspended for his uhhh.. “allergy medicine”, Winslow was one of Geno’s favorite targets. He can help bolster this passing game down the stretch. 24. Jeremy Kerley – Kerley would be higher on this list if not for a gruesome arm injury that he suffered in last week’s game. He should be out a few weeks, but when he returns, he will once again be the team’s most dependable WR. 23. David Nelson – It seems as though Nelson was Geno’s favorite target from the day he first stepped on the field as a Jet. He has good size and has been very dependable. No reason to think he won’t continue to contribute. 22. Josh Cribbs – Cribbs has very quietly provided a major boost to this team. The return game has dramatically improved since he took over for Clyde Gates (Ha! Remember him?!) and he’s contributed on offense as well. A great midseason pickup by Idzik. 21. Kyle Wilson – I’ve been hard on the finger wagger in the past, but he’s had a pretty solid season in the slot this year. He’ll never live up to his first round draft status, but the Jets can do worse. 20. Dee Milliner – Milliner has been awful this year, no question about it. But he finally showed signs of life against the Saints and Drew Brees, and Rex trusted him enough to cover Jimmy Graham for much of the game. I expect a rebound second half from Milliner. 19. Willie Colon – Colon has been very solid at RG for the Jets this year, but his impact off the field and in the locker room has been enormous. He’s already become a team leader. As the weather turns and the run game becomes more important, a mauler like Colon becomes huge to have. 18. Calvin Pace – I couldn’t stand Calvin Pace last year, and I don’t know how he was able to play with that giant fork sticking out of his back, but this year he has rebounded. After being cut and having no teams try to sign him, Pace re-dedicated himself and has become a very, very solid player for this defense. 17. Bilal Powell – The jack of all trades, master of none running back held down the fort while Chris Ivory was injured, but now he’s back in the role he was meant to play: Versatile backup. 16. Antonio Allen – The 7th-round steal in last year’s draft has stepped up and grabbed the starting safety spot for Rex’s defense. He’s been covering opposing tight ends every week lately, and while he still makes mistakes from time to time, he’s a terrific fit for this Jets defense and getting better every week. The “These Guys are Important” Group 15. Geno Smith – If this list was ranking the importance of players, then Geno would be #1. As of now, though, he is what he is: A rookie QB with a lack of talent surrounding him who will go through ups and downs. Geno has already shown enough flashes this season to win me over and I think he will be the QB here for the foreseeable future. 14. Dawan Landry – Landry got off to a shaky start this year, but he’s been playing really well the past few weeks. His impact on young players like Allen has also been a major help for the defense. 13. Antonio Cromartie – Cro has had a pretty terrible season so far, and he would be the first to admit it. Like Milliner though, he bounced back and played really well last week. Hopefully during the bye week he is able to get his body back to 100% and return to being the stud corner we saw last year. 12. Santonio Holmes – Holmes is expected to play next week after the bye, and with all the injuries at receiver, he will immediately become the team’s #1 threat. Expect Geno to target Holmes a ton in the season’s second half. 11. Chris Ivory – He has finally been given the torch and he is running with it. The only thing that can seemingly stop Ivory at this point is Marty Mornhinweg, who too often gets away from the power run game when it is working so well. Ivory should be a 20 touch player ever week from here on out and be the focal point of the offense. 10. Demario Davis – Pay attention to Demario, Jets fans. We are watching a stud in the making and he’s going to have a monster second half of the season. Enjoy it. 9. Austin Howard – Howard’s rise from just being the guy who got to start simply because he wasn’t Wayne Hunter to what he is now has been amazing. He’s an excellent run blocker and he’s improved a great deal as a pass protecter. He will continue his great play through the season and the Jets should wrap him up with a nice new contract. 8. D’Brickahaw Ferguson – I was thisclose to putting Howard above Brick, but couldn’t bring myself to do it. He’s had a down season by his standards, but he’s still a top talent and I think he will have a much better second half. 7. Nick Mangold – Like Brick, Mangold is having a big of a down season by his standards, but he’s still the key to everything the Jets do up front. The Jets usually hit their stride running the ball in November, and that will again be the case this year, led by Mangold. 6. David Harris – What a remarkable turnaround from last season, when Harris was downright bad. With a revamped line in front of him playing great, Harris has been able to roam free and is making a ton of plays. No reason to think that will change. The Hitman is back. The “Best Kicker in the League” Group 5. Nick Folk – Oh look, Folk gets his own category! And deservedly so. It’s nearly impossible for Folk to match his first half of the season in which he is 23-23 with 3 game winners, but I wouldn’t bet against him. He’s locked in right now and he’s having the best season of any kicker in the league. The “Big Bad Wolves” Group 4. Quinton Coples – Like I said, this list is about what I expect from the rest of the season, not what has already happened. Coples has had a terrible season so far as he has been slow to recover from his broken foot in the preseason, but if you watched that Saints game, you saw a player getting ready to explode. Now coming off a bye week in which he got to rest, I think Coples is going to have a huge last 7 games for this defense and when you combine him with the top 3 guys on this list, it is going to be basically unfair for offensive lines. 3. Sheldon Richardson – He’s been awesome this year. For a rookie to step in and not only start from day 1, but to play as many different roles as Sheldon has, is incredible. Rex uses him all over the defensive line and he’s excelled pretty much everywhere. There’s some concern that he might hit “the rookie wall” and slow down, but I haven’t seen that yet. It helps that he has the studs around him that he does, but he’s going to be great down the stretch. 2. Damon Harrison – Just as everyone predicted, the undrafted Harrison has emerged as the best run stuffer in the NFL and has been the key to the Jets dominance up front. Ok, so that isn’t quite what anybody expected, but that’s exactly what has happened. Snacks is a force and now that teams are starting to account for him with double-teams more often, it opens things up for everyone else. 1. Mo Wilkerson – Yep, in what should come as a surprise to nobody, Big Mo gets the top spot. Not only is Wilkerson the Jets best player and the key to everything they do on defense, he’s become quite possibly the best defensive player in the entire league not named JJ Watt, and the gap between the two is not nearly as big as it once was. Wilkerson is an absolute force in every way for Rex Ryan’s defense, and the scary thing is that he’s getting better every week. With 8 sacks in 9 games, he’s going to become the Jets first double-digit sacker since John Abraham despite being double-teamed on nearly every play. The Jets are in good hands with Mo Wilkerson leading the way. Related |
Thousands of Occupy protesters across the US will occupy foreclosed homes today, in what organisers are describing as a "new frontier" for the movement. In New York, Occupy Wall Street has teamed up with local activist groups to secretly occupy an empty home, and plan to hand the property over to a homeless family. Similar action is scheduled in more than 20 other cities. Over the last month many occupations have been evicted from their encampments, as cities cracked down on demonstrations that had lasted for several weeks. In New York occupiers plan to march to the closely-guarded location of their pre-selected foreclosed home, which organisers told the Guardian had been occupied overnight. After meeting with a family that was evicted from their own home, protesters will journey through a Brooklyn neighbourhood which they say is "on the front lines of the economic crisis". "This action is part of a national kick-off for a new frontier for the occupy movement: the liberation of vacant bank-owned homes for those in need, and the defense of families under threat of foreclosure and eviction," Occupy Wall Street said in a statement. Occupy Wall Street said the march will end with "a housewarming block party" for the family, while protesters begin work on renovating the foreclosed property. "The NYC foreclosure tour and home re-occupation is part of a big national day of action on December 6 that will focus on the foreclosure crisis and protest fraudulent lending practices, corrupt securitisation, and illegal evictions by banks." Organizing for Occupation, or o4o, a New York-based activist group which enters abandoned properties and makes them available for homeless familes, is one of a number of organisations which have joined Occupy Wall Street in the action. The others include Picture the Homeless and New York City Communities for Change. Activists from o4o have already occupied the Brooklyn house which protesters will march to, and were responsible for matching a family to the property. Co-founded by prominent radical Episcopal priest Frank Morales – a proponent of squatting since the late 1970s – o4o normally moves destitute families into homes "covertly", with the intention of establishing a long-term residences for them. A sub-group known simply as "crack" enters and secures vacant properties, before "a lot of people with skills" take over and renovate, Morales said. Set up in response to the housing crisis, o4o has infiltrated roughly a dozen buildings in the city since June. Ed Needham, who acts as a media liaison for Occupy Wall Street, said the Occupy Our Homes demonstration represented a new phase for the Occupy movement. "Across the coutry we're expecting thousands," he added. "We expect over 1,000 protesters to take part in events in New York tomorrow, and hundreds to be at the house." Needham said he was unsure "how long the family will be able to stay" at the property, given that the action has been widely publicised, however activists are keen for the follow-up to the 6 December march and occupation to be just as important as the event itself, with one o4o activist telling the Guardian he hoped the demonstration would kick off a "mass occupation" of foreclosed homes and vacant properties nationwide. |
Drew Schumann This year, after Western journalists poured into Libya as the civilian population took up arms and lunged into war, a line of coverage on makeshift arms production and distribution found its way into many newspapers, magazines and Web sites. The New York Times was part of this, with coverage on the anti-Qaddafi forces’ hasty acquisition, production and fielding of all manner of repurposed arms and the vehicles to carry them. Often these weapons were poorly used. Sometimes they were fired just as indiscriminately as the weapons fired by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s troops that NATO, in its United Nations-approved bid to protect civilians, claimed to marshal international will to stop. Some of these weapons were also instrumental in the anti-Qaddafi militias’ eventual success, as was visible in Misurata. (For a fuller view of many of these themes, read this report on the hidden plant in Misurata, or these explainers on the dangerous repurposing of 57-mm air-to-ground rockets or 122-millimeter Grad rockets or, in this case, the knuckleheaded firing of plainly labeled inert rockets toward Qaddafi forces in Libya’s mountainous west.) As the anti-Qaddafi forces celebrate Thursday the killing of Colonel Qaddafi, the Libyan war has as part of its legacy its status as a showcase of this sort of behavior. But Libyans were hardly the first to cobble together their tools of war. Any number of guerrillas or terrorist organizations in any number of wars have relied on makeshift arms, or clumsily repaired arms or repurposed arms, to bring a fight to a materially superior adversary. Think of the grinding, day-in-and-day-out campaign of improvised explosives against Western and government troops in Afghanistan or Iraq. These campaigns draw lethal tools from similar sources and similar garage- or workshop-level labor, much of it resourceful, determined and, in a technical sense, talented. Or think of the Palestinian rockets long fired at Israel. Or consider again Afghanistan, where improvised arms have been used by all sides. The Afghans (and their Pashtun brothers in Pakistan’s western frontier territory) could well serve as Exhibit A for arms-sustaining ingenuity in the past several decades. By mixing foreign handouts and government support with local scrounging, repairs and add-ons, Afghan and Pakistani gunmen of almost all loyalties and stripes have taken to the field with an extraordinarily varied array of ground-to-ground arms. We’re at work now on a post that will examine the tactics and some of the equipment behind the 107-millimeter rockets that crews fire on American-Afghan outposts in Paktika Province. As part of that work, I’ve been corresponding with Drew Schumann, a former United States Army intelligence officer now working as a researcher for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Kabul, who has been helping me to examine photographs of a pair of 107-millimeter tubes. And as we have been corresponding, Mr. Schumann sent me a set of images he made of a government-owned machine gun that someone had found a way to keep working well after most any other government would have either had it overhauled or retired. Look closely at the weapon at the top of this post. It’s a familiar sight: a PKM machine gun, one of the staples of the Afghan war (and, for that matter, most any war; this week alone I have seen images of PK variants from Afghanistan, Libya and Yemen, and that’s in just a routine skim). The PK series was first fielded by the Soviet Union in the 1960s, and like many Eastern bloc arms, it quickly spread to Soviet satellites, allies and proxies, and became one of the more commonly seen weapons of modern war. In this particular case, the PKM in the photograph was in Afghan government service guarding the walls at the main prison in Herat. It’s an easy identification to make. But do you notice anything unusual? Zoom in for a closer look. Drew Schumann It’s not just that the weapon has been held together with post-factory welds, and then repainted. Look more closely. Or, better yet, refer to this other image. Drew Schumann As Mr. Schumann wrote in a recent e-mail, “Someone, somewhere is wondering where in hell their bicycle went.” Gunspotters everywhere will recognize that as a fine observation, and a good one-liner, too. (Was that refurbished stock really cut from a bike frame? Could be.) And it certainly all plays right into one of this blog’s consistent themes. Once infantry arms are loose in the field, they can last and last and last. Think of it. Who would have predicted back in the mid- to late-Soviet period, when these machine guns were designed and assembled, that they would a soak up scrap and then adorn guard towers at prisons run by an American-supported government in Afghanistan? Among those who follow weapons and wars, a sight like this is often grounds for a riff, because such sights are loaded with so much history, and so many themes. Where exactly did this PKM come from? Probably no one can say, at least not in any step-by-step way. Just as no one can say how long the Afghan security forces will survive once the United States draws down its forces, and what the latest Afghan war will leave behind. Elements of the Soviet Union’s Afghan proxies made it roughly five years, though they didn’t fully evaporate — they provided clay for militias, including some of the current American-backed formations. Maybe the latest effort at a national army, police force and intelligence service will outlast us all. Let’s leave that argument for the future. It’s one of the contentious lines of thought that we’ll all probably be talking about in the years ahead. But whatever your take on the prospects of Afghan security force survivability over the next decade, no matter who you think will pay for it all, what it will cost and how much chance the project has of success, this weapon carries a reminder made of steel. It is this: Whatever becomes of the now sprawling Afghan forces the American taxpayers have underwritten and equipped, many of the hundreds of thousands of weapons the United States has provided them will stick around, and assume all sorts of new uses and unexpected shapes. We’d like to say: Bicycle owners, beware, and leave it there. History suggests that the weapons’ effects will go well beyond that. An army’s tools often long outlast an army’s creators, and can become instruments for forces those who handed out the weapons did not foresee. (For more on these themes, see What’s Inside a Taliban Gun Locker and The Rifles of Ghazni Province. |
Francis Scarpaleggia was put in a very odd position on Thursday morning. As chair of the special committee on electoral reform, the Montreal MP was front-and-centre presenting recommendations on one of the government’s signature election promises, to change the federal voting system before Canadians next head to the polls. However, Scarpaleggia and other Liberals on the committee insist citizens are simply too apathetic right now to risk putting the complex issue to a checked-out electorate in a referendum, which was one of the committee’s central recommendations. “We’re of the opinion on the Liberal side of this committee that Canadians as a whole are not enough engaged on the issue of electoral reform,” he argued in a press conference unveiling the committee’s report. “If there’s a referendum and people aren’t engaged in the issue and they haven’t assimilated the issue properly, what you’re going to have is a referendum result that doesn’t reflect the valid question, and that’s a very dangerous thing.” It’s curiously circular logic, in a way. If there are no concrete choices on the table, serious debates or advertising campaigns going on, there’s not much to seize the public by the lapels when it comes to an undeniably esoteric, though important, issue. And if the government believes it’s prudent to wait for some undetermined level of interest to be aroused before it acts, it’s unlikely any of those things will take shape that might, in fact, get people to tune in. The Liberals have made it clear they don’t want a referendum. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who pledged on the campaign trail that the 2015 election would be the last under the first-past-the-post system, has argued that status quo is the most likely outcome of putting the issue to a vote, meaning “referendums are a pretty good way of not getting any electoral reform.” Maryam Monsef, minister of democratic institutions, told the committee in July that she was skeptical a referendum was the best way, because it was divisive and a blunt instrument to decide complex matters. She has instead repeatedly insisted the government will not move forward without broad public support, but has not been specific about what that means. On Thursday, in a lengthy press conference that included members of the electoral reform committee representing all five parties in the House, the tone shifted as time went on. What started out as cheery, collegial back-slapping about the hard work and cross-partisan bonding the committee members had done as they travelled across the country hearing from citizens and experts eventually slid into testiness and factional impatience. Near the end of the event, Nathan Cullen, an NDP MP on the committee, expressed frustration with the vague way the Liberals have defined the conditions they now see as necessary to alter the voting system. “This test of the public has to have some undefined level of engagement before we can act: well then, when would government act?” he asked. His hope is that citizens would tune in simply because the whole exercise is central to democracy, he said. “And at some point, the minister is going to have to define what the hell she means by broad consensus, broad support. It’s a term that’s thrown out there but yet never defined,” Cullen continued in exasperation. “Well, that can be a self-defeating prophecy if you’d like.” Later on Thursday afternoon, Monsef—who was not present at the morning press conference—appeared to further distance her government from its commitment to swift electoral reform. She threw the committee members under the bus, chiding that they didn’t offer a specific alternative to the current voting system and “did not complete the hard work we expected them to.” And on the same day the committee tabled its report, Monsef was set to launch another listening exercise on electoral reform. In a mass mailout, more than 13 million Canadian households will receive postcards inviting them to provide online feedback about their democratic values. “I don’t want to pre-judge what she’ll find with that, but we’re just saying that as of Dec. 1, we don’t believe Canadians are sufficiently engaged to have a referendum tomorrow on this,” Scarpaleggia said. |
MOSCOW — The Russian government has approved a 684.8 billion ruble ($9.3 billion) anti-crisis plan as the country’s economy struggles with low oil prices and Western sanctions, and looks set to contract for a second consecutive year. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday that he had signed off on the 120-point plan. According to a copy of the plan published online by the Russian government it is designed to “guarantee the stable social and economic development of the Russian Federation in 2016." The Russian economy shrank 3.7 percent in 2015 and rating agency Standard & Poor’s said last week it expected a second year of recession in 2016, with gross domestic product predicted to contract by 1.3 percent. The price of oil, Russia’s chief export and forex earner, collapsed from highs of $115 a barrel in mid-2014 to below $30 a barrel earlier this year. The anti-crisis plan approved by the government comes after weeks of wrangling and is substantially smaller than initial proposals. Russian Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev told a Feb. 18 cabinet meeting that the anti-crisis plan would cost 880 billion rubles ($11.9 billion). “The size of plan suggests that the Finance Ministry has successfully repealed efforts to boost spending as earlier versions of the plans called for a more aggressive [approach],” analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch said in a note to investors Wednesday. Photo: Reuters The majority of the funds — 462.2 billion rubles ($6.3 billion) — for the rescue plan would be drawn from the budget in its existing form, but the government has yet to determine where the remaining funds will come from, the Vedomosti business daily reported Wednesday. Russia has several rainy-day funds, built up during years of high oil prices, and the Central Bank reported Feb. 19 foreign currency reserves of $379 billion. Vedomosti speculated Wednesday that aside from spending cuts, other possible sources of revenue could be a recent gasoline excise duty hike or improved tax collection. Russia’s economic woes, including a currency collapse and significant declines in real wages, have been compounded by Western sanctions on Moscow imposed in 2014 over Kremlin's role in the Ukraine crisis. But the maximum damage has been inflicted by low commodity prices and experts see little chance that they will bounce back in the near future. Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said in January that if oil prices remain at about $30 a barrel, Russia would face a budget shortfall of 3 trillion rubles. About half the revenue of the Russian government is drawn from energy exports and policy makers are struggling to control the budget deficit which grew to 3 percent in 2015, its widest in five years. “A new wave of price declines for hydrocarbons and metals has undermined Russia’s prospects for an economic recovery this year, prolonging a recession that has spanned the past 18 months,” Standard & Poor’s said in a report last week, which downgraded Russia’s economic prospects for 2016. |
