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France is a dog-hole. - William Shakespeare
Let fightin' dogs lie - Archie Bunker
All art is quite useless. - Oscar Wilde
The dog is the god of frolic. - Henry Ward Beecher
Art is a revolt against fate. - Andre Malraux
Politics is the art of the possible. - Otto von Bismarck
Tea is a religion of the art of life. - Okakura Kakuzo
Art is anything you can get away with. - Marshall McLuhan
I am I because my little dog knows me. - Gertrude Stein
The human body is the best work of art. - Jess C. Scott
Dogs that bark at a distance never bite. - Unknown
An art thief is a man who takes pictures. - George Carlin
Vision is the art of seeing things invisible. - Jonathan Swift
We have art to save ourselves from the truth. - Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Don't think to hunt two hares with one dog. - Benjamin Franklin
Logic is the art of going wrong with confidence. - Joseph Krutch
Truth is simple, requiring neither study nor art. - Ammian
The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook. - William James
Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life. - Oscar Wilde
I love a dog. He does nothing for political reasons. - Will Rogers
Making sushi is an art, and experience is everything. - Nobu Matsuhisa
Art is not what you see, but what you make others see. - Degas
The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery. - Mark Van Doren
The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing. - Marcus Aurelius
Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday. - Don Marquis
A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of. - Ogden Nash
One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art. - Oscar Wilde
Art is the demonstration that the ordinary is extraordinary. - Amedee Ozenfant
We need a leader that wrote "The Art of the Deal". - Donald Trump
Advertising is the greatest art form of the twentieth century. - Marshall McLuhan
The dog who meets with a good master is the happier of the two. - Maurice Maeterlinck
Fine art and pizza delivery: what we do falls neatly in between. - David Letterman
When a man's best friend is his dog, that dog has a problem. - Edward Abbey
The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls. - Pablo Picasso
There is no prejudice that the work of art does not finally overcome. - Andre Gide
It was a great interview process. They were fighting like cats and dogs. - Donald Trump
We have art so that we do not die of reality. Reality is too much with us. - Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Politics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable. - John Kenneth Galbraith
Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises. - Samuel Butler
To array a man's will against his sickness is the supreme art of medicine. - Henry Ward Beecher
You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul. - George Bernard Shaw
I look like a real bag lady when I go to Starbucks with my dog and get my chai. - Shirley MacLaine
Dancing is the only art of which we ourselves are the stuff of which it is made. - Ted Shawn
Take care to sell your horse before he dies. The art of life is passing losses on. - Robert Frost
I love contemporary art, although I wouldn't want a pickled shark in my house. - Bruno Tonioli
The art of living lies less in eliminating our troubles than in growing with them. - Bernard M Baruch
Raising boys is like raising puppies. One must take them for a walk every few hours. - Jody Defries
It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge. - Albert Einstein
Beautiful young people are accidents of nature but beautiful old people are works of art. - Unknown
Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experience treacherous, judgment difficult. - Hypocrites
Why do dogs always race to the door when the doorbell rings? It's hardly ever for them. - Harry Hill
What we have to do, what at any rate it is our duty to do, is to revive the old art of Lying. - Oscar Wilde
Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad. - Salvador Dali
Leadership: The art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it. - Dwight D Eisenhower
What a pity Hell's gates are not kept by O'Flynn
The surly old dog would let nobody in. - Patrick Ireland
Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs. - Christopher Hampton
Psychiatry is the art of teaching people how to stand on their own two feet while reclining on couches. - Sigmund Freud
Obama and his attack dogs have nothing but hate and anger in their hearts and spew it whenever possible. - Donald Trump
A compromise is the art of dividing a cake in such a way that everyone believes he has the biggest piece. - Ludwig Erhard
Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with oneself. - Bertrand Russell
It is our art that has an opportunity to leave a footprint in the sand. They don't wrap fish in our work. - Hugh N Jacobsen
Marriage always demands the greatest understanding of the art of insincerity possible between two human beings. - Vicki Baum
If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around. - Unknown
'Tis not always in a physician's power to cure the sick; at times the disease is stronger than trained art. - Ovid
An actor is never so great as when he reminds you of an animal - falling like a cat, lying like a dog, moving like a fox. - Francois Truffaut
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy. - Groucho Marx
Self-consciousness is the enemy of all art, be it acting, writing, painting, or living itself, which is the greatest art of all. - Ray Bradbury
My husband and I are either going to buy a dog or have a child. We can't decide whether to ruin our carpet or ruin our lives. - Rita Rudner
Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully on canvas or write wonderful poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. - Donald Trump
If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow; but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much. - Mark Twain |
An alarm goes off and open your laptop. Your job queue has spiked to 10,000 jobs and is still growing rapidly. The bloated queue means that internal components are not receiving critical updates which will eventually compromise the health of the whole system. You start to investigate. The worker processes look healthy and jobs are being worked in a timely manner. Everything else looks normal. After close to an hour feeling around the system you notice a transaction that another team has opened for analytical purposes on one of your database followers. You promptly send it a SIGINT. The queue’s backlog evaporates in the blink of an eye and normalcy returns.
Long running databases transactions appear to be the culprit here, but how exactly can they have such a significant impact on a database table? And so quickly no less?
The figure below shows a simulation of the effect. With a relatively high rate of churn through the jobs table (roughly 50 jobs a second here), the effect can be reproduced quite quickly. After manifesting, it only takes about 15 minutes to worsen to the point where recovery is hopeless.
Number of jobs in queue. One hour into a long-lived transaction, we're at 60k jobs.
Your first question may be: why put a job queue in Postgres at all? The answer is that although it may be far from the use case that databases are designed for, storing jobs in a database allows a program to take advantage of its transactional consistency; when an operation fails and rolls back, an injected job rolls back with it. Postgres transactional isolation also keeps jobs invisible to workers until their transactions commit and are ready to be worked.
Without that transactional consistency, having jobs that are worked before the request that enqueued them is fully committed is a common problem. See the Sidekiq FAQ on this subject for example.
As we’ll see below, there are very good reasons not to use your database as a job queue, but by following a few key best practices, a program can go pretty far using this pattern.
We originally noticed this problem in production, but the first step for us to be able to check any potential solutions is to be able to reliably reproduce it in a controlled environment. For this purpose, we wrote the que-degradation-test, a simple program with three processes:
A job producer.
A job worker.
A “longrunner” that starts a transaction and then sits idle in it.
Like we hoped, the program was easily able to reproduce the problem and in a reliable way. All the charts in this article are from test data produced by it.
The first step into figuring out exactly what’s going wrong is to find out what exactly about the long running transaction is slowing the job queue down. By looking around at a few queue metrics, we quickly find a promising candidate. During stable operation, a worker locking a job to make sure that it can be worked exclusively takes on the order of < 0.01 seconds. As we can see in the figure below though, as the oldest transaction gets older, this lock time escalates quickly until it’s 15x that level at times of 0.1 s and above. As the difficulty to lock a job increases, workers can lock fewer of them in the same amount of time. Left long enough, the queue will eventually reach a point where more jobs are being produced than being worked, leading to a runaway queue.
Median lock time. Normally < 0.01 s, locks are taking 15x longer than that one hour in.
We’d originally been using a library called Queue Classic (QC) to run our job queue. We started to suspect that its relatively inefficient locking mechanism might be the source of our trouble, so we moved over to another package called Que (pronounced “kay”) which is known to be faster. But to our chagrin, we found that the problem still existed, even if its better overall performance did seem to help stave it off for a little bit longer. We’ll be examining Que in detail here, but it’s worth nothing that both of these systems are susceptible to the same root problem.
Inspecting Que’s source code, we see that it uses this algorithm to lock a job:
WITH RECURSIVE jobs AS ( SELECT (j).*, pg_try_advisory_lock((j).job_id) AS locked FROM ( SELECT j FROM que_jobs AS j WHERE queue = $1::text AND run_at <= now() ORDER BY priority, run_at, job_id LIMIT 1 ) AS t1 UNION ALL ( SELECT (j).*, pg_try_advisory_lock((j).job_id) AS locked FROM ( SELECT ( SELECT j FROM que_jobs AS j WHERE queue = $1::text AND run_at <= now() AND (priority, run_at, job_id) > (jobs.priority, jobs.run_at, jobs.job_id) ORDER BY priority, run_at, job_id LIMIT 1 ) AS j FROM jobs WHERE jobs.job_id IS NOT NULL LIMIT 1 ) AS t1 ) ) SELECT queue, priority, run_at, job_id, job_class, args, error_count FROM jobs WHERE locked LIMIT 1
This might look a little scary, but after understanding how to read a recursive Postgres CTE, it can be deconstructed into a few more easily digestible components. Recursive CTEs generally take the form of <non-recursive term> UNION [ALL] <recursive term> where the initial non-recursive is evaluated and acts as an anchor to seed the recursive term. As noted in the Postgres documentation, the query is executed with these basic steps:
Evaluate the non-recursive term. Place results into a temporary working table. So long as the working table is not empty, repeat these steps: Evaluate the recursive term, substituting the contents of the working table for the recursive reference. Place the results into a temporary intermediate table. Replace the contents of the working table with the contents of the intermediate table and clear the intermediate table.
In the locking expression above, we can see that our non-recursive term finds the first job in the table with the highest work priority (as defined by run_at < now() and priority ) and checks to see whether it can be locked with pg_try_advisory_lock (Que is implemented using Postgres advisory locks because they’re atomic and fast). If it was locked successfully, the condition and limit outside of the CTE ( WHERE locked LIMIT 1 ) stop work and return that result. If the lock was unsuccessful, it recurses.
Each run of the recursive term does mostly the same thing as the non-recursive one, except that an additional predicate is added that only examines jobs of lower priority than the ones that have already been examined ( AND (priority, run_at, job_id) > (job.priority, job.run_at, job.job_id) ). By recursing continually given this stable sorting mechanism, jobs in the table are iterated one-by-one and a lock is attempted on each.
Eventually one of two conditions will be met that ends the recursion:
A job is locked, iteration is stopped by LIMIT combined with the check on locked , and the expression returns a successfully locked row.
combined with the check on , and the expression returns a successfully locked row. If there are no more candidates to lock, the select from que_jobs will come up empty, which will automatically terminate the expression.
Taking a closer look at the jobs table DDL we see that its primary key on (priority, run_at, job_id) should ensure that the expression above will run efficiently. We may be able to improve that somewhat by introducing some randomness to reduce contention, but that’s unlikely to help with the multiple order of magnitude performance degradation that we’re seeing, so let’s move on.
By continuing to examine test data, we quickly notice another strong correlation. As the age of the oldest transaction increases, the number of dead tuples in the jobs table grows continually. The figure below shows how by the end of our experiment, we’re approaching an incredible 100,000 dead rows.
Number of dead tuples in the jobs table. The curve flattens out as jobs get harder to work.
Automated Postgres VACUUM processes are supposed to clean these up, but by running a manual VACUUM, we can see that they can’t be removed:
=> vacuum verbose que_jobs; INFO: vacuuming "public.que_jobs" INFO: index "que_jobs_pkey" now contains 247793 row versions in 4724 pages DETAIL: 0 index row versions were removed. 3492 index pages have been deleted, 1355 are currently reusable. CPU 0.00s/0.02u sec elapsed 0.05 sec. INFO: "que_jobs": found 0 removable, 247459 nonremovable row versions in 2387 out of 4303 pages DETAIL: 247311 dead row versions cannot be removed yet. ...
Notice the last line “247311 dead row versions cannot be removed yet”. What this error message is trying to say is that these rows can’t be removed because they’re still potentially visible to another process in the system. To understand this more fully, we’ll have to dig a little further into the Postgres MVCC model.
To guarantee transaction isolation (that’s the “I” in “ACID”), Postgres implements a concurrency control model called MVCC (Multiversion Concurrency Control) that ensures that each ongoing SQL statement sees a consistent snapshot of data regardless of what changes may have occurred on the underlying data. By extension, that means that rows that are deleted from a Postgres database are not actually deleted immediately, but rather only flagged as deleted so that they’ll still be available to any open snapshots that may still have use for them. When they’re no longer needed in any snapshot, a VACUUM process will perform a pass and safely delete them more permanently.
The flags that power MVCC are visible as “hidden” columns on any Postgres table called xmin and xmax . Let’s take a simple example where we’re holding a few unworked jobs in a Que table:
term-A-# select xmin, xmax, job_id from que_jobs limit 5; xmin | xmax | job_id -------+------+-------- 89912 | 0 | 25865 89913 | 0 | 25866 89914 | 0 | 25867 89915 | 0 | 25868 89916 | 0 | 25869 (5 rows)
Every write transaction in Postgres is assigned a transaction ID ( xid ). The xmin column defines the minimum transaction ID for which a particular row becomes visible (i.e. the xid where it was created). xmax defines the maximum xid bound that the row is available. As above, for a row that’s still available to any new transaction, that number is set to 0.
If we start a new transaction from a different console:
term-B-# start transaction isolation level serializable; START TRANSACTION
Then remove one of the jobs from outside that new transaction:
term-A-# delete from que_jobs where job_id = 25865; DELETE 1
We can see that the removed row (which is still visible from our second transaction), now has its xmax set:
term-B-# select xmin, xmax, job_id from que_jobs limit 5; xmin | xmax | job_id -------+-------+-------- 89912 | 90505 | 25865 89913 | 0 | 25866 89914 | 0 | 25867 89915 | 0 | 25868 89916 | 0 | 25869 (5 rows)
A new operation in the database will be assigned a xid af 90506 or higher, and job_id 25865 will be invisible to it.
The standard Postgres index is implemented as a B-tree which is searched to find TIDs (tuple identifiers) that are stored in its leaves. These TIDs then map back to physical locations of rows within the table which Postgres can use to extract the full tuple.
The one key piece of information here is that a Postgres index doesn’t generally contain tuple visibility information[1]. To know whether a tuple is still visible to the in-progress transaction, it must be extracted from the heap and have its visibility checked.
The Postgres codebase is large enough that pointing to a single place to outline this detail in the implementation is difficult, but index_getnext as shown below is a pretty important piece of it. Its job is to scan any type of index in a generic way and extract a tuple that matches the conditions of an incoming query. Most of the body is wrapped in a continuous loop that first calls into index_getnext_tid which will descend the B-tree to find an appropriate TID. After one is retrieved, it’s passed off to index_fetch_heap , which will fetch the full tuple from the heap, and among other things check its visibility against the current snapshot (a snapshot reference is stored as part of the IndexScanDesc type)[2].
/* ---------------- * index_getnext - get the next heap tuple from a scan * * The result is the next heap tuple satisfying the scan keys and the * snapshot, or NULL if no more matching tuples exist. * * On success, the buffer containing the heap tup is pinned (the pin will be * dropped in a future index_getnext_tid, index_fetch_heap or index_endscan * call). * * Note: caller must check scan->xs_recheck, and perform rechecking of the * scan keys if required. We do not do that here because we don't have * enough information to do it efficiently in the general case. * ---------------- */ HeapTuple index_getnext(IndexScanDesc scan, ScanDirection direction) { HeapTuple heapTuple; ItemPointer tid; for (;;) { if (scan->xs_continue_hot) { /* * We are resuming scan of a HOT chain after having returned an * earlier member. Must still hold pin on current heap page. */ Assert(BufferIsValid(scan->xs_cbuf)); Assert(ItemPointerGetBlockNumber(&scan->xs_ctup.t_self) == BufferGetBlockNumber(scan->xs_cbuf)); } else { /* Time to fetch the next TID from the index */ tid = index_getnext_tid(scan, direction); /* If we're out of index entries, we're done */ if (tid == NULL) break; } /* * Fetch the next (or only) visible heap tuple for this index entry. * If we don't find anything, loop around and grab the next TID from * the index. */ heapTuple = index_fetch_heap(scan); if (heapTuple != NULL) return heapTuple; } return NULL; /* failure exit */ }
This insight along with performing some basic profiling to check it leads us to the reason our locking performance suffers so much given a long running transaction. As dead tuples continue to accumulate in the index, Postgres enters a hot loop as it searches the B-tree, comes up with an invisible tuple, and repeats the process again and again, surfacing empty-handed every time. By the end of the experiment illustrated in the charts above, every worker trying to lock a job would cycle through this loop 100,000 times. Worse yet, every time a job is successfully worked a new dead tuple is left in the index, making the next job that much harder to lock.
Illustrated visually, a lock under ideal conditions searches the job queue’s B-tree and immediately finds a job to lock:
Que finding a job under ideal conditions.
In the degenerate case, a search turns up a series of dead tuples that must be scanned through until a live job is reached:
Que trying to find a lock in a bloated heap.
A job queue’s access pattern is particularly susceptible to this kind of degradation because all this work gets thrown out between every job that’s worked. To minimize the amount of time that a job sits in the queue, queueing systems tend to only grab one job at a time which leads to short waiting periods during optimal performance, but particularly pathologic behavior during the worse case scenario.
Stated plainly, our root problem is that the job table’s index has become less useful to the point where using it isn’t much faster than a full sequential scan. Even after selecting rows based on the predicates we’ve specified, Postgres still has to seek through thousands of dead rows before finally arriving at something that it can use.
Referencing the locking SQL above, we can hypothesize that it may be the fairly minimal constraint on only queue name and run_at that’s making the index search so inefficient. In the degraded case, all dead rows that have already been worked will match both these conditions:
WHERE queue = $1::text AND run_at <= now()
We know that the third field in the Que table’s primary key is job_id ; what if we could modify the predicate above to take it into account as well? If we could supply a job_id that was even reasonably fresh, that should be enough to increase the specificity of the query enough to skip thousands of dead rows that we might have otherwise had to examine.
Illustrated visually, the locking function is able to skip the bulk of the dead rows because its B-tree search takes it to a live job right away:
Que finding a lock with a greater index specificity despite a bloated heap.
Because Que works jobs in the order that they came into the queue, having workers re-use the identifier of the last job they worked might be a simple and effective way to accomplish this. Here’s the basic pseudocode for a modified work loop:
last_job_id = nil loop do # if last_job_id is nil, the extra constraint on job_id is left out of the # lock query job = lock_job(last_job_id) work_job(job) last_job_id = job.id end
Let’s apply an equivalent patch to Que and see how it fairs. Here’s oldest transaction time vs. queue count after the patch:
Number of jobs in the queue with patched version of Que. 30k one hour in.
And for comparison, here’s what it looked like before the patch:
Number of jobs in the queue on vanilla Que. 60k one hour in.
We can see above that the patched version of Que performs optimally for roughly twice as long under degraded conditions. It eventually hockeysticks as well, but only after maintaining a stable queue for a considerable amount of time[3]. We found that a database’s capacity to work under degraded conditions was partly a function of database size too: the tests above were run on a heroku-postgresql:standard-2 , but a heroku-postgresql:standard-7 with the patched version of Que was able to maintain near zero queue for the entire duration of the experimental run, while the unpatched version degraded nearly identically to its companion on the smaller database.
An astute reader may have noticed that our proposed revision of the locking algorithm above introduces a new problem. If a worker dies or a transaction commits a job ID that’s out of order, it’s possible for all online workers to have moved onto last_job_ids that are all higher than one of the unworked jobs left in the queue, leaving that job with a low job ID in an indefinite limbo.
To account for this problem our patch to Que introduces a time-based form of locking jitter. Every so often each worker will forget their last_job_id and select any available job from the queue. If a long-lived transaction is ongoing, these selects without a job_id will be significantly more expensive, but they will be run infrequently enough that our job queue should still be able to remain stable overall.
An amended form of the new work loop pseudocode that performs some jitter of this sort might look like this:
last_job_id = nil start = now() loop do # lock jitter if now() > start + 60.seconds last_job_id = nil start = now() end job = lock_job(last_job_id) work_job(job) last_job_id = job.id end
An alternative approach to solving the same problem might be to have each worker lock more than one job at a time, which distributes the cost of taking the lock. Its disadvantage is that the overall time to get a job worked may suffer because jobs can get “stuck” behind a long-running job that happened to come out ahead of them in the same batch.
Yet another approach might be to drop your Postgres-based queues completely and instead save jobs to a pending_jobs table in your database. A background process could then loop through and select jobs from this table en masse and feed them out to a Redis-backed job queue like Sidekiq. This would allow your project to keep the nice database-based property of transactional consistency, but the background worker selecting jobs in bulk would keep the implementation orders of magnitude more resistant to long-lived transactions than Que or Queue Classic.
The extra hop required for the pending_jobs table may make this implementation a little slower than a Postgres-based queue operating under ideal conditions, but it could probably be optimized so as not to be too costly.
Given a full understanding of problems with long-lived transactions in Postgres, a tempting (but overly simplistic) takeaway might be that Postgres isn’t a good fit for a job queue. This is at least partly correct, but it’s worth remembering that although a job queue may be the least optimal situation, similar problems can develop for any sufficiently hot Postgres table.
First and foremost, it’s worth considering putting together a Postgres supervisor that keeps an eye on transactions happening on the leader and all followers, and executes a pg_terminate_backend on anything that’s been alive for too long. Postgres also provides a built-in setting called statement_timeout that’s worth enabling as well, but which is insufficient in itself because it can fail under a variety of conditions (like a user overriding it manually).
Finally, I’d highly encourage database use to stay within the operational boundaries of a single component. This has already been addressed elsewhere online, but the correct way for components to intercommunicate is via well-defined and safe-by-default APIs. If we hadn’t shared our database with other teams who had a relatively poor understanding as to what they were running on it, this problem would have taken significantly longer to appear.
Long lived transactions on a Postgres database can cause a variety of problems for hot tables including a job queue. Given a reasonable understanding of how Postgres’ B-tree and tuple visibility implementation works, we can vary our job locking approach to improve this situation, but not eliminate it completely. For optimal results, monitor long-lived transactions within Postgres clusters and don’t share databases across component or team boundaries.
Many thanks to my colleague Daniel Farina for postulating the original hypothesis suggesting the precise failure mechanic of QC and Que, and my colleague Peter Geoghegan for verifying our findings with relation to Postgres and suggesting improvements to this article for accuracy. |
(Pacific Coast News)
This reporter has referred to cyclists who use cell phones in motion as "solipsistic robot slaves to their own egos." But should the NYPD divert its resources to ticketing people on bikes who are talking or texting? Brooklyn Councilmember Mark Treyger thinks so.
Councilmember Treyger intends to introduce a package of legislation that would make using a cell phone without a hands-free device while biking a $50 fine, rising up to $200 for multiple infractions.
Treyger says the idea for the legislation came to him after he saw a cyclist texting on Stillwell Avenue near his district office in Gravesend. "He actually veered into incoming traffic, almost causing a multi-car crash," Treyger says. "Someone had to stop short and someone behind them almost hit them, and that prompted me to research this issue. I was surprised to learn there is no law in New York City that bans the practice."
The councilmember says his law would be "less punitive than anything that's out there in the country right now." Offenders would be able to avoid a fine by taking a new bicycle safety course.
According to a recent study of hospital records, cyclists injured 7,904 pedestrians in New York between 2004 and 2011; 92% of those pedestrians were treated as outpatients. Streetsblog notes that roughly 22,000 pedestrians and cyclists were killed statewide in 2012 alone.
In 2014, 118 pedestrians and 18 cyclists have been killed by motor vehicles in New York City. Three pedestrians have been killed by cyclists since 2009; two of those incidents occurred this year.
Asked to provide evidence that cycling and cell phone use is an issue worthy of new legislation, Treyger replied, "People have been distributing photographs on the internet of examples of people texting and biking. So there are cases of this, it just probably goes unreported or it doesn’t reach the NYPD data table, but we’re shedding light on this issue."
Last week we reported that police had ticketed scores of cyclists in Midtown for riding on the right side of Fifth Avenue, an activity that happens to be entirely legal. Is Treyger happy with how the NYPD currently enforces traffic laws?
"We never welcome petty doctrine type of enforcement, even with drivers," the councilmember told us. "The fact of the matter is, Vision Zero is a very serious, life-saving goal, and we all have a role to play. It’s not just motorists. If we’re just going to say that only motor vehicles cause accidents and deaths, then I just don’t think that’s true Vision Zero. I remind the public that the goal is Vision Zero, not Vision Few or Vision Some."
