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Satoshi’s Bitcoin whitepaper in 2008 started a new phenomenon of using blockchain as a transparent mechanism for peer-to-peer (P2P) interactions. Although this decentralized movement is sometimes characterized as an anti-establishment narrative, cryptocurrency has the potential to elevate impact and transparency for establishments that need it most: nonprofits/charities.
Charities around the world are raising funds in borderless cryptocurrency, giving local causes international visibility. Even in authoritarian countries where donating to specific causes is punished, blockchain can provide an effective, censorship-resistant alternative. IoTeX and The Giving Block share this vision, and are proud to announce a strategic partnership to use blockchain for social good!
The Giving Block will become an official IoTeX Delegate, helping IoTeX grow and maintain the network. IoTeX Delegates are issued rewards in IOTX tokens and all profits earned by The Giving Block will be donated to charitable causes! We are excited to pioneer this new approach to supporting nonprofits/charities.
Please consider using some/all of your votes for this great cause — even a little can make a big difference. A vote for The Giving Block is a vote for Charity! Vote here: https://member.iotex.io/delegate/5cb7febe87358f57fb17ce09
What is The Giving Block?
The Giving Block helps nonprofits leverage cryptocurrency and blockchain to elevate their impact. They focus on basic blockchain education, equipping nonprofits to accept cryptocurrency donations (including IOTX!), and matching them with top projects in the industry to explore innovative use cases. The Giving Block currently partners with charitable organizations such as the Lupus Foundation of America, who will be the first recipient of the Delegate Program rewards.
IoTeX Delegate Program & The Giving Block
A vote for The Giving Block is a vote for Charity. 50% of all Delegate rewards will be donated to the “Charity of the Quarter” and the other 50% will be redistributed to voters. To introduce as many charities to blockchain and cryptocurrency, a new charity will be selected every three months as the recipient of rewards. In the future, we plan to work on traceability-focused dApps to add transparency into how these rewards are used.
The first “Charity of the Quarter” is the Lupus Foundation of America. Lupus is a chronic autoimmune disease that can damage any part of the body. It is difficult to diagnose, a challenge to treat and potentially fatal. Currently there is no known cause or cure. Lupus affects more than 5 million people around the world. You can contribute to finding a cure by voting for The Giving Block or donating cryptocurrency (IOTX coming soon!) directly to Lupus Foundation of America on their website.
Future plans for IoTeX & The Giving Block
IoTeX has a longstanding history with charity, raising ~700 ETH ($400,00 USD at the time) in two charity programs in March and May 2018. The first charity program sponsored the Ethereum Foundation to fund blockchain research and the second sponsored DoraHacks, a global blockchain hackathon organizer / incubator. We are excited to now bring charity into the IoTeX Delegates Program.
There are two primary goals at the intersection of blockchain and nonprofits: 1) use blockchain networks as a way to raise awareness and gather donations, and 2) ensure the charity’s funds are managed appropriately and transparently. We plan to explore how blockchain technology can benefit both of these goals — please stay tuned for more updates on our progress throughout 2019!
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Update!: Turned these awesome images into a gigantic garland and hung it up around our house! It was so long it stretched from one end of the house to the other! We had quite the halloween party and everyone commented on how great it was! So happy to have this as part of our Halloween decoration collection for years to come! Pictures of the garland are at the end of the gallery on this page!
In my notes I mentioned that I love vintage style Halloween things and oh my goodness, these are ALL THE VINTAGE HALLOWEEN THINGS! Look how many! It was so much fun to open all of these and lay them out, then painstakingly decide which ones were my favorites because of course I've gotta do that! Really I love all of them, including the gorgeous card! These will be great decoration for the vintage style Halloween party we will be throwing at our place this year, time to start putting them into decorations! Thank you for the thoughtful and detailed gift!
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• Liverpool manager aims to push Manchester City all the way • Maurizio Sarri: ‘Aim was to arrive in the last 20 minutes at 0-0’
Jürgen Klopp was blown away by the brilliance of Mohamed Salah’s strike against Chelsea as he urged Liverpool to produce a flawless finish to the Premier League title race.
Salah struck an astounding goal 142 seconds after Sadio Mané opened the scoring at Anfield as Liverpool retook a two-point lead over Manchester City with victory against Maurizio Sarri’s side. Klopp was thrilled by what he described as a complete team performance and the buildup to Mané’s 13th goal in 16 games but it was Salah’s emphatic finish past Kepa Arrizabalaga that left him momentarily speechless.
Mohamed Salah downs Chelsea and keeps Liverpool ahead of City Read more
“It blew me away,” the Liverpool manager said. “I didn’t think anything in that moment but I know I was really happy because I was in line with the ball and maybe I saw first that it would go in. It was a really outstanding finish and I don’t want to minimise that but I loved the first goal, too. I was immediately reminded of the 4-3 against Borussia Dortmund. Hendo instead of Milly and Sadio instead of Dejan, but good team play, good cross, good header. The performance was really good but you need the goals, and we got them.”
Salah has 19 league goals, 22 in total, but had been on a barren run by his standards of one goal in 10 games before sealing victory against his former club. Klopp said of the drought: “The answer in football is always work rate and the work rate of all three up front was outstanding. Chelsea is a top team. We treat these games like Champions League games, nothing else, and you cannot defend a team like this without offensive wingers. Everybody uses it. Each top team takes that risk. How the boys worked today was unbelievable. And they got the reward for that. You can get an easy goal from a yard or a shot from 25 yards, a thunderbolt. Outstanding.”
Liverpool are only four wins from their first league title since 1990 should City slip up in any of their remaining five matches. Klopp insists the focus is on finishing the season with 97 points and not on what Pep Guardiola’s team produce.
Eden Hazard fluffs lines in central role and is eclipsed by Mohamed Salah | Paul Wilson Read more
“The biggest challenge for us is always facing the world outside. We play our game. If City lose today, and we find out five minutes before the game, somebody tells us “City lost!” then that is not a help. You lose your focus then. We only try to collect as many points as possible. What is it now, 85? Four games to play: 97. Let’s try. And if that’s enough, then perfect. If not, we cannot change it. And we didn’t lose it here or there or whatever.
“Very smart people will come out and say: ‘Yeah, if you would have won against Leicester you would be champions.’ It’s all bullshit. People and idiots bring something like this up. By the way, on this point, we can finally close the slipping book. Robbo slipped and nothing happened, so it’s not a Liverpool thing. Done.”
Sarri lamented Chelsea’s slow start to the second half that cost them what he admitted was the plan of keeping the match goalless until the closing stages. The Chelsea manager, who has lost five of his past seven away league games, said: “We were a little bit low defensively at the beginning of the second half but we also defended a bit low at the beginning of the first half. It is not easy to play against Liverpool in that moment.
“If we were able to pass the first 10 minutes with the same result, in the last 20-25 minutes we would find a lot of spaces because they needed to win. The target was to arrive in the last 20-25 minutes at 0-0.”
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The name Allah Bux has for long been mistreated on both sides of the border. Allah Bux Soomro, the man who stood for righteousness and advocated secularism, still remains an unsung hero. The prime minister of Sindh during the Quit India Movement of 1942 and the founder of the Ittehad Party, he was one of the first people to vehemently oppose the two-nation theory.
It was Allah's vision of a joint and worldly India that dissuaded the Muslim League from spreading its influence in Sindh.
He opposed the Muslim League's proposition of the two-nation theory on the basis of 'religion'.
Allah Bux Soomro believed in a united India, where heritage belonged to both Hindus and Muslims together. Because of his status as a popular leader, he mobilised many Muslims in support of his one-nation theory.
In 1942, he renounced his Knighthood and the title of Khan Bahadur, which was conferred on him by the British Raj.
His nationalistic stance even led to his removal from the post of the 'Premier' of Sindh.
On 14th May, 1943, Allah Bux Soomro was assassinated by four men, while he was travelling in a tonga in Shaikarpur. 73 years later, his case still remains unsolved, but it's rumoured that his murder was carried out by members of the Muslim League.
Sadly, Soomro never found any support from either the Indian National Congress or the Muslim League, both detesting his 'single unified nation' views. Carnage ensued soon after his death, which resulted in the partition.
If only people had paid heed to his vision, things would have been different.
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Com o imposto do sol, a casa da direita poderia pagar mais (pela tarde). J. M.
"Hoje nos cobram pelo sol, amanhã pelo ar que respiramos.” Assim, indignada, é a resposta de António Frias, presidente da Associação Nacional de Proprietários de Portugal (ANP), depois que entrou em vigor a revisão cadastral com o chamado “imposto do sol”. O Governo socialista aprovou uma revisão dos valores cadastrais dos imóveis na qual a “localização e operacionalidade relativas” têm um peso de 20%. Sob esse eufemismo se abriga uma revalorização da propriedade em função do sol que recebe e de sua qualidade ambiental.
Nos indicadores da tabela de valorização de imóveis são contemplados outros fatores, como a existência de elevador, climatização central e garagem. No entanto, a grande novidade é o imposto do sol, pois passa de um peso máximo de 5% para 20%, cinco vezes mais que, por exemplo, uma piscina privada na casa ou sete vezes mais que uma quadra de tênis.
A novidade causou indignação aos agentes imobiliários, por um lado, porque vai representar uma elevação do Imposto municipal sobre Imóveis (IMI, em Portugal), mas também porque o fator solar é muito subjetivo. Vai se pagar mais em função das horas em que há sol na casa? E se estiver nublado o ano inteiro? E se uma árvore me tira a luz? É o que considera a Associação de Profissionais e Empresas de Mediação Imobiliária de Portugal (APEMIP), que vê uma maior complexidade e subjetividade nas perícias.
A nova tabela está em vigor desde agosto para toda residência nova e após a revisão cadastral na moradia já existente –uma reavaliação realizada pelos municípios a cada três anos, e que é uma de suas principais fontes de receita.
"Era inevitável que esses cérebros que inventam essas alterações acabassem por taxar o sol que temos"
O presidente da Associação Lisboeta de Proprietários (ALP), Menezes Leitão, qualificou de “gravíssima” a alteração “porque vai gerar valores insuportáveis”. “A ideia de tributar um patrimônio já é por si só gravíssima porque pode ser que o patrimônio não gere nenhum rendimento por ser a moradia habitual do contribuinte”. Segundo Menezes, com a revisão do valor cadastral, sobre o qual se aplica o IMI da residência, passa a ser “praticamente impossível que a maioria das pessoas tenha um imóvel”.
Um país muito ensolarado
"Era inevitável que esses cérebros que inventam essas alterações acabassem por taxar o sol que temos”, diz Antônio Frias, o presidente da ANP. “Portugal é um país com sol 365 dias do ano e, portanto, acharam que daí se podia aumentar a arrecadação fiscal.”
"Todas as casas em Portugal têm exposição ao sol porque somos um país meridional e o sol é abundante. Tudo indica que a fase seguinte vai ser taxar o oxigênio que as pessoas respiram.” Ele se pergunta “o que é uma boa vista? Pode haver valorização se há uma estação de metrô perto, mas a exposição solar é algo absurdo.”
A nova avaliação dos imóveis não chega sozinha. Os novos orçamentos contemplam um novo imposto imobiliário para taxar o patrimônio imobiliário que supere os 600.000 euros (2,16 milhões de reais), o que também tem provocado protestos do setor, que, graças ao turismo estrangeiro, vive um boom imobiliário sem precedentes, sobretudo em Lisboa e linha marítima até o Estoril e Cascais.
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SALEM, Mass. (AP) — A Massachusetts man who faced life in prison if convicted of first-degree murder in the killing of his estranged wife’s lover has walked out of court a free man after a Salem judge declared him not guilty mid-trial on Tuesday.
Essex County Superior Court Judge Thomas Dreschler’s directed verdict came a week into the trial of Jose Urena, 51, and just before closing statements, The Salem News reported.
Drechsler said there was insufficient evidence presented at trial.
Urena was charged with killing Jeffrie Santana-Peguero, 22, of Lawrence, on New Year’s Eve in 2017. Urena’s estranged wife was dating Santana-Peguero and was pregnant with his child, authorities said.
Urena’s attorney, James Budreau, filed the motion for a directed verdict.
“While the victim may have been the cause of his marital problems, there is no evidence that Mr. Urena ever threatened Mr. Peguero or otherwise demonstrated a desire to injure him,” Budreau said.
The Essex district attorney’s office issued a single sentence on the verdict.
“Unfortunately, in these circumstances, the Commonwealth does not have any right of appeal,” the prosecutor said.
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While conducting such clinical trials, the approval of the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) is required. “In the application, Nestle mentions that regulatory clearance from DCGI is not required. So, who then monitors such trials? Also, the application does not disclose who all are there in the ethics committee within these hospitals to approve such trials. Are there paediatricians, nutritional experts and what expertise do they have for approving such trials. In fact, the trial was conducted at Calcutta Medical Research Institute even before the in-house ethics committee approved the trial,” underscored Nidhi.
“The Ministry has directed ICMR to regulate a trial that is already underway. The question is how are such trials happening under the watch of ICMR? You can’t regulate a trial retrospectively. It has to be done before the trials begin,” explained Dr Sylvia Karpagam, public health doctor and researcher.
“This is not the first time that Nestle has tried to enter the market. They don’t follow protocols. They have been trying to bring in un-regulated baby food into the market. This research has not even been approved by an independent ethics committee. Nestle is violating the IMS Act. They should adhere to the law. We are talking about food for infants,” observes Karpagam.
“When such trials are held, doctors get monetary benefits. They begin to promote powder food for babies even when it is not necessary. They keep telling the mother that the baby is not being fed well. There is no need for any other liquid or powder for a baby till six months,” says Karpagam.
Unregulated clinical trials are a norm in India. “In a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers on emerging markets in India, it had stated that the country is a good ground for clinical trial,” highlighted Karpagam.
According to a Supreme Court ruling, clinical trials can be approved in India only in three instances. If it is related to an unmet medical need of the country; In case of innovations vs existing therapy and on basis of the risk benefit analysis.
“Nestle’s clinical trials don’t fall under any of these categories. It is not a ‘need’. Here, premature babies are being put at risk. The country spends crores to improve infant mortality rates and here babies are put at risk with this trial. Moreover, Nestle has only commercial interests on its mind,” insists Nidhi.
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女性のスカート内を盗撮しようとしたとして、徳島中央署は29日、県迷惑行為防止条例違反の疑いで、徳島市北島田町に住む病院内科医(37)を逮捕した。
逮捕容疑は、29日午前1時55分ごろ、徳島市富田町の雑居ビルのエレベーター内で、市内の30代女性のスカートの中に小型カメラを向け、女性の下着や体を盗撮しようとしたとしている。
署によると、女性がエレベーターに乗ると医師が同乗。2人きりになって女性が背後を確認すると、医師が下半身にカメラを向けるようなそぶりを見せた。女性はすぐにエレベーターを降り、上階に向かった医師が出てきたところを友人と共に捕まえて110番した。
医師は容疑を認めている。調べに対し「10年以上前からやっている」と話しており、署が余罪を調べる。
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Happy International Sloth Day! I didn’t even know that was a thing, but apparently it’s a thing. It makes sense now that I think about it- sloths are great! Even if they’re not the best employees.
Oh My Disney went all out in their celebrations- they took over a DMV and handed the operations over to a bunch of three-toes sloths. Thankfully, nobody told them a joke. Otherwise this video would go on for HOURS.
You can find it on the Official Zootopia Facebook Page, or on Youtube. Start a timer and see if they go any quicker than your local DMV employees after the break!
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ThinkProgress busts the former House Speaker in–barring some explanation I can’t imagine–a rather shameless act of flip-floppery, shifting within days from “[e]xercise a no-fly zone this evening” to “I would not have intervened.”
To me this is Gingrich’s great strength also proving to be a great liability. Gingrich has had political staying power in large measure because he’s extremely deft at crafting sound bites that hit like exploding bullets. (You’ll find a bunch in my recent Newt story, here.) Part of that comes from Newt’s knack for making his every position sound authoritative and definitive. The problem is that such certitude rarely stands up to complex facts and changing events. Still, when asked the same question under different circumstances–in this case, with Obama acting versus Obama not acting–Gingrich’s impulse is to sound as certain in his new position as he was in his old, now outdated one.
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In Paris, the suit is back. Or is at least attempting a comeback.
It was always going to be high on the agenda at Dior, which showed its autumn/winter show on Friday night. Artistic director Kim Jones might be the man who spliced tailoring with streetwear at Louis Vuitton, most notably in his 2017 collaboration with Supreme, but for his second collection at the fashion house he focused on “architectural tailoring”, drawing heavily on the label’s couture heritage – despite this being a ready-to-wear show.
“It’s about reaffirming Dior with lots of tailoring … except with this spirit of now,” he said the evening before the show.
Yet elsewhere on the Paris catwalks this week, tailoring has outweighed sportswear for the first time in several seasons. Both Dries Van Noten and Berluti closed their shows with civilised black suits, but even Vetements, king of subversive anti-fashion, and Louis Vuitton’s Virgil Abloh, king of streetwear, opened theirs with princely versions of their own.
The Dior show took place in a giant black box within the Champ de Mars park, behind the Eiffel Tower. Inside, the models were static, carried along a 76 metre conveyor belt designed to look like a salon show on a giant scale.
This tableaux vivant replicated the statues outside, but was chosen because Jones thinks it is the “nicest way” to display a suit. It also photographs well, proving that even in an industry which sets its clock by social media Jones knows what he is doing. That some wore tabards and vests gave it an Action Man feel, although this was accidental.
“The armour is not a reference to what’s going on at the moment in politics here,” he said. “We were looking at that reference six months ago. It’s my third collection, and you get a bit insular.”
The front row at Dior Homme. From left: Kate Moss, Dior CEO Pietro Beccari, his wife Elisabetta Beccari; actor Robert Pattinson. Photograph: Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty Images
The six-day Paris event might be menswear’s largest, and busiest – only here is the schedule expanding not contracting – but that does not mean it’s free from drama. With gilets jaunes anti-government protests predicted to take place on Saturday 19 January, Dior was one of the shows to change times, moving its show back one night.
Jones seemed nonplussed – “we’re quite organised, so it’s not been too bad to change – a few guests missing perhaps” – but the reality was, one imagines, slightly more fraught.
The collection showed 39-year-old Jones’s ability to rework couture for a modern crowd. The suits came inlaid with satin, creating a sort of inside out effect, in colours of mink, light blue and black.
There was season-appropriate cashmere, and some hip oversized knitwear designed in collaboration with punk artist Raymond Pettibon, made “using a technique which resembles Moire” which everyone had to Google.
Unlike many of the shows this week, there are no women on this catwalk. “We don’t need women here, this is men’s. I’ve got to respect Maria Grazia [Chiuri, creative director of womenswear at Dior].”
Still, the saddle bags were reworked from women’s, while the “hardcore leather opera gloves” had a certain gender fluidity.
More looks on the conveyor belt catwalk during the Dior show in Paris. Photograph: François Guillot/AFP/Getty Images
From afar, it all looked simple enough, but up close techniques including flou and moulage (a method of draping) revealed Jones to be as ever, a stickler for detail. He enjoys these flourishes, of “carrying the concept of Dior as a gallerist as well as a couturier”, although one hand-beaded shirt which required 16 people working for 1,600 hours, was as much work as art.
Despite being “pretty tired” the day before, he still had one eye on friend David Beckham, who popped in the day before to say hello, and the other on the commercial.
“The red carpet is not usually something I think of a lot but we are dressing a lot of people,” he said. At the Golden Globes, Dior was worn by nominees Viggo Mortensen and Darren Criss. No surprise that Dior is still the world’s biggest luxury brand. The suit expected to appear on the next round of red carpets is a classic shape with a long satin wrap. “Black tie can be a limited thing, but you don’t want it too peacocky.”
Plus the stars love him. Just before Beckham turned up, Christina Ricci entered holding a tiny dog, and proceeded to take photos in the mirror. Behind her, Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell exited minutes apart. All sat front row.
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If Sebastian Vettel sees it as a bad idea, perhaps it's time to think again. This week's announcement that Formula One will be awarding double championship points for the final race of the season, due to take place in Abu Dhabi next November, has not pleased the four-times winner of the world title. Perhaps even he regards it as yet another sign of a sport in big trouble, desperate to ward off the threats to its existence, almost all of which are of its own creation.
Suddenly all sorts of gimmicks are being imposed on the sport of Juan Manuel Fangio and Jim Clark. In addition to the double-points wheeze, some genius has decided that individual drivers will carry the same racing number, between 2 and 99, throughout their careers, to be emblazoned for the first time on their helmets, with No1, as has long been the case, reserved for the reigning champion. The driver who claims the fastest lap in practice for each race will also be awarded points towards a new pole-position championship. And those who commit behavioural offences on the track will receive penalty points leading, when they reach a total of 12, to a one-race suspension.
These are supposed to be the solutions to the problems faced by a sport whose ringmaster, Bernie Ecclestone, is fighting accusations in the high court of handing a $44m bribe to a now-jailed German banker in order to facilitate the sale of a majority share in the sport's commercial rights to a private equity firm, CVC Capital Partners; this firm continues to employ him as its CEO while spending the past seven years creaming off half of the sport's huge profits. Ecclestone claims the $44m was intended to prevent the German tipping off Britain's tax authorities to his alleged control of the offshore trust, which holds much of the estimated personal fortune of £3bn he has accrued from his Formula One deals, something he also denies.
Emily Thornberry, the shadow attorney general, told Newsnight on Thursday that she has long felt Ecclestone's financial affairs deserve scrutiny. "What is the Serious Fraud Office for," she said, "if not for investigating cases like this?"
In a better ordered world, more of CVC's profits would have been distributed between the teams and the race promoters, without whom the sport would not exist. Instead, more than half the teams are in some sort of financial distress and gifted young drivers are forced to stand aside in favour of those with personal sponsors. Many of the circuits – forced to pay vast fees to Ecclestone, who also keeps all the sponsorship, trackside advertising and corporate-hospitality revenue – are in a constant battle for survival.
And as the foundations decay, the sport fiddles with gimmicks that, while intended to attract new audiences, continue to alienate those loyal to the principles that sustained it for more than a century.
Who let the drivers' behaviour deteriorate to the point where a disciplinary system is required in a sport that could once lay claim to a measure of dignity, even nobility? In a sport that is supposed to be dangerous – although perhaps not dangerous enough these days – any kind of offence ought to be punished by an instant ban. The penalty-point system effectively legitimises the kind of offences it is ostensibly being created to reduce.
In recent years Formula One has been tarted up and weighed down with all sorts of nonsense. New circuits look as though they were laid out in vast shopping-mall car parks, with painted lines indicating the track boundaries. Devices such as DRS zones and Kers buttons are intended to disguise the sport's competitive shortcomings. A perfectly respectable tyre manufacturer finds itself being instructed to manufacture products with a limited life, to spice up the contest. Designers, hemmed in by technical regulations, waste their time on arcane wind-tunnel research with negligible relevance to the real world. And now here comes another bunch of cheap tricks, led by the double-points notion.
The teams, who must have endorsed the decision, are concerned only with their own short-term interests. Clearly they are happy to distort the basis of their own championship, presumably glimpsing an antidote to Vettel's steamroller supremacy. In the longer perspective, however, Formula One has a good recent record of championships going down to the wire under the present scoring system – think of Kimi Raikkonen's last-gasp victory at Interlagos in 2007, or Lewis Hamilton snatching the title on the final corner at the same track in 2008, or Vettel dashing the hopes of Fernando Alonso and Mark Webber under the floodlights in Abu Dhabi two years later.
To feel the need for a mechanism intended to ensure that every season reaches a cliff-hanging climax is to severely underrate the audience's intelligence. It's like expecting every Premier League season to be decided by a penalty shoot-out. When Chelsea won the Premier League in 2004-05 with a 12-point margin, or when Manchester United took the title three seasons in a row between 2007 and 2009, no one lost their nerve and demanded changes to the format.
It's hard not to be cynical when looking at the sport's introduction of the double-points award in Abu Dhabi, newly reinstalled as the climactic race of the season. The UAE is where the money is, as golf decided when it created the Race to Dubai.
As for the numbering idea, presumably this is an attempt to raise the income from the sales of merchandising, under the guise of making it easier to identify the drivers. But if that were a serious consideration, they would simply clear some of the space currently devoted to sponsors' logos on the wings and bodywork.
What Formula One needs is not the enforcing of reliability rules for engines and gearboxes, created to reduce costs. It needs more uncertainty, more surprises, more bad luck on the track. As a writer in Autosport magazine suggested this week, it could make a start by banning the pits-to-car radio transmissions that do nothing but infantilise the drivers. Get them making their own in-race decisions again, gambling on experience and intuition rather than relying on drive-by-numbers instructions from their engineers.
The problem is that the sport's management is in the hands of a bunch of very clever people with a penchant for making stupid decisions based either on greed or an inability to see beyond their own front wheels. They haven't yet announced that the Formula One championship will henceforth be known as the Race to Abu Dhabi, but it's surely just a matter of time.
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. -- The case appeared to be open and shut.
The county sheriff had been caught selling an illegal whiskey still from the back of the county jail. The buyers were a federal informant and an undercover federal investigator. The sheriff, to elude honest police, had even escorted the illegal still out of town.
But for Assistant U.S. Attorney Fred Thompson, few cases would prove easy.
Today, as a Republican candidate for president, Thompson is cultivating an image as a tough prosecutor who, like the character he played on TV’s “Law & Order,” battled powerful criminals during his three-year stint as a prosecutor.
He was “attacking crime and public corruption,” boasts a video played at his campaign events. During a candidate debate this month, Thompson said he spent those years “prosecuting most of the major federal crimes in middle Tennessee -- most of the major ones.”
But a review of the 88 criminal cases Thompson handled at the U.S. attorney’s office in Nashville, from 1969 to 1972, reveals a different and more human portrait -- that of a young lawyer learning the ropes on routine cases involving gambling, mail theft and, in one instance, talking dirty on CB radio.
There were a few bank robbers and counterfeiters. But more than anything, Thompson took on the state’s moonshiners and a local culture, rooted in Tennessee’s hills and hollows, that celebrated the independent whiskey maker’s battle against the government’s revenue agents.
Twenty-seven of his cases involved moonshining -- more than any other crime.
“Hell, I made whiskey and was violating the law, but I didn’t do nothing wrong,” said one of Thompson’s many moonshining defendants, Kenneth Whitehead. “I would do it again if I had a still. I can’t afford a still now.”
Thompson had just turned 27 when he became a prosecutor. The public stage of the courtroom became a place where he learned to develop the strengths -- and to navigate around his weaknesses -- that would later boost him to the U.S. Senate and, now, to a top slot in the GOP presidential field.
The candidate who today shows an uncertain command of current events -- he flubbed questions last month about the death penalty -- was prone as a younger man to getting dates wrong in indictments.
The candidate who ended his first, unsteady debate appearance with a one-liner (“It was getting a little boring without me,” he said of his decision to join the presidential race) would disarm tense situations with an offhand joke after he committed a mistake.
And there were plenty of mistakes.
“I’ve seen a lot better lawyers,” said Burton Moulder, the former sheriff whom Thompson prosecuted for selling a still from the county jail. “But he was very charming. He had a nice, clear voice.”
Thompson is better known for his two later stints in public service: as lead Republican counsel for the Senate Watergate committee and as a U.S. senator representing Tennessee for eight years. Thompson’s campaign declined to make him available for an interview.
Thompson got the prosecutor’s job through politics. He had been handling divorces and other small cases in his hometown of Lawrenceburg when Republican Richard Nixon won the White House. Soon after, the new U.S. attorney for middle Tennessee began replacing the Democratic legal staff with Republicans, as was customary at the time.
Thompson was only two years out of law school, but he had managed a Republican congressional campaign (albeit a losing one). “That gave me, I guess, some Republican credentials,” he said in a 2003 interview.
U.S. Attorney Charles Hill Anderson granted his prosecutors wide latitude in choosing which cases to handle, old colleagues say. In his early months, Thompson indicted a company for selling medication that turned out to be castor oil. He later prosecuted a man who tried to board an airplane while carrying a loaded revolver. James Howard “Daddy Jim” Gipson pleaded no contest to obscenity charges that Thompson brought because of Gibson’s habit of saying obscene things over a CB radio while drunk.
“We didn’t get any coaching, really,” says W. Buford Bates, who prosecuted cases with Thompson. “We did pretty much what we wanted to do.”
Trials of his own
In his most publicized case, Thompson successfully prosecuted Johnny Pace, a bank robber who had escaped from the federal tank inside the Nashville jail. “Mr. Thompson was a true gentleman,” said John Blalock, the sheriff’s deputy who captured Pace in Los Angeles County. “I’ve never been treated with more courtesy by a prosecutor.”
But Thompson’s charm did not work on U.S. District Judge Frank Gray Jr., who presided over nearly all of his cases. A liberal Democrat who had worked on presidential campaigns from Al Smith’s to Estes Kefauver’s, Gray had little patience for fools, and even less for Republicans.
In court, the judge would make guttural sounds or break pencils as lawyers tried to form arguments. “Judge Gray was very tough on Fred and the lawyers in Charlie Anderson’s U.S. attorney’s office -- he didn’t think they knew what they were doing,” recalled Gilbert S. Merritt, Anderson’s predecessor, who is now a judge on the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.
There was much to learn. After charging a man with stealing checks from the mail, Thompson saw the case dismissed because the wrong date appeared in the indictment. Another indictment, against a group of counterfeiters, was thrown out when Gray ruled that Thompson had failed to allege a crime. The judge often chided Thompson for a bad habit of leading witnesses.
In the trial of a man charged with aiding bank robber Johnny Pace in his escape, Gray completely lost it as Thompson struggled with the concept of hearsay evidence.
“I don’t see any reason for the consummate passion of the United States attorney’s getting stuff reversed by getting stuff in the record that has no business in there at all,” the judge declared, adding that he found Thompson’s conduct “utterly incompetent.”
“I got initiated by Judge Frank Gray,” Thompson said in a 2003 interview, “and I use that term advisedly.”
Thompson’s saving grace in court was his calm demeanor (“the coolest lawyer I’ve seen,” recalls one juror, Henry Bledsoe Jr.) and his sense of humor. During a particularly tense trial, as one law enforcement witness tore seals on three successive envelopes before he could get to the evidence within, Thompson quipped, “Is there really anything in there at all?”
At one slow-paced hearing, Thompson attempted so many jokes that the defense attorney objected: “Is there any way you could rule against the assistant United States attorney for his continued humorous attempts at humorous remarks, and also his references to the fact that he would like to leave here in a hurry?”
Alcohol apostasy
For a small-town boy such as Thompson, pursuing rural whiskey makers represented a mild apostasy.
“Rocky Top,” one of Tennessee’s official state songs, tells of “two strangers,” presumably tax agents, who disappear forever while “lookin’ for a moonshine still” on a mountaintop. NASCAR auto racing grew from roots in bootlegging, and movies such as Robert Mitchum’s 1958 classic “Thunder Road” romanticized the moonshine culture.
Nearly 40 years after the demise of Prohibition, most of Tennessee’s counties remained dry, creating a demand for moonshine -- home-brewed, untaxed liquor. The federal levy on legal whiskey was more than $10 a gallon. By contrast, a Tennessean could buy moonshine for $6 a gallon.
Chasing the moonshiners “was hard work,” said Charles Lowe, who investigated cases for the federal division then called Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. “The population in general bought the whiskey, and they kind of sided with the bootleggers philosophically. But Fred believed in what he was doing. . . . He fought.”
Moonshine was commonly made with sugar, yeast, and a still to separate the alcohol from the fermented mash. Most Tennessee moonshine was tasty, agents say, though irresponsible moonshiners gave their customers lead poisoning by using automobile radiators in the condensing process.
Thompson’s defendants were often poor, and few had high school educations, according to Bureau of Prisons reports included in court files. One typical report described a bootlegger Thompson prosecuted -- a high school dropout who had married at age 14 -- as “the product of a rural, hill-country environment where illegal distilling and running of whiskey have existed for decades.”
Many in the illegal whiskey trade say Thompson was merciful and sensitive. Dwayne Kent, a moonshiner who also served as a witness in a Thompson prosecution, recalls Thompson dealing with a bootlegger who had not seen an elevator before and was afraid to board it at the courthouse.
“It was like trying to load a wild cow in a truck,” said Kent, who quit bootlegging and now is chairman of his county’s tax board. “But Fred handled things. He stopped himself and the other attorneys when they used big words so we could understand what they were saying.”
Thompson easily won convictions for possession of moonshine, but Judge Gray was lenient in sentencing, rarely doling out jail time.
“It was a game,” said Merritt, the former U.S. attorney. “Gray didn’t like these cases. He thought they were a waste of time, and he was right.”
Pursuing sheriffs
In his third and final year as a prosecutor, Thompson went after law enforcement itself, seeking indictments against two county sheriffs who, investigators told him, were involved in the moonshining business. These were the only public corruption cases he handled, court records show.
In the first case, he won a conviction against Sheriff Charles Crockarell of Stewart County, near the Kentucky border. The prosecution of the other sheriff, Burton Moulder of Cannon County, would prove to be the most difficult case of Thompson’s tenure.
As sheriff, Moulder had investigated moonshiners on nearby Short Mountain. But according to testimony, Moulder also sold a confiscated still for $175 to an undercover federal agent and an informant, who was a moonshiner himself.
Moulder admitted he had sold the still, but he said it was only to assist federal officials in setting up other moonshining investigations.
At the trial, Moulder’s wife dropped a bombshell: She testified that she had been having an affair with a state alcohol agent who was part of the investigation of her husband. Susie Mae Moulder claimed that when she broke off the affair, the state agent threatened to put her husband in the penitentiary.
The trial then focused on whether the sheriff’s wife had fabricated her claims in order to damage the prosecution case and save her husband. In his cross-examination, Thompson accused her of sleeping with a different law enforcement agent.
The case was hopelessly compromised in the eyes of at least some jurors. They failed to reach a verdict, and a mistrial was declared. The U.S. attorney’s office later dismissed the charges entirely.
Burton Moulder still lives in Woodbury, a quiet town of 2,500 southeast of Nashville. In an interview on his front lawn, Moulder said the trial finished him in politics, though he managed to repair his marriage and build a career in emergency medical services.
He remains bitter with the state alcohol agent, but not with Thompson, who he believes was professional in court.
“Fred didn’t really turn the heat up when I got on the stand. He could have, but he didn’t,” recalled Moulder. “I’m still grateful. I think he knew there was something wrong with the case.” When he ran into Thompson at a gun show years later, Moulder said, they “talked to each other like old friends.”
A return to politics
Later in the 1970s, moonshining began to die out in Tennessee, but not because of the federal prosecutions. A sharp rise in the price of sugar made it harder to turn a profit.
“That era was the beginning of the end of moonshine,” said Linzie Jones, a federal agent who worked with Thompson. “Then the marijuana started coming in.”
The Moulder case would be Thompson’s last in the U.S. attorney’s office. Less than a week after the trial, he resigned and went into private practice in Nashville.
Thompson also returned to politics. He spent much of the rest of the year working for the reelection of U.S. Sen. Howard Baker Jr.
Baker won, and he soon had to look for someone to serve as lead counsel on the Senate committee investigating the Watergate scandal.
Thompson was a political loyalist and friend. And he had earned an important credential: He had been a prosecutor.
By early 1973, eight months after he had failed to convict a county sheriff, Fred Thompson was on his way to Washington to investigate the president.
joe.mathews@latimes.com
--
Times researchers John Jackson and Robin Mayper contributed to the reporting of this story.
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French Prime Minister Manuel Valls delivers a speech to announce his bid to become the Socialist presidential candidate in the 2017 presidential election, at the town hall of Evry, south of Paris, on Dec. 5, 2016. / AFP PHOTO / LIONEL BONAVENTURE/AFP/Getty Images (Lionel Bonaventure/AFP/Getty Images)
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls stepped down Tuesday to focus on his presidential campaign, bringing as successor a former interior minister who spearheaded the nation’s fight against Islamist militants.
The new prime minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, takes over amid an apparent surge in French right-wing political forces that reflect wider trends across the West — calling for calling for a tougher line on immigration and stronger steps against suspected homegrown terrorist networks.
The Cabinet shake-up followed Valls' announcement Monday that he would run for the presidency — a race that will not include François Hollande, who said last week he would not seek reelection in April.
Hollande is the most unpopular president in modern French history, with approval ratings that have dropped, by one poll, to a minuscule 4 percent.
In his speech on Monday, Valls promised that France, under his leadership, would remain a bulwark of progress amid a global turn to the right.