WASHINGTON — Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump delivered a speech to the country’s largest pro-Israel gathering Monday intended to clarify his views on the US-Israel relationship. But in an address that included details of Middle East geopolitical relationships, the controversial GOP presidential candidate offered mixed signals on his plans for the Iran nuclear deal under a Trump administration. “The number one priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran,” he said at the onset of his speech, winning a standing ovation from American Israel Public Affairs Committee delegates who spent the first half of last year stridently opposing the deal. Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up Later in the speech, he seemed to say he would enforce the deal rigorously, not “dismantle” it. Click here for Trump’s full speech to AIPAC The speech was well received at the AIPAC gathering after Trump’s opening lines: “I speak to you today as a lifelong supporter and true friend of Israel. I’m a newcomer to politics but not to backing the Jewish state.” He went on to rail against the Iran nuclear deal. “I have been in business a long time. I know deal-making, and let me tell you this deal is catastrophic for America, for Israel and the whole of the Middle East,” he said, a line he has used in some of the earliest GOP debates earlier this year. “The problem here is fundamental. We’ve rewarded the world’s leading state sponsor of terror with 150 billion dollars and we’ve received nothing in return.” After winning enthusiastic applause for that tough talk on the Iran deal, the audience giggled when he claimed that he had “studied the deal more than anyone else.” “The problem is that they can keep the terms and get the bombs by simply running out the clock, and of course they’ll keep the billions and billions of dollars that we so stupidly and foolishly gave them,” Trump said. “When the restrictions expire, Iran will have an industrial-size nuclear capability ready to go.” Trump, who has been criticized for avoiding any serious discussion of foreign policy, recited facts and data throughout the speech, from the range of the ballistic missiles tested by Iran in recent weeks to figures for Iranian-sponsored terror attacks in recent years. He outlined what he described as his “strategy,” including standing up to “Iran’s aggressive push to destabilize and dominate the region.” Detailing Tehran’s impact, Trump highlighted Iran’s arming of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, as well as financial support for Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza and offer of payment to Palestinian terrorists in the West Bank, describing it as a “deplorable, deplorable situation.” “We will totally dismantle Iran’s global terrorist network, which is big and powerful – but not powerful like us,” he promised. After promising to dismantle the nuclear deal, Trump then seemed to return to past assurances that instead of “tearing up” the nuclear deal, as other Republican candidates have promised, he would instead “enforce the terms of the previous deal and we will enforce it like you haven’t seen the terms of a contract enforced.” Trump complained that Iran has been able to test ballistic missiles in contravention of UN resolutions that oppose it. “The problem is that no one has done anything about it. We will – we will – I promise you,” he declared. Whereas he was booed during the Republican Jewish Coalition’s Candidates’ Forum in December for refusing to committ to moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, Trump was eager to change the narrative of neutrality, which has proved a powerful tool for his opponents to ding his pro-Israel credentials. “We will move the American embassy to the eternal capital of the Jewish people,” he declared to applause. “We will send a clear signal that there is no daylight between America and our most reliable ally the state of Israel.” Trump received another round of applause from the audience when he criticized “the utter weakness and incompetence of the United Nations.” “The UN is not a friend to democracy, not a friend to freedom, not a friend to the United States of America where it has its home, and it is surely not a friend to the state of Israel.” But that applause was dwarfed by the enthusiasm he garnered from many quarters in the 18,000-strong crowd when he noted that “President Obama [is] in his final year — yay!” “He may be the worst thing that ever happened to Israel,” he said. He then warned about an impending international effort to impose a peace settlement via the United Nations. “With the president in his final year, discussions have been swirling to bring a Security Council resolution on terms of a final agreement. “An agreement imposed by the United Nations would be a total and complete disaster,” he predicted. “The US must oppose this resolution and use the power of our veto, which I will use as president, 100 percent.” Trump warned against imposing any sort of a solution on Israel and the Palestinians through international organizations. “That’s not how you make a deal. Deals are made when parties come together.” Imposing an external solution “will only further delegitimatize [sic] Israel. It will be a disaster and a catastrophe for Israel” and “reward Palestinian terrorism.” Speaking of that terrorism, he noted the stabbing death last week of American veteran Taylor Force in a Palestinian terror attack in Jaffa. “You don’t reward behavior like that. You can not do it,” he continued. “There is only one way you treat that kind of behavior. You have to confront it.” Instead of backing a UN peace push, Trump said, “the United States can be useful as a facilitator of negotiations. But no one should be telling Israel that it must abide by an agreement made by others thousands of miles away who don’t really know what’s happening in the region.” “We know Israel is willing to deal,” he said. “Israel has been trying to sit down at the negotiating table without preconditions for years.” It was Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, he said, who has refused peace overtures. “When I become president, the days of treating Israel like a second class citizen will end on day one,” Trump vowed. “I will meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately. I have known him for many years. We will work closely together to bring stability and peace to the entire region.” While a number of protests were planned for Trump’s address – and an estimated 300 protesters did leave the vast arena where he delivered his speech – the opposition was barely palpable in a room of some 18,000. Shouts of “I love you Trump” were coupled with audible boos, and while some jumped to their feet in standing ovations, other attendees sat in stony silence. At least one protester was escorted out of the arena when he appeared to unfurl a banner. |
Lots of little topics to get to today. The Eagles are going to sign QB G.J. Kinne today or in the near future. He’s got to get his release from an Arena League team before the Eagles can officially make the move. Several of the beat writers reported that Kinne is just here as a camp arm. I liked Kinne coming out of Tulsa last year. I mentioned him last spring in a PE.com piece on draft prospects that were creating a buzz. It is also worth noting that Kinne’s QB coach at Tulsa in 2011 was Press Taylor. He’s now the Offensive Quality Control coach for the Eagles. Kinne was signed because the Personnel Dept had a good grade on him and not because of anything Taylor said, but it sure can’t hurt Kinne that his old position coach is on the staff. Kinne had a highly productive career at Tulsa. His highlight was a 28-27 upset of Notre Dame in South Bend back in 2010. Tulsa ran a spread attack and finished in the Top 6 in points and yards that season. Chip Kelly runs up-tempo practices that have lots of reps. He might want 5 QBs to keep everyone’s arm fresh. He could add a 6th QB in the draft or as a UDFA. We could turn around and cut Trent Edwards (or Kinne), but it is possible Kelly will want to start with 6 QBs and see how things go from there. * * * * * Our old friend Stewart Bradley was cut today. The Cards signed him to a 5-year, $25M deal a couple of years back. Oops. Disco Stu hasn’t been the same since his ACL injury in the summer of 2009. Such a promising career…gone. Could the Eagles look at him as a backup ILB? DeMeco Ryans and Mychal Kendricks are good as the starters. Jamar Chaney and Casey Matthews are the backups. I’m fine with both of them for the WILB spot (Kendricks). There, they’ll be protected and just have to run to the ball. We need someone to be the backup at SILB. Some call this the thumper role. You must be able to engage OL and shed blocks. Chaney can do that occasionally, but not consistently. Matthews has struggled in this area going back to Oregon. Bradley was very good at it prior to his ACL injury. He struggled in Arizona at just about everything. The argument against Bradley is that he’s going to turn 30, was relegated to STs this past season, and hasn’t played well since 2008. The argument for him is that he does have good size and would be cheap. If he comes to camp and looks good, you keep him. If he struggles, you send him packing. Bradley always seemed like a leader and good locker room presence to me. I’d be willing to sign him for the veteran minimum and see if he could be good depth. * * * * * The Falcons cut RB Michael Turner, DE John Abraham, and CB Dunta Robinson. Turner is of no interest to us. Abraham had 10 sacks and 6 FFs in 2012, but he turns 35 in May. I think he signs a short deal with a SB contender. The Falcons may have tried to re-negotiate his deal. There is also talk of them making the full conversion to a 3-4. Robinson is a starting CB, but not a very good one anymore. He’s going to turn 31 in April and is undersized at 5-10, 185. I don’t think the Eagles will have interest in him. * * * * * A lot of you want to know about Safeties in the draft. I’m watching lots of tape and doing my evaluations. I’m also looking at the free agents. Here’s the thing…I think the only guy on the roster that can now be looked at as starting material is Nate Allen. And he’s coming off a bad season. I’m not comfortable with him right now. I think the Eagles need to add a starting Safety in free agency. I then think the Eagles need to add a Safety in the first 4 rounds of the draft. That way you’ll have 3 starting caliber talents competing for 2 jobs. If Nate gets his act together, great. If he is erratic, he can sit. Kurt Coleman and David Sims will battle a UDFA or possible late rounder for the #4 spot. I’d love Kurt to win that because I still like him a lot. He’s just not the guy that Bill Davis is going to want on the field. Colt Anderson stays because he is an impact STer. If you read Bill Davis and John Lovett’s comments, they seem to want big guys. What I don’t know is how badly they want a ballhawk. All 32 teams would love guys that are big, fast, physical, and can make plays in the passing game, but those guys are hard to find. I think the Eagles focus should be on adding at least one big Safety. I’m even open to the idea of going after LaRon Landry. We need Safeties that aren’t just big blow up hitters, but are big and strong enough to be physical run defenders. We need guys that are strong open field tacklers. Assuming we add a SS type in FA, we’d need more of a FS to come in and challenge Nate. I’d love to add Jonathan Cyprien in the 2nd round, but don’t think he’ll be there. He probably goes late in the 1st. Two guys that have grown on me considerably are Eric Reid and Baccari Rambo. I watched them intently early on and they didn’t live up to the hype, but I found as I watched tape of their teammates, those guys started to show up on a regular basis. They weren’t as good as the SEC hype machine made them out to be, but both guys can be good NFL starters. Reid is bigger and more physical. Rambo has better hands and is more of a ballhawk. DJ Swearinger is a big time hitter, but he’s a walking fine from Commissioner Goodell. He’d have been ideal a decade ago. He’s still a good player, but is a better hitter than tackler. JJ Wilcox is a bit raw, but has excellent potential. Phillip Thomas led the nation in INTs this year. He has great hands. He’s big. Thomas lacks ideal speed and is an inconsistent tackler. I won’t cover every Safety here, but those are some of the big names that get the most questions. I don’t know what the Eagles will think of Matt Elam or Shamarko Thomas. Elam is 5-10, 208. Thomas is 5-9, 213. Those aren’t the frames the coaches prefer, but both players have thick, strong builds. Both can be explosive hitters. Could we live with the lack of height due to the strength? I don’t know. This is where we have to learn the new staff and how they think. I haven’t settled on which FA Safety I want the most. Jairus Byrd just got the franchise tag so he’s off the market. If I can get a veteran S with some size and then add a guy like Reid, I’d be very happy. If we pass on a S in the 2nd or 3rd, but took TJ McDonald in the 4th…that would also interest me. He’s big. He has good hands. He can hit. McDonald was inconsistent at USC, but has serious potential. He’s no Taylor Mays either. Mays was a wuss. McDonald can be tough. He just has yet to put it all together. What about Kenny Vaccaro? Love him. Not worth pick #4. Won’t last past 25. Could go Top 15. If the Eagles move back, he’s definitely a target. I think. As Sam has pointed out many times, the Eagles didn’t take a Texas player during the Reid era. I’m not sure about UDFAs either. I know we had a QB at mini-camp once. We did sign Vince Young. The Eagles had serious interest in Aaron Ross a few years back. I don’t know how much interest they had in Earl Thomas. Would the Eagles have broken the streak to draft those guys or was Reid so anti-Texas that he wasn’t going to take anyone from there? It will be interesting to see when we do finally draft a Texas player. We did take one in 1998, the year before Reid arrived. * * * * * Tim McManus spoke with Brandon Graham and got some good info on his potential move to OLB. I do call a little B.S. on Graham saying he played at 275 last year. Washburn wanted his guys light and sleek. Graham was super-proud of losing a bunch of weight. I’m guessing he was probably under 275. His goal is to be in the 260’s this year. Smart. * * * * * David Syvertsen put together some post-Combine thoughts. I don’t always agree with Dave’s opinions, but he does the film study and I respect what he has to say. Part of the fun in being a draftnik is seeing how your opinion varies from someone who just watched the very same player/game as you. Sometimes, obviously, that is due to the other person not knowing what they’re talking about. There are plenty of times when scouts, coaches, and GMs disagree. Player evaluation is tricky. You can see different things. You can like/dislike different things. This is like the art at the mall where you stared at the piece. Someone saw Jesus on a skateboard while the next guy just saw trees and rocks. Dave covered the Safety position with a quick blurb in his piece. Good stuff. * * * * * Cullen Jenkins is reportedly visiting the Giants today. _ |
A note to all celebrities visiting Miami for A-list events like New Year's Eve, Ultra Music Festival, and Art Basel: Miami is a real place, with real problems, and you don't live here. That's typically still true for famous people who own Miami property: There's a clear distinction between people like Iggy Pop and DJ Khaled, who live here year-round and give back to the community, and guys like Drake, who own houses here but visit so infrequently they film whole music videos here without unwrapping their furniture. Nicki Minaj, a New York City native, belongs in the latter group, which is why it's so upsetting to see her latest Instagram post, in which she treats the city's people like CGI characters from SimCity. As Art Basel came to a close, she filmed herself making fun of a clearly mentally ill woman in South Beach. The woman is a regular on the streets of South Beach: She's often seen hanging out in high-traffic areas smoking cigarettes, and many believe her to be homeless. |
If you are fearful of government impinging on individual liberty, yet determined not to waver in the fight against terror, the last few days can’t have been much fun for you. Do you defend the capability of the National Security Agency and GCHQ to use the technology available to monitor terror suspects to the maximum of its ability? Or do you defend the rights of innocent citizens to unqualified privacy? Even the protagonists cannot help us: right-wingers are asked to side with either President Obama or Glenn Greenwald. An impossible choice, obviously. This is some paradox. Beginning with the individual liberty argument, it is clear several of the key actors here have done themselves no favours. Obama’s brusque dismissal that NSA agents “take this work very seriously; they cherish our constitution” and so that must be the end of the story, is typically arrogant. US National Intelligence Director James Clapper’s claim to Congress that the NSA does not intentionally collect data on Americans is, by his own admission, “untruthful”. British Foreign Secretary William Hague’s clumsy “if you are a law-abiding citizen you have nothing to fear” line has rightfully been condemned by Index on Censorship as “the sort of justification we might expect from China”. The dangers of a surveillance state have been betrayed by the incompetent, idiotic spin of the British and American governments since this story broke. Certainly the checks and balances in place to prevent abuses of power by intelligence agencies need to be emphasised and reinforced to reassure a justifiably sceptical public. Even more so in our technological age. This does not mean the civil libertarians are right. David Simon astutely, and with some colour, writes that “we want cake, we want to eat it, and we want to stay skinny and never puke up a thing” – a position developed by Dan Hodges: “even in a free society, the state has to have some secrets”. As someone who holds suspicion of the state and concentrated power as a core ideological belief, this seems the antithesis of everything I believe. But he is right. Pure, unadulterated, libertarian freedom is incompatible with catching the bad guys. Furthermore, and crucially, are the NSA and GCHQ actually doing what the Guardian and Greenwald are accusing them of? Bob Cesca raises real questions over the veracity of Greenwald’s journalism. First, his assertion – repeated four times in his original article – that the NSA has “direct access” to the Google, Apple, Microsoft etc. servers, is contested by the companies themselves. They insist the NSA had to pass the safeguard of agreeing consent. Unless they are not telling the truth, the phrase “direct access” is an exaggeration. Second, the Washington Post has amended its own original story, now saying that PRISM was used to “track foreign targets” and not US citizens. Greenwald has not changed his own story that US citizens were targeted. Why the change from WaPo; why the sudden, unexplained discrepancy? Third, Greenwald has let slip that he was working with Edward Snowden in February, before he started working for Booz Allen and the NSA in March. As Guy Walters notes it appears Greenwald and Snowden therefore planned to look for abuses, quite plausibly to serve their own agenda. Fourth, no evidence has been produced that anyone working for the NSA or GCHQ breached any law whatsoever, or that any information was obtained without a warrant. Anyone except Snowden. This isn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card for right-wingers who don’t want to make a tough call; these are serious questions that need answering. If Greenwald can do that then fair play to him, but as things stand we don’t have conclusive evidence of the abusive surveillance state he says exists. These are the reasons – ideological and practical – that many on the right have yet to choose a side. Until we know the whole story, scepticism of all involved is the only safe position to hold. Alex Wickham is the UK Political Correspondent for The Commentator. He tweets at @WikiGuido |