Treyger, who has never biked while on the phone and could not remember the last time he rode a bike, realizes that "more and more New Yorkers are choosing bikes, which I think is a good thing. But we have a responsibility, in my opinion, to make sure we are promoting safe and responsible bicycling."
He does not, however, support a law forcing cyclists to use helmets. "In my opinion, people should wear them because that’s safe and responsible bicycling, but the difference that I would note is that texting and biking, you’re not just hurting yourself, you’re hurting others as well." |
Published on by Aarong222 196 Comments
Dzeko, Mertens, KDB and a OTW Morata headline in week 34
Last week's score: 14/23
Formation: 3-4-1-2
Squad link:http://www.futhead.com/17/squads/6235907/**
Goalkeeper
Fraser Forster - GK - OVR 78 Several BPL keepers stood out this week but Forster was still the pick of a strong bunch. The Southampton keeper made a total of eight saves alongside saving a Milner penalty as the saints held Liverpool to a 0-0 draw.
Defenders
Alex Oxlaide Chamberlain - RWB - OVR 79 Once again Chamberlain's special item is ruined by the fact he will be classified as a RWB but the Englishman who has played in several roles for Arsenal this year impressed once again for Wenger's side as they managed a 2-0 win over United which ended their 22-game unbeaten streak. The Ox picked up the assist on both the goals which makes him a very strong candidate for this side.
Ezequiel Garay - CB - OVR 84 When a gold CB finds himself on the score sheet twice nine times out of ten he will be in. Garay managed just that as he helped Valencia to a 4-1 win over Osasuna making him one of the easiest selections this week
Patrice Evra - LB - OVR 82 For the first week in a while the defensive options were rather slim and due to that Evra has an increased chance of making the cut. The Frenchman scored one of Marseille's two goals as they narrowly recorded three points via a 2-1 win.
Midfielders
Thomas Lemar- LM - OVR 80 Monaco took another step towards lifting the Ligue 1 title with a 3-0 win away at Nancy and once again it was their youngster in Lemar who stood out. The winger grabbed both a goal and assist which saw him pick up an 8/10 from L'equipe.
Kevin De Bruyne - CM - OVR 88 KDB looks set to pick up a little boost before his TOTS which is just around the corner after City dominated Crystal Palace with a 5-0 win. The Belgian was involved in three of those goals with one of his own alongside two assists. Both Kompany and Otamendi found themselves on the scoresheet but KDB was the main man on the day.
Marco Verratti - CM - OVR 85 Verratti is starting to gain a real reputation for picking up IF's without doing a whole lot and with him claiming an 8/10 and MOTM this week in a crucial win for PSG he could well be picking up his 5th IF this year. The Italian midfielder may have only scored one goal but in the circumstances, he has a strong claim for a spot.
Yannis Salibur - RM - OVR 76 Either Salibur or Briand could make this side after both Guingamp players picked up a brace and an assist during their 4-0 win. I have opted for Salibur purely down to the positional spread with lots of striker options compared to only a few from midfield.
Forwards
Edin Dzeko - ST - OVR 81 Dzeko made his claim for the Serie A golden boot adding another two to his already impressive numbers in Roma's 4-1 win over AC Milan. The Bosnian also picked up an assist which saw him receive an 8/10 from Gazzetta.
Dries Mertens - ST - OVR 85 Surprise surprise Mertens pops up yet again. The Belgian is in contention for a spot every other week these days and since making the move to ST for Napoli he can't stop finding the back of the net. He picked up POTW in Italy this week after getting two goals and an assist during Napoli's 3-1 win
Morata - ST - OVR 82 Rodriguez was once again the stand out player for Madrid this weekend however seeing as he is in the current side he is unable to be selected this time around. That leaves a spot for Morata to jump into who like Rodriguez scored twice for Madrid to help them secure three points.
Substitutes
Tom Starke - GK - OVR 74 As is often the case when Munich have the title secured you see a lot of different faces getting the chance for them. As always Stake got the nod in goal and once again he has impressed. The veteran saved a last-minute penalty to keep Munich's 1-0 win in tact claiming the top mark from kicker with a 1.
Andrea Costa - CB - OVR 76 This one goes down as a bit of a punt considering that Costa was not actually MOTM but with both a goal and assist to his name in a 3-1 win for Empoli he does look good on paper.
Jose Izquierdo - LW - OVR 77 I am still unsure as to if these matches count but once again when a midfielder scores a hat trick it becomes nigh on impossible to ignore them. Izquierdo managed just that as Brugge came away with a 3-1 win away to Charleroi
Leonardo Bittencourt - LW - OVR 77 Koln played out a seven-goal thriller with Werder Bremen of which they came out on top as 4-3 winners from. They have two potential players in terms of making the cut but with Bittencourt claiming POTW for his goal and two assists I have selected him over Modeste who scored twice.
Wes Hoolahan - CAM - OVR 77 Norwich ended their season with a 4-0 win. The Irish midfielder was involved in all those goals claiming both two goals and two assists.
Florian Niederlechner - ST - OVR 74 Frieburg picked up a huge three points over Schalke with a 2-0 win in their quest for European football. The German striker picked up both their goals which in turn saw him claim a 1 from Kicker. Under the situation of the match that should see him in.
Andre-Pierre Gignac - ST - OVR 82 We often see Gignac pick up several IF's throughout the year now that he is playing his football over in Mexico. This would be his second of the year after he bagged himself a hat trick in Tigres's 5-1 away win
Reserves
Eugenio Lamanna - GK - OVR 72 It's been a while since we have seen two bronze/silver keepers in one TOTW with the lack of them in general recently. This week more than ever it has a chance of happening though. Lamanna made a total of four saves along with a penalty save as Genoa shocked Inter with a 1-0 win. Lamanna picked up MOTM with a 7.5 from Gazzetta making him keeper of the week.
Joe Bennett - LWB - OVR 69 Another wingback with multiple goal contributions now with Bennett. The Cardiff defender was involved in all three of their goals with one for himself alongside setting up the other two in a 3-0 win.
C.J. Sapong - ST - OVR 71 Onto a few silver hat tricks now, the first of which comes in the MLS after Sapong scored all three of Philadelphia's goals in their impressive 3-0 home win over NYRB's.
Gustav Engvall - ST - OVR 68 Over to Sweden now who have been picking up a fair few IF's as of late and they look to be on route to another after Engvall scored three of his sides four goals in a comfortable 4-0 away win.
Jair - ST - OVR 72 It's been a while since we have seen a K-League in-form and perhaps after harshly missing out on a TOTS MC spot Jair has his reward incoming in the form of an IF. The Brazilian played up top for Jeju as they managed a 4-1 home win of which he scored a hat trick in. |
The federal government will announce Wednesday that Saskatchewan is prepared to join Ontario and British Columbia in their effort to create a single national securities regulator, CBC News has learned.
Finance Minister Joe Oliver, Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa and other provincial officials will make the announcement in Ottawa at 9 a.m. ET Wednesday.
The Canadian Press is reporting one Atlantic province will join Saskatchewan in signing on to the system.
Officials in P.E.I. told CBC News they are not prepared to abandon the current system.
"Prince Edward Island continues to work with the federal government to find a solution what would work best for our jurisdiction," Guy Gallant, an official in Premier Robert Ghiz's office, said.
Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador declined comment.
Opposition remains
Alberta, Quebec and Manitoba reconfirmed their opposition to the federal government's proposal during a meeting in P.E.I. in June.
At that meeting, provincial and territorial ministers responsible for securities regulation agreed for the need to make improvements to the national regulatory system, but some also expressed concern about "further fragmentation of the securities regulatory system" if Ottawa's proposal was implemented.
Manitoba continues to support the current system. Sally Housser, a spokesperson for Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger, told CBC News today that the province believes "it remains one of the best in the world."
Last September, the late federal finance minister Jim Flaherty announced a deal with British Columbia and Ontario to take part in a voluntary common system.
Quebec's then-Parti Québécois government vowed to take Ottawa to court if it were to impose a single securities regulator on that province.
Reached by CBC News earlier Tuesday, an official for Quebec's new Liberal finance minister, Carlos Leitao, reconfirmed opposition to a common securities regulator, pointing out that it was the Liberal government under Jean Charest who first opposed it.
The federal government had a plan to create a national regulator, called the Proposed Canadian Securities Act, but the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional in December 2011.
The court said the law would tread on provincial legal jurisdiction, but didn't close the door to a future "co-operative approach" to creating a national body. |
"The Russian media talk about Ukrainians, but they never talk with Ukrainians," said Ulrich Heyden, a German author who writes for German media and has lived in Moscow for years. "In my opinion, that is a major drawback."
According to Jens Siegert, who heads the Moscow bureau of the Heinrich-Böll Stiftung,a German politicalfoundation associated with the Greens, President Vladimir Putin and his propaganda machine "spent the past years hammering home an old notion that goes back to Stalin, namely that Russia is surrounded by enemies while at the same time, agents within the country collaborate with these enemies." That, Siegert said, sums up Russian state media reports about Ukraine.
Foreign conspiracy
Jens Siegert: Russian state TV broadcasts the Kremlin's point of view
Siegert said he only switches on Russian TV channels when he wants to know what the Kremlin has to say.
"The Russian government gives the viewer the impression that the EU is putting terrible pressure on poor Ukraine to join the bloc - the reason being that things are headed downhill in the EU, in particular the economy," Siegert said, adding the impression given is that the EU aims to "suck the Ukrainian economy dry."
Ulrich Heyden reached the same conclusion. In talk shows, Russian political scientists claim the EU has developed a strategic plan to take advantage of Ukraine as a market for its own products, he said. To make matters worse, they claim the West has long-term plans to include Ukraine in the NATO alliance.
The Russian media that report objectively are few and far between and consist mainly of the Echo of Moscow radio station, Doshd Internet TV broadcaster, a few independent print media with marginal circulation and a few Internet portals. State television remains to be the main source of information for most Russians.
Interpretation instead of information
Disinformation starts with numbers, Siegert said. It is not right to show 50 protesters if in fact up to a million people demonstrated in Kyiv, he pointed out. Siegert added that police and the opposition in Ukraine also come up with differing figures, but if even Ukraine's police reports about 50,000 people, then it's not right for Russian TV to mention 200, he said.
Siegert said he remembers a recent TV program that showed a protester supposedly paid to demonstrate. "They said, see, these are the methods used by EU supporters - they pay people to protest against Russia." Later, it turned out the protester was a supporter of Ukranian President Viktor Yanukovych, Siegert said. If people are constantly exposed to such broadcasts, no matter how preposterous or dubious, something is bound to stick in the end, he added.
No way to make friends
Ulrich Heyden criticizes Russian reporting on Ukraine
Russian TV tends to focus on extremes, Heyden agreed, such as the toppling of the Lenin monument in Kyiv and the participation of right-wing radicals from the nationalist Svoboda party. Regular demonstrators and citizens don't make it onto Russian TV and aren't interviewed for other media. Instead, correspondents on site give interpretations of the situation. A Russian TV audience has no chance to find out why, and against whom or what, the people are actually protesting,
Russian state TV can be picked up almost everywhere in Ukraine, but the coverage of events in Ukraine is not likely to make Russia many friends in the country, said Heyden, adding that while some Ukrainians may not take it seriously, others are angry.
A Russian TV correspondent in Kyiv recently accepted a prize awarded to a senior propagandist at Russia's Rossiya state-owned television. The prize was awarded "For the most impudent lies about the Maidan" protests. |
Hello Trainers,
I want to discuss a known issue with the current chat filtering on the live TCGO service.
The Pokémon TCG Online is a game and brand for the young and the young at heart. We are committed to providing a safe play environment for our younger audience. To that end, we incorporate chat filtering systems to enforce this.
In our most recent release on May 6th for the release of the XY-Roaring Skies expansion an issue was introduced that could cause some chat messages that were otherwise fine to be filtered.
We have a fix for this possible overzealous chat filtering to go out in the coming 2.28.1 client version discussed in the announcement: Dev Update: Daily Login, Revised Challenges and Bug Smashing. We currently anticipate the 2.28.1 client to be live before the end of May.
Our apologies for any inconvenience caused and thanks in advance for your understanding.
Respectfully yours,
Alex
Edited by TPCi_Samhayne, 15 May 2015 - 08:25 PM.
Alex Leary
Pokémon TCG Online
The Pokémon Company International
Need help from the support team? Visit the [url="http://www.pokemon.com/support"]support portal[/url] and submit a ticket! |
The Supreme Court on Friday refused to let Michigan enforce a ban on casting straight-ticket ballots in the coming election after lower courts found the prohibition was likely to discriminate against African Americans and result in long lines at the polls.
The justices declined to get involved in a controversy that began when the state’s Republican leadership passed a bill to end 125 years of straight-ticket voting, which allows a voter to choose all the candidates of a desired party by casting a single vote.
The Supreme Court gave no reason for its decision to turn down Michigan’s request that it be allowed to enforce the ban. But the decision was another sign that it will be difficult for those bringing election controversies to the court in advance of November to prevail.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. said they would have granted the state’s request but also did not reveal their reasoning.
[Without conservative Supreme Court majority, voting law opponents make gains]
Last week, the court deadlocked on North Carolina’s request to use a strict voting measure that an appeals court had found deliberately discriminated against African Americans. The law will not be in place for the coming elections.
In Michigan, voters have twice rejected attempts to abolish straight-ticket voting.
But the legislature in late 2015 did just that, joining 40 other states that do not allow the practice. The state said eliminating the option increased the chance that a voter would not overlook nonpartisan issues on the ballot and also would make a “more informed vote by examining the credentials and values of each candidate.”
[Supreme Court won’t let North Carolina use strict voting law]
But Democrats said the action by the state’s Republican leadership, including Gov. Rick Snyder, was partisan. The black labor organization, the A. Philip Randolph Institute, and Common Cause sued, saying the law was meant to discourage minority voters who overwhelmingly choose Democrats.
A district judge and then a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit agreed, saying the elimination of the procedure would slow the voting process and create long lines in precincts where African Americans are most likely to vote. They also held that the new state-approved ballot, which could be construed to make voters think straight-party voting was still allowed, was confusing.
The courts agreed the law would not likely survive constitutional challenge, might violate the Voting Rights Act and could not be used in the coming election.
The challengers presented “unrebutted evidence in the record demonstrating that [the law] will increase the time that it takes to vote, particularly in African-American communities where straight-party voting is prominent and where lines are often already long,” wrote Circuit Judge Karen Nelson Moore. “The district court also found that the law was likely to increase voter confusion and miscast ballots. Although this burden is not severe, it is also not slight. In the face of this burden, the state has offered only vague and largely unsupported justifications of fostering voter knowledge and engagement.”
The Michigan news organization MLive.com found in a survey that about half of Michigan voters in 2012 used the straight-ticket option. About 30 percent of voters chose the Democratic Party using the option, while a little under 20 percent chose Republicans, according to the survey.
Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, a Republican, had urged the Supreme Court not to allow lower courts to prevent the state from doing what other states have done.
“Having voters actually cast a vote for their chosen candidate — rather than blindly voting for all candidates of a party — is the very act of voting, so it cannot rationally be characterized as a burden on the right to vote,” he wrote in his petition to the court.
The challengers said the suit was not claiming a constitutional right to straight-ticket voting. “It is about the unconstitutional consequences for millions of voters of eliminating this option in the unique context of Michigan elections,” they told the court. |
Uber is always looking for new ways to connect people with safe, reliable transportation at the push of a button. Over the years, the Uber experience has become more social. With uberPOOL, we’ve not only made it more affordable to get around the city, but have also helped people make new connections when they share their trip. Today, in partnership with Facebook, we’re bringing you and your friends closer together right where you are: on Messenger.
Powered by Uber’s API, Messenger now enables its millions of users to sign up for Uber with one tap and request a ride, all without having to leave Messenger or download the Uber app. Ride status updates and ride receipts are delivered to a private conversation between you and Uber on Messenger, making it easy to track your Uber ride and payment history.
Meeting a loved one for dinner? Send them the restaurant location on Messenger, and they can request a ride there by simply tapping on the address.
Running late for a work meeting? Share your current Uber trip with coworkers through Messenger so they know exactly when you’ll arrive.
Picking up friends in your Uber on the way to a concert? Request in Messenger and your friends will know when to be outside to jump into the Uber.
With Uber on Messenger, you and your friends can keep the conversation going, whether it’s on Messenger or in your Uber.
To get started, download the latest Messenger app, and either start a conversation with Uber and tap the car icon , or tap the more menu in any Messenger conversation and select Transportation. Never used Uber? No problem. You can sign up for a new Uber account within Messenger in a matter of seconds and start riding. Your first ride in Messenger is free, up to $20. Current Uber users can connect their existing account in Messenger and start requesting rides from any conversation.
With the ability to request, view, and pay for an Uber ride in Messenger, taking your next ride is as simple as sending a message (or an animated GIF). Uber on Messenger will start rolling out in the U.S. today, with more to come soon. We’re excited to continue working with Facebook to find more ways to bring people together — and bring even more of the Uber experience to Messenger. |
Mr. Lhota said that because New York City was no longer able to pay the capital costs of the system, the state picked up the burden. But that arrangement, he said, was not meant to be permanent.
“The fiscal crisis is over,” he said.
Now, the city has a surplus of some $4 billion, Mr. Lhota said. And as he prepares to submit an emergency plan to deal with the subway’s most pressing needs — one that will call for even more spending — Mr. Lhota said he expected the city to contribute.
The city already agreed in 2015 to contribute $2.5 billion to the M.T.A.’s $29 billion five-year capital plan, which Mr. Finan said “is far in excess of any legal obligation.”
And Mr. Cuomo has also pledged an extra $1 billion in capital funds next year, on top of his previous pledge of $8.3 billion.
Still, Mr. Lhota said, more was needed during these trying days.
As temperatures in the city soared, Thursday was the fourth straight day of problems with the transit system.
There were suspensions and delays on the PATH as well as more cancellations on New Jersey Transit because of staffing issues.
In Newark, dozens of people were pulled off an AirTrain headed to the airport after power problems. There were no injuries, but service was suspended and passengers had to take buses instead. |
And How Far Would He Go?
By Elias J. Atienza
Representative Justin Amash (R-MI) hinted at a 2020 run during his speech at the Young Americans for Liberty National Convention. As one of the few libertarian Republicans in elected office, Amash is looking to continue the movement Ron Paul inspired.
Amash is one of the few remaining left in the Never Trump movement and is actively looking to back someone besides the Republican nominee.
Rare called him “the most high profile libertarian Republican in Congress after Senator Rand Paul” and one of the “two congressmen who are generally considered the most beloved by the Ron Paul-inspired liberty movement.”
It’s important that we have a strong libertarian voice running for president. And it’s important that we win. So, yes,” he told Rare in February when asked if he would run for President.
Amash ran for office back in 2010, winning 60% of the vote and became one of the youngest Representatives in Congress. He has won reelection twice, defeating his opponents by a wide margin. He is currently facing reelection against Douglas Smith who he will face in the general election.
https://twitter.com/lowrancc/status/758441553480261632
And how would Amash do in the Republican primary? Ron Paul did well in 2012 though Rand Paul didn’t, dropping out after Iowa. Would an Amash run do better in courting libertarians and libertarian-leaning Republicans? It’s unknown considering that Senator Paul may run in 2020 as well.
If Amash were to run for the 2020 Republican nomination (that is assuming Donald Trump doesn’t win the presidency or proves to be an unpopular president) he would be likely be facing the same opponents who ran in 2016. Opponents such as Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), Governor Scott Walker (R-WI) and maybe even Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) might jump into the race.
In any case, an Amash run would instantly receive much media attention. He’s young, he’s a minority (Arab-American), and a firebrand. He got national media attention when he organized a bipartisan group of Representatives in an effort to defund the NSA’s mass surveillance program. There’s also a website dedicated to drafting him for a 2020 run.
Amash would certainly be able to capitalize on the libertarian movement. The question is: how far will he go? Would he wind up short like the Pauls did? Or would he go all the way to the White House? |
More than 50 former government officials and national security and military figures have signed an open letter to Donald J. Trump, urging him to disclose details of his overseas business investments before Election Day.
The letter — signed by dozens of supporters of the Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton — was drafted as Mr. Trump, the Republican pick who is reported to have extensive overseas entanglements, has refused to release his tax returns.
Michael J. Morell, a former acting director of the C.I.A., and Michael G. Vickers, a former under secretary of defense for intelligence, put together the letter with input from Samantha Vinograd, a former senior adviser to Thomas E. Donilon, a former national security adviser.
“Donald Trump still has not revealed to the American public his international business relationships, even as it becomes increasingly clear that his overseas ties could well constitute significant conflicts of interest when it comes to charting U.S. foreign policy,” the letter reads. “This is unprecedented for a candidate for the nation’s highest office. As such, we are calling on Mr. Trump to disclose, in full, the nature of his business relationships overseas — to include specifically who his business partners are and what and where are his foreign investments.” |
Good news for bus riders that often wonder, “where is that bus?” when it hasn’t arrived at your stop at the ‘scheduled’ time.
BC Transit has signed a deal with a technology provider that will allow Victoria riders with a smartphone, tablet, or home computer, to track their bus in real-time.
No more guessing if the bus is just around the corner. Some key stops will even have a digital reader or screen installed to display the same information.
The system uses GPS and will calculate bus arrival times based on the speed and location of buses.
In a news release, the transit authority says, “BC Transit is working with its provincial and local partners to finalize plans for the implementation of Real Time information technology.
Real Time information will allow customers to determine when buses are due to arrive or leave their location via a mobile app, website, or passenger information displays at key exchanges. Communities that are expected to introduce Real Time include Kamloops, Nanaimo, Comox Valley, Squamish, Whistler, Kelowna, and Victoria.”
The new technology is expected to be available within 18 months.
Facebook Conversations |
Check the context before uncritically accepting sensationalist conclusions.
Let's start with a primer on how to write a sensationalist story that can be passed off as "journalism:"
1. Locate credible-sounding data that can be de-contextualized, i.e. sensationalized.
2. Present the data as "fact" rather than data that requires verification by disinterested researchers.
3. Exaggerate the data as much as possible and set the tone and context with emotionally laden words: "shocking," etc.
4. Select a context that sensationalizes the conclusion.
Now let's take a look at a story that has been swallowed whole, with little to no fact-checking or disinterested inquiry: bitcoin's electrical consumption, i.e. the electricity consumed by mining/maintaining bitcoin's blockchain.
Let's start by stipulating that energy consumption is a consequential matter worthy of serious inquiry. It's important to measure the energy consumption of all the systems that operate within the current status quo, and compare the consumption levels of these systems.
With that in mind, let's take a look at the story.
Right off the bat, the context we're offered to grasp the enormity of bitcoin's mining consumption is the electrical consumption of Nigeria, a nation, we're breathlessly informed, with 186 million residents. Wow! That's a crazy amount of electrical consumption, right?
Let's do some very basic fact-checking before we accept sensationalist conclusions, shall we?
So Nigeria uses 3/5th of 1% (0.6%) of the electricity the U.S. consumes.
Now let's compare that electrical consumption with the amount of electricity consumed in the U.S. by residential devices and chargers on stand-by, i.e. appliances, devices, chargers, gizmos, etc. that aren't in use and doing no work but that are still consuming electricity.
About a quarter of all residential energy consumption is used on devices in idle power mode, according to a study of Northern California by the Natural Resources Defense Council. That means that devices that are “off” or in standby or sleep mode can use up to the equivalent of 50 large power plants’ worth of electricity and cost more than $19 billion in electricity bills every year.
source: Just How Much Power Do Your Electronics Use When They Are ‘Off’? (May 7, 2016, New York Times)
(Please read the article to find out just how much power the 50+ gadgets in your home consume doing absolutely zero work.)
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, annual residential electrical consumption totals 1,410 billion kWh
So 25% (the amount of household electricity consumed by stand-by devices) of 1,410 billion equals 352 billion kWh consumed annually by residential appliances and devices on stand-by in the U.S.
Now let's compare the annual electrical consumption of Nigeria (24 B kWh) with the annual residential electrical consumption of devices on stand-by in the U.S.