“I want an independent France, inflexible in its values,” he said, “to face the China of Xi Jinping, the Russia of Vladimir Putin, the America of Donald Trump, the Turkey of [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan.”
Cazeneuve led investigations into some of the highest-profile attacks waged in Europe by Islamist factions, including last year’s Paris rampage that killed 140 people and the this year’s Bastille Day carnage in July in Nice, when a truck plowed in crowds and killed more than 85 people.
In the wake of Britain’s vote last year to leave the European Union, the presidential election victory of Donald Trump and, most recently, Sunday’s constitutional reform referendum in Italy, France’s 2017 election is widely seen as a potential next chapter in a revolt against the West’s established order.
Valls pledged to launch a strong leftist defense against the rising tide of Marine Le Pen, the savvy leader of the National Front, France’s far-right populist party, which has risen steadily in the polls. He said he would step down as prime minister Tuesday to seek the Socialist presidential nomination in a primary in January.
If he wins the primary, Valls will also have to contend with François Fillon, a more moderate conservative candidate who advocates a free-market economic platform but shares many of Le Pen’s anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiments.
[François Fillon vows return of the traditional French right]
The French left, once the undisputed bedrock of national politics and a principal architect of the European Union, has fallen in esteem to such a degree that winning the presidency in 2017 is almost inconceivable, analysts say.
As an explanation, they generally cite France’s stubbornly high unemployment rate and a wave of devastating terrorist attacks that have claimed some 230 lives here in the last two years. In the wake of those attacks, Hollande’s Socialist government has struggled to project an image of strength, responding with measures that critics say are primarily concerned with saving face instead of enacting real change.
In his address Monday evening, Valls rejected this assumption, insisting with dramatic emphasis that the left still has a viable chance to win the presidency.
“I’m told that the left has no chance, but nothing is written,” he said. “That it will never come together, that the extreme right is qualified for office, but nothing is written. That Fillon is already the next president of the republic, but nothing is written.”
He continued: “The left is big and beautiful when it speaks to all the French, when it gathers together, when its destiny is entwined with that of France. France needs the left!”
[Why Hollande won’t seek reelection]
But the French left is deeply divided within its own ranks, largely thanks to Hollande’s controversial proposal to strip French nationality from convicted terrorists who hold dual citizenship. Many on the left insisted that the proposal would enshrine a legal distinction between citizens who are supposed to remain equal before the law, and it was ultimately abandoned. But the broader rift inside the party has remained.
Valls, who has sought to project a certain tough-guy swagger as prime minister, has been a constant fixture in that internal struggle, especially vis-à-vis France’s Muslim community, the country’s largest minority group. During a furor over the “burkini” this past summer, for instance, when some 30 French towns banned the modest swimsuit from public beaches, he was among the towns’ loudest defenders.
French courts have since overturned many of the burkini bans in the jurisdictions that passed them.
But Valls called the burkini, designed to allow Muslim women to enjoy the beach while respecting traditional dress codes, a “provocation,” insisting that the garment was an affront to France’s secular values. In response, Muslim leaders quickly accused him of hypocrisy. Supporters of French secularism, they pointed out, do not object that virtually all of France’s public holidays are Christian in origin.
On Monday, Valls suggested that bigger battles lie ahead.
“I note the division on the left,” he said, “but until when will we endure this spectacle?”
Read more
Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world
Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
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Nie chcę na Antyweb poruszać tematów politycznych, ale ten niestety trochę o politykę zahacza, choć dotyczy tak naprawdę stronniczości mediów państwowych. Jak zapewne wszyscy z was wiedzą, trwa właśnie protest ludzi opiekujących się osobami niepełnosprawnymi. Mówimy tutaj o ludziach z dużą niepełnosprawnością, często niepełnosprawnością od urodzenia itd. Walczą o dodatki finansowe na to, aby mimo tej życiowej tragedii mogli godnie żyć. Poprzednie rządy ich zawiodły pod tym względem. Obecne zobowiązały się pomóc podczas kampanii wyborczej, ale nie pomagają. Sytuacja tych ludzi jest dla mnie bardzo poruszająca, bo wyobrażam sobie, co znaczy opiekować się niepełnosprawną osobą i poświęcić temu całe swoje życie, przy okazji dzień w dzień borykając się z problemami finansowymi.
To jest mniej więcej opis obecnej sytuacji. Sytuacji, którą nasze rzetelne i niezależne medium jakim jest TVP INFO, postanowiło odpowiednio skomentować. Znaleziono więc opiekuna osoby niepełnosprawnej, który to nie zgadza się z protestami i takimi słowami opisuje te zachowania:
Mama osoby niepełnosprawnej o protestujących w Sejmie Mama osoby niepełnosprawnej: kiedy widzę agresję tych opiekunów w Sejmie, brak szacunku dla osób reprezentujących nasze państwo, to serce mi się kroi. Jak można wykorzystywać swoje niepełnosprawne dzieci do zabiegania o pieniądze?tvp.info #wieszwiecej Opublikowany przez tvp.info 25 kwietnia 2018
Jak można wykorzystywać swoje niepełnosprawne dzieci do zabiegania nawet o jakieś wielkie pieniądze. Nie wiem, o co chodzi, ale to dla mnie jest nie do przyjęcia
Kiedy widzę agresję tych opiekunów w sejmie i brak szacunku dla osób reprezentujących nasze państwo – najważniejszych osób w państwie, to serce mi się kroi
Pani sugeruje też, że udział w takich protestach rodziców z dziećmi niepełnosprawnym cofnie postęp w rehabilitacji.
Tak paskudnej próby manipulowania opinią publiczną przy tego typu wydarzeniu, nie spodziewałem się nawet po TVP INFO. Próba wmówienia widzom, że opiekunowie niepełnosprawnych wykorzystują swoich podopiecznych aby walczyć o pieniądze (w domyśle dla siebie) jest czymś paskudnym, smutnym, niewiarygodnie obrzydliwym. Ludzi, którzy całe życie poświęcają opiece najbliższych, telewizja stara się pokazać jako tych, którzy walczą jedynie o pieniądze.
Miałem nadzieje, że problem tych najbardziej potrzebujących rodzin walczących z największymi życiowymi tragediami pogodzi obie strony i będą wreszcie w stanie zrobić coś wspólnie. Okazuje się jednak, że walczyć można nawet z tymi, którzy żądają lepszego życia dla niepełnosprawnych dzieci.
Jeśli natomiast o pieniądze chodzi, to zacytuję tutaj wypowiedź pokazującą, jak dziś Państwo pomaga niepełnosprawnym.
„W obecnej chwili renta socjalna netto wynosi 745,00 zł + zasiłek pielęgnacyjny 153,00 zł czyli 898 zł na rękę miesięcznie. Koszt godziny rehabilitacyjnej, to kwota między 60 a 80 zł. Przy dziecięcym porażeniu mózgowym ( jak u mojego syna) rehabilitacja wymagana jest codziennie tj około 22 dni roboczych, co daje nam średnio 1400,00 zł miesięcznie.”
To, co się dziś dzieje z TVP INO przeszło nawet nawet moje najgorsze wyobrażenie.
Owszem panie protestujące w sejmie nie przebierają w słowach i nie szczędzą krytyki pod adresem kolejnych rządzących, którzy starają się wymigać od pomocy. Może to być dla władzy uciążliwe, ale posunięcie się do nasłania TVP INFO na tych ludzi jest poniżej jakiejkolwiek krytyki.
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Check your spinach: Some bags of Dole Baby Spinach have been voluntarily recalled by the company due to a possible salmonella risk, according to the Food & Drug Administration.
Only two specific types of Dole baby spinach are being recalled: A 10 oz. container with lot code W203010 (UPC code 0-71430-00016-8) and a 6 oz. bag with lot code W20308A (UPC code 0-71430-00964-2), according to the FDA.
The lot code can be found on the upper right corner of the 6 oz. bag and on the top label of the 10 oz. container, while the UPC code can be found on the bottom left corner of the back of the 6 oz. bag and the bottom label of the 10 oz. container.
Cheese please:Chick-fil-A adds Mac & Cheese to restaurants nationwide starting Monday
Wendy's spicy chicken nuggets:Dish returns and the chain is giving away 2 million free nuggets
“This precautionary recall notification is being issued due to a sample of Baby Spinach which yielded a positive result for salmonella in a random sample test conducted by the Department of Agriculture in Michigan,” said Dole in a statement.
No illnesses resulting from the recalled spinach have been issued at this time.
The products were sold at stores in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin, said the company, though they did not state which stores the product was sold.
Both have an expiration date of August 5, so neither of them are longer sold in stores.
Follow Joshua Bote on Twitter: @joshua_bote
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Even criminals need Christmas cheer even if most of their presents are most likely stolen from other kids.
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Speech Speaks: Arrested Development’s Mastermind Thinking Aloud
This month I had the opportunity to interview Speech from the music group, Arrested Development. This is the first part of a two-part interview in which Speech shares his views on a range of topics including music, black internationalism, politics, and religion.
Born Todd Thomas in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Speech started Arrested Development in 1987. Based in Georgia, the group became a pioneering force in the music world. Arrested Development received two Grammy Awards for the album, “3 years, 5 months and 2 days in the life of…” Their second album “Zingalamaduni” was met with critical acclaim and nominated for a Grammy. However, the group split five years after they had formed. After a much needed break and time to regroup, Speech reemerged onto the scene and signed a solo record deal with EMI. He has released 5 solo albums since 1996–all of which have spawned Top 10 hit singles in Japan. His album “Spiritual People” released in 2000 was certified Gold in Japan and awarded the Best Black Music Album of the year 2000 by ADLIB magazine. In 2000, Speech and Arrested Development began performing together again, delighting audiences all over the world with their positive and up lifting brand of hip hop. Their new albums “Changing the Narrative” and “This Was Never Home” are available on their website. Follow the band on Twitter @ADtheBand.”
Guy Emerson Mount: Thank you so much for agreeing to do this interview! I was a huge fan growing up and I’m sure I speak for many readers at Black Perspectives in saying that your work has been a significant touchstone in my intellectual development.
Speech: Thanks, that’s great to hear.
Mount: One of the meta-projects of Black Perspectives is to expand the definition of who counts as ‘an intellectual.’ Your artistry is clearly committed to the life of the mind. What does it mean to be an artist and a thinker?
Speech: I would say that all artists are thinkers and all thinkers are artists. Both fields are seeped in deep thought and powerful disciplines.
Mount: Agreed. Another core commitment of Black Perspectives is an analysis of black internationalism and diasporic exchange. Many readers are probably unaware of the fact that you are a huge deal in Japan. Far from “falling off” after Zingalamaduni in 1994, you have been busy the last two decades stretching the spatial limits of black thought across the Pacific. How do you read the Asian hip-hop scene and its interactions with black people and black culture?
Speech: It’s fascinating! They are very appreciative of our culture and they are studious in striving to learn about it, imitate, and evangelize it. It’s encouraging for us as American artists, because many of the Asian cultures really respect us more than we respect ourselves. They treat us with more care and awe than we do towards each other in America.
Mount: What’s it like being black in Japan?
Speech: While I’ve never lived in Japan, from what I’ve heard while touring, it’s great for men and jarring for women. Sexism is even more rampant there than it is here. Racially, I’ve had funny situations backstage where excited Japanese fans have come up to us and said, “We love Niggers!”
Mount: Whoa! Just a little problematic!
Speech: Yeah, but it was also hilarious because we knew by their faces and expressions that they meant absolutely no harm. They were simply going by the term that is used to describe us so much in contemporary rap music. And the language gap is such that many times they only understand general themes of rap music not the nuances. But I’ve always said that as rap has now grown up, it is even more important to create this extremely powerful music with purpose and not just acting as if we are only speaking to our “blocks” or “hoods.” We are projecting an image of us worldwide that can either work for our advancement or against it.
Mount: Good point. In the U.S. all we typically see about blackness in Asia is a handful of spectacular cases of appropriation, Asian people in blackface, or blatant anti-black racism. So it sounds like we might be missing a much deeper solidarity and affinity forming on the ground between black and Asian people through hip hop itself.
Speech: I think what we are missing is the deep emotional weapon we have at our disposal! Fela Kuti said, “Music is a weapon of the future.”
Mount: Shifting to more overt politics, I know that you have been an active supporter of both Black Lives Matter and Democratic party politics all while standing upon a more general black revolutionary platform in your music that is, in some ways, far to the Left of them both. As much as Pan-Africanism and Afrocentricity are clearly central to your thought you also make significant gestures in your music towards universalism, interracialism, and a class-based solidarity. How have your politics changed over time and where do you stand now vis-a-vis the current American political scene?
Speech: I used to speak about revolution even if the revolution resorted to aggressive violence. This included lyrics from “Give A Man A Fish“:
This government needs to be over thrown, brothers with their AK’s and the 9mm’s need to learn how to correctly shoot ‘em, save those rounds for a revolution, poor whites and blacks bum rushing the system.
Because of my Christian faith and my belief that there are spiritual ways to demolish strongholds, I no longer subscribe to violent aggression as something that I would support. However, for those that do subscribe to it, I still agree with what my lyrics say, namely, that violence and self-defense is one means to accomplish the revolution. Whether it be songs like, “United Minds,” “Shell,” “Raining Revolution,” or “Give a Man a Fish.”
Mount: What’s the state of the revolution as you see it today and where are the openings for black activists and thinkers to best advance your vision for social change?
Speech: The revolution is about fundamental change! We as a people throughout the diaspora must focus on unity of purpose—the purpose being self-determination and setting aside for the sake of unity the things that divide us (i.e., religion, class, etc.); create dependable information vehicles for our purpose to thrive (i.e. news shows, entertainment, business and culture vehicles); and 3) pool our resources together (i.e. support our own businesses financially, circulate our talents for collective growth, pool our natural resources together, world wide).
Mount: I agree provided, of course, we don’t end up defending capitalism or supporting something like #BankBlack uncritically. I know I would definitely classify your music as anti-capitalist and in listening to your recent TED talk you state that in a world of empty consumerism “[m]y spirit taught me that purpose lies in the glorious fields. Creating new narratives with vast possibilities and roads that have yet to be traveled.” Your new album is also titled “Changing The Narrative” and you describe it as “changing the topic of discussion from living the American Dream to being awake from it.” This theme of the master narrative of American history harkens me to Ta-Nehisi Coates’s critique of the “Dreamers.” Why do you think acknowledging the nightmare of the American dream is so traumatic for these Dreamers?
Speech: I think because it’s a deeply dark, grotesque, and traumatic history. And yet refusing to acknowledge it is like refusing to look at yourself in the mirror. It is from this beautiful and bloody history that we arrive at today, it’s a necessary journey for healing. The sole barrier is lack of priority. We are double-minded in our purpose. We love to wallow in oppression when the oppression is sheer materialism, the worship of money, the love of decadence or the love of pleasure but we hate oppression when some of us are murdered or imprisoned by that same system. When the system gives a few of us wealth, many of us cling to the dream of having that wealth as well, instead of seeing the system as manipulating us. We still believe that the system had us in mind when it promised, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and in due time it will make its way to us all.
Mount: In your TED talk you also state that “My life, my music, it would always explore these alternatives and celebrate the unseen. The unseen tomorrows. The possible heavens on earth that we can create.” I see these statements, and your music, arguing for a cautious but enduring belief in an empowering brand of hopefulness. How do you square your hopefulness with your commitment to ‘The Struggle,’ as Coates calls it, even when you know full well the dangers of an overly-romantic hope-based teleology? Can we ever escape the passivity that hope so often engenders? Do we even need hope as a touchstone for empowerment at all or is there another way that we can access that power without all the baggage? Is there a way to salvage hope from its own hegemony?
Speech: I believe hope is the only thing that matters as long as it is fortified with action. Hope alone, like faith, is dead without deeds. I believe hopeless activism is an oxymoron.
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Copyright © AAIHS. May not be reprinted without permission
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Russia's Sergey Lavrov is not one foreign minister known to mince his words. Just earlier today, 24 hours after a Russian plane was brought down by the country whose president three years ago said "a short-term border violation can never be a pretext for an attack", had this to say: "We have serious doubts this was an unintended incident and believe this is a planned provocation" by Turkey.
But even that was tame compared to what Lavrov said to his Turkish counterparty Mevlut Cavusoglu earlier today during a phone call between the two (Lavrov who was supposed to travel to Turkey has since canceled such plans).
As Sputnik transcribes, according to a press release from Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Lavrov pointed out that, "by shooting down a Russian plane on a counter-terrorist mission of the Russian Aerospace Force in Syria, and one that did not violate Turkey’s airspace, the Turkish government has in effect sided with ISIS."
It was in this context when Lavrov added that "Turkey’s actions appear premeditated, planned, and undertaken with a specific objective."
More importantly, Lavrov pointed to Turkey’s role in the propping up the terror network through the oil trade. Per the Russian statement:
"The Russian Minister reminded his counterpart about Turkey’s involvement in the ISIS’ illegal trade in oil, which is transported via the area where the Russian plane was shot down, and about the terrorist infrastructure, arms and munitions depots and control centers that are also located there."
Others reaffirmed Lavrov's stance, such as retired French General Dominique Trinquand, who said that "Turkey is either not fighting ISIL at all or very little, and does not interfere with different types of smuggling that takes place on its border, be it oil, phosphate, cotton or people," he said.
The reason we find this line of questioning fascinating is that just last week in the aftermath of the French terror attack but long before the Turkish downing of the Russian jet, we wrote about "The Most Important Question About ISIS That Nobody Is Asking" in which we asked who is the one "breaching every known law of funding terrorism when buying ISIS crude, almost certainly with the tacit approval by various "western alliance" governments, and why is it that these governments have allowed said middleman to continue funding ISIS for as long as it has?"
Precisely one week later, in even more tragic circumstances, suddenly everyone is asking this question.
And while we patiently dig to find who the on and offshore "commodity trading" middleman are, who cart away ISIS oil to European and other international markets in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars, one name keeps popping up as the primary culprit of regional demand for the Islamic State's "terrorist oil" - that of Turkish president Recep Erdogan's son: Bilal Erdogan.
His very brief bio:
Necmettin Bilal Erdogan, commonly known as Bilal Erdogan (born 23 April 1980) is the third child of Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, the current President of Turkey. After graduating from Kartal Imam Hatip High School in 1999, Bilal Erdogan moved to the US for undergraduate education. He also earned a Masters Degree in John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 2004. After graduation, he served in the World Bank as intern for a while. He returned Turkey in 2006 and started to his business life. Bilal Erdogan is one of the three equal shareholders of "BMZ Group Denizcilik ", a marine transportation corporation.
Here is a recent picture of Bilal, shown in a photo from a Turkish 2014 article, which "asked why his ships are now in Syria":
In the next few days, we will present a full breakdown of Bilal's various business ventures, starting with his BMZ Group which is the name implicated most often in the smuggling of illegal Iraqi and Islamic State through to the western supply chain, but for now here is a brief, if very disturbing snapshot, of both father and son Erdogan by F. William Engdahl, one which should make everyone ask whether the son of Turkey's president (and thus, the father) is the silent mastermind who has been responsible for converting millions of barrels of Syrian Oil into hundreds of millions of dollars of Islamic State revenue.
By F. William Engdahl, posted originally in New Eastern Outlook:
Erdogan's Dirth Dangerous ISIS Games
More and more details are coming to light revealing that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, variously known as ISIS, IS or Daesh, is being fed and kept alive by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish President and by his Turkish intelligence service, including MIT, the Turkish CIA. Turkey, as a result of Erdogan’s pursuit of what some call a Neo-Ottoman Empire fantasies that stretch all the way to China, Syria and Iraq, threatens not only to destroy Turkey but much of the Middle East if he continues on his present path.
In October 2014 US Vice President Joe Biden told a Harvard gathering that Erdogan’s regime was backing ISIS with “hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of tons of weapons…” Biden later apologized clearly for tactical reasons to get Erdo?an’s permission to use Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base for airstrikes against ISIS in Syria, but the dimensions of Erdogan’s backing for ISIS since revealed is far, far more than Biden hinted.
ISIS militants were trained by US, Israeli and now it emerges, by Turkish special forces at secret bases in Konya Province inside the Turkish border to Syria, over the past three years. Erdo?an’s involvement in ISIS goes much deeper. At a time when Washington, Saudi Arabia and even Qatar appear to have cut off their support for ISIS, they remaining amazingly durable. The reason appears to be the scale of the backing from Erdo?an and his fellow neo-Ottoman Sunni Islam Prime Minister, Ahmet Davuto?lu.
Nice Family Business
The prime source of money feeding ISIS these days is sale of Iraqi oil from the Mosul region oilfields where they maintain a stronghold. The son of Erdogan it seems is the man who makes the export sales of ISIS-controlled oil possible.
Bilal Erdo?an owns several maritime companies. He has allegedly signed contracts with European operating companies to carry Iraqi stolen oil to different Asian countries. The Turkish government buys Iraqi plundered oil which is being produced from the Iraqi seized oil wells. Bilal Erdogan’s maritime companies own special wharfs in Beirut and Ceyhan ports that are transporting ISIS’ smuggled crude oil in Japan-bound oil tankers.
Gürsel Tekin vice-president of the Turkish Republican Peoples’ Party, CHP, declared in a recent Turkish media interview, “President Erdogan claims that according to international transportation conventions there is no legal infraction concerning Bilal’s illicit activities and his son is doing an ordinary business with the registered Japanese companies, but in fact Bilal Erdo?an is up to his neck in complicity with terrorism, but as long as his father holds office he will be immune from any judicial prosecution.” Tekin adds that Bilal’s maritime company doing the oil trades for ISIS, BMZ Ltd, is “a family business and president Erdogan’s close relatives hold shares in BMZ and they misused public funds and took illicit loans from Turkish banks.”
In addition to son Bilal’s illegal and lucrative oil trading for ISIS, Sümeyye Erdogan, the daughter of the Turkish President apparently runs a secret hospital camp inside Turkey just over the Syrian border where Turkish army trucks daily being in scores of wounded ISIS Jihadists to be patched up and sent back to wage the bloody Jihad in Syria, according to the testimony of a nurse who was recruited to work there until it was discovered she was a member of the Alawite branch of Islam, the same as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who Erdogan seems hell-bent on toppling.
Turkish citizen Ramazan Bagol, captured this month by Kurdish People’s Defence Units,YPG, as he attempted to join ISIS from Konya province, told his captors that said he was sent to ISIS by the ‘Ismailia Sect,’ a strict Turkish Islam sect reported to be tied to Recep Erdogan. Baol said the sect recruits members and provides logistic support to the radical Islamist organization. He added that the Sect gives jihad training in neighborhoods of Konya and sends those trained here to join ISIS gangs in Syria.
According to French geopolitical analyst, Thierry Meyssan, Recep Erdogan “organised the pillage of Syria, dismantled all the factories in Aleppo, the economic capital, and stole the machine-tools. Similarly, he organised the theft of archeological treasures and set up an international market in Antioch…with the help of General Benoît Puga, Chief of Staff for the Elysée, he organised a false-flag operation intended to provoke the launching of a war by the Atlantic Alliance – the chemical bombing of la Ghoutta in Damascus, in August 2013. “
Meyssan claims that the Syria strategy of Erdo?an was initially secretly developed in coordination with former French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé and Erdogan’s then Foreign Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu, in 2011, after Juppe won a hesitant Erdogan to the idea of supporting the attack on traditional Turkish ally Syria in return for a promise of French support for Turkish membership in the EU. France later backed out, leaving Erdogan to continue the Syrian bloodbath largely on his own using ISIS.
Gen. John R. Allen, an opponent of Obama’s Iran peace strategy, now US diplomatic envoy coordinating the coalition against the Islamic State, exceeded his authorized role after meeting with Erdogan and “promised to create a "no-fly zone" ninety miles wide, over Syrian territory, along the whole border with Turkey, supposedly intended to help Syrian refugees fleeing from their government, but in reality to apply the "Juppé-Wright plan". The Turkish Prime Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, revealed US support for the project on the TV channel A Haber by launching a bombing raid against the PKK.” Meyssan adds.
There are never winners in war and Erdogan’s war against Syria’s Assad demonstrates that in bold. Turkey and the world deserve better. Ahmet Davutoglu’s famous “Zero Problems With Neighbors” foreign policy has been turned into massive problems with all neighbors due to the foolish ambitions of Erdogan and his gang.
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Alliance doesn’t mean we’ll agree with whatever BJP says: Akali Dal leader on farm bills
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Restituirea terenurilor naționalizate de comuniști începe în 1991, odată cu intrarea în vigoare a Legii 18. Inițial, foștii proprietari sau moștenitorii lor puteau primi doar până la 10 hectare. Legea 1 din 2000, cunoscută atunci ca „Legea Vasile Lupu”, mărește suprafaţa la 50 de hectare de teren arabil și 100 de hectare de pășuni. Din 2005, statul a renunţat la limitarea suprafeţelor retrocedate.
Tot atunci se introduce pentru prima dată ideea de despăgubire. Acolo unde nu se puteau restitui terenurile, se acordau, teoretic, despăgubiri. Doar teoretic, pentru că, în realitate, până în 2005, nimeni nu a primit niciun ban în schimbul pământului cuvenit.
Cinci ani mai târziu, numărul cererilor de retrocedare ajunge la 30.000. Statul e depășit de situație și înființează ANRP - Autoritatea Naţională de Restituire a Proprietăţilor.
Instituția trebuia să preia de la Comisiile Județene de Fond Funciar toate dosarele nerezolvate în cei 15 ani scurși de la Revoluție.
După înfiinţarea ANRP, mai e creată încă o structură: Fondul Proprietatea. Aceasta trebuia să asigure resursele necesare despăgubirilor. Mai precis, moștenitorii care nu-și puteau primi terenurile confiscate de comuniști primeau acțiuni la acest fond. Statul era iniţial singurul acţionar al fondului şi deţinea părţi sociale în valoare de aproape 13 miliarde de lei.
CEDO, salvarea celor care nu au fost despăgubiți
Până în 2008, foştii proprietari primesc doar acţiuni la acest fond, de la ANRP. Apoi primesc şi bani. Totul se desfășoară însă extrem de lent. Oamenii nu mai au răbdare și încredere în statul român, așa că plângerile la CEDO curg. Pe masa judecătorilor din Strasbourg se strâng în 2010 peste 2.000 de astfel de dosare.
CEDO ia atitudine și emite o hotărâre-pilot împotriva României. Statul era obligat să găsească, în maximum şase luni, o soluţie general valabilă pentru toate dosarele în care se cereau înapoi terenurile confiscate. Fără o rezolvare rapidă, statul risca suspendarea dreptului de vot în Consiliul Europei.
„Curtea a constatat întârzieri în soluționarea și analiza cererilor, în finalizarea procedurii prin recunoașterea dreptului la o anumită compensație într-un anumit cuantum, respectiv imposibilitatea de valorificare a acelei compensații. Dacă vă mai aduceți aminte, Fondul Proprietatea, care fusese creat pentru a contribui la compensarea acestor persoane a avut dificultăți și în cotarea la bursă, și în valorificarea acțiunilor lui în așa fel încât, practic, nu ajungeam într-un final la o despăgubire reală a indivizilor”, spune Catrinel Brumar, Agentul României la CEDO.
Câteva luni mai târziu, statul român reușește să deblocheze activitatea de despăgubire după ce acțiunile Fondului Proprietatea sunt listate la bursă.
Doi ani mai târziu, Curtea de Conturi publică un raport care semnalează neregulile din curtea ANRP. Inspectorii Curții descoperă că banii se duceau cu predilecție spre anumiți intermediari care cumpăraseră drepturile litigioase de la adevărații proprietari. Mai mult, se afirmă în raport, terenurile erau supraevaluate și intermediarii erau cei care primeau cu prioritate banii.
Într-un top al celor mai mari despăgubiri întocmit de ANRP, şase din primii zece beneficiari sunt intermediari. Legislaţia permisivă, spune CEDO, e de vină pentru soluţionarea preferenţială a dosarelor.
„Legea nr. 247/2005 nu stabileşte nici termenele, nici ordinea în care Comisia Centrală trebuie să examineze dosarele. La data de 28 februarie 2006, Comisia Centrală a hotărât ca ordinea de analizare a dosarelor să fie aleatorie. La data de 16 septembrie 2008, aceasta a revenit asupra hotărârii sale şi a stabilit că dosarele trebuie examinate în ordinea înregistrării lor”, se arată în hotărârea Atanasiu vs. România la CEDO.
Cei mai mari beneficiari
Horia Şchiopu Simu este campionul absolut în topul intermediarilor. El este beneficiarul unor despăgubiri de peste 100 de milioane de euro (466.770.763 lei - aproximativ 105 milioane euro). Drepturile litigioase le-a cumpărat cu o sumă de 100 de ori mai mică - 1,5 milioane dolari.
Horia Simu a intrat în industria cuprului în 2003, când a cumpărat două fabrici: Phoenix Baia Mare și Elcond Zalău. Surse judiciare susțin că omul de afaceri a fost urmărit penal de DIICOT pentru afacerile din domeniu, dar dosarul a fost clasat. Horia Simu apărea, la Registrul Comerţului, ca acționar în șapte firme. Șase au fost radiate și una este în procedură de dizolvare.
„Și pentru noi este foarte greu să dăm de el. Vă dau un alt număr”, este răspunsul primit de reporterii Digi24 de la reprezentanții firmei lui Horia Simu.
Gheorghe Stelian a beneficiat de două despăgubiri care însumează 136 de milioane de euro. Pe prima, în valoare de aproximativ 85 milioane euro, ar fi cumpărat-o cu 6 milioane de lei, adică aproape 1,4 milioane de euro la cursul actual. Pentru această despăgubire a fost trimis în judecată alături de fosta şefă a DIICOT, Alina Bica.
ANRP susţine că, alături de Gheorghe Stelian, beneficiari ai acestei despăgubiri erau şi Valentin Vișoiu, Gabriel Gheorghe, Adrian Andrici. Cei trei nu sunt judecați. Gheorghe Stelian ar fi declarat procurorilor că, pentru rezolvarea solicitării la ANRP, Dorin Cocoş i-ar fi cerut o mită de 10 milioane de euro.
Gheorghe Stelian mai apare, împreună cu alte două persoane ca beneficiar al unei alte despăgubiri, de 51 de milioane de euro, afirmă Curtea de Conturi. Gheorghe Stelian nu a putut fi contactat.
Valentin Vișoiu este al treilea pe lista intermediarilor despăgubiți de ANRP. Lista publicată de Autoritate îl pune în top, cu 85 de milioane de euro, sumă pe care a împărțit-o cu alte două persoane.
Pentru aprobarea acestei despăgubiri, fostul șef al Ageniei Naţionale de Integritate şi fost membru în Comisia Centrală a ANRP, Horia Georgescu, a fost arestat preventiv pentru corupţie.
Valentin Vișoiu este urmărit penal împreună cu ginerele fostului președinte Traian Băsescu pentru o altă despăgubire, de 10 milioane de euro, cerută pentru moșia din Argeş a Brătienilor.
11,5 milioane de euro reprezintă cea de-a treia despăgubire primită de Valentin Vişoiu de la ANRP. Pentru această moşie din Argeş, Vişoiu s-a asociat cu alţi trei parteneri.
Cu o avere estimată la 45-50 de milioane de euro, Valentin Vișoiu este acționarul majoritar al grupului Conarg, care are afaceri în construcții, industria hotelieră și în producția energiei electrice. Omul de afaceri este judecat pentru dare de mită în dosarul primarului municipiului Pitești, Tudor Pendiuc.
„Nu am nimic de comentat. Îmi pare rău, dar nu am nimic de comentat. Nu am nimic de declarat”. Aceasta a fost reacția lui Valentin Vișoiu atunci când a fost contactat de reporterii Digi24.
Al patrulea pe listă, Vasile Geambazi, nepotul lui George Becali, a primit dreptul la o despăgubire de aproximativ 67,5 milioane de euro, din care a încasat deja 13,5 milioane.
Pentru titlurile litigioase a plătit două milioane de euro. Vasile Geambazi susține că nu face parte din rețeaua intermediarilor. El a primit banii în urma unei hotărâri judecătoreşti pe care ANRP a fost nevoită să o pună în aplicare.
După izbucnirea scandalurilor legate de ANRP, Vasile Geambazi a anunțat agenţia în decembrie 2014 că renunță la o altă despăgubire, de 2 milioane de euro.
Reporter: De ce ați renunțat la despăgubirea de 2 milioane de euro?
Vasile Geambazi: Ca să ajut statul să nu plătească 40 de milioane.
Rep: Acuma serios.
Vasile Geambazi: Serios, eu nu sunt lacom. Îmi ajung banii pe care i-am câștigat și nu vreau să iau alți bani de la stat, că am văzut că e situația gravă în țară. Sunt oameni amarâți care poate au nevoie mai multă de banii ăștia. Nu vreau să îmi fac un imperiu din așa ceva.
Uite că nu au vrut să mi-i dea. M-a ajutat Dumnezeu, mai bine că nu mi-au dat. Tot răul spre bine, ca să zic așa. Altfel, poate acum eram chemat și eu la DNA să întrebe de doamna Bica și de cine mai e pe-acolo.
Omul de afaceri Mihai Rotaru și soția lui au primit de la ANRP două despăgubiri. Una de 24,5 milioane de euro, cealaltă de 10,9 milioane de euro. Drepturile litigioase, susţine Curtea de Conturi, ar fi fost cumpărate cu 750.000 de euro. Mihai Rotaru este unul dintre acționarii echipei de fotbal Universitatea Craiova. Este cunoscut ca investitor la bursă și acționar la o serie de companii producătoare de energie și imobiliare.
Nici Mihai Rotaru nu a putut fi contactat.
Dosarele de corupţie de la ANRP
Primul mare dosar cu fraude la ANRP anchetat de procurorii anticorupţie este cel al lui Remus Baciu. Fostul vicepreşedinte al Autorităţii a fost condamnat la cinci ani de închisoare, pentru o mită de 270.000 de euro. Banii i-a primit pentru a-i ajuta pe intermediarii drepturilor litigioase. Aceștia ar fi urmat să primească drepturile cu prioritate.
În octombrie 2014, DNA a deschis o nouă anchetă care vizează reconstituirea unui drept de proprietate asupra unui teren agricol din zona parcului bucureştean Plumbuita. În acest dosar, fosta şefă a DIICOT şi fostă membră în Comisia Centrală ANRP, Alina Bica, a fost arestată și trimisă în judecată. Bica i-ar fi aprobat lui Gheorghe Stelian o despăgubire de 85 de milioane de euro despre care procurorii spun că este ilegală.
O afacere de 10 milioane euro investigată de DNA este retrocedarea și despăgubirea moșiei Brătienilor din Argeș. În 2008, descendenții familiei Brătianu revendică 90 de hectare de teren în comuna Ștefănești. Terenul era ocupat de alte persoane, care fuseseră împroprietărite acolo. Preotul Nicolae Brânzea a moștenit o parte mică din averea Brătienilor.
„Domeniul Brătienilor cuprindea peste 200 de hectare, iar ceea ce vedeți în spate, acolo, unde era și partea de zăvoi și de fânețe. După ce Comisia Locală a reconstituit dreptul de proprietate și a fost validat de Comisia Județeană doar ca drept și Primăria și-a exprimat această decizie și opinie de a nu putea oferi în natură cele 90 de hectare, s-a mers la ANRP pentru a se primi despăgubiri ”, spune Nicolae Brânzea, moștenitor al Eleonorei Brătianu.
Pe 10 iulie 2008, urmaşii Brătienilor află că pot primi despăgubiri pentru terenul revendicat, dar nu ştiu cuantumul. 11 zile mai târziu, vând drepturile litigioase.
Potrivit unui contract obținut de Digi24, dreptul la despăgubire este cumpărat cu un milion de euro.
72,8% din afacere urma să ajungă la cel mai bogat om de afaceri din Piteşti, Valentin Vişoiu. 26,2% reveneau, în părţi egale, lui Florin Şerban Barbu, Aristinei şi lui Nicolae Bădulescu. Valentin Vişoiu duce dosarul la ANRP. Autoritatea numeşte un evaluator, firma Romcontrol, care urma să stabilească valoarea terenului.
„ANRP-ul, cu o comisie de evaluare, a stabilit că au dreptul să primească 10 milioane. Cu Romcontrol... nu știu. Atenție, aici sunt 10 milioane de euro și aici sunt 900.000 de metri pătrați. Eu nu o consider supraevaluată”, spune Dorin Bărbuceanu, primarul comunei Ştefăneşti, înregistrat cu camera ascunsă.
Societatea de evaluare Romcontrol, fostă întreprindere de stat, este condusă de soțul deputatei PNL Andreea Paul.