Justin Trudeau had just received an award. The prime minister of Canada was attending a high-powered energy summit in Houston, Texas on March 9, where he was toasted for his global leadership on energy and the environment. He told the crowd of executives and politicians that he would be treating them to “a little family history.” His father, former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, introduced a National Energy Program that was a failure, he said. “The NEP introduced a level of state control over energy that hurt growth and jobs,” said the prime minister, referring to the 1980 plan which critics said shifted wealth and control from Alberta to Ottawa. Not only that, it made his family hugely unpopular in the Western Canadian province, he said. He knew he couldn’t make the same mistake. “All Canadians,” Trudeau declared, “get the importance of energy.” Pipeline projects, he vowed, are “progress.” No country, argued Trudeau, “would find 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground and just leave them there.” No country, perhaps, but a number of the world’s energy giants are indeed deciding to walk away from Alberta, home of the world's third largest reserves of crude oil after Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, or taking billions of barrels off their books, indicating they consider it uneconomical to produce. Meanwhile, the price of oil continues to stagnate since a 2014 crash. The trend is leading industry watchers to ask: what does the future hold for the region? Trudeau and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) are confident that the country’s oil patch will continue to be developed, and analysts note that U.S. accounting regulations often obscure the reality on the ground. One company at the centre of it all defended its divestment of billions of dollars of oilsands assets by saying it still retains an important stake in the region’s success. But some see a blockbuster deal this month by that company, Royal Dutch Shell plc, as a kind of confirmation that everything has changed. Shell has a long, storied history boosting oilsands development. Yet on the same day Trudeau was saying he’d never make the same mistake as his father, Shell announced it was divesting $7.25 billion USD of its oilsands interests, staying on only as an operator of an oil upgrader, and of a carbon capture and storage project. “Shell was betting its future on the oilsands,” said Lorne Stockman, a senior research analyst at Oil Change International in Washington, D.C., in an interview. At one point, he said, the firm was one of the most bullish companies in the region, with some of the biggest investments. “That’s just not the case anymore,” he said. “They’ve sold out. That’s a massive signal. The future of the oilsands is nowhere near as rosy as was generally thought five to 10 years ago.” Good discussion with energy companies at #CERAWeek on getting resources to market and developing renewable energy for today & tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/3IUPAT7jv2 — Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) March 10, 2017 CAPP sees things differently. The Shell decision, said president and CEO Tim McMillan in an emailed statement, “signals a strong, long-term view of the value of Canada’s oilsands to be the energy of tomorrow.” “The global energy market is extremely competitive and that means Canada must be more competitive, whether we are competing for customers, being mindful of government costs, or continuing to lead on innovations and environmental performance,” McMillan said. CAPP cites an International Energy Agency forecast suggesting that the country will see the fourth-largest growth in global oil supply after Iraq, Brazil and Iran, 2015-2040. Yet the Shell step-back comes just weeks after it was reported that ExxonMobil Corp. and ConocoPhillips were removing billions of dollars and billions of barrels of oil off their books, at least for the time being. Other companies like Total SA and Nexen, a subsidiary of a Chinese national oil firm, have stepped away from projects or assets in recent years. As a result of low prices in 2016, Exxon's entire 3.5 billion barrels of bitumen at the Kearl Oil Sands Project no longer qualified as proved reserves under U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) guidelines, said spokeswoman Lauren Kerr. "These revisions are not expected to affect the operation of the underlying projects or to alter the company’s outlook for future production volumes," she said. A representative from Conoco declined to comment. The oilsands require large amounts of energy to produce, making the industry Canada's fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions. This intensive environmental footprint also means that the industry would face serious challenges in a carbon-constrained world — at least based on projections by the same International Energy Agency, cited by CAPP. The IEA has estimated nearly two-thirds of fossil fuels must be left in the ground to prevent global warming of more than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, a threshold that scientists have predicted could cause dramatic and irreversible changes to the planet's ecosystems. “The direction of travel is really not going the way any of these companies would like, and certainly is not going the way they expected just a few years ago when the oilsands was the next big thing,” said Stockman. Shell’s sellout, he said, “is unprecedented...for Shell to get out of the oilsands is a huge red flag for other companies.” Shell ties bonuses to emissions Shell’s decision also came soon after Norway oil giant Statoil ASA fled the scene in December. Statoil’s participation in the oilsands, said a senior vice-president at the time, bent "our cost and emission curves.” It was reported the same month that Shell would be tying 10 per cent of its directors’ bonuses to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. That step was taken “to increase alignment with Shell’s refreshed strategy to be a world-class investment,” Shell spokeswoman Tara Lemay said in an emailed statement. “As always, safety and environmental stewardship are central to all Shell does,” she wrote. “To support the efforts Shell is already making, and based on recommendations from the (company's) Corporate and Social Responsibility Committee, we have selected scorecard measures focused on three specific business areas: refining, chemical plants and flaring in upstream assets. This goes beyond carbon dioxide to include other GHGs such as methane.” Companies and governments have faced public pressure for decades to abandon development of the oilsands over concerns it is too carbon-intensive a form of energy extraction. The writing's on the wall: 7 major oil companies recently reduced or sold off their #oilsands assets https://t.co/gQihOiuZmD #cdnpoli — EnvironmentalDefence (@envirodefence) March 14, 2017 In addition to continuing to operate the Scotford upgrader, Shell is maintaining its Quest carbon capture and storage project, which the company says will "capture more than one million tonnes of [carbon dioxide] emissions" from oilsands operations "and permanently store these emissions deep underground." Lemay said these projects show that “we retain an important stake in the success of the Canadian oilsands and Alberta’s climate plan.” The Alberta government introduced a carbon tax Jan. 1, while the federal government plans to introduce carbon pricing to all Canadian jurisdictions by 2018. Canada committed to the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, which requires cutting emissions by 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. Environmental Defence says a retreat by seven multinationals from the oilsands in recent months shows it is “time for Canada to plan for a managed decline of the industry and a just transition for workers and communities affected by the shift to a clean economy." A costly price plunge The oilsands are quite costly to develop. To profit, a company needs a relatively high break-even threshold. Production sometimes requires high upfront investments, while the bitumen that’s extracted needs extra steps for processing into oil, which then needs to be transported over far distances. Canadian oil also trades at a discount on world markets. In boom times, with oil reaching over $100 USD a barrel, all this expense is worth it, at least in terms of corporate profits. But since 2014, the price of oil has remained stubbornly low. Canada's main stock index sank to its lowest point of 2017 early this week, dragged down by low oil prices. Alberta’s crown corporation ATB Financial expects oil to stay around $55-$60 USD over this year and next. "This is bad news for Alberta and its producers," wrote ATB's economics and research team on March 15. One reason the price has dropped so low is that the market became flooded with oil. In the United States, new technology generated a “revolution” in shale oil development, boosting that country’s domestic oil production by millions of barrels a day, according to the Financial Times, and triggering an expanse of oil production in Saudi Arabia as well, in a bid to compete with new US rivals. The United States is Canada’s biggest oil customer, and Canada contributes more than 40 per cent of America’s imported crude, according to the prime minister. "Not only is the U.S. our number one buyer of oil exports, increasing supply, but oil is also beginning to lose its valuable price gains,” wrote ATB. “Information available on oil field production and on rig counts suggests a supply glut could continue to persist.” Down, but not out In some cases, the low price obscures what's happening on the ground. It's the price of oil, not production intent, that made Exxon and Conoco take resources off their books, argued Robert Skinner, an executive fellow at the University of Calgary's School of Public Policy. The debooking, as it’s known, is part of a process designed to comply with U.S. securities rules, and revisions to proved reserves don't necessarily affect the firm's operations. The SEC requires a company to debook reserves if they’re not considered “economically producible,” calculated using a backward-looking price, explained Skinner. This process “happens all the time,” he said. In fact, as Exxon spokeswoman Kerr pointed out, the company sees several entry points to rebooking its Kearl reserves. One, said Kerr, is a recovery in average price levels; another is a drop in costs or operating efficiencies. "Under the terms of certain contractual arrangements or government royalty regimes, lower prices can also increase proved reserves attributable to ExxonMobil," she said. "We do not expect the downward revision of reported proved reserves under SEC definitions to affect the operation of the underlying projects or to alter our outlook for future production volumes." Andrew Leach, an energy and environmental economist and associate professor at the University of Alberta’s school of business, agreed those two announcements aren’t indicative of a larger shift to abandon oilsands assets indefinitely. “It’s more of a reflection of low prices last year for these particular projects than it is a reflection of whether these barrels are likely to stay in the ground,” he said. Plus, the flip side to foreign oil giants pulling out of the oilsands is that Canadian producers are stepping in. 5 reasons our CEO Brian Ferguson believes we’re on the verge of an oil sands renaissance. https://t.co/llxZC3Io8s — Cenovus Energy (@cenovus) February 23, 2017 Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., for example, "gobbled up Shell’s oilsands operations at a bargain," wrote the Financial Post. That commanded attention in other corners of the industry for its "contrarian" approach. The Calgary Herald called it a "made-in-Canada evolution." Meanwhile, it was reported in January that MEG Energy plans to spend $400 million over the next two years adding production in northern Alberta, including drilling new wells. And Cenovus Energy announced plans in December to revive an oilsands project. So no one should count out the oilsands just yet; the future of the region is far from certain. Editor's note: This story was updated at 21h28 ET on March 16, 2017 to include new comments from ExxonMobil. |
Were thrilled to announce that SageTV has been acquired by Google. We're also now thrilled that Google let us open source the SageTV platform! The source code is now available on GitHub Since 2002, weve worked to change the TV viewing experience by building cutting-edge software and technology that allows you to create and control your media center from multiple devices. And as the media landscape continues to evolve, we think its time our vision of entertainment management grows as well. By teaming up with Google, we believe our ideas will reach an even larger audience of users worldwide on many different products, platforms and services. Weve seen how Googles developer efforts are designed to stimulate innovation across the web, and as developers have played a core role in the success of SageTV, we think our shared vision for open technology will help us advance the online entertainment experience. We look forward to joining Google, and while we dont have anything specific to announce at this time, we encourage interested developers to email: sagetv-dev@google.com Full speed ahead! The SageTV Team The SageTV Forums can be accessed here |
Health insurance premiums are rising less than 5% on average for the most popular health plans individuals are buying on public exchanges under the Affordable Care Act, according to a new analysis. The Urban Institute, calling earlier predictions of soaring premiums “overrated,” said it found a 4.3% jump in the average premium across 20 states and the District of Columbia for the lowest-cost silver plan. The Institute said it looked at final approved rates in contrast to reports that looked at proposed rates, which generally listed premium increases in the double-digit percentages. “The average premium of the lowest-cost silver plan decreased in six states and D.C.,” Urban Institute researchers wrote in their report, which is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “The average premium of the lowest-cost silver plan increased by less than 5% in five states, increased between 5% and 10% in five states, and increased by more than 10% in just four states.” Silver plans are sold by all major carriers including Aetna , Anthem , Cigna , Humana , UnitedHealth Group and Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans. Silver plans have been by far the most popular choice on the public exchanges, the insurers have said. Urban Institute researchers say many insurance companies “may have priced aggressively early on in order to gain market share, then modified that strategy this year.” This research echoes what some health insurance companies have been saying on their quarterly earnings calls about market pricing and actions of their competitors to capture business. For 2016, health plans have been making adjustments to rates and terminating some high-cost plans like preferred provider organizations (PPOs) that allow for greater access to doctors and hospitals. Instead, insurers are offering more lower-cost plans, but consumers will find these plans have narrower medical care provider networks and therefore access to fewer doctors and hospitals. “While rates have not increased significantly in all markets, plans have changed in other ways, so consumers should shop carefully,” said Kathy Hempstead, who directs coverage issues at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Americans are this month just noticing the final rates during the open enrollment period for subsidized coverage for individuals under the health law that runs to Jan. 31, 2016. |
IT is said to be the most impregnable vault on Earth: built out of granite, sealed behind a 22-tonne door, located on a US military base and watched over day and night by army units with tanks, heavy artillery and Apache helicopter gunships at their disposal. Since its construction in 1937, the treasures locked inside Fort Knox have included the US Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address, three volumes of the Gutenberg Bible and the Magna Carta. For several prominent investors and at least one senior US congressman, it is not the security of the facility in Kentucky that is a cause of concern: it is the matter of how much gold remains stored there — and who owns it. They are worried that no independent auditors appear to have had access to the reported $137bn (€104bn) stockpile of brick-shaped gold bars in Fort Knox since the era of President Eisenhower. After the risky trading activities at supposedly safe institutions such as AIG they want to be reassured that the gold reserves are still the exclusive property of the US and have not been used to fund risky transactions. In other words, they want to be certain that the bullion has not been rendered as valueless as if a real-life Goldfinger had stolen it. “It has been several decades since the gold in Fort Knox was independently audited or properly accounted for,” said Ron Paul, the Texas Congressman and former Republican presidential candidate. “The American people deserve to know the truth.” Mr Paul has so far attracted 21 co-sponsors for a Bill to conduct an independent audit of the Federal Reserve System — including its claims to Fort Knox gold — but an organisation named the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA) is taking a different approach. It has hired the Virginia law firm William J Olson to test US president Barack Obama‘s promise to bring “an unprecedented level of openness” to the US government. Next month it will file several Freedom of Information requests for a full disclosure of US gold ownership and trading activities. Nuclear “We’re taking the president at his word,” said Chris Powell, of GATA. “If you go online you can find out how to build a nuclear weapon but you won’t find any detailed records on central gold reserves.” A month after former US president Richard Nixon resigned over the Watergate affair, Congress demanded to inspect the contents of Fort Knox but the trip to Kentucky was dismissed by critics as a photo opportunity. Three years earlier, Mr Nixon brought an end to the gold standard when France and Switzerland demanded to redeem their dollar holdings for gold amid the soaring cost of the Vietnam War. Many gold investors suspect that the US has periodically attempted to flood the market with Fort Knox gold to keep prices low and the dollar high — perhaps through international swap agreements with other central banks — but facts remain scarce and the US Treasury denies that any such meddling has gone on for at least the past decade. Pressure for more openness is mounting after the collapse of the global banking system and renewed interest in a return to the simpler era of the gold standard — a subject that is likely to be raised at the G20 summit next week. China and Russia are calling for the creation of a new world reserve currency amid fears that the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing policy — essentially printing money — might cause hyperinflation, then collapse. A spokesman for the US Treasury said that US gold holdings were audited every year by the Department of Treasury’s Office of Inspector General. He confirmed that although independent auditors oversaw the process they were not given access to the Fort Knox vault. The website of the US Mint says that the 147.3million troy ounces of gold in Fort Knox “is held as an asset of the US”. It does not elaborate. (© The Times, London). – Chris Ayres in Los Angeles |
English translation of an ironic text sympathetic to the views of the Imaginary Party. The Great Game of Civil War Rule 1. Until the new order, all your rights are suspended. Naturally, it is good that you conserve the illusion that you still have them. Also, we will only violate them one by one, and case by case. Rule 2. Be polite: no longer speak to us of laws, of the Constitution, and all these elucubrations of another age. For some time, as you will note, we have made laws that place us above the law, as with the rest of this so-called Constitution. Rule 3. You are weak, isolated, dazed, abused. We are numerous, strong, and enlightened. Some say that we are a mafia. This is false, we are THE mafia that has vanquished all the others. We alone are capable of protecting you from the chaos of the world. And that’s why it pleases us to penetrate you with the sentiment of your weakness, of your “insecurity”. Because this is in proportion to the profitability of our racket. Rule 4. The game for you consists of flight, or at least to attempt to flee. By flight, we mean: to surpass your state of dependence. For now, it is quite true, you depend on us in all the aspects of your life. You eat what we produce, you breathe what we pollute, you are at our mercy down to the smallest point, and above all you can do nothing against the sovereignty of our police, to whom we have conferred total latitude, in terms of action as well as appreciation. Rule 5. You will not be able to flee alone. Thus, you will have to commence by constituting the necessary solidarities. To make the game more difficult, we have achieved the liquidation of all forms of autonomous sociality. We have only let work survive: sociality under control. It’s this that you must flee, by theft, friendship, sabotage, and self-organization. Oh, one clarification: all the means of flight we have made crimes. Rule 6. We never stop repeating: criminals are our enemies. But by that you must first understand this: that our enemies are criminals. In so much as potential deserters, each one among you is also a potential criminal. That’s why it is good that we conserve the list of numbers that you have called on your phone, that your cell phones allow us to locate you at any moment, and your credit card helps us to thoroughly know your habits. Rule 7. In our little game, those who leave their isolation are called “criminals”. In regards to those who have the gall to contest this statute, we will call them “terrorists”. The latter can be killed at any moment. Rule 8. We are well aware that life in the ranks of our society contains about as much joy as a trip on the suburban train system; that up until now capitalism has produced, in spite of its richness, only a universal desolation; that our moth-eaten order has no other arguments than the rubber bullets that protect it. But what do you want: it is thus! We have disarmed you mentally and physically; and we maintain the monopoly of all that we have denied to you: violence, complicity and invisibility. Frankly, if you were in our position, would you do anything else? Rule 9. You will know prison. Rule 10. There are no more rules. All attacks are permitted. |
Hostile Town Hall For Congressman Who Helped Save GOP Health Care Bill Enlarge this image toggle caption Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images If the giant inflatable Trump chicken outside New Jersey Rep. Tom MacArthur's town hall didn't make it clear — or the group of people singing health care-themed protest songs; or the Affordable Care Act cemetery; or even the plane circling overhead trailing an anti-MacArthur message — an early moment in the Republican's constituent town hall provided a sign this was going to be a long, contentious night. That's when several people in the Willingboro, N.J., crowd started to boo and jeer when MacArthur talked about his daughter, Grace, who died at age 11. "Shame!" yelled one person. "We've heard this before," complained another. Their complaint: that MacArthur was somehow exploiting the story of his daughter's illness as he leads the Republican push to repeal key aspects of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. "I will say, shame on you right now, actually," MacArthur responded. "Don't tell me what I'm using. I'm going to tell you because this affects my perspective. It affects my perspective on this issue of health care." The tense moment set the tone in a marathon town hall that lasted well past the length of time it takes many people to run actual marathons. Enlarge this image toggle caption Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images For nearly five hours, MacArthur faced hostile question after hostile question from a crowd eager to show its displeasure with Republicans' Obamacare repeal attempts, the firing of FBI Director James Comey and the lack of an independent commission investigating potential ties between President Trump's campaign and Russia. "I must say, I have a great deal of admiration for your tolerance for masochism," constituent Ruth Gage noted somewhere around the three-hour mark. (Gage went on to needle MacArthur about the need for single-payer health insurance.) Defending the Republican health care bill The room was tense, especially on the topic of health care, because MacArthur authored the key amendment to the American Health Care Act that won enough support from House Republicans for the measure to pass on a razor-thin margin. "This is your health care bill. It was dead in the water. It could have stayed dead in the water and now it's the MacArthur Amendment that brought this thing forward," said Derek Reichenbecher. "What I'm worried about is, if I lose my job, I suddenly am no longer in the market, I'm no longer covered, my governor who is not a friend of people like me right now decides to opt out. What happens?" MacArthur said repeatedly throughout the night that the House bill won't deny coverage or increase costs for people with pre-existing conditions, and that the changes that could steer people into high-risk pools only applied to a small segment of the population: buyers on the individual market who let their coverage lapse for two months or more. "Look I hear the fear. I know it's real," he said, after one of many detailed, personal stories about health care battles and insurance woes. In this case, it was from a woman who relies on Medicaid, the federal-state program that helps pay for health care. "And as I said, I think it's tremendous courage for you to come out and share that," MacArthur continued. "I am trying to save a system so it continues to help you. That's all I can tell you. I'm trying to make sure that Medicaid is strong enough to continue to help you." But the crowd wasn't in the mood to hear MacArthur's arguments about how tort reform and other cost controls were needed to make health insurance more affordable. They viewed the House health care repeal as something that could take their coverage away. Indeed, the Congressional Budget Office estimated some 24 million people would lose coverage over the coming decade if an earlier version of the measure were to become law. From health care to Russia The second topic to dominate the evening: Russia. No one asked about anything other than those two issues for more than two hours. Kimberly Stewart was one of the first people to ask about the FBI's probe into whether anyone on Trump's campaign colluded with Russian operatives. "We seem to be having a pattern that most people that are investigating it seem to be getting fired. Do you support an independent group investigating Russia's ties into the 2016 election?" "No, not yet," MacArthur said, to more boos. He wants to see how the House, Senate and FBI investigations play out, and repeatedly argued that a special prosecutor would not be a "silver bullet" guaranteeing an independent probe. "Folks, I didn't come here to defend our president tonight," MacArthur said at one point. "I came to answer your questions and tell you what I think and what I am doing." At points MacArthur rolled with the hostility — he gave no visible reaction when one constituent stood within a few feet of him and yelled for nearly 10 minutes. At other times, MacArthur was clearly frustrated. "Is this what you want in your country? You don't like what somebody says and they're an idiot and they're dishonest and they're a fraud?" he asked. Increasingly, in all political quarters, it appears like that's the case. NPR's Barbara Sprunt contributed to this report. |
Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare has many class variants. For the plants, many of them add elemental effects to their primary attacks. Unlocking them is very time-consuming because you need a lot of coins. 40k guarantees a character, but that's it. The lower packs give you pieces you must collect to unlock a character. If you want tips on getting the most coins, look at my Coins Guide. I'll go over every Peashooter variant in the game and explain what they do. If you would like an overall guide of the Peashooter class, check out my Peashooter Guide. This guide will cover everything about the Peashooter variants including: Peashooter Variants - Each variant and what they do. - Each variant and what they do. Class Variant Tips - Tips for each variant, when necessary. Peashooter Variants - Which Peashooter is for you? Peashooter Default variant. They shoot peas that do splash damage. Upgrades - Extra Peas!, Hyper Plant Food, Super Pea Ammo. Extra Peas!, Hyper Plant Food, Super Pea Ammo. Extra Peas - Increases ammo capacity. Increases ammo capacity. Hyper Plant Food - Makes reloading faster. Makes reloading faster. Super Pea Ammo - Increased damage of primary weapon. Increased damage of primary weapon. Stats Ammo - Peas Peas Reload - Fast Fast Damage Type - Impact Splash Damage Impact Splash Damage Range - Mid Fire Pea These Peashooters have an added fire effect to their Peas. They will burn enemies, causing extra damage over time. Upgrades - Extra-Hot Peas!, Heated Plant Food, Incendiary Pea Ammo. Extra-Hot Peas!, Heated Plant Food, Incendiary Pea Ammo. Extra-Hot Peas - Increases ammo capacity. Increases ammo capacity. Heated Plant Food - Makes reloading faster. Makes reloading faster. Incendiary Pea Ammo - Increased damage of primary weapon. Increased damage of primary weapon. Stats Ammo - Flaming Peas Flaming Peas Reload - Fast Fast Damage Type - Fire damage over time Fire damage over time Range - Mid Ice Pea These Peashooters have an added ice effect to their peas. Shooting enough of these will freeze enemies, slowing them down. Upgrades - Ice-Packed Pea Bags, Chilled Plant Food, Harder Freezer-Burned Peas. Ice-Packed Pea Bags, Chilled Plant Food, Harder Freezer-Burned Peas. Ice-Packed Pea Bags - Increases ammo capacity. Increases ammo capacity. Chilled Plant Food - Makes reloading faster. Makes reloading faster. Harder Freezer-Burned Peas - Increased damage of primary weapon. Increased damage of primary weapon. Stats Ammo - Frozen Peas Frozen Peas Reload - Fast Fast Damage Type - Freezing damage Freezing damage Range - Mid Mid This is a good variant to use in Gardens and Graveyards, or if you have multiple chompers on your team. You can slow down enemies, making it harder for them to capture bases, and allows Chompers to get behind enemies easier for the kill. Toxic Pea Shoots toxic peas for poison splash damage over time. It has a toxic aura around it that does damage to nearby enemies. Shots do less damage over time than Fire Pea. Upgrades - Extra Toxic Peas, Toxic Plant Food, Toxic Pea Ammo. Extra Toxic Peas, Toxic Plant Food, Toxic Pea Ammo. Extra Toxic Peas - Increases ammo capacity. Increases ammo capacity. Toxic Plant Food - Makes reloading faster. Makes reloading faster. Toxic Pea Ammo - Increased damage of primary weapon. Increased damage of primary weapon. Stats Ammo - Toxic Peas Toxic Peas Reload - Fast Fast Damage Type - Toxic damage over time Toxic damage over time Range - Mid Mid Great on groups of enemies, especially in Garden and Graveyards when a bunch of zombies are at the garden. Commando Pea This Peashooter shoots rapid fire peas like a machine gun. Less damage but can shoot faster. Upgrades - Extended Pod, Organic Plant Food, Full Pea Jacket Ammo. Extended Pod, Organic Plant Food, Full Pea Jacket Ammo. Extended Pod - Increases ammo capacity. Increases ammo capacity. Organic Plant Food - Makes reloading faster. Makes reloading faster. Full Pea Jacket Ammo - Increased damage of primary weapon. Increased damage of primary weapon. Stats Ammo - Rapid-Fire Peas Rapid-Fire Peas Reload - Medium Medium Damage Type - Impact damage Impact damage Range - Short to Mid Short to Mid Does not have splash damage, but great for covering teammates. The quick shooting makes up for the lower damage. Agent Pea Uses "silenced" peas. Takes away the splash damage and makes the shots more precise. They fire quicker shots that look like sniper shots and do more damage when getting critical hits. The closer you are, the more damage you do from critical hits . . Upgrades - Extra Top Secret Ammo, Top Secret Plant Food, Pea-Pea-7 Special Ammo. Extra Top Secret Ammo, Top Secret Plant Food, Pea-Pea-7 Special Ammo. Extra Top Secret Ammo - Increases ammo capacity. Increases ammo capacity. Top Secret Plant Food - Makes reloading faster. Makes reloading faster. Pea-Pea-7 Special Ammo - Increased damage of primary weapon. Increased damage of primary weapon. Stats Ammo - Silenced Peas Silenced Peas Reload - Fast Fast Damage Type - Extra Damage for Critical Hits Extra Damage for Critical Hits Range - Short to Mid Short to Mid This Peashooter is best used for sniping out of all of them. You can make quick, precision shots, especially on rooftops. Keep in mind you will do more damage closer, so move up if you need to kill someone quickly. It is also helpful to snipe Zombies from far distances before they even reach a garden in Gardens and Graveyards. Law Pea Takes away the splash damage and makes the shots more precise. They are similar to Agent Pea's shots except they have less ammo. They also shoot as fast as you can pull the trigger, so a lot faster than Agent Pea. Upgrades - Ammo Increase, Lightning Reflexes, Extra Lead. Ammo Increase, Lightning Reflexes, Extra Lead. Ammo Increase - Increases ammo capacity. Increases ammo capacity. Lightning Reflexes - Makes reloading faster. Makes reloading faster. Extra Lead - Increased damage of primary weapon. Increased damage of primary weapon. Stats Ammo - Deputized Peas Deputized Peas Reload - Medium Medium Damage Type - Impact Damage Impact Damage Range - Mid Mid Law Pea look like a lesser version of Agent Pea at first glance, until you start shooting. Not having any delay between shots make up for only having 6. If you are precise, you can take zombies down quickly with this variant. That's it for the Peashooter variants. If you have any questions, or more info/tips for any of the variants, let me know in the comments! For tips on other classes and variants in Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare, check out my Master Guide List. |
Twenty percent of 2,164 baby foods sampled between 2003 and 2013 by the Food and Drug Administration tested positive for lead, according to an analysis released Thursday by the nonprofit advocacy group, the Environmental Defense Fund. Lead is a neurotoxin. Exposure at a young age can permanently affect a developing brain, causing lifelong behavioral problems and lower IQ. Though the levels in the baby food were generally below what the FDA considers unsafe, the agency’s standards are decades old. The latest research suggests that there is no safe level of lead for children. Yet the Environmental Protection Agency this year has estimated that more than five percent of US children (more than a million) get more than the FDA’s recommended limit of lead from their diet. The products most often found to contain lead were fruit juices, root vegetable-based foods, and certain cookies, such as teething biscuits, the EDF reports. Oddly, the presence of lead was more common in baby foods than in the same foods marketed for adults. For instance, only 25 percent of regular apple juice tested positive for lead, while 55 percent of apple juices marketed for babies contained lead. Overall, only 14 percent of adult foods tested contained lead. The findings come from data collected in the FDA’s annual survey of foods, called the Total Diet Survey, which the agency has run since the 1970s. Each year, the agency samples 280 types of foods from three different cities across the country, tracking nutrients, metals, pesticides, and other contaminants. The survey preferentially includes national brands, but, unfortunately, the agency does not identify the brands or their test results—something parents are likely to want to know. In March of this year, the EDF submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to get that brand-level data from the agency. For now, the only brand-level data available is that from a 2012 Consumer Reports review of juices. Heavy meals EDF EDF EDF EDF EDF For the new analysis, the EDF sifted through 12,000 publicly available food tests from the 11 years. The 2,000 or so samples that were marketed for babies were split into 57 food types by the FDA. Of the 57 categories, 52 contained at least one food sample that tested positive for lead. For simplicity, the EDF sorted the baby foods into eight categories: root vegetables; non-root vegetables; fruits including juices; cereal; infant formula; prepared meals; crackers and cookies; and desserts. Root vegetable-based foods fared the worst, with 65 percent testing positive overall. The top offenders in this category were sweet potatoes and carrots: 86 percent of 44 sweet potato samples were positive, and 43 percent of carrot foods tested positive of 44 samples. The cookie/crackers category came in second with 47 percent positive overall. Arrowroot cookies (64 percent of 44 samples) and teething biscuits (4 percent of 43 samples) were most often found positive. In third place were fruit juices, with 29 percent positive overall. The juices with the highest positive rates were: grape (89 percent of 44 samples), mixed fruit (67 percent of 111 samples), apple (55 percent of 44 samples), and pear (45 percent of 44 samples). Lower standards The levels in the foods were below what the FDA considers alarming, and the dose that a child gets depends on their overall diet and what other exposures they have. The major source of lead exposure in US children is paint, in the forms of paint chips and dust from aging housing. Contaminated water and soil are also sources. That said, the FDA’s food standards were set in 1993. Those standards suggest that children get no more than six micrograms of lead per day, based on children having no more than 10 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood. However, a 2012 NIH study found evidence that levels less than 5 μg/dL “decreased academic achievement, IQ, and specific cognitive measures; increased incidence of attention-related behaviors and problem behaviors.” The EDF reported that the CDC is expected to lower its recommended blood levels to no more than 3.5 μg/dL in 2017. For now, the FDA requires bottled water to have no more than five parts-per-billion of lead, mainly because that “was the lowest amount FDA could reliably measure in 1995, and only four percent of the water tested exceeded the limit,” the EDF reports. The Academy of Pediatrics suggests drinking water in schools contain no more than one ppb. The FDA doesn’t have any firm regulations on lead in other foods but limits lead in grape juices to 50 ppb. What the source of lead might be in the baby food is unclear. The suspected sources include contaminated crop soil and contamination during processing or packaging. It’s also unclear why baby foods would have more lead than adult foods and why some products within a food category could test negative while others had relatively high amounts. The EDF recommends that the FDA and manufacturers step up their game to reduce lead in products, and parents should consult with their pediatricians to figure out strategies to limit exposure. The FDA has indicated that it is re-evaluating its standards for lead in foods. |
By Saswat Pattanayak Pete Seeger was not the “American conscience”, as he is being now crowned by the corporate media after his demise. In reality, he was the UnAmerican conscience. And to understand this, it is important to underscore the extent of his internationalism, his commitment towards humanity, his selfless unpatriotic journey as a fervent communist, his lifelong quest against American militarism, adventurism and exceptionalism. Most importantly, to use history as a weapon in the class struggle, as Pete used music as his tool, it is pivotal to not let go of the “unAmerican” label that was imposed upon him by the American power, because he was perceived to be a communist, when in August 1955, he was summoned before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), and he refused to testify against his comrades or to pass on any information regarding the Communist Party that could help implicate any office-bearer of the party. Unlike many entertainers and intellectuals who gave in to the peer pressures or social benefits, Seeger always stood by his old comrades. Disregarding his own health and limitations, when he arrived at the Tamiment Library of New York University on October 28, 2006 to express his appreciations for African-American civil rights activists James and Esther Jackson at a symposium titled, “James and Esther Jackson, the American Left and the Origins of the Modern Civil Rights Movement”, I had my first privileged opportunity to meet him. What struck me instantly was how humble and accessible a public personality he indeed was, when he took time out for an exclusive chat where he showered praises on India. What also struck me from his outward appearance was that he not only sang for the working class, he also belonged to the masses. There was not a whiff of elitism about him, not a remote chance of him being perceived as a celebrity. For the few more times that I got to see him after that day, I always noticed him wearing the same shirt, or something quite similar. Nothing fancy about his outfits at all. The only other constant was the way he made sure to engage the audience in the songs he sang. Even a stage appearance for him was an occasion for revolutionary potential. He was a legendary musician, possibly the greatest in his genre; and yet he was not surrounded by bodyguards. Difficult to imagine such a public personality in our contemporary celebrity culture. Maybe because, he never lived a pretentious life boasting extraordinary lifestyles that most celebrities possess today. The last time I got to see Seeger was at a solidarity event for the imprisoned Native American activist Leonard Peltier, on December 14, 2012. It was a sobering occasion, and Seeger dedicated profound emotions for Peltier. Not only was he used to stand up for the rights of the marginalized and oppressed people of color, he also always expressed his desire for greater racial diversity. In recommending the same for the US Flag, he once wrote: “My blue is good, the color of the sky. The stars are good for ideals, oh, so high. Seven stripes of red are strong to meet all danger; But those white stripes: they, they need some changing. I need also some stripes of deep, rich brown, And some of tan and black, then all around.” Seeger’s refusal to cooperate with the American ruling class was not one of his own design. He always recognized his stake in being identified as an American. He never denied the privileges he enjoyed as a white male in America whose “light-skinned ancestors participated fully in the decisions, good and bad, which formed this nation.” And yet, he also acknowledged that it was the stench emanating from American pride that was repulsive to him. He wrote in 1969: “At midnight in a flaming angry town I saw my country’s flag lying torn upon the ground. I ran in and dodged among the crowd, And scooped it up, and scampered out to safety… And then I took this striped old piece of cloth And tried my best to wash the garbage off. But I found it had been used to wrapping lies. It smelled and stank and attracted all the flies.” The lies and deceptions characterizing American hegemony had formed the impetus for revolutionary music that went back to search for answers in the folk traditions. As a key figure in the movement, Pete Seeger relentlessly championed the causes of the oppressed through his emphasis on proletarian music. During the 1930s and 1940s, whereas the political struggles of the Communists suffered owing to sectarianism from within the movement and repression from outside, their cultural journey – firmly founded by the likes of “Joe Hill” and “Hammer Song”, never really subsided. It merely transformed itself into even more radical positions. As a result, 1946-1949 marked the period of People’s Songs, Inc., which provided the crucial glimpse into the potential of cultural workers in American communism. With Paul Robeson in its Board of Sponsors, People’s Songs had clear goals of pursuing the path of socialist realism. In March 1946, People’s Songs elected a national board of directors which included Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Alan Lomax, Bess Hawes, Lee Hays, Millard Lampell, Walter Lowenfels, Felix Landau, Earl Robinson, Benjamin Botkin, Tom Glazer, Waldemar Hille, among others. For all the three years until People’s Songs dissolved, Pete Seeger remained its national director. People’s Songs was followed by People’s Artists and the Weavers – both communist folk collectives, and they continued the tradition of the Old Left through the sixties. Seeger’s songs were far from merely “protest music”. They were radical communist verses, calling for uncompromising class wars, infused with boundless optimism for a new progressive era that the working class must usher in. Along with Lee Hays, Seeger wrote in 1949: “O, comrades, come and travel on with me, We’ll go to our new year of liberty. Come, walk upright, along the people’s way, From darkness, unto the people’s day. From dark, to sunlit day. Tomorrow is a highway broad and fair And hate and greed shall never travel there But only they who’ve learned the peaceful way Of brotherhood, to greet the coming day. We hail the coming day.” What the People’s Songs under Seeger had achieved was remarkable and unique in the context of American history. They strove to collect and preserve American folk materials with the aim of disseminating progressive values. This vision was made possible upon their visits to Soviet Union where American artists witnessed first-hand how the socialist state was providing institutional supports to sustain and nurture cultural roots. Pete Seeger himself had been to Soviet Union to verify the fruits of revolution, first hand. In his recollections at a later stage, he once wrote, “What I saw in the Asian republics of the USSR was a great satisfaction to me. I think it proves that Kipling was wrong when he said East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet. He was wrong, it’s not true, they can meet. And let’s hope that in the world to come they’ll be meeting more and more…. I was surprised by the bright-colored clothing that Soviet people wore. In America I was often told that Russia is a drab country, that everybody dresses in browns and blacks because they’re scared of wearing anything bright. Walking down the average Soviet street, you see the brightest colors you ever saw: reds, yellows, greens, blues, purples, pinks, sometimes all on top of each other. We saw a young man in the Frunze airport with a green hat, a purple jacket, and a red suitcase – bright, all of them, bright….Now it’s perfectly true that the average Soviet citizen can’t, as yet, afford the many luxuries the average American can. The average food on their table is not as fancy. So I was happy to note that even though Russia doesn’t have the stores overflowing with different commodities that American cities have, neither does it have the slums. This is important to me because, while I love my own country, I must confess that there’s not a city I can go to where, in parts of the town, the streets are not littered with trash, the houses are unpainted and dilapidated, and the people live with a sense of demoralization and lack of hope because they think there’s no chance for them ever to get ahead.” Progressive American artists upon returns from the USSR had helped create the Federal Arts Project which found governmental support in the US not only in archiving and enriching historical materials, but also for the first time, in ensuring that American artists too, like their Soviet counterparts, received compensations for their works which was to be recognized as necessary contributions to society. The WPA Arts Project helped in distribution of folk music, and the group comprised Charles Seeger, Earl Robinson and Herbert Haufrecht. Charles Seeger was the father of Pete Seeger. Charles Seeger was the founding member of the communist cultural group of the 1930s: Composers Collective, which was an offshoot of Pierre Degeyter Club of New York City – named after the French composer of “Internationale”. Composers Collective was just about as radical as it could get. Their foreword proclaimed: “Music Penetrates Everywhere It Carries Words With It It Fixes Them In the Mind It Graves Them In the Heart Music is a Weapon in the Class Struggle.” Music was indeed a weapon in the hands of Composers Collective – an unpolished, unsophisticated group that was musically catering to the masses, and therefore revolutionary in every sense. According to Charles Seeger, “proletarian music was defined by its militance in text and tune and by its association with the working class.” The collective drew inspiration from a German revolutionary composer Hanns Eisler whose songs were sung by untrained workers on mass marches. The only reason the Composers Collective could embrace specific musical legacies, especially of folk, was because of their reliance on the “Mighty Five” Russian composers – Mussorgsky, Balakirev, Borodin, Cui, and Rimsky-Korsakov. The communists were Americans, and the Americans the communists in the Composers Collective, which gave way to later radical formations, Almanac Singers and People’s Songs. And Charles Seeger’s son Pete Seeger was to carry the burden forward to enlighten, agitate and entertain. He wrote: “If a revolution comes to my country Let me remember now Old dollar bill, you won’t mean much I better learn right now What in life has true value And, oh, if we’d only learn to share There’d be no more need for revolution Oh, hear the thunder. . .” Ably aiding Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger was Alan Lomax who was serving as director of there Archive of American Folks Songs in the Library of Congress. Lomax helped Guthrie, Seeger, Josh White, Burl Ives, and Leadbelly perform across cities and to bring folk music back to the folks, in a progressive, emancipatory package. Lawrence Gellert’s “Negro Songs of Protest” also helped chronicle the specific plights of black workers in a labor movement that was complicated by race relations. The slogan of the Popular Front during FDR’s time, “Communism is twentieth century Americanism” was inspired by Stalin’s prescription for Soviet Union where nationalism and communism intersected in useful ways. Socialist realism informed American folk musical traditions to the extent that Charles Seeger set standards to judge music: “The main question, should not be ‘is it good music?’ but ‘what is the music good for’?” Being Charles Seeger’s son, Pete Seeger was not only introduced to the rich traditions of folk music that informed American history, but also to the immense radical possibilities that communism had to offer. Seeger joined the Young Communist League at Harvard in 1937 and decided against becoming a journalist since he refused to make compromises on political fronts. His association with Popular Front during Earl Browder’s leadership of CPUSA remained unflinching. Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie supported the Communist Party’s decisions all the way, including at the most controversial of times, when FDR was addressing American Youth Congress to favor aid for Finland to fight the Soviet Union. Guthrie ridiculed FDR with “Why do you stand there in the rain?” Both of them, along with Lee Hays, Millard Lampell and John Peter Hawes, were part of the Almanac Singers. As unrepentant communists, they vociferously attacked Roosevelt when the communists adopted an anti-war position, and urged him later on to extend support to Soviet Union as an important ally. Here is a stanza that describes FDR as a warmonger prior to Germany’s attack on Soviet Union: “Oh Franklin Roosevelt told the people how he felt We damned near believed what he said He said, “I hate war — and so does Eleanor, But we won’t be safe till everybody’s dead.” Comparing FDR to bankers and militarists, Seeger further wrote, “Franklin D., listen to me You ain’t gonna send me ‘cross the sea. ‘Cross the sea, ‘cross the sea You ain’t gonna send me ‘cross the sea. You may say it’s for defense But that kinda talk that I’m against. I’m against, I’m against, That kinda talk ain’t got no sense. Wendell Wilkie and Franklin D., Seems to me they both agree, Both agree, both agree, Both agree on killin’ me.” After Germany attacked the Soviet Union, the communists needed wartime organizing, and the Almanacs supported the war efforts in no uncertain terms: “The butcher, the baker, the tinker and the tailor Will all work behind the soldier and the sailor — We’re working in the cities, we’re working in the woods And we’ll all work together, to deliver the goods.” Seeger was never to mince words and he never did, regardless of shifting political positions – “Now Mr. President, we haven’t always agreed in the past, I know, But that ain’t at all important, now, What is important is what we got to do, We got to lick Mr. Hitler, and when we’re through, Let no one else ever take his place, To trample down the human race. So what I want is you to give me a gun, So we can hurry up and get the job done.” It is important to note that Seeger was not driven by pacifism or any spiritual notion of universal peace. For him, peace was an active process needing persistent political efforts towards combating fascism in every creative way possible; and therefore to institute peace, if there was a requirement to turn his music into a weapon, he never hesitated to sing pro-war anthems. With Guthrie’s guitar machine “killing the Fascists”, Seeger joined him and Lampell in expressing their collective hatred towards Hitler in this telling stanza of 1941: “I wish I had a bushel, I wish I had a peck, I wish I had a rope to tie Around old Hitler’s neck. Hitler went to Russia In search of Russian oil, But the only oil he’ll find there Is a pot in which he’ll boil.” Because the American press worked overtime to expose the contradictions in CPUSA stands, and since raid-baiting was a stark reality, Seeger wrote “Talking Unions” to clarify Almanacs’ position – “Now, you have come to the hardest time; The boss will try to bust your pocket line. He’ll call out the police, the National Guard; They’ll tell you it’s a crime to have a union card. They’ll raid your meeting, hit you on the head. Call every one of you a goddamn Red – Unpatriotic – Moscow agents – Bomb throwers, even the kids. But out in Detroit here’s what they found, And out in Frisco here’s what they found, And out in Pittsburgh here’s what they found, And down in Bethlehem here’s what they found, That if you don’t let Red-baiting break you up, If you don’t let stool pigeons break you up, If you don’t let vigilantes break you up, And if you don’t let race hatred break you up – You’ll win.” The House Un-American Activities Committee reported on the Almanac Singers in 1944 and they were viciously attacked in the press as Communist entertainers. No respite followed even after Almanac Singers gave way to People’s Songs and the Weavers. When for the first time, HUAC heard testimony against them in July 1947, they were denounced as “subversive organization”, and a “vital Communist front because of its emphasis on appeal to youth and because of its organization and technique to provide entertainment for organizations and groups as a smooth opening wedge for Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist propaganda.” Against the overwhelming climate of red-baiting, of various left (Trotskyist) oppositions towards the communists and the McCarthy era looming large, Seeger remained defiant, and along with Guthrie, he supported and rallied around Progressive Party candidate Henry Wallace, as per CPUSA line. And Seeger wrote the iconic “Hammer Song” to celebrate the communist symbol: “If I had a hammer, I’d hammer in the morning, I’d hammer in the evening — all over this land. I’d hammer out danger! I’d hammer out a warning! I’d hammer out love between my brothers & my sisters — All over this land.” Seeger’s antiwar sentiments have been much written about. What is less mentioned is that his opposition to war was principled and decisively progressive. His protests against Vietnam War was indeed against American hooliganism and militarism. His call to bring the American troops home was at the same time, an open support for Vietnam’s right to self-determination. He wrote: “I may be right, I may be wrong, But I got a right to sing this song, Bring them home, bring them home. There’s one thing I must confess, I’m not really a pacifist, Bring them home, bring them home. If an army invaded this land of mine, You’d find me out on the firing line, Bring them home, bring them home. The world needs teachers, books and schools, And learning a few universal rules, Bring them home, bring them home. So if you love your Uncle Same, Support our boys in Vietnam, Bring them home, bring them home.” Seeger did not quite stop there. In a glowing tribute to Ho Chi Minh, he wrote: “I’ll have to say in my own way, The only way I know, That we learned power to the people and the power to know From Teacher Uncle Ho!” Seeger always took his communism seriously and he wrote about capitalistic contradictions, but carefully employing a language that was truly accessible to the workers, to the “bottom” uneducated and semi-literate section of society who he remained connected with, all his life. If it was Teacher Uncle Ho at times, it was Karl the Marx at other times that he introduced in his songs. In a poem later in his career, he wrote about the class society in America and resented how the working class was being stigmatized: “Some say the trouble’s in the Pentagon Some say the trouble’s in the street Some say the president’s a paragon Where’s the trouble at the bottom?… Some say the trouble’s with the system Some say the trouble’s in the class Karl said the trouble is the upper one, That is the upper, not the bottom.” Like Robeson, Seeger had chosen his side in the class war that was, and continues to be, waged. He was deeply affected by the imperialistic aggressions and social unrests afflicting the world. And yet, he was hopeful of resolutions and positive outcomes, and like fellow communist poets Victor Jara and Nazim Hikmet whose songs he also used to adapt post-translations, he too remained at heart a romantic, an untiring lover of humanity. When he dabbled with imaginations for a better world that he, the weaver, could weave, he wrote: “Oh, had I a golden Thread / And needle so fine I’ve weave a magic strand / Of rainbow design In it I’d weave the bravery / Of women giving birth, In it I would weave the innocence / Of children over all the earth, Far over the waters / I’d reach my magic band Through foreign cities / To every single land, Show my brothers and sisters / My rainbow design, Bind up this sorry world / With hand and heart and mind, Far over the waters / I’d reach my magic band To every human being / So they would understand.” Seeger was always resolute and optimistic. He possibly could not afford to be otherwise. For someone with the burden of carrying the legacies of several generations of radical songsters, he had to convince the world that he was going to be there every step of the way. And he knew more than any of us, that the march towards a Soviet America was a long and tiring one. But it had to begin with changing the hearts of the people, with expanding the scopes for their imaginations. It was going to be a long process, step by step. In his words, therefore: “Step by step, the longest march can be won, can be won Many stones can form an arch, singly none, singly none And in union what we will, can be accomplished still Drops of water turn a mill, singly none, singly none.” Share Saswat - Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Like this: Like Loading... |
11:17pm: The Cardinals, Blue Jays, Red Sox, Rays and Indians are all "seriously in the mix" for Beltran, according to Scott Miller of CBSSports.com. There could be another team involved. 10:40pm: The Indians have jumped into the Carlos Beltran negotiations, according to ESPN.com's Buster Olney (on Twitter). Though GM Chris Antonetti has been on the lookout for offense this offseason, this is the first time the Indians have been publicly linked to Beltran. Beltran has two and three-year offers and hopes to decide on a new team this week, according to Scott Miller of CBSSports.com (all Twitter links). The Blue Jays and Cardinals are among Beltran’s most aggressive suitors, Miller reports. The switch-hitter appears to be weighing a more substantial contract offer against a city he prefers. He is open to DHing on a part-time basis. Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com reported tonight that Indians people are considering “everyone but Prince [Fielder]” as they hunt for upgrades at first base and in the outfield. The Indians now have Michael Brantley, Grady Sizemore, Shin-Soo Choo, Ezequiel Carrera, Shelley Duncan and the newly-acquired Aaron Cunningham in the outfield mix. Beltran would be a welcome addition to an offense that ranked 16th in MLB in runs scored in 2011. |
Opponents of the New Mexico oil industry would have you believe that life in New Mexico hangs by a thread due to the potential disasters tied to oil exploration, development and production. Further, they insist that state government must intensify the rules on drilling or the water, air and land of New Mexico will be ruined for generations. Not true. There was a time when New Mexico was very contaminated, and it has taken decades for that terrible pollution to abate. Many New Mexicans were sickened by this pollution and the human damage remains to this day. This pollution was not by oil; rather, it was plutonium. No one seems to remember this. The first atomic explosion was a test of an implosion-design plutonium device. It was set off at Trinity Site roughly between Socorro and Carrizozo on July 16, 1945. There was one aspect that surprised scientists. The explosion stirred the landscape below the 100 feet tower and then spewed this toxic material into the atmosphere while subsequent rains flushed the fallout down the Tularosa Basin, Pecos and the Rio Grande Valleys. The plutonium acted upon generations of unknowing New Mexicans. When the United States dropped the two devices on Japan it used an “air-burst” method at about 2,000 feet to keep from really contaminating these areas. While that helped Japan, it was not much help to already contaminated New Mexico. Of interest: There were three nuclear devices over two years at the Trinity Site and only two of them exploded. One device underground did not explode and was dubbed Sleeping Beauty. The unexploded nuclear device was finally dug up in 1967 and removed. The triggering device used car batteries with a life of seven years, so the scientists waited 21 years to declare the batteries really dead. Of course, visitors to Trinity Site in the 1950s and 60s did not know about Sleeping Beauty. The federal response to concerns about nuclear contamination and danger was, “We beat the Japanese, what do you want?” I would like to know if it was worth making New Mexicans sick. An attempt to impose political agendas The current phobia about oil contamination pales in comparison to our plutonium contamination. Any problem with oil can be dealt with no lasting effect. But we must understand the notion of oil contamination for what it is: an attempt to impose political agendas upon New Mexico. Advertisement The environmental lobby is foremost concerned with an agenda that places the environment ahead of everything else in New Mexico. Know this: For truly pristine air, water and land the nation must stop using all oil products. The environmentalists may say, “Good riddance.” What about New Mexico’s school children? They are dependent upon the revenue that oil and gas brings to our state. So how much pollution is acceptable if zero tolerance removes the funding for all New Mexico public schools? Right now the state is in a flutter due to too much spending and not enough resources. Public school teachers are being fired. All over New Mexico in potential oil development areas and especially in places like the Otero Mesa we must wonder how attractive is the political ideal of no pollution if generations of New Mexico school children get a lesser education. Again, the money for the schools comes from the oil industry, which is being hammered by the environmental lobby. New Mexicans cannot have it both ways – plenty of money from the oil industry to fund the schools and no pollution. A good example is the new “pit rule,” which oil people say makes New Mexico less competitive. Environmentalists say it protects New Mexico from pollution, but it would seem that the way it protects is it sends many drillers to other states instead of New Mexico. A pristine Otero Mesa provides no financial resource for the schools. Which is more important: schools or the Otero Mesa? The decision to develop an oil field is made on four factors: the current and projected value of crude oil; the projected amount and quality of the crude oil in that field; the cost of developing, drilling and bringing into production the wells; and, finally, the amount of hassle it takes to do this business. Example: More rigs will start when the price of crude oil reaches $100 a barrel and no rigs will even pump if it falls below $10 a barrel. More to the point: If the ease and cost of drilling is better in one state, it will attract more drillers. The drillers are not married to New Mexico. There are many other places for them to go, but New Mexico is tied to oil and gas to fund its public schools. The rigs may just go somewhere else and New Mexico would be the poorer. Worrying about real contamination Any contamination by the oil industry must be weighed with the benefits both financial and by the use of oil. In theory at least, we can do away with all of the oil contamination from cars, trucks, roads, roof repairs, etc. Without any oil we are confronted with not having the value of paved roads, inexpensive mobility along with goods and services brought to New Mexico, not to mention heating/cooling our houses. On this 65th anniversary of the contamination of New Mexico by plutonium, maybe we should worry about real contamination rather than political anti-business environmental ideals. What is best for our children? Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com. Swickard bio │ Archives │ Feed |
Join the Hollywood Library for guided walking tours and a world-premier interview with the beloved author By Natasha Forrester Campbell Youth Librarian, Hollywood Library At Hollywood Library, we love good books, good authors and good parties, so we jump at the chance to combine all those things together. This April marks the 100th birthday of beloved author (and former Hollywood neighbor) Beverly Cleary, and we’re excited about celebrating. Although these days Cleary lives in Carmel, California, her stories of the kids, families and pets populating Klickitat Street live on in the imagination of readers everywhere. So in honor of her momentous birthday and her impact on children’s literature and generations of readers and authors, Multnomah County Library is throwing her a party – several, in fact. On Saturday, April 2, we’re celebrating at Hollywood Library. The fun includes staff- and volunteer-guided walking tours of neighborhood places featured in the Ramona and Henry books, with activities inspired by events in the books taking place at stops along the way. Also in the neighborhood that day, the Hollywood Theatre will host the world premiere of OPB’s Oregon Art Beat episode, featuring a brand-new interview with Cleary. Get details about all the “Celebrate 100 Years of Beverly Cleary” events and register for one of the walking tours on the library’s website, or stop by in person to pick up an events flyer and chat with staff about all the exciting things happening at your library. To tide you over ‘til April, here are some fun Beverly Cleary facts that might come in handy at a pub quiz or for some fun, family dinner conversation starters: • Beverly Cleary’s first book was published in 1950 and the last in 1999, so she was writing books for over 49 years. • She was a “reluctant reader” as a child until the wonderful combination of a great teacher and a great librarian turned her onto the joy of reading. • Several of her books received the American Library Association’s annual award for “the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children,” winning the Newbery Medal for Dear Mr. Henshaw in 1984, as well as Newbery Honors for Ramona and Her Father in 1978 and Ramona Quimby, Age 8 in 1982. • She wrote teen romances (Fifteen, The Luckiest Girl, Jean and Johnny) as well as fiction novels, picture books and autobiographies. • Her birthday is a holiday recognized in many schools around the United States, including her namesake school here in Portland – D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything And Read) Day. • She was a librarian as well as an author. Walking with Ramona tour/book A few years ago, local guidebook writer Laura Foster was asked by the Hollywood Library to write up and lead an interpretive walking tour of author Beverly Cleary’s Portland neighborhood. The events were a hit—sometimes 200 people showed up for the tours. To coincide with the celebration of Cleary’s 100th birthday, Foster’s new book, published by Portland’s Microcosm Publishing, is coming out. Walking with Ramona: Exploring Beverly Cleary’s Portland includes an expanded version of the library walking tour in it, and more, including a look at Portland of the 1920s and 1930s. The book’s publication date is in the fall 2016 but an early birthday edition will be available in April. Foster is working with the Hollywood library, which is celebrating Cleary’s birthday, with a series of events. Foster will lead at least one of the tours the library is offering. Walking with Ramona explores the streets, schools, characters and neighborhoods of author Beverly Cleary’s Portland. With this unusual Portland guidebook, readers can walk the very sidewalks Cleary walked and climb the very school steps that she climbed. You’ll see the grocery parking lot where Cleary’s character Ramona got stuck in the mud, the park lawn where another book character, Henry Huggins, hunted night crawlers, and the real Portland street that became Klickitat Street, their fictional home. Walking with Ramona brings to life what 1920s and 1930s Portland was like for Cleary, the “girl from Yamhill” who went on to become an internationally beloved author. Characters Ramona and Beezus, Henry and Ribsy, Ellen and Austine come to life on the book’s hour-long walking route through the Northeast Portland neighborhood where Cleary grew up. The book features an almost-three-mile walk (or bike ride) around Northeast Portland, plus other Oregon destinations. Foster’s other Portland books include Walk There!, Portland Hill Walks, the Portland Stairs Book and Portland City Walks. Related Comments comments |