The annual electrical consumption of Nigeria (24 B kWh) is 6.8% of the annual electrical consumed by household devices on stand-by in the U.S. That means the supposed consumption of bitcoin mining is 1/14th of the power lost to residential devices on stand-by in the U.S., devices doing essentially nothing.
Now let's add in all the appliances and devices in government and private-sector offices on stand-by. Let's conservatively estimate another 150 B kWh lost to all this stuff on stand-by.
Now let's multiply the total of electricity lost to stuff on stand-by mode (doing no work whatsoever) in the U.S., 500 B kWh annually, by five, since the U.S. consumes roughly 20% of all electricity globally.
This gives us an estimate of all the electrical power lost to electrical appliances and devices on stand-by globally every year: 2,500 billion kHh. 1% of that wasted electricity is 25 billion kHh. If you reckon this seems high, let's shave these totals to 1,500 billion kHh and 15 billion kHh.
Let's go back to the story about bitcoin's consumption of electricity which tells us "a shocking 215 kilowatt-hours (KWh) of juice (is) used by miners for each Bitcoin transaction."
But then a few paragraphs down, we discover the electricity per transaction might only be 77 kWh-- nobody really knows for sure. Hmm. 77 is 36% of 215, so the "shocking" consumption might overstate actual consumption by a factor of three?
Let's choose a number between 77 and the "shocking" 215, since nobody really knows what the real number is: shall we guesstimate 135, or 2/3 of the high guesstimate? That would drop the annual consumption of bitcoin mining from 24 B kWh annually to 15 B kWh, less than 1% of the electricity wasted annually on stand-by devices doing no work whatsoever.
And so, um, bitcoin mining is a threat to the planet because it consumes less than 1% of all the electricity squandered by appliances and devices on stand-by? If we want to stop wasting so much energy, perhaps we should start by mandating near-zero stand-by power consumption for the hundreds of millions of devices which are not in use that are nonetheless sucking up electricity every second of every day.
Here's another thought: check the context before uncritically accepting sensationalist conclusions.
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This is how efficiently Republicans have gerrymandered Texas congressional districts
Texas congressional districts, ranked from most to least gerrymandered
House District: 1 Representative: Louie Gohmert-R 2014 margin of victory: 54.9 percent
Challenger: Shirley McKellar-D Texas congressional districts, ranked from most to least gerrymandered
House District: 1 Representative: Louie Gohmert-R 2014 margin of victory: 54.9 percent
Challenger: Shirley McKellar-D Photo: Molina, Maribel, Courtesy Of GovTrack.us Photo: Molina, Maribel, Courtesy Of GovTrack.us Image 1 of / 45 Caption Close This is how efficiently Republicans have gerrymandered Texas congressional districts 1 / 45 Back to Gallery
Texas congressional districts have some peculiar designs. An analysis of them shows just how gerrymandered the state has become. (See an interactive map of the districts; read an analysis on the map here).
READ MORE: 25 awesome maps that explain Texas
Silicon Valley Data Science quantified the shapes of U.S. districts to examine how redistricting affects the distribution of voters, and the advantage it can give to state’s ruling parties.
Data scientists used a formula to determine the compactness and "squiggliness" of every Texas district. They learned “the districts in gerrymandered states are less compact (more squiggly) than those in non-gerrymandered states.”
Some states let bipartisan committees take care of redistricting. But that’s not case in Texas, where the ruling Republican party last rewrote the map in 2012. The result? The Lone Star State has some of the craziest looking districts in the country. Those districts are efficient at creating an advantage for conservative politicians in the state. The study says that gerrymandering gives Texas Republicans an extra two seats in the House (and of course this effect adds up at the national level).
Each Texas district has an estimated population of 698,488 people. However through a strategy called “packing-and-cracking,” redistricting packs Democratic voters into a few districts and dilutes the rest, leaving the GOP with a comfortable majority in the remaining areas.
Buzzfeed and the Washington Post have dubbed Congressional District 35 – which packs together the liberal parts of San Antonio and Austin – one of the worst gerrymandered areas in the country, but this analysis sees a more egregious example in Texas. Congressional District 33 – which connects liberal parts of Fort Worth and Texas – is “squigglier” than 98.6 percent of districts in the United States.
See the gallery above for all 36 of Texas' congressional districts ranked from least to most squiggly. |
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Lenovo and Disney has just announced the full details surrounding the upcoming Mirage AR headset and the “Jedi Challenges” Star Wars experience. Starting November, users will be able to put on an augmented reality headset and battle the likes of Kylo Ren and Darth Vader in an immersive experience.
Disney and Star Wars first revealed the news at this year’s D23 event. Now we know that the headset will allow you to battle enemies while you wield a lightsaber in your hand.
Game Features:
Lightsaber Battles. With their very own lightsaber, fans can train against legendary dark side villains like Kylo Ren and Darth Vader.
With their very own lightsaber, fans can train against legendary dark side villains like Kylo Ren and Darth Vader. Strategic Combat. Players marshal the forces of the Republic, Rebel Alliance, and Resistance against the might of the Separatists, Empire, and First Order in epic battles across their living room floors. Players can hone their skills in strategy and tactics as they engage in battles.
Players marshal the forces of the Republic, Rebel Alliance, and Resistance against the might of the Separatists, Empire, and First Order in epic battles across their living room floors. Players can hone their skills in strategy and tactics as they engage in battles. Holochess. Perhaps one of the most iconic board games brought to film, Holochess first leapt into moviegoer hearts when it was played on the Millennium Falcon in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope™. It has now been brought to life in Jedi Challenges. Fans can direct their holographic alien pieces across the board, wrestling for territory and control.
The Lenovo Mirage AR headset will come bundled with a tracking beacon and a lightsaber controller to play these 3 AR experiences. Lenovo and Disney has stated that Jedi Challenges will feature hours of immersive experiences. This launch is being unveiled as part of Force Friday II, which celebrates the worldwide launch of new Star Wars products. The product is compatible with both Android phones and iPhones.
“With Star Wars: Jedi Challenges, Lenovo and Disney are bringing Star Wars to fans in ways they could previously only imagine,” says Jeff Meredith, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Lenovo Consumer PCs and Smart Devices. “Augmented reality has always been an important part of Star Wars, and it’s exciting to bring these key moments to life by marrying Lenovo technology with Disney’s storytelling.”
Players will have to hone their jedi skills across these augmented reality experiences which offer a unique type of gameplay. Jedi Challenges will also reveal a new Star Wars character, the Archivist. The Archivist instructs players in the ways of the Force™ and the knowledge of the Jedi. Throughout these challenges, users will train to perfect their lightsaber skills by taking on some of the most menacing villains the dark side has to offer, command armies in combat missions to defeat the Empire, and outwit their opponents in Holochess, all in augmented reality.
“We believe augmented reality will usher in a new era of storytelling and play an important role in the experiences we create for our fans,” said Kyle Laughlin, Senior Vice President, Games and Interactive Experiences, Disney Consumer Products and Interactive Media. “With Star Wars: Jedi Challenges, we’re bringing together the latest technology and one of the most recognized franchises in the galaxy to fulfill the wishes of anyone who’s ever wanted to wield a lightsaber or take on empire forces on the battlefield.”
Jedi Challenges Installation On Mirage AR Headset
Users will be able to install the Star Wars: Jedi Challenges app onto their mobile phone. After a successful installation, you will be able to slide the phone inside the Mirage AR headset’s tray. Then, you simply put on the headset place the Tracking Beacon on the floor close to you which will be able to sense your movement during gameplay.
The Mirage AR headset comes equipped with two built-in fisheye sensors to provide inside-out positional tracking. This allows users to move around freely as they duel opponents or direct their forces and pieces across the battlefield.
The headset pairs with the Lightsaber controller, modeled after the one wielded by Anakin Skywalker, Luke Skywalker, and Rey. Designed to be a key part of the experience, the Lightsaber acts as a controller and pointer, allowing players to navigate the user interface, with all controls, actions and commands activated with a simple two-button configuration.
Through visible light-tracking technology, the headset’s sensors work together to lock onto the position of the Lightsaber controller, allowing players to see a beam form above the “hilt”, which they can use to block and interact with the universe in-game. Haptic feedback is activated as players strike or block their opponents, while an inertial measurement unit sends rotational information from the controller to the smartphone to assist the beam in remaining stable mid-swing.
Availability
The Mirage AR headset bundle will be available starting November. You can pre-order the bundle and Jedi Challenges today for $199 at Best Buy. |
Stanford baseball desperately needed a series win this weekend to snap a streak of seven losses in nine games and get back into the thick of the Pac-12 race.
They delivered.
Backed by solid outings from their starting rotation and a combined 25 hits over the weekend against a scuffling Cal starting pitching staff, the Cardinal (23-19, 10-11 Pac-12) lost on Thursday but won the last two games of the series to claim the series win over the Golden Bears (25-18, 11-13) and climb into a tie for seventh place in the conference.
In doing so, Stanford picked up its first series win since the second week of April, when the Cardinal took two of three from UCLA before going 2-7 over their next nine conference games. Stanford also handed archrival Cal its fifth consecutive series loss in conference play, dropping the Golden Bears to ninth in the Pac-12.
Stanford also picked up the win in the season series over Cal, 3-2, beating the Bears in the season series for the eighth straight season.
With the postseason fast approaching, it’s looking increasingly likely that a weak Pac-12 might only see three or four teams clinch berths to the national tournament. The postseason is still very much in play for most of the Pac-12 (conference leader Washington is only three games ahead of 10th-place Oregon), meaning that it has become increasingly important for Stanford to get hot at the right time in the middle of a muddled conference battle.
Luckily for the Cardinal, everything clicked over the weekend.
Friday starter Tristan Beck was masterful as usual, going seven scoreless innings to push Stanford to a 5-1 victory in Game 2, while lefty Chris Castellanos turned in a second straight stellar start by allowing just 2 earned runs in seven-plus innings of work on Saturday to clinch the series finale.
Most importantly, Stanford’s pitchers kept Cal in the ballpark and didn’t allow a single home run over the course of the three-game series. Given the Golden Bears’ propensity to hit mistake pitches a long way and get multiple runs on one swing of the bat, keeping Cal’s prodigious power in check went a long way in keeping the potent Bears offense at bay.
Meanwhile, Cal’s own pitching staff (once second-best in the conference) struggled as three Stanford hitters knocked base hits in all three games (Tommy Edman, Quinn Brodey, Alex Dunlap) and Dunlap extended his reached-base streak to a team-high 17 games.
With the series being moved up to Thursday-Saturday due to TV scheduling, freshman Kris Bubic got the start for the opener to keep Beck in his natural slot on Fridays.
Bubic got hit hard out of the gate, allowing hits to his first three batters as part of a two-run first inning for Cal, which also tacked on another run in the second on a two-out single from Mitchell Kranson to take a 3-0 lead.
That’s all the Golden Bears needed to back Thursday starter Ryan Mason, who allowed just a two-out RBI single to Quinn Brodey in the third inning as he worked six solid innings before the Cal bullpen shut the door on a 4-1 victory. Stanford had its best scoring chance with runners on first and second and nobody out in the sixth, but Mason worked out of the jam with three straight outs to limit any damage.
Friday’s game was all about Beck, who struck out nine Bears and didn’t walk anybody while allowing just three hits in his best outing of the season. Fueled by tremendous control of his fastball and a curveball whose bottom was dropping out all night, Beck struck out eight of his first nine hitters and only allowed one runner past second base in the seventh.
Meanwhile, the Stanford offense was on point from the first inning, putting up a three-spot in the opening frame thanks to three straight singles, a Cal error that scored two and a sacrifice fly by freshman Duke Kinamon that spotted Beck a 3-0 lead.
Normally, that wouldn’t be a comfortable cushion against Cal, but with Beck on the mound, that was plenty. Stanford would tack on two more insurance runs anyway in the fourth on a two-run shot from Jack Klein, his third of the season, that gave Beck a 5-0 cushion. Though Colton Hock allowed a run in his two innings of relief, Stanford cruised to a comfortable 5-1 win in the second game.
Finally, a week after delivering six-plus shutout innings at No. 10 Oregon State, Castellanos was again on his game in the series finale. Though he only struck out one Golden Bear, his trademark pinpoint control was on full display in a lengthy outing.
He only allowed one run through his first six innings of work before yielding two unearned runs in the seventh after an error by Mikey Diekroeger at third base. Though Castellanos was pulled in the eighth after allowing an RBI double to Nick Halamandaris, Tyler Thorne was able to mop up the 6-4 victory for the Cardinal, picking up the final out of the series on a three-pitch strikeout.
Stanford will now wrap up its season series with Santa Clara at home on Tuesday before traveling to Pac-12 co-leader Utah for another pivotal conference series from Friday to Sunday.
Contact Do-Hyoung Park at dhpark ‘at’ stanford.edu. |
Sen. Cory Booker's (D-N.J.) name comes up frequently in talk about the 2020 presidential race, but some Democrats wonder if he has what it takes to compete in what could be a crowded primary.
While Democrats say Booker, 48, is one of the party's "fresh faces" compared to elder statesmen like former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), they aren't sure he has created a lane for himself against would-be rivals.
"It's a very high ceiling but he hasn't met early expectations," said one top Democratic strategist who has worked on several presidential campaigns. "He needs a signature fight or issue to really differentiate himself."
Booker - who is known for his nonstop Twitter presence and his touchy-feely speeches - hasn't quite captured the attention of party insiders and big donors, many Democrats say. And there's a fear he may be a little too soft for the party's white-knuckled approach against President Trump.
"There's a reputation that's maybe unfairly adhered itself to him of being a gadfly, a show horse, not a workhorse," the strategist added. "Some of it happens because he gives a good speech and seems to relish social media."
Patrick Murray, the director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute in New Jersey, put it this way: "He is someone who thinks about the issues but he's not somebody who is going to fork through every line of the budget."
Booker's office did not respond to a request for comment on this story.
But in an interview earlier this year on "The Ezra Klein Show," Booker acknowledged that Democrats want him to be a little tougher.
"Democrats all the time, where they say, 'Enough with the love and kindness stuff, Cory. We've got to fight.' And I say, 'When are those mutually exclusive?' "
"I think again we lose a bit of our moral compass when we are demonizing people. I just don't believe you need to be mean, you need to be deceitful, you need to proactive the dark arts in order to win elected office," he said.
Booker is seen in different lights by centrists and progressives in the party.
The increasingly energized progressive wing of the party sees him as too pro-business.
Booker has long-running ties to Wall Street. In the 2013-14 election cycle, he filled his coffers, raising nearly $2 million from the investment and securities industry - bringing in more from the industry than any other candidate.
Progressives also point to the time then-President Obama went after 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney regarding his ties to Bain Capital. Instead of agreeing with Obama, Booker called the Obama campaign's attacks "nauseating" and "ridiculous" in an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Centrists believe he's trying to reinvent himself as a progressive.
This summer he announced that he was backing Sanders's single-payer health-care proposal. He also began advocating for the legalization of marijuana and introduced an environmental justice bill.
The effort was clearly aimed at increasing Booker's appeal with progressives.
Advocating for the legalization of marijuana in particular "signaled a desire for an eventual candidate Booker to have a case to make to millennials," said Brigid Callahan Harrison, a professor of political science and law at Montclair State University.
But some Democrats think the move to the left isn't a good one for Booker, given rivals who will be clear favorites with that part of the party.
"He'd be smart not to try and chase Bernie Sanders and [Sen.] Elizabeth Warren [D-Mass.] to the left, and rather use his background of taking some centrist pro-business positions to differentiate himself from the pack in what could be a fragmented primary," said Jon Selib, a Democratic strategist who served as chief of staff to former Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.)
The top Democratic strategist agreed that it may be tough for Booker to win over progressives in a race against the likes of Warren and Sanders.
"I can't see progressives letting him out of the primary," the strategist said. "They see him as too close to Wall Street, too willing to go bipartisan when a fight would be more appropriate," the strategist said. "To make a vast understatement, someone whose instincts are to go middle-of-the-road in a moment that calls for a revolution is going to have a tough time."
Booker remains an attractive candidate who is relatively well-known.
A poll out last month from the University of New Hampshire showed that Booker trailed Biden, Sanders and Warren in a survey among Democratic voters.
The former mayor of Newark has been known to respond to curses from critics on Twitter with a simple "I love you."
Last year, for example, then-presidential candidate Trump took to Twitter to attack Booker.
"If Cory Booker is the future of the Democratic Party, they have no future! I now more about Cory than he knows about himself."
Booker responded with a simple "I love you, I just don't want you to be my president."
"I think he has a lot of potential in 2020 because he is an inspirational figure," Selib said. "There are a lot of elements in his story in Newark that are great to tell - I mean, he's run into burning buildings and lived in a housing project - and that's a great contrast with Donald Trump, who has no idea what it's like to be middle class."
Booker has "walked the walk in a way few politicians have done," he added.
He got some props from Democrats in January when he testified against now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions - a move that made him the first sitting senator to testify against a fellow senator's cabinet nomination.
The junior senator may have also gotten a light endorsement of sorts from Donna Brazile, the former interim chief of the Democratic National Committee, who wrote in a new book that she had briefly considered replacing Hillary Clinton and running mate Tim Kaine with a Biden and Booker ticket.
"I think it played well in the sense that he didn't see it coming and what it continues to do is to portray him as the future of the Democratic Party," Murray said.
Harrison dismissed the criticism that Booker is a "lightweight."
"People confuse his social media presence with a flighty personna," she said. "But if you listen to him beyond 140 characters you have to be impressed by the substance of what he says."
Harrison said his soaring speeches and more gentle and bipartisan approach might also work to his advantage.
"In this political climate, boy isn't that something that is really appealing right now?" she said. |
Oscar-winning Spanish actors Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem will star in a new film set in Spain by Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, Cruz said in an interview published Sunday.
Farhadi, who won the foreign-language Oscar in 2012 for “A Separation” about a middle-class couple’s divorce, is currently finishing the original screenplay for the movie, she told Barcelona newspaper La Vanguardia.
“The idea is to film in Spain, we still don’t know where. It is an intense drama which is a gift for actors. And it is a luxury to work for the director of ‘A Separation’, which is wonderful,” the 42-year-old actress said.
The plot of the movie, which remains mostly under wraps, revolves around a family of winemakers living in rural Spain. Shooting is expected to begin next year.
Cruz and Bardem, who were married in the Bahamas in 2010, are currently working on “Escobar”, a movie about Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar.
Bardem plays Escobar and Cruz plays his lover, journalist Virginia Vallejo, in their first film together since the 2008 Woody Allen romantic comedy “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”.
Cruz said it was “incredible” that the couple have the chance to work together once again in Farhadi’s new film.
“No one planned it. And we are not going to work together in everything, but if things come up (for both of us) and they make sense, why not?”
Cruz won a supporting-actress Oscar for her role in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”. Bardem, 47, won a supporting-actor Oscar for the 2007 crime thriller “No Country for Old Men”.
The couple first met while filming “Jamon, Jamon” in 1992, one of Cruz’s first films. |
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Tilausjunilla voimme liikennöidä koko Suomen rataverkolla. Kouvola on tukikohtamme, ja sieltä pääsemme helposti liikennöimään Mikkelin, Lahden, Kotkan/Haminan ja Lappeenrannan suuntiin. Esimerkiksi matkat Lahdesta Heinolaan ja Loviisaan ovat olleet suosittuja viime vuosina.
Turussa käytössämme on pieni dieselveturi Veto-Jussi, jonka ohjaamossa voimme kuljettaa muutamaa matkustajaa kerrallaan Turun ympäristössä. Matkustaminen veturin ohjaamossa esimerkiksi Turun satamaan tai Raisioon on ainutlaatuinen kokemus vaikkapa junista kiinnostuneelle merkkipäivälahjaksi. |
Issaquah-based Costco Wholesale seems to have quietly passed up Whole Foods to become the biggest organic grocer as it courts a younger demographic, according to one investment bank.
Costco Wholesale seems to have quietly surpassed Whole Foods to become the biggest organic grocer as it courts a younger demographic, according to one investment bank.
In an earnings call last week, chief financial officer Richard Galanti mentioned that the Issaquah warehouse club’s sales of organic products exceeded $4 billion annually — up from a previous $3 billion-plus estimate given last year.
Related: Costco is keeping its chicken prices cheap
That means, analysts with BMO Capital Markets said in a research note, that the discount chain is “possibly now already eclipsing” the industry leader, Whole Foods, which the investment outfit estimates sells about $3.6 billion in organic stuff every year.
“It started small,” Galanti said, referring to Costco’s buoyant trade in organic foodstuffs, which are grown without conventional chemical pesticides or synthetic fertilizer, or come from animals raised without antibiotics or growth hormones. “It’s still small, relative, but growing faster. And there’s certainly more supply of that out there,” he said.
Costco’s organics business has doubled in the past couple of years, Galanti said.
Of course, $4 billion is a tiny speck of Costco’s business. BMO expects its total sales this year to reach $114 billion.
But in terms of the organic- food industry, it’s a huge number: It means more than 1 out of 10 dollars in organic food sales are made at a Costco. The Organic Trade Association, a U.S. lobbying group for the industry, estimates total organic-food sales to be around $36 billion.
The numbers underscore how organic food, once the domain of alternative co-ops, farmer markets and specialty retailers, has become a mainstream phenomenon — especially among so-called “millennials,” the elusive younger demographic that warehouse clubs like Costco are eager to enlist.
Wal-Mart is also pursuing this path. The CEO of its Sam’s Club unit, Costco’s warehouse-club nemesis, said in an earnings call last month that it increased its organic offerings by 20 percent since the beginning of the year, since “these are important to various demographic groups, including millennials.”
Related: Can organic be profitable? If the price is right, study says
The organic trade group says more than 30 percent of organic-food buyers in a recent survey said “it’s not unusual” for them to buy the products at a warehouse club, a 10 percentage-point jump from a year ago.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) says that demand for organic foodstuffs is growing at double-digit rates. Big-box stores’ emergence as purveyors of organic food is likely to put the already-tight supply of these products under pressure.
For example, the premium for a 25-pound sack of organic topped carrots delivered in San Francisco in 2013 rose 22 percent from the previous year, according to USDA data; the premium charged for organic avocados over conventional ones rose 14 percent.
Higher prices eventually result in more supply. For example, a University of Wisconsin report published this year says that in that agriculturally rich state, the number of organic farms has grown 77 percent since 2005.
The entrance of heavyweights like Costco may strengthen that supply chain, eventually.
Costco’s Galanti says the supply situation is becoming better as “more organic supply and producers are doing it. And we’re pretty good at getting out there and working with suppliers both here and around the world to commit more to it, whether it’s raising eggs or ground beef processing or produce.” |
Love train travel? These railways offer a unique window on the world, cutting a swath through some of the most breathtaking landscapes on Earth:
The steam trains climb the 11 miles (18 km) from Cass to the 4,842-ft-high (1,476 m) summit of Bald Knob, which has spectacular views and bracing mountain air. The line, built in 1901 to haul lumber, uses geared locomotives to overcome its ferocious gradients, which include switchbacks.
Planning: Advance booking is advisable. Bring plenty of warm clothing.
Built in 1898 during the Klondike Gold Rush, the narrow-gauge WP&YR starts from the Taiya Inlet quaysides of Skagway, Alaska, and climbs 2,880 ft (878 m) over the White Pass into Canada’s Yukon territories and some of the north’s most rugged terrain. Diesel and steam trains travel to Carcross or Fraser Meadows.
Planning: Passports are required. There are places to stay in Skagway, on the South Klondike Highway. Advanced booking is advisable.
Departing twice weekly from Esquel in Patagonia’s mountainous Chubut province, this antique train—known locally as La Trochita (“the little narrow gauge”)—winds through rugged terrain to the small settlement of Nahuel Pan.
Planning: The round-trip takes 2.5 hours. Accommodations are available in Esquel, reached by plane or bus from Buenos Aires.
4. The Overlander (North Island, New Zealand)
This epic 423-mile (681 km) train journey through the heart of North Island links Auckland in the north to Wellington in the south. Highlights along the way include the ski resort of National Park, the Mount Ruapehu volcano, the Raurimu Spiral, and the Hapuawhenua Viaduct. There is an observation carriage at the back of the train and a viewing platform at the front. On certain Sundays the train is steam-hauled for part of the near 12-hour journey.