După evaluare, afirmă primarul din Ștefănești, dar și surse judiciare, Valentin Vişoiu i-ar fi cedat o parte din drepturile sale ginerelui fostului preşedinte, Traian Băsescu. Avocatul Radu Pricop ar avea dreptul la 7% din suma stabilită de ANRP.
Pentru că ANRP tergiversa acordarea despăgubirilor, Radu Pricop şi Valentin Vişoiu au cerut banii în instanţă. Înalta Curte de Casaţie şi Justiţie decide în noiembrie 2012 că ANRP trebuie să le plătească celor doi 10 milioane de euro. Presa începe să scrie despre caz: cei doi, afirmă jurnaliştii, ar fi ascuns justiţiei detalii care ar fi putut schimba cursul procesului. Una dintre moştenitoarele familiei Brătianu fusese declarată decedată, deşi trăia.
„În 2009, prin instanță, ea fost declarată decedată prin sintagma "soția lui Dan Gheorghe Brătianu în prezent decedată", deși ea a decedat în 13 mai 2011. Orecum doamna Eleonora Brătianu știa, că de multe ori îmi spunea, nu știa bine ce s-a întâmplat, dar îmi spunea: Tu știi că eu sunt moartă?”, spune Nicolae Brânzea.
„Eu am găsit hotărârea mai târziu, după ce doamna Eleonora a decedat și abia atunci mi-am dat seama. Eu am crezut că pur și simplu era o glumă. Cert este că s-a recurs la această formulă de a fi declarată moarta. Nu știu cui a folosit”, adaugă preotul.
În 11 decembrie 2013, procurorul general se autosesizează cu privire la modul în care Valentin Vişoiu, Radu Pricop şi alte trei persoane au primit despăgubiri de 10 milioane de euro pentru 90 de hectare de teren.
Legătura Pricop – Bica
Cu o zi înainte, pe 10 decembrie 2013, la 8.30 dimineaţa, Radu Pricop a mers personal la DIICOT, condus la acea vreme de Alina Bica, şi a solicitat să fie cercetat de această structură. Cererea lui era motivată de faptul că ar fi fost victima unei campanii de denigrare. Avocatul le-a cerut procurorilor să fie cercetat pentru constituire de grup infracţional.
Câteva luni mai târziu, procurorii Parchetului General l-au pus pe Radu Pricop sub învinuire pentru fals şi înşelăciune. După o săptămână, Alina Bica a cerut dosarul de la Parchetul General, în baza memoriului depus de Radu Pricop.
În martie 2015, procurorii DIICOT au trimis dosarul la DNA pentru că ar fi existat indicii de corupţie: memoriul, depus de Radu Pricop cu o zi înainte de declanşarea oficială a anchetei, i-ar fi dat avocatului posibilitatea să îşi aleagă Parchetul de care urma să fie cercetat. Ceea ce s-a şi întâmplat.
Nicolae Edulescu, expertul care a evaluat terenurile familiei Brătianu la 10 milioane de euro, este și el cercetat de procurori. Un asociat al lui Valentin Vișoiu, spune expertul, l-ar fi denunțat la Parchet că ar fi primit mită pentru supraevaluare. Într-o înregistrare cu camera ascunsă, Nicolae Edulescu vorbeşte despre mita oferită:
„Deci a vrut să-mi dea bani. Nu știu, bani, ca un plic. Uite din partea lui Vali că ai fost drăguț sau ce o fi zis el atunci. Fugi, mă, de aici! și am plecat din mașină de la el. Mi-a dat telefon înainte. Ca să dăm cărțile pe față. Da, a vrut să îmi dea, dar nu Vișoiu. Nu mi-a impus, domnule, să îi scot o valoare mai mare. De ce sa mint. Nu mi-a impus: bă, scoate-mi 15-20 de milioane. A zis: Eu mă așteptam la 15-20 de milioane. Poate alt evaluator îi scotea fără să îi dea nimic, care nu analiza corect. El se aștepta la 15-20 de milioane. Domnu Vișoiu, vă puteți dumneavoastră aștepta, dar eu chiar nu pot să vă dau atât, că nu stabilesc doar eu, e de comun acord. Dacă îi dădeam eu 20, Bucureștiul îmi tăia la 10.
Am fost deja, am spus ce am avut de spus. O să vedeți în zilele următoare sau săptămânile următoare ce e acolo, ce nu este acolo. Ce s-a întâmplat, ce a făcut fiecare, dacă a făcut, dacă nu a făcut”.
Afacerea despăgubirilor pentru proprietățile din Cadrilater
Nu doar intermediarii ar fi păgubit statul român. În raportul privind activitatea ANRP, inspectorii Curții de Conturi vorbesc despre zeci de nereguli și în privința despăgubirilor date celor care aveau proprietăţi în teritoriile românești cedate statelor vecine - Cadrilater, Basarabia sau Bucovina.
În 1940, partea sudică a Dobrogei a fost cedată Bulgariei. Peste 100.000 de români și-au abandonat casele și terenurile din județele Durostor și Caliacra și s-au mutat la nord de Dunăre. 58 de ani mai târziu, guvernul Victor Ciorbea decide să ofere despăgubiri românilor din Cadrilater sau urmașilor acestora.
Cei care voiau despăgubirile aveau la dispoziţie şase luni pentru a depune cererile la prefecturile de domiciliu. Dosarele rezultate erau trimise la Comisia Centrală a ANRP din București, unde primeau o rezoluție. În doar doi ani, românii au depus 8115 cereri, din care doar 115 au fost aprobate. Statul român a plătit despăgubiri de 2,2 milioane de euro.
„Termenul de depunere a dosarelor s-a prelungit, dacă nu mă înșel, de încă două ori, pentru că s-a observat că sunt foarte mulți cetățeni care nu își depuseseră dosarele, deşi erau îndrituiţi să primească aceste despăgubiri şi nu îşi depuseseră dosarele. Bine, mulţi dintre ei nu ştiau, erau oameni în vârstă, oameni mai de la ţară, şi mulţi aveau dificultăţi în a găsi documentele la arhivă”, a explicat parlamentarul Puiu Hașotti.
Cele mai multe cereri au fost depuse în București și Constanța. Odată cu instalarea Guvernului Năstase, se schimbă şi procedura: Autoritatea Naţională de Restituire a Proprietăţilor se ocupă de recompensarea românilor cu teren sau case din Cadrilater.
„În perioada 2000-2004, guvernul de atunci nu a fost interesat să rezolve această problemă, iar în 2004-2008 s-au rezolvat majoritatea dosarelor, cel puţin pentru judeţul Constanţa. Dacă în 2000-2004 s-au rezolvat aproximativ 80 de dosare, în 2004-2008 după cunoştinţa mea s-au rezolvat peste 2000, dar nu în totalitate, ci cu prima tranşă”, spune Puiu Hașotti.
Raportul Curţiii de Conturi afirmă că doar în judeţul Constanța ar fi existat 20 de cazuri în care despăgubirile ar fi fost ilegale. Unii dintre solicitanţi ar fi cerut bani de două sau chiar de trei ori pentru aceeaşi proprietate.
„Nu a stat nimeni să verifice fiecare cerere. Dacă mai sunt încă 1000 de cereri în spate cu același nume. Nu au fost introduse în sistem informatic. Fiind foarte multe, era destul de complicat ca, după ce s-au depus toate cererile, să începi să le bagi în calculator să vezi ce e respins sau ce nu e respins, ce-ai dat sau ce n-ai dat, sau dacă îţi apar nume de două ori sau dacă s-au făcut două cereri în toată perioada asta. Deci se mergea doar pe registre, or, nu stă nimeni să-ţi facă verificarea asta tehnic! Să stea: ia să vedem, mai e un nume trecut, nu e un nume trecut! Se lucra la foc continuu”, spune fostul prefect de Constanța, Claudiu Palaz.
Nicolae Steru avea o moşie de 10 hectare de teren arabil şi o casă în fostul judeţ Durostor, aflat acum în Bulgaria. Proprietarul a fost deportat în România în anii 40. Începând cu 2007, patru persoane au solicitat despăgubiri pentru averea Steru. ANRP a plătit, arată Raportul Curţii de Conturi, de trei ori pentru aceleaşi bunuri.
„Îmi vine greu să cred că ce spuneţi dumneavoastră... ar trebui să văd, au fost foarte multe documentaţii. Mie îmi vine greu să cred că atât la Constanţa, cât şi la Bucureşti nu s-a sesizat acest lucru”, spune un alt fost prefect al județului, Dănuț Culețu.
Conform raportului emis de Curtea de Conturi, Pașa Hrisaida a primit ilegal suma de 481.763 lei.
Mihai Stere și Gheorghe Mihale au primit peste 300.000 de lei.
„Bunicii erau acolo şi au avut drepturi. Nu am auzit că a fost ceva ilegal. Ceva ilegal s-a făcut de sus”, spun reprezentanții familiilor despăgubite.
La dosarul de compensare, pe lângă acte care dovedeau că a fost deportat, solicitantul trebuia să aducă şi declaraţiile unor martori care ar fi putut da detalii despre proprietăţile abandonate în Bulgaria. În cazul lui Nicolae Stere, au existat șase persoane care au dat declarații. O parte dintre ele sunt aceleaşi care au dat declaraţii şi în alte cazuri.
Deși aceste dosare au trecut prin filtrele Comisiei Județene și ale ANRP, nicio autoritate nu şi-a dat seama că declaraţiile ar fi false, aşa cum susţine Curtea de Conturi.
„Acordarea de despăgubiri era foarte corectă pentru că statul român primise aceste despăgubiri și cetățenii erau îndreptățiți. Că s-ar fi putut să fie erori, cum spuneți dumneavoastră, asta trebuie verificat”, spune Dănuț Culețu.
Și pentru proprietăţile lui Costea Pufleni, ANRP a plătit de două ori compensații. Steriu Puflene depune prima cerere în 2006, la Prefectura Tulcea. Este respinsă. Doi ani mai târziu, sora lui, Zoița Bavaleta, cere bani Comisiei Județene Constanța.
Femeia primeşte 422.270 de lei, deși, spune Curtea de Conturi, nu era moștenitoare legală. Ea declarase pe proprie răspundere că nu mai existau şi alți moștenitori.
„Nu cred că au jucat teatru în felul ăsta cu mine şi să zic că au trecut aceste cereri la un moment dat. Nu, pur şi simplu este din eroare. Hotărârea comisiei judeţene este zero, ca să înţelegeţi mecanismul, fără aprobarea comisiei naţionale. Deci poţi să dai aici 50.000 de hotărâri pe local, dar dacă nu ajunge şi nu-ţi aprobă naţionalul ai dat degeaba”, spune Claudiu Palaz.
Elena Hira, fiica și moștenitoarea reală a lui Costea Pufleni, depune în iunie 2007 o altă cerere pentru acordarea despăgubirilor.
În 2009, ANRP a considerat că familia Hira trebuie să primească puțin peste 90.000 de lei pentru aceeaşi proprietate pentru care îi acordase Zoiţei Bavaleta despăgubiri de cinci ori mai mari.
„Noi, când am depus actele, eu când le-am depus prima dată, le-am depus la o notară la Bucureşti. (...) În patru ani nu ne-a venit niciun răspuns de acolo. Iar eu când mi-a venit pentru ăştia 90.000 de lei, mi-a venit o cerere de la Bucureşti, o hârtie că dacă vreau să renunţ la 2 miliarde 800, îmi dă bani într-o lună de zile”, povestește Elena Hira.
Saricu Stere avea 12 ani când a ajuns în Români, în 1940, împreună cu părinţii. În 1998 a cerut și el despăgubiri pentru proprietățile lăsate în Bulgaria: 10 hectare de teren, o casă cu patru camere și recoltele abandonate. Comisia Județeană decide că Stere Saricu are dreptul să primească doar banii pentru recoltele abandonate: 736 de lei.
„Şapte milioane, domnule? Asta e o bătaie de joc. Vă bateţi joc, zic. Şi-am plecat. După aceea mi-am luat actele și le-am dat nepotului”, spune el.
Conform raportului Curții de Conturi, tatăl lui Stere Saricu primise compensații pentru terenuri și casă cu ocazia repatrierii. Cu toate acestea, un nepot al lui, Paris Enache, a primit peste 280.000 de lei despăgubiri pentru aceleaşi proprietăţi solicitate de Stere Saricu.
„L-au anunţat de acolo, a primit banii. În două rate i-a primit”, spune Stere Saricu.
Din 1998, statul român a acordat an de an despăgubiri urmaşilor sau celor care s-au pretins moștenitori ai românilor deportaţi din Cadrilater, Basarabia, Bucovina şi ţinutul Herţa. Au fost depuse 16.796 de dosare, din care au fost soluţionate 14.779. În urma ilegalităţilor descoperite de Curtea de Conturi, inspectorii au cerut ANRP reanalizarea tuturor dosarelor cu o compensaţie mai mare de 500.000 de lei.
Cazuri nerezolvate după 20 de ani
Restituirea terenurilor rămâne în continuare o problemă majoră. Zeci de mii de foşti proprietari aşteaptă încă să-şi primească pământurile sau despăgubirile.
Nepoții celebrului medic Marius Nasta se bat în justiţie de aproape 20 de ani ca să intre în posesia unui bloc din Dorobanţi. Au câştigat toate apartamentele, mai puţin unul. Majoritatea magistraţilor care le-au văzut dosarul le-au dat dreptate, dar nu au reuşit să termine procedura. De-a lungul timpului, familia Nasta a fost abordată şi de omul de afaceri Marius Locic, condamnat în dosarul de corupție al senatorului Cătălin Voicu. Marius Locic a vrut să cumpere drepturile litigioase, dar nu a oferit suma potrivită.
„Problema este că au trecut din 96 - la anul se împlinesc 20 de ani de când ne judecăm. Iar eu personal împreună cu rudele mele ne chinuim să recuperăm un apartament de la etajul doi al blocului. Deci sunt 20 de ani de când încercăm să recuperăm un apartament”, spune Niculae Nasta, unul dintre moștenitorii medicului.
„M-a contactat un domn Locic, acum vreo 10-12 ani. Voia să-mi cumpere mie și rudelor mele partea litigioasă și terenul în indiviziune”, adaugă el.
Numărul cererilor de restituire a fostelor proprietăţi din ultimii 25 de ani rămâne o necunoscută, pentru că nu a existat un sistem centralizat. Avocaţii estimează că au fost peste trei milioane de solicitări pentru toate legile proprietăţii, fie că e vorba de terenuri sau clădiri. În 2010, Guvernul spunea Curţii Europene a Drepturilor Omului că peste 1,5 milioane de cereri de restituire fuseseră înregistrate în opt judeţe doar în baza a două legi - 18 din 1991 şi 1 din 2000. Pentru că nu a putut da terenurile şi casele în natură, statul a pus la bătaie acţiuni la Fondul Proprietatea în valoare de 13 miliarde de lei - aproximativ 4 miliarde de euro, acţiuni pe care le-a distribuit integral. S-au plătit şi direct bani, iar justiţia a avut peste o jumătate de milion de procese.
La 24 de ani de la primele încercări de rezolvare a problemei, respectarea proprietăţii rămâne o problemă majoră a statului, umbrită de anchetele DNA care au demonstrat că, pentru unii, pământul a fost o afacere mai profitabilă decât sperau.
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Правообладатель иллюстрации Reuters Image caption Границу с Украиной пересекли 35 автомобилей с гуманитарным грузом
35 автомобилей второго российского гуманитарного конвоя пересекли границу на российском КПП "Донецк", сообщает ростовская таможня.
"Российские таможенники и пограничники завершили оформление первой партии грузовых автомобилей", - заявил РИА Новости представитель Южного таможенного управления Раян Фарукшин.
Из миновавших границу автомобилей 33 - грузовики с собственно грузом и два технических автомобиля, добавляет таможенник.
Российское МЧС ранее сообщало о сборе 2 тысяч тонн гуманитарного груза.
Первый гуманитарный конвой, состоявший из более 200 грузовиков, был отправлен на Украину в августе.
Ожидание ответа
В четверг заместитель главы МЧС России Владимир Степанов сообщил, что вторая российская гуманитарная колонна для жителей юго-востока Украины находится у украинской границы в Ростовской области.
По его словам, все документы для отправки помощи на Украину с российской стороны были собраны, Москва ожидает ответ Киева.
"Мы собрали около 2 тыс. тонн. Это предметы первой необходимости, медикаменты, продукты питания, оборудование для очистки воды, передвижные электростанции и другие сопутствующие виды товаров, которые необходимы сегодня населению юго-востока Украины", - сказал Степанов.
Как он отметил, задержка с доставкой гуманитарной помощи связана с тем, что предварительный план, который был согласован ранее с украинской стороной, так и не реализован.
Правообладатель иллюстрации AFP Image caption Автомобили доставят 2 тысячи тонн гуманитарного груза
В свою очередь, заместитель главы региональной делегации Международного комитета Красного Креста в России, Белоруссии и Молдавии Бруно Ускине заявил в четверг, что 16 представителей МККК находятся в Ростовской области, однако проблема заключается в том, что "нет согласия ни со стороны России, ни со стороны Украины".
В комитете общественной поддержки жителей юго-востока Украины сообщили о том, что российская сторона дала свое согласие.
29 августа постпред России при ООН Виталий Чуркин заявил, что главы МИД России и Украины договорились об отправке жителям Донецкой и Луганской областей нового гуманитарного конвоя.
"Сейчас завершается подготовка к отправке второго такого конвоя. Договоренность об этом сегодня была подтверждена в телефонном разговоре министра иностранных дел РФ Сергея Лаврова с главой МИД Украины Павлом Климкиным", - сказал Чуркин на заседании Совета Безопасности ООН по Украине.
Как сообщали украинские СМИ, 26 августа Киев получил от Москвы ноту о намерении направить на восток Украины второй гуманитарный конвой. В своем ответе Украина указала российской стороне на грубые нарушения во время предыдущей доставки и предупредила России о необходимости следования четким правилам.
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Washington, DC — Standing before a sea of humanity — people of all ages and races, stretching out from the Lincoln Monument back as far as the Capitol building– a sea vaster than any demonstration in the history of the nation’s capital, the unkempt white-haired senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, a self-described independent socialist maverick who decided to take his oath of office on the steps where Martin Luther King once spoke, instead of the traditional spot at the Capitol building, called out to the American people to join him in “taking back our country from the smug, self-satisfied rich and the corporations that have been pretending to be persons!”
“We are engaged in a struggle to undo decades of government policies that were designed to benefit the one percent,” said the man who has upended centuries of two-party duopoly by winning the presidency in a landslide on the Green Party ticket in a sweep that handed control of both House and Senate to a Democratic Party that was at the same time relegated to a humiliating third place finish in the presidential race.
“The election is over,” President Sanders declared. “But the American people’s fight is just beginning! I call on all those who voted for my opponents, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, to join with the 75 million who elected me in taking back this country from the special interests, from the wealthy for whom nothing is ever enough, from the corporations that see themselves as global enterprises, not as part of the fabric of this nation and its society, and from those who would trample on the weak in order to raise themselves a notch above the rest.”
Sanders went on to announce a list of priority measures he intends to present to the new Congress on this, his first day in office, the first being a bill to establish a new Department of Peace, whose secretary, he said, would henceforth sit in on all discussions of foreign affairs in order to “insure that peaceful options for resolving differences will always be put on the table.” Other measures going to Congress on day one of Sanders‘ presidency, he said, would include:
* Establishment of a commission, headed up by his nominee for Secretary of Health and Welfare Jill Stein, charged with drawing up, over the next six months, a plan for replacing the costly and complex Affordable Care Act with an expanded and enhanced Medicare program that would cover all Americans, not just the elderly. The new president, a long-time advocate of a national single-payer health care system similar to Canada’s, said his plan would cost less than health care does now because it would do away with the need for Medicaid for the poor, with the need for employer-funded insurance plans and their huge premiums, and with the Veterans administration hospital system, since everyone would be receiving Medicare. He promised that such a system would allow the federal government to bargain for lower prices for all health care and medicines. “We are declaring that as of today, health care in America is a right of citizenship, and we are saying if every other developed country in the world can deliver affordable healthcare to all its citizens, then so can America!” said the new president to thunderous applause.
* Establishment of a $15/hr federal minimum wage, linked to the consumer price index, to become effective as soon as a bill reaches his desk, and a “card-check” measure giving unions the right to demand recognition by an employer after simply turning in to the National Labor Relations Board cards signed by a majority of workers, without having to go through a lengthy and endlessly delayed formal election process. Sanders said that bill would also make labor law violations by employers subject to triple damages, similar to insider trading violations, instead of simply requiring payment of back wages. Said Sanders, “A person who works full-time at a job should be able to earn enough to support a family. It’s that simple.” He added, “Companies should not be subsidizing their payroll costs by forcing their workers to rely on taxpayer-funded assistance programs like welfare and food stamps! No more!”
* Appointment of a commission to develop a plan not just to fully fund Social Security benefits through the next 75 years, but to expand benefits so that they replace 60% of income at retirement for those individuals earning less than $60,000 a year, and for couples earning less than $100,000 a year. “This would be in line with what European countries, do,” the new president declared, again to thunderous applause that rocked the capital.
* Calling for an end to reliance on carbon-based fuels, to combat the urgent threat of catastrophic climate change, President Sanders announced a bill to train and subsidize the employment of an army of well-drillers and home heating retro-fitters to install geo-thermal and heat-pump systems in existing and in all new homes and public buildings where geologically viable, and a program restoring federal tax subsidies for the installation of solar power panels and/or wind generators on residential homes, with a goal of quickly and substantially reducing the need for oil and gas for heating and cooling, and for centralized electric power generation. “For the sake of ourselves and for generations to come here and around the world, we can and we will massively reduce America’s carbon footprint, beginning today,” declared the new president.”There is no longer any time to wait or to debate about what to do about climate change.”
* A” jubilee” forgiveness of all undergraduate college debt borrowed and owed to the federal government up to and including the current spring term, and establishment of program to encourage all states, beginning next fall, to provide free tuition at state-owned and funded two- and four-year colleges to in-state students from families earning less than $150,000 a year. “The loan forgiveness program will be a trillion-dollar economic stimulus,” said Sanders, “freeing currently indebted graduates to buy homes, cars, and computers and to move forward with their careers, for young entrepreneurs to take out start-up loans, and freeing their parents from having to support them or help them repay those loans.” He said public colleges would have to “figure out how to change their model to operate in service to the young people” whose families’ taxes had built those state institutions, instead of continually jacking up tuition and fees. “Maybe they’ll have to lose a lot of management positions,” he said, “and cut senior management salaries down to what most faculty earn.” To encourage the change, he said the federal government would no longer provide subsidized loans for use at public colleges that didn’t meet the proposed free-tuition guidelines.
* On foreign policy, which had not been a major topic during the campaign, Sanders vowed to work towards more friendly relations with Russia and China and to get the US out of the “regime change” business. To help calm the waters in the Middle East, he also vowed to initiate “serious peace negotiations” between Israel and the Palestinians, aimed at early creation of a “viable Palestinian state.” The nation’s first Jewish president warned that the Israeli government would have to reverse the illegal settlements that have for years been encroaching on Palestinian territory on the West Bank and said the US would cease providing generous military assistance to Israel as long as the Israeli government refused to do so.
Thanking Merrick Garland, outgoing President Obama’s unsuccessful nominee for the late Antonin Scalia’s seat on the Supreme Court, for making the frustrating and unsuccessful effort to overcome Republican intransigence about approving any Obama nominee, Sanders announced that he would be nominating Susan Herman, current president of the American Civil Liberties Union, to that vacant seat on the High Court.
Sanders stunned pollsters, pundits and the nation’s political elite when, following Hillary Clinton’s nomination as the Democratic Party’s nominee at the party’s July convention, and following massive demonstrations in Philadelphia, Washington and other major cities across the country by millions of his supporters calling on him to run as an independent candidate for president, he accepted an offer by Green Party leader and presumptive Green nominee for president Dr. Jill Stein, to run as the party’s candidate in her stead. Sanders agreed to the offer, and chose as his vice-presidential running mate California Rep. Barbara Lee. Long a hero of anti-war Americans for her staunch opposition to the initial Congressional Authorization for Use of Military Force in 2001 that launched the War on Terror, her vote against the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and her opposition earlier to the Clinton administration’s bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Lee, an African-American congresswoman, put peace and anti-militarism squarely at the center of the Sander’s campaign.
Sanders said at the time that the disclosure, by Wikileaks, of emails from the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign showing that the party establishment had actively worked to subvert the primaries, combined with the structural unfairness of having some 800 unelected Super-delegates whose votes had been bought in advance by the Clinton campaign, convinced him that the primaries had been fatally corrupted and the nomination stolen from him, leaving him free to ignore his earlier promise to support Clinton if she became the nominee.
His ensuing and unprecedentedly successful third-party campaign, funded fully by public funds and small donations, electrified the country, drawing support from independent and even Republican Trump supporters — particularly white working-class Americans — as well as sparking huge turnouts among black and hispanic voters and normally hard-core Democratic voters, all drawn to the Sanders ticket by his promise to raise the minimum wage to $15, to revisit and either revise or cancel all trade treaties, to bust up the big banks and to end corporate control of Washington. The Green Party, already on the ballot in 26 states, was, by Election Day, able to have the Sanders ticket listed on the ballot in 46 states, allowing Sanders to win landslides in both the popular and the Electoral College vote.
Although he campaigned aggressively against both Trump and Clinton, candidate Sanders worked hard to back Democratic Congressional candidates, helping to achieve a number of upset victories, including in traditionally red states in the south and midwest. As a result, he enters the White House backed by solid majorities in both chambers of Congress and carrying a mandate for dramatic change not seen since Franklin Roosevelt’s big sweep in 1932.
While only two Green Party candidates for Congress won election in November (both in California), a number of successful candidates for House and Senate who are Democrats, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) Russ Feingold {D-WI), and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), announced after Election Day that they were switching their party affiliations to Green, though all said they would continue caucusing with Democrats in the new Congress for purposes of committee assignments and strategy on promoting the Sanders agenda.
Sanders, acknowledging in his address that he anticipated push-back from hard-core conservatives and Trump Republicans in Congress, particularly on his appointments to the federal courts and to cabinet posts and regulatory agencies (Republicans still have enough votes to conduct filibusters and place holds on nominations), told the inaugural throng on the National Mall, which spilled out onto side streets, requiring the installation of makeshift speaker systems on lampposts, “I want you all to be prepared to come back here and make yourselves very familiar to the members of this new Congress whenever we run into roadblocks. This mall — and the halls of Congress — are your property! They are here so you can be here whenever you feel you need to be, and I promise you will be able to stay put, with tents and with the necessary amenities and without any opposition from park police, whenever you feel it necessary!”
After the cheering and applause had finally subsided, Sanders added, “…or when I put out a call for help down here!” That kicked off a sustained cheering that morphed into a chant of “Revolution! Revolution!”
It was not your normal inaugural address to be sure!
Sanders ended his speech with a bow to the inaugural address of a former upstart President, John F. Kennedy.
“Ask not what this country can do for you,” he said. “Ask what you, the American people, working together and for the good of all, can do for yourselves and for this great nation.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE:While this article is a fantasy, there are several parts that are rooted in reality, including these two facts: Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein did offer to surrender her spot at the head of the Green ticket to Sanders if he wanted it, and those polls that continued to include Sanders in them during the general election campaign consistently showed him trouncing Trump right through Election Day. It could have happened had Sanders chosen to run as a Green.
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A video uploaded to YouTube shows an Israel Defense Forces soldier wriggling in a belly dance beside a bound and handcuffed Palestinian woman, to the cheers of his comrades who were documenting the incident.
The IDF's internal investigation department ordered an immediate probe into the matter after the Ch. 10 television program Tzinor Laila caught wind of the clip on the internet. The full clip and the details behind the incident will be broadcast on the show just before midnight on Monday.
A number of IDF soldiers have over the last year faced investigation and penalty for documenting themselves performing questionable acts in front of Palestinian prisoners or while on patrol.
In August, former soldier Eden Abergil raised controversy by posting pictures of herself beside a bound and blindfolded Palestinian prisoner on her Facebook page.
Days later, three IDF soldiers were arrested taking photographs of themselves alongside cuffed and blindfolded Palestinian detainees using their cellphones.
Photographs uploaded by Abergil and labeled "IDF – the best time of my life," depicted her smiling next to Palestinian prisoners with their hands bound and their eyes covered.
A comment attached to one of the photos of the soldier smiling in front of two blindfold men and posted by one of Abergil's friends read "That looks really sexy for you," with Abergil's response reading: "I wonder if he is on Facebook too – I'll have to tag him in the photo."
A comment allegedly added by Abergil to her Facebook page later that wee said that she would "gladly kill Arabs – even slaughter them."
"In war there are no rules," Abergil allegedly wrote on the wall of her profile page.
Other soldiers faced disciplinary action over the last year for uploading video of themselves stopping a patrol in the West Bank to dance to American electro-pop singer Kesha's hit Tick Tock.
The video "Batallion 50 Rock the Hebron Casbah" shows six dancing Nahal Brigade soldiers, armed and wearing bulletproof vests, patrolling as a Muslim call to prayer is heard. Then the music changes and they break into a Macarena-like dance.
The video was uploaded over the weekend, and quickly spread across Facebook pages and blogs before it was removed by those who uploaded it.
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Media creativity in the aftermath of the 28 June coup against Honduran President Mel Zelaya has generally been limited to such things as CNN’s classification of the military coup as “military-led,” Honduran media classification of tomorrow’s illegitimate elections as a “fiesta cívica,” and the publication of articles in mainstream Honduran newspapers with titles like “Zelayista Guerrillas Train in Nicaragua.” This particular article, published by El Heraldo on 2 August, is accompanied by a photograph of a ragtag group of joggers—some of them barefoot, one in a cowboy hat, and one in all pink—and bears a caption announcing that “Manuel Zelaya’s followers have begun military exercises in fields in Nicaragua.”
More substantive creative endeavors have been undertaken by Dan Archer and Nikil Saval, who have put together a graphic history of the Honduran coup in two parts thus far. The latter part is based on Joseph Shansky’s piece “Smashing the Silence: Community Defiance in Honduras,” first published on PULSE, and can be viewed below (note: all annotations appear in the original version). The first part of the graphic history can additionally be viewed here, and information on other projects can be found on Archer’s website.
Panel 1 – Image in the background is from the Honduras Resists blog. Panel 2 – For evidence, see a recent poll by Washington-based Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, which showed public support for deposed President Zelaya was still strong.
Panel 1 – The ‘historic accord’ quote from the previous panel is from Hillary Clinton, and the speech balloon quote in this panel is taken from here.
Panels 1, 3 – Direct quotes from Micheletti, via CNN. Panel 4 – CAFTA stands for the “The United States-Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement” – based on the same failed neoliberal NAFTA model which promotes privatization and deregulation of key public services. This may explain Senator DeMint’s dislike for Zelaya. Direct quote from Senator DeMint, via Bloomberg News. Panel 6 – Another direct quote from Demint, from his website.
Panel 1 – Direct quote, translated from the Spanish. Panel 2 – Read more. Panel 3 – Statement from DeMint’s website. Panel 3 – Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State under Richard Nixon, about Chile prior to the CIA overthrow of the democratically elected government of socialist President Salvador Allende in 1973.
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“It is imperative that you reopen the government now and, then, reach across the aisle to find a solution that will end the current impasse,” said the letter, signed by the National Governors Association chair and vice chair, Govs. Steve Bullock (D-Mont.) and Larry Hogan (R-Md.), on behalf of the group, which represents the 55 governors of U.S. states and territories. “Governors stand united in telling the federal government to open the doors of currently shuttered agencies while you find a long-term, bipartisan compromise on the issues that currently divide Washington.”
The letter, dated Monday, was released by the National Governors Association on Tuesday morning, as Trump prepared to address the nation from the Oval Office about the impasse over his demand for border wall funding that has led to a partial government shutdown, now in its third week.
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The approach outlined in the letter echoes that of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who has said Congress should reopen government agencies before negotiating over Trump’s plans for a border wall, which she has repeatedly called “immoral.” Trump aides have argued that the issue of border security should be resolved at the same time as other funding issues.
The National Governors Association letter called the shutdown “a failure in governance and a weight on our economy and the American people.”
“This partial government shutdown affects nine federal departments and dozens of smaller agencies, all of which our states do business with daily,” the governors wrote. “Approximately 800,000 federal employees in our states are working without pay or furloughed — impacting their ability to provide for their families, jeopardizing their credit, and potentially siphoning dollars from state economies.”
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The letter cited other ill effects of the shutdown, including national parks overflowing with trash, the cessation of federal loans for rural development, reduced Coast Guard capabilities and the forced furloughing of employees that serve Native American tribal governments.
The states are concerned about the shutdown’s effect on a variety of programs they operate jointly with the federal government, in particular the federal welfare program known as TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), a $16.5 billion block grant program that funds cash assistance, job training and other services for low-income families.
Congress failed to reauthorize the program before the Dec. 21 shutdown, and for now states are using any money left over from last year to cover the missing federal funds. But such funds are expected to run out soon, at different times for different states.
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“At what point is the federal contribution going to run out?” James Nash, National Governors Association spokesman said in an interview. “States cannot get a lot of clarity on this.”
The group has calculated that the shutdown has halted $85.8 billion in federal money to the states under grants and programs that cover transportation, housing, the judicial system, public lands and agriculture.
The association said Monday that it has been reaching out to the White House on behalf of the states, in particular to find out the administration’s plans for the TANF program, but it has been unable to get answers.
“We can’t reach the officials in the agencies, because they’re furloughed,” Nash said. “It’s been hard for the states to get answers.”
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Other issues with cascading effects on the states are the federal court system and the Internal Revenue Service.
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With the U.S. judiciary announcing Friday that it will keep federal courts open one more week than expected, until Jan. 18, but suspend all civil cases after that, state courts may need to absorb some civil cases in the federal system, Nash said.
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Well here’s a non-sensical comparison from Democrats for the Obama campaign to use. According to Paul Bedard at The Washington Examiner, the Obama campaign takes Batman’s new enemy Bane, a pumped up venom gas breathing maniac, in the movie “The Dark Knight Rises” and compares him to presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, because of the Massachusetts GOP’ers previous work with the investment firm Bain Capital, which Obama and Democrats say was a job killer. Get it—Bane and Bain? Bedard writes:
“Bane” is the terrorist in the new movie who drives the caped crusader out of semi-retirement in the final Batman movie. Democrats, who believe they have Romney on the ropes over the president’s assault on his leadership at Bain Capital, said the comparisons are too rich to ignore.
“It has been observed that movies can reflect the national mood,” said Democratic advisor and former Clinton aide Christopher Lehane. “Whether it is spelled Bain and being put out by the Obama campaign or Bane and being out by Hollywood, the narratives are similar: a highly intelligent villain with offshore interests and a past both are seeking to cover up who had a powerful father and is set on pillaging society,” he added.
SEE RELATED:
Comic book writer Chuck Dixon created the character of Bane with Graham Nolan in the early 90’s and Dixon’s reaction to the news above, according to his message board on his website Dixonverse.net, was “I saw it on FB like two hours ago. Ridiculous. Tho’ I got a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach that Rush (Limbaugh) may pick up on this. And that would be the second time he pegged me and Graham as liberals on his show.”
He later added, “Overgrasping Dems? Hey, if it gets Obama supporters into theaters. Maybe they’ll buy thousands of Bane toys to throw at Romney. It all adds to MY Bane capital. I wonder if the Romney campaign will contact me?”
The DC Comics character Bane is best known for releasing all of Gotham City’s criminals from Arkham Asylum. Batman is pushed to the point of exhaustion as he rounds them all back up, but Bane is waiting for him and breaks Batman’s back. Bane brings forth chaos, anarchy, and lawlessness. Mitt Romney is not the first person to come to mind as far as the character of Bane is concerned. In fact, the chaos that Bane brings is reminiscent of Occupy Wall Street protests.
Other than the silly name play by the Obama campaign, the comparison is ridiculous, especially because Selina Kyle (Catwoman), a thief who steals from rich individuals and played by actress Ann Hathaway in the film, whispers to ultra wealthy Bruce Wayne, Batman’s alter ego, in one trailer: “There’s a storm coming, Mr. Wayne,” she says. “You and your friends better batten down the hatches. Because when it hits you’re all going to wonder how you ever thought you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us.” (video below)
Obviously, the Democrats miscast some characters here and may want to reconsider their advice to the Obama campaign.