Below is a step by step process for how to order seeds* for free from the U.S. Government. This article may seem like “fake news,” but I really have gotten some great seeds this way. I didn’t even have to pay for the postage when the USDA sent them to me. THE MOST popular article on Suburban Hobby Farmer is Rare Vegetable Seeds Free from the U.S. Government. In fact, the article is part of a three-article series on free seeds that has had over 100,000 page views since the first installment in December 2010. It’s no wonder that the series is popular, since it provides info on how to request rare vegetable seeds from the USDA. More specifically, the seeds are from the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Plant Genetic Resources Unit (PGRU). (Boy, is that a mouthful.) Not just any seeds The seeds I’m talking about here are not ordinary vegetable seeds. They’re heirloom varieties from all over the world. Often, you can find them nowhere else. I’ve asked for, received and grown six tomato varieties from the PGRU. They sent me these seeds at no cost. I didn’t even pay postage. All I needed to do was apply through the PGRU’s online request form. But since the particulars of how to go about this are spread across three articles, I thought it would be helpful to summarize the important details in this article. Before you order One key point to consider before you order is that the folks at PGRU feel it’s important to NOT BE SEEN AS TAKING BUSINESS AWAY FROM HEIRLOOM SEED SELLERS. You can imagine how angry heirloom seed producers would be if lots of people got their heirloom seeds from the USDA instead of buying them. So PGRU only supplies seeds to organizations for educational, research or breeding purposes. Related: For product info on vegetable seeds from Amazon, click here.* It’s my guess that requests for seeds from PGRU have skyrocketed since I wrote these articles. Before the articles, they probably only received a small number of requests from university researchers and plant breeders. Now there’s an increasing number of Suburban Hobby Farmer readers who have made requests. The number could be in the thousands. Click here if you’d like to tweet this article to your followers. If you decide to order from PGRU, be sure to make your case in the online application for how you are using the seeds for educational, research or breeding purposes. In fact, you may want to publish the results of your vegetable growing experiments here in the comment section of this article because PGRU will ask where you intend to publish your research. How the request process works Here’s a step by step description of how to order seeds or cuttings on the USDA site: 1. Go to the National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS). It’s located here. 2. Enter a keyword into the text search query. For example, enter “raspberry” into the box. 3. NPGS displays all the plants in the system with that keyword in the description. Don’t expect that the information displayed will be user friendly. It’s designed for researchers and plant breeders who are used to working with databases. The system will display a cryptic summary of each of the available varieties. The heading provides the name of the variety and where the seeds were originally found. 4. Click through to the detail page. Sometimes there’s a lot of information on a variety (even photos of plants). Other times there is very little info. It depends on what was originally entered into the database. 5. If you want to order a variety. Click from the detail page to the “Request This Germplasm” page. This puts the selected variety in your cart. 6. Click complete. You are then presented with a form to fill out. Note the important “Describe Your Planned Research” box. This is where you need to make your case that you are asking for the seeds for a worthy cause. Hit submit and you’re done. Free Tomato Seeds It took the Government quite a bit longer this year to send me free seeds than last year. In fact, I had pretty much given up when they finally arrived in the mail. I figured that they had decided that my research wasn’t important enough to send the seeds. But it just took them longer than last year. This was probably because so many SHF readers are asking for seeds. In the first year I ordered three tomatoes: Kwand hsi hung shih Pomodoro palla di fuco IXL Bolgiano’s extremely early tomato Of the three, the Kwand hsi hung shih was my favorite because of its squat pumpkin-like shape. But none of them were out of the ordinary in the taste department. It’s hit or miss when it comes to PGRU seeds. You don’t have a lot of info to go on. This year I’m once again trying three new tomatoes: Plum lemon from the Russian Federation Primrose gage from India Black cherry from the U.S. Of the three the black cherry looks the most promising. It’s the most vigorous plant of the three. Plus, it was the first to set fruit. The primrose gage from India seems to be a normal tomato plant in almost every way. Nothing out of the ordinary. The Plum lemon seems to be in the early stages of blight. I’m debating if I should take it out before the blight spreads to the others. It’s a shame because I really would like to see what the ripe fruit looks like. Related: Growing Better Tomatoes with Walls-O-Water, Plant Teepees, Mini Green Houses..* I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I ordered just tomato seeds from the PGRU, but they have all kinds of heirloom vegetables and fruits. I just settled on tomatoes. If you’ve ordered from PGRU, let us know about your experience, or if you have questions about the site or the process, ask using the comment section below. Other articles you may be interested in: |
Jobs are reportedly booming in Canada’s marijuana economy — both the legal one and the not-so-legal one. There are dozens of ads, mostly in Toronto and Vancouver, for marijuana trimmers at legally sanctioned medical pot growers, or for "budtenders" who serve customers at the not-entirely-legal marijuana dispensaries that have popped up around those cities. According to Lift Cannabis magazine, the marijuana dispensary business “continues to see a boom ... despite a massive round of raids on May 26.” (Vancouver’s marijuana dispensaries were also raided by police.) There are also spinoff jobs in industries that support marijuana — jobs in pot marketing and awareness, graphic design and data, and even jobs for doctors who’ll issue medical marijuana prescriptions. One such job ad, listed on Kijiji, offers a $300,000 salary. But the boom may not last — it depends on how marijuana is eventually legalized. Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne has signalled her intention to contain legal marijuana sales to the LCBO, the province’s monopoly alcohol chain. If that’s how things play out, there may not be many marijuana jobs at dispensaries in years to come. This may prove to be a Prague Spring, a rare moment of wild-west freedom before the government monopoly takes over. Either way, there are plenty of cool-sounding jobs to be had in the pot business today. Here are some that were recently advertised. Driver of a weed bus Urban Bella Marketing in Vancouver is hiring a marijuana expert who will drive a “mobile marijuana clinic” and dispense information about medical cannabis (but not cannabis itself). The ad notes the job is “100 per cent legal,” and you need to not apply “if you are uncomfortable with or offended by medical cannabis.” We’re guessing the bus won’t look as cool as Ken Kesey’s famous “Merry Pranksters” bus from the sixties (pictured above), but, well, it should. Marijuana media manager And here you thought your obsessive habit of posting pictures of crystallized bud weeds to Instagram would never pay off. An unnamed Toronto company is looking to hire a social media manager to post to Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere. The job also requires an understanding of Canada’s medical marijuana program and “flawless grammar and communication skills,” which, in our opinion, would be a first for a social media manager. Cannabis ‘writers and tastemakers’ If you wanted to write about weed for a living, it used to be you had to try for a job at High Times. Not anymore, as an unnamed company in Toronto is hiring “writers and tastemakers” for a new cannabis magazine. It pays $100 an article — not bad for something you pounded out at the last minute in a haze of smoke. Cannabis comedy writer/director/editor Someone in Toronto (once again, an anonymous ad) is looking for "a comedy director / writer / producer / editor for a new cannabis online series." Let's hope it's a small project, or the $500 to $1,500 in compensation will be a funnier comedy than the online series itself. Graphic designer for a weed tech company Lift describes itself as “a technology company in Canada's burgeoning cannabis sector.” It’s hiring a graphic designer to help them “establish Lift as the go-to brand for cannabis information and resources in Canada (and beyond!).” Lift isn’t the only tech company that sees profit in bud. Microsoft recently partnered with a California startup to provide “seed-to-sale” tracking of marijuana for governments where it has been legalized. Like HuffPost Canada Business On Facebook Also on HuffPost |
Get the biggest football stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email Francesco Totti has named Brazilian legend Ronaldo as the one footballer he regrets not playing alongside during his career. The 40-year-old, who signed for Roma in 1992 and remained in the Italian capital ever since, also revealed he would have loved to have won the Champions League with the club. Despite his declining years, Totti has made 20 appearances in all competitions for Roma this season and has found the back of the net three times. In his prime he regularly hit double figures for the season, and in the process became the figurehead for a dying breed of loyal footballer. Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now (Image: Getty Images Europe) (Image: Paolo Bruno/Getty) It seems for the most part his head was never swayed by the prospective of signing for a team more likely to achieve European success. But according to the man himself, one side very nearly secured his signature. Speaking to L'Intervista, the legendary Italy striker said: "Many years ago I was really close to Real Madrid, I was considering leaving Roma to go to Real Madrid. "I was really close. I would never sign for another Italian side out of respect for the people [of Rome]." (Image: Reuters) (Image: Reuters) But it wasn't just the prospect of playing for one of the biggest clubs in the world that attracted Totti to a potential move to Spain. The idea of lining up alongside one of football's greatest ever forwards also appealed to the Italian. "My regrets are not playing with Ronaldo, the Brazilian one, and not winning the Champions League with Roma." |
Displaying 1 to 10 (of 71 new products) A special creation made for the 4th Annual East Coast Wetshavers Meetup. When creating this scent I had to think NJ . NJ is known for many things, ... more info A special creation made for the 4th Annual East Coast Wetshavers Meetup. When creating this scent I had to think NJ . NJ is known for many things, ... more info A special creation made for the 4th Annual East Coast Wetshavers Meetup. When creating this scent I had to think NJ . NJ is known for many things, ... more info Add: Massepain Luxury Cream Model: Price: $15.00 Weight: 0lbs Date Added: Sunday 16 December, 2018 The delicious scent of almond paste with a light touch of maraschino cherries. Ingredients: stearic acid, water, coconut oil, potassium hydroxide, ... more info Add: Vintage Luxury Cream Soap Model: Price: $20.00 Weight: 0lbs Date Added: Friday 19 October, 2018 A special creation originally made for the S.E.R.F. group on FaceBook. The elegance of a lost age recaptured for today. The late 19th and early 20th ... more info Add: Vintage After Shave Lotion Model: Price: $20.00 Weight: 0lbs Date Added: Friday 19 October, 2018 A special creation originally made for the S.E.R.F. group on FaceBook. The elegance of a lost age recaptured for today. The late 19th and early 20th ... more info A celebration of love, Angel Eyes is a blend of citrus, gentle florals, cinnamon and vanilla. Together, they dance and recreate a popular oriental ... more info Add: Dirty Prose Eau de Parfum Model: Manufacturer: Catie's Bubbles Price: $60.00 Weight: 0lbs Date Added: Tuesday 10 July, 2018 A special creation made with a member of the Wetshaving subReddit. An earthy, lightly smoky rose. Alluring, evocative, yet different... Through the ... more info Add: Dusk After Shave Lotion Model: Price: $20.00 Weight: 0lbs Date Added: Thursday 22 March, 2018 A soft, sweet blend of honey, amber, hay, and tobacco with a few accents. Slightly warm for those cool spring days but enjoyable year round. 4.0 fl ... more info Add: Dusk Luxury Cream Model: Price: $15.00 Weight: 0lbs Date Added: Thursday 22 March, 2018 |
Cedric Grant can remember the day when crews finally paved the New Orleans street where he grew up. Grant, now 61 and the city’s deputy mayor of infrastructure, was in high school when the improvements happened in the Hollygrove neighborhood, where stormwater flooding and standing water after heavy rains were an unwelcome part of everyday life. “There were ditches,” Grant says. “My mother didn’t think that was a good thing.” Then the paving trucks came. Where there had always been a dirt surface, with gullies running alongside that filled up when it rained, municipal workers poured asphalt. This relatively simple application of infrastructure all at once transformed Hollygrove Street into the picture of modernity, bringing this little corner of New Orleans into the 20th century. It looked like a neat and tidy solution, but time has proven its weakness. For generations the city has been doing a dangerous dance with water, a give-and-take that has more than once turned deadly. Now, the stakes are higher than ever. Like many other coastal cities, New Orleans faces a potentially catastrophic future as the climate changes and sea levels rise. It already receives more than five feet of rainfall each year, making it one of the three wettest cities in the nation, and the intensity and frequency of rainfall events have steadily increased. Intensive management of the Mississippi River has led to the erosion of protective wetlands in the river’s delta. The Louisiana coastline loses about 75 square kilometers every year, dramatically increasing New Orleans’ exposure to surges during hurricanes. And the practice of pumping stormwater out of the bowl in which the city sits has caused the ground to dry out and subside. The water is rising, and the land is sinking. Hurricane Katrina may well have been the proverbial perfect storm that attacked all of these weaknesses simultaneously, but it won’t be the last. New Orleans, with a huge infusion of federal money, has already reinforced the levee system that failed during the storm. Levees, however, won’t be enough, and the city is looking to move its water management into the 21st century. Its plan for doing so was developed over two years at a cost of $2.5 million, funded by a federal disaster recovery grant administered by Greater New Orleans, Inc., an economic development alliance. The Greater New Orleans Urban Water Plan, released last September, would mean a reversal of what looked like progress to Grant’s mother and so many others. It may also mean that New Orleans will continue to be a viable city for generations to come. The plan calls for water to be reintegrated into the surface of the city, this time in small ponds or canals, rather than being sucked up and pumped away. It envisions a comprehensive system of green infrastructure such as bioswales, rain gardens and permeable pavement to replace old pipes, drainage systems and buckling streets, many of which are still marked with damage from Katrina. There is much repair to be done. Potholes deep enough to fit a small child pit city streets. The sewage system loses an estimated 90 million gallons of drinking water every day due to leaking pipes. Pipes rupture altogether on a disturbingly regular basis, leading to flooding, low water pressure and “boil water” advisories that disrupt the lives of tens of thousands of people at a time. Troublingly, this is the status quo after hundreds of millions of dollars in recovery grants were spent to repave and repair Katrina-damaged roads and sewers. If New Orleans is to survive another hundred years, according to the architects of the water plan, it will have to start looking to the past to reshape the present. It will have to stop focusing on pavement and pipe — so-called gray infrastructure — and start imagining a New Orleans in which water is an acknowledged presence, an invited if somewhat difficult guest. The discussion about how best to do that has been ongoing ever since Katrina hit in 2005. In the catastrophe’s wake, local architect David Waggonner initiated a series of discussions called the Dutch Dialogues, which have deeply informed the city’s new water plan. Waggonner, who had traveled to the Netherlands with U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu on a post-storm educational mission, become convinced that New Orleans could become a laboratory for best practices in water management. With others, he brought in experts from Holland to learn how New Orleans could adapt that country’s state-of-the-art approach toward “living with water” to local conditions — and then take it to the next level. The Dutch have adopted the idea of living with water because, in the last 40 years, it became clear that the old approach of keeping water out, the basis of the nation’s design and even its political structure, wasn’t going to work any longer. So the land of dikes and seawalls and other hard-engineered solutions has embraced a new type of engineering. Parks and parking garages are built to safely accommodate floodwaters and then allow for their gradual dispersal. Green drainage systems that allow water to percolate into the earth slowly are incorporated into all new construction projects and repairs of the old. Floating buildings rise and fall with the tide. Reservoirs are reimagined as recreational landscapes. Every detail is reimagined to allow for the presence of water on a temporary or permanent basis. Waggonner says that when he and his colleagues created demonstration designs, such as “floating streets” envisioned for the Lakeview neighborhood, they were thinking in the Dutch way. A casual observer might look at one level of the rendering and see a street lined with grass and a ditch, not much different from the ones that plagued Cedric Grant’s mother. But beneath this unassuming surface, an ingenious if relatively simple system is accommodating the water safely and in a way that complements the ecosystem. “It’s engineered,” Waggonner says. “The Dutch get excited about a pipe or a flap, but these are the kind of modest moves that make this work.” “Detain, infiltrate in the ground, and filter,” says landscape architect Dana Brown, who has been involved in the water plan since the early days. “That’s the holy trinity of water management.” In Hurricane Katrina’s wake, local architect David Waggonner initiated a series of discussions called the Dutch Dialogues. Everyone involved in the Dutch Dialogues process and the creation of the water plan is keenly aware of how long it took to get to this point — of how many conversations, recommendations and meetings were involved. They say the next step of moving the plan into action must happen faster. “The dialogues were intended to inspire people to think differently about solutions,” says Dale Morris, a senior economist at the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Washington, D.C. “Now it’s time to implement. Something needs to happen.” The cost of sticking with the status quo, advocates say, is dire. If New Orleans doesn’t change its ways and let the water in, then the water will bust down the door. Who knows what it will wreck when it finally gains entry? But implementation won’t come cheap. The price tag for the projects advanced in the plan is a whopping $6.2 billion, in a place where voters, jaded from a long history of government corruption and incompetence, question even the smallest tax. The plan’s boosters, who say it would create $22 billion in value over the next 50 years by preventing flooding, raising property values and spurring economic development, point out that funding mechanisms for each component have been identified. The sources eyed by the plan’s architects include federal money from FEMA and HUD, state dollars from the Coastal Development and Protection Authority and other sources, public-private partnerships, and possible future stormwater impact fees that could be assessed from property owners with impervious landscaping that creates runoff. None of this money is locked down yet, however, and many people are skeptical. Jeffrey Thomas is a consultant who worked inside New Orleans city government on long-term disaster recovery between 2007 and 2009. In 2012 he coordinated a business-citizen task force that studied how to reform the city’s stormwater and sewage management. What he sees when he looks at the water plan’s beautiful renderings, and the iPad app created to promote it, is a cultural gap the city needs to bridge before systematic implementation can begin. “This is typical when you have an aspirational planning process that then has to be met with government implementation,” Thomas says. “For that planning document to be realized, government has to act. There are three major types of action that local government has to do: First, engineer water management into our public space — our parks, our streets, our neutral grounds. These designs have to reflect the fact that we live in a sinking bowl subject to incredible amounts of rain. Secondly, we have to have a budget plan that earmarks money specifically for building and maintaining these projects. Finally, we have to have a policy action plan. It’s not enough to do this only in the public domain. We have to mandate or incentivize these same management features in private residential and commercial developments. That’s what has to happen for this aspirational water plan to become real. Otherwise, it’s just a collection of beautiful renderings.” “We need an education process for folks who have been here for generations,” says Cedric Grant, deputy mayor of infrastructure for New Orleans. Grant, who still can recall his mother’s pleasure at seeing those ditches paved over, knows that the plan will not be an easy sell. Lots of New Orleanians hear the word “ditch” or “wetlands” and think of mosquitoes and pestilence. Repeated epidemics of yellow fever killed more than 41,000 of the city’s people between 1817 and 1905, and that specter still haunts the streets. So, too, does the idea that only by pumping every drop of water out of the city can New Orleans remain safe from drowning. The challenge now is to convince residents and leaders that aggressive investment in green infrastructure — rain gardens, detention ponds, bioswales, porous pavement and the like — is the way forward for a perennially cash-strapped, tradition-bound New Orleans. “We need an education process for folks who have been here for generations,” Grant says. He insists he is optimistic, in part because of the most recent watery tragedy the city endured. “There’s much more engagement for everyone post-Katrina, period,” Grant says. “We survived life or death… For 300 years we’ve had to struggle through everything, and now it’s just this generation’s turn.” A Maddeningly Complex System For all of those 300 years, New Orleans has strategized about, fortified against and bargained with water — the Mississippi, the surrounding wetlands and the intermittent deluges from the sky. It has had to. Water is the only reason New Orleans exists, after all. The city’s port, along with the adjacent port of South Louisiana in the suburb of LaPlace, together make up the biggest cargo port in the U.S. and the 12th biggest in the world. Water is the reason the nation could not abandon New Orleans after Katrina. Not Bourbon Street tourism, not nostalgia for wrought-iron balconies and Spanish moss, not altruism, but water — and the billions of dollars in commerce that it moves. New Orleans has always been about water. In 1718, the French chose to build a settlement on a bit of slightly higher land at this swampy bend in the river, because it was convenient to trade routes. But it had few other natural advantages. The standing water all around bred malaria and yellow fever, and the threat of hurricanes was with the city from the very year it was declared France’s capital in the Americas, 1722. That November, a storm coming in off the Gulf of Mexico destroyed nearly every building that had been erected. But the people who wanted New Orleans to thrive were determined, and they saw from the beginning that money could be made to flow through this damp and feverish place at a rate that could rival that of the Mississippi itself. Rational engineering was the answer to the city’s problems, its builders decreed. So they laid out streets in straight lines, dug canals and raised levees ever higher to keep the willful river in its channel. If New Orleans is to survive another hundred years, according to the architects of the water plan, it will have to start looking to the past to reshape the present. At times, the engineered solutions failed utterly. In 1849, for instance, the city was overcome by water from the Mississippi when the levee ruptured at a plantation 17 miles upriver, unleashing a flow that inexorably inundated 220 acres of inhabited land — all the way up to fashionable Magazine Street — as well as countless more square miles of swampland, most of which has been drained and developed today. Some 12,000 people were left homeless in the aftermath. Finally, engineers came to the rescue once again, closing the crevasse upriver after weeks of labor and stemming the Mississippi’s natural inclination to consume the very delta it had created. The city at once implemented a tax to fund