Planning: The service runs daily in the summer season (except Christmas Day).
Snaking along the Queensland coast between Brisbane and Cairns, the Sunlander offers a superbly luxurious service with dining and sleeping-car facilities. As Queensland glides past the windows, passengers can enjoy local seafood platters or club and buffet-car fare. The climate becomes increasingly tropical as the train travels north toward Cairns.
Planning: The journey takes about 32 hours.
The train south from Kandy, in central Sri Lanka, to Haputale travels past tea plantations, forests, unspoiled villages, and waterfalls. For the five-hour journey, the first class observation car is well worth the extra fare.
Planning: Advance booking is essential. Expect high temperatures and humidity.
7. Malnad (Western Ghats, India)
Shimoga in India’s Karnataka province is the eastern end of the run to Talaguppa in the Western Ghat Mountains. The 46.6-mile (75 km), three-hour journey aboard a small railbus from Shimoga to Talaguppa passes through lush rain forest. The magnificent Jog Falls—India’s highest waterfall—can be reached by road from Talaguppa.
Planning: An overnight train from Bangalore connects with Shimoga. Facilities on the railbus are limited. The line is being upgraded, so check ahead before traveling.
8. Sarajevo to Mostar (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Traversing superb Balkan scenery, the train from Sarajevo climbs to its highest point near Konjic, where it joins the Neretva Valley. The descent into Herzegovina passes through dramatic gorges until reaching the town of Mostar, famous for the 16th-century stone bridge that was destroyed during the Bosnian War in the 1990s and rebuilt.
Planning: The journey takes about 2.5 hours. There are two trains per day.
Opened in 1927, this miniature steam railway (its rails are just 15 in/38 cm apart) runs from the picturesque resort of Hythe to the shingle foreland of Dungeness, famous for its lighthouse, power station, and wildlife. Stops along the 13.5-mile (22 km) route include the seaside resort of Dymchurch with its miles of sandy beach.
Planning: There is a model railway exhibition at New Romney Station.
Running to Porthmadog Harbour Station from Caernarfon in North Wales’s Snowdonia National Park, this spectacular line traverses some of the finest scenery in Wales. Catch dramatic views of Snowdon’s 3,560-ft (1,085 m) summit and the precipitous Aberglaslyn Pass from the Pullman observation cars as the train blasts through the mountains.
Planning: Porthmadog and Caernarfon both have places to stay. |
If Minnesota boycotts the National Funding Holiday Bowl, Northern Illinois would be the replacement team based on the Huskies' APR (Academic Progress Rate) ranking, sources tell ESPN.
Editor's Picks Suspensions prompt Minnesota players' boycott Minnesota players are boycotting all football activities after what they said was an unsatisfactory meeting with athletic director Mark Coyle over the suspensions of 10 teammates.
NIU had the next highest APR of the 5-7 teams, but the NCAA's Football Oversight Committee would have to officially approve the Huskies replacing Minnesota, if the Gophers decided not to play, sources said.
The Gophers are slated to play Washington State on Dec. 27 in San Diego.
The Huskies would "likely play" in the game if a decision could be reached in the next 48 hours, a source told ESPN. Among the challenges for NIU, a source said, would be getting its student-athletes to the San Diego bowl since NIU's commencement was last weekend and some student-athletes have already left campus. Other challenges would be having enough practices and preparation time to prepare for Washington State.
Sources said moving the Holiday Bowl back a few days to allow NIU more preparation time is not an option for several reasons, including existing travel plans by Washington State, local accommodation and television commitments, and other factors. |
Yesterday was the [email protected] event in Cambridge, and Raspberry Pi was there. We got some hands-on with it and also got to talk to Eben and Liz Upton from the Raspberry Pi organisation.
There was a table set up with a working Raspberry Pi on it that belongs to the Centre for Computing History. For those who are interesting, theirs is board number 7!
Here is a closer look at the Pi:
The Raspberry Pi was also running a ZX Spectrum Emulator (FUSE) and people got to play on the classic Spectrum game Manic Minor. And it was cool!
Eben Upton took to the stage after lunch and gave a very interesting presentation that talked about how he got into computers, and he also gave an update on the status of the shipments. We took some video which we will post up soon.
What he said was that 1,950 Raspberry Pi’s were at that moment somewhere over Siberia and should be in the UK either Monday or Tuesday!
Below is a picture of the Raspberry Pi running Twitter via Midori. It was displaying real-time tweets at the event, and if you look closely the top tweet on the screen is actually us tweeting about the Raspberry Pi being there and working!
Have you ordered one yet? Mine should be here in May. |
In an election season where cybersecurity has been a major issue — from Hillary Clinton’s email server to the hacks, believed to be tied to Russia, that compromised her campaign chairman and the Democratic National Committee — a group of computer scientists stumbled upon evidence possibly connecting a Donald Trump mail server to a separate server belonging to Russia’s Alfa Bank. The discovery, reported by Slate, came just as the New York Times reported that the FBI found no direct link between the Trump Organization and the Russian government.
Following revelations about the DNC hacks over the summer, a group of computer scientists wanted to look into whether the Trump campaign had been similarly compromised by hackers.
Democrats scold FBI over Clinton-related email investigation
“We wanted to help defend both campaigns, because we wanted to preserve the integrity of the election,” one of the cybersecurity experts told Slate’s Franklin Foer upon condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of his work.
In the act of trying to uncover any malware that might be affecting Trump servers, a scientist who asked to be referred to by the pseudonym “Tea Leaves” detected what he thought was Russian-originating malware that had the destination domain “Trump” in its name. It was a “surprising needle in a large haystack,” and Tea Leaves wrote in his notes at the time that he had “an outlier here that connects to Russia in a strange way,” Foer reports. He also verified with leading U.S. computer science academics that Tea Leaves is a well-known authority in the field, with expertise in the Domain Name System, or DNS, which governs how communications flow from one computer to another.
Tea Leaves ended up finding that the Alfa Bank, a Moscow-based financial institution whose leaders have ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, had a server that was “irregularly pinging” a server registered to the New York-based Trump Organization.
Computer logs indicate there were thousands of digital contacts. “The logs suggested that Trump and Alfa had configured something like a digital hotline connecting the two entities, shutting out the rest of the world, and designed to obscure its own existence,” Foer writes.
So, does this indicate some kind of wrongdoing? Is the Trump campaign in cahoots with Russia? No, it doesn’t reveal anything so decisive. It is unknown exactly what data transferred between the two email servers.
Report: FBI says no evidence of Russia links to Trump campaign
Other cybersecurity researchers approached by Slate said they were confused and concerned by the findings. Christopher Davis of the cybersecurity firm HYAS InfoSec Inc. told Slate that he had “never seen a server set up like that.”
He added, “It looked weird, and it didn’t pass the sniff test.”
Over at The Verge, Russell Brandom is less convinced. He says the data Tea Leaves was looking at amounted to digital “lookups” from DNS records, equivalent to the proverbial phonebook of the internet (yes, phonebooks, remember those?) There were multiple pings from the Russian bank’s server to mail1.trump-email.com, but the back-and-forth traffic may have resulted from “some combination of marketing and spam.”
“A server replying to a ping with an error message isn’t unusual,” Brandom writes. “Having such a majority of DNS queries come from a single source is more unusual, but there are lots of explanations that don’t involve espionage.”
Ukraine releases new details on alleged Manafort payments
Of course, these new questions come at a time when suspicions are already heightened about Russian interference in the campaign, Trump’s past praise for Putin and his former campaign manager Paul Manafort’s work for pro-Russian leaders in Ukraine.
That being said, the New York Times reported late Monday that the FBI spent several months investigating Russia’s potential meddling in the U.S. election and found no direct link to Donald Trump.
The FBI looked directly at the Trump campaign as well as Paul Manafort’s business ties. Sources told the Times that “apparent connections between some of Trump’s aides and Moscow originally compelled them to open a broad investigation.”
But according to the latest report, no clear evidence of wrongdoing was found.
And Trump has been emphatic in denying any ties to Russia or Putin. Back in July, Trump flatly declared: “I have nothing to do with Russia.” |
That aligns him with Senator Ted Cruz, who last week told Dave Weigel, “There is certainly long historical precedent for a Supreme Court with fewer justices. I would note, just recently, that Justice Breyer observed that the vacancy is not impacting the ability of the court to do its job. That’s a debate that we are going to have.”
A week before that, Senator John McCain, who is also running for reelection, said, “I promise you that we will be united against any Supreme Court nominee that Hillary Clinton, if she were president, would put up.” Later, however, a spokeswoman partially walked back his comments, saying the Arizonan will “thoroughly examine the record of any Supreme Court nominee put before the Senate and vote for or against that individual based on their qualifications as he has done throughout his career.”
There’s some support for the argument among conservative intellectuals too. Ilya Shapiro argues in The Federalist that the Senate should block any Clinton nominees, saying the Constitution allows it. Michael Stokes Paulsen writes in National Review that the Court should be reduced from nine to six justices. While he supports a legal change in the future, Paulsen says attrition by refusing to confirm would be a good way to get down to six.
Shapiro is correct legally—there’s no explicit, affirmative obligation to confirm. But refusing to confirm is deeply anti-conservative, in the small-c sense of following norms and customs. Meanwhile, the effects of a smaller court are already on display. Because the court now has an even number of members, it can lock in a tie, in which case the lower court ruling is affirmed. This has already happened in a case involving President Obama’s attempt to protect some undocumented immigrants from deportation.
One nightmare scenario circulating among politicos with dark sense of humors imagines that the presidential election could end in a 269-269 electoral-vote tie. A deadlocked Supreme Court, split along ideological lines, would also tie 4-4, leaving the election in dispute, with no clear resolution.
Even without that, ties would rework the shape of the justice system. “As at present, ties would yield no precedent but merely affirm lower courts’ rulings, with more limited effect,” Paulsen writes. “Fewer justices thus means less judicial activism, at least at the Supreme Court level.” Yet that would do nothing to limit judicial activism at the lower-court level. Because the Supreme Court couldn’t set precedent, different circuits could end up with radically different precedents, further balkanizing an already geographically polarized country.
The unstated implication of Cruz and Burr’s argument is that Democratic presidents—whether Obama or a hypothetical Clinton—are less legitimate than Republican presidents, who should be allowed to make appointments on the Supreme Court. The essential motivation is still just the same—ideological disagreement—but there is no longer any pretense of respecting the other party’s mandate. It’s the logical end of the increasing politicization of the court-nomination process. |
While Obama was turning the trip McCain goaded him to take into a How to Look Presidential training film, McCain was melting down. There was the Iraq/Pakistan border gaffe -- and the far more serious confusion about the role of the surge in the Anbar Awakening. There was the ludicrous ad trying to pin high gas prices on Obama -- and the loathsome attempt to turn Obama's somber visit to a Holocaust museum into a political gotcha. There were the complaints about the media's "love affair" with Obama -- arriving at the same time CBS left McCain's surge blunder on the editing room floor. And there was the repugnant accusation that "Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign." File this week under: Be Careful What You Wish For. |
Courtesy of an email today from GameStop, zombies will be returning in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare's downloadable content packs. Update: Activision has clarified that the $50 seasons pass will not be required to play Sledgehammer's version of zombie mode.
Zombies may or may not make an appearance in the release version of Advanced Warfare, due out just about everywhere tonight at midnight, but according to an email sent out this afternoon by GameStop, they'll definitely make an appearance in the subsequent four packs of downloadable content included in the game's season's pass.
This just in, Zombies are back as part of the Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare season pass! Stop by any GameStop to pick up one of the most anticipated games to launch this year, along with 4-multiplayer map packs, Atlas Gorge, and yes – ZOBMIES. All this is available for purchase today GameStop as part of the Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare season pass for only $49.99.
It's still up in the air if the zombies (ZOBMIES) will be returning as a standalone game mode with running story, or if they'll be piggybacking on the game's Exo Survival co-op mode.
I was really hoping for robots, dammit. At least there's still hope for Spacey zombies.
Update: GameStop's wording seems to have made folks think the new zombie mode would only be available with the Advanced Warfare season pass. Activision has clarified with Kotaku that the zombies will be available in DLC packages whether purchased as part of the season pass or standalone. |
Movement is being restored to the arms of patients paralysed by stroke – thanks to a robot physiotherapist and a retro ‘bat- and-ball’ computer game.
The method gives new hope to the 110,000 British victims who are left with difficulty moving hands, arms and shoulders due to brain damage after a stroke.
Robot-assisted rehab is a growing field of medical treatment. Usually the ‘robot’ takes the form of a kind of support that is worn in some way by the patient. The robot helps by ‘reading’ what the patient can and can’t do, and learns how and when to give support.
In control: The robot helps by ‘reading’ what the patient can and can’t do, and learns how and when to give support
This gradual approach can encourage the muscle and nerve connections lost after a stroke to regrow.
Improvements have been seen in patients treated up to five years after their initial stroke.
Patients taking part in trials of the method sit at a table facing a computer screen and place their arm on to a specially designed support. Their arm moves a robot arm connected to the computer which in turn controls a spot or cursor that appears on the screen, enabling them to play games.
In one game, designed to strengthen the wrist, patients play a ‘bat-and-ball’ computer game. If the rehab-robot senses the user is struggling, it steps in and helps to move their arm to complete the task.
In another game, which helps condition shoulder movement, they are asked to manoeuvre the spot to hit points on a clock, moving from a number and back to the centre repeatedly. Patients receive therapy for one hour, three times a week for 12 weeks.
Stroke consultant Dr Helen Rodgers at Northumbria NHS Trust, one of four trial centres, says: ‘It’s fun, and patients get immediate visual feedback that their arm is doing something, which is a huge motivator.
But therapy like this means people regain the ability to dress themselves, eat with a knife and fork, and do ordinary things that stroke can rob people of the ability to do.’
Dr Rodgers, who is leading the trial, says that while stroke services in the UK are improving in terms of rapid treatment of strokes, rehabilitation still lags behind.
And there is generally less attention paid to upper-body mobility, with most stroke rehabilitation focused on helping sufferers to walk again.
Patients taking part in trials of the method sit at a table facing a computer screen and place their arm on to a specially designed support
Between 30 and 66 per cent of stroke victims regain their ability to walk, but only one in five recovers movement in the arms and shoulders.
The arm robot was developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US. Researchers there have established that the technology is highly effective at recovering movement in the arm, taking over the work that would normally be performed by physiotherapists.
The robot is being put through its paces at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Addenbrooke’s in Cambridge, Queen’s Hospital in London and Northumbria NHS Trust, Tyneside.
The trial, involving 700 patients, is split into three equal groups with one group on the robot, a second having intensive therapy from a physio and the third getting standard physiotherapy.
One benefit of using the robot is that it frees up physiotherapists to help more patients. The robot also collects data in its computer of how well the patient has done, allowing accurate charting of progress.
Dr Rodgers believes the robot will boost recovery rates for arms and shoulders to those achieved for walking recovery. A bonus is that it can help people who have had strokes many years ago. She said: ‘We are enrolling people who had strokes as far back as five years.
‘It’s best to start physiotherapy soon after a stroke but we know that movement can be improved even if there has been a delay.’
Tom Means, 61, has already taken part in the robot trial. The electrician from Newcastle had a stroke last year and spent about two months in hospital. Now back at home, he continues to receive physiotherapy twice a week.
Immediately after his stroke, Tom attended North Tyneside General Hospital for sessions with rehab robot as part of the trial.
He said: ‘After the stroke, my left arm was pretty useless – I couldn’t even feel it. Playing the old-fashioned computer games was actually quite fun and did get you moving. |
With the announcement of the Shellshock Bash Bug, Linux admins around the world have been scrambling to patch their Bash shells so that they’re no longer vulnerable to the exploit. If you have a Fedora, RHEL, or CentOS system that hasn’t reached End-Of-Life, then updating to a patched version of Bash is as simple as:
sudo yum update -y bash
But what if you have a system running Fedora 12, Fedora 13, Fedora 14, Fedora 15, Fedora 16, Fedora 17, Fedora 18, or Fedora 19… or even RHEL/CentOS 3 or RHEL/CentOS 4, or an older SUSE Linux box? I have a Fedora 12 box I keep around for testing, and an updated version of Bash isn’t available in the repos. In that case, you can actually download the Bash source, manually apply all the patches, and compile and install it manually. It’s not as hard as you think! In fact, check out the comments for reports of people successfully patching all the way back to Fedora 4 using this method!
Ubuntu users: There’s actually no reason this approach won’t work with any Linux-based OS, including Ubuntu. You just need to use your system’s package manager (which is apt if you’re using Ubuntu) to install any required packages you’re missing in Step 3. But if you don’t need to install any additional packages, then these instructions will work just fine on Ubuntu, too.
Before You Start
It’s likely you’ve already done this step before coming here, but here’s how to check to see if you’re vulnerable to the Shellshock Bug. Check your vulnerability by running the following tests from your shell:
Exploit 1 (CVE-2014-6271)
Running the following command in a shell.
env x='() { :;}; echo vulnerable' bash -c "echo this is a test"
If you see “vulnerable” you need to update bash. Otherwise, you should be good to go.
Exploit 2 (CVE-2014-7169)
Even after upgrading bash you may still be vulnerable to this exploit. Try running the following code.
cd /tmp; env X='() { (a)=>\' bash -c "echo date"; cat echo
If the above command outputs the current date (it may also show errors), you are still vulnerable. If it just spits out the word “date,” then you’re fine against this exploit. It’s possible after running this test that you’ll have new file named “echo” in your /tmp directory. If that’s the case, it’s fine to delete it. IMPORTANT: Some of the tests floating around out there for this exploit (including the one I used to reference) include the command “rm -f echo” and could potentially delete the /bin/echo file on your system… which (ironically) is required when building a patched version of Bash. Don’t attempt any tests that include “rm -f echo.” If you did accidentally remove your /bin/echo file, you can restore it by searching for an archive of the core-utils RPM package for your particular system, then use “rpm -iv –replacepkgs” when installing it to force it to re-install and restore the deleted /bin/echo file.
Exploit 3 (???)
Here is another variation of the exploit.
env -i X=' () { }; echo hello' bash -c 'date'
If the above command outputs “hello”, you are vulnerable.
Exploit 4 (CVE-2014-7186)
bash -c 'true <<EOF <<EOF <<EOF <<EOF <<EOF <<EOF <<EOF <<EOF <<EOF <<EOF <<EOF <<EOF <<EOF <<EOF' || echo "CVE-2014-7186 vulnerable, redir_stack"
If you see “CVE-2014-7186 vulnerable, redir_stack” as part of the output, you are vulnerable to this exploit.
Exploit 5 (CVE-2014-7187)
(for x in {1..200} ; do echo "for x$x in ; do :"; done; for x in {1..200} ; do echo done ; done) | bash || echo "CVE-2014-7187 vulnerable, word_lineno"
If you see “CVE-2014-7187 vulnerable, word_lineno” as part of the output, you are vulnerable to this exploit. IMPORTANT: Keep in mind that as new Bash exploits are being discovered, new patches are being released by the Bash developers. For example, this article was first published on Sep 26, 2014, and additional patches were released within 2 days (which are now included in the instructions below). Still another patch was released on October 1, 2014. I will continue to update this post as new patches are available. Keep in mind that if the current patches don’t fix all the above known vulnerabilities on your system, you are still better off patching to the highest level possible, and then re-patching later (by simply following these instructions again) when new patches are released.
Step 1: Back up your existing Bash binary
Find out where your existing bash binary is located on your system with:
which bash
You’ll get a response like:
/bin/bash
Backup that file with:
sudo cp /bin/bash /bin/bash.old
Step 2: Determine which version of Bash you’re running
Now you’ll need to determining which version of bash your system is running. If you’re running Fedora 12, for example, it’s probably version 4.0. You can find out your version with:
bash --version
which will spit out a version number that looks something like this:
GNU bash, version 4.0.1(1)-release (i686-redhat-linux-gnu)
The first two numbers in 4.0.1 means you’re running Bash version 4.0. Remember your version number, as you’ll need that later. The third number in 4.0.1 can be a bit confusing, because it will mean something different based on where it came from. In this example, because “redhat” appears in the description, the third number is the build number in the RedHat repositories. However, if your output looked like this:
GNU bash, version 4.0.45(1)-release (i686-pc-linux-gnu)
the fact that it says only “pc” in that part of the description means Bash was manually compiled on your system (probably by you) and so in that case, the third number refers to the patch level of Bash version 4.0. Your goal at the end of this post is to have Bash report a version that looks like this, with the highest possible patch level. Do not confuse the Bash version with the patch level! Your goal during this fix should be to keep your version number the same, but increase your patch level to the highest possible number. A higher version number doesn’t necessarily mean you’re protected. Being patched to the highest patch level, regardless of your version number, is what you care about in this case. Finally, as you move through the following steps, resist the urge to move to a newer version number of Bash versions… as you’ll probably end up causing more problems than you’ll fix. Patching your current version of Bash is the best option to ensure things keep working on your system.
Step 3: Set up your fix environment
Whenever I’m working with source code on a Linux box, I like to keep everything in the /usr/local/src directory. So create a new subdirectory for fixing bash, and then jump into that directory, with:
mkdir /usr/local/src/bashfix cd /usr/local/src/bashfix
You should also make sure you have a few required packages that will come in handy later (like patch, byacc, bison, autoconf, etc.) do:
sudo yum install patch byacc textinfo bison autoconf gettext ncurses-devel
Step 4: Download the Bash source
Locate the matching source code for the version of Bash you’re already running on the GNU.org FTP server. Since my test system was using 4.0, that’s what I’ll download in this example, but you should obviously download the one that’s appropriate for your system. Again, resist the urge to upgrade to a newer version (such as 4.1, 4.2, or 4.3 in this example). This can potentially create serious problems. Just stick with what you’ve already got for now. Download and extract the appropriate Bash source code into your fix directory with:
wget https://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/bash/bash-4.0.tar.gz tar zxvf bash-4.0.tar.gz
You should now have a new sub-directory containing the bash source. In this example, that directory is /usr/local/src/bashfix/bash-4.0. Move yourself into the newly extracted bash source code directory with:
cd bash-4.0
Step 5: Download and Apply the Patches
If you check the GNU.org FTP server where you downloaded the source code, you’ll also see a few sub-directories for each major version that contain all the patches for that version. Different versions of Bash have a different number of patches. In our example, the patches are located in https://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/bash/bash-4.0-patches/. Checking that directory (as of Oct 5, 2014) shows a total of 44 patches for version 4.0, from bash40-001 to bash40-044. Your first option is to download the first patch, apply it to the source code, then download the second patch, apply it to the source code, and so on. Don’t do this just yet, because I’m going to show you a faster way to do it. But you should at least understand what’s happening before you automate it. The command you’d use to download the first patch and apply it in a single step would be (again, don’t do this… it’s just for illustration):
curl https://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/bash/bash-4.0-patches/bash40-001 | patch -p0
That command uses curl to download the patch 001, then pipes the downloaded patch into the patch command, which patches the source code in that directory (you can check the patch man page for more details, if you want). If you did this manually, you’d have to repeat this command for each individual patch file, changing the 001 to 002, and then again changing it to 003, and so on until you reached the final patch. But my buddy Steve Cook helped me write a script (I stored it on GitHub as a Gist) that will automate all the patching for you. You just need to tell it the bash version you’re patching, and the total number of patches available for that version. Check it out:
View the code on Gist.
Make sure you’re in the Bash source code directory you extracted, then download the “raw” version of the bash-multipatch.sh script we wrote with:
wget https://gist.githubusercontent.com/stevejenkins/3d64d3543060c1bcac92/raw/1ab592f5c8b584e9a0debf8e2ccbcac50cbf6e73/bash-multipatch.sh
Edit the file with your favorite text editor and set the version, nodotversion, and lastpatch variables in the script to the appropriate values for your situation (the nodotversion is simply the version number of bash without a dot in the middle). In our example, the variables are 4.0 (because we’re using Bash 4.0), 40 (same as the version without the dot), and 44 (since there are 44 total patches available for this version of Bash). Depending on your version, the number of patches will be different.