UPDATE: Dave Weigel at Slate went to Chuck Dixon’s message board on Tuesday afternoon and found that Mr. Dixon posted the following image below:
UPDATE 2: Comicbook.com interviewed Mr. Dixon on Tuesday:
Dixon is, as he points out himself, one of the most well-known conservatives in mainstream comics. While he doesn’t seem to believe there’s a political axe to grind behind choosing Bane as the villain at all, he does point out that if there was one, it actually seems more likely that the film is a comment on popular protest movements of the Left. “As for his appearance in The Dark Knight Rises, Bane is a force for evil and the destruction of the status quo. He’s far more akin to an Occupy Wall Street type if you’re looking to cast him politically. And if there ever was a Bruce Wayne running for the White House it would have to be Romney.”
UPDATE 3: For those who think that the Occupy Wall Street protests did not affect the film TDKR, think again. In October of 2011, The New York Times reported that the TDKR film crew would shoot near the OWS protest site Zucotti Park:
He is a tycoon, but he is also a crusader for justice: Bruce Wayne is coming to Wall Street, and how the 99 percent will receive him is the latest worry facing a beleaguered Lower Manhattan. In just over a week, “The Dark Knight Rises” — a film featuring a fictional 1 percenter, Mr. Wayne, and his superhero alter ego, Batman — is scheduled to begin filming on Wall Street, only two blocks from Zuccotti Park, which the Occupy Wall Street protesters have been using as their home base for the last month. The film’s producers have told city officials that they want to shoot during the last weekend of October and the first weekend of November, and that would inject a new element of chaos into a neighborhood already unsettled by the protests and the attendant security, gawkers and news media.
UPDATE 4: The filming of fight scenes happened in lower Manhattan during the height of the Occupy Wall Street protests and New York media made a number of comparisons to the movie’s plot line and current events involving the protests. However, Chris Nolan, TDKR’s director told reporters that script was influenced more by the Charles Dickens classic A Tale of Two Cities more than anything else.
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'Just remember, it's not a lie if you believe it."
Those words, uttered by George Castanza on "Seinfeld," are perhaps the most generous explanation I can imagine for the numerous and utterly false assertions made by Mitchell Chester in "Building a better assessment," ("As I See It, Telegram & Gazette, April 2), in which he praised the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) test.
It's important to understand, for starters, that in addition to his role as the Massachusetts commissioner of elementary and secondary education, Mr. Chester is also serving his third term as national chair of the PARCC Governing Board. This hardly makes him an objective evaluator of PARCC during this sham of a so-called "two-year test drive."
Here are just two untruths stated by Mr. Chester:
� "PARCC provides a solid bridge from K-12 to higher education."
� "It offers a much clearer understanding of whether a student is ready for college"
There is absolutely zero evidence to support these statements. By Mr. Chester's own admission, PARRC is not even a finished product, so how could any thoughtful person assert that this "untested test" will definitively do what is claimed?
An important question for one to ask is, "How do Massachusetts Schools currently measure up?"
According to The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), Massachusetts has led all other states in achievement for an unprecedented five testing cycles in a row. Sixty-three percent of Massachusetts high school students go on directly to college, compared with 55 percent nationwide, putting us in the top tier of states.
A recent Harvard University study found that if Massachusetts was its own country, its students perform on the same level as some of the most educated countries in the world.
And the Science and Engineering Readiness Index (SERI), which measures how high school students are performing in physics and calculus, on Advanced Placement scores, and teacher certification requirements, shows that Massachusetts blows away the competition when compared with other U.S. states.
With this in mind, here's a question I'd like to see on every student's PARCC test:
"If Massachusetts had a set of standards, a proven test and curriculum that had propelled students to best in the nation status for five straight years and would cost other states $0 to adopt and the federal government had an untested standard, an untested test and an untested curriculum that cost the taxpayers $4.3 billion (the actual amount already spent in Race to the Top Grants), which one would make the most sense for underperforming states to try first?"
Massachusetts, because of our #1 status, has the least to gain and the most to lose by substituting the "theoretically" better Common Core for the irrefutably successful MCAS.
It's unimaginable that any rational person could even consider such a shift without the empirical evidence showing that it would guarantee a better result. The near-fanaticism of Common Core proponents in the absence of such proof raises profound questions.
It's worth reminding people that The Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993 was years in the making. Its metal was forged from the heat of numerous and spirited public debates; a process that is in striking contrast to the origins of Common Core which burst onto the scene from the underbelly of reticent Washington think tanks.
Ironically, the landmark legislation of education reform and the subsequent decades of improvement in student achievement can never again be possible when the copyright-protected language of Common Core becomes the law of the land.
Changes in the world, which would once have taken generations, now occur overnight.
The education institutions that will be of greatest service to its student are those that are most agile. Shifting the responsibility of public education to Washington all but guarantees we will be slow to adapt, assuming it would be capable of any worthwhile modifications at all.
There's one thing upon which people on either side of the issue will agree. The adoption of Common Core and the federalizing of public education will be, for better or worse, the greatest change of that institution in our country's history.
What is most troubling to me is that almost no one knows anything about it. It is my firm belief that this runaway train called Common Core has far less to do with education than it does with the colossal build-up of the "Educational Industrial Complex" from which obscene profits and unbridled-power shall be amassed.
I encourage everyone to learn more, before it's too late.
David McGeney is a member of the Peabody School Committee.
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ON A snow-covered bluff overlooking the Sheboygan river stands the Waelderhaus, a faithful reproduction of an Austrian chalet. It was built by the Kohler family of Wisconsin in the 1920s as a tribute to the homeland of their father, John Michael Kohler, who had immigrated to America in 1854 at the age of ten.
John Michael moved to Sheboygan, married the daughter of another German immigrant, who owned the local foundry, and took over his father-in-law’s business. He transformed it from a maker of ploughshares into a plumbing business. Today Kohler is the biggest maker of loos and baths in America. Herbert Kohler, the boss (and grandson of the founder), has done so well selling tubs that he has been able to pursue his other passion—golf—on a grand scale. The Kohler Company owns Whistling Straits, the course that will host the Ryder Cup in 2020.
German-Americans are America’s largest single ethnic group (if you divide Hispanics into Mexican-Americans, Cuban-Americans, etc). In 2013, according to the Census bureau, 46m Americans claimed German ancestry: more than the number who traced their roots to Ireland (33m) or England (25m). In whole swathes of the northern United States, German-Americans outnumber any other group (see map). Some 41% of the people in Wisconsin are of Teutonic stock.
Yet despite their numbers, they are barely visible. Everyone knows that Michael Dukakis is Greek-American, the Kennedy clan hail from Ireland and Mario Cuomo was an Italian-American. Fewer notice that John Boehner, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Rand Paul, a senator from Kentucky with presidential ambitions, are of German origin.
Companies founded by German-Americans tend to play down their roots, too: think of Pfizer, Boeing, Steinway, Levi Strauss or Heinz. Buried somewhere on their websites may be a brief note that “Steinway & Sons was founded in 1853 by German immigrant Henry Engelhard Steinway in a Manhattan loft on Varick Street”. But firms that play up their Germanic history—as Kohler does, in a short film shown at the Waelderhaus—are rare.
German immigrants have flavoured American culture like cinnamon in an Apfelkuchen. They imported Christmas trees and Easter bunnies and gave America a taste for pretzels, hot dogs, bratwursts and sauerkraut. They built big Lutheran churches wherever they went. Germans in Wisconsin launched America’s first kindergarten and set up Turnvereine, or gymnastics clubs, in Milwaukee, Cincinnati and other cities.
After a failed revolution in Germany in 1848, disillusioned revolutionaries decamped to America and spread progressive ideas. “Germanism, socialism and beer makes Milwaukee different,” says John Gurda, a historian. Milwaukee is the only big American city that had Socialist mayors for several decades, of whom two, Emil Seidel and Frank Zeidler, were of German stock. As in so many other countries where Germans have settled, they have dominated the brewing trade. Beer barons such as Jacob Best, Joseph Schlitz, Frederick Pabst and Frederick Miller made Milwaukee the kind of city that more or less had to call its baseball team the Brewers.
“Germans were not part of the colonial aristocracy,” says Rüdiger Lentz, director of the Aspen Institute Germany. Many Italian and Polish immigrants were middle-class, and they quickly became politically active. German immigrants tended to be poor farmers, which is why they headed for the vast fertile spaces of the Midwest. “The Italians stormed the city halls; the Germans stormed the beer halls,” went the saying.
During the first world war, parts of America grew hysterically anti-German. Some Germans were spat at in the street. The teaching of their language was banned in schools. Sauerkraut was renamed “liberty cabbage”. German books were burned, dachshunds kicked and German-Americans forced to buy war bonds to prove their patriotism. When New Ulm, a predominantly German town in Minnesota, refused to let its young men join the draft, the National Guard was sent in. After the war, German-Americans hunkered down. Many stopped speaking German and anglicised their names.
The second world war saw less anti-German hysteria, although some 10,000 German-Americans were interned as enemy aliens. President Franklin Roosevelt conspicuously appointed military commanders with names like Eisenhower and Nimitz to fight the Axis powers. But the Holocaust gave German-Americans yet another reason to hide their origins.
Today German-Americans are quietly successful. Their median household income, at $61,500, is 18% above the national norm. They are more likely to have college degrees than other Americans, and less likely to be unemployed. A whopping 97% of them speak only English at home.
They have assimilated and prospered without any political help specially tailored for their ethnic group. “The Greeks and the Irish have a far stronger support network and lobby groups than we do,” says Peter Wittig, Germany’s ambassador in America. There was no German-American congressional caucus until 2010, though there were caucuses for potatoes, bicycles and Albanian affairs. The German caucus has quickly grown to about 100 members, who lobby for trade and investment as well as the preservation of their common cultural heritage.
Five years ago a small German-American Heritage Museum opened in Washington, DC. “Germany has never been as popular as it is today,” says Petra Schürmann, the museum’s director. German fests and Oktoberfests have sprung up all over the country, and they are not only about brats and beer, but also about tracing genealogy and displaying traditional dress and craftsmanship. Stuff made by Germans sells. And Americans travel to Germany in droves: the young to hip Berlin and older folks to pretty Heidelberg.
On February 9th Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, will meet Barack Obama in the White House. They will discuss the war in Ukraine, transatlantic trade, the wobbling euro zone and the upcoming G7 summit in Bavaria. Unlike Indian-Americans, who went wild when their new prime minister visited America, German-Americans will barely notice.
Timeline picture credits: Alamy; Getty Images; Ronald Grant Archive
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Why do some of China’s biggest tech companies engage in the sincerest form of flattery? This week Lei Jun, the chief executive of Xiaomi—recently rebranded internationally as Mi—stood on stage in a black T-shirt and jeans and announced a new smartphone with a notable resemblance to the iPhone in front of a slide that said “one more thing…”
Yes, the same ”one more thing…” slide that Steve Jobs made famous…
Mi thinks “sweeping sensationalist statements” of it copying Apple are off the mark. ”We are not the only ones who have adopted the Steve Jobs presentation style,” Mi international vice-president Hugo Barra said. ”The whole world has done that.”
But Mi isn’t the only Chinese company to be imitating its Western peers. Lenovo has just unveiled a prototype of a rival to Google Glass, in which the chief innovation appears to be an ungainly-looking neck-mounted battery pack. And Baidu, China’s biggest search engine, is working on a driverless car—though it’s too early to tell how closely its designs match those of Google, which has been developing one for years.
Despite having moved up the manufacturing value chain, from supplying basic parts, to high-tech components, to selling the final products straight to the public, Chinese brands are still not widely known for innovating. ”In novel-product innovation, China is very weak,” Dan Breznitz, the co-author of a book about Chinese innovation, told the New York Times. “The political economic institutions and system in China make it so entrepreneurs can’t make profit by developing novel innovation. But this same system makes process and second-generation innovation very profitable and successful.”
But that is not to say they don’t innovate at all. A rapidly-modernizing country with more than a billion people is a great laboratory for new ideas. For non-Chinese users, for instance, WeChat is a chat messaging service much like its competitors, but the version available in China is also a blogging platform, a mobile wallet, a news reader and more; indeed, it’s called Weixin in China to distinguish it from WeChat abroad.
China’s near neighbor, South Korea, set the precedent for Chinese tech companies’ evolution. “In a region of fast growth, since the 1960s Korea has increased its per-capita-GDP more quickly than any of its neighbors,” the consultancy firm McKinsey notes. That’s also the period during which the country started to move from manufacturing high-end components for Western gadget makers to competing with them.
The liquid crystals in flat-screen TVs, for instance, were invented in Germany and pioneered in Japan, but “the Koreans came along and copied it and improved on it,” one scientist recounted to the New Yorker. “I don’t think people appreciate how really difficult it all was.” LG and Samsung bet billions on the new technology; now it’s an area in which the country’s companies innovate and dominate. LG makes TVs and phones and also the high-resolution Retina display in iPhones. Samsung sells critical components to Apple, including the Retina displays for iPads, but also competes with it directly and successfully in high-end smartphones. (The two have had a long-running legal battle over patents.)
It would be foolish to bet that Chinese firms can’t do what the Koreans did. Some of the country’s brands have gone global: Lenovo is the world’s biggest PC maker because it bought IBM’s PC business and is now trying to get its low-end server business, too. Foxconn, the major supplier to Apple, is opening a chain of wellness resorts. And outside of tech, the Taiwanese shoemaker, Stella International, which manufactures for Prada and LVMH as well as Clarks, Rockport and Timberland, is expanding its own-brand business in Paris.
A truly innovative Chinese tech company is only a matter of time. But until then, do they have to be so blatant about copying?
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SINGAPORE - The leader of a now-disbanded youth gang, who is on trial for raping a 13-year-old girl on four occasions between November 2013 and January 2014, denied on Tuesday (Jan 23) that he had ever laid a finger on her.
"I did not touch her," salesman Koh Rong Guang, 25, who is also known as Charles, told the High Court as he took the stand to give his version of events for the first time on the fifth day of his trial.
He said the girl made up the allegations because she wanted to get him into trouble for posting photos of her in sexually explicit poses with his "best bro" in the gang, Fu Yiming, 20.
Koh said he had told someone else to upload the photos, which later went viral, to shame Fu for ratting him out to the police in a rioting case.
He said he did not like the girl, whom he described as a "stranger" and a "slut" who tried to get close to Fu even though he had a girlfriend.
Koh is accused of pinning the girl down and raping her on one occasion in late 2013. But he said that incident never happened. Instead he and his then-girlfriend had confronted the girl for badmouthing Fu's girlfriend, he said.
He added that his then pregnant girlfriend - now his estranged wife - slapped the girl who cried and left.
Prosecutors, however, accused Koh of using the girl, who is now 17, as a "sex toy".
Deputy Public Prosecutor David Khoo, citing exchanges of text message between Koh and Fu, told the court that in the lead-up to one incident, Koh had told Fu that "whatever I want (to) do to her you cannot interrupt".
DPP Khoo contended that the messages showed that Koh had the intent to have sex with her.
DPP Khoo also said that Fu and two other youths had corroborated the girl's testimony that Koh had sex with her.
The prosecutor asked if Koh was saying that the four witnesses had met and agreed to say the same thing.
"Yes. This is what we did in the rioting case," Koh replied.
Koh faces 12 charges - four of statutory rape, one of sexual assault by penetration, three of criminal intimidation, two of committing an indecent act with a young person, one of causing hurt and one of circulating a nude photo of the girl.
The alleged rapes took place at the staircase of a karaoke outlet in Choa Chu Kang Centre and the staircase of a block of flats in Choa Chu Kang Crescent.
The girl made a police report in July 2014 after the sexually explicit photos trended on social media platforms.
On Tuesday, Koh denied taking these photos, saying he was not at the scene.
He said Fu was the one who sent him the pictures, which he assumed had been taken with a self-timer. He also denied taking a nude photo of the girl, claiming that one of the boys she had slept with had sent it to him.
He also told the court that he was not calling his estranged wife and other witnesses to support his account, saying that he was now on "bad terms" with everyone.
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Australian swimmer and Olympic gold medalist Mack Horton on Monday refused to share a podium with Chinese rival Sun Yang, whom Horton has long accused of being a "drug cheat."
Horton, 23, did not take the medal stand nor acknowledge Sun after they finished second and first, respectively, in the 400-meter freestyle at the 2019 World Aquatics Championships in South Korea.
"Frustration is probably it," Horton told reporters after the race. "I think you know in what respect."
Sun, a 10-time world champion and three-time Olympic gold medalist, was suspended for three months in 2014 after taking a banned heart medication. More recently, he has been accused of smashing a vial of his blood with a hammer after drug-testers collected samples at his home in September, according to multiplemediareports.
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When asked about Horton's actions on the podium, Sun toldreporters that "disrespecting me is OK, but disrespecting China was very unfortunate and I felt sorry about that."
The International Swimming Federation, FINA, said in a statement that it planned to send a warning letter to Horton and Australia's swimming federation, urging the swimmer to "not use FINA events to make personal statements or gestures."
"While FINA respects the principle of freedom of speech, it has to be conducted in the right context," the federation said in the statement.
Sun has denied wrongdoing in the September incident and was cleared by FINA's doping tribunal. The World Anti-Doping Agency has appealed FINA's ruling, and Sun has asked for the Court of Arbitration for Sport to grant him a public trial in September to issue a final decision on the matter ahead of the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.
Contributing: The Associated Press
Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on Twitter @Tom_Schad.
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Bob Pittman’s money-losing iHeartCommunications is frustrating creditors by making a not-so-generous offer as restructuring talks begin.
The country’s biggest radio station operator said in a filing it wanted to decrease its interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point and get a one-year extension on its $21 billion in debt.
“I think it was nonsense,” a senior creditor who is often seen as friendly to issuers told The Post.
iHeart made the offer public as a trial started in Texas. Some senior creditors charge the company tripped loan covenants.
The creditors allege iHeart took a $200 million dividend from its 90 percent-owned Clear Channel Outdoor that should be theirs and placed it in a subsidiary that is likely to retire junior loans later this year.
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If there is one thing that could be the difference between Mark Fraser spending the year with the Marlies or giving himself a chance at making the NHL with the Maple Leafs, it comes in the form of a 4-foot-11 blonde dynamo on skates named Barb Underhill.
Canada’s former world champion figure skater (in pairs, with Paul Martini) has worked all summer on skating skills and drills with the top prospects in the Leafs system.
“She’s fantastic,” says Fraser, a defenceman. “She understands we’re all professional athletes. It doesn’t take us too long to pick things up. We’re here in the summertime because we want to learn.
“She’s very easy to talk to. A lot of her techniques, she’ll demonstrate and we’ll sit back and analyze and talk things over, and what works and what doesn’t. It’s very easy having a coach when you can break things down in such a way. It helps us move forward.”
Underhill got a taste of coaching skating to hockey players when her husband became co-owner of the OHL Guelph Storm and the coach, Dave Barr, asked for her help.
Sufficiently hooked, she ultimately quit her job as a TV figure skating analyst and cut her ties with that sport to dive headfirst into coaching junior and professional hockey players. The Leafs hired her in the spring to work with their players.
“I love being on the ice,” says Underhill. “I love sharing my knowledge. I love seeing guys improve. That’s the biggest kick for me. When I see a guy make the NHL for the first time, a guy that has been in the AHL for six years and then gets the call, or when I see a kid get drafted and I know that maybe in a small way I’ve helped that kid achieve his dream — that’s the biggest rush, to feel you’re a part of that.”
On this particular August day, she’s working with Fraser, who’s played 98 games over four years in the NHL with the New Jersey Devils. He joined the Marlies midway through last season in a trade for Dale Mitchell and re-signed a two-way deal to stay in Toronto.
With Luke Schenn traded, there’s a spot open on the Leaf roster for a defenceman and Fraser figured if he skated better — particularly laterally and backwards — he could land a job in the NHL again.
“I’ve played in the NHL with my skating abilities as they are,” said Fraser. “If I could just clean this up. Everyone has things to work on and mine is skating. If I could add certain aspects to my stride, it would add a whole other level to my game that I didn’t have before.”
Among the players Underhill has worked with this year are Greg McKegg, Jamie Devane, Tyler Biggs, Sam Carrick and Ryan Hamilton. She also has a working relationship with the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Guelph Storm.
“I’m just trying to get around to seeing each of the guys, videotape them, analyze their stride,” said Underhill. “Find little areas that we can work on. Tell them what they need to do and send them home with some homework.”
She works in tandem with Anthony Belza, the Leafs’ strength and conditioning coach: She’ll note a flaw in a player’s skating and how it can be improved. He’ll note what muscles need more work to support the new skating technique.
‘It’s very rewarding when you see a guy improve,” said Underhill. “It’s a real team effort.”
She’s noted a particular flaw with many hockey players’ skating ability, one that the best figure skaters don’t have.
“When figure skaters skate, we skate from our core,” says Underhill. “Our core is what keeps us so still and so efficient and so controlled. If we don’t use our core, we’re flopping all over the place.
“What I’ve learned with hockey players, when they skate, they’ve never learned to use their core. So a lot of times that body is just flying all over the place and doing too much extra work. When I can help a player understand how to skate and use their core, everything gets so easy, so much less effort.
“And they can’t believe how much more controlled they feel and how much easier it is to change direction and transition. That’s the big trick.”
It’s still a jarring, almost comedic sight to see the tiny figure skater bossing around 6-foot-plus, muscle-bound young men.
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“She’s like a foot and a half shorter than I am,” said Fraser. “But when you watch her, she doesn’t look like a figure skater on the ice. She understands the difference between a figure skater and a hockey stride. When she demonstrates the drill, she looks like the most fluid hockey skater I’ve ever seen.”
Asked if it’s a bit like listening to your mom, Fraser laughs.
“In a sense, but sometimes you don’t want to listen to your mom,” said Fraser. “She’s well proven. It’s in your best interest to listen to her.”
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Facebook’s campaign against Diamond and Silk continues.
The pro-Trump duo are featured in a movie to be released in October and presented by The American Mirror, titled “Dummycrats.”
The film follows them in Maxine Waters’ Los Angeles district, pursuing her in Washington, D.C., and tackling issues of importance to the country, including border security and the impact progressive policies have on our communities, such as San Francisco.
We attempted to advertise the first teaser, with hilarious clips of the American flag toppling in the presence of Democrats, and the ladies announcing the movie. Here it is:
On Thursday, Facebook rejected the ad, claiming it was against the social media giant’s “Advertising Policies.”
I personally went through an authentication process with Facebook to prove I was an American and am authorized to exercise freedom of speech, and The American Mirror Facebook page is approved to run political ads.
Nevertheless, Facebook turned down the ad, perhaps because we were asking if the movie could “change the nation”.
Diamond and Silk have repeatedly accused Facebook of censoring them.
The pro-Trump pair posted on the embattled social media platform in April, saying after months of correspondence, they were deemed to be “unsafe to the community.”
“Diamond And Silk have been corresponding since September 7, 2017, with Facebook (owned by Mark Zuckerberg), about their bias censorship and discrimination against D&S brand page,” they wrote.
“Finally after several emails, chats, phone calls, appeals, beating around the bush, lies, and giving us the run around, Facebook gave us another bogus reason why Millions of people who have liked and/or followed our page no longer receives notification and why our page, post and video reach was reduced by a very large percentage,” echoing the complaints of many conservative and pro-Trump pages.
Here is the reply from Facebook. Thu, Apr 5, 2018 at 3:40 PM: “The Policy team has came to the conclusion that your content and your brand has been determined unsafe to the community.”
The pair say it took “6 Months, 29 days, 5 hrs, 40 minutes and 43 seconds” to get a response, which they add the network said is “final and it is not appeal-able in any way.”
They posed several questions to Facebook and Zuckerberg, including, “What is unsafe about two Blk-women supporting the President Donald J. Trump?”
“This is deliberate bias, censorship and discrimination. These tactics are unacceptable and we want answers!” they wrote.
In June, Facebook is sending surveys to users, probing their relationship to the ladies.
Diamond and Silk posted the survey on Twitter.
Dear @facebook , Mark Zuckerberg. Why are you asking these survey questions to people that Liked and Followed our page. @DiamondandSilk are a brand page not a profile page. Please correct your mishap ASAP. ~Diamond and Silk pic.twitter.com/T7xyUOyRCp — Diamond and Silk® (@DiamondandSilk) June 23, 2018
“Reflect on your relationship with Diamond and Silk more generally,” it asks.
“Which best describes your relationship with Diamond and Silk,” it probes, offering “person from work or school,” “Someone I don’t know,” “Family,” “Community member/Group member,” or “Acquaintance” as possible answers.
The duo demanded answers from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
“Why are you asking these survey questions to people that Liked and Followed our page. Diamond and Silk are a brand page not a profile page,” she said. “Please correct your mishap ASAP.”
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A small collection of bitcoin enthusiasts met in New York yesterday to drag the high-tech virtual currency back into the eighteenth century through face-to-face trading.
Invoking the 1792 Buttonwood Agreement which started the New York stock Exchange & Board, IT worker and bitcoin fan Josh Rossi used Reddit earlier this week to invite people to gather in Union Square Park on Monday to buy and sell the currency.
Around 20 people turned up for the 'opening bell' and several bitcoins were traded for cash, with mobile phone cameras and QR codes used to transfer coins between accounts, according to the New York Times.
Explaining his old-fashioned approach, Rossi told Reddit that "the benefits over an electronic exchange are obvious, but I'll list a few:
No waiting for cash to get into exchange No waiting for account verification Distributed, no central point of failure Cash immediately in hand Can't be closed by banks Lag is basically non-existent, as are bots."
Despite Redditors raising some concerns about the legality of the meet-up and the attractiveness to thieves of a group of cash-holding geeks congregating (as well as the odd hipster jibe), the event passed off successfully, if quietly.
Rossi intends to return next Monday and is working on a realtime order book Web app to make it easier to buy and sell at fair prices.
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Adult Swim has canceled its sketch series created by an alt-right comedy group, a network representative confirmed to BuzzFeed News. The representative did not respond to a question about why Million Dollar Extreme Presents: World Peace was canceled after one season, nor whether it had anything to do with the show's hate-mongering fanbase.
BuzzFeed News' Joe Bernstein reported in August that the trio behind the series, Sam Hyde, Charls Carroll, and Nick Rochefort (who go by Million Dollar Extreme), were affiliated with online hate groups. In mid-November, he reported that Adult Swim employees were rallying internally against the series.
Around that time, a person identifying herself as Adult Swim Senior Director of Programming Kim Manning said the show was "a source of HOT, HOT debate around the office." Her post came shortly after comedian Brett Gelman publicly pledged to stop working with Adult Swim over the network's treatment of women and its relationship with Million Dollar Extreme.
The news of the show's cancellation was first reported by Splitsider.
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GAZA — Hundreds of women and children protested cutbacks in a United Nations food-assistance program on Wednesday, the latest in a growing backlash by Palestinian refugees and their offspring in this forlorn coastal strip against the agency that for decades has provided them with nutrition, education and health services.
“People are getting poorer, and the agency’s directors nurture bellies,” they chanted outside the locked gates of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. “We are under siege!”
Adnan Abu Hasna, a spokesman for the agency, said that it was facing a $55 million budget shortfall this year. The cuts that led to the recent complaints and rallies by Gaza residents and politicians were part of a shifting of resources based on a re-evaluation of the population’s needs, he said.
About 9,500 families were removed from the food program, Mr. Hasna said, because their economic situations had improved, while 5,400 poorer families were added. An additional 4,000 had their benefits increased.
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When it comes to soaps, the creator of All My Children and One Life to Live, Agnes Nixon directed that you should “make them laugh, make them cry, make them wait.” And that applies to Days Of Our Lives, too.
Unfortunately, while soaps are pretty good with the tears, when it comes to comedy, they can be hit and miss. Most recently in Salem, we’ve had the allegedly wacky hijinks of Bonnie (Judi Evans) and Hattie (Deidre Hall), and the dry snark of Leo (Greg Rikaart), who found the Kiriakis wine “very bourdeaux-y.”
How do fans feel about their heroes and heroines bringing the ha-ha? Almost 6,000 chortled to us about it:
Be A Clown
We love it, 62% cheer. There is just so much of Hope (Kristian Alfonso) gnashing her teeth over Ben (Tyler Christopher), Gabi (Camilla Banus) and Abigial (Kate Masni) going on a wig hunt, and Eric (Greg Vaughn) weeping about Nicole (Arianne Zucker) you can take. A little levity is much appreciated!
Maybe Leo will force Sonny (Freddie Smith) and Will (Chandler Massey) to stop being so dour all the time. Bonnie even got a smile out of Lucas (Bryan Datillo). Though Sarah (Linsay Godfrey) should maybe watch her alcohol intake. Spilling food on the customers at the Brady Pub? Not funny.
JOIN SOAPHUB INSIDER: Get Monthly Fireside Chats With Popular Soap Stars
In Focus
A minority 38% of the audience thought Salem’s slapstick days were over when Eugene (John DeLancie) and Calliope (Arleen Sorkin) finally took her themed earrings and went elsewhere.
You tolerated Anna (Leann Hunley) talking to Tony’s (Thao Penghlis) ashes, but Hattie and Bonnie were the last straw.
Soaps are supposed to be about drama. You have no interest in shedding tears of laughter. Plus, it takes away from the seriousness of the situation. If Leo is going to snark his way through his story, why should you take it seriously?
Days of our Lives (DOOL) airs weekdays on NBC. Check your local listings for airtimes.
Please enable JavaScript 02:12 See It Again: Hattie Experiences A Spooky Salem
Video Credit: Days of our Lives
Please enable JavaScript 04:17 See It Again: Sonny Wakes To A Nightmare While Gabi Relives Hers
Video Credit: Days of our Lives
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Punit Paranjpe / AFP/Getty Images
Paytm is one of India's biggest e-retailers, and it doesn't want to end up plagued by counterfeiters like Chinese backer Alibaba.
More than three quarters (or 85,000) of sellers on the company's online shopping platform were axed in what could be the market's largest crackdown on dubious sellers, reported Bloomberg on Wednesday. Consequently, only 30,000 sellers remain on Paytm Mall.
The move is an effort to clamp down on questionable sellers and fraudulent practices in order to earn trust from its customers. While the problem of fakes may not be as pervasive in India as it is in China, the country sits among the top 10 exporters of counterfeit goods, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
"It is a drastic measure but we need to do that to create the right kind of e-commerce platform," Amit Sinha, Paytm's chief operating officer, told Bloomberg. "We wanted to clean up our house and reset Paytm Mall on the trust count."
The move is also seen as part of Paytm's battle for a larger piece of the market against more established rivals in the country such as Amazon and Flipkart, which boast hundreds of thousands of sellers on their respective platforms. Given that the number of internet users in India will keep growing, Google India expects the country's e-commerce market to reach $100 billion by 2020.
CNET has reached out to Paytm for a comment.
Tech Enabled: CNET chronicles tech's role in providing new kinds of accessibility.
Batteries Not Included: The CNET team reminds us why tech is cool.
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メイド５人によるロックバンド・BAND-MAIDが12月11日、3rdアルバム『CONQUEROR』をリリース。前作『WORLD DOMINATION』から約２年ぶりと今作は、過去最大のボリュームでシングル曲２曲と、お給仕（ライブ）で披露されている「endless Story」、David BowieやT.Rexなどを手がけた世界的音楽プロデューサー・トニー・ヴィスコンティからのオファーを受け制作された「The Dragon Cries」など全15曲を収録。ジャケットからも変化を感じられるように、５人の進化への想いが十二分に反映された１枚に仕上がった。インタビューでは、時間を掛けて制作されたアルバムの制作背景や、今彼女たちが考えるBAND-MAIDの未来について５人に話を聞いた。【取材＝村上順一／撮影＝富田味我】
もっと近いゴールを立てる
――15曲と大ボリュームのアルバムが出来たわけですが、BAND-MAIDはアルバムとなると基本曲数多いですよね。
小鳩ミク 確かに多いんですけど、15曲というのは初めてですっぽ。実は今回も前作と同じくらい12曲から13曲ぐらいになる予定でした。気づいたら15曲になってましたっぽ。
――なんでも、最初はアルバムを作るという感じではなかったみたいですね。
小鳩ミク そうですっぽ。途中からアルバムを制作しようとなって、作ってあった曲を集めたものになりました。なので、楽曲の時系列はバラバラなんですっぽ。
――アルバムの中で最初に作った曲は？
KANAMI 「endless Story」と「輪廻」が割と最初の方に出来ました。「輪廻」はストックとしてあった曲だったので。
SAIKI レコーディングした順番だと「endless Story」と「輪廻」、「Wonderland」「azure」だったと思います。
――「endless Story」からは、アリーナやスタジアムなど大きな会場でのパフォーマンスを想定して作られたということもあり、スケールの大きな楽曲になっていますが、昨年から皆さんの意識変化があったとお聞きしたのですが、そのあたりも関係しているのでしょうか。
小鳩ミク １〜２年前からみんなで話し合う機会が増えたんですっぽ。その中で１年後、２年後のビジョンを考えながら計画を立てていくというのを始めたので、そこからみんなの意識が変化していったんじゃないのかなと思うんですっぽ。
SAIKI 世界征服が目標というところではメンバーの意識は一緒だったんですけど、具体的なところを話し合って。その中で近々の予定を立てたほうがいいんじゃないかとなりまして。もっと近いゴールを立てて、逆算して活動していくのが、私達の性に合っているんです。
小鳩ミク そこでまずアリーナやスタジアムでお給仕が出来るようになりたいと、目標を立てて「endless Story」が出来たんですっぽ。
SAIKI ２年後には立ちたいですね。
――目標は明確に決めたほうがいいですよね。話し合いが多くなると、意見のぶつかり合いとかもあったんじゃないですか。
小鳩ミク ぶつかりあいはそんなにないと思うんですけど、ふざけてしまうことはよくありますっぽ。特にMISAとAKANEのリズム隊の２人がきっかけになって、ヒートアップして盛り上がってグルーヴを作り始めて（笑）。
――最高のリズム隊ですね（笑）。「endless Story」はどのように作っていかれたのでしょうか。
KANAMI この曲は私があるアーティストさんのライブを観に、千葉のzozoマリンスタジアムに行ったのがきっかけでした。自分たちもここに立ちたい、というイメージが浮かんできたので、帰りのバスの中でスマホのボイスメモにメロディを録音しました。少し時間が経ってからなんですけど、そこから形にしていきました。やっぱり他のアーティストさんのライブを観ることは良い刺激になるなと思いました。この曲をお給仕で成長させてアリーナやドームに連れていけたらなと思います。
――さて、今作で特にお気に入り、聴いてほしい曲をそれぞれ教えて下さい。
MISA 「flying high」は私の趣味が全開の楽曲になっています。UK調のブリットポップのベースがイメージできたので、それを思い浮かべながら弾きました。（※1990年代にロンドンやマンチェスターを中心に発生したイギリスのポピュラー音楽ムーブメント）
小鳩ミク 今回はベースがすごく動いている曲がたくさんあるっぽ。
――「輪廻」もアグレッシブですよね。
MISA 「輪廻」もベースはすごく動いています。今回は制作時間、考える時間がけっこうあったので、フレーズも練りました。逆に短時間で作ったのが「Dilemma」なんですけど、それも動き続けているフレーズで（笑）。ずっと走り続けているかのような感じなんです。
――コピーするのも難しそうですね…。今回もSAIKIさんにベースのフレーズを送って確認してもらったり？
MISA 送りました（笑）。
SAIKI きっと褒めてほしんだなと思ったので「あなたは天才だ！」と返事をしました（笑）。
――AKANEさんはいかがですか。すごくリズムの振り幅が大きいアルバムなんじゃないかなと思ったのですが。
AKANE 幅というのはすごくあります。例えば「PAGE」や「Mirage」、「At the drop of a hat」、「Wonderland」はすごくこまかいビートが多くて、間のとり方というのを意識してレコーディングに臨みました。あと、「PAGE」に関しては、生音と打ち込みの音をミックスするということで、初めてバスドラを外して、それ以外のパーツだけでレコーディングしました。
――チャレンジングな１曲だったんですね。
AKANE やりづらかったんですけど、すごく新鮮なレコーディングでした。あと、「輪廻」は遂にここまでバスドラを踏む時がきたかと（笑）。デモを聴いたときはびっくりしましたから。「輪廻」と「カタルシス」はかなり大変なのでチャレンジのしがいがありました。「輪廻」は足が大変で、「カタルシス」は体全体が大変で、ドラマーとしてすごく難しいビートになっているので、一番苦戦した曲です。
――キッズに挑戦してもらいたいですね。小鳩さんはいかがでしょうか。
小鳩ミク 「The Dragon Cries」以外は全部歌詞を書かせていただいたんですけど、制作期間が長かったので、締切に追われるような感じではなかったんですっぽ。なので、これまでのようにスケジュールが切羽詰まっているときは、同じ雰囲気にならないようにと気を遣って書いたりしていたんですっぽ。
――時期が近いから似てきてしまうと。
小鳩ミク そうなんですっぽ。でも今回は書いている時期がバラツキがあったので、歌詞も幅広く書けたんじゃないかなと思っていますっぽ。ストーリーだったり、使いたかった言葉だったり。あと、今回は宗教的な難しい用語を取り入れました。
――確かに聞き馴染みのない言葉もあります。
小鳩ミク 海外のご主人さま、お嬢さまはBAND-MAIDの曲で日本語を勉強してくださっている方も多くて、意味について質問もきたりするんですっぽ。特に今回は海外の方には勉強になる日本語も多く入っていると思っていて、「Blooming」に出てくる＜不妄語戒に背いて＞とかは日本の方でも馴染みがないと思いますっぽ。今回は色んな方に聴いてほしいなと特に思っていて、男女関係なく、自分の感覚に置き換えてもらって感じてもらえたらいいなと思って歌詞を考えましたっぽ。
――日本語もそうなんですけど、英語も攻めた使い方をしているなと思いました。
小鳩ミク 英語は勉強しつつなんですけど、英語でこういう気持ちを伝えたいんですけど、なんて言ったらいいのか実際に英語を話せる先生に相談しながら書いていきました。口語で使われるような言葉になっていると思います。海外の方にもニュアンスが伝わればいいなというのは意識しましたっぽ。
――SAIKIさんの特にこだわった曲は。
SAIKI 小鳩は曲のイメージを反映した歌詞を書いてくれていると思うんですけど、あえて歌詞の意味は聞かないようにして、私が最初に受けたインスピレーションで歌うようにしています。
――最初に感じたイメージを大切にしているんですね。特に歌詞を見てグッと来た曲はありましたか。
SAIKI どの曲ももちろん良いんですけど「PAGE」かな。この曲の歌詞を書いたのがアルバム制作の最後の方で、小鳩から「歌詞のネタがほしい」と言われて美容系と私が提案して出来たので。今まで強い女性とか一緒に戦うというものが多かったので、いつまでも女性は美しくいたいものだし、化粧品のタイアップが取れたらなと思って美容を提案したんです。
――そういう計算も入っていて（笑）。
SAIKI 最近はお嬢さまのファンも増えてきたので、お嬢さまに向けての言葉とか気持ちを書いたらいいんじゃないかと思いました。
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CALGARY – La société TransAlta a volontairement interrompu le service dans certaines de ses centrales albertaines afin de faire monter les prix de l’électricité, a tranché la Commission des services publics de l’Alberta, lundi.