rebuilding, and rebuild it did. The importance of New Orleans as an economic engine — where the trade in sugar, slaves, cotton, furs, feathers and bananas made a few men very, very rich indeed — only grew. As did the levees. From the early years of the 19th century, the problem of flooding on the Mississippi — how to handle it, prevent it, contain it — had been a challenge that attracted some of the nation’s brightest minds. Brilliant men spent years studying the river, as chronicled in John Barry’s superb book about the flood of 1927, Rising Tide. One even devised a diving suit that allowed him to walk around on the silty bottom, 200 feet down, with the water surging past him at hundreds of thousands of cubic feet per second. Problem was, all these engineers came up with radically different solutions for a river that, if left to its own devices, would regularly break its banks and consume all the hard-built works of man. Some said levees-only was the way to go. Others argued for a combination of levees and spillways that would take pressure off the earthen walls that contained the river. When it rains, flooded streets are a regular sight in New Orleans. In the end, a maddeningly complex system of levees, floodgates, spillways, canals, pumps and dams was cobbled together, as the competing geniuses gained control one after the other. New Orleans itself, which ranges in elevation from a few feet above sea level to a few feet below, was ringed around with levees. It had become, in effect, a bowl that collected rainwater. And the city gets more than 60 inches of rain in an average year, with several inches sometimes falling in just a few hours. Getting that water out of town was yet another engineering challenge, met in this case by a man named Albert Baldwin Wood. A native son of the city and a graduate of Tulane, Wood went to work for the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans in 1899. The SWBNO is a uniquely important agency. Perhaps no other water authority in the country exerts as much control over the lives of a city’s people. It was a fine place for an ambitious young man to work. The problem Wood set out to solve was a problem not of the Mississippi itself, nor even of hurricanes per se. It was the problem of the rain-collecting bowl. In 1913, Wood invented a screw pump that, once he perfected it after a couple of years of trial and error, could move water out of the city and up into Lake Pontchartrain at an astonishing 1,000 cubic feet per second. The design was ultimately exported around the world, to Egypt, Japan and, in an ironic prelude to the Dutch Dialogues of the post-Katrina era, to the Netherlands. Wood’s pumps enabled a vast expansion of the settled land in New Orleans. Within a mere two years of their invention, 25,000 acres of previously uninhabitable swampland had been drained for development. But pumping all that water out, for a century now, has had an unexpected and negative effect on the very streets it enabled. The unstable mixture of clay, muck and sand that underlies New Orleans needs water to remain stable. Pumping out the water has dried out the land, and many experts agree that has caused the city to sink yet further and the asphalt carapace is not enough to hold back floodwater when it rains. “The runoff is coming back to you,” Waggonner says. “The thing that was poured and flat is subsiding and breaking. There’s an underlying problem, but we can’t get to it because we’ve capped it.” Streets buckle, foundations shift, cracks appear in the roadway, and the bowl that disastrously filled with floodwater during Hurricane Katrina gets ever deeper. Following Katrina, the city spent tens of millions of federal relief dollars on road repair through the Louisiana Submerged Roads Program, but that money went almost entirely to conventional repairs. A small test project in the Lower Ninth Ward using permeable concrete to repave streets was an exception. That’s the kind of disconnect between the ideals of the water plan and the reality of on-the-street engineering that Jeffrey Thomas says poses a significant challenge to the plan’s grand vision. He points out that in the city’s 2014 capital budget, there’s no mention of bioswales or pervious pavement. “Look at the capital budget,” Thomas says. “How are we deciding to spend money in streets and public spaces? To what extent are any of [these new road projects] going to include pervious paving and bioswales? If we agree that this is needed, it should be in the capital budget.” Thomas points to a plan for a huge new shopping center being built with help from tax -increment financing. It will have a huge and impervious parking lot, “In negotiating the TIF so far, there is no requirement as a matter of policy that the developers take runoff into consideration,” he says. “They actually are replacing grass with concrete.” Many engineers within government, he says, are still not convinced of the efficacy of the Dutch style of water management. Moreover, there aren’t a lot of firms competing for city jobs that are equipped to work in this way. “What I see currently is aspirations and verbal decisions that have not yet translated into budget decisions and policy decisions,” Thomas says. “In the bureaucracy, there is skepticism. There are important questions of cost and feasibility. The bureaucracy is saying something, and we have to listen to it.” Living With Water David Waggoner is a slight man, with a soft voice and self-effacing demeanor. Thanks to his involvement with the Dutch Dialogues and the Greater New Orleans Urban Water Plan, though, his influence in the way the city thinks about reconfiguring the post-Katrina landscape is profound. His firm, Waggonner & Ball Architects, is also deeply involved with another coastal reconstruction project, the post-Sandy Rebuild by Design competition in the New York-New Jersey area. Waggonner, 63, comes from Louisiana political royalty. His father, Joe, was a congressman from Bossier Parish, just up the river from New Orleans, for 18 years. The younger Waggonner, who trained as an architect at Yale, has spoken admiringly of his father. But his own worldview is one that looks away from typical political solutions, and he talks about the challenges facing New Orleans in a way that explicitly rejects conventional forms of power. “The issues that politicians talk about, those aren’t the real issues of the voter,” Waggonner says. “Politics — that’s when I despair, because politics should support the best, but politics plays on what’s divisive.” As an architect, Waggonner has built projects all over the world. But ask him nuts-and-bolts questions — about, say, garnering public support for the water plan, or the feasibility of reversing generations of poor engineering decisions, or the decades of corruption both perceived and proven in New Orleans — and the conversation quickly becomes abstract. This isn’t an attempt to evade such questions. It’s simply his characteristic way of thinking about and tackling the underlying problems. “The discussion is at once practical and esoteric, and it needs to be,” Waggonner says. “The real questions that leaders need to be solving are much deeper than the daily chatter. How do we become relevant to our own time? Our inability to grasp where we are in history, our inability to grasp our mythic place and the forces impinging on ourselves, leads to catastrophe.” The only way to mitigate that catastrophe, in Waggonner’s estimation, is to fundamentally shift the way we manage the intersection of the built environment and the natural environment. And New Orleans, he says, is the perfect place to do it. “This is a vital river delta,” he says. “Are we going to give up on it?” “There’s much more engagement for everyone post-Katrina, period. We survived life or death… For 300 years we’ve had to struggle through everything, and now it’s just this generation’s turn.” The plan’s architects imagine a New Orleans that not only deals with its own water problems gracefully and efficiently, but also serves as a model for other cities around the world. If the plan is executed as outlined, New Orleans will be able to serve as a sort of laboratory from all the most up-to-date thinking and design in stormwater management. These days, cities like Seattle and Philadelphia are on the cutting edge of green infrastructure treatment of water in the U.S. Plan backers in New Orleans want to put their city at the head of the class. To that end, the water plan includes a number of demonstration projects that put “living with water” principles into action on a neighborhood scale. One of these is the Lakeview Floating Streets project, which calls for rebuilding buckling streets in a few square blocks near Lake Pontchartrain; paving them with pervious pavement; planting bioswales that will allow stormwater to percolate slowly into the underlying soil; bundling and burying utility lines; planting trees; and reconfiguring the street to allow for different modes of travel, including biking and walking. In significant downpours, this configuration would enable a “slow, store and drain” effect that would prevent the water from overwhelming the roadway or threatening homes. Another, more high-profile demonstration project on the table is the “Lafitte Blueway,” a complete redevelopment of a strip of abandoned, derelict land connecting Lake Pontchartrain with the French Quarter. Where there are now fenced-off, abandoned industrial wastelands, the project envisions a linear park that focuses on an excavated waterway, complete with kayak launches, bike paths, playgrounds, community gardens and other amenities. The benefits of the Blueway, according to planners, would not simply be environmental, but also economic. They envision it as creating a redevelopment corridor not unlike the one around New York’s High Line, or the area along the Chicago River. This economic angle is important because, again, none of this will come for free. Implementation of the plan as outlined would cost $6.2 billion, and while its backers say that financing options have been identified, the dollars have not yet been secured. Will it happen? “That’s the $6.2 billion question,” says Morris of the Royal Netherlands Embassy. “We Can’t Build Our Way Out of This” The SWBNO has proposed spending more than $723 million in 2014 on repairing its aging, dysfunctional system. Grant says that a revamped approach to handling water in the city could keep costs down in the long term, and points to a comprehensive zoning ordinance that requires developers to create better plans for retaining and managing water on the sites where they build. He says that individual homeowners can each play a role in managing the water on their properties with rain gardens and rain harvesting. Such measures may seem incremental, but Grant thinks they are vital. “We can’t build our way out of this,” he says. “My question is, if we implement other things to where this water doesn’t get into the system, how much does that save? How much do we not have to build?” In the water plan’s handsome iPad app, which guides users through problems and proposed solutions, the authors acknowledge the concern about funding with this statement: “There is no low cost option on the table. There is just high value, represented by the Water Plan, and low value represented by established methods.” “Water is like life. You can see it, but you can’t grasp it. You can’t hold it. If we try to impose our will on these systems, we’ll fail.” Mayor Mitch Landrieu, recently reelected to a second term, has been a strong supporter of the plan. “As we continue to rebuild our city, innovative water management strategies, including the Greater New Orleans Urban Water Plan, will be at the forefront,” he said in a press release when the plan was unveiled in September 2013. “We have an opportunity to create a template for water management that can serve as an international model for resiliency.” Supporting the multibillion-dollar effort has perhaps been easier for Landrieu since the proposed funding streams would come mostly from the state and federal side, rather than the city tax streams that traditionally support infrastructure. If New Orleans did become an international leader in the field of water management, it would cement an identity he has pushed to create — the pragmatic yet progressive Louisianan technocrat. Even better, he hasn’t yet been asked to put much skin in the game. Tony Lee has already put everything he has into solving his small part of the New Orleans water puzzle. Lee is a neighborhood linchpin who got help from Tulane City Center to improve his once-swampy community garden in the city’s Algiers section. Now the Magellan Street Garden is a model of best practices in water management, as well as a measure of how much one person can accomplish with sweat equity and persistence. Cantaloupe and mustard greens thrive in the garden’s neatly planted rows. Lee sells some to restaurants, but he’ll give food to anyone from the community who needs it. During a storm, rain cascades from the roof of a structure that provides shade in sunny weather and into a series of sparkling pools fringed by native vegetation. The clean water has attracted turtles and frogs, which help keep the mosquito population under control. Before the renovation, Lee says, a heavy rainfall would mean flooding that rendered parts of his small plot of land unusable. Now, it’s a welcome event. “When it rains,” he says, “it’s so beautiful to watch.” When it storms, rain flows cascades off Tony Lee’s roof and into his raised beds of vegetables. For Waggonner, that simple appreciation of and connection to the natural world would be a key benefit of a fully implemented water plan. “In the evening, the sound of crickets or frogs will bring you to awareness,” he says, before going on to muse about the way that water can focus our attention on the problems at hand. “Thinking about water is about the only way we’re going to heal ourselves,” he says. “Water is like life. You can see it, but you can’t grasp it. You can’t hold it. If we try to impose our will on these systems, we’ll fail.” For Morris, the work happening in New Orleans represents an opportunity to model adaptation and mitigation strategies that can be used in cities around the world — and not a moment too soon. He says it’s no coincidence that many of the same people who have been thinking about how to make post-Katrina New Orleans into a more sustainable city have now shown up in New York and New Jersey to come up with solutions to post-Sandy challenges. “The changing climate may or may not be a problem for all places, but it clearly is for coastal areas,” he says. “Human lives and capital are at risk. We need to abandon our focus on single-purpose infrastructure.” For Waggonner as a practitioner, it’s the chance of a lifetime to push the envelope of what’s possible, right in his hometown. Yes, he concedes, New Orleans is a complicated place. History, nostalgia, race and class weigh heavily here. The natural forces at work can at times seem overwhelming. So many mistakes have been made here, all in the name of progress. That seems to only increase his appetite for the job at hand. “That’s why you need New Orleans,” Waggonner says. “You need to test what you can do here, where it’s hard. We have to commit to some test. I’m an architect. I think in space. This is a good test.” |
WASHINGTON D.C.—The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to review a city ordinance in Illinois restricting so-called “assault weapons.” Two justices dissented from the Court’s denying review and noted a disturbing trend against the Second Amendment. The city of Highland Park is part of the greater Chicago area and has a long track record of opposing citizens exercising the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms. Part of this is banning “assault weapons,” which is a term invented by politicians. Assault weapons are not an actual class of firearms. The term is often confused with “assault rifles,” which are a class of firearms. But for most such bans, “assault weapons” excludes some types of assault rifles and includes guns that are not assault rifles. Specifically, Highland Park’s ordinance banned assault weapons, as well as ammunition magazines that can hold more than ten rounds. The Supreme Court held in its 2008 Heller case and its 2010 McDonald case that the Second Amendment is an individual right to bear arms that applies to all federal, state, and local laws and is a right on the same level as First Amendment rights. “Despite these holdings, several Courts of Appeals—including the… Seventh Circuit in the decision below—have upheld categorical bans on firearms that millions of Americans commonly own for lawful purposes,” wrote Justice Clarence Thomas on Monday, joined by Justice Antonin Scalia, dissenting from the Court’s denial of review and instead arguing that the Supreme Court should have reviewed this case. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit had read Heller and McDonald very narrowly. Noting that those two Supreme Court cases involved citizens who wanted to keep a handgun at home for self-defense, by a 2-1 vote, the Chicago-based appeals court held that the Supreme Court’s decision only covered handguns and “weapons that were common at the time of ratification [1791] or those [related] to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.” Thomas was incredulous at the lower court’s decision, explaining that the Supreme Court’s decision excluded “only those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.” Semi-automatic rifles are such typical firearms, and high-capacity magazines can be used with handguns. “Because noncompliance with our Second Amendment precedents warrants this Court’s attention as much as any of our precedents, I would grant certiorari in this case,” Thomas added. The challengers were represented by Cooper Kirk, a high-powered conservative D.C. law firm led by legal heavyweights Charles Cooper and David Thompson, who have been instrumental in Second Amendment cases nationwide. Ken Klukowski is legal editor for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @kenklukowski. |
Are Reckless Driving and Biking Morally Equivalent? An Ethicist Weighs In [The Chicago Reader publishes a weekly transportation column written by Streetsblog Chicago editor John Greenfield. We syndicate a portion of the column on Streetsblog after it comes out online.] A heated debate recently erupted on social media about whether reckless driving and reckless biking are morally equivalent. It began, as so many of these wars of words do, with a post on Facebook. “Wow! Very disappointed in Chicago’s cycling commuters today,” Erick “Iggy” Ignaczak wrote. He’s a burly, bearded, 37-year-old residential painter who occasionally attends events organized via The Chainlink, a social networking site for local cyclists. Formerly a hard-core all-weather bike commuter, nowadays he drives a van to work. That morning, Ignaczak wrote, he was driving downtown on Milwaukee Avenue—where bikes make up about 40 percent of all the traffic on the street during warmer months—when he had a couple of run-ins with reckless bicyclists. As he drove southeast on Milwaukee just south of Grand, he said, a bunch of fast riders “jumped out of the bike lane” and in front of his van to pass a slower cyclist. Minutes later he was heading east on Kinzie, stopped at the stop sign at Clinton, and was about to turn south when a couple of the same riders passed him on the right and ran the sign. The cyclists, Ignaczak wrote, “are very lucky be alive. If I wasn’t a cyclist commuter in a past life and didn’t know what to watch for, they would be dead.” Drivers are legally obligated to make sure the coast is clear before making turns. But Ignaczak is correct that, unlike their counterparts in European cities like Amsterdam and Copenhagen, where the cycling rate is about 17 times higher, Chicago motorists often neglect to check for bikes before making turns or opening doors, which is why “right-hook” and “left-hook” crashes and doorings are common here. It also sounds like the cyclists truly were behaving irresponsibly and would’ve been at least partly to blame if they’d been struck and seriously injured or killed. Other Chainlinkers posted to commiserate with Ignaczak. “Those are the jackholes that give us all a bad name,” said Sarah Dandelles, who gets around mostly by bike. “Some people are just dumb jerks, no matter what their means of conveyance,” Elliot Edwards wrote. “Yeah, I just have this romanticized view that cyclists are the good guys,” Ignaczak responded. Caught this scary moment riding in to work this morning. Everyone needs to be more aware of other road users. #bikeCHI #WellsSt pic.twitter.com/fm795Qq51l — Jack Hall (@halldjack) June 27, 2017 That’s when I chimed in. “Well, if people are going to be jerks on the road, I’d much rather they be on bikes than in cars.” I noted that while bad behavior from cyclists has never resulted in the death of another road user in our city, virtually all of the 100-plus fatal traffic crashes in Chicago each year involve drivers. While acknowledging that irresponsible cycling is wrong, I argued that it doesn’t have anywhere near the potential for harm as dangerous driving. Reckless bike riders are mostly a danger to themselves. Equating reckless driving with reckless cycling is, in short, a fallacy. That didn’t sit well with Ignaczak and many of my fellow bike commuters on the thread. “Feels like you are giving [cyclists] a pass to be said jerks,” Ignaczak wrote. “No.” I responded that operating a 3,000-pound vehicle at 30 to 60 mph that can easily kill people should involve more responsibility than operating a 30-pound vehicle that goes 10 to 20 mph and can’t. The Dutch see it that way too: in the Netherlands drivers are automatically held liable for collisions with cyclists unless it can be proven the bike rider caused the crash. That sensible policy, along with safer street design and universal bike education, contributes to a bike fatality rate in the Netherlands that’s about one-fifth that of the U.S., even though helmet use is rare. In response to that argument, another commenter linked to an article about a 44-year-old London resident named Kim Briggs who was fatally struck in May as she crossed one of that city’s high-traffic Cycle Superhighway routes. In recent years there have been similar high-profile fatal collisions between people on bikes and pedestrians in San Francisco and New York City. Of course, cases like these are tragic, and if the cyclist acted recklessly, he or she must be held accountable. (I also fully support the ticketing of bike riders who fail to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks, or mindlessly blow red lights, putting themselves and others in danger.) But reports of cyclists fatally striking people, as awful as they are, are the exception that proves the rule. While there are at most a handful of these cases a year in the U.S., more than 2,000 people are seriously injured or killed in driver-involved crashes annually in Chicago alone, and there’s a fatality about once every three days. Again, dangerous conduct on a bike is potentially destructive, but the total amount of damage caused by irresponsible cycling is trivial compared to that inflicted by reckless motorists. Still, the Chainlinkers raised a valid question: Does the fact that bad cycling behavior has less potential for carnage than unsafe driving make it any less immoral? To dig into the ethics of the matter, I contacted Anthony Laden. He chairs the philosophy department at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is associate director of the Center for Ethics and Education, and for good measure he also happens to ride a bike to work. Laden reframed the question a bit: Are reckless biking and reckless driving unsafe in the same way? “They both expose oneself and others to harms, and more importantly impose those harms, or a chance of those harms, on others without getting something like their agreement or consent to be put in that situation,” Laden says. “It may be that the harms the car driver imposes on others are more severe or at least more likely to involve serious physical injury, but there is certainly a harm imposed on a car driver by a biker when the bicyclist gets into a crash with the car driver in which the cyclist is seriously hurt and the driver is not. Most people find it traumatic to be involved in a situation where another person is seriously injured or killed.” Exposing someone to a harm, or a risk of a harm, he added, might be wrong because of the harms caused, or it might be wrong because of the attitude of contempt it shows for those so exposed. “This will change how we evaluate the wrongs of various kinds of recklessness.” Further complicating this, Laden says, is that sharing the road with others is inherently risky. One agrees to subject oneself to that risk by being on public roads, either in a car or on a bike. “Finally, you might think about sharing the public roads as something we do together, and so ask in what way the reckless driver and cyclist fail in their responsibility to their partners on the road. I take it that once you do that, then you can’t just divide between bikers and drivers.” The exchange with Laden resulted in more questions than answers, and he apologized. “Philosophers are much better at making simple things hard than the reverse.” But here’s indisputable reality: Reckless driving has far more potential for death and destruction than any other individual travel mode, and as such, the focus of traffic enforcement, infrastructure, and education efforts should be to prevent it. Still, whether you’re behind the wheel, in the saddle, or on foot, you have the ability to inflict physical or psychic damage upon others. That’s a serious responsibility. So, to driver, cyclist, and pedestrian alike: Don’t be a jackhole. There’s too much at stake. |