I do my best to stay on top of this issue, but It’s possible that even more patches are available in the patches directory before I’ve had a chance to update this article. You should always set the lastpatch variable in the script to the last patch you see in the directory to ensure the highest level of vulnerability protection. Save your edited file, then make it executable with:
chmod 755 bash-multipatch.sh
Now run it inside the Bash source code directory with:
./bash-multipatch.sh
Depending on your connection speed, it shouldn’t take very long to download all the patches and apply them. You’ll see each download and patch happen on your screen as the script runs. Keep an eye out for any error messages. The very last one should look something like this:
https://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/bash/bash-4.0-patches/bash40-044 % Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed 102 3882 102 3882 0 0 10438 0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 53178 patching file builtins/evalstring.c patching file parse.y patching file shell.h patching file patchlevel.h
You can verify your source is patched to the level you want with:
cat patchlevel.h
If you look near the end of that file and see #define PATCHLEVEL followed by the last patch available for your version, then your source is patched to the highest level and should address the Shellshock Bug. Now you’re ready to build the patched version of your bash binary.
Step 6: Build and Install your Patched Bash Binary
It’s best if the “configure” and “make” steps in this section are performed as a regular, non-root user. However, on particularly older systems, if you’re getting errors other than missing dependencies when running “configure,” you may just have to do them as root.
In the source code directory, do:
./configure
You’ll see your system check to make sure everything is ready for your build. If you don’t see any errors, go ahead and make the new binary with:
make
Then test with:
make test
When everything is done you should be able to do this command:
ls -la bash
And you’ll see a newly build Bash binary with a timestamp of just a few seconds ago, like this:
-rwxrwxr-x 1 root root 2273014 2014-09-28 08:37 bash
Now copy the new binary to where your old bash binary was located in Step 1 (which is almost certainly /bin/bash) with:
sudo cp -f bash /bin/bash
Step 7: Test Your Fix
Now that you’ve manually downloaded, patched, compiled, and installed a new bash, you should test it to make sure you’re no longer vulnerable. Make sure your current shell session is using your newly compiled bash by simply running the new location from the command line. In this example, that would be:
/bin/bash
First, check to make sure you’re running the newly compiled version with:
bash --version
The output should look like:
GNU bash, version 4.0.44(1)-release (i686-pc-linux-gnu)
The 4.0.44 means you’re running Bash 4.0 at patch level 44. If that was the highest patch you applied to your source, then you are running the version you just built. Now run the vulnerability tests at the top of the article again. As I stated earlier, it’s possible that patches aren’t available to address all of them yet, but you should still patch to the highest level available, and then check back frequently to see if newer patches are available. Also, make sure you log out of any current shell sessions, and log in again using your new shell.
UPDATE! Step 8: Check For (and Kill) Any Old Bash Binaries in Memory
My buddy and fellow Linux sysadmin Todd Lyons emailed me a few days after I wrote this post, and informed me that (particularly on Fedora-based systems) he’d discovered that the old vulnerable Bash binary might still be in memory — even after building and installing a patched version. When I tested his theory on my system, I found he was absolutely right. So once you’re finished with this patch, read my post on how to prevent your vulnerable Bash binary from being “resurrected.”
If this article was helpful to you, I’d appreciate you sharing or tweeting it! 🙂
Congratulations on a successful fix! As always, I welcome your questions, comments, and feedback below!
UPDATE #2: Fully Automated Bash Update Script
A generous reader of my blog named Mike Marino was kind enough to write a script based on the steps in this article to cleverly automate the manual Bash update process (including the patching functions of the bash-multipatch.sh script). I’ve created a Gist of the script he emailed to me, and named it bash-autopatch.sh. It essentially follows all the steps in this post, including figuring out your current version of Bash and which patches you need. Mike reports that he’s “been using it to resolve Shellshock on hundreds of hosts which are stuck running officially unsupported versions of OSes.” It works great! I still recommend that you understand all the steps it’s doing before you pull the trigger, but if you’ve read this far, I’m assuming you already do.
When I replied to Mike to thank him, and ask if I could link to his blog or Twitter feed, his response was “I do not have a blog or anything. Thanks for the offer though. Just my way of giving back on all that you gave us. You can just mention a reader submitted it based off all your awesomeness.”
So thanks, Mike! Your script is awesomeness. 🙂
View the code on Gist.
Further Reading:
Thank you to the authors of these blog posts, which were helpful in patching Bash on my “outdated” Fedora 12 test box, as well as in writing this post. |
MADRID (Reuters) - Kelvin Heredia dropped out of school aged 16 during the heady days of Spain’s real estate boom to take up well-paid work as a window fitter.
Kelvin Heredia poses for a picture at the academy where he's taking a computer course in Mostoles, outside Madrid, Spain, October 2, 2015. REUTERS/Susana Vera
Now, a decade later, Heredia is unemployed and without qualifications, a plight that highlights two intractable problems holding back Spain’s economy - the highest youth unemployment rate in the European Union, a ranking it reclaimed from Greece in June, and the highest school drop-out rate.
“Ten years ago you could get a job without qualifications and without experience. It was enough just to want to work,” said Heredia, 27, who as a teenager used to earn nearly as much as his parents but whose income has since shrunk by two-thirds.
Youth unemployment remains a big headache for Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s center government as it prepares for what promises to be a closely-fought national election on Dec. 20.
Spain’s economy is expected to grow by 3.3 percent this year, one of the strongest rates in the euro zone, but almost one in two young Spaniards remains without a job - the same level as when Rajoy came to power in 2011 calling youth unemployment “a national disgrace”.
Overall, unemployment in Spain stands at 22.4 percent.
Despite seven overhauls in the past four decades, Spain’s education system still fails to adequately prepare students for the job market, academics and businesses say.
The mismatch between education and employment was masked during Spain’s decade-long construction boom when young people dropped out of school to get well-paid work on building sites.
When boom turned to bust, these jobs dried up, leaving thousands of young unskilled people on state benefits. Since then, even those with university degrees have struggled to find work or end up taking jobs for which they are over-qualified.
In 2014, only 35 percent of recent Spanish graduates from social science and law programs were working in jobs requiring university credentials, according to a report from the Organisation for Cooperation and Development in Europe (OECD).
Such shortcomings weigh on productivity, burden the social security system and have also prompted tens of thousands of young people to emigrate to northern Europe in search of work.
Spain must provide more high-quality vocational training for skilled manual work, academics and businesses say, rather than churn out university graduates for jobs that don’t exist.
In 2012, the government introduced a vocational study program split between classroom and work experience aimed at 16 to 24-year-olds in an attempt to emulate the high-quality apprenticeships of Germany and Switzerland, where unemployment rates are among the lowest in Europe.
‘HANDS-ON PRACTICE’
The qualification is popular - the number of pupils enrolled in the course has more than tripled since its introduction three years ago to more than 16,000 and the number of companies taking part has increased tenfold.
But Spain has a long way to go to catch up with its European peers in offering high-quality apprenticeship schemes.
Only one percent of Spanish students as of 2012 were enrolled in such programs, where on-the-job learning accounts for at least a third of training, compared to 42 percent in Germany and a European Union average of 14 percent, according to a report by business school IESE.
In Spain, big international companies such as Siemens and Nestle have launched ambitious programs linked to the new apprenticeship scheme.
Siemens has built a training laboratory on site at its factory on the outskirts of Madrid, complete with mock airport suitcase conveyor belt to teach students systems maintenance, and has two full-time staff working as tutors.
The factory has worked closely with its German parent company to develop the program, adding another year to the course to bring it into line with the German equivalent and tweaking the government model so the student follows up short blocks of study with time on the factory floor.
“You finish studying something and then straight away you’re getting hands-on practice,” said Eduardo Hernandez, 22, a graduate from the 2014 apprenticeship scheme. He and five others out of 11 graduates ended up getting a job with Siemens.
He assembles components for X-ray machines that are exported around the world and gets paid 1,500 euros a month, a good starting salary in Spain.
Yet small and medium-sized companies, struggling to emerge from a brutal recession which bankrupted record amounts of businesses, are less able to dedicate resources and staff to training students, teachers and businesses say.
SMALL COMPANIES KEY
Bringing on board small companies employing nine people or fewer - a sector which makes up nearly 90 percent of Spain’s corporate landscape - is essential for the success of the scheme, the OECD report said.
“In Germany, apprenticeship schemes are mostly based in the work place, but Spain does not have the industrial capacity to absorb these students,” said Cecilia Salazar, the education representative for leftist newcomer party Podemos, which is currently polling third behind Rajoy’s party and the Socialists.
Some small Spanish companies have grouped together to share training, such as a group of car part makers in Cantabria in northern Spain which offers internships and training courses linked to the new scheme.
Academics stress the importance of adapting a system tailored to the needs of Germany’s manufacturing-led economy to the very different demands of Spain’s services-based economy, where tourism accounts for more than 10 percent of output.
“The training programs must adapt to business needs, not the other way round,” said Jose Ramon Pin, a professor at the business school IESE. “There’s no point churning out lathe operators if there are no jobs for them.”
Slideshow (4 Images)
Back in Madrid, Heredia has returned to adult education and is taking a course in information technology.
His earnings have gone from around 1,500 euros per month 10 years ago to around 500 euros now in unemployment benefits and hand-outs from his parents and in-laws.
“Education to me now is essential,” he said. |
by livingdharmanow in Meditation Mondays
Compassion, as I’ve said many times before, is a fundamental tenet of Buddhism.
Cultivating compassion is essential not only to the well-being of others around you, but also to your own happiness.
Compassion comes from understanding; it is near-impossible for ignorance to breed compassion. We are not often compassionate to the things we do not understand.
You feel compassion for your loved ones: family, friends, significant others. When they suffer, you also suffer.
But how many times do you see someone suffering, and pass by? In the wake of natural disasters, would you feel so much sympathy for victims if you weren’t constantly reminded of their plight on the TV, radio, and in the newspapers?
Do you know how many homeless people live in your town? Do you see them often? Do you feel compassion for them? How often have you helped someone in need? If you don’t understand their experiences, it’s difficult to sympathize with them. But if you have a conversation with someone who has experienced misfortune, you feel yourself warming towards them.
Compassion can be achieved through understanding, but you don’t need to have a conversation with every suffering person to reach understanding; you only need mindfulness.
Starting with Ourselves
Your meditation on compassion should start with understanding yourself.
Thich Naht Hanh recommends starting your meditation practice by saying, “May I be able to recognize and touch the seeds of joy and compassion in myself.”
We can not achieve loving-kindness unless we believe that we are first capable of opening our hearts and feeling compassion for all living things. When I say all living things, I mean all living things.
We should be able to extend our compassion not just to our loved ones, but also to those who have made us suffer.
Recognize the seeds of compassion in yourself. Even if you feel like you aren’t capable of forgiving those who have wronged you, understand that you will be able to with practice. Our enemies deserve our compassion just as much as our friends do.
Loving-Kindness Meditation
As you meditate, first think of someone you like, such as a casual friend, or a mentor.
Extend your love and compassion to that person.
“May he/she be peaceful, happy, and light in body and in spirit.
May he/she be free from injury.
May he/she live in safety.
May he/she be free from anger, disturbance, fear, worry, and anxiety.”
-Thich Naht Hanh
When you have visualized this person and offered love to him or her, select someone more neutral. Not someone you like, nor someone you dislike. A distant acquaintance, or the cashier at the grocery store.
Take this person as your object, and extend compassion to him or her. Imagine his life, feelings, experiences, virtues, and suffering. Understand that he deserves compassion just as much as anyone else.
In the third stage, meditate on someone you love. Offer unconditional love and compassion to this person.
And in the fourth stage, allow yourself to feel compassion for an enemy, or someone who upsets you.
Understand that even a person who has made you suffer is also suffering, and it is likely that he or she has only hurt you because he is himself hurting. Think of your enemy, and his life, values, dreams, perceptions, and thoughts.
As a fellow human being, is he or she less worthy of compassion? (There is a right answer to this question: no person is less worthy of compassion.)
Forgiving Our Enemies
The fourth stage is arguably the hardest. We all struggle with forgiving those who have hurt us, let alone extending our love and compassion to them (even symbolically).
But honestly, does your anger towards them benefit you? Does it make you happier? Do you “get back at” a person by despising them? Do you “serve them right” by carrying your resentment around?
Most likely, you can spend all your time and energy hating someone, and they won’t even notice or care. You’re not doing yourself any favors by clinging to negative emotions.
It’s important to carry a certain amount of dignity around, for self-preservation and to prevent people from taking advantage of you – but will your enemy notice if you quietly forgive them? If you’re embarrassed, or you feel like you need to stick up for yourself and your principles by continuing to hold a person away from you – take a first step towards releasing unhealthy anger by feeling compassion for that person.
Understand that anger comes from within, but forgiveness does too.
Practice
Buddhists do not expect that you can successfully practice all of these stages in your first sitting.
You should meditate on the person you like first, and then the neutral person, but it may take months before you can meditate on the person closest to you, and even longer to extend compassion to your enemy.
Try meditating on compassion just once a week, or bi-weekly. Start slowly. In each session, practice loving-kindness on a different person you like, or a different neutral person.
Thich Naht Hanh warns that you should not immediately meditate on the third stage (extending compassion to a person dear to you), because thinking about someone to whom you are so attached can actually break your concentration.
After you can extend compassion to individuals, try it with bigger groups of people. Practice loving-kindness on the people who live in your city, or your co-workers, or even a whole country.
Have you tried meditating on compassion? Share your experiences in the comments, or email me at livingdharmanow at gmail dot com!
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Gulf Shores and Orange Beach have been vocally against the ride-sharing service Uber, and as of Jan. 22, the Uber app will be inaccessible to residents of both cities.
"Since Uber came to the Gulf Coast in June, we have been welcomed by riders like you who rely on safe transportation our driver-partners provide. But the mayors and city councils of Orange Beach and Gulf Shores have ordered Uber to cease operations and to no longer provide safe, reliable rides to Alabama Gulf Coast residents and visitors," Uber released in a statement.
"As a result, you will no longer be able to use the Uber app in Gulf Shores or Orange Beach beginning Jan. 22 at midnight."
A post from the Gulf Shores police department back in July hinted at conflict with Uber.
"UBER is NOT licensed to operate in Gulf Shores," the post read. "#GSPD will take appropriate police action towards anyone found in violation! UBER will be treated as an unlicensed taxi service. This type of 'service' is highly dangerous and getting into a vehicle with someone you do not know can result in a serious crime against you!"
Uber disagreed.
"All driver-partners wanting to use the Uber platform are required to undergo an extensive background check, which is performed on our behalf by a third party accredited by the National Association of Professional Background Screeners and use a process for Uber that is similar to that provided to other companies such as Care.com, Starbucks, WalMart, Nike, FedEx, UPS, and Amazon," Uber told AL.com.
Mobilian Patrick Dungan voiced his displeasure with the decision.
"I was really looking forward to using Uber at Hangout Fest this year. I guess Gulf Shores and Orange Beach would rather have drunks on the road than insured, sober, background-checked Uber drivers," said Dungan.
Uber also asked that those who want Uber back in Orange Beach and Gulf Shores call their city leaders and advocate for the ride-sharing service. |
Editor’s Note: With so many new people getting VR headsets this holiday season we thought it would be valuable to republish this listicle from 2017 focused on ways to overcome VR motion sickness. If you’re experiencing severe effects the best thing you can do is take off the headset and stop right away, but there are some other steps to take that might help you grow more accustomed to the immersive realm more quickly.
Motion sickness: it’s far from the flashiest aspect of VR, but it’s a real problem for some people when they put on a headset and enter a virtual world. VR motion sickness happens when your eyes tell your brain you’re moving around in a VR environment, but your body feels like it’s sitting in a chair or standing still. If you’re prone to the problem, these conflicting inputs cause you to feel miserable. Specifically, you might experience sensations like nausea, dizziness, headaches, sweating, excessive salivating, or all of the above. Even worse, these symptoms can continue for hours after you take off the headset and compound together.
Even if you’ve experienced VR motion sickness first-hand, don’t give up hope just yet. It’s possible to mitigate and even overcome VR-induced motion sickness altogether. We’ve already gone over a few tips that developers can use to limit reactions here, so we’ve included some advice specifically for consumers below. Next time you’re having issues, give some of these a try.
Baby Steps
Let’s say you’ve had a bad experience playing a VR game. You tried it, and the moment you started moving around in the virtual world, your stomach lurched and your head started to spin. You might not be inclined to venture back into VR, but if you give up now, you’ll be depriving yourself of some truly amazing experiences. It’s actually possible to overcome VR motion sickness without using any crazy tricks at all. You can do it simply by taking it slow.
If a game makes you feel queasy, start out by limiting your play sessions to just a few minutes at a time. When you start feeling uncomfortable, shut your eyes, breathe deeply, and take a short break before trying again. If you gradually increase the time you spend in those games, there’s a good chance you’ll overcome the discomfort in just a few days’ time. Before long, you’ll be cruising around imaginary worlds like a pro. For many people, getting their “VR legs” just takes patience and practice.
Have Someone Tell You You’ll Be Okay
This one sounds bizarre, but at least one study suggests it’s rooted in scientific fact. According to the report, you may be able to overcome VR motion sickness simply by having someone tell you you’re going to be fine. The study focused on naval cadets who, prior to boarding their assigned vessel, were told they were unlikely to suffer from seasickness, regardless of whether it was true.
As a result, the cadets who’d been given this “verbal placebo” got seasick at a lower rate than cadets who hadn’t. Assuming the findings are accurate, this method could help anyone who’s anxious about VR motion sickness before trying. Now you just have to get over your anxiety about asking someone for such a strange favor.
Eat Ginger Beforehand
That thin, slippery garnish that comes with your sushi isn’t just for cleansing your palate. According to some studies, it’s also good for kneecapping nausea before it starts. If you eat ginger — or take a ginger supplement — an hour or two before putting on a VR headset, you may lower your chances of losing your lunch. Whether it works for you or not, it’s as good an excuse as any to make some quick additions or alterations to your diet.
Aim a Fan at Yourself
Another potential VR motion sickness cure that might sound strange is to have a fan blowing your direction while you play. It’s not clear why a cool breeze on your skin makes you less likely to hurl, but many nausea-prone forum goers have reported that it does indeed stop the discomfort before it starts. If you have a fan handy and you’ve struggled in a VR game, why not give it a shot? At the very least maybe it will help stop you from sweating inside the headset so much.
Take Dramamine
If you’ve ever felt seasick on a boat or gotten dizzy from reading in a car, there’s a good chance someone recommended you take Dramamine. Dramamine is an antiemetic medicine you can use to curb any symptoms you might get from motion sickness — which includes the VR-induced variety.
Dramamine comes in a number of forms, from standard pills to chewable tablets, and under a number of brand names. There’s even one that’s designed to provide 24 hours of nausea protection, which would be a good fit for anyone who likes to marathon their way through games.
Wear a Wristband
If you’re looking for a potential solution that doesn’t involve taking medication, Sea-Bands might be the right choice. Sea-Bands (and other similar products) are wristbands that put acupuncture pressure on what’s known as the Nei-Kuan point in your wrist. The result, for many people, is a reduced susceptibility to motion sickness. Like some other potential solutions on this list, Sea-Bands are primarily marketed toward travelers, but VR users have reported that they work in virtual worlds as well. You can buy Sea-Bands and other similar products online or at most drug stores.
Marijuana
If you live in an area where marijuana is legal and you’re old enough to use it, you may find the solution to VR motion sickness in medicinal weed. After all, one of the primary applications of medical marijuana is to curb nausea. It’s not for everyone, but if it works, it works.
Now the bad news: it’s possible none of these potential solutions will help you feel better in motion-heavy VR experiences. If none of them work for you, your best option is simply to avoid playing games that bring motion sickness on. Racing games, flying games, and games that let you move freely to explore virtual worlds are good ones to avoid if you’re susceptible to VR motion sickness.
On the plus side, that leaves plenty of VR experiences as fair game. If you simply focus only on games and apps where your viewpoint remains locked in place, or only lets you move through actual roomscale movement or teleportation, you’ll probably fare just fine.
Tagged with: Motion Sickness, vr sickness |
LINCOLN, Neb. -- Nebraska coach Mike Riley says quarterback Tommy Armstrong Jr. is going through the concussion protocol and is listed day-to-day for this weekend's home game against Minnesota.
Editor's Picks Armstrong briefly hospitalized, rejoins Huskers Nebraska quarterback Tommy Armstrong was briefly hospitalized before he returned to the Horseshoe following a scary helmet-to-turf collision.
Riley said Monday that he is encouraged because Armstrong has said he feels good.
Riley said he expects to make a decision on Armstrong's availability for the Minnesota game by Thursday.
"This is out of our hands, which is a good thing," the coach said. "That decision will be made medically."
Armstrong's head hit the turf hard when he was tackled along the Ohio State sideline by safety Malik Hooker in the second quarter of Saturday night's 62-3 loss in Columbus, Ohio.
Medics tended to Armstrong on the field for about 10 minutes before he was taken to a hospital to be evaluated. Armstrong returned to Ohio Stadium in the second half and was with his teammates on the sideline.
Riley said Ryker Fyfe would start if Armstrong can't play. He would be backed up by Zack Darlington.
Armstrong has started 42 games at Nebraska and set the career record for total offense last week before he suffered the injury. He holds the career record for passing yardage at Nebraska and is the only active FBS player with 8,000 yards passing and 1,500 rushing.
If he is unable to play this week, Armstrong will remain an asset to his teammates, Riley said.
"There will be no problem having Tommy be there for this team," Riley said. "That's been who he is and who they expect him to be. He will be there for this team. He will be there to play if he can."
ESPN's Mitch Sherman and The Associated Press contributed to this report. |
The 6-foot-11 rookie talks about his team, thoughts on Michael Carter-Williams getting traded, toughest guy to guard, and player he wants to emulate
Published 6:41 PM, April 24, 2015
MANILA, Philippines – The Philadelphia 76ers might be one of the worst teams in the NBA for two years running now, but the future of the team is bright in the eyes of some due to Philly’s numerous future draft picks, experienced general manager, great basketball city, and collection of young potential franchise cornerstones.
One of those possible All-Stars is Nerlens Noel, the team’s sixth pick in the 2013 NBA Draft.
After missing the entire 2013-2014 NBA season due to a torn ACL he suffered in his college senior campaign with Kentucky, the 6-foot-11 big man has been superb in his first year with Philadelphia, averaging 9.9 points, 8.1 rebounds, 1.9 blocks, 1.8 steals, and 1.7 assists per game.
Noel is a candidate to win the league’s Rookie of the Year award. And even if he doesn’t get the honor, there’s still a great chance he will be part of the NBA’s 2014-2015 All-Rookie First Team.
Noel is currently in Manila for the 2015 Jr. NBA/Jr. WNBA Philippines basketball camp - the event’s eighth season. Along with former WNBA Finals MVP Ruth Riley, Noel is in the country to help the teenagers included in the camp improve their play.
At the PICC Tent for today's Jr. NBA/WNBA event. Philadelphia 76ers big man Nerlens Noel is here @rapplerdotcom pic.twitter.com/7UleLKO6q6 — Naveen Ganglani (@naveenganglani) April 24, 2015
About 7 hours following his arrival in Manila, Noel sat down with members of the Philippine sports media on Friday, April 24, at the PICC Tent in Pasay City, where the first day of the Jr. NBA/ Jr. WNBA training camp was held.
Noel talked about a number of topics - from his first playing year with he 76ers, to his individual plans for the future, to some of his old and current teammates, and to the upcoming NBA Draft where Philadelphia once again has a high lottery pick.
Here are excerpts from the interview, which you can view in this video:
On his game:
NN: I think last season was good. Individually, I think I was able to establish myself in the NBA like I wanted to. Now, it’s only to go up, get better and better every year, and add to my game.
What part of his game is he working on:
NN: [I’m] just definitely working on my shot. The year I didn’t play, that I sat, I worked on my fundamentals - my shooting, I think that helped a lot with my free throws.
Just definitely something I’m working on now is getting stronger.