Celle-ci avait lancé une enquête après que l’administrateur de la surveillance des marchés de la province eut accusé l’entreprise établie à Calgary d’avoir manipulé le marché de l’électricité en fermant des centrales en 2010 et en 2011 afin de faire monter les coûts de production en période de pointe.
Selon la Commission, TransAlta aurait pu différer chacune de ses fermetures mais a décidé d’aller de l’avant en période de pointe ou en super période de pointe afin d’en faire profiter au maximum son propre portefeuille.
Elle a notamment reproché à l’entreprise d’avoir permis à un de ses employés, le courtier Nathan Kaiser, d’utiliser des informations privilégiées au sujet des fermetures de centrale afin que TransAlta puisse en profiter sur les marchés.
Toutefois, la Commission a estimé que l’administrateur n’a pas pu prouver ses accusations voulant que les politiques, pratiques et mécanismes de surveillance de TransAlta soient inadéquats et déficients.
L’entreprise n’a pu être jointe.
Des audiences auront lieu afin de déterminer les sanctions qui seront prises contre TransAlta.
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China está manobrando para conquistar a liderança internacional à medida que os Estados Unidos vacilam
Por Kurt M. Campbell e Rush Doshi
Agora, com centenas de milhões de pessoas se isolando em todo o mundo, a nova pandemia de coronavírus se tornou um evento verdadeiramente global. E embora suas implicações geopolíticas devam ser consideradas secundárias a questões de saúde e segurança, essas implicações podem, a longo prazo, provar-se igualmente importantes – especialmente quando se trata da posição global dos Estados Unidos. As ordens globais tendem a mudar gradualmente no princípio e depois de uma só vez. Em 1956, uma intervenção fracassada no Suez desencadeou a decadência do poder britânico e marcou o fim do reinado do Reino Unido como potência global. Hoje, os formuladores de políticas dos EUA devem reconhecer que, se os Estados Unidos não se levantarem para enfrentar o momento, a pandemia de coronavírus poderá marcar outro “momento de Suez”.
Agora está claro para todos, exceto para os partidários mais míopes, que Washington fracassou na sua resposta inicial. Os erros cometidos por instituições importantes, da Casa Branca e do Departamento de Segurança Interna aos Centros de Controle e Prevenção de Doenças (CDC), minaram a confiança na capacidade e competência da governança dos EUA. As declarações públicas do presidente Donald Trump, sejam declarações do Salão Oval ou tweets matutinos, serviram amplamente para semear confusão e espalhar incertezas. Tanto o setor público quanto o privado se mostraram mal preparados para produzir e distribuir as ferramentas necessárias para testes e respostas. E internacionalmente, a pandemia ampliou os instintos de Trump para seguir sozinho e expôs o quão despreparado Washington é para liderar uma resposta global.
O status dos Estados Unidos como líder global nas últimas sete décadas foi construído não apenas em riqueza e poder, mas também, e igualmente importante, na legitimidade que flui da governança doméstica dos EUA, fornecimento de bens públicos globais e capacidade e vontade de reunir e coordenar uma resposta global às crises. A pandemia de coronavírus está testando todos os três elementos da liderança dos EUA. Até agora, Washington está falhando no teste.
À medida que Washington vacila, Pequim está se movendo rápida e habilmente para aproveitar a abertura criada pelos erros dos EUA, preenchendo o vácuo para se posicionar como líder global em resposta a pandemia. Está trabalhando para promover seu próprio sistema, fornecer assistência material a outros países e até organizar outros governos. É difícil exagerar o descaramento da ação da China. Afinal, foram os próprios erros de Pequim – especialmente seus esforços no início para encobrir a gravidade e a propagação do surto – que ajudaram a criar a crise que agora afeta grande parte do mundo. No entanto, Pequim entende que, se for visto como líder, e Washington for incapaz ou não querer fazê-lo, essa percepção poderá alterar fundamentalmente a posição dos Estados Unidos na política global e a disputa pela liderança no século XXI.
ERROS FORAM COMETIDOS
Logo após o surto do novo coronavírus, que causa a doença agora denominada COVID-19, os erros dos líderes chineses colocaram uma mancha na posição global de seu país. O vírus foi detectado pela primeira vez em novembro de 2019 na cidade de Wuhan, mas as autoridades não o divulgaram por meses e até puniram os médicos que o denunciaram, desperdiçando um tempo precioso e adiando pelo menos cinco semanas as medidas que educariam o público, interromperiam o deslocamento e permitiriam testes generalizados. Mesmo quando a escala completa da crise emergiu, Pequim controlou com rigor as informações, evitou a assistência do CDC, limitou a viagem da Organização Mundial da Saúde a Wuhan, provavelmente subestimou infecções e mortes e alterou repetidamente os critérios para registrar novos casos de COVID-19 – talvez em um esforço deliberado para manipular o número oficial de casos.
À medida que a crise piorava entre janeiro e fevereiro, alguns observadores especularam que o coronavírus poderia até minar a liderança do Partido Comunista Chinês. Foi chamado de “Chernobyl” da China. O Dr. Li Wenliang – o jovem denunciante silenciado pelo governo que depois sucumbiu a complicações do COVID-19 – foi comparado ao “homem-tanque” da Praça da Paz Celestial.
No entanto, no início de março, a China estava reivindicando a vitória. Quarentena em massa, uma parada nas viagens e um encerramento completo da maioria das vidas diárias em todo o país foram creditados por terem invertido a tendência; estatísticas oficiais, como são, informaram que novos casos diários caíam na casa de um dígito em meados de março, em relação às centenas no início de fevereiro. Surpreendendo a maioria dos observadores, o líder chinês Xi Jinping – que estava estranhamente quieto nas primeiras semanas – começou a se colocar diretamente no centro de resposta. Este mês, ele visitou pessoalmente Wuhan.
Embora a vida na China ainda não tenha retornado ao normal (e apesar das perguntas contínuas sobre a precisão das estatísticas da China), Pequim está trabalhando para transformar esses primeiros sinais de sucesso em uma narrativa maior a ser transmitida para o resto do mundo – uma que faça a China ser o ator essencial em uma recuperação global que se aproxima e afaste sua má administração anterior da crise.
Uma parte crítica dessa narrativa é o suposto sucesso de Pequim na luta contra o vírus. Um fluxo constante de artigos de propaganda, tweets e mensagens públicas, em uma ampla variedade de idiomas, elogia as conquistas da China e destaca a eficácia de seu modelo de governança doméstica. “A força, eficiência e rapidez marcantes da China nessa luta foram amplamente aclamadas”, declarou o porta-voz do Ministério das Relações Exteriores, Zhao Lijian. A China, acrescentou, estabeleceu “um novo padrão para os esforços globais contra a epidemia”. As autoridades centrais instituíram rígido controle informacional e disciplina nos órgãos estatais para extinguir narrativas contraditórias.
Essas mensagens são ajudadas pelo contraste implícito com os esforços para combater o vírus no Ocidente, particularmente nos Estados Unidos – a falha de Washington em produzir um número adequado de kits de teste, o que significa que os Estados Unidos testaram relativamente poucas pessoas per capita, ou a desmontagem do governo Trump da infraestrutura de resposta a pandemia do governo dos EUA. Pequim aproveitou a oportunidade da narrativa oferecida pela desordem americana, com sua mídia e diplomatas estatais lembrando regularmente uma audiência global da superioridade dos esforços chineses e criticando a “irresponsabilidade e incompetência” da “chamada elite política em Washington” como a agência estatal de notícias Xinhua publicou em um editorial.
As autoridades chinesas e a mídia estatal até insistiram que o coronavírus não saiu de fato da China – apesar de evidências opostas – para reduzir a culpa da China pela pandemia global. Esse esforço tem elementos de uma campanha de desinformação ao estilo russo, com o porta-voz do Ministério das Relações Exteriores da China e mais de uma dúzia de diplomatas compartilhando artigos de fontes precárias acusando os militares dos EUA de espalhar o coronavírus em Wuhan. Essas ações, combinadas à expulsão em massa sem precedentes da China de jornalistas de três importantes jornais americanos, danificam as pretensões da China à liderança.
A CHINA FAZ, O MUNDO RECEBE
Xi entende que o fornecimento de bens globais pode polir as credenciais de liderança de uma potência crescente. Ele passou os últimos anos pressionando o aparato de política externa da China a pensar mais sobre liderar reformas à “governança global”, e o coronavírus oferece uma oportunidade para colocar essa teoria em ação. Considere as exibições cada vez mais divulgadas da China de assistência material – incluindo máscaras, respiradores, ventiladores e medicamentos. No início da crise, a China comprou e produziu (e recebeu como ajuda) grandes quantidades desses bens. Agora está em posição de entregá-los a outras pessoas.
Quando nenhum estado europeu respondeu ao apelo urgente da Itália por equipamentos médicos e equipamentos de proteção, a China se comprometeu publicamente a enviar 1.000 ventiladores, dois milhões de máscaras, 100.000 respiradores, 20.000 roupas de proteção e 50.000 kits de teste. A China também enviou equipes médicas e 250.000 máscaras para o Irã e enviou suprimentos para a Sérvia, cujo presidente considerou a solidariedade europeia um “conto de fadas” e proclamou que “o único país que pode nos ajudar é a China”. O co-fundador da Alibaba, Jack Ma, promete enviar grandes quantidades de kits de teste e máscaras para os Estados Unidos, além de 20.000 kits de teste e 100.000 máscaras para cada um dos 54 países da África.
A vantagem de Pequim em assistência material é aprimorada pelo simples fato de que muito do que o mundo depende para combater o coronavírus é fabricado na China. Já era o maior produtor de máscaras cirúrgicas; agora, por meio da mobilização industrial do tipo guerra, aumentou mais de dez vezes a produção de máscaras, dando-lhe a capacidade de fornecê-las ao mundo. A China também produz aproximadamente metade dos respiradores N95, essenciais para a proteção dos trabalhadores da saúde (forçou fábricas estrangeiras na China a produzi-los e depois vendê-los diretamente ao governo), dando a ele outra ferramenta de política externa na forma de equipamentos médicos. Enquanto isso, os antibióticos são críticos para tratar infecções secundárias emergentes do COVID-19, e a China produz a grande maioria dos ingredientes farmacêuticos ativos necessários para produzi-los.
Os Estados Unidos, por outro lado, carecem de oferta e capacidade para atender muitas de suas próprias demandas, e muito menos para fornecer ajuda em zonas de crise em outros lugares. A imagem é sombria. Acredita-se que o Estoque Nacional Estratégico dos EUA, reserva nacional de suprimentos médicos críticos, possua apenas um por cento das máscaras e respiradores e talvez dez por cento dos ventiladores necessários para lidar com a pandemia. O restante deverá ser compensado pelas importações da China ou pelo aumento da produção doméstica. Da mesma forma, a participação da China no mercado de antibióticos dos EUA é superior a 95% e a maioria dos ingredientes não pode ser fabricada no mercado interno. Embora Washington tenha oferecido assistência à China e a outras pessoas no início da crise, agora é menos capaz de fazê-lo, à medida que suas próprias necessidades crescem; Pequim, por outro lado, está oferecendo ajuda precisamente quando a necessidade global é maior.
A resposta à crise, no entanto, não é apenas sobre bens materiais. Durante a crise do ebola de 2014-15, os Estados Unidos se reuniram e lideraram uma coalizão de dezenas de países para combater a propagação da doença. Até agora, o governo Trump evitou um esforço de liderança semelhante para responder ao coronavírus. Até falta coordenação com os aliados. Washington parece, por exemplo, não ter avisado previamente seus aliados europeus antes de instituir uma proibição de viagens de/para a Europa.
A China, por outro lado, empreendeu uma campanha diplomática robusta para reunir dezenas de países e centenas de funcionários, geralmente por videoconferência, para compartilhar informações sobre a pandemia e lições da própria experiência da China na luta contra a doença. Como grande parte da diplomacia chinesa, esses esforços de convocação são amplamente realizados em nível regional ou através de órgãos regionais. Eles incluem chamadas com estados da Europa Central e Oriental por meio do mecanismo “17 + 1”, com o secretariado da Organização de Cooperação de Xangai, com dez estados das Ilhas do Pacífico e com outros grupos na África, Europa e Ásia. E a China está trabalhando duro para divulgar essas iniciativas. Praticamente todas as matérias na primeira página de seus órgãos de propaganda voltados para o exterior anunciam os esforços da China para ajudar diferentes países com bens e informações, enquanto enfatizam a superioridade da abordagem de Pequim.
COMO LIDERAR
O principal ativo da China na busca pela liderança global – diante do coronavírus e de maneira mais ampla – é a inadequação percebida e o foco interno da política dos EUA. O sucesso final da busca da China, portanto, dependerá tanto do que acontece em Washington quanto do que acontece em Pequim. Na crise atual, Washington ainda pode virar a maré se provar ser capaz de fazer o que se espera de um líder: administrar o problema em casa, fornecer bens públicos globais e coordenar uma resposta global.
A primeira dessas tarefas – impedir a propagação da doença e proteger populações vulneráveis nos Estados Unidos – é mais urgente e, em grande parte, uma questão de governança doméstica, e não de geopolítica. Mas como Washington vai agir terá implicações geopolíticas, e não apenas na medida em que restabelece ou não a confiança na resposta dos EUA. Por exemplo, se o governo federal imediatamente apoiar e subsidiar a expansão da produção doméstica de máscaras, respiradores e ventiladores – uma resposta condizente com a urgência em tempo de guerra dessa pandemia – isso salvaria vidas americanas e ajudaria outras pessoas em todo o mundo, reduzindo a escassez de suprimentos globais.
Embora atualmente os Estados Unidos não sejam capazes de atender às demandas materiais urgentes da pandemia, sua contínua vantagem global nas ciências da vida e na biotecnologia pode ser fundamental para encontrar uma solução real para a crise: uma vacina. O governo dos EUA pode ajudar, incentivando os laboratórios e empresas dos EUA a empreender um “Projeto Manhattan” médico para conceber, testar rapidamente em ensaios clínicos e produzir em massa uma vacina. Como esses esforços são caros e exigem investimentos iniciais assustadoramente altos, financiamentos governamentais generosos e bônus pela produção bem-sucedida de vacinas podem fazer a diferença. E vale a pena notar que, apesar da má administração de Washington, os governos estaduais e locais, organizações sem fins lucrativos e religiosas, universidades e empresas não esperam que o governo federal tome as providências antes de tomar uma ação. As empresas e os pesquisadores financiados pelos EUA já estão progredindo em direção a uma vacina – embora, mesmo no melhor cenário, levará algum tempo até que alguém esteja pronto para o uso generalizado.
No entanto, mesmo concentrando-se nos esforços internos, Washington não pode simplesmente ignorar a necessidade de uma resposta global coordenada. Somente uma liderança forte pode resolver problemas de coordenação global relacionados a restrições de viagens, compartilhamento de informações e fluxo de mercadorias críticas. Os Estados Unidos forneceram essa liderança com sucesso por décadas e devem fazê-lo novamente.
Essa liderança também exigirá cooperação efetiva com a China, em vez de ser consumida por uma guerra de narrativas sobre quem respondeu melhor. Pouco se ganha enfatizando repetidamente as origens do coronavírus – que já são amplamente conhecidos apesar da propaganda da China – ou realizando trocas retóricas mesquinhas com Pequim. Como as autoridades chinesas acusam os militares dos EUA de espalhar o vírus e criticam os esforços dos EUA, Washington deve responder quando necessário, mas geralmente resiste à tentação de colocar a China no centro de suas mensagens de coronavírus. A maioria dos países que lidam com o desafio prefere ver uma mensagem pública que enfatize a seriedade de um desafio global compartilhado e possíveis caminhos a seguir (incluindo exemplos bem-sucedidos de resposta ao coronavírus em sociedades democráticas como Taiwan e Coreia do Sul). E há muito o que Washington e Pequim poderiam fazer juntos para o benefício do mundo: coordenar pesquisas de vacinas e ensaios clínicos, além de estímulos fiscais; partilhando informação; cooperar na mobilização industrial (em máquinas para produzir componentes críticos do respirador ou peças do ventilador, por exemplo); e oferecendo assistência conjunta a outras pessoas.
Por fim, o coronavírus pode até servir como alerta, estimulando o progresso em outros desafios globais que exigem cooperação entre EUA e China, como as mudanças climáticas. Tal passo não deve ser visto – e não seria visto pelo resto do mundo – como uma concessão ao poder chinês. Em vez disso, ajudaria a restaurar a fé no futuro da liderança dos EUA. Na crise atual, como na geopolítica hoje em geral, os Estados Unidos podem se dar bem fazendo o bem.
FONTE: Foreign Affairs
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USA Scrum, Photo Credit: Aaron Castro
The best way to explain this is overhaul. In total, 15 changes. 5 players move from starting to the bench. 3 Players from the training squad have been activated with three players being dropped. All players were available for selection. You can look at the changes being performance based against the Red Roses and also the need to try more combinations with the young squad. The best way to explain this is overhaul. In total, 15 changes. 5 players move from starting to the bench. 3 Players from the training squad have been activated with three players being dropped. All players were available for selection. You can look at the changes being performance based against the Red Roses and also the need to try more combinations with the young squad.
Working from the pack: The big changes are Katy Augustyn earning starting selection and first appea rance in the 2019 Super Series pushing Joannna Kitlinski to the Bench. Nic James moves from reserve hooker to starting THP, flipping with Catie Benson who's moved to the Bench. Then in the engine room, Stacey Bridges slides to 4 and Alycia Washington earns starting selection at 5 with Kristine Sommer moving to the Bench. Asinate Serevi is dropped, which changes the back row with Elizabeth Cairns being activated and starting at Blindside. Captain Kate Zackary slides over from the Blindside to start at No 8. Overall some of these changes look to be made to address our overall strength in the scrum, but it seemed from the match against the Red Roses that the unit just wasn't strong enough rather than being a simple individual that could change the dynamic. Sommer, Benson, and Serevi were quite consistent on the day.
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Through nearly 20 years of constant change and disruption in the technology space, Vonage has been a leader. Now Vonage is leading through change once again, emerging as a B2B communications SaaS company for a new era.
Vonage, Nexmo, Tokbox, and NewVoiceMedia have come together as Vonage. The consolidation brings together leaders in Communications APIs, Unified Communications, and Contact Centers, to create the world's most flexible cloud communications platform. Together we make communications more flexible, intelligent, and personal, so our customers stay ahead.
Why this role matters
This role will support the Business Operations function through the analysis of data and trends about quality, revenue, profits, payments, fraud and client behaviour. It is a key role to help the team scale by allowing the Managers to turn data into insights and thus have an impact in the business side.
IF THIS SOUNDS LIKE YOU, CONTINUE READING BELOW...
What you'll do
Own part of the Business Intelligence framework for Business Operations (Create Reports, Verify data, Analyse data, Build presentations and Dashboards) with focus on Quality and Innovation functions.
Perform complex analysis: business cases, What If Scenarios and Forecasting.
Create Alerts for Internal and external stakeholders to maintain QoS.
Manipulate and transform data into insight to support the business
Identify and develop possible data sources that are not currently covered.
Provide Data analysis for other function stakeholders (Product, Marketing, Sales etc) to support cross-functional needs.
Perform operational day-2-day tasks and work towards automation.
What you'll bring
Some experience in a similar position.
Proficient in MS Office or Google equivalent data analysis Tools.
Experienced on Tableau Business Intelligence tool or similar.
Highly proficient in SQL.
Good Level on a scripting language (Python preferred).
Strong analytical skills.
Ability and willingness to work in a global, fast-paced environment.
Flexible, with the ability to adapt your working style to meet objectives.
Excellent communication and analytical skills.
Nice to have:
Project Management experience
Telecommunications industry exposure.
API and Cloud communications Industry exposure.
Degree level educated
What's in it for you
This a great opportunity to grow your career in a rapidly developing, successful and profitable organisation. Our API business is experiencing hyper growth and we have the structure, financial stability and culture to be able to maximise the opportunities this offers. We want smart people who like doing difficult things with like-minded colleagues, clear reward and recognition. In addition to providing career advancement opportunities and a collaborative work environment, Vonage provides great pay and benefits, including unlimited discretionary time off.
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"The Emory community mourns this tragic and senseless loss of two members of our university family. Our thoughts and prayers go out on behalf of Faraaz and Abinta and their families and friends for strength and peace at this unspeakably sad time," the school said in a statement.
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We’re available for your needs 24 hours a day,
7 days a week, and on holidays as well.
Main Line Taxi
Call 610-272-1000 . Main Line Taxi and Limousine Company is your source for premier transportation in the Main Line area. We provide quality transportation to Villanova, Ardmore, and King of Prussia, PA. Our fleet of over 100 modern vehicles including taxi cabs, minivans, and SUVs are nearby, ready to assist you and provide for all of your transportation needs. Main Line’s cabs are serviced and maintained to provide you the safest transportation in the Main Line area.
Looking for a taxi to Philadelphia airport? Main Line’s dependable taxi and limo drivers will get you to the airport on time in our reliable cabs and SUVs. Our vehicles are licensed and authorized to pick up and drop off at Philadelphia and Newark airports.
Call a Taxi : 610-272-1000
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nedi
natural-vision
natural-vision
nedi
Here are two shaders:andAbout: It's a lightweight shader which tweaks and boosts the game colors. It's recommended only for colorless, lifeless or paled games (like Resident Evil Remake and Zero, for example). Nintendo games don't need it for obvious reasons.About: This is based this algorithm: http://chiranjivi.tripod.com/EDITut.html . DO NOT mistake it for NNEDI3, because they're completely different filters. It works in two or three passes, the same way as sxbr.EDIT: I'll include natural-vision as an option in other shaders. natural-vision.zip (Size: 633 bytes / Downloads: 102) nedi.zip (Size: 3.78 KB / Downloads: 99)
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ASKING: $200 shipped
I'm selling my beloved M1060. I ordered these directly from Monoprice last August, and since then they've time and time again survived the headphone gauntlet as I kept buying and trying other headphones. I ended up liking these over the E-MU Teak, the HD650, and the HE4XX, all of which I had bought, tried to love, but ended up deciding that I loved the M1060 more.Mine are modded with the following:At one point last year, I bought and tried the Audeze Vegan pads, but after many weeks of listening, I had to admit to myself that the original pads with my felt mod sounded noticeably better.I stand by that my particular M1060 sounds great. It is a warm, laid back headphone with superb technicalities. My pair has never exhibited ringing; its transient response and instrument separation continue to impress me to this day; and I've yet to hear better bass performance from a headphone or IEM.Condition: superb working condition, cosmetic blemishes due to pad swapping. Also the wood where the hinges are have cracked many months ago (see picture album), but this does not in the slightest affect the use or integrity of the headphones.
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The acclaimed St Petersburg Ballet is set to perform Swan Lake at London Coliseum for a limited number of shows from 22 August – 2 September.
Before the ballerinas descend on the stage, the swans have flocked to the streets of London capturing photos with the iconic sights of the capital with photographer Alastair Muir.
St Petersburg Ballet Theatre’s ‘Swan Lake’ Corps De Ballet On The Rooftop of The Trafalgar St. James with Martinis. Photo Credit Alastair Muir
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米Microsoftは12月19日（現地時間）、「Internet Explorer」の脆弱性（CVE-2018-8653）を修正するセキュリティ更新プログラムを定例外でリリースした。標的型攻撃に悪用されているという報告がGoogleから寄せられたという。
脆弱性の内容は、「Internet Explorer」のスクリプトエンジンがオブジェクトを処理する方法に欠陥があり、メモリが破損するというもの。最悪の場合、「Internet Explorer」を実行しているユーザーコンテキストで任意のコードを実行されてしまう可能性がある。脆弱性の深刻度はクライアントOSで“緊急”、サーバーOSの場合は制限モードで動作しているため“中”と評価されている。
この問題へ対策するには、“Windows Update”などからセキュリティ更新プログラムを入手して適用すればよい。それが難しい場合は、コマンドで「JScript.dll」へのアクセスを制限する方法が回避策として案内されている。
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Former Fox News host and current Donald Trump campaign adviser Kimberly Guilfoyle returned to cable news Thursday for a face-off with CNN’s Chris Cuomo.
The two sparred over Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s recent comments to summarize the findings of his report on Russian interference in the 2o16 election.
“The Democrats and the cast of characters running trying to unseat President Trump,” said Guilfoyle. “This is what they’re raising money on, impeachment, impeachment, impeachment.”
Cuomo countered by arguing the Trump campaign was fundraising off impeachment as well. “The campaign put something out saying they want to impeach the president–give us money,” Cuomo said.
“The president was totally transparent and cooperative with this investigation,” Guilfoyle said, changing the subject.
“Except he didn’t sit for an interview and answer a single question about obstruction,” Cuomo said.
Despite a contentious exchange, Cuomo thanked Guilfoyle for coming on the show. “Because we will always disagree on this show decently and you always have a place to make your case,” he said.
Watch above, via CNN
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
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I WORKED OUT FOR 8 HOURS AND THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED || Lean bulking EP. 13
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GameCube Classic Built By Fan Who Can't Wait For Nintendo To Make One Nintendo/Madmorda
When Nintendo released the SNES and NES Minis, the company inspired a new wave of petite retro consoles, including the PlayStation Classic and the upcoming Mega Drive Mini.
Naturally, nobody has really managed to touch Nintendo’s fun approach to these novelty consoles just yet. It didn’t help that the PlayStation Classic came with a pretty underwhelming selection of games, where the NES and SNES Minis offered titles that represented the very best of what each console had to offer.
Madmorda
Advert
As such, all eyes are very much on Nintendo to keep the good times going and release Mini versions of the Nintendo 64 and GameCube. While the former has been rumoured for a while now (but probably won’t happen any time soon) the prospect of a GameCube Mini is even less likely, but is by far the one tiny console I’d pay any amount of money for.
On a personal level, I’d owned consoles before the GameCube, but it was with Nintendo’s underrated cube of joy that I really started to fall in love with video games. Super Smash Bros Melee, The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, Metroid Prime, Luigi’s Mansion… if you put all of these in one compact box, I’d lose my mind.
Unfortunately, I don’t see Nintendo getting around to shrinking down the GameCube, and I don’t think I’m alone in that opinion. A YouTuber by the name of Madmorda has gotten tired of waiting and as created his very own GameCube Mini.
It really is the real deal. It draws power over Micro USB, comes with four working controller ports, and boasts a USB Type-A port that can be used with the Wii U’s USB GameCube adapter. I want it.
Advert
For extra authenticity, Madmorda opted to use a circuit board taken from an old Wii, instead of using a Rasberry Pi or some other emulator. As you may be aware, the Wii’s CPU and GPU are near identical to the GameCube’s, aside from being faster, smaller, and more power-efficient, making it perfect for this project.
The circuit board was, of course, heavily modified to fit inside the adorably tiny gummy case that acts as the GameCube Mini’s shell. The end result is gorgeous, and I would honestly like very much for someone to put together one of these bad boys for me.
Madmorda
Advert
For a more detailed look at the process, you can head to Madmorda’s Worklog, which can be found here.
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Reforma publica que la Comisión Federal de Competencia (CFC) ratificó la multa de 53.8 millones de pesos a Televisa por incumplir con la obligación que le fue impuesta cuando adquirió TVI (Televisión Internacional), la cual consistía en no permitir que los directivos de la subsidiaria participaran en los órganos de control o consejos de administración de otros concesionarios.
Esta reafirmación de la multa se dio después de que Televisa interpusiera un recurso de revisión ante el regulador antimonopolios en el cual justificaba el por qué no debía imponérsele la sanción.
De acuerdo con la Comisión, la televisora incumplió con la obligación impuesta durante la adquisición de TVI al permitir que directivos de la empresa de TV de paga formaran parte de los órganos de control o consejos de administración de otras empresas de TV de paga, en este caso de GSF, controladora de Iusacell.
Leer nota completa en Reforma (Suscripción)
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When SNK Corporation announced SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy, many fans (including myself) were overjoyed. However, when a comparison between the Japanese and English trailers revealed some costumes weren’t shown, some were concerned the game’s western release could be censored. Now, publisher NIS America has commented on the issue.
“The content released globally will contain the same costumes and content. Nothing will be removed or replaced in the Western release,” the publisher said on Twitter. “As for controls, it is more accessible for all players, and not just the hardcore fighting gamers :) You will use your entire controller.”
Despite some of the costumes (featured above) not being shown in the English trailer, it’s worth pointing out that you can customize the ladies to wear lots of different outfits. Read more on the game in our original report here.
SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy will launch for PlayStation 4 and the Nintendo Switch sometime this summer, worldwide.
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Step 1 In the box above, enter your zip code, optional address, and delivery time.
Step 2 Pick a restaurant from the list on the left and tell us what you'd like to order.
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The ultimate goal of BJJ competition is to tap your opponent out, not to win by points. That being said, the point system is still a very important part of the game and you have to understand how to use it!
Here’s why…
First of all, the point system in BJJ tournaments generally reflects what would work in a real fight.
For example, its better to be on top than on bottom in a fight, which is why you get 2 points for a guard sweep. It’s better to get past the legs of an opponent which is why you get 3 points for the guard pass. You can hit your opponent harder in kneemount (2 points) or full mount (4 points) than side mount, and the back is the ultimate position for doing unilateral damage to any enemy (4 points).
Secondly, if you get a lot more points than your opponent he may panic, do something stupid, and give you an opening you can use to submit him.
So points are important in BJJ tournaments…
And I recently came across a really cool system for quickly racking up 15 points in competition.
This came from dropping in on my friend Mike Zenga just as he was finishing up training with Robson ‘Mau Mau’ de Lima Rodrigues.
I came in through the basement door in the middle of an all-out dogfight sparring session…
Mike is a big, tall, and skilled black belt, but Mau Mau is a 3 x No Gi Pan Am champion and 1 x World No Gi Champion. Needless top say there was a lot of sweat, scrambles, and even a brand new hole in the wall where Mike had caved it in. Fun times!
As they wound down their training Mike started prodding Mau Mau to share his patented system for getting 15 points in competition. I wasn’t sure what this was, but it sounded good and so I scrambled to get my camera out!
It ended up being some really cool stuff, and I’m glad I can share it with you now. I think this is one of those things you can add to your game quickly and derive some real benefit from.
Here’s the video of Mau Mau’s system for getting a whole bunch of points and putting your opponent into a terrible position. And if you scroll down below the video you’ll get that same system in bulleted form.
Enjoy!
Here are the steps to go from the bottom to the top, get 15 points, and end up in a great position to submit your opponent as well!
Start by trapping his right leg in half guard
Sit up and trap his left arm using the Kimura grip
Fall back keeping the grip tight
Escape your hips out to the left slightly and insert your left butterfly hook
Now shift your hips back under your opponent, lift with your hook and roll your opponent to your right (2 points)
Land in half guard and maintain the Kimura grip
Use your right foot to free your left leg and pass his half guard (3 more points, total = 5)
Pop up to kneemount (2 more points, total = 7)
Drop down to sidemount, switch your base and swing left leg over to the mount. (4 more points, total = 11) Note that it’s really difficult for your opponent to block the kneemount or the full mount because the arm he might use to block is tied up in the Kimura
Note that it’s really difficult for your opponent to block the kneemount or the full mount because the arm he might use to block is tied up in the Kimura Dismount back to sidemount, circle over your opponent’s head and prop him up onto his right side
Step over your opponent with your left and let him catch that leg in his half guard
Use the chair sit manoeuvre to take your opponent’s back (4 more points, total = 15)
Choke him out from the back!
Train this and then start putting it into action!
Take care,
Stephan Kesting
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President Trump Donald John TrumpOmar fires back at Trump over rally remarks: 'This is my country' Pelosi: Trump hurrying to fill SCOTUS seat so he can repeal ObamaCare Trump mocks Biden appearance, mask use ahead of first debate MORE’s unexpected victory in 2016 was in no small part due to his promise to “drain the swamp” in Washington. And among members of the White House Cabinet, no agency head has done more to follow the president’s lead in draining the swamp than Scott Pruitt Edward (Scott) Scott PruittJuan Williams: Swamp creature at the White House Science protections must be enforceable Conspicuous by their absence from the Republican Convention MORE, who leads the Environmental Protection Agency. Make no mistake, that’s why the left and its allies in the media are working overtime to smear him.
They know he’s being effective — perhaps the most effective member of Trump’s Cabinet when it comes to actually translating rhetoric into reality — and they know they cannot stop him, so in typical swamp fashion, they are intent on destroying him. After eight years under President Obama, Americans were fed up with being ordered around by liberal elites in a distant capital city, and by bureaucrats who put in place job-killing regulations and pushed policies that steadily reduced the number of Americans looking for work year after year, all while calling it “progress.”
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President Trump has reversed that. He has led the way on draining the swamp, with a White House directive to agencies to cut two regulations for every new regulation proposed, with tax reforms that simplify the tax code and allow Americans to keep more of their hard-earned paychecks, and with decisions like the one he made to remove the United States from the unfair and ineffective Paris climate accord.
At the EPA, one of the very worst of the alphabet soup bureaucratic fiefdoms that make up the swamp, Pruitt took charge and immediately focused on returning the agency to its stated goals of improving air quality, shoring up our water infrastructure, and cleaning up contaminated areas. This was a huge change after the Obama administration, which used the EPA to issue volumes of job-killing regulations to mollify environmental extremists. Among its most egregious efforts, it utilized “sue and settle” practices to abuse legal limits on rulemaking and reward ideological allies.
In his first year in charge of the EPA, Pruitt finalized more than 20 deregulatory actions, saving taxpayers more than $1 billion in regulatory costs. He also ended the “sue and settle” practices. The agency is rescinding and replacing the ridiculous and onerous “Waters of the United States” rule, and acting on President Trump’s order to review and overturn the Obama administration’s so-called “Clean Power Plan.”