New French President plans to ban homework because it's 'not fair on poor kids' Children in France already have lessons just four days a week. And they get two hours each day for lunch and enjoy longer school holidays. But after President François Hollande's latest education announcement, their British counterparts will really have good reason to be envious. Mr Hollande has said he will ban schools from giving their pupils homework as part of a series of reforms to overhaul the country’s education system. French president Francois Hollande has said he will ban schools from giving their pupils homework as part of a series of reforms to overhaul the country's education system The nation's new government says it is un fair that some children get help from their parents at home while children who come from disadvantaged families don't. The government also argues that primary schoolchildren risk classroom burnout, and is moving to help them cope. As a candidate, President Francois Hollande promised to change things by adding a fifth day of classes on Wednesday while shortening the school day. For France, it's something of a revolutionary idea that would overturn more than a century of school tradition. The thinking is that the days are too full for young children under the current system and that Wednesday free time could be put to more productive use. 'France has the shortest school year and the longest day,' Hollande said at the time, promising change. His education minister, Vincent Peillon, will decide this month how to carry out the reform. He has said he may also compensate for a shorter school day by trimming France's sacred summer vacation. A panel of experts will present their conclusions on Friday, and the president is expected to address the issue on Tuesday. Will be banned: The French government says it is unfair that some children get help from their parents at home while children who come from disadvantaged families don't No proposal affects tradition — and potentially family and municipal budgets — as much as what the French call changes to the 'scholastic rhythms.' There's been a midweek break in French primary schools dating back to the 19th century, a government concession to the Roman Catholic Church, which wanted children to study the catechism on their weekday off. In today's secular France, Wednesdays currently are a blur of sports, music, tutoring for families of means, or a scramble for working parents struggling to get by — who must either find a sitter or send their children to a full day at a state-run 'leisure center.' It isn't all easy for French children either. Despite long summer breaks and the four-day school week, French elementary school students actually spend more hours per year in school than average — 847, compared with 774 among countries in OECD, a club of wealthy nations. But the time is compressed into fewer days each year. The French school day begins around 8.30 and ends at 4.30 p.m., even for the youngest, despite studies showing the ability of young children to learn deteriorates as the day goes on. France ranks below most of its European neighbours and the U.S. in results on international tests. But many parents are afraid that the changes will force them to figure out extra childcare five days a week, especially at schools where the afterschool program amounts to sitting silently at a desk for two hours or near-chaos in the play areas. Under the education proposal, school would end at lunchtime on Wednesday. 'It's completely unrealistic,' Valerie Marty, president of the national parents' organisation, said of the proposed timetable. 'They have to figure out who will take care of the children after school, who will finance it.' The Education Ministry has proposed more organised extracurricular activities like sports, theater and art to replace the relatively free-form time children now have after school. But that means trained staff and, of course, more money from local budgets already strained in difficult economic times. Marty, who has three children, proposes something entirely different: lengthening lunch to three hours. 'After a meal, children have a moment when they're tired. They're not ready for intellectual activities and could do something more relaxing,' she said, suggesting theater, or quiet time in a library for others. Afterward, she said, classes could resume until evening. Trimming the hallowed summer break is another tricky proposition. The school year ends at the beginning of July. Some families take July off, some August. But nearly everyone takes a month, and many French families travel for the entire period. Peillon said he was flexible about vacation time: 'If the question of vacation is blocking things, I'll propose that the prime minister leave it alone.' Eric Charbonnier, an OECD education expert, supports the proposed changes. He believes the current system isn't working for the children most in need of a good education. 'A schedule with long days and lots of vacation is not one that will help the students who are having problems,' he said. Peter Gumbel, a British journalist who has lived in France since 2002 and written a book about the country's education system, said the length of the school day is only part of the problem. He says that French schooling is outmoded, dull and grinding. His take is clear from his book's title: 'They Shoot Schoolchildren, Don't They?' 'You have to tackle head-on the fundamental questions of the classroom,' he said, citing 'the sheer heaviness of the national curriculum, the enormous amount of hours, the enormous amount of unbroken attention required, and the sheer boredom and tiredness.' |
A banking group is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of a man known as the "Surgical Mask Bandit," who is suspected of robbing several ATM users in Surrey and White Rock. Surrey RCMP said the Canadian Bankers Association posted the reward money in the hopes it leads to the identification of a suspect believed to have robbed at least six bank customers since May 12. On Friday, police released four ATM room surveillance images of the man, who appears to be wearing a hospital procedure mask to conceal part of his face. Police believe the same mask-wearing man robbed ATM customers in White Rock on May 12 and 14, and in Surrey on May 23 and 25, and two on June 2. The suspect is a white man in his mid-20s, approximately six feet tall, with a medium build. He has been wearing a surgical mask and a baseball hat, and in some of the incidents he showed a handgun to the victims. Surrey RCMP Cpl. Bert Paquet said the association, and the police, are concerned that someone could get hurt if the robberies continue. "Certainly we are concerned given the frequency of these incidents," Paquet said in a written statement. "Although no one has been injured, the CBA and the Surrey RCMP want to ensure the safety of the public by doing everything possible to locate and arrest this individual." Paquet said victims of a robbery should always stay calm, should cooperate with the robber's demands, and should try to pay close attention to what he looks like, and in which direction he or she flees. |
MLS GW30 Tips – Fantasy Major League Soccer In GW29, nine of the eleven Dream Team players were from DGW teams. What that means is that you didn’t really even need to try that hard to pull in a good score if you simply defaulted and loaded up on as many active DGW players as possible right from the start. Sure, there were a few surprise rotations, and more than a few surprising results, but it felt like the strategy was a bit removed from the game this past weekend. This week will be a different ball game entirely. Whereas we had very strong teams to choose from last week, this week gives us considerably less firepower to work with. The teams on a DGW this round are Chicago, Houston, Montreal and SKC. How do you like them apples? It’s reasonable to think that people will be a bit heavy on Montreal and SKC, but do you really want to load up on Chicago and Houston? Haven’t we been down this road before? Let’s get to work and figure this all out. *NOTE* Cut-off for roster changes is Wednesday at 8PM EST. #1) Take chances, the wildcard is just around the corner Before we get into the meat of the DGW teams, you should remember that the first of our last two wildcards comes in just two weeks. Maybe you’re looking to buck the trend a bit? Maybe you want to bet on that off-chance that Giovinco and Feilhaber simply don’t produce. Well, if you’re feeling cavalier, you can invest all you want into the differentials this week and not really have to worry about being stuck with a mistake for too long. An added bonus: there are no bye weeks next week. So if you decide to go deep into Chicago and Houston to try to strike gold, you don’t even have to worry about having to sell anybody in the next round to make your roster complete. And even if you’re planning on going the more traditional route and picking up proven superstars — you can rest easy that there isn’t a landmine coming in the near future that’s going to leave you short-staffed. With all of the pain and misery that the FMLS game put us through this year, not seeing a bye week on the schedule outside of the wildcard round is very refreshing. [divider_1px] #2) The DGW teams Chicago v MTL (A), TOR (A) [three_fourth padding=”0 20px 0 0″] [/three_fourth]What do we do with Chicago? They’re in last place in their conference, but they have a certain appeal now with a couple of new faces. Mathematically they’re still alive in the playoff chase — but nobody with any kind of sense is pegging them to make the greatest surge in MLS history at this point. They’re kind of an enigma. There is some real talent in Chicago, they just can’t seem to put it all together. If you’re looking for a defender, you should know that Chicago hasn’t kept a clean sheet in since the beginning of August. Also adding to their woes is that fact that they are the only team this week with a pair of road fixtures. And do we honestly think that they’re even going to have a prayer of keeping a respectable scoreline when they have to travel to face Drogba and then Giovinco? Let’s just do all of ourselves a favor and skip Chicago’s backline and keeper. If you feel like taking a chance and try to make up a few points, do so at your own risk. The midfield is a bit better than the defensive situation, but not by much. Harry Shipp ($8.2) finally found some level of scoring outside of his typical 1-2 point performance (he’s averaging 4.3 points per game over his last three matches), but his price point makes his current level of production still grossly under par. The one shining light for Chicago in the midfield is Michael Stephens ($6.1); his last five matches have him at a rate of 5.2 points per game, and that’s not too bad for his price. The real dilemma is going to be upfront for Chicago. Gilberto ($9.0) is now healthy again and he’s always good for a shot or two on goal. Igboananike ($7.6) and Accam ($9.2) are going to be your main targets though. It’s anybody’s guess who gets the goals between these two. But while we don’t want the Chicago defense, we do want to play forwards against the backlines of Montreal and Toronto. Toronto still can’t keep a clean sheet, and this same Chicago team put up three goals on Montreal the last time they met. So, if you’re in a pinch, grab Igboananike — but if you have the cash, grab Accam. [divider_1px] Houston v SKC (H), COL (H) [three_fourth padding=”0 20px 0 0″] [/three_fourth]Houston gives us our first of two teams with double home games. The problem with Houston is that their record just hasn’t been very good through the summer. Since the beginning of July, Houston have played twelve matches, and they’ve only won four of those. The good news is that Houston find themselves only six points out of the playoffs, and they still have five matches left to play. Making the playoffs is still a real possibility for this team, so look for them to come out strong. Defensively, this team isn’t really that potent. They’ve only kept six clean sheets on the year, and the clean sheets they do have are really intermittent. Looking on the bright side though, five of their six clean sheets have come at home, so looking at this team on a double home fixture isn’t the worst idea. Tyler Deric ($5.0) is probably the best pick on the board considering that Colorado are one of their fixtures. This team is pretty banged up in the back with their defenders, so starting any of their healthy options from David Horst ($8.3) to Sheanon Williams ($7.8) pretty much means that you’re going to get a guaranteed starter for the pair of games. In the midfield, the top pick has to be Brad Davis ($10.5). Davis has really come in under the radar here in the final stage of the season; he has two assists and two goals through his last five matches. If Davis is out of your budget though, Ricardo Clark ($7.2) is now back in action and offers a decent value for what he’s capable of producing. Up front, Will Bruin ($7.9) has finally dropped back down to the level we expected to see him at — meaning he’s scoring 2 points per game. Bruin hasn’t scored a goal in four weeks, yet you never quite know when he’s primed to go off. Erick Torres ($9.9) is by far their best striker, but he’s having trouble finding minutes right now. Until he consistently plays more than 45 minutes, you may want to shy away from him. I will say, however, that if Torres is in the starting lineup on Wednesday, he could be a sneaky pick if he’s afforded minutes in this congested schedule. [divider_1px] Montreal v CHI (H), DC (H) [three_fourth padding=”0 20px 0 0″] [/three_fourth]Montreal are the second team with double home fixtures – and you have to like their odds against the competition they’re facing. The only problem with Montreal is that you don’t know how much their starters are going to play during this round. Montreal have the most games to make up of any team, and it’s only natural to think that we’ll see some rotation with them. Montreal are probably even more comfortable with a rotation now that their second unit was able to keep a 1-1 draw against San Jose a while back. I feel like we’re always talking about Montreal since they’re so frequently on a DGW these days. So in the interest of time and space conservation, let’s just briefly rehash what we’ve said a million times about this team. Bush ($5.4) is a decent option, but he’s expensive. Ciman ($7.2) is now back in the lineup, but he’s expensive and Donny Toia ($5.2) is always the better financial option. Piatti ($10.5) is infinitely more valuable now that Didier Drogba ($10.4) is in the lineup. Does that sufficiently cover Montreal for everybody? There’s only so much that I can write about this team on a DGW round after round. Look, Montreal will be good this week. You probably should have some of their players. Will all of their players play both rounds? Like I said, probably not. But even if these guys were playing a single, they’d still be worth it given the matchups. [divider_1px] SKC v HOU (A), SEA (H) [three_fourth padding=”0 20px 0 0″] [/three_fourth]I’m wary of SKC this week — and their erratic play is the least of my concerns right now. SKC are going to play three matches in seven days; not only do they have these two fixtures above, but they’re also playing in the US Open Cup next Wednesday. And this Cup match is the Final, so you have to assume that they’ll be focused on winning a bit of hardware this season. So with that being said, can they really afford to trot out their best eleven players three times in seven days? I’m betting that they don’t. Outside of a defender or utility midfielder, I can’t see them playing the likes Feilhaber or Zusi for three consecutive matches at 90 minutes. And their fixtures prior to the Cup Final aren’t that great. It’s projected to be 94 degrees in Houston on Wednesday (34 Celsius for you Euro meteorologists). Playing in that kind of heat in the first leg of a three game stint isn’t going to be doing anybody any favors. And then turning around and coming home to chase after Dempsey and Martins is going to be hell as well. Oh, also add the fact that Feilhaber is one yellow card away from suspension — so let’s hope he doesn’t get frustrated and kick somebody in the Houston heat. Looking in the back for SKC, Melia has been injured, and it’s not clear who’s going to start in goal quite yet. Ellis ($6.6) has been one of the lone bright spots on their defense — but even he may feel the rotation woes this week. You can take your chances on Feilhaber ($10.6) and Zusi ($10.9) — but only blame yourself if they end up playing restricted minutes. And wrapping it up, Dom Dwyer ($10.1) is overpriced no matter how many games this team is playing. *sigh* Just be careful with SKC. [divider_1px] #3) The holdovers from last week Since scoring five goals against NYC, LA have been shutout in three straight matches. This seems almost impossible. Many people are still holding on to some combination of Keane, Gerrard and Dos Santos — and you have to figure that LA can’t continue this lack of form forever. LA play at home this week against Dallas, and that might not be the best matchup for them. LA and Dallas have already split a pair of matches this year with each match going 2-1. I don’t predict a shutout on either side, but bringing in LA on their premium prices could be a huge risk. Giovinco bounced back into form last weekend. We all knew he would. I would have to think that a traveling Chicago team gets absolutely eaten up by Toronto this week — so I would keep Giovinco in your lineup. Seriously resist the urge to sell him. If you still have Kei Kamara in your lineup, consider keeping him as well. The depth of forward isn’t great for this DGW, and Columbus shouldn’t have any trouble putting up points on a Timbers team that can’t win a game to save their lives. New England are coming off their DGW, and they get a home match against Philly this week. I still like all of the same New England players from last week, and the only one I’d recommend selling would be Fagundez due to his benching in the second leg of their last round. Most people stocked up on NYRB players last round, and those same players are going to be at home against Orlando this week. Orlando barely snuck past Chicago on the road — they should get crushed by a much better New York side. Don’t sell your Red Bulls players if at all possible. [divider_1px] #4) The Captain Picks Top Tier — Drogba / Piatti. For the sake of picking a DGW player, I think either Drogba or Piatti have to be considered for the armband this week. Playing against Chicago shouldn’t be too challenging, and the last time these two met in Montreal resulted in a Drogba hat trick. Second Tier — Giovinco. Giovinco can outscore any DGW player with a single match. He’s proven that time and time again. The same Chicago side that Montreal are playing will only be a bit more worn down when they go to Toronto. Giovinco should capitalize on their tired legs right off the bat. The Upset Pick — Brad Davis. Davis won’t be in many lineups simply because he’s been ‘out of sight, out of mind’ for so long. But his numbers are there. His production is back. He could really produce some big point totals this week in a double home fixture. [divider_1px] MLS GW30 Tips – Fantasy Major League Soccer This article was written by Guy Sanchez (FootyFantastic) Follow @Guy_M_Sanchez [divider_1px] Don’t forget that Guy does have his own MLS blog and we highly recommend a visit as it expands even more upon the current GW – http://www.footyfantastic.com/ |
Gov. Kate Brown and former President Bill Clinton greet people at Powell's City of Books on Monday, March 21, 2016. Brown endorsed Bill Clinton's wife, Hillary, in her bid for the presidency. After this visit to the bookstore, Bill Clinton headed across the river to Clark College in Vancouver for a speech to rally support for Hillary. (KATU Photo) Gov. Kate Brown officially threw her support behind Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Monday. The endorsement came as Hillary Clinton's husband and former president Bill Clinton made a stop at Powell's City of Books in downtown Portland before heading across the river in Vancouver to Clark College for a speech in support of his wife's bid for the presidency. "Hillary Clinton is the fighter Oregon families need in the White House, and I am proud to endorse her candidacy for President," Brown said in a statement. "Hillary and I share a bold, progressive agenda that aims to break down the barriers that hold working families back and ensures that everyone has the same opportunity to succeed." Hillary Clinton is slated to make appearances at Washington campaign events Tuesday in Seattle and Everett. Her and her husband's visits come after a large rally at Hudson's Bay High School in Vancouver on Sunday held by her opponent Bernie Sanders. The couple's daughter, Chelsea, will attend an event in Tacoma on Tuesday. Brown's full statement: Hillary Clinton is the fighter Oregon families need in the White House and I am proud to endorse her candidacy for President. Hillary and I share a bold, progressive agenda that aims to break down the barriers that hold working families back and ensures that everyone has the same opportunity to succeed. Hillary has spent her career fighting to advance civil rights for all Americans and working towards real solutions to the issues that keep Oregonians up at night. From her commitment to fighting for paid family and medical leave, to her proposal to make Oregon the model for expanding voting rights nationwide, I know that Oregonians can count on Hillary to deliver real results for us as President. |
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