On being part of the 76ers’ rebuilding process:
NN: I definitely believe in it. I think Sam Hinkie has a great idea, a great plan, with the way he’s doing things. He’s doing it in the right direction. The pieces we’ve got, so early, with myself, Joel, and all the picks we have coming up, I think it’s going to put us in a good situation to have a young team that’s going to go out there and play hard and play good ball.
On Joel Embiid and his return from a foot injury:
NN: He’s great, he’s great. Being able to mentor him a little bit through everything he’s went through this year - everything I went through last year, it’s the same thing - so I’m just helping with [his] transition into the NBA.
He’s been great, he’s been great on his own.
On the upcoming NBA draft:
NN: There are many great players in this draft. I haven’t got too many chances to watch some of them, but there are great players and I think Sam Hinkie is going to make a good decision to put someone around us that’s going to benefit the team going forward and help us get to dominance.
Who we pick - what type of player, a big man, or a little guy - I don’t know.
Who would he take with the first pick:
NN: That’s a tough question… I’d probably go Towns [over Jahlil Okafor]. I think he’s a little more versatile just a little bit. He can pass.
Okafor is great too. Whoever they’re (owners of the first overall pick) going to draft is going to have a great career.
Toughest opponent to guard:
NN: DeMarcus Cousins. He’s a big boy. He’s big and strong. He has a lot of moves around the rim and he’s just really tough to guard. I mean, you really have to think ahead of him to be able to counter his moves.
Who would he want to emulate moving forward?
NN: Definitely Kevin Garnett. He was one of my favorite players growing up and I want to continue to emulate my game like his.
On the trade that sent Michael Carter-Williams to Milwaukee:
NN: It was definitely surprising to me. I didn’t expect it, but then you have to understand the NBA is a business, and the GMs are going to do what they have to do to feel like they can put their team in the best position to win games in the future.
I grew up with Michael so it was definitely tough for me; he’s one of my great friends growing up and I definitely wish him the best going forward.
On the 76ers crowd:
NN: So supportive. So supportive. Through thick and thin, you can tell Philly is a city that’s going to ride with you and that’s something we’re very appreciative of - to know they have our back as much as we have theirs. We only know things are going to get better and better as the pieces come together. Something special is coming.
On Philly cheesesteaks:
NN: They’re real good.
Expectations for the upcoming season:
NN: Definitely getting better and better. I want to be an All-Star this upcoming year. I want to work on my game all around, [and] get stronger and faster, shoot better, everything.
– Rappler.com |
There’s been no shortage of pieces on how the Epic/Healthkit integration might work or should work. Even the piece in which Epic spokespersons talked about functionality points to how “the EHR accesses HealthKit data from the MyChart app, not via a direct integration with the HealthKit platform.” Ok, so it uses MyChart, Epic’s patient portal. But saying that MyChart is used for integration is like saying that soufflé is made because a pan interfaces with a stove. What you really need to know are the ingredients and how they mix together. We’ve got the scoop.
The first thing worth noting about the Epic to Healthkit integration is that it is not patient-initiated. Any user using the MyChart application on an iPhone running iOS 8 cannot decide to send information to their clinicians. Epic won’t store it; in fact MyChart won’t even show you the activity in MyChart unless a clinician has ordered MyChart tracking for you. You’ve been looking for real, prescribed apps? Here’s the first one.
While this may disappoint patients looking for a new communication tool, this makes alot of sense for doctors and clinicians. Many clinicians are afraid the upcoming Internet of Things for healthcare era will be a lot of static in ratio to noise. How can apps and EHRs guarantee clinicians only retrieve pertinent patient information from devices with intervention opportunity?
When a clinician orders the “Healthkit” prescription, it prompts the doctors to set usual specific limits for “abnormal” alerting of tracked values. This is the killer feature. For a non-diabetic, a blood glucose level of 130 mg/dl would be abnormal. But, that’s not who providers are concerned about. For a diabetic, a provider might want to dictate what they believe “abnormal” is for a specific patient. Maybe it’s a blood glucose over 160 mg/dl. Maybe it’s a blood glucose of 200 mg/dl. Existing EHR decision support/order recommendation tools can be used to provide high-level guidelines for tracking, but letting clinicians dictate what they should warned about on a patient-by-patient level makes this tool truly useful.
The somewhat comical thing about this is that it requires the clinician to ascertain that the patient is using an iPhone running iOS 8 to use Healthkit. When Travis and I were chatting about this yesterday, he mentioned that he was looking forward to teasing his doctor colleagues on talking with their patients about what phone they used.
“I’m sorry, there was nothing we could do for the patient. We tried our hardest, but they had an iPhone 4S. We can’t get their data.”
Once the order is signed by the clinician, it goes through some Epic programming magic. The next time the patient signs into MyChart on their iPhone, they’ll see the “Track my Health” feature. From there, clicking it allows the patient to pick the tracker prescription the doctor ordered. Clicking on that moves the patient over to Apple’s Healthkit where Apple verifies that the user is going to share the requested data with MyChart. Once that is done, anytime a entry from a glucometer or smart scale goes into Healthkit, it sends the data to MyChart which then sends the data to Epic. If the data is abnormal, it lets the responsible clinician know through the EHR inbasket. Since the patient already has MyChart, the clinician could send the patient a message securely back to the patient with feedback or an Action Plan through secure messaging.
What does it all mean?
My thoughts: |
Image copyright Reuters
In Venezuela many basic goods are in short supply. The government blames America and Europe, which it says are out to destroy its economy. Others say the government has brought the problems on itself. The BBC's Ian Pannell experienced the sometimes surreal art of extreme queuing in Caracas.
The least one can expect from a creditworthy foreign correspondent is that he or she can have a decent stab at making sense of the world. In Venezuela this is more than the usual challenge.
Here are the rough basics. The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is run by a socialist government that has broadly speaking used - or misused - its vast oil wealth to benefit some of the people, some of the time and to keep itself in power.
A combination of woeful economic management - or mismanagement - and the steep fall in oil prices has left the government with a serious cash flow problem. And it's left the people of Venezuela standing in queues across the country every single day, often for hours at a time.
Find out more Listen to From Our Own Correspondent for insight and analysis from BBC journalists, correspondents and writers from around the world Broadcast on Radio 4 on Saturdays at 11:30 and on the BBC World Service Listen to the programme Download the programme
People are given time off work to queue. They get up early in the morning to queue. They queue in their lunch hour. They text each other about queues. So not surprisingly they've become very good at queuing.
As an Englishman I like a good queue - well formed, orderly, no doubting who's in front of you and who's behind.
There are many countries that don't respect these fine, ancient traditions and prefer the first-past-the-post system - involving pushing, shoving and grunting.
But on the whole Venezuela is more like Britain with its queues. The difference is that in Venezuela they're not waiting for the number 29 bus - they're queuing for milk, coffee, sugar, corn flour, cooking oil, soap and even toilet paper - all are in severely short supply.
Image copyright AFP
Image copyright AFP
The government regulates the price of these goods. It doesn't subsidise them - it tells the producer what they can charge. That might just about make sense in a buoyant economy but with inflation running at over sixty percent and the value of the currency plummeting, it appears producers are not only failing to make a profit but are operating at a loss. Similarly companies who export food to Venezuela have given up waiting to be paid by a government that's down on its luck and are now selling their goods elsewhere.
But the government and its supporters have a different narrative. They blame America and Europe and big business and smugglers for waging an economic war against the country, of trying to undermine President Maduro and the legacy of his predecessor, Hugo Chavez - of trying to turn the people against their government.
They've told shopkeepers to move the queues underground, into basements and subterranean car parks - apparently to protect their customers from getting sunburnt. Journalists are prevented from filming empty shelves. Shoppers have also been given instructions. You can only buy scarce goods on certain days of the week depending on what number your ID card ends in. So, for example - if it ends in a zero or a one then you can stand in line on Monday. However that doesn't necessarily mean that the milk or soap you want to buy will be available on Monday.
Image copyright AFP
Another anomaly of what passes for a system is that often the shelves aren't empty at all. It's just the regulated goods that are in short supply. So if you want something else, and you have the money for one of these higher-priced goods, then you can often skip right past the queue and go straight into the shop.
Often people join a queue without even knowing what's on sale. They get into line and then they ask the shopper in front of them what they're waiting for. It's highly likely that the person in front has done exactly the same thing with the shopper in front of them.
Image copyright AFP Image caption Your place in the queue may be marked on your hand
We saw one queue that only moved forward because people at the front gave up waiting and went hunting elsewhere. But if you were further back in line - around the corner, say - you couldn't see this. You just felt the illusion of momentum or progress and were encouraged to stay and wait a little longer. On this occasion there wasn't even anything to wait for. There'd been a rumour that the shop might be getting a delivery of something - no one knew what - but in the end there was nothing - just an empty loading bay.
And so it goes on. It's a surreal symbol of a system that's broken - and frankly, makes little sense. Unsurprisingly people are angry and frustrated. On occasion this has meant that queues have degenerated into riots. And some shoppers have been robbed of their precious cargo while heading home.
If shoppers continue to believe the official line that this is caused by Venezuela's enemies, then perhaps the government may be able to ride out the growing discontent. But many Venezuelans are no longer buying it.
All-day shopping
BBC Mundo's Daniel Pardo makes it his goal to buy eight things he needs for daily life in Caracas - but it's not easy, and takes a ridiculous amount of time.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption How long does it take to buy eight basic goods in Venezuela?
How to listen to From Our Own Correspondent:
BBC Radio 4: Saturdays at 11:30. Listen online or download the podcast.
BBC World Service: At weekends - see World Service programme schedule or listen online.
Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox. |
Readers, in honor of World Refugee Day, today June 20th, 2013, I am happy to report we have a new fact sheet!
Since we first posted a fact sheet in 2007 and updated it again in 2010 we have had 31,236 visitors access this post.
Please help spread the word on the new 2013 Fact Sheet a collaborative effort between RRW and others!
1. Since 1975, the U.S. has resettled over 3 million refugees, with annual admissions figures ranging from a high of 207,000 in 1980 to a low of 27,110 in 2002 (in the aftermath of 911) .
The average number of refugees admitted annually since 1980 is about 98,000. Additionally, in recent years, another 40,000 or more per year come in as asylum seekers and Cuban/Haitian entrants – all with the same rights and entitlements as refugees.
All these flows detonate their own chain migration flows in addition to the refugee influx. These follow-on flows have easily multiplied the original admission numbers by a factor of 4 or more.
The quota for 2013 is 70,000 and it looks like it will be met this year. There is strong political pressure to get refugee numbers back to over 100,000.
2. The U.S. takes more than twice as many refugees as all countries from the rest of the industrialized world combined.
3. One of the operative assumptions of those in the refugee industry is that, since the U.S. is behind most of the chaos in the world – Syria, here we come!, it is morally obligated to take the lead in resettling the world’s refugees. Yet, for 2012 the leading countries, in order of numbers of refugees sent to the U.S., were Bhutan, Burma, Iraq, Somalia, Cuba, Dem. Rep. Congo, Iran, Eritrea, Sudan. All America’s fault? In very recent memory the MSM was celebrating Bhutan and suggesting the U.S. had something to learn from the Bhutanese concept of a “Product of National Happiness”.
Ironically, the U.S. refugee program diverts resources from assistance on the ground to those very countries in the developing world which carry the main burden of refugee crises.
4. In recent years up to 95% of the refugees coming to the U.S. were referred by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) or were the relatives of UN-picked refugees. Until the late 90’s the U.S. picked the large majority of refugees for resettlement in the U.S.
Considering that the refugee influx causes increases in all legal and illegal immigration as family and social networks are established in the U.S., the U.N. is effectively dictating much of U.S. immigration policy.
5. NIMBYists gone wild: As a Senator, Sam Brownback harshly rejected the resettlement of Somali Bantu in his own state even though he was a major advocate among evangelicals for increased refugee immigration to the U.S..
The state of Delaware has resettled less than 10 refugees annually in recent years even though then Sen. Joe Biden was a sponsor of the 1980 Refugee Act – the bill which defines the refugee program we have today.
Upon entry, a network of private, “nonprofit” agencies (so-called “voluntary agencies”) selects the communities where refugees will live. The agencies are either headquartered in Washington DC or have lobbying offices there.
Washington DC took less than 200 refugees between 2007 and 2012.
6. According to a July 2012 GAO report (Refugee Resettlement:
Greater Consultation with Community Stakeholders Could Strengthen Program: “most public entities such as public schools and health departments generally said that voluntary agencies notified them of the number of refugees expected to arrive in the coming year, but did not consult them regarding the number of refugees they could serve”.
7. This same GAO report quotes a state official who notes “that local affiliate funding is based on the number of refugees they serve, so affiliates (private contractors) have an incentive to maintain or increase the number of refugees they resettle each year rather than allowing the number to decrease.”
8. Refugee resettlement is a self-perpetuating global enterprise. Staff and management of the hundreds of taxpayer supported U.S. contractors are largely refugees or immigrants whose purpose is to gain entry for more refugees, usually for their co-ethnics.
9. According to David Robinson, a former acting director of the State Department’s refugee bureau, writing about the refugee contractors: “the federal government provides about ninety percent of its collective budget” and its lobbying umbrella “wields enormous influence over the Administration’s refugee admissions policy. It lobbies the Hill effectively to increase the number of refugees admitted for permanent resettlement each year ….If there is a conflict of interest, it is never mentioned…. The solution its members offer to every refugee crisis is simplistic and the same: increase the number of admissions to the United States without regard to budgets…” How Public Opinion Shaped Refugee Policy in Kosovo, 2000, David M. Robinson, http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA432218
We hesitate to quibble with an authoritative source on the percentage of federal money floating the refugee industry, but from an accountant’s perspective that percentage is actually over 100 % given the amount of money the industry is able to pocket without any proof that it was spent on refugees.
10. According to Ken Tota, Deputy Director at HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement, Congress has never in his 25-year tenure questioned the refugee quota proposed by the administration. By law, Congress is supposed to consent to the annual quota but obviously refuses to take this role seriously.
11. Refugee “self-sufficiency” is an important measure of success and a basis for assigning refugees to agencies in future contracts. The definition of “self-sufficiency” has been steadily defined downward and today is virtually meaningless. A refugee can be considered “self-sufficient” while using all of the programs listed in item 16 below with the exception of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).
12. Assimilation is no longer a goal for any agency involved in refugee resettlement – government or private contractor. The private contractors’ engagement with the refugee is so short – less than 4 months in most cases, that nothing approaching assimilation could even be considered. The term “assimilation” is no longer a part of government lexicon and does not even occur in dozens of recent reports and papers generated about refugee resettlement. The operative term in vogue now is “integration” with its clear intent of maintenance of ethnic identity.
13. A refugee or an asylum seeker must show a “well-founded” fear of persecution on account of a political view or membership in a racial, ethnic, religious or social group. The definition of a refugee has been widely stretched by all 3 branches of the government – the Judiciary, the Congress and the Administration.
In fact, Congress can name whatever group it wants to be a refugee or asylum seeker. For instance Congress passed a law declaring China’s one-child policy to be an example of persecution based upon a political view. Not surprising: China now heads up the list of successful asylum seekers.
People may seek asylum in the U.S. based upon domestic abuse, FGM and even lack of services for the disabled.
The government does not publicize rates of admission by category so it is not possible to tell, for instance, if the vague and easy to fake ‘social group’ category is more commonly used than the vague and easy to fake ‘political group’ category.
Because of the privacy rights accorded the new arrivals, we have no idea which category was used by Tamerlane Tsarnaev’s parents to gain admission to the world’s most generous immigration program.
14. The Obama administration has placed a priority on LGBTQI asylum seekers and refugees. This has resulted in an upsurge of asylum requests on this basis – even from countries like England! Since the State Department does not keep data about numbers admitted by reason for admission, we can’t obtain exact numbers of those admitted on the basis of LBGTQI persecution, but one private refugee agency has set up an office in Nairobi, Kenya to assist intending LBGTQI refugees. This office also advises about how to get into the refugee pipeline. In other words, a private contractor is recruiting refugees who will eventually become the contractor’s profit-generating clients. At the 2012 conference of refugee contractors sponsored by the DHHS Office of Refugee resettlement a refugee contractor demanded that Medicaid pay for sex change operations if needed by newly arrived refugees.
15. The program has gradually shifted towards the resettlement of refugees from Muslim countries. Some individuals from Muslim countries are Christians or other minorities, but most are Muslims. In the early 90’s the percentage of Muslim refugees was near 0; by 2000 the program was 44% Muslim. The Muslim component decreased after 911, but today is back up to about 40% and is set to rise from here.
Membership in a U.S.-registered Islamic terrorist group is not a bar to entry on the program as long as the refugee was not a “direct participant” in “terrorist” activity.
16. Refugees, successful asylum seekers, trafficking victim visa holders, “Cuban-Haitian Entrants” (which are mostly Cuban), S.I.V’s (for Iraqis and Afghanis) and other smaller humanitarian admission groups are eligible for ALL federal, state and local welfare programs 30 days after arrival.
Refugee access to welfare on the same basis as a U.S. citizen has made the program a global magnet.
The federal programs available to them include:
∙ Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) formerly known as AFDC
∙ Medicaid
∙ Food Stamps
∙ Public Housing
∙ Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
∙ Social Security Disability Insurance
∙ Administration on Developmental Disabilities (ADD) (direct services only)
∙ Child Care and Development Fund
∙ Independent Living Program
∙ Job Opportunities for Low Income Individuals (JOLI)
∙ Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP)
∙ Postsecondary Education Loans and Grants
∙ Refugee Assistance Programs
∙ Title IV Foster Care and Adoption Assistance Payments (if parents are ⌠qualified immigrants – refugees, asylees, etc)
∙ Title XX Social Services Block Grant Funds
17. Welfare use is staggering among refugees. Welfare usage is never counted by officials as part of the cost of the program. Yet, when it is included, the total cost of the refugee program soars to at least 10-20 billion a year.
As some Americans are pushed off of time-limited welfare programs many refugees are going on to life-time cash assistance programs. For instance, 12.7% of refugees are on SSI – a lifetime entitlement to a monthly check / Medicaid for elderly or disabled. This rate of usage is at least 4 times higher than the rate of usage for SSI among the native-born population and is reportedly rising from these already very high levels.
Permanent and intergenerational welfare dependence has been allowed to take hold to a significant degree in some refugee groups.
Find latest welfare usage among refugees here (latest data available is from 2009): https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/orr/fy_2009_annual_report_to_congress.pdf
Find table TABLE II-14: Public Assistance Utilization Among refugees who arrived during the 5 years previous to the survey 57.7% are on government medical assistance such as Medicaid, about 25% have no health insurance at all, 70.2% are receiving food stamps, 31.6% are in public housing (an additional percentage is on a public housing waiting list), and 38.3 % are getting cash assistance such as TANF or SSI.
The figure of 57.7% dependent upon government medical assistance is actually an undercount since it excludes children under 16.
18. Medium size towns, such as Bowling Green, KY, Nashville, TN, Ft. Wayne, IN, Boise, ID and Manchester, NH, are serving as the main reception centers for the refugee program.
19. Refugees are not tested for many diseases, such as HIV. Refugees are a major contributing factor to TB rates among the foreign-born. TB among the foreign-born now accounts for about half of the TB in America.
20. The money the U.S. spends bringing one refugee to the U.S. could have helped 500 individuals overseas in countries where they currently reside.
21. It has never been reported in the U.S. that 47% of loans made to refugees for transportation to the U.S. are unpaid leaving an unpaid balance of $450 million. This amount – slightly out of date, does not include interest or an unknown amount that has been written off. We will announce the new balance as soon as it is available.
22. Refugee resettlement is profitable to the organizations involved in it. They receive money from the federal government for each refugee they bring over. They have almost no real responsibilities for these refugees. After 4 months the “sponsoring” organization is not even required to know where the refugee lives.
There are 9 main major refugee resettlement organizations (Volags from “Voluntary Agency”) with approximately 450 affiliated organizations throughout the country; many are run by former refugees. Below are the 9 Volags that operate today:
US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB),
Lutheran Immigrant Aid Society (LIRS),
International Rescue Committee (IRC),
World Relief Corporation,
Immigrant and Refugee Services of America (IRSA),
Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS),
Church World Service (CWS),
Domestic and Foreign Missionary Service of the Episcopal Church of the USA,
Ethiopian Community Development Center (ECDC),
Below are some of the sources of income for Volags:
a. $1,850 per refugee (including children) from the State Department.
b. Up to $2,200 for each refugee by participating in a U.S. DHHS program known as Matching Grant. To get the $2,200, the Volag need only show it spent $200 and gave away $800 worth of donated clothes, furniture or cars.
c. The Volag pockets 25% of every transportation loan it collects from refugees it “sponsors”.
d. All Volag expenses and overhead in the Washington, DC HQ are paid by the U.S. government.
e. For their refugee programs, Volags collect money from all federal grant programs – “Marriage Initiative”, “Faith-based”, “Ownership Society”, etc., as well as from various state and local grants.
The program is so lucrative that in some towns the Catholic Church has lessened support for traditional charity works to put more effort into resettlement. It uses collection offerings to promote the refugee resettlement program.
23. Despite their rhetoric, refugee agencies have steadfastly refused to use their own resources to maintain the U.S. refugee resettlement program. Public money has thoroughly driven out private money.
A program known as the Private Sector Initiative allowed sponsoring agencies to bring over refugees if the agencies were willing to cover costs of resettlement and support. It was discontinued for lack of use in the mid-1990s. Today the agencies are on record as opposed to diverting more federal refugee dollars to overseas refugee assistance (where each dollar will go further in helping refugees) because it might mean fewer dollars for them!
As with other government-dependent industries there is a revolving door between the refugee industry and the federal government which pays its bills.
24. To give an idea of the staying power of the refugee program:
When we began taking Southeast Asian refugees in the late 70’s, the refugee agencies hired temporary workers, thinking the program would only go for a few months. More than 37 years after the last American left Vietnam we are still taking refugees from South East Asia. At least 1.5 million have come in as refugees alone. As well, it has detonated chain migration of non-refugee immigrants.
25. The program is rife with fraud and corruption at all levels. UN personnel often sell access to the program and once here refugees make false claims of family relationship in order to facilitate wider immigration. Government grant fraud is common among local refugee service providers.
26. The refugee program has a significant impact on U.S. foreign policy. It also affects internal and foreign policies of other nations by allowing them to rid themselves of unwanted minorities or close their borders to asylum seekers in the knowledge that the U.S. will take them in.
To contact us at RRW, please write to Ann@vigilantfreedom.com |
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Desperate New Jersey drivers wait in long lines to buy gasoline. One line was two miles long
The media blame “a lack of electricity” and report that “Governor Christie has acted to boost supplies of gasoline…by directing Treasury officials to waive licensing requirements that affect merchants’ ability to buy fuel from out-of-state suppliers.”
That would help, but Christie would help more if he could suspend New Jersey’s foolish law forbidding price increases of more than 10% during an “emergency,” and if he’d apologize for bragging that the state will crack down on price “gouging!”
Complaining about greedy profiteers is probably politically smart. But if you're one of the people the law "protects," you won't fare as well.
What politicians call “gouging” is just the free market. When markets are allowed to work their magic, lines disappear. The high price is a big flag planted in the ground that says, “Hey, come over here and make money.”
Today, some car owners wait in line just to top off their tanks. If gas stations could raise prices, many of those drivers would wait, and drive less. Drivers who really need gas would be able to get it. At the same time, entrepreneurs would rush gasoline to gas stations that have the highest prices. The lines would quickly vanish, and prices would come back down.
Remember The 1970s “gas crisis?” The media claimed it was caused by a lack of gasoline. It wasn’t. It was caused by President Nixon’s price controls. Remember the lines in the Soviet Union? Most shortages are caused by politicians interfering with the market.
Here's the real question: What is the best way to help people after a disaster?
Any number of services -- roofing, for example, carpentry, tree removal, and gasoline -- are in overwhelming demand.
[pullquote]
If this were a totalitarian country, government could just order gasoline tankers roofers, carpenters, etc., to travel to New Jersey. But in a free society, entrepreneurs must be persuaded to leave their homes and families and drive from say, Texas, to the East Coast. If they can't make more money in New Jersey, why make the trip?
Some want to be heroic, but we can't expect enough heroes to fill the need. Most travel for the same reason most Americans work: to make money. Most tradesmen will go to a disaster area only if it wins him higher pay than he would get in his hometown.