Delivering these results has put a “yuge” target on Pruitt’s back. The environmental left, liberal bureaucrats and academics, and their allies in the media have been relentlessly attacking him in what appears to be a coordinated media assault, but he won’t back down and he won’t be intimidated. This year, Pruitt is ensuring the EPA adheres to the rule of law and continues to remove burdensome regulations that are harming workers and consumers. Just this week, the EPA announced its decision not to move forward with the Obama administration’s anti-consumer fuel efficiency standards, which could have harmed consumers by artificially driving up the price of American cars and trucks.
Likewise, in a huge blow to the environmental left, Pruitt has announced the agency will end the use of “secret science” — data that is not subject to public scrutiny — in crafting new rules for the agency. In a recent interview, Pruitt said, “We need to make sure their data and methodology are published as part of the record. Otherwise, it’s not transparent. It’s not objectively measured, and that’s important.” More transparency in decision-making at an agency under as much pressure from activists as the EPA is critical to ensuring taxpayers and consumers aren’t harmed by rulemaking gone amok.
In spite of his coming under attack from the radical left and their allies in the liberal media, Pruitt is making real progress for the American people at an agency that the left believes it alone should run and control. President Trump unified a governing coalition behind the promise of draining the swamp in Washington, and of all his Cabinet members, Scott Pruitt has done the most to help him advance the cause.
Jenny Beth Martin is chairman of Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund.
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The change in modern football as of late has seen the majority of central attacking midfielders undergo a change that sees them provide a much needed defensive shift to carry out play. Oscar, Mkhitryan, Kroos, Modric, Marchisio, and now Fabregas are some of the Modern AM’s that contribute hugely to defense, keeping the likes of Mata, Goetze, Isco and many more out of the no.10 spot and forcing the latter majority out into wide positions.
Cesc has been rotated heavily under the Barcelona side since joining, being compared most often to Xavi. But recently under Martino the Spaniard has played as a furthest midfielder, proving to be imperative to Barcelona’s defensive systems and contributing to both channels of the pitch as well as central deep areas off the ball. This work saw Cesc often fatigued during the latter stages of the game, as he is dropped into central midfield positions or substituted completely during the last 20 minutes of the game.
Could these excessive work loads that are constantly planted on Cesc’s back be taking its toll? Well, in one of Barcelona’s recent games against Athletic Bilbao, he looked deprived of stamina as he was freed off the role of pressing the GK and forcing play long. Fabregas played very deep all game, dropping to the half line in the 1st phase and trying to exploit the huge gap between midfield and defense that Bilbao were risking the majority of the game.
Fabregas allowed Sanchez and Neymar to take up much more vertical positions because of this, but Bilbao’s ultra low block prevented penetration excellently the entire night. A 6-3-1 like formation was implemented, with the Bilbao ST hassling CM’s, wingers dropping to form a midfield block around the DM who stayed central, and CM’s dropped to wing backs.
This hugely defensive method proved its excellence, offering huge defensive stability and abilities in transitions thanks to the speed provided by the wingers. Fabregas was utilized in a number of roles to break down this block, being rotated heavily with the midfield trio Xavi and Iniesta, allowing the latter to take up higher roles while Fabregas fed full backs from deep to set up low crosses. Despite the efforts of Tata’s men, Athletic’s defense was largely solid the entire night and unable to falter.
Similar to the Bilbao game in terms of result was Barcelona’s recent match against Ajax. The game astonished thousands of fans as de Boer seemed to have taken a leaf out of Bielsa’s approach to games. He inspired an immense pressing game that would result in little or no time and space on the ball for the opposition, something that would prove to be a master stroke and the biggest test so far for Barcelona this season.
Ajax had been clearly instructed to carry out a huge pressing system, and not for the first time this season. Their 1st defensive phase was extremely aggressive, fielding up to 7 players in the opposition half. When Barcelona would progress to the 2nd phase, Ajax seemed to press from midfielders and forwards towards the ball zone with the back four staying goal side off of the opposition, allowing for awareness of the situation and ability to track back easily. The high defensive line would also be utilized whenever Barcelona aimed for a quick succession into 3rd phases from the 1st build up. This nullified the runs from Barcelona’s front three and allowed for a huge press as the back four closed space between midfield and defense.
These are just some of the points on how Barcelona were totally shackled by Ajax’s wondrous efforts, but Fabregas’ role must not be forgotten. Cesc approached the game after being picked at CF for not the first time and his task was clear: to press spare CB’s and GK’s and force the opposition into long balls. This regular pressing tactic indoctrinated by Tata is always going to require work ethic in which Cesc has been horribly victim to over his games at CF, endlessly working channel to channel.
But his defensive work in this game was clearly not up to par. The Spaniard looked hopelessly tired the entire game, which was fantastically noticed pre-game by Ajax manager Frank de Boer, who appeared to instruct his CB’s to wait for the press and slowly play back to GK. This effective tactic took its toll after a mere 30 minutes as Cesc looked incredibly fatigued, unsurprisingly due to the amount of movement he was carrying out due to Ajax’s pressing.
Tata noted his troubles, and the workhorse Pedro, stationed on RW, was instructed to carry out this pressing role, a costly but necessary call. The supposed ‘minor pressing role switch’ had a huge effect on the game, as Pedro situated wide had to work those few seconds longer to close down the space between him and the GK and CB’s. On top of this, Pedro’s role saw Cesc pushed deeper in defensive organisation, picking up the defensive midfielder Blind.
This lack of pressing in the 1st defensive phase early on from Febregas allowed a key man in midfield to progress forward as the GK could play on the ground and have time to pick out a key pass into midfield. Ajax added to Barcelona’s problems by fielding a single pivot with two midfielders advancing with wingers, creating a 2v1 deep in Barcelona’s midfield against Song.
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FORT COLLINS, Colo. -- Former Colorado State and NFL standout Joey Porter will join the Rams' coaching staff this season as he finishes up his degree.
Rams football coach Jim McElwain said Wednesday that Porter will serve as an undergraduate student assistant coach. Porter was a star for the Rams and went on to play 13 seasons in the NFL, winning a Super Bowl title with the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2005. He will be inducted into CSU's sports Hall of Fame in November.
McElwain, who attended the practice of the Denver Broncos on Wednesday, says of bringing Porter on board: "This is another example of reaching back into our past to help build our future at Colorado State."
Porter is working toward his liberal arts degree with a focus on social studies.
"I'm excited to have the opportunity that Coach Mac gave me to come back and finish my degree at Colorado State," Porter said in a statement. "I'm extremely happy to have opportunity to work with the CSU football team as an undergraduate student assistant. It's an honor for me to come back and be a part of the CSU family, and I'm extremely excited to see what happens with the 2013 season."
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
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Much Abrew: Six-Drop Tribal (Standard)
Tweet by SaffronOlive // Nov 20, 2017
video standard ixalan Much Abrew About Nothing
Hello, everyone! Welcome to another episode of Much Abrew About Nothing. Last week during our Instant Deck Techs, the crazy Sunbird's Invocation deck Six-Drop Tribal was the clear winner, which means we are heading to Standard this week to answer the age-old question, how many six-drops is too many? The basic idea of the deck is simple: maximize the power of Sunbird's Invocation by chaining six-drop into six-drop and hope for the best!
Before we get to the video, I should tell you about a small update I made to the deck. The original build had 23 six-drops and zero ways to kill a creature in the early game, which meant if the opponent played a Longtusk Cub on Turn 2 (which happens a ton in Ixalan Standard), we quite literally just scooped up our cards. In an effort to fix this problem, I added four copies of Harnessed Lightning and trimmed back four of the six drops (although all of the cards from the original deck tech are still in the deck, we just trimmed back on six-drops that came in multiples). While we still usually lose if our opponent plays a Longtusk Cub on turn two, at least with a few Harnessed Lightning we have a slight chance of living long enough to cast a six-drop or two.
Just a quick reminder: if you enjoy the Much Abrew About Nothing series and the other video content on MTGGoldfish, make sure to subscribe to the MTGGoldfish YouTube channel to keep up on all the latest and greatest.
Six-Drop Tribal (Deck Tech)
Six-Drop Tribal vs. Ramunap Red (Match 1)
Six-Drop Tribal vs. WB Tokens (Match 2)
Six-Drop Tribal vs. Sultai Energy (Match 3)
Six-Drop Tribal vs. UW Approach (Match 4)
Six-Drop Tribal vs. UW Embalm (Match 5)
Six-Drop Tribal (Wrap-Up)
Discussion
Even with the slight change to add some early-game removal to the deck, Six-Drop Tribal is pretty high on the list of worst Much Abrew decks of all time. Thankfully, we eventually managed to win a match, giving us an overall record of 1-4.
So, what made Six-Drop Tribal so bad? The long and short of it was that the curve was horrible. Most games, we simply spent the first three or four turns passing while our opponent played creatures, and by the time we could actually start casting six-drops, we were so far behind that it didn't really matter.
Six-Drop Tribal actually provides a very good reminder of the importance of curve. Based solely on raw power, Six-Drop Tribal might rank at the top of Standard. The problem is that the curve was so clunky that we never got to deploy the power. Choose the worst one-, two-, three-, and four-drops in Standard. If our opponent simply played those cards in order, starting from Turn 1, it's very likely they would beat Six-Drop Tribal as we sit around with a bunch of powerful, expensive creatures stuck in hand.
Oddly, Six-Drop Tribal did a really bad job of harnessing the power of Sunbird's Invocation. While on paper it seems like this should be a great Sunbird's Invocation deck, the problem we ran into is that we rarely found a window to cast Sunbird's Invocation. Even if we beat the odds and live until we have six mana, we usually have to cast a six-drop creature rather than Sunbird's Invocation in an attempt to stay alive for another turn.
The original build of Six-Drop Tribal had a massive 23 cards that cost six or more mana (along with a bunch of five-drops), and even our slightly updated build has 19 six-or-more-mana cards (in an attempt to maintain the spirit of the deck). This is simply too many. Even apart from the fact that our curve was horrible, we don't need nearly this many six-drops to make Sunbird's Invocation work. With 23 six-drops in the deck, we are roughly 95% to hit a six-drop off Sunbird's Invocation when we cast a six-drop. On the other hand, if we cut all the way down to 10 six-drops, we'd still have about a 70% chance of finding another six-drop with the enchantment. Basically, we are destroying our curve for a relatively slight increase in our odds of chaining six-drop into six-drop.
As such, for the deck to have any chance at working, we need to cut at least half of the six-drops to improve our curve and then use these extra slots to play some combination of cheaper creatures to block, ramp, and removal.
Which six-drops should we cut? While it's probably a matter of personal preference more than anything, The Locust God and Demon of Dark Schemes weren't especially impressive, and while I like Ajani Unyielding, but it doesn't seem especially well suited for this deck.
There is a problem with cutting at least half of the six-drops: the deck is no longer Six-Drop Tribal. But maybe this is a good thing. I'm not sure it's possible to build a six-drop tribal deck that also has a functional curve.
So, should you play Six-Drop Tribal? As it currently stands, the answer is a clear no. Not only was the deck bad, but it wasn't especially fun to play because most of the time, we just didn't cast anything while our opponent beat us down with cheaper threats. If you do want to play something similar, cut at least half of the expensive cards and play a more well-rounded Sunbird's Invocation deck, or better yet, play something like the Sunbird Panharmonicon deck we played for Against the Odds a few weeks ago, which was both more competitive and more fun!
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today. Don't forget to vote for next week's deck by liking, commenting on, and subscribing to Instant Deck Tech videos! As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
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Recent headlines are screaming about the Trump administration’s alleged attempt to “kill $3 billion in foreign aid,” preventing a tidal wave of year-end spending by the State Department. The administration has yet to confirm this is their plan. But if it were, would it really be the end of the world?
President Trump Donald John TrumpSteele Dossier sub-source was subject of FBI counterintelligence probe Pelosi slams Trump executive order on pre-existing conditions: It 'isn't worth the paper it's signed on' Trump 'no longer angry' at Romney because of Supreme Court stance MORE ran on a platform of decreasing and reordering our spending priorities, focusing on what is good for making America great. Changing the status quo spending at the State Department, which has remained largely the same since he took office, should not come as a shock to the swamp.
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Under current law, these cuts are legal. Using a process called
rescissions
, the White House can propose funding cuts to Congress. Congress can then vote on legislation to implement the cuts.
But here’s the trick. Normally, the president’s rescissions expire if Congress doesn’t act within 45 days. But, with less than 45 days left in fiscal year 2018, Congress would need to affirmatively act to prevent these cuts from taking place, instead of just letting them expire.
Sen. Bob Corker Robert (Bob) Phillips CorkerHas Congress captured Russia policy? Tennessee primary battle turns nasty for Republicans Cheney clashes with Trump MORE (R-Tenn.), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has vowed to challenge the administration if they take such a step. He wouldn’t be the first Republican senator to do so. Recall Trump’s failed $15 billion rescissions package from earlier this year, where the president’s attempt at forcing some fiscal austerity was thwarted at the last minute by fellow Republican, Sen. Richard Burr Richard Mauze BurrHillicon Valley: Subpoenas for Facebook, Google and Twitter on the cards | Wray rebuffs mail-in voting conspiracies | Reps. raise mass surveillance concerns Bipartisan representatives demand answers on expired surveillance programs Rep. Mark Walker says he's been contacted about Liberty University vacancy MORE (R-N.C).
Corker’s outrage aside (he is retiring in December, after all), State Department spending is in dire need of review. The agency itself wasn’t reauthorized for over a decade, and then at the last-minute a bill was signed by President Obama in December 2016 without any amendments and very little debate.
But this is a new administration, with different priorities. At a minimum, good governance mandates a review of the millions allocated to hardly-heard-of and hardly-overseen multinational organizations.
For example, should the US really be spending $33 million on unspecified programs of the Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) under the “international disaster assistance” account with the intentionally vague purpose description “support to FAO activities worldwide”? It is baffling that swaths of cash should be given so loosely to international organizations while Congress frequently has to pass “emergency” spending packages to pay for disaster assistance at home.
Or how about the $21 million from the “economic support fund” account going to the International Organization for Migration slated to “Support the inclusion for Peace Activity that aims to foster social and economic inclusion of Afro-Colombian and Indigenous communities that have been disproportionately affected by conflict”?
Not that these are independently bad programs, but in both cases, this funding is not clearly specified, not well-monitored, and has an unclear benefit to the American people. At the very least, those running these programs should be required to consistently make the case for the dollars they spend.
This problem exists among many lesser-known agencies and programs financed by American taxpayers. Take for example, the Office of Transition Initiatives run out of USAID that is supposed to finance development in countries transitioning from authoritarianism to democracy but instead has been found to be financing television programs promoting “alternative family structures” on Macedonian television.
It is not abnormal for large buckets of money to remain unspent at the end of the fiscal year. Former Sen. Tom Coburn Thomas (Tom) Allen CoburnCOVID response shows a way forward on private gun sale checks Inspector general independence must be a bipartisan priority in 2020 Congress must protect federal watchdogs MORE (R-Okla.), infamous for his “wastebook,” reminded everyone of the perpetuity of some pots of congressionally authorized funds. But if the money is not yet obligated less than 40 days away from the end of the fiscal year, we should really be asking if the money is actually necessary. In the case of many of our international assistance programs funded through Department of State and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the answer is no.
Programs that aren’t given proper guidance and oversight from Congress are instead left to the devices of the bureaucrats at the State Department. Given this, it’s no wonder that the State Department and other various agencies have financed a pro-left agenda around the world, promoting cultural values that undermine nation-states’ sovereignty rather than providing traditional foreign assistance.
Many more examples abound, but the priorities of the former administration are not those of this one. For conservatives, it is positive to hear of proposed changes hopefully forthcoming to more than $3 billion of the nearly $40 billion foreign assistance budget.
Republicans should not be afraid of rescissions. If Congress is unwilling to do its job of controlling the purse, the White House absolutely can and should propose cuts that align with its priorities. This administration has every right to redirect spending away from the previous administration’s priorities. After all, it’s what the American people voted for.
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Applejack : ( pokes a different tree gently with her front hoof) eh.
( 70 more apples fall)
Yep your right. In the right tree there would have been more apples.
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Flamingos are a pretty underrated bird. But the more you dig, the more you discover how strange they are, from their limbs to their pigment to the erectile tissue in their mouths.
One of the most recognisable traits of this leggy bird is how it seems to prefer to stand on one leg– even when asleep – with what appears to be its knee bent backwards. This is actually its ankle and heel; the flamingo's knee is located much further up the limb, hidden underneath its feathers. The whole area from the ankle to the toes is actually a giant foot. The joint that looks like an ankle, right down the bottom, is actually the beginnings of the toes. So effectively half the flamingo’s legs are actually its feet, and the normal stance for a flamingo is on its tiptoes. This arrangement makes more sense when you see a flamingo chick, whose legs and feet are still developing.
But why stand on one leg instead of two? Until a few years ago, no one could say for sure, but there had been suggestions made about how this could reduce muscle fatigue and assist in thermoregulation. The former theory suggested that by standing on one leg, the flamingo was preventing half of its leg muscles from stiffening and wearing out, so if a predator turned up, it could get moving very quickly. And the latter theory suggested that by keeping one leg up and close to its body, the flamingo could reduce heat loss. In 2009, psychologist Matthew Anderson from Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia, who had been studying the behaviour of flamingos for many years, decided to test both theories.
Observing captive Caribbean flamingos (Phoenicopterus ruber), Anderson's team timed how fast they could get moving from both the unipedal and bipedal stance. He found that, contrary to what the theory suggested, the birds were just as fast to get moving when they started from either stance.
Anderson next tested the thermoregulation theory and found that while the flamingos generally preferred resting on one leg to two regardless of the temperature, the percentage of birds resting on one leg was significantly higher among birds standing in the water than among those on land. This suggests that they were trying to lessen the amount of body heat that gets lost very rapidly when they come into contact with water. Anderson also noticed a relationship between the weather conditions and the leg lifting: "We demonstrate a negative relationship between temperature and the percentage of observed birds resting on one leg, such that resting on one leg decreases as temperature rises", he reported in Zoo Biology. So it would appear that this peculiar habit came about to keep the flamingos warm when standing in the water to feed.
Another interesting aspect of the flamingo is how it gets its pigment. Flamingos aren't born pink, they're born white, and they gradually get their pink pigment from their parents. Both parents regurgitate what's known as crop milk to feed their young chicks, and this acts as a pigment transfer. So often you'll see the colour of new flamingo parents begin to fade as their chicks turn pink. The pinkish hue comes from pigments called carotenoids, which are found in the blue-green algae and crustaceans that flamingos eat in the wild, or in the pellets fed to captive flamingos. The same process causes salmon to become pink. Flamingos even use this pigment in sexual signaling, according to a 2010 paper in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology by a team of Spanish researchers who discovered red and yellow carotenoid pigments in the flamingo’s preening oils, and that during mating season, these birds would secrete much more of these pigments, seemingly to enhance their colours.
Another study, published in Anatomical Record in 2006 by biologist Casey Holliday and professor of anatomy Lawrence Witmer from Ohio University, found erectile tissue in the flamingo’s beak. Flamingos are known for their odd way of eating – they stand in shallow water, and put their beaks in an almost upside-down position in the water to catch food as it floats by. Their tongues act like pumps that manipulate the water, squeeze the food out and trap it. When Holliday and Witmer constructed a 3D model of a flamingo’s head, they noticed large, oval-shaped masses of erectile tissue on the floor of its mouth and running along either side of its tongue. Just like the erectile tissue in a man’s penis, this stiffens when filled with blood – like when the head is tipped upside-down – and helps to strengthen and support the floor of the mouth and tongue when the flamingo is feeding. “We suspect this stabilises the mouth and tongue and helps with the peculiar way that flamingos eat,” said Witmer. “It’s an important new piece of the puzzle of flamingo feeding – frankly, a piece we hadn’t known was missing.”
So flamingos seem to have it all sorted out. Except when it gets really windy, in which case they could be in trouble of ‘blowing away’. A BBC article from earlier this year reported that Zoo keepers at Dudley Zoo in the UK spent half an hour trying to catch a flock of flamingos because they were worried they’d be blown away in the 48km/h winds. Not an easy task, when you’re dealing with a bird that is renowned for its aggressive behaviour – “The best approach is to corner them and then move them by putting a hand around their neck and another across their body – and believe me, that's much easier said than done,” Zoo curator Matt Lewis told the BBC. And the Queen of Hearts was just sitting at home...
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I have never had Salt Licorice before, it is good! Not at all what I thought it might be like!
Thanks Secret Santa! Wishing you a great Winter Solstice and a happy New Year! :)
Wait, There's MORE! A set of shotglasses and a cheese slicer showed up after the initial package! How cool! Thanks again Secret Santa!
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Reuters/Gleb Garanich It’s as good as gold. In fact, it’s much better this week.
The prospect of outright war between Russia and Ukraine seemed a real possibility this week (though the tensions have eased a bit), and that made for some interesting dynamics in the markets.
Ukraine is a substantial supplier of the grain, and wheat prices surged to the top of Quartz’s weekly look at how different asset classes fared. Russia’s OAO Norilsk Nickel is the world’s largest producer of that basic ingredient for stainless steel. And prices for that raw material also surged during the week. Nickel prices hit 14-month highs this week (paywall) amid concern that Russian producers could face sanctions that disrupt supplies.
Of course, Russia wasn’t the only market mover. Japan’s Nikkei rose as the yen weakened against the US dollar. The US S&P 500 posted its best week since July on solid outlooks from companies reporting earnings, including GE. The Nasdaq Composite gained as the recent tech selloff seemed to run out of steam. Italy’s FTSE MIB gained thanks to an ongoing rally among its once-beleaguered banks.
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Getting a phone call from Emma Watson, Harry Potter actor and fashion muse, was "a bolt out of the blue" for 48-year-old Mancunian Mark Demsteader, who has painted a series of portraits to mark the star's 21st birthday. Watson was enquiring about the artist's work, but he persuaded her to sit for photos. It then took three months to produce the 34 artworks that will be on show at the Panter & Hall Gallery from 15 June 2011
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Alfa Romeo are having an up-and-down year. Its car has only suited certain track and tyre combinations.
While other teams with similar problems have held back major aero updates while they get to grips with them, Alfa Romeo continues to push on with major revisions to the C38. At Silverstone the front end was updated, while an unusual cockpit detail was discovered on Antonio Giovinazzi’s car.
The team’s Silverstone update included the addition of a cape under the nose vane, plus a revised nose cone and front wing. This makes Alfa Romeo the seventh team to adopt the cape pioneered by Mercedes in 2017.
Having already developed quite a complex nose arrangement, with the holes through the nose tip and S-Duct, the addition of the cape (highlighted yellow) make the C38’s one of the most complex on the grid.
Even the cape its itself is enhanced with long slots along its edge to produce a stronger vortex spilling from its trailing edge, which feed into the bargeboards downstream. Further changes were made to the shape of the front wing mounting pylons to direct the airflow into the various inlets around the nose tip.
On the front wing, the basic shape was retained, but several details on the end plates were changed. Firstly, the footplate section was revised into a squarer edged shape, with pronounced sidewalls. The tunnel formed by this revised shaping also features a unique fin (1) and as with several other teams the footplate tunnel flattens towards the rear (2).
These changes are related to the inboard-loaded front wing philosophy, making the bargeboards and end plate work harder, to create ‘outwash’ and improve the overall efficiency of the car’s aerodynamics.
Inside the cockpit on Giovinazzi’s car was an unusual piece of foam padding. Already the regulations demand an ‘M’-shaped foam pad is fitted between the dash bulkhead and pedals, to protect the driver’s legs in a crash. The dip in the middle of the ‘M’ shape is clear: The steering column passes forwards from the wheel to the steering rack.
But on car 99 there is an extra piece of ‘Y’ shaped padding below the steering column section. Giovinazzi confirmed this was used to support his legs through corners, enabling him to brace not simply against the footwell walls, but also against this ‘Y’ piece. Some drivers have a section of the seat sticking upwards to cradle the thighs in a similar manner, but Giovinazzi’s solution appears to work better.
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Pete Lyons' fantastic Can-Am Cars in Detail:
July/August 2014
Reload to see the latest news
All news content copyright Michael J. Fuller , unless otherwise noted Mulsanne's Corner Book Store
A selection of sports car related DVDs and books, with a technical slant. >> Le Mans 2014 << Williams Racing Developments
Race Transmission Specialists From vintage rebuilds to technical design services... 7.21.14
>> S o It's been a couple of weeks and things had seem to have gone quiet on the Toyota Winggate. Well I have news, but first let's recap. Recall that Toyota has introduced a rotating rear wing that is designed to move under load (while the car is moving on the track) that has the intentional benefit of reducing drag. Toyota have two versions of the wing in service, and switched back and forth between the two during the Le Mans weekend, and even during the race (race day photos show the #8 running both at various times) :
T he first version is identifed by the inboard bracket (1) that connects the main plane to the endplate. The wing mount is silver and features a round bolt (2). The final feature is the flap bolt hole pattern (3) is a single row of approximately 8 holes.
This version of the wing aligns with the original description:
The rear wing mainplane is attached to the central swan neck rear wing mount through a single mounting point. The secondary flap attaches to the mainplane via conventional slot gap separator brackets. Outboard, the mainplane has a single attachment point at the endplate and the secondary flap also has a single attachment point for angle changes, as one would expect.
The outboard ends of the assembly are actually attached to the endplate and the wing's rotation is limited to the middle section. The laminate schedule of the wing is designed to facilitate the rotation, thus the wing actually deforms (though non-uniformly; thus it would seem to mean the wing, once rotated into its low drag nose up positions, is no longer a uniform section and in violation of Art 3.6.2 a.2). Ironically Toyota's competitors have dubbed this one as the "more legal" version.
© Chris Savage 2014 T his is how Version 1 works. T he second version lacks any brackets inboard of the endplate (1). The wing mount is black (2) and has a raised oval shape in the middle. Outboard on the endplate, the flap holes (3) are two parallel rows of 3 and 4 bolts respectively.
This version of the wing actually allows the entire wing assembly to pivot. The pivot point being the secondary flap bolt (3). The forward bolt appears to be false or to have no function.
Evidence of this movement came in the form of scuff marks on the inside face of the endplate (1). he second version lacks any brackets inboard of the endplate (1).The wing mount is black (2) and has a raised oval shape in the middle. Outboard on the endplate, the flap holes (3) are two parallel rows of 3 and 4 bolts respectively.This version of the wing actually allows the entire wing assembly to pivot. The pivot point being the secondary flap bolt (3). The forward bolt appears to be false or to have no function.Evidence of this movement came in the form of scuff marks on the inside face of the endplate (1).
© Chris Savage 2014 V ersion 2 in action. From a drag reduction standpoint I can imagine this is the more effective device of the two. So the latest news is that it has come to light that, following a meeting of the Technical Working Group a few weeks ago, the FIA has taken Toyota's concept into consideration and deemed that the wing mounting (the wing mounting mind you) is, "...(is) not acceptable at future WEC races." Therefore the expectation is that Toyota's rear wing drag reduction system will no longer be on the TS040 at the Austin WEC round. The statement is less definitive than one would have thought and certainly makes one wonder why it was deemed acceptable at past WEC events. So is that the end of it? My only suggestion is to keep an eye on Toyota's rear wing at future events.
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Much has been made about the injuries New England has gone through—some have even discredited Denver's thrilling overtime win because the Patriots were missing key players. Granted, the Pats were without some key players—and that certainly played a role in Denver's win—but that's not a good enough reason to downplay the Broncos victory.
Has everyone forgotten that Denver also lost starters T.J. Ward, Louis Vasquez, and Sylvester Williams during Sunday Night Football? Guard Evan Mathis wasn't supposed to play, either, but was forced into the lineup because of Vasquez's injury.
Injuries are part of the game, and no team is immune to them.
This year, Denver has lost four-time Pro Bowl tackle Ryan Clady, fill-in rookie starter Ty Sambrailo, promising rookie tight end Jeff Heuerman, and projected punt returner Kyle Williams to the injured reserve list.
In addition to Ward, Vasquez, Williams, Clady, Sambrailo, Heuerman, and Williams, Denver was also without eight-time Pro Bowler DeMarcus Ware and future Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning for SNF.
Everybody deals with injuries.
In 2013, Denver lost two centers (Dan Koppen and J.D. Walton), superstar cornerback Chris Harris Jr., starting safety Rahim Moore, starting defensive linemen Derek Wolfe and Kevin Vickerson, Pro Bowl linebacker Von Miller, and Clady. And they still reached the Super Bowl.
Granted, Denver was smashed by Seattle in Super Bowl XLVIII, but few—if any—pundits chalked it up to Denver missing key players due to injuries. Seattle was the better team, and they played a better game.
On SNF, Denver was the better team, and they played a better game.
Don't discredit them for injuries.
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Create Professional Portfolio Website on Blogger - NO CODING
After completing this step by step video lessons - you will be able to create a beautiful professional portfolio website on Blogger, which will help you to showcase your professional skills, achievements, and your professionalism in an attractive way.
Whether, you are still in study, or you're in any profession, maybe in freelancing - having a portfolio website will help you stand out from the crowd of competition in this digital arena, and you will get priority from your leaders or hiring managers!
If you are a complete beginner, and you have no previous experience of creating a website, still you will be able to create your portfolio website by following the video lessons of this course.
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It’s Middle Tenn. State football, so expectations are low – but not this low.
During the teams first game of the season against Vanderbilt Saturday night, someone who’s likely fired by now set off a firework show and sirens for an incomplete pass.
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The New Food Economy reports Dunkin' is currently in the process of suing certain stores. In particular, they're going after some of their almost 10,000 franchisees who employ undocumented workers. They have reportedly gone after at least 30 stores since late 2018.
In a few cases, Dunkin' zeroed in on franchisees who hadn’t verified their employees' legal statuses, and upon learning there were undocumented workers among them, sought to terminate their relationship with the franchise in court.
Most recently, Dunkin' filed a suit just last month against Thomas Sheehan and Kenneth Larson, a pair that owns nine Dunkin' locations across Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. After a two-year tax review, they claimed Sheehan and Larson were keeping outdated records of their employees, and that it wasn't verified if they were legal to work in the United States.
Per VICE, Dunkin' was particularly focused on the lack of employees' mandatory I-9o forms, as that, in their mind, equates to both a violation of immigration laws as well as their own franchising agreement. They sought to have all nine of the aforementioned locations shut down entirely.
According to Restaurant Business, some of these lawsuits were prompted by a "customer complaint," but the company hasn't commented further on any pending litigation, which has also extended to some Baskin-Robbins store owners.
Tess Koman Senior Editor Tess Koman covers breaking (food) news, opinion pieces, and features on larger happenings in the food world.
This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io
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President Donald Trump notoriously hates having his double chin shown during photographs, and a new book claims that he goes out of his way to avoid showing his chin in pictures.
The Washington Examiner notes that a new book — called Ultimate Insiders, White House Photographers and How They Shape History — details how Trump prevents photographers from snapping pictures of him in ways that expose the flabby area around his neck.
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Specifically, author Kenneth Walsh writes that Trump choreographs “his appearances as much as possible to minimize photos of him from the front at a low angle or from the sides, because he thought his double chin became too obvious.”
Such pictures, however, often leave Trump looking “too pugnacious” and not friendly and outgoing. Because of this, the book reports that former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer signed off on taking photos of Trump interacting with his grandchildren to lighten up his image.
At the end of the day, however, Walsh writes that Trump is very wary of “what the called the ‘fake’ mainstream news media, including the photojournalists” who try to take photos of his very real double chin.
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Here's a free Starcraft overlay I made for everyone to use. Feedback is much appreciated!Download the 16:10 version here sta.sh/0ip061s91pa Ingame view sta.sh/02qpby4ohon How I made it www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGWjM0… You can follow me on Twitter @ twitter.com/Deadmeat1555
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Around 3.7 billion years ago, Earth as we know it was still in progress. Asteroids bombarded its surface. On land, mountains rose and small areas of shallow water formed. But was that long-gone water a proving ground for the first remnants of life on Earth? As The New York Times’ Nicholas Wade reports, a newly-discovered fossil that could be Earth’s oldest is shedding new light—and plenty of controversy—on the ancient origins of our planet.
Related Content Fossils From Ancient Hot Springs Suggest Life May Have Evolved on Land
Australian and British scientists have discovered fossils in the Isua Greenstone Belt of Greenland that they claim to be the oldest ever found on Earth—a find so significant, they sat on the discovery for four years to allow enough time for verification. Now, they've finally published their research in the journal Nature.
The fossils are called stromatolites, which are layers of ancient microorganisms that grew in shallow water. The surface of the colony traps sand, which is eventually incorporated into their mat-like layers—the ancient remnants of which are recorded in the geologic record. Oddly enough, stromatolites are older than the world’s oldest rocks, since scientists think that the rocks they co-existed with (Earth’s oldest) have been crushed and destroyed by plate tectonic and erosion. The stromatolites in question were discovered in southwest Greenland, which is already home to some of Earth’s oldest rocks.
As Wade reports, it’s likely that scientists will debate many aspects of the find. Since the fossils are 220 million years older than any others yet found, they challenge scientific assumptions about how life formed on Earth.
The fossils' current estimated age means they formed toward the end of a period called the Late Heavy Bombardment, when the just-formed planet was continually pelted with asteroids and comets. But scientists are still debating how intense this bombardment was and whether it would even be possible for life to form, writes Wade. The other option is that the microbes crept in just after the bombardment ended. If that’s true, it means that life must have evolved much faster than previously thought—in just 100 million years.
If life sprung up on Earth this quickly, then perhaps another planetary neighbor could also have supported life at some point. Mars is thought to have been strikingly similar to Earth during the Late Heavy Bombardment, so it’s possible that the red planet generated life of its own during this time.
Since the discovery is so explosive, it will doubtless generate plenty of controversy. For one, natural abiotic processes could produce structures that appear to be stromatolites, reports Ed Yong at the Atlantic. Additionally, the rocks in the Isua Greenstone Belt are highly deformed and most have been twisted and smashed under high temperatures and heat.
To support their assertion that these wavy layers were once creatures, the researchers studied the chemistry of the rocks to tease out the signatures of life. “The chemical evidence could be interpreted as signs of life, but there’s always been some element of doubt,” lead author of the study Allen Nutman tells Yong. “But what we have now is something very different—something tangible and visible you can see, rather than a reading that’s come out of an instrument.”
Another concern is the difficulty in dating the most ancient objects on Earth. The scientists used radiometric dating to determine the stromatolites' age, Joel Achenbach reports for The Washington Post, a method that relies on measuring the proportion of radioactive elements in the rocks.
In an article on the find in Nature, University of Washington geobiologist Roger Buick tells Alexandra Witze that he has “about 14 queries and problems that need addressing before I believe it.” But if it is true, it might be time to update our vision of that roiling, immature Earth.
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10 Best Free SEO Friendly WordPress Themes [2020]
Everyone who has a WordPress blog or is willing to start a new WordPress blog, the next run after creating your blog is to run for the best theme for your blog.
Your blog’s theme must be able to attract your visitors and you must get a good looking and clean theme for your blog. Also there are other things that should be taken care of.
When you choose a theme for your blog, you must make sure that it is pre-optimized keeping SEO in mind. Also you must keep in mind that the theme must be responsive, loads faster and has clean interface. The theme also must be easily customizable in order to meet user’s needs.
Not all WordPress themes are SEO optimized and those SEO optimized wordpress theme will help you outrank your competitor in search results. After all, it is a blogger’s first dream to get a lot of traffic from search engines like Google for free.
Also Read: Complete SEO Guide For Blogspot Blog
Well when you are just starting out on blogging and don’t really can’t afford a WordPress theme or want to start out just using a WordPress theme available for free, then I am here with a list of 10 best SEO friendly WordPress themes for you in 2020 .
These best SEO friendly WordPress themes are responsive, loads faster, free from bloatware and are easily index able by search engines.
Also Read: Best Cheap Shared Web Hosting Providers in 2020
So here goes my list.
Best FREE SEO Friendly WordPress themes for 2020
1. Astra
Astra is one of the best WordPress themes for beginning your WordPress blog popular for the unparalleled speed and UX design.
It is fast, fully customizable and can be used for blog, portfolio sites and it also has Woocommerce support. In broad sense you can use Astra for any of your website needs.
The source is available on Github and you can access and make any changes if you want.
It has schema.org code integrated and is native AMP ready that makes this themesuper search engine friendly.
Also Astra works perfectly with the page builders like Elementor, DIVI etc.
Get Astra
2. Ocean WP
Ocean WP is another free multipurpose WordPress theme that can meet your premium desires for your website for free.
Here are some of the best features of Ocean WP:
Responsive design
Loads faster
Customizable for any types of Websites
Woocommerce ready
Built-in SEO for better indexing and ranking
The above features make the theme SEO friendly. Also it is extremely customizable and works with popular page builders like Elementor, DIVi etc.