Yet if he charges enough to justify his venture, he's likely to be condemned morally or legally by the very people he's trying to help.
They just don't understand basic economics. Force prices down, and you keep suppliers out. Let the market work, suppliers come -- and competition brings prices as low as the challenges of the disaster allow. Goods that were in short supply become available. I discuss this in greater detail in my book, "No, They Can't: Why Government Fails-But Individuals Succeed."
After Hurricane Katrina, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood announced a crackdown on “gougers.”
John Shepperson was one of the "gougers" arrested. Shepperson and his family live in Kentucky. They watched news reports about Katrina and learned that people desperately needed things.
Shepperson thought he could help, so he bought 19 generators. He and his family then rented a U-Haul and drove 600 miles to an area of Mississippi left without power.
He offered to sell his generators for twice what he had paid for them, and people were eager to buy. But police confiscated his generators, and jailed Shepperson for four days. The police kept his generators.
Did the public benefit? No.
It's price "gougers" who bring the water, ship the gasoline, fix the roof, and rebuild cities. You might not believe me but will you believe Nobel Prize-winning economists Gary Becker, Vernon Smith and Milton Friedman? All three have said “ gouging” is good. Milton Friedman said, “price ‘gougers’ save lives.”
We benefit when politicians don’t “protect” us with price controls.
The debate over price gouging continues Thursday night on "Stossel" at 9 pm ET. For more on the show, click here. |
The pingpong match of subtle insults batted back and forth between friends Jeff Blashill and Jon Cooper usually means one or the other can’t help but take a shot at their coaching rival when the Lightning and Red Wings play each other. It’s all done in good fun, usually good for a few laughs and we all move on.
But after the Lightning beat the Red Wings in a well-played early season game on Monday, Cooper instead subtly worked in a compliment to his counterpart on the Red Wings bench, slipping in that Blashill has done “a hell of a job with them.” Following his media scrum, Cooper was asked to elaborate on what’s different about the way Blashill has the Red Wings playing so far this season.
“They stretch the ice more than they used to,” Cooper said. “He’s taking advantage of some fast players. He’s got a pretty quick team now where he may not have in the past. He’s got guys slotted in the right spots.”
Walking away, he added one more... |
Approximately 31 years ago, Chuck Hull woke his wife up out of bed to show her a tiny little object, that object, the first ever 3D print. It was a small cup that Hull had printed using his invention, a 3D printer. Back in 1983, it was hard to realize the impact that this invention would eventually have on the world. In fact, even today it may be difficult to fully grasp how far 3D printing may take us as a civilization, but the impact of the technology, thus far, has been far reaching. That tiny 3D printed cup was also the launch of 3D systems, the largest 3D printing company on the planet, founded by Hull.
The National Inventors Hall of Fame today announced that they will be inducting Chuck Hull into their prestigious group of members, which include Thomas Edison, Eli Whitney, Wilbur and Orville Wright, and Steve Jobs among others.
The National Inventors Hall of Fame was established in 1973, and only inducts Americans who have conceived, patented, and advanced technologies which have changed the the welfare of the nation in a positive way. 3D printing has certainly done this, and continues to do this more and more, as each week day passes.
“Each year we have the distinct honor of recognizing individuals whose contributions to society will resound throughout the ages,” said Michael Oister, Invent Now CEO. “3D printing is an astounding technology that is poised to change the way our world works and the way we interact with it. We are delighted to welcome Chuck Hull to our NIHF family.”
The ceremony for Hull’s induction will take place at the United States Trademark and Patent Office in Alexandria, Virginia, on May 21st of this year.
“I am deeply honored to become a part of the NIHF and be considered among the group of high caliber innovators who have transformed the world and improved the human condition in tangible and powerful ways. I always knew that 3D printing had the capacity to change the entire design-to-manufacture process, but could not have anticipated the full impact that my work would have on every facet of our lives. It is incredibly humbling and exhilarating to be a part of this transformation,” said Chuck Hull, Founder and Chief Technology Officer, 3D Systems.
What’s even more amazing about his accomplishments is that the full effect that this technology may have on society, likely will not be felt for years to come. We are in the early stages of an exponential growth curve within the 3D printing industry, and it appears to be on a trajectory to change the face of manufacturing for the better. Discuss this story at 3D Print Board. |
29 May 2017
For a decent while now, I’ve been working on self-hosting the Epoch 64-bit compiler. This involves getting the compiler to a point where it is robust enough to actually compile itself. In order to do this, I’m using a modified 32-bit compiler which generates 64-bit binaries. Once a working 64-bit compiler is emitted, I can feed that compiler back into itself, thus completing the head-trip ouroboros that is self-hosting or "bootstrapping" a compiler.
At the moment, the compiler can successfully lex, parse, type-check, and partially code-gen itself. In practical terms, this means that the front-end of the compiler is working fine, but the back-end - the set of systems responsible for turning code into machine language and emitting a working executable - remains incomplete. For a slightly different perspective, I’m generating LLVM IR for most of the compiler at this point.
The bits that are left are corner cases in the code generation engine. There are things like intrinsic functions that need to be wired up, special semantics to implement, and so on. In particular, right now, I’m working on solving a corner case with the nothing concept. nothing is an Epoch idiom for expressing the idea that there is no data; except, unlike traditional null , nothing is its own type. If something has a type it cannot be nothing - again, unlike null . The usefulness of this may seem questionable, but the distinction makes it possible to avoid entire classes of runtime bugs, because you can never "forget" to write code that handles nothing - the compiler enforces this for you!
Anyways, the trick with nothing is that you can pass a literal nothing to a function as an argument, to signify that you have no semantically valid data to pass in. This is handled correctly by the parser and type checker, but falls down in code generation because we can’t actually omit the parameter from the function call.
What happens is the code generator creates a function with, say, 3 parameters. If the second parameter is nothing at a call site, we have to still pass something over to the function, from LLVM’s perspective. So we generate a dummy parameter that essentially translates the nothing semantics into null semantics - something LLVM can recognize.
Now things get complicated.
If we have an algebraic sum type that includes the type nothing , and we pass a sum-typed variable into a function which expects concrete types, the code goes through a process called type dispatching. This process basically matches an overload of a function with the runtime types of the arguments passed in. Think of it like virtual dispatch with no objects involved. (Strictly speaking, type dispatch in Epoch is multiple dispatch rather than the single dispatch seen in more popular languages.)
To facilitate all this, the compiler inserts annotations into the code, so that it can deduce what set of overloads to choose from when the runtime dispatcher is invoked. Some of these annotations survive at runtime - analogs of virtual-table pointers in C++.
Annotations are passed as hidden parameters on the stack when invoking a function. And at last we reach the real wrinkle: a nothing annotation can come from two distinct places: either the construction of a sum-typed variable which allows nothing as a base type, or a literal nothing passed to a function call.
The headache is that, to LLVM, both uses look like a function call. There is special case logic that exists to fix up the annotations for sum-typed constructors. Unfortunately, that logic collides with the logic needed to fix up annotations for general function call usage because LLVM doesn’t know the difference.
It’s an imminently solvable problem, but it’s a headache. Hopefully once this bug is gone there won’t be too many more to swat before I can start code-generating working 64-bit compilers. |
The Evidence
The Crime
The Suspect
The Outcome
Last month local police executed a warrant for a home in a middle class neighborhood in Vancouver; they were searching for stolen bikes. The house belonged to a businessman, his wife and children - your average nuclear family. Nothing stood out about the property, a well kept house with a nice car parked in the driveway, that would alert you to any wrongdoing within. Next to his kids' pedal bikes in the garage hung the owner's mountain bike, next to that police found roughly $20,000 of suspected stolen bike parts.In the months previous to the bust, police had received two separate calls about stolen bikes. One came from the business, Endless Biking, where a smash and grab had left them without their cashbox, computer and one Rocky Mountain Element. The second call came from Tom whose mountain bike had also been stolen. Dedicated to finding his bike, Tom scoured the usual Internet hotspots for used bikes sales and found his components for sale under multiple accounts on Pinkbike.With collaboration between North Vancouver RCMP and Pinkbike, it was found that the multiple usernames, some listing international locations, all traced to one IP address and one location. Using this information police obtained a warrant to search the premises, expecting they would find Tom’s stolen bike parts.Constable Dave Vunic describes what he saw upon entering the suspect’s garage, “there was a corner with ten or twelve suspension forks, a pile of twenty or more wheels – Chris King hubs, DT Swiss, you name it, it was there. There were Tupperware full of derailleurs and shifters, a closet full of bike frames – which I’m guessing had been stripped down and he hadn’t had a chance to dispose of yet. "But”, he adds, “The first thing that caught my eye was the Rocky Mountain that was taken from Endless Biking because I knew that bike and I knew that it had been stolen.”From the evidence collected the police surmised that the suspect was purchasing stolen bikes from petty thieves and drug users, stripping the valuable components from them and disposing of the frames, as they were the only traceable items. He would then organize the derailleurs, brakes, wheels, forks and the likes into labeled bins, piles and racks, before listing and selling the parts through multiple accounts on Pinkbike.com.The suspect claimed, that not knowing it was stolen, he had purchased the Rocky Mountain Element for $1200 on Craigslist.com. Police have since arrested another man, who was already known to them, for the break-in at Endless Biking. They feel that it is more likely that this suspect paid roughly $300-$400 to the known criminal for it, expecting to make roughly an $1800 profit from the XTR components. This is just one example of what appears to have been a long running bike theft operation.“He looks like a regular guy or business man,” says Constable Vunic, “I would never think of him as a bike thief, I think of a bike thief as a street person who is going through alleys and looking for an opportunity to steal from someone.” The suspected criminal claimed that police had simply stumbled onto his hobby. His defence became that he was an avid biker and as a favourite pastime he purchased used bikes on Craigslist, stripped the valuable components from them and resold them for a profit on Pinkbike. “The accused knows his stuff, he knows all the parts, and he knows that value of an XTR derailleur or any other component. By looking at his collection, he’s probably been doing it for years.”A review of his ‘for sale’ posts on Pinkbike showed that he was careful to undercut similar items by a marginal amount, helping him to sell quickly but not raise suspicion. He never met the purchasers in person, even though they were often from the same city, he used a courier for deliveries.Police admit that this suspect was not on their radar, however some of the people associated with the stolen goods in his possession are known bike thieves (police believe that based on the volume of high end parts in his possession he had multiple people working for him). The racket that he had going on was kept so low key that it is unlikely that anyone outside of his immediate family had any idea about it.Is this man a criminal mastermind or a hapless bike enthusiast whose only mistake was maintaining multiple Pinkbike user accounts and disposing of bike frames? We may never know. “It can make sense, he says his hobby was to buy parts and sell them,” says Const. Vunic who is doubtful of suspect’s defence.A conviction of possession of stolen property over $5000 carries jail time. Crown Counsel must be able to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt in order to prove a crime and without traceable parts, unfortunately there is was not enough evidence to proceed. And so they chose not to lay charges against the accused. Worse yet, says Const. Vunic, “we had to return all the parts [except for the Rocky Mountain Element], which is horrible”. Unfortunately with thousands of dollars worth of untraceable product it is easy to claim innocence – and ignorance - in the eyes of the law. “He played stupid.”At the end of the day, even if he is innocent and he is telling the truth, his actions are still keeping bike thieves in business. His only error was listing the parts from one bike at the same time through multiple Pinkbike accounts; even so had it not been for an overzealous bike owner, his operation might have gone unnoticed for many more years. Only mountain bikers buy mountain bike components and he is essentially laundering them so that we are unknowingly purchasing stolen parts. As a self-described mountain biker, he is among us and is one of us. “I have no doubt that when this is posted on Pinkbike he will see it.” |
Main wine-producing areas in the world
This list of wine-producing regions catalogues significant growing regions where vineyards are planted. Wine grapes mostly grow between the 30th and the 50th degree of latitude, in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres. Grapes will sometimes grow beyond this range and minor amounts of wine are made in some very unexpected places.
In 2014, the three largest producers of wine in the world were, in order, Italy, Spain, and France. (see list of wine-producing countries for a complete rank).
Countries [ edit ]
The following is a list of the top wine-producing countries and their volume of wine production for the year 2014 in metric tonnes, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which is an agency of the United Nations; this is the latest information available from the FAO.
Their data show a total worldwide production of 31 million tonnes (1,000 kg) of wine (which roughly corresponds to 1,000 l) with the top 15 producing countries accounting for over 90% of the total.[1]
Map of global wine production in 2013
Africa [ edit ]
Algeria [ edit ]
Cape Verde [ edit ]
Morocco [ edit ]
South Africa [ edit ]
A vineyard in the Stellenbosch region, South Africa
Tunisia [ edit ]
Americas [ edit ]
Argentina [ edit ]
Argentine wine regions
Bolivia [ edit ]
Brazil [ edit ]
Canada [ edit ]
Chile [ edit ]
Chile's topography with the location of most of Chile's wine regions highlighted
Mexico [ edit ]
Peru [ edit ]
United States [ edit ]
A complete listing of federally defined wine regions, called American Viticultural Areas, is available here.
Uruguay [ edit ]
The wine-producing area is mainly in the Dpto. Canelones near the capital Montevideo. For more info, see The Uruguayan wine guide.
Venezuela [ edit ]
The wine-producing enterprise for Venezuela can be found here.
Europe [ edit ]
Albania [ edit ]
Armenia [ edit ]
Austria [ edit ]
Azerbaijan [ edit ]
Baku, capital
Ganja, Ganja-Basar zone in central Azerbaijan
Madrasa village of Shamakhi Rayon, from Madrasa, indigenous only to this region
Tovuz and Shamkir, northwestern Azerbaijan
Belgium [ edit ]
Bosnia and Herzegovina [ edit ]
Bulgaria [ edit ]
Croatia [ edit ]
Cyprus [ edit ]
Commandaria
Laona – Akamas
Vouni Panagias – Ambelitis
Krasochoria Lemesou
Pitsilia
Diarizos Valley
Czech Republic [ edit ]
Denmark [ edit ]
France [ edit ]
Map of wine regions in France
Georgia [ edit ]
Germany [ edit ]
Greece [ edit ]
Greek wine regions
Hungary [ edit ]
Ireland [ edit ]
Italy [ edit ]
"Chianti" areas in Tuscany
Latvia [ edit ]
Lithuania [ edit ]
Luxembourg [ edit ]
Moldova [ edit ]
Montenegro [ edit ]
Crmnica
Plantaže, near Podgorica
Netherlands [ edit ]
North Macedonia [ edit ]
Poland [ edit ]
Portugal [ edit ]
Portuguese wine regions
Romania [ edit ]
Banat wine regions:
Crişana wine regions:
Dobrogea wine regions:
Moldavia wine regions:
Muntenia wine regions:
Oltenia wine regions:
Transylvania wine regions:
Russia [ edit ]
Serbia [ edit ]
Wine regions of Serbia
Slovakia [ edit ]
Wine-producing regions in Slovakia
Malokarpatská (Small Carpathians)
Južnoslovenská (Southern Slovakia)
Nitrianska (region of Nitra)
Stredoslovenská (Central Slovakia)
Tokaj (Tokaj region of Slovakia)
Východoslovenská (Eastern Slovakia)
The whole of southern Slovakia
Slovenia [ edit ]
The three wine regions in Slovenia
Spain [ edit ]
Spanish wine-producing regions
Sweden [ edit ]
Gutevin – Gotland
Switzerland [ edit ]
Turkey [ edit ]
Wine-producing regions in Turkey
White wine grapes: [13] Altıntaş – Marmara region and Bozcaada Beylerce – Bilecik area Bornova Misketi – İzmir area Emir – Nevşehir (Cappadocia) area Hasandede – Ankara and central Anatolia Narince – Tokat area Rumi, Kabarcık, Dökülgen – Southeastern Anatolia region Sultaniye – Aegean region Yapıncak – Thracian region
Red wine grapes [13] Adakarası – Marmara region and Avşa Island Boğazkere – Elazığ and Diyarbakır areas Çalkarası – Çal, Denizli area Dimrit – central Anatolia and eastern Aegean region Horozkarası, Sergikarası – southeastern Anatolia region Kalecik Karası – Ankara area Karalahna – Tekirdağ region Karasakız – Çanakkale region Öküzgözü – Elazığ area Papazkarası – Kırklareli area
Ukraine [ edit ]
In Ukraine, at the present time there are seven administrative regions (provinces) in which the wine industry has developed. Given the favorable climatic location, the law of Ukraine allocated 15 winegrowing areas (macrozones), which are the basis for growing certain varieties of grapes, and 58 natural wine regions (microzones). These are located mainly in the following areas.
United Kingdom [ edit ]
In the UK, area under vines is small, and whilst viticulture is not a major part of the rural economy, significant planting of new vines has been made in the early 21st century. The greatest concentration of vineyards is found in the south east of England, in the counties of Hampshire, Kent, Surrey, and Sussex.
Asia [ edit ]
Burma [ edit ]
China [ edit ]
Regions producing native wines have been present since the Qin Dynasty,[14] with wines being brought to China from Persia. Some of the more famous wine-producing regions are:
With the import of Western wine-making technologies, especially French technology, production of wines similar to modern French wine has begun in many parts of China with the direction of experienced French wine-makers; China is now the sixth largest producer of wine in the world. The following regions produce significant quality of wine:
India [ edit ]
Indonesia [ edit ]
Indonesia has been producing wine for over 18 years, with North Bali's vineyards producing three main grape varieties: the Belgia, the Alphonse Lavallee and the Probolinggo Biru. The main producer, Hatten Wines, has revolutionized the world of winemaking, with eight wines produced from these three varieties.
Iran [ edit ]
Prior to the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iran was a producer of wine. While production has stopped, the vineyards continue to exist and their product has been diverted to non-alcoholic purposes.
Israel [ edit ]
Also includes wine regions in Israeli-occupied territories.
Japan [ edit ]
Kazakhstan [ edit ]
Republic of Korea [ edit ]
Lebanon [ edit ]
Palestinian territories [ edit ]
Syria [ edit ]
Vietnam [ edit ]
Oceania [ edit ]
Australia [ edit ]
Australian geographic indications by state
Geographic indications for Australian wine are governed by law. The geographic indication must indicate where the grapes are grown, irrespective of where the wine itself is made. A geographic indication may be "Australia", "South Eastern Australia", a state name, zone, region or subregion if defined.[19]
The zones, regions and subregions in each state are listed below:
New South Wales [ edit ]
Queensland [ edit ]
Regions, no zones defined
South Australia [ edit ]
Adelaide Super Zone includes Mount Lofty Ranges, Fleurieu and Barossa wine zones.
Tasmania [ edit ]
Regions, no zones defined
Coal River
Derwent Valley
East Coast
North West
Pipers River
Southern
Tamar Valley
Victoria [ edit ]
Western Australia [ edit ]
New Zealand [ edit ]
GI stands for New Zealand Geographical Indication.
Notes [ edit ] |
The Houses of Parliament in Westminster will be lit up in red for #RedWednesday next week in honour of the world’s persecuted Christians and all those who suffer for peacefully held beliefs.
John Bercow MP, the Speaker of the House of Commons, and Lord Fowler, Speaker of the House of Lords, agreed to the initiative after being lobbied by parliamentarians, many of whom had been contacted by constituents.
Among those calling for Parliament to turn red was Trevor Harrison, from Sevenoaks, who wrote to his MP, Sir Michael Fallon.
He said he contacted his MP after attending an event in Parliament organised by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom or Belief – itself a supporter of #RedWednesday.
Speaking to Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, which is organising #Red Wednesday together with Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Mr Harrison said: “Turning Parliament red is a wonderful way to get the message about religious freedom to as wide an audience as possible.”
“We all need to get behind #RedWednesday – we need to stand together against violence carried out in the name of religion – we need to speak up about regimes which persecute people of faith.”
This will be the second year running that Parliament will turn red for #RedWednesday.
So far this year, at least 10 cathedrals across the UK have pledged to go red including London’s Westminster Cathedral and others in Ayr, Edinburgh, Paisley, Birmingham, Norwich, Wrexham, Derry and Armagh.
In total, nearly 50 public buildings are expected to get behind #RedWednesday – schools, colleges and churches including London’s Anglican St Martin-in-the-Fields and All Souls, Langham Place.
There will be a week of vigils and other events across the country from November 19 to 26.
At 6pm on November 22 a solidarity service will take place outside Westminster Cathedral, with talks, witness testimonies, a video message by MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, music and speeches by Coptic Orthodox Bishop Angaelos, Neville Kyrke-Smith, national director of Aid to the Church in Need (UK), and Mervyn Thomas, chief executive of Christian Solidarity Worldwide.
Throughout the day, a traditional London red bus emblazoned with #RedWednesday slogans will be criss-crossing the capital, stopping at London landmarks. |
The seagoing cowboys were men and boys who volunteered after World War II to tend the livestock shipped by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration and the Heifer Project to war-devastated countries.
They were students and farmers, bankers and preachers, laborers and teachers. They were Brethren, Mennonite, Catholic; Protestant, Amish, unchurched.
Some sought adventure, some sought to serve people whose lives had been torn apart by war, some wanted to see firsthand what they had only read about or seen on film.
This website is dedicated to telling their story. In these pages, you will find information about the seagoing cowboys, the organizations for which they worked, their trips, and more.
I’ve been researching, writing about, and documenting the history of the seagoing cowboys since 2002; and I’m happy to be able to share it with a wider audience here.
If you have questions or comments as you read these pages, feel free to send me an email through the Contact page. I will continue to add information to the site as I process the materials I have collected. I invite you to come back often to see what’s new.
I hope you find this history as fascinating as I do!
~Peggy Reiff Miller
Header photo credit: Elmer J. Bowers, SS Norwalk Victory, en route to Trieste, Italy, February 1946. Cowboy unidentified. |
If you use the Deezer Music app on an iOS device your homepage just got a new coat of paint and we’re excited to pull the curtain back on the fresh, new look. We’ve kept all the features you love but made it even easier to enjoy your music.
Like a boss you can still access Flow, New Releases, Top Playlists and daily editor recommendations with one click. Missing Deezer’s theme-based Mixes based on tracks and genres you love? They haven’t gone anywhere mon frère. Simply scroll down the home screen and dive into sonic bliss with one easy click.
Now notice the nifty row of tabs hemming the bottom of your mobile screen. These take you to all the familiar places: Home, My Music, the audio Player, Search and, last but not least, to your expertly curated Notifications (formerly called “Hear This”).
Fear not if you get Deezer on Andoid or via the website. We haven’t forgotten about you. Your new homepage with the terrific tabs is coming soon.
To summarise: New View, Same Great Sounds. Why do we do the things we do? Anything for you dear Deezer patron. |
Real Madrid and Spain goalkeeper, Iker Casillas, mourns about the loss of South African goalkeeper, Senzo Meyiwa, who was tragically killed on Sunday.
Casillas, who was Meyiwa’s role model, posted a picture of the Bafana goalkeeper with a swapped shirt of himself on his Instagram account, accompanied by the following message:
"Very saddened by the tragic loss of a fellow DEP (RIP) Senzo.”
Casillas and Meyiwa had swapped shirts when La Roja, the then World Cup champions, played South Africa in 2013.
Other international stars have also been sending their tributes for Meyiwa and we will continue to add their condolences into this article.
Kevin-Prince Boateng tweeted: “TRAGEDY!!!!R.I.P. Senzo Meyiwa. My condolences to his family&friends. #crazyworld #cantbelieveit”
England legend, Gary Lineker , just responded with a shocked “No!!” when one of his Twitter friends posted a link to the article about Meyiwa’s dead.
“@oluwashina: SAD NEWS: #SouthAfricacaptain & keeper Senzo Meyiwa has been shot dead: http://www.soccerladuma.co.za/news/articles/categories/south-africa/senzo-meyiwa-has-been-confirmed-being-shot-dead/190090 …pic.twitter.com/VZei2JAopf” < No!!”
Former Bayern Munich coach, Felix Magath , tweeted: "#RIP Senzo Meyiwa! The brutal dead of the goalkeeper is a tragedy of many."