Check Ocean WP
3. Blocksy
Blocksy is one of my most favorite SEO friendly WordPress themes in 2020.
As soon as I got to know about the new updates in this theme I immediately fell in love with it. Blocksy is a fast, super charged Gutenberg WordPress theme.
It comes with some amazing features as mentioned below:
Fully responsive and Lightning fast
Gutenberg Ready (100% compatible with Gutenberg editors and blocks)
Many built in variations of Header, Footer etc.
Comes with free importer sites
E-commerce ready
The theme is amazingly fast and customization. You can create amazing professional sites just with the customizer and adding Gutenberg blocks.
4. Hestia
Hestia is one of the best modern WordPress themes by Themeisle mostly for professionals.
It is fully responsive, retina ready and SEO friendly.
Hestia is a free multipurpose WordPress theme with material design.
You can use this theme for creative business, small business, online agencies, portfolio and ecommerce as well.
Also you can use Elementor page builder with this free SEO friendly theme.
Download Hestia
5. Ionmag
This is one of my personal favorites in newspaper WordPress themes. Ionmag is free modern and dynamic newspaper WordPress theme for blogging, magazine and reviews website.
Here are some of the key features of ionmag theme:
Responsive and Fast
Drop page builder and big grids
SEO friendly
Comes with a theme panel
Ion mag has a clean design, easily usable drag and drop page builder, customizable footer and header templates to choose from.
Also the theme is ad friendly and ads can be easily integrated on six spots in simple easy steps.
View Ionmag
6. GeneratePress
GeneratePress is another best SEO optimized, lightweight and secure WordPress theme.
Here are some of the cool features of GeneratePress wordpress theme:
Secure and stable
Fully responsive and fast
Search engine optimized
Ecommerce ready
This theme has schema support and can be customized easily to meet your needs. Install the theme make customizations and you are ready to go live.
Get GeneratePress
7. Schema-Lite
Schema is one of the fastest loading and search engine friendly WordPress theme developed by MyThemeShop.
It has rich snippets to help search engine identify all parts of your site and rank you better. Also it has inbuilt review system.
It is secure, lightweight with google algorithm friendly features .
It has a premium version as well which comes with a lot more features.
View Schema
8. Meridian One
Meridian one WordPress theme is a well coded free WordPress theme with a premium structure by Meridian Themes.
It is a WordPress one page theme, perfect for portfolio, business, digital agency, photography, freelancers, blog, ecommerce shop, and product showcase.
Also it loads faster and includes SEO friendly features.
Discover MerdianOne
9. Bloggist
Bloggist is another minimal and search engine optimized WordPress theme. This theme comes with a limitless customization and is easy to set up and customize.
This theme is ideal if you are starting a classic news site, blog, journal or a review site.
The design is clean and SEO friendly.
This theme is great if you are just starting out in blogging as it is clean and easy to set up and looks great.
Check Bloggist
10. Writers Blogily
Writers Blogily is a SEO friendly and fully responsive WordPress theme by ThemeEverest.
It is great for blogging, newspaper and journal writing. Also it looks clean and loads faster.
Here are some of the features of this theme:
Adsense and affiliate marketing friendly
SEO optimized
Responsive and fast
View Writers Blogily
Final Thoughts
I know as a blogger, it’s so hard to choose the best theme for your blog. So I tried to come up with the best SEO friendly WordPress themes for 2020 that are available for free.
Well, if you haven’t registered a WordPress blog yet and want to get started, contact me and I will be ready to help.
Also don’t miss genuine ways to make money online in 2020.
This is the best list I could make and I know it is not a complete list. If you know or are using a best Free SEO friendly WordPress theme then please let us know in the comments below.
Happy Blogging!
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Costa monopolizou a bizarrice em alguns momentos. Ao proferir um exaltado discurso para orientar a bancada de seu partido, o deputado do Pará defendeu a rejeição da denúncia contra Temer exclamando: "Nós, deputados da base do Governo Temer, temos moral para derrubar esses falsos moralistas e incompetentes (...) Tenham vergonha na cara! O Temer é um homem ético, transparente, tem preparo e hombridade. Vocês podem se preparar para chorar hoje no muro das lamentações", gritou e gesticulou, diante de um Jean Wyllys (PSOL) às gargalhadas. Costa também bateu no ombro ao defender o presidente. "Quem é Temer mostra a cara e até tatua o nome aqui no ombro", gritou Costa, que garante que no Pará o mandatário tem "80% de popularidade". Ao retomar o microfone para proferir seu voto, mais uma vez gritou: "Abaixo o Datafolha, abaixo o Ibope! Temer é um homem decente, preparado, honesto! Meu voto é sim!". Em outro momento, quando já estava quieto, foi flagrado pelo fotógrafo Lula Marques trocando mensagens no WhatsApp com mulheres. "Mostra a sua bunda", pedia Costa a uma delas, durante a votação.
A tatuagem mencionada por Costa foi exibida no começo desta semana por ele mesmo: uma bandeira do Brasil e palavra "Temer" em seu ombro. Ele garante que gastou 1.200 reais e que o desenho é definitivo, mas já há tatuadores experientes dizendo que é temporário. Seja como for, utilizou as redes sociais para se justificar: "Eu não sou hipócrita". Nesta quarta, deputados da oposição foram ao microfone durante a fala de Costa para pedir que mostrasse o desenho. Ele inclusive foi inspiração para os adesivos que parlamentares colaram seus ombros com a frase "Fora Temer".
O dep. da tatoo do Temer Wladimir passou parte da sessão q discutia a denúncia contra o Temer em conversas nada republicanas pelo whatsapp. pic.twitter.com/6Q66oLBrIe — Lula Marques (@LulaMarques) August 2, 2017
Sobre esses deputados da oposição, de partidos como o PT, PC do B, REDE e PSOL, Costa disse, como de costume, que formam parte de "organizações criminosas" — até que levou uma bronca do presidente da Casa, Rodrigo Maia (DEM-RJ). Depois de seu discurso, o deputado do Solidariedade se comportou como aluno de primário, enchendo dois pixulecos do ex-presidente Lula para, durante os discursos da oposição, bater um no outro e fazer barulho. Até que os deputados petistas Valmir Prascidelli e Carlos Zarattini o empurraram e rasgaram, a dentadas, um dos bonecos. Nesse momento, com a confusão instalada na Câmara, a oposição começou a jogar dinheiro falso para o alto — as cédulas foram levadas em uma mala de dinheiro, em referência a Rodrigo Rocha Loures, ex-parlamentar e homem de confiança de Temer acusado de receber 500.000 reais em nome do presidente.
Costa acusa os partidos da oposição mas também tem telhado de vidro. Ele foi julgado pelo Tribunal Regional do Pará por abuso de poder econômico, devido à suspeita de arrecadação e gastos ilícitos em sua campanha de 2014. Em julho de 2016 teve seu mandato cassado, uma vez que a Corte concluiu que o parlamentar não registrou mais de 400.000 reais de gastos. A decisão final precisa ser confirmada agora pelo Tribunal Superior Eleitoral.
Meses antes da decisão, Costa já havia protagonizado na Câmara outro show de horrores em uma sessão decisiva: a votação sobre a abertura de processo de impeachment contra Dilma Rousseff (PT). Na ocasião, também comparou os políticos petistas com os chefes do crime organizado e, em seguida, soltou uma frase de efeito: “O que Lula e Dilma fazem é um verdadeiro tiro de morte no coração, na alma do povo brasileiro”, gritou. De repente, disparou uma pistola de confetes coloridos.
O parlamentar está longe de ser alguém exemplar. Foi um dos que mais faltou a sessões em 2015, segundo o jornal Extra: de 125, compareceu a apenas 20. Quando aparece, puxa os holofotes para si e protagoniza momentos patéticos. Costa sintetiza toda a bizarrice que tomou o Congresso Nacional depois que a máscara de muitos de seus representantes corruptos caiu.
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My Santa asked about a comment I made on camping and then she ran with it. I am so totally amazed, thrilled and just blown away. When I received my shipped notification and saw that the box was almost 13 pounds I was perplexed for the days of transit which only made the whole experience better.
The box had the cutest pink tape with flowers. Starting from the top of the box and working down were individually wrapped packages and a charming note from my Santa. Coffee from a local roaster in her area; a toaster oven size cookie sheet, a book on luxury tent camping/glamping, decadent brownie mix, amazing Hershey chocolate chip cookie mix, cake pans perfect for camping, and at the bottom was a Coleman Camp Oven, holy cow!!
We love to camp, its how our family unplugs from time to time. Thank you so very much my Arbitrary Santa, you are amazing, thoughtful and really just super cool.
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LONDON (Reuters) - Britain’s Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a last ditch bid by the British government to stop Europe’s top court from considering a case which seeks to determine whether London can unilaterally reverse Brexit.
Anti-Brexit demonstrators protest outside the Houses of Parliament in London, Britain, November 19, 2018. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls
Scottish politicians who are opposed to Britain exiting the European Union want the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to clarify whether London can withdraw its notification to leave without permission from the EU’s other member states.
Pro-EU supporters who want a second referendum are hoping the case will give the option that Britain could change its mind in a second referendum and remain in the bloc after all.
The ECJ is due to hear the case on Nov. 27.
In a final attempt to prevent the referral, the British government asked the Supreme Court whether it would hear an appeal but on Tuesday, three of the country’s top judges rejected the application.
The government had argued that whether or not Britain could reverse the decision was immaterial, since ministers had no intention of doing so.
The anti-Brexit petitioners are hoping the ECJ will rule that Britain has a legal unilateral option of staying in the EU, the world’s biggest trading bloc, once the final outcome of divorce negotiations are known.
Last week, May concluded a withdrawal agreement with the EU but many in her own party along with the small Northern Irish party which props up her minority government and opposition lawmakers have said they will oppose it.
She has said the country faces three options: backing her deal, leaving the EU in a disorderly “no deal” Brexit, which would be very disruptive for businesses and citizens, or no Brexit.
It is not clear when the ECJ might issue its ruling to clarify the interpretation of Article 50 of the EU treaty, under which London last year gave two years’ notice of its departure.
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ISLAMABAD (AP) — Marked by the U.S. Embassy seal, advertisements condemning an anti-Islam video appeared on Pakistani television on Thursday in an apparent attempt to undercut anger against the United States, where the film was produced. Hundreds of youths, however, clashed with security officials as they tried in vain to reach the embassy in Islamabad amid anger in many countries over the film's vulgar depiction of the Prophet Muhammad.
The advertisements appear to be an effort by the U.S. government to dampen chaos surrounding the film and undo some of the damage to America's image in the Muslim world. Violence linked to the movie has left at least 30 people in seven countries dead, including the American ambassador to Libya. Two people have died in protests in Pakistan.
In recent days, the decision by a French satirical magazine to release cartoons crudely depicting the prophet has added to the tension, as may the upcoming issue of the German satirical magazine Titanic. The magazine's co-editor Martin Sonneborn said it was up to readers to decide whether the cover of an Arab wielding a sword actually depicts the Prophet Muhammad.
Most outrage appears linked to the amateurish movie, which portrays the prophet as a fraud, womanizer and child molester.
The television ads in Pakistan feature clips of President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton during press appearances in Washington in which they condemned the video. Their words were subtitled in Urdu.
"We absolutely reject its content and message," said Clinton in the advertisement.
A caption on the ad reads: "Paid Content."
The advertisements end with the seal of the American Embassy in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. It was not known how many channels were airing the ads or whether they were being run in other Muslim countries or just Pakistan.
An embassy spokeswoman declined comment.
In an email later Thursday, the embassy sent out a link to video of ordinary Americans condemning the anti-Islam film, which appeared on YouTube.
Story continues
Protests have tapered off in many countries, but in Pakistan on Thursday, more than 2,000 people tried to reach the U.S. Embassy inside a guarded enclave that houses embassies and government offices.
Riot police used tear gas and batons to keep the stone-throwing demonstrators away from the enclave, and hundreds of shipping containers were lined up to cordon off the area. The government later called in army troops to protect the restricted areas when it appeared that police could not handle the situation.
"It is our responsibility to protect all our diplomats, all the foreigners," said Pakistani Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira. He criticized protesters for resorting to violence and suggested that various religious and militant groups among the crowd were to blame.
Most of the protesters appeared to be students affiliated with the Islamist hardline Jamaat-e-Islami party. Flags from other Islamist groups, Jamaat-u-Dawa and the al-Qaida linked militant group, Sipah-e-Sahaba, could be seen flying among the crowd. Such groups have used the anti-Islam film as a rallying cry for their supporters.
Demonstrators also rallied in the Pakistani cities of Lahore, Chaman, Karachi and Peshawar, although those demonstrations were peaceful.
So far, the demonstrations have been fairly small by Pakistani standards, but are expected to grow Friday, the traditional Muslim day of prayer. The Pakistani government deemed Friday a national holiday so people can demonstrate peacefully against the film.
That decision drew rare praise from the Pakistani Taliban, which is usually at war with the government. A spokesman for the militant group said it welcomed the decision but also thought the government should expel all American diplomats.
The U.S. State Department on Thursday warned all U.S. citizens to defer non-essential travel to Pakistan until further notice. Their previous travel warning only reminded Americans of ongoing security concerns in the country. American consulates across the country have been closed to the public all week.
In Indonesia, the U.S. consulate in the country's third-largest city of Medan shut its doors Thursday for a second day because of demonstrations.
About 50 students from an Islamic university gathered in Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi province in Indonesia. They burned tires and forced a McDonald's restaurant to close.
In Iran, hundreds of students and clerics gathered outside the French embassy in Tehran to protest the publication of the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in the French weekly.
In Kabul, a few hundred people demonstrated area against the film before dispersing peacefully.
__
Associated Press writer Asif Shahzad in Islamabad contributed to this report.
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(CNN) Five CIA employees who improperly accessed data belonging to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence will not face disciplinary measures as they "acted reasonable under the complex and unprecedented circumstances in investigating a potential security breach in the highly classified shared computer network," according to an agency accountability board.
Chaired by former Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Indiana, alongside former Obama White House attorney Bob Bauer and three senior CIA officers, the board was convened in August 2014 by CIA Director John Brennan and tasked with investigating the misconduct and putting forward recommendations to ensure that "future instances of the miscommunication and confusion that led to this controversy" do not arise again.
The unusually public dispute between the Senate and the CIA over access to classified information began last year when the Senate Intelligence Committee began preparing a report that exposed the CIA's controversial detention and interrogation programs.
The CIA, in turn, accused Senate committee staffers of getting access to internal agency documents and improperly handling classified material, a charge the Justice Department determined was lacking evidence to warrant a further investigation.
Read More
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Story highlights Children who experiment with gender conventions and cross-dress make adults nervous
A child who does not conform to gender norms does not mean he/she is transgender
1 out of 10 kids may show gender nonconforming behavior
When a boy struts in a tutu or a girl dons boxer shorts, it makes grown-ups nervous. It's one of the first lessons kids who are gender nonconforming learn.
Mich is biologically female, but didn't identify as a girl. As a child, Mich insisted on having boy-cut short hair, shunned all things pink and refused to play with dolls or wear dresses.
At age 3, "I told my mom I wanted to be a boy," said Mich, who requested to be identified by first name only. "And, throughout the years, I learned that saying that was not right ... and so, you hide this part of yourself. But you still know something's up. The problem with kids is that they don't have the language to say it, but they know."
The pressure to be more girly came from Mich's parents and other adults, rather than school bullies, said Mich, who now is 25 and lives in the Bay Area.
"The messages from adults, especially my parents, were this was not how it was supposed to be," Mich said. "I don't think it was subtle. I would cut my hair really short and my mom would say, 'Why do you look like a boy? You can't be a boy.' An adult would say, 'Why aren't you in a dress?' They're pushing this message on you."
When teenagers and children reject conforming to their biological gender roles, they are often teased, misunderstood or scorned by both peers and adults.
A study published in Pediatrics this month showed that children who do not conform to gender roles are more likely to be abused, increasing the likelihood they will have post-traumatic stress disorder by the time they're in their 20s.
Gender nonconformity means that an individual tends to associate with roles, behaviors and activities of the opposite gender, rather than those of his or her biological sex. This could be a boy who grows his hair long or paints his nails, or a girl who only wears male clothing. These issues are often confused with transgender identity , but they are not the same thing.
Gender nonconforming behavior occurs in one out of 10 children, according to the study. A vast majority of these kids do not need medical interventions, because the behavior tends to fade as they grow older.
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In the study published Monday, nearly 9,000 respondents were asked to recall their childhood experiences before age 11, including favorite toys, games, roles they took while playing, media characters they imitated or admired, and feelings of femininity and masculinity. When they reached adulthood, the participants were surveyed again -- this time about whether they experienced physical, sexual, or emotional abuse and were screened for PTSD.
The results showed "very clear patterns," said S. Bryn Austin, one of the study's authors. "The young people who as children were most nonconforming were much more likely to report mistreatment or abuse, within the family, by people outside the family. They were targeted for abuse."
There should be extra precautions taken to protect them, she said.
"We are concerned about the health and risk of abuse and harassment targeting children who behave in a way, or express their gender in a way that's not typical," said Austin, an associate professor of pediatrics at the Children's Hospital Boston and Harvard School of Public Health. "We know there's a lot of bias about how girls and boys are supposed to behave."
Gender nonconformity tends to diminish as kids get older. And in many cases, kids with these tendencies grow up to be gay or lesbian, experts say.
"A lot of children seem to be experimenting with cross-gender behavior, but very few are following through to request gender change as they mature," wrote Dr. Walter Meyer III, a pediatric psychiatrist at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas, in a separate commentary published in Pediatrics.
Mich, who wanted to be a boy during childhood, does not want to become a man, having reached adulthood. Mich now identifies as gender neutral -- meaning neither female nor male.
When children cross-dress, they toe the gender divide and challenge conventions, making their parents and adults very anxious. It's an issue that Diane Ehrensaft, director of mental health and founding member of the Child and Adolescent Gender Center and a clinical psychologist in the Bay Area, has dealt with for years.
Ehrensaft raised a gender nonconforming son and wrote a book, "Gender Born, Gender Made," in which the cover shows a young boy with curly hair in a tutu. Her son, now an adult, identifies as gay.
"I started seeing more and more children and families who just came to me around their child's gender nonconforming behaviors," Ehrensaft said in an interview with CNN.com at a health conference last year. "In the last five years, there has been an explosion in the number of children who are saying you guys have got it wrong. I'm not the gender you think I am."
There are "princess boys" and girls who only wear boy clothes, and many others who express their gender identity in unconventional ways.
Whether the behavior is a result of nature or nurture remains contested. Some in the field believe children can be brought out of their nonconforming behavior by immersing them in conventional gender roles.
Gender nonconformity by itself does not indicate a mental health disorder, so doctors often take a wait-and-see approach when the behaviors appear in young or school-aged children.
In rare cases, gender nonconformity in children can lead to gender identity disorder in adolescence, also known as gender dysphoria, a diagnosis that involves a disconnect between a patient's sex, which describes anatomy, and their gender, which involves identity.
People with this condition feel distressed because their bodies don't match their gender identity in their minds. The adolescent form of the disorder is typically diagnosed in early puberty, said Dr. Scott Leibowitz, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Gender Management Services at the Children's Hospital Boston, the first gender identity clinic in North America.
"The dilemma is the inability for anybody to accurately predict whether reported gender dysphoria in childhood persists in adolescence or not. In a majority of cases it does not," he said.
In another study published in Pediatrics, authors found that 44% of teenagers with gender identity disorder had significant psychiatric history including self-mutilation and suicide attempts.
In either case, signs of gender nonconformity in kids can cause confusion and isolation for families. Often parents are blamed for the kids' behavior.
Two years after giving birth, Nicole Seguin realized that her daughter never behaved like a typical girl. Her daughter, Anneke, at age 2, seemed miserable in a dress and would rip or mess up the feminine clothes.
"The first time I kind of remember taking off my dress and just chilling with the diaper," said Anneke, now 15. "I did not wear any clothes unless they were my Spiderman jammies. No dresses, nothing pink, nothing like that."
Growing up, Anneke always had masculine interests -- soccer and hockey over tea parties and Barbies. One of the first words Anneke as a toddler uttered was "Hup Holland," a phrase used by Dutch soccer fans. When Seguin bought her daughter a dollhouse, Anneke shot toy cars off it. Anneke always wanted to play sports.
For years, Anneke identified as "gender fluid" -- meaning not completely male or female.
In December, Anneke became Cory, changing names and now preferring the male pronoun. Although identifying more as a male, Cory still considers himself "gender fluid." He likes chick flicks, watches "Glee" but also loves playing hockey. He plays on a nearly all-male hockey squad as goalie.
Cory's case highlights the complexity involved in gender identity. Life outside the gender norms doesn't come easy.
"I went through various stages of depression," he said. "The only reason why I'm here right now is because of all the support my family gave me."
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Yeah, so, Reddit has mostly gone dark. Not in the sense that anti-Internet freedom government entities have nefariously blocked all or most of the site — nothing like that. No, Reddit’s current predicament is user-generated.
As BuzzFeed‘s Ryan Broderick reports, major subreddits were suddenly rendered private by their moderators on Thursday night. That’s because Reddit fired Victoria Taylor, who’s popularly known on the site as u/chooter. Taylor, who worked as Reddit’s director of communications, helped the r/IAMA subreddit — which has conducted incredibly popular Q&A’s with presidents and criminals alike.
As moderator “karmanaut” explains, “we learned that Victoria was unexpectedly let go from her position with Reddt. We all had the rug ripped out from under us and feel betrayed.” No particular reason was given for Taylor’s termination, and while such information is relevant only to Reddit’s in-house staff, that it happened so abruptly and without any communicated warning to the r/IAMA mods is what pissed off karmanaut.
So they made r/IAMA private, rendering it unreadable to all but a few users. To make matters worse, several other popular subreddits followed suit.
Unsurprisingly, Redditors assumed Taylor’s firing was another unpopular part of interim CEO Ellen Pao‘s plan, so they filed a Change.org petition calling for her resignation. As of this writing, it has 15,750 signatures of the required 25,000.
Meanwhile, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian — another target of angry Redditors — hasn’t done much to alleviate the situation. If anything, he’s made it worse:
Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian last night in response to the drama surrounding r/IAmA: “Popcorn tastes good.” pic.twitter.com/lBsbV0kNS0 — Ryan Broderick (@broderick) July 3, 2015
He tried to make up for his comments later, but to no avail:
“I made two dumb joke comments in SRD, which I admit were dumb,” Ohanian wrote this morning about his popcorn post pic.twitter.com/PCORArlvKr — Ryan Broderick (@broderick) July 3, 2015
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Ohanian and the Reddit administration are trying to lay down the law with the r/IAMA mods:
Ohanian in apparently private post on r/modtalk: “Get the blacked out subreddits back online” https://t.co/BSLPjVutOm pic.twitter.com/HK3lO8muJh — Ryan Broderick (@broderick) July 3, 2015
So yeah. Reddit has, for the most part, gone dark. Internet content writers like myself, as well as those of you who read it while wasting time at work, are supposedly struggling to find things to write about. (Honestly, we’re doing just fine.) But if you really want a alternative time-suck to Reddit, you’re not alone. “Reddit alternative” is trending on Google in a big way.
[h/t BuzzFeed]
[Image via Reddit]
— —
>> Follow Andrew Husband (@AndrewHusband) on Twitter
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
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&tldr; Please provide semantically versioned releases of your packages and libraries.
Update: There is a proposal to bring semantic versioning to the Go community.
When it comes to package management the Go community is different from the rest. There are some places that’s not a good thing and release versions happen to be one of them. In general Go packages, many of which are used in production, have no identifiable version other than a commit id and that’s a problem.
Why Bother Versioning?
There are theoretical and then there are practical reasons to version. I want to share a little of both by example.
Kubernetes has quite a few dependencies. And its dependencies have dependencies. Sometimes they share a dependency but list different versions of it. If you took the version specified by Kubernetes and the versions specified by their dependencies you’ll find 42 conflicts (as or writing this post). A conflict is there two different versions are being specified (often in a Godep file). Since they are all specified as commit ids there’s not way to distinguish a difference. When I looked deeper (by hand) I found cases were versions could be years apart in time. This is not ideal. What if I asked you to use version f9885acc8cd1403afcd09570c89a009e8bd1dc19 of OpenSSL? Or, what if that’s the version bundled in something you downloaded? Would you feel safe using that. Based on the commit id there’s no real way to tell when it came from. Is it safe? It’s not safe. This version is susceptible to Heartbleed. No one does this with OpenSSL. They use versions so a simple version comparison can tell if it’s safe. Thankfully OpenSSL doesn’t version by commit id. Stability can be an issue. I was recently working on a project that pulled in some 3rd party libraries. The problem was one of stability. The latest commit wasn’t stable. It didn’t work. So, work had to be done to walk through the commits to find one that worked. This is tedious and annoying. If there are stable releases you can use that. It’s not like most people run the latest commit of Go, Firefox, or well just about anything else.
Note, if you believe Go packages only need to be tied to the commit ids then I challenge you to run everything that way. The Go toolchain, your browser, and all of it.
Other Language Communities
I’ve been looking at how other language communities handle packages. I decided to look at release versions in these communities and I was going to attempt to calculate a percent of packages in those communities that have release versions. But, I found that all the popular packages have releases and some communities require them. It was hard to find a package with any kind of adoption that didn’t have releases. I didn’t calculate a percentage because it’s a tiny fraction of a percent.
The State of Go Versioning
So, how does Go compare? I used tools such as Godoc and Go Search to find the top packages. The packages fell into 5 categories:
9 of the top 20 most imported according to Go Search had no release versions at all. When I look at other lists on Godoc or Go Search these ratio of only about half having versions holds up. To go further I looked at GitHub Trends for Go packages (excluding applications written in Go) and found 75% for the past month didn’t have release versions. Of those that have release versions many are out of date. It’s not unusual to have the latest release be over a year old. Sometimes closer to two years. There can be many, sometimes hundreds of, commits since then. While these versioned releases exist they are essentially useless. Those who are using gopkg.in . These really fall into two categories. Those who are doing incremental releases and those who just have a major branch you need to follow. The latter is similar to not versioning except you have the major version API break handled. The former is great and I like to see it. Some have tags that have meaning only to that project. Are these releases? What do they mean? I don’t know because it’s not obvious. They appear to be one offs. Some use release versions, keep making releases, and I’m overjoyed to see them. It makes me smile when I see packages like beego and logrus releasing versions.
There’s more to the state of Go besides the state of the releases on packages. You need tools that can leverage them. Here are a few:
gopkg.in has been around for some time to allow projects on GitHub to handle versions through imports.
Glide is a package manager for Go and the GO15VENDOREXPERIMENT . You can specify versions and ranges (e.g., ^1.2.3 ).
. You can specify versions and ranges (e.g., ). gb-vendor will let you specify tags that can be versions (no SemVer range filtering yet but I’ve read the Dave wants to add it).
We are starting to see the rise of tools that can use the versions intelligently.
Please Use Semantic Versioning
It’s not only time to start versioning but to use semantic versioning (SemVer). SemVer is a specification and you can derive meaning from the version numbers allowing for useful comparisons. SemVer or something very similar is what every other programming language community uses. The newer language communities are using it explicitly. Since SemVer is a spec we don’t need to argue about what should be in it and there are already packages allowing you to work with them.
It’s time for the Go community to have semantically versioned releases of all packages. It’s what all the mature language communities do. We should join them.
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IT came as a surprise; it usually does. One minute he stood there, in the prime of beard, with a mustache, too. The next minute, not even an upper-lip hair was left standing.
''Men in this country are judged less on their appearance than women are,'' said Ann Weber, a social psychologist and an associate professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. ''That is why men are thought to owe no one an explanation for changing their appearance, while women are thought to owe everyone an explanation.''
Men are particularly silent on the subject of beards. ''For men, shaving off a beard is one of the few self-centered acts possible in terms of looks,'' said Bonnie Jacobson, the director of the New York Institute for Psychological Change in Manhattan.
Dr. Weber explained: ''Since a man's appearance has little to do with his social value, whether to wear a beard or not is a matter of how he feels about the face staring back at him in the mirror.''
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india
Updated: May 12, 2016 08:39 IST
Republican frontrunner Donald Trump may be facing a lot of hostility back in US but a section in India is praying for his win in the race to the White House.
The Hindu Sena, a right wing group, performed a hawan (religious ceremony) at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar on Wednesday to pray for his victory in the US presidential elections.
Trump, who has emerged as the frontrunner to be the Republican Party’s nominee for the presidential polls, has had a controversial run during the primaries due to his views on women and minorities in the US.
Read | Why a Trump presidency may be good for India
Hindu Sena organised a hawan in support of Donald Trump at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on Wednesday. (Arvind Yadav/HT Photo)
Activists of the Hindu Sena smeared a photo of Trump with vermillion amid religious chants at the hawan at the Jantar Mantar.
The ceremony started at 12.30 pm — a mahurat decided by priests over two weeks ago -- where posters of Trump were put up to evoke the gods to help in his victory. Along with pictures of Hindu gods Shiva and Hanuman, were pictures of Trump smiling with captions, ‘We support Trump’.
“The whole world is screaming against Islamic terrorism, and even India is not safe from it,” said Vishnu Gupta, founder of the Hindu Sena nationalist group. “Only Donald Trump can save humanity.”
Read | Indian MPs root for Clinton over Trump in US presidential race
Hindu Sena holding We Support Trump posters at the hawan near Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on Wednesday. (Arvind Yadav/HT Photo)
“We want Donald Trump to win the presidential polls. He has promised to uproot Islamic terror and we support this ideology,” said Gupta.
Gupta believes that it is only Trump, who has the “guts to stand by his promises of eradicating Islamic terrorism”.
“I have been a follower of his speeches and the world needs a strong leader like him to be able to counter Islamic terror groups. Especially for a country like ours, which has bitter relations with our neighbours, we need a strong anti-terror policy to keep the terrorists at bay,” he said.
Gupta is also planning to organise a march outside the American Embassy, later this month, so that all US-based Indians support Trump in the race for president.
“The world has become a single unit now, and I want our Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, to support and campaign for Trump,” said Gupta.
Sunil Kumar, a member of the group, said that the aim of the one-hour hawan was to ward off terror groups such as ISIS, and al-Qaida.
Also read | India is doing great and no one is talking about it: Donald Trump
Donald Trump for President, in America or in India
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Altcoins Venezuela Decides One Coin’s Not Enough, Readies New ‘Petro Gold’ Token
Things are only getting weirder in Venezuela, as President Nicolas Maduro decides that one state-issued cryptocurrency farce isn’t enough. Now, the socialist country with a crumbling economy is ready to launch second Petro token — called Petro Gold.
Maduro’s Vision
Earlier this week, collapsing socialist country Venezuela purportedly launched Petro — the world’s first state-issued cryptocurrency — purportedly backed by the country’s oil reserves. The problem is, the oil allegedly backing each token has yet to be drilled, and the country is currently in the throes of an extreme economic crisis.
Of course, Maduro had already deemed Petro a massive success from the moment it launched — if not before. By his own estimations, the President’s prized cryptocurrency has raised $735 million in the first day of a pre-sale.
Riding high on his self-deemed success, Maduro has decided to issue another state-backed cryptocurrency, called “Petro Gold.” In a televised speech, the socialist leader stated:
Next week I‘m going to launch the Petro Gold, backed by Gold, which is even more powerful, that will strengthen the Petro.
As the name implies, Petro Gold will purportedly be backed by the country’s gold supply. Whether or not the precious metal has actually been excavated from the ground, however, remains to be seen.
Reasonable Doubt
Most experts interpret Maduro’s new found love for state-issued cryptocurrencies as little more than an attempt to circumvent U.S. financial sanctions as Venezuela buckles under hyperinflation and a collapsing socialist economy currently unable to provide enough food for its citizens.
In fact, U.S. investors may even be getting themselves into legal trouble should they invest in Petro or Petro Gold, as the U.S. Treasury Department has already claimed that Venezuela’s cryptocurrency potentially violates international sanctions.
Venezuelan opposition leaders are unsurprisingly calling Maduro’s oil-and-gold-backed cryptocurrencies illegal debt issues, while informed investors are left with far more questions than answers.
One such investor, Sean Walsh — founder of crypto-asset investment firm Redwood City Ventures — thinks Petro Gold is speculative at best, telling Reuters:
Rather than buying a cryptocurrency backed by gold, I’d just go buy the gold. Gold is a physical thing that you want to be able to hold in your hands, because that’s the point.
The South American country has a long history of uncompensated expropriations, and its fiat currency has depreciated upwards of 99 percent. Those facts shouldn’t exactly inspire investor confidence.
Others claim that supporting Venezuela’s cryptocurrency projects in any way is akin to financially supporting both the regime’s crackdown on human rights and inability to govern.
The Venezuelan government has also repeatedly proved itself to be against the very foundations of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency, by remaining incredibly opaque and safeguarding what many countries would consider public information.
What do you think of Petro and Petro Gold? Would you even consider investing in either cryptocurrency? Let us know in the comments below!
Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Bitcoinist archives
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Screenshot : WBOY ( YouTube
Phillip Hudok claims the state of West Virginia is violating his religious beliefs by requiring him to get a biometric drivers license.
The Christian West Virginia man garnered local attention on Monday afternoon when he arrived at the Elkins Department of Motor Vehicles wearing Native American attire, reports local NBC/ABC affiliate WBOY.
In 2008, West Virginia DMV Commissioner Joseph Cicchirillo allowed Hudok and a group of 50 or 60 Christians to get a new drivers license and not have their photo stored on a database, according to the Associated Press.
For the next several years, Hudok was able to use a license with a face photo that was not stored on a database. But Governor Earl Ray Tomblin blocked the exemption and Hudok had to get a license with a photo that was stored on May 2017, according to WBOY.
Hudok reportedly proceeded to show up to the DMV wearing a Native American costume. And he wore such an outfit again when he showed up this week to renew his license. In an interview with WBOY, Hudok suggested that other religious groups were protected more than Christians—an apparent explanation for his racist costume. It seems Hudok isn’t referencing any religion specifically, but dressing as a Native American caricature for shock value.
Hudo k did not respond to a Gizmodo request to explain how the driver license violates his religious beliefs, but he seems to be referring to the Real ID Act, which requires states to “use a face biometric standard that allows for facial recognition and authentication.”
In February 2012, Hudok reportedly spoke to the Senate Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in support of a bill that would allow exemption from Real ID for religious reasons. According to The Register-Herald, Hudo k equated Real ID to the Biblical “mark of the beast” from the Book of Revelation.
“If we as Christians comply with the Real ID act, we would be enrolled into a global system of identification that directly links our body through biometrics to our ability to buy or sell,” Hudok reportedly told the committee.
“If end-time prophecy is not important to Christians, I’d like to know what is.” Hudok said at the time. “I don’t have any alternatives but to live according to my convictions.”
Apparently in the ensuing years, he has found that one alternative is to follow the law but wear an offensive costume while doing so.
Update March 27 9 am EST: Hudok responded to Gizmodo’s request for comment on Wednesday morning. “Biometrics is numbering man,” he said, suggesting that the Biblical prophesy that a “Mark will someday be required by all,” was about biometrics.
He referred to this article as a “hit piece” and said, “Race wasn’t in the equation.”
He said “cross dressers and women wearing burkas” get special treatment at the DMV and compared his protest to the Boston Tea Party.
“World is and has always been a spiritual battleground, not a playground,” Hudok added.
[WBOY]
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الحدث - خاص
English Below
بيان إدانة
اليمن، 1 أبريل 2018: بناء على ما نشر على مواقع التواصل الاجتماعي وبناء على ما قام به التضامن النسوي من متابعات للخبر والتواصل هاتفيا مع مصدر موثوق من أهالي المنطقة، يدين التضامن النسوي بشدة جريمة اغتصاب والاعتداء بالضرب امرأة في مديرية الخوخة، محافظة الحديدة، من قبل عسكري سوداني، ونؤكد بأن هذه الجريمة الصارخة ترقى الى جريمة حرب بحسب نظام روما الأساسي ويعاقب عليها القانون الوطني. وعليه نطالب:
• سرعة توجه اللجنة الوطنية للتحقيق في ادعاءات انتهاكات حقوق الانسان ومجموعة الخبراء الدوليين المعنيين بالتحقيق في ادعاءات حقوق الانسان للتحقيق في هذه الادعاءات وتوثيق الجريمة.
• ونطالب الحكومة وقوات التحالف بأخذ الاجراءات اللازمة والصارمة تجاه الجاني ومحاسبته قضائيا والتأكد من عدم إفلاته من العقاب واتخاذ إجراءات صارمة لردع مثل هذه الجرائم والتحقيق في خلفيات وانتماءات العناصر المسلحة التي استقدمها التحالف والتي يشتبه بانتمائهم لعناصر جانجاويد المتهمين بارتكاب جرائم حرب في دارفور السودان، وتعويض الناجية وتقديم الدعم النفسي لها ولأسرتها.
• كما نتوجه الى النائب العام وندعوه الى تكليف النيابة العامة في الحديدة بإجراءات التحقيقات والتحفظ على الأدلة وحماية الضحية وأسرتها.
• ونحذر من التستر على هذه الجريمة النكراء التي تمس كل اليمنيين.
Condemnation Statement
Yemen, 1st April 2018: As per the allegations on social media and our own follow up and call to a verified source from the residents in the area, we, the Women Solidarity Network, strongly condemn the rape crime and physical abuse committed against a women from Alkhoukha District, in Hodaida, by a Sudanese armed person. The Women Solidarity Network consider this a grave crime, which can be amount to a war crime as per the Rome Statute and is punishable by the national law. Consequently, we urgently demand the following:
- We call on the National Committee for investigating Alleged Human Rights Violations, and the International Eminent Expert Group tasked with investigating alleged human rights violations and abuses, to investigate this crime and document it.
- We also demand that the government and the coalition forces take the needed strict actions towards the perpetrator and hold him legally accountable and ensure that he does not escape punishment, and take a range of deterrent measures towards such crimes. We call on them to also investigate the backgrounds of armed personnel that the coalition has brought to Yemen, including possibly members affiliated to Janjaweed militias accused of committing human rights crimes in Sudan’s Darfour region.
- We also urge them to compensate the survivor and provide psychosocial support for her and for her family. We also call on the Attorney-General to assign the General Prosecutor of Hodieda to investigate the matter, preserve the evidence, and protect the victim and her family.
- We warn against concealing evidence and obstruction of justice on this crime that affect all Yemenis.
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On Feb. 11, President Peter Salovey announced that he and the Yale Corporation had voted to change the name of Calhoun College, one of the university’s undergraduate residential colleges, to honor alumna Grace Murray Hopper. Grace Brewster Murray Hopper was a computer pioneer and naval officer. Read the story. Here is a look at Hopper’s life and legacy.
Grace Brewster Murray Hopper was a computer pioneer and naval officer. She received a master’s degree (1930) and a Ph.D. (1934) in mathematics from Yale. One of the first three modern “programmers,” Hopper is best known for her trailblazing contributions to the development of computer languages. Known as irreverent, sharp-tongued, and brilliant, she enjoyed long and influential careers in both the U.S. Navy and the private sector.
The daughter of Walter Fletcher Murray (Yale B.A. 1894, Phi Beta Kappa) and Mary Campbell Van Horne, Grace Brewster Murray was born in 1906 in New York City. Her father owned an insurance company. She was educated in private schools, and the family summered in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. In 1928 she graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Vassar College with degrees in mathematics and physics. In 1930 Hopper received her master’s degree in mathematics from Yale. In 1931 she began teaching mathematics at Vassar while pursuing her doctorate at Yale under computer pioneer Howard Engstrom. In 1934 she completed her Ph.D. in mathematics and mathematical physics from Yale. During a one-year sabbatical from Vassar, Hopper studied with the famous mathematician Richard Courant at New York University.
Hopper came of age at a time of unusual opportunity for women. A relatively high number of women were receiving doctorates in the 1920s and 1930s — numbers that would not be matched again until the 1980s.1 World War II also created opportunities for women to enter the workforce in greater numbers. Nonetheless, Hopper’s success in a male-dominated field and in male-dominated organizations, including the U.S. Navy, was exceptional.
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the United States’ entry into World War II, Hopper decided to join the war effort. She was initially rejected because of her age and diminutive size, but she persisted. Taking a leave of absence from Vassar, where she was an associate professor, Hopper joined the U.S. Naval Reserve (Women’s Reserve) in December 1943 and was assigned to the Bureau of Ships Computation Project at Harvard University. There she worked for Howard Aiken, another computer pioneer, who had developed the IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator, better known as the Mark I, one of the earliest electromechanical computers. One of the first three computer “programmers,” Hopper was responsible for programming the Mark I and punching machine instructions onto tape. She also wrote the 561-page user manual for the Mark I.
The close relationship between the American military and the early computer industry, nurtured first by World War II and then the Cold War, shaped Hopper’s career path. Hopper and her fellow officers in the Harvard lab worked on top-secret calculations essential to the war effort — computing rocket trajectories, creating range tables for new anti-aircraft guns, and calibrating minesweepers. In addition to their work for the Navy, Hopper and her colleagues also completed calculations for the army and “ran numbers” used by John von Neumann in developing the plutonium bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.
After the war Hopper turned down a full professorship at Vassar in order to remain at Harvard, becoming a research fellow in engineering sciences and applied physics. During this time she helped develop the Mark II and Mark III computers as Harvard continued to receive funding contracts from the Navy. One evening in 1945 while working on the Mark II, Hopper and her colleagues encountered a problem. They took the machine apart and found a large moth. Although the term “bug” had been used by engineers since the 19th century to describe a mechanical malfunction, Hopper was the first to refer to a computer problem as a “bug” and to speak of “debugging” a computer.
In 1946 Hopper left active service when the Navy turned down her request for a regular commission because of her age. Shortly thereafter Hopper left Harvard when it became clear she would not be promoted or granted tenure. In 1949 she joined the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation in Philadelphia as senior mathematician. The company, which was soon acquired by Remington Rand, had developed the first electronic computer (the ENIAC) under army contracts.
In Philadelphia Hopper undertook some of her most influential work. As head programmer for Remington Rand, she worked on the UNIVAC I (Universal Automatic Computer). In 1952 her programming team developed the first computer language “compiler” called A-0. Compilers translated mathematical code into machine-readable binary code, and they would eventually make it possible to write programs for multiple computers rather than a single machine. Next her team developed Flow-Matic, the first programming language to use English-like commands. Unlike earlier computer languages such as FORTRAN, which used mathematical symbols, Flow-Matic used regular English words. Hopper felt that data processors, who were not typically mathematicians or engineers, would be more comfortable using word-based languages. In a 1980 interview she explained, “What I was after in beginning English language [programming] was to bring another whole group of people able to use the computer easily … I kept calling for more user friendly languages. Most of the stuff we get from academicians, computer science people, is in no way adapted to people.”2
As the number of computer languages proliferated, the need for a standardized language for business purposes grew. In 1959 COBOL (short for “common business-oriented language”) was introduced as the first standardized general business computer language. Although many people contributed to the “invention” of COBOL, Hopper promoted the language and its adoption by both military and private-sector users. Throughout the 1960s she led efforts to develop compilers for COBOL. Her biographer Kurt Beyer calls her “the person most responsible for the success of COBOL during the 1960s.” Her influence was significant; by the 1970s COBOL was the “most extensively used computer language” in the world.3
Throughout her career in the private sector, Hopper had remained a Navy reservist. In 1966 age restrictions forced her to retire from the Navy as a commander. She later called it “the saddest day of my life.”4 Seven months later, however, at the age of 60, she was recalled to active service. Increasing operations in Southeast Asia were taxing the Navy’s capacities, and her help was needed to standardize the Navy’s multiple computer languages. Nicknamed “Amazing Grace” by her subordinates, Hopper remained on active duty for 19 years. She retired from UNIVAC, a division of Sperry Rand, in 1972.
Hopper became a well-recognized figure toward the end of her life. She was the recipient of more than 40 honorary degrees, and many scholarships, professorships, awards, and conferences are named in her honor. In 1972 she received Yale’s Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal. In 1991 President George Bush awarded Hopper the National Medal of Technology, the nation’s highest technology award; she was the first woman to be so honored as an individual. In 1996 the Navy commissioned the U.S.S. Hopper, a guided missile destroyer. Kurt Beyer, author of “Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age,” suggests that Hopper achieved so much attention and even “celebrity” late in life because a Republican Congressman from Illinois saw an interview with Hopper on “60 Minutes” in 1983. After seeing the interview he successfully introduced a bill to have Hopper promoted to the rank of commodore.
At the age of 79, Hopper retired as a rear admiral. She was the oldest serving officer in the U.S. Armed Forces. That same year she went to work as a senior consultant in public relations at the Digital Equipment Corporation, where she worked up until a year before her death in 1992. Hopper was buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery.
In 2016 Hopper posthumously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in recognition of her remarkable contributions to the field of computer science.
Visionary communicator and educator
Hopper was not only a brilliant mathematician and computer scientist; she was also a gifted teacher and communicator. Although she left the comfort of her faculty position at Vassar to join the Navy, teaching remained part of her life. In 1959 Hopper was a visiting and then adjunct lecturer at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. From 1971 to 1978 she served as a professorial lecturer in management sciences at George Washington University. Outside of academia, she organized myriad workshops and conferences to promote understanding of programming and expand the community of computer programmers. Throughout her time at Eckert-Mauchly and its successor companies she also continued to teach a seminar. In accepting the National Medal of Technology, Hopper said, “If you ask me what accomplishment I’m most proud of, the answer would be all the young people I’ve trained over the years; that’s more important than writing the first compiler.”5
Hopper’s talents as a teacher also helped her communicate with a wide variety of audiences — technical experts and engineers, business leaders and data processors, young people, and the general public. She helped persuade business clients of the value of adopting new technologies, and Beyer describes her as a “spokesperson for the evolving computer industry” in the 1950s.6 Hopper played a similar role for the Navy. From 1977 to 1986 she was “the Navy’s foremost propagandist for its computer program as … [its] representative to learned societies, industry associations, and technical symposia.”7 In the last years of her life she did similar work in public relations for the Digital Equipment Corporation.
Hopper was also a clear writer. Under orders from Howard Aiken, she wrote the world’s first computer programming manual. Throughout her career she placed great value on documentation and being able to explain complex situations and problems to different audiences. “I’ve come to feel that there is no use doing anything unless you can communicate,” she said in a 1980 interview.8
During the Cold War, military and business investment in computer technology continued to grow. Nevertheless, many people remained skeptical of what computers could do or how they could transform new areas and applications. Hopper fervently believed that advances in computer science would continue to accelerate; she embraced and looked forward to the future. She often said she wanted to live until January 1, 2000, in order to see the unexpected advances computers had made by then — and laugh at the unbelievers. “I think we consistently continually [sic] underestimate what we can do with computers if we really try,” she said in 1980.9 This confidence that computers would become increasingly ubiquitous was a driving force behind her efforts to make them more user-friendly.
Bibliography
There are extensive archival collections about Hopper’s life. In addition to the Grace Murray Hopper Collection at the Smithsonian and relevant collections at other universities and research institutes, there are also thousands of pages of oral histories that were collected from Hopper and her colleagues over a 50-year period.
Despite these rich sources, there are no comprehensive biographies of Hopper. Kurt W. Beyer, “Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age” (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2009),[i] concentrates on the period from 1945 to 1960, ending his substantive discussion of her life with the creation of COBOL. Another helpful source is Kathleen Williams’ “Improbable Warriors: Mathematicians Grace Hopper and Mina Rees in World War II,” in B. Booss-Bavnbek and J. Høyrup, eds., “Mathematics and War,” 108-125 (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2003).
Very little has been written about Hopper’s personal life. Hopper divorced her husband, an English teacher, in 1945. She never remarried or had children. Kurt Beyer discusses her struggles with alcoholism, depression, and suicidal thoughts in the 1940s, but his book does not detail how or if she recovered.
1. “Oral History of Captain Grace Hopper,” interview conducted December 1980 by Angeline Pantages, Naval Data Automation Command, Maryland, Computer History Museum, 1980, 11. Hereafter “Hopper Oral History.”
2. Beyer, “Grace Hopper,” 304, 310.
3. Kathleen Williams, “Improbable Warriors: Mathematicians Grace Hopper and Mina Rees in World War II,” in B. Booss-Bavnbek and J. Høyrup, eds., “Mathematics and War” (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2003), 117.
4. Poor health prevented Hopper from receiving the award in person, but she prepared these remarks, which were delivered on her behalf. See Carmen Lois Mitchell, “The Contribution of Grace Murray Hopper to Computer Science and Computer Education” (Ph.D. diss., University of North Texas, 1994), 77.
5. Beyer, “Grace Hopper,” 11.
6. Williams, “Improbable Warriors,” 118.
7. “Hopper Oral History,” 26.
8. “Hopper Oral History,” 48.
9. For factual errors in Beyer’s book, see Judy Green and Jeanne LaDuke, “To the editor,” Isis 102, no. 1 (March 2011): 136-137. For example, Beyer erroneously states that Hopper was the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Hopper had received a Ph.D. in “mathematics and mathematical physics.” Her doctorate was only in the former.
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Hello guys !
Here's an illustration of a beach shack 🏝. Do not forget to check out attachments !
We are open for work enquiries. Let's create something awesome together.
Want to know what we offer in designing? Contact Us
Follow us :
Behance | Instagram | Dribbble
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Congrats ! Honestly seeing his build makes me consider buying a 9thGen that's hard for me to say.Turbo'd since 04/2011
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We have already told you about one of the dirtiest cities in the world. It’s called Karabash and is located in the Chelyabinsk region.
The place embraces a copper plant where metal has been smelt for over a century. Nobody thought about ecology that time. In the result, Karabash became one of the dirtiest places on the planet. Installation of new equipment decreased harmful emissions twice.
That is what the place looks like when viewed from the plane.
The Argazinskoye water-storage basin is located 10 km away from the city.
This is a former cinema, its back part is completely destructed.
Some time ago this used to be a residential area but the place was abandoned because of severe emissions produced by the plant.
Though this very house in the picture is abandoned, many similar houses are still inhabited by people who live 100 meters away from the plant.
When emissions are especially abundant, people lose their consciousness, have headache and nausea.
The river is yellow because it is rich with iron. Its concentration exceeds normal values almost 50o times.
Life in Karabash is worse than life in Chernobyl as citizens of the latter get compensation from the state.
Inhabitants of Karabash want their pension age to be decreased as nobody here lives too long. They say they have nowhere to go and have to stay here.
Look at the earth surface and you will notice traces of chemical erosion.
Local inhabitants know what it means to have acidic rains. When it’s raining it’s hard to breathe. Men here die at the age of 45 and earlier.
For over than 100 years of work the plant burnt and destroyed a vast nearby territory. It vents over 180 tones of gas in the atmosphere annually. The gas which is transformed into acidic rains irrigates adjacent territories.
Main part of the city looks like a village. Local people suffer from tumors, eczema, cerebral paralysis, birth defects, etc.
In 2004 temperature regimen in one of the furnaces was changed and led to a huge emission into the atmosphere. Before that there was a rain that destroyed every plant around. The forest was all yellow.
Many people die after two months of working at the plant. All kids are coughing because of bad ecology.
Location: Karabash
via raskalov-vit
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Senate Republicans are heading for a showdown on their years-long campaign pledge to repeal and replace ObamaCare without a clear path to passing the legislation.
GOP senators are set to return to Washington on Monday evening still confused about whether the endgame is to repeal ObamaCare with a delayed replacement or try to move them together in one bill.
Leadership is pressuring rank-and-file lawmakers to agree to take up the House-passed healthcare bill, which is being used as a vehicle for any action, without knowing what the final outcome will be.
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"Asking what the first amendment is going to be actually misses the point, because anybody that's got a better idea can offer that and there's no way to stop them,” said Sen. John Cornyn John CornynTumultuous court battle upends fight for Senate Texas Democrats roll out first wave of planned digital ads as Election Day nears Calls grow for Biden to expand election map in final sprint MORE (R-Texas), when pressed on whether Republicans want to just repeal or instead repeal and replace ObamaCare.
But GOP leadership has almost no room for error on the vote to start debate, which is expected to occur on Tuesday.
Republicans have a 52-seat majority and will need at least 50 senators to agree to take up the House bill. That margin is even narrower if Sen. John McCain John Sidney McCainBiden's six best bets in 2016 Trump states Replacing Justice Ginsburg could depend on Arizona's next senator The Hill's Morning Report - Sponsored by Facebook - Washington on edge amid SCOTUS vacancy MORE (R-Ariz.) remains out of Washington after his office announced last week that he had been diagnosed with brain cancer.
With McCain gone and all other 99 senators voting, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Addison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellGraham: GOP will confirm Trump's Supreme Court nominee before the election Trump puts Supreme Court fight at center of Ohio rally The Memo: Dems face balancing act on SCOTUS fight MORE (R-Ky.) can only afford to lose one GOP senator.
Though top administration officials are making an additional 11th-hour push to try to get several undecided senators to agree to at least start debate on—if not ultimately pass—the healthcare bill, leadership still appears short of the 50 votes for either proposal.
Four GOP senators came out in opposition to a recent version of the Senate’s repeal-and-replace bill, known as the Better Care Reconciliation Act. A Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis released late last week found that an additional 22 million Americans would become uninsured by 2026 under the legislation.
Three senators have publicly opposed moving a repeal-only bill, though Sen. Lamar Alexander Andrew (Lamar) Lamar AlexanderGraham: GOP will confirm Trump's Supreme Court nominee before the election The Hill's Morning Report - Sponsored by Facebook - Washington on edge amid SCOTUS vacancy This week: Supreme Court fight over Ginsburg's seat upends Congress's agenda MORE (R-Tenn.), the chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, hinted that roughly a dozen more senators could be privately opposed to repealing with a delayed replacement bill.
“I don’t think there are 40 votes to repeal [ObamaCare] and say to the American people ‘well trust us to come up with something in the next couple of years.’ I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” Alexander told reporters last week.
It’s unclear if GOP senators, particularly several moderates, will agree to take up the House bill without knowing which path leadership wants to take. Many key senators to watch said late last week that they weren’t sure how they would vote because they didn’t know what plan leadership wanted.
“I don’t know whether we're proceeding to the House bill, a new version of the Senate bill, the old version of the Senate bill, the 2015 repeal and hope that we come up with something in two years bill, I truly don’t,” Sen. Susan Collins Susan Margaret CollinsGraham: GOP will confirm Trump's Supreme Court nominee before the election Gardner signals support for taking up Supreme Court nominee this year Tumultuous court battle upends fight for Senate MORE (R-Maine) told reporters.
Asked how he could get moderates to help them overcome the initial hurdle without knowing the final product, Cornyn added that they have the “ultimate protection” of being able to vote against the healthcare legislation on final passage.
“So rather than doing that on the front end my hope is they decide to proceed to debate the bill and amend it,” he said.
If senators get on the healthcare bill they will have 20 hours of debate in addition to a free-wheeling “vote-a-rama.” During the hours-long marathon session any senator can force a vote on any amendment.
The Senate bill hit another stumbling block from the parliamentarian, according to an outline released Friday from Sen. Bernie Sanders Bernie SandersJacobin editor: Primarying Schumer would force him to fight Trump's SCOTUS nominee Trump campaign plays up Biden's skills ahead of Cleveland debate: 'He's actually quite good' Young voters backing Biden by 2:1 margin: poll MORE (I-Vt.), who is the ranking member of the Budget Committee.
The parliamentarian has ruled that key provisions including a year-long defunding of federal funds for Planned Parenthood and restrictions on using tax credits to buy insurance plans that cover abortions don’t comply with Senate rules and could be removed from the bill, according to Sanders’s office.
Still under review by the parliamentarian is a key provision that helped bring on board conservatives that would allow states to waive ObamaCare’s rules on what benefits need to be covered by health insurance or requirements on covering pre-existing conditions.
Republicans quickly noted that the findings were tied to an earlier version of the bill, and weren't official rulings—meaning they still had time to try to change impacted parts of the legislation.
Leadership did get one potential boost to at least starting debate on a healthcare bill late last week.
Sen. Rand Paul Randal (Rand) Howard PaulSecond GOP senator to quarantine after exposure to coronavirus GOP senator to quarantine after coronavirus exposure The Hill's Morning Report - Sponsored by National Industries for the Blind - Trump seeks to flip 'Rage' narrative; Dems block COVID-19 bill MORE, who has long been viewed as one of the caucus’s most entrenched “no” votes, said he would be willing to vote “yes” on the motion to proceed if he can get a deal on amendments.
The Kentucky Republican floated that Senate leadership should guarantee votes on some of the caucus's most prominent healthcare proposals — including repeal-only, repeal-and-replace and a bill created by Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Collins— as a way to get him on board.
"I think they're pretty equal in support. Let's do a random selection. Let's have three or four of them, put them in random order, the first day, equal billing. I think that's a compromise. I'm willing to get on the bill," he said.
But Paul said that as of late last week leadership hadn’t accepted his proposal.
Border wall funding
The House is slated to consider a national security-themed spending package as one of its last agenda items before leaving for the August recess at the end of this week.
The bill includes funding for the Departments of Defense, Energy and Veterans Affairs, as well as legislative branch operations like the Capitol Police.
House GOP leaders are expected to add $1.6 billion for the U.S.-Mexico border wall promised by President Trump Donald John TrumpBubba Wallace to be driver of Michael Jordan, Denny Hamlin NASCAR team Graham: GOP will confirm Trump's Supreme Court nominee before the election Southwest Airlines, unions call for six-month extension of government aid MORE during the 2016 campaign.
Given the inclusion of funds for the border wall, the legislation stands next to no chance in the Senate given Democrats’ likelihood to filibuster. But its passage in the House will serve as an opening salvo in the spending fight that awaits lawmakers in September when they will have to find a way to avoid a government shutdown at the end of the month.
Members of both parties will likely submit hundreds of amendments to the spending package.
Not every amendment will get a vote. House GOP leaders will select which amendments can get debate and a vote on the floor.
They’re unlikely to greenlight amendments like blocking money for Trump’s wall, as proposed by Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), or preventing any funds from benefiting Trump’s businesses as submitted by Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.).
Another controversial addition could be if GOP leaders allow a vote on an amendment from Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.) to prevent the Pentagon from paying for service members’ gender reassignment surgeries.
GOP leaders previously granted Hartzler’s amendment a vote during consideration of the annual defense policy bill two weeks ago. But it failed by a vote of 209-214, thanks to 24 mostly centrist Republicans who joined with Democrats to defeat it.
The House Rules Committee, which is controlled by GOP leaders, will meet on Monday and Tuesday to make decisions on amendments.
Russia sanctions
The House will vote Tuesday on a deal unveiled over the weekend to impose sanctions on Russia, Iran and North Korea.
Its consideration will come amid the multiple investigations of whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russian officials as part of its attempts to interfere in the 2016 election.
Senators originally passed the bill by a vote of 98-2 last month, but it stalled in the House for weeks mostly due to procedural hangups.
House Democrats had objected to a provision requested by GOP leaders to allow only the majority party to force votes on resolutions to block the Trump administration from lifting sanctions.
Oil and gas companies had also expressed concern about provisions targeting Russian energy pipelines and warned they could inadvertently harm American projects abroad.
Under the deal, either the House majority or minority leader can introduce a resolution of disapproval to prevent the Trump administration from easing sanctions.
The White House had pushed GOP lawmakers to water down the congressional oversight provisions in the pursuit of flexibility with sanctions policy. But President Trump is poised to be presented with legislation that disregards his administration's request.
The sanctions package will be considered under an expedited process that requires a two-thirds majority for passage. That threshold also means it will be veto-proof.
Assuming the Senate clears the legislation by a similar margin as last time, Trump could be faced with the first veto override of his presidency if he refuses to sign it.
The legislation passed by the Senate originally only applied to Iran and Russia, but House negotiators added North Korea to the package. The House had passed a separate North Korea sanctions bill by a 419-1 vote this spring.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), while supportive of the North Korea sanctions, expressed concern that the addition could slow down Senate consideration.
"It is essential that the addition of North Korea to this package does not prevent Congress from immediately enacting Russia sanctions legislation and sending it to the President's desk before the August recess," Pelosi said in a statement.
Kushner to interview on the Hill
President Trump's son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner is slated to interview with the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday amid that panel's Russia probe. His appearance will come a day after he is reportedly expected to talk to the Senate Intelligence Committee behind closed doors.
Donald Trump Jr. and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort have also reached a deal with the Senate Judiciary Committee to avoid appearing for a public hearing this week, lawmakers said. The two have agreed to interviews and provide documents to the panel, the committee said.
Meanwhile, the Senate committee said Friday that it was subpoenaing Glenn Simpson, the co-founder of a firm tied to a salacious dossier containing largely unverified opposition research on President Trump, to appear at the hearing Wednesday.
Lawmakers are eager to hear from Trump Jr. and Manafort following revelations that they met with a Russian lawyer claiming to have damaging information about Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonJoe Biden looks to expand election battleground into Trump country Biden leads Trump by 12 points among Catholic voters: poll The Hill's Campaign Report: Biden goes on offense MORE during last year’s campaign.
Sens. Chuck Grassley Charles (Chuck) Ernest GrassleyGardner signals support for taking up Supreme Court nominee this year Grassley, Ernst pledge to 'evaluate' Trump's Supreme Court nominee McConnell digs in on vow to fill Ginsburg's Supreme Court seat MORE (R-Iowa) and Dianne Feinstein Dianne Emiel FeinsteinBiden leads Trump by 12 points among Catholic voters: poll Names to watch as Trump picks Ginsburg replacement on Supreme Court McConnell says Trump nominee to replace Ginsburg will get Senate vote MORE (D-Calif.), the Judiciary Committee's top two lawmakers, left the door open Friday to subpoenaing either of the men in the future if they stopped cooperating with the panel.
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SEOUL/TOKYO -- South Korean companies are scrambling to stock up on Japanese parts as Tokyo prepares to impose an export curb on the country as the trade spat between the two countries heats up.
Wednesday is the deadline for public comment on the Japanese government's plan to remove South Korea from its so-called white list of preferred trading partners. Removal from the list would require Japanese suppliers to obtain government approval before exporting certain items to South Korea -- a process that could cause delays and disruption to supply chains.
Seoul plans to send a letter to the Japanese government asking to be kept on the white list by the deadline. Japan is expected to make a decision by next month, though it could come any day after Wednesday, an official in the Japanese trade ministry's security export licensing division told the Nikkei Asian Review.
Hundreds of South Korean companies, including Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Motor and LG Inntek, are expected to be directly affected if the export curb is implemented. In a separate move earlier this month, Japan imposed restrictions on three key semiconductor and display materials.
Samsung Electronics sent a letter to its suppliers earlier this month, telling them to buy three months' worth of Japanese parts, according to a company source who asked not to be named. Samsung promised to provide financial aid for the procurement, if needed.
"It is our natural reaction to keep our supply chains safe," the source said. "It is one of the toughest challenges we have ever faced. We are almost dead [if the curb is imposed]."
Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, de facto head of the conglomerate, visited Tokyo earlier this month to discuss the issue with its Japanese suppliers. South Korean media reported that Hyundai Motor Vice Chairman Chung Euisun made a similar trip to Japan last week.
Goldman Sachs said that the import curb would cost South Korea's machinery and electronics industries $20 billion annually, largely in relation to semiconductor production.
"Dependence on Japan imports is high for certain industries, and it is unclear to what extent and how rapidly [South] Korea would be able to substitute away from Japanese materials if the need were to arise, given limited non-Japan supply in select industries and the varying quality of non-Japan materials," said Irene Choi, an analyst at Goldman Sachs.
Analysts say that airline and semiconductor industries are bearing the brunt of the economic impact, but that the impact will spread to automobile, food and beverage and retail sectors.
"Hyundai Motor is importing chemical material for its hydrogen vehicle from Japan, while SsangYong Motor and Renault Samsung are buying transmissions from the country. If those parts are under sanctions, that will be negative to the companies," said Kim Jin-woo, an analyst at Korea Investment & Securities.
Japanese chemical powerhouse Toray supplies carbon fibers to Iljin Composites, a South Korean company that produces fuel tanks for Hyundai's hydrogen vehicles. This means the export curb could also hurt South Korean President Moon Jae-in's economic strategy, as he has promoted hydrogen vehicles as one of the country’s next growth engines along with logic chips and biopharmaceutical products.
A spokesperson for Japanese auto parts maker Denso said that its South Korean subsidiary sources "most" of its materials locally. A South Korean semiconductor company that supplies this subsidiary, however, is "stocking up on inventory so that there is no impact" from the potential curb, the spokesperson said.
Many companies are taking a wait-and-see approach. Japanese electronics company Ibiden, a supplier for Samsung smartphones, said it is investigating the possible impact, while Sony and Mitsui Chemicals said they are "carefully watching the situation." Sony supplies camera image sensors to LG Innotek, which produces camera module for Apple's iPhones. Mitsui supplies carbon fibers for Hyundai's hydrogen cars.
Japan's trade ministry already imposed tighter controls on semiconductor-related materials on July 4. Affected material manufacturers can still apply for a permission to export, but have to halt shipment until they get the approval, which could take three months or longer.
JSR, one of the companies affected, said the actual extent of the restriction "will only be clear when it comes to getting the approval."
The white list, meanwhile, applies to hundreds of products and technologies that could be used for military purposes, though South Korea's removal from that list would not necessarily mean trade requirements would change for all of the items covered.
"It is not yet decided which products would require what approval requirements," the Japanese trade ministry official said.
South Korea is currently the only Asian member on the 27-member list, which includes Australia, the U.S. and the U.K. Removing a country from the list requires a cabinet decision.
Experts expect the trade spat to drag on until next year, as Tokyo is likely to remove South Korea from its white list.
"The Japan-South Korea trade dispute remains likely to extend into 2020, with U.S. efforts to lower and contain tensions between its two allies expected to be only partially effective," said Scott Seaman, a director at Eurasia Group, a U.S.-based think tank.
"Japan will probably remove South Korea from its 'white country' list next month unless there is a breakthrough that prompts Japan to delay or abandon that plan, which is unlikely."
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プラスワン・マーケティングは、スマートフォンブランド「freetel（フリーテル）」の新機種である「SAMURAI MIYABI（雅）」の実機を報道陣向けに公開した。まもなく正式に量産が開始されるとのことで、先行的に量産された製品が紹介された。発売日はあらためて案内されるが、近日中とのこと。
「MIYABI」は、フリーテルのAndroidスマートフォンのなかでも中位クラスに位置付けられるモデル。側面や背面もスクエアな仕上がり。日本らしさを演出する待受画像が多く用意され、水墨画風のものなどを収録する。5インチ、HDのIPS液晶ディスプレイで２GBメモリ、1.3GHzのクアッドコアCPU（MediaTek製）を採用する。こうした性能のスマートフォンは他社からもリリースされているが、同社では、同程度の他機種と比べて、ストレージが32GBとなること、価格が1万9800円（税抜）になることが他社にないアドバンテージとアピールする。
ネットワークはNTTドコモのFOMAプラス、ソフトバンクのプラチナバンドをサポート。対応バンドは3G（W-CDMA）が1/6/8/19、LTEは1/3/8/19で通信できる。バッテリーは2200mAhでカバーを外して脱着できる。デュアルSIMスロット対応で、どちらもmicroSIMサイズ。どちらのスロットもLTE/3Gに対応するが、国内ではデュアルスタンバイに非対応で、どちらか一方だけのSIMカードを使う形。海外では、日本のSIMカードと現地のSIMカード、あるいはLTEと2Gといった組み合わせで利用できる。設定によって、一方のSIMで音声通話のみ、もう一方はデータ通信のみといった形でも利用できる。
バッテリーカバーには金属が用いられ、CPUの熱を発散するよう配慮されている。モバイル通信やWi-Fiのアンテナは側面のフレームとなる。
1300万画素のメインカメラ、500万画素のフロントカメラを装備する。
独自機能としてジェスチャー機能を搭載。その1つである「ジェスチャーアンロック」は、画面消灯時に、ディスプレイに「M」と描けば音楽機能、「C」と描けば電話機能を起動できる。ジェスチャーの種類はあらかじめ決まっているが、どのジェスチャーでどのアプリを呼び出すかカスタマイズできる。また「スマートジェスチャー」はディスプレイの上部にあるセンサーの前で手を振ると操作できるというもの。電話がかかってきたら、手をかざすと応答できる、といった形だ。このほか、手袋をつけたままでも操作できる手袋モードも利用できる。
大きさは72×142×8.2mm、重さは約150g。Bluetooth 4.0、Wi-Fi（IEEE802.11b/g/n）をサポート。バッテリーは急速充電に対応する。ボディカラーは、ホワイト、ブラック、シャンパンゴールドの3色。
MIYABIと同時期に発表された「KIWAMI（極）」についてはまだ発表日やスペックの詳細は明らかにされていない。Windowsスマホの「KATANA 01」「KATANA 02」の発表日も今回は明らかにされなかった。
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Behemoth Brewing owner Andrew Childs says its cartoon labels were intended to be subtle humour that would only appeal to adults.
Alcohol watchdogs are concerned beer branding featuring cute cartoons or resembling softdrinks, may be too appealing to minors.
The rise of the craft beer market has resulted in a new wave of creative, colourful, and often cartoonish labels as alcohol producers compete for consumers' attention.
Auckland craft brewery Behemoth Brewing Company, has "brave bikkie brown ale" featuring a cartoon monster eating a cookie on its bottles.
JASON OXENHAM/FAIRFAX NZ Schipper's Beer owner Niels Schipper says he was unaware alcohol labelling could not feature images that appealed to minors.
A mouse riding a dog appears on Scallywag rich amber ale from Auckland craft brewery Schipper's Beer, while a badger wearing a jetpack stars on its Boffin bitter.
Even the Mac's beer range, owned by major brewer Lion, features labels with drawings of wolves, a shark fin and an Indian Pale Ale called "birthday suit" with a grizzly beer holding a hop bud. And two months ago, the darling of the New Zealand craft beer scene, Garage Project, released a "Lola cheery cola beer" in a can with a striking resemblance to Coca-Cola.
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SUPPLIED Schipper's Beer selection featuring cartoon labels.
But while this type of branding can be fun and exciting for adults, it can spell confusion for youngsters, said Rebecca Williams, director of the Alcohol Healthwatch group.
She said cartoons on alcohol labelling sent a message to minors that alcohol consumption should not be taken seriously, blurring the reality that it contained a toxin.
"Look at the colours of them - they're cute, they're quirky," said Williams.
When children liked a brand or could relate to it, it translated into early alcohol consumption, she said.
"I think it's about time somebody was challenged."
But beer producers denied "fun" marketing characters and labels were aimed at those too young to drink alcohol.
Behemoth Brewing owner Andrew Childs said all of its beers were centred around a character named Churly.
"He is fun, quirky and definitely targeted at an adult audience," Childs said.
The brewery liked to have fun with its names and labels, he said. "We have subtle humour on our labelling that will only be picked up by adults.
"We definitely do not feel that our labelling or marketing is targeting children."
Under the Sale and Supply of Alcohol act it is an offence to promote or advertise alcohol in a manner aimed at, or that was likely to appeal to minors.
Alcohol producers are also obliged to adhere to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) code for advertising and promotion of alcohol which states "alcohol advertising and promotions shall not use designs, motifs, or cartoon characters that have strong or evident appeal to minors or that create confusion with confectionary or soft drinks".
And Kevin Sinnott, acting executive director of the Brewers Association, said its members, which include Lion and DB, supported provisions within the ASA code.
"Our members work hard to ensure that all their marketing activity complies with the code," Sinnott said.
The Brewers Guild of New Zealand, which represents craft breweries said it provided a labelling guide to members.
President Emma McCashin said: "Our advice to members is, if they are in doubt about whether their packaging or promotion complies, they should get pre-approval from LAPs (local alcohol policies), which will give them a definitive answer."
Owner of Auckland craft brewer Schipper's Niels Schipper said he did not know there was an alcohol advertising code featuring a clause prohibiting the use of cartoons or imagery that appealed to minors.
"I haven't really given it much thought because a child can't go into a shop and buy it," Schipper said.
Niels' friend drew the images for Schipper in exchange for beer as payment, he said.
"I give him a pretty open brief really."
This #GEEZER came up to me and said "why don't u put me in a can?".............so we did! pic.twitter.com/Wh1IK0Nnm5 — Niels Schipper (@Schippersbeer) December 30, 2015
He said there were too many negative images representing darkness and death in beer labelling and he wanted a more approachable brand.
"I'm just trying to keep things simple and fun."
If officials approached him about the labels appealing to children he would change them, he said.
ASA chief executive Hilary Souter said the ASA had no legal bearing. It is a self-regulatory organisation set up by advertisers, agencies and media to provide a layer of advertising standards.
"The guidelines are just that. They are not law."
If a complaint was laid by the public about an advertisement and the ASA's appeal board upheld it, the advertiser would be asked to remove a product and re-label it.
No complaints had been made about beer labels, she said.
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