From the International Section of Soccer Laduma, we want to send our condolences to Senzo Meyiwa, his friends and family as well as Orlando Pirates and their fans. A very sad day in South African sport...
Please share your tributes and thoughts in the comment section below. |
Reading Time: 5 minutes
By Nousin Ziafati
The Ryerson Students’ Union (RSU) has approved their proposed budget for the 2017-2018 school year.
Why does this matter?
The RSU represents about 35,000 Ryerson students. Every full-time student pays an annual fee of $76.92 to the RSU, which then goes toward their proposed expenses for the year for groups and services. Here are some key changes made to the RSU’s annual budget, including expenses for legal fees, athletic groups funding, equity issues and equity service groups funding.
Legal Fees
The RSU’s legal fees budget was originally proposed to be $90,000 for the year. However, at the latest RSU Board of Directors meeting, the proposed total for legal fees was dropped to $70,000.
The RSU has already spent roughly $10,000 of the proposed legal fees budget.
They spent about $120,000 last year on legal fees and $163,700 the previous year.
Vice-president operations Ali Yousaf said the reason why legal feels are being decreased is because the RSU does not have any outstanding legal issues, whereas in the previous two years, they had to make settlements.
Daniel Lis, vice-president education said the original amount of $90,000 that was budgeted for legal fees is not logical for this year since there is no expectation to make such a big payout.
“We found that we had a little bit of wiggle room there and so we wanted to transfer the funds to a couple other places,” Lis said.
The $20,000 of funds from legal fees were reallocated to materials and resources for educational campaigns, student groups funding—with half of it going to athletic groups funding, Lis added.
RSU president Susanne Nyaga said that proposing $90,000 for the legal fees budget was already “low-balling it” and that decreasing the legal fees budget to $70,000 is setting the students’ union up for going over their proposed budget.
“Legal fees not only include the costs that we pay our lawyers hourly for any lawsuits that arise like with student groups that don’t get status, or internal grievances with staff, it also includes settlement fees,” Nyaga said.
“It’s just not a realistic number at $70,000 the way it stands.”
Yousaf said that if random legal cases do pop up where the RSU has to make any settlements or spend a lot of money, then the case would most likely take more than a year to complete. This means it will not be included in the current fiscal year, and would automatically be calculated in the following year’s budget.
Athletic Groups Funding
The RSU’s athletic groups funding amount has been set at $25,000.
According to Yousaf, the high number of funding requests and applications that the RSU receives every year for athletics is “absolutely insane.”
“The more funding athletic groups have, the better it is,” he said. “They are the ones representing us in other universities, other cities, other countries.”
Lis said that the RSU’s athletic groups funding is meant to ensure that athletic groups that aren’t well funded by the university receive funding. Last year, the RSU dedicated $31,590 to funding athletic groups.
“We heard from the university and the athletics department that that money [from last year] actually went really far for those student groups and they really appreciate it,” Lis said.
Equity Issues and Equity Service Groups
The approved RSU equity issues expense for the year is $5,500.
Equity issues funding goes towards equity issues campaigns, anti-oppression and diversity education, Indigenous issues and an equity conference.
A major point of contention during the last RSU board meeting was whether or not a portion of the athletic groups funding should go towards funding equity issues.
“I think it’s no shock that it’s strikingly low and the budget has been significantly underfunded. I think it’s going to be tricky to get some of the campaigns done with the budget that students want us to get done,” vice-president equity Camryn Harlick said.
“But unfortunately, I think we’re going to have to be creative with the actions that we take so our money can go the long distance in the long run and it’s probably not going to be big panels and guest speakers. We’ll probably have to resort to more on the ground type actions.”
Harlick added that there is confusion amongst RSU board members that there has been an increase in equity service groups funding. They clarified that last year’s equity service groups expense was proposed at $165,860, but only $102,466 of that proposed total was spent.
This year, the RSU has proposed to spend a total of $150,750 on equity service groups, which Harlick said they hope that the RSU will make use of and not be constrained due to a deficit.
The equity service groups money (not to be confused with equity issues funding) goes towards the Sexual Assault Support Line as well as the six Equity Service Centres: The Centre for Women & Trans People, The Good Food Centre, the Racialised Students’ Collective, RyeACCESS, RyePRIDE, and the Trans Collective.
Events
The RSU has lowered its budget for total events and programming expenses from last year by about 91 per cent—from $279,530 to $25,800.
The RSU budget for social events was slashed drastically, too. Last year, the social events budget was $1.1 million—and this year it was cut down to $123,800. That’s about an 89 per cent drop.
Health and Dental Plan
Last year’s RSU counted Health and Dental Plan payments from students as general revenue. Therefore, it appeared as though the RSU had extra funding in their operation budget — approximately $628,500 — which in fact, they did not.
In other words, they dipped into the Health and Dental Plan reserve for operational expenses.
Nyaga confirmed that as a result, the RSU is short in its cash flow.
“I think this was the mistake which was made last year. They did consider the health and dental reserves, health and dental revenue into their budget. That was just, I think, … a misallocation in the budget. Budgeting was not being done properly; it was used towards other expenses,” Ali Yousaf, RSU vice-president operations said.
The Health and Dental Plan reserve money is actually meant to act as a buffer in case students make more health and dental claims than expected, which would allow the RSU to cover the difference.
Thesis Grants
A total of $20,000 has been approved by the RSU for thesis grants, an initiative introduced by Yousaf, to help eliminate the financial barrier that students face when working on final year thesis projects.
Students can apply for thesis grants through the RSU, to assist them in financing their final year thesis projects.
Internship Grants
The RSU approved $35,000 for internship grants funds.
Internship grants, an initiative introduced by Lis, are meant to financially support students who are taking on unpaid internships. Like thesis grants, students can apply for internship grants through the RSU.
The RSU approved their budget at their last board meeting on Aug. 28. |
The brutal 1993 murder of three young boys shocked the community of West Memphis, Arkansas—a crime made all the more scandalous by whispers that the slayings were satanic in nature. A trio of local teens were singled out and accused of the crime. The prosecution stressed the possibility that the accussed had slaughtered their victims as part of devil worship. All three were convicted and one received the death penalty. Despite this swift judgement, multiple individuals, including documentarians Bruce Sinofsky and Joe Berlinger, remained unconvinced by the court ruling. They believed the teens were innocent, and that their convictions had far more to do with small town mistrust and shoddy investigative work rather than cold, hard evidence. So the filmmakers set out to document the case. Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills is the first entry in what became a three-part series, exploring the trials and tribulations of the so-called West Memphis Three.
Related: Evil Knows No Age: 7 Tales of Creepy, Killer Kids |
With sales falling and its loss widening, Papa Murphy’s Holdings Inc. said Wednesday that it cut staff in its franchise sales and development departments to focus on selling company stores to franchisees.
The Vancouver, Wash.-based take-and-bake pizza chain said its same-store sales declined 4.1 percent in the third quarter ended Oct. 2, and 9.8 percent on a two-year “stacked” basis.
Revenue at the company declined 6 percent to $26.8 million, from $28.5 million, while the company reported a net loss of $1.9 million, or 11 cents per share — far worse than the 3-cent loss the company reported a year ago.
Included in the loss was a $4.4 million, non-cash charge related to the impairment of assets in four company-store markets. The precise nature of the impairment was uncertain as of Wednesday’s earnings release.
Meanwhile, the number of locations in the chain has declined by 40 since last year. Papa Murphy’s now operates 1,542 locations, 148 of them company owned. A year ago the chain operated 1,582 locations, 166 of them company owned.
Weldon Spangler, Papa Murphy’s CEO, said that the company has since the end of the quarter cut “capacity” in its franchise sales and development functions, expected to save the company more than $1 million in 2018.
The company is not focused on new unit openings, he said. “As the system focuses on top-line growth and absorbing the refranchising of over 100 company stores, we don’t believe new unit openings will be significant,” Spangler said in a statement.
Papa Murphy’s has contracted with a third party to sell company stores to franchisees, a process expected to begin next week. The company wants franchisees to operate 95 percent of its locations. Spangler said the company is committed to doing do “with a sense of urgency.”
Contact Jonathan Maze at [email protected]
Follow him on Twitter at @jonathanmaze |
The Secret To Accomplishing Things Is Having A Gun To Your Head
In the northeast of Kyoto, there lies a mountain known as Mount Hiei. On that mountain resides the Tendai Buddhist monks, more commonly known as the marathon monks. They believe that enlightenment can be achieved during one’s lifetime, but only through extreme self-denial.
The most famous of their practices is the kaihōgyō, which translates to ‘circling the mountain’. During this seven year period, there is a 1,000 day challenge where the monk must run a marathon daily. It is from this uncommon practice from which the marathon monks derive their name.
The 1,000 day challenge is broken down into ten smaller challenges of 100 days each. On their first 100 days, they must run 30 km daily. This distance goes up incrementally as the monk goes further into this endeavour — up to 84 km daily in the 7th year.
The distance they have to cover is astounding. It is rare that a monk embarks on the kaihōgyō, and even rarer that one completes it. And yet, the sheer distance is not the craziest part of the challenge. There’s another component that makes kaihōgyō different from any other ultra-marathon or physical feat.
During the first 100 days, the monk attempting the challenge can withdraw at any time. Past that, there is no such opportunity. He must either complete the kaihōgyō or take his own life.
There is no alternative.
It is literally a do or die situation.
The Gun To Your Head
Since 1885, only 46 men have completed the challenge. Three of these men have done it twice — most recently Yūsai Sakai who finished his second round at the age of 60.
The secret to overcoming such incredible odds lie here. I’m convinced that there would have been less than 46 men completing this challenge if there had not been a gun to their head. Physical endurance and mental toughness were undoubtedly large factors, but were nowhere as important as the do-or-die factor.
On the surface, it appears that do-or-die adds to the challenge. Look deeper, and you’ll find that it’s actually a form of empowerment. These were men who had committed to a cause and had trained painstakingly for it. Indeed, the first 100 days of the kaihōgyō served as a selection process of sorts. Those who were deemed not ready by the senior monks were not allowed to complete the remaining 900 days.
It’s a phenomenon that has been utilised by great generals throughout history. It recognises and applies the benefits of Parkinson’s Law. Robert Greene calls this the ‘death-ground strategy’ in his book, The 33 Strategies Of War. The most well-known application of this strategy is perhaps in the movie 300, where Leonidas and 300 of his Spartans hold off the entire Persian army.
The do-or-die scenario is nothing new.
We just know it today as having a gun to your head.
The Threat Of Pain
We are hard-wired to pursue pleasure and escape pain. This is the reason why we avoid challenges and unpleasant tasks, even though we binge on unproductive and detrimental activities.
Most of us are too comfortable with our lives. There is no existential threat to our life. But what if we exaggerated the dangers and consequences of not completing a certain task? What if we deliberately injected the threat of pain into our daily life?
Here’s what will happen.
The cost of inaction will become pleasure. You will want to avoid the pain the future more so than you want to experience the pleasure of the present. Your life will be organised around your goal. There will be no mucking around when such high stakes are involved.
There would be an immediate sense of purpose and urgency in your life. You will have an environment that forces you to succeed. You will get rid of all distractions and focus on the only thing that matters. All else is secondary.
It’s something everyone can do. For example:
Want to get over your fear of public speaking? Sign up for the next speaking competition at your local Toastmasters club.
Never have time for exercise? Register for the next half-marathon.
Have writer’s block? Announce to the entire world when your next piece of work is coming out before you begin.
The list is non-exhaustive. You can apply the same strategy in every area of your life.
The point?
It doesn’t matter what you do so long as you make yourself sufficiently uncomfortable. You move faster and with more purpose when embarrassment and ruin are the consequences of failure. We tend to triumph when the only way out is through.
When The Gun Doesn’t Work
There are times when creating a do-or-die situation doesn’t work. There are certain limitations that we often just can’t overcome.
The average person cannot run a four-minute mile even with a gun in his face. It’s unlikely we can dunk on a standard regulation basketball rim if we aren’t at least 6 foot tall. We won’t remember more digits of Pi than the national memory champion.
Unlike the marathon monks, we have the blessing of being able to choose what to commit to. We don’t have to do or die. If we fail, it may mean that we’ve set the bar too high. Sometimes it may also be a good reminder to reconsider our pursuit — perhaps our strengths may lie elsewhere.
And yet, this is also a curse because we constantly sell ourselves short. We shift the goalposts to satisfy our ego. Remember that the marathon monks devote their entire lives to training for a 1,000 day challenge. Just because something can’t be done in the short term doesn’t mean that it’s impossible; often we overestimate what we can do in the short term and underestimate what we can do in the long run.
Be careful that your supposed limitations are not self-declared. Don’t use it as a cop-out and excuse for your lack of grit and persistence.
The Point Of No Return
In every story, there’s a point of no return.
That point was Day 101 for the marathon monks, when they could no longer withdraw from the kaihōgyō. They didn’t know how the next 900 days would turn out, but they committed anyway.
How did the marathon monks feel at the point in time? I don’t know, but you can find out for yourself right now.
You just have to commit to something. |
I feel like it’s really unfair the way most readers buy into the narrative’s assertion that the White Council are unjustified and paranoid in treating Harry with so much suspicion. In many ways he’s everything they fear he is, and more.
In the first book, he gets himself knee-deep in the black magic going on in Chicago, then ends up researching how to rip out somebody’s heart with magic. His motivations are pure enough, but he’s dancing close to the corrupting influence of black magic in blatant defiance of the Laws because he has no respect for the council and is bound only by his own morality. He doesn’t yet understand that black magic can warp the user in and of itself, but that’s the whole point of the Council’s laws being so absolute, they use fear to keep people from doing things they’re too young to see the folly of.
The second book has him taking up (however breifly) the power of a Hexenwulf belt which, even leaving aside what we later learn about the Nemesis connection, nearly has him breaking the First Law within a minute, and then it takes him weeks (months?) to shake off the bloodlust it leaves him with.
The third book involves him plunging the Council into a war that very nearly gets them wiped out, probably killing several people with magic, surviving only with the help of the White King’s only son and Mab’s best frenemy. Not to mention the fact that the woman he loves (and started the war for) is now halfway to vampirism, and Harry’s had a dangerous level of exposure to Red Court venom.
I could go on and on for every single book (most things being much worse than what I’ve already noted), but my point is that they have more than enough justification to fear Dresden and to consider him a danger. His actions in Changes alone are almost incomprehensible. He openly disregards the Accords in his challenge of Arianna, disrespects the Senior Council (mostly Cristos, but the others to some degree) in front of almost the entire Council and a senior member of the Red Court nobility, subverts the Captain of the Wardens to work against her superiors, *looks the Merlin in the face and threatens him*, then vanishes for a few days while everything goes to hell (surely there must be some among the old guard who suspect Dresden, rather than Arianna, of unleashing whatever sickness incapacitated Edinburugh) only to re-emerge as the Winter Knight, fighting alongside the aforementioned Sidhe lady, White Prince, and pulling together *all three Knights of the Sword*, two of whom he armed himself, and his own personal temple dog. Then he brings in some of the heaviest hitters in the world (at the very least Odin would be recognised by anybody who lived to carry tales away from Chichen Itza), and proceeds to make the Red Court extinct with a single movement. Oh, and the Council couldn’t possibly miss that hundreds of people had the life torn out of them through the use of magic.
If Dresden ever picked up all of the weapons he has at his disposal (Lasciel, Darkhallow, whatever he can get out of Demonreach, and probably other major things I can’t recall right now) then I’m literally not sure anything could stop him. |
*** NOTICE: We have cancelled this Kickstarter campaign. Your contribution has been cancelled as well. We've learned a lot from the experience and would like to extend a huge thank you to all of our generous and enthusiastic supporters.
We're still on track and the Dumpster Team is just as dedicated to the project as ever! The only major difference is that the timeline for Phases 2 & 3 will take a little longer than originally expected. Professor Dumpster is used to sweating things out in the Texas heat, so he'll be fine.
We still NEED YOUR HELP. We've set up a page where you can now transfer your pledge directly to The Dumpster Project non-profit by clicking here. You will receive similar rewards and the added bonus that your donation is tax deductible! We can't pull off this is amazing design and education project without your help. Please consider contributing your financial support--it definitely won't go to waste.***
Again, click THIS LINK to transfer your donation.
THANK YOU SUPPORTERS!
The Dumpster Project is the tiniest of radical design experiments. Over the course of a year, a team of designers, engineers, scientists, and students will transform a 33 sq. ft. used trash receptacle into the most high-tech, sustainable micro-living space in the world. For the duration of the project, Dr. Jeff Wilson, aka, ‘Professor Dumpster,’ will make the dumpster his home. He’s testing the hypothesis that one can have a happy life with much, much less. When it’s all said and done, we’ll have an entire modern home packed into a box!
The efficient use of space and resources is an important piece of the puzzle—and we’ve chosen to tackle it with a dumpster. We admit a used dumpster is a slightly unconventional choice for a design lab, but we think it works. When it comes to design, the dumpster is a highly compact space that forces our super-skilled team to completely re-imagine the definition of home sweet home. It’s also an iconic symbol of waste that’s widespread yet invisible—a magic, metal box that swallows trash. Plus, there’s something about ‘Crazy, Trashy Professor Lives in Dumpster’ that just has a sweet ring to it.
Do we expect a world of 10 billion people to live in dumpster homes? Of course not! We want to accomplish THREE goals by tricking out a used dumpster with cutting-edge design and technology:
1) EXPERIMENT with the possibilities for a pretty gosh-darn-awesome life using dramatically fewer resources in a very small space.
2) Start and sustain a powerful (and educational) CONVERSATION about what is truly necessary for living well with less.
3) Develop INNOVATIVE DESIGN IDEAS that can be practically applied from Texas to Mars, or anywhere else life needs to be sustained.
In the final analysis, we'd like to learn what we can from this experiment to build the tiniest off-grid home allowable to city code in America. We figure that if we can make the iPhone we can certainly make a larger iPad.
As far as we know, there’s no step-by-step manual for remodeling a dumpster into a high-tech living space. Believe it or not, we actually prefer it that way. When we call The Dumpster Project the tiniest of radical experiments, we mean it. There are a million ways to retrofit a dumpster, but we want to discover the best and most practical solutions—for water, energy, space allocation, health and sanity. To do that, our design geniuses will be engineering a variety of options, while Professor Dumpster (the lucky guinea pig) tests what works and what doesn’t. You’ll be able to watch the experiment in real time via the online ‘Dumpster Dashboard’ equipped with dumpster cams and a data feed with current dumpster conditions. Our experimental approach opens up space for real learning and truly innovative results (though, if we’re being perfectly honest, we’re kinda hoping the composting toilet works the first time around).
Looking forward to ideal roofing technology.
Although dumpster design is a lot like the Wild West (anything goes), we do have three hard-and-fast guiding design parameters in place:
STEALTH MODE: There’s an element of subversion that comes with converting a dumpster into a home and we want to preserve that. That’s why we want the ability to go into ‘stealth mode’ at any time. When all the gears, shade tarps, lifts, and panels are folded away, the dumpster will look exactly like your average, back-alley dumpster. We want to be able to put it anywhere—a school, a posh neighborhood, a coffee shop parking lot—and have it go unnoticed (and yes, there are endless possibilities for pranks). If we have our way, you’ll never be able to look at a dumpster quite the same again.
There’s an element of subversion that comes with converting a dumpster into a home and we want to preserve that. That’s why we want the ability to go into ‘stealth mode’ at any time. When all the gears, shade tarps, lifts, and panels are folded away, the dumpster will look exactly like your average, back-alley dumpster. We want to be able to put it anywhere—a school, a posh neighborhood, a coffee shop parking lot—and have it go unnoticed (and yes, there are endless possibilities for pranks). If we have our way, you’ll never be able to look at a dumpster quite the same again. ON-THE-MOVE: We want the dumpster to be movable with standard equipment (like a forklift, a flatbed truck, or our future biofuel truck). This will allow us to move the dumpster without totally trashing the house. Also, portability is an interesting feature to consider with micro-homes.
We want the dumpster to be movable with standard equipment (like a forklift, a flatbed truck, or our future biofuel truck). This will allow us to move the dumpster without totally trashing the house. Also, portability is an interesting feature to consider with micro-homes. THE 1% RULE: By the final phase of the project, the dumpster is slated to consume 1% of the water, energy, and space of the average American home. We also want Professor Dumpster to produce 1% of the waste. It’s a tall order, but we’re up to the challenge.
The dumpster design will be rolled out in three separate phases over the course of the next 12-18 months. The first two phases are focused on experimenting with the space limitations and establishing a baseline for energy, water, and waste usage levels. The third phase is what everyone is excited about. It’s when we implement solutions to design challenges, and our proving ground for innovation. Here’s the lowdown:
PHASE 1: Dumpster Camping (Feb – June 30, 2014) Professor Dumpster is actively in Phase 1 right now and it’s a lot like what it sounds—no running water, no electricity, and no amenities (unless you count the convertible moon-roof). For water, Professor Dumpster and his students hoof a mile down to the local lake. Every task—from using the facilities to cooking ramen—requires a careful consideration of resources. Needless to say, personal hygiene is not a huge priority at this stage of the game. There are campus facilities and his trusty bottle for midnight emergencies.
Step 1: Walk the water one mile uphill from a local lake.
Step 2: Use water to serve turkish coffee to house guests. After filtering of course!
PHASE 2: Average American Dumpster Home (July 1 [end of Kickstarter] – December 2014) Phase 2 begins in early summer—right as Texas heat turns the dumpster into a giant roasting oven. During this phase, Professor Dumpster will do his best to live exactly like an average American dude. We’re going to head over to a local big-box store and pick up the most popular A/C window unit, washing machine, dishwasher, refrigerator, stove, toilet—you get the idea. Next we’re going plop everything next to the dumpster in a ‘utilities shed’, add a slew of monitoring devices, and connect to the grid. Why? We want to present familiar and relatable aspects of the American lifestyle while simultaneously establishing a data baseline—average levels of consumption for energy, water and waste. The final transformation to the über dumpster will be all the more striking compared to ‘average’ dumpster living.
Guiding design sketch for this summer's transition to Phase II: The 'Average American Home' Dumpster and 'Utility Closet'
PHASE 3: Space Capsule Über Dumpster (December 2014 – Summer 2015) The last dumpster phase is the ultimate home remodel. According to plan, Professor Dumpster will be living the good life in a completely sustainable, off-grid dumpster home, complete with solar energy, climate control, water catchment systems, convertible interior spaces, high-tech insulation, and cutting-edge toilet technology (fingers crossed for a shower, too). Everything is lined up – the talent, the vision, a lot of design ideas – we’re asking for your contribution to put it all together.
Early thoughts on a proposed design for Phase III's off-grid Ultimate Dumpster Home
It has been over two years since The Dumpster Project was birthed in a coffee shop parking lot. Dr. Jeff Wilson, an environmental science professor, was sipping espresso and staring out the window when he suddenly found himself transfixed by the shiny metal gleam of the parking lot dumpster. It was one of those lightning-bolt moments. He immediately called his best friend (a balanced pragmatist) and said,
“Yvette, I’ve just decided to live in a dumpster.”
“Great,” she said, without pausing. “When do you move in?”
If anyone was a likely candidate for an “unconventional lifestyle,” it was Wilson. Shortly before the parking lot revelation, he had concluded that, with middle age fast approaching, it was time for him to shake things up. He was determined to push his limits when it came to teaching too; science education was often boring and far removed from real-world applications. He wanted to trade in eye-drying academic publications for science experiments that spiked the curiosity of students and the wider public.
Professor Dumpster assumed the primate-in-a-space-capsule role when he began camping out in the dumpster four months ago. At first glance you might be thinking, “Yeah, right - never in a million years,” but, believe it or not, Professor Dumpster’s life isn’t so different from yours. In the morning he brews a cup of coffee, grabs a hipster bowtie from his closet, throws on some clothes, and heads out to work. The difference is in the details: his coffee is brewed with filtered lake water, his bowties and clothes are stashed in a secret dumpster floor compartment, and he swings out of the house through the ‘window’ like a chimpanzee in a bar fight.
First attempt at exiting home: didn't even catch a bronze medal on the landing.
After four months of training, it's a perfect 10 landing!
Still, one doesn’t just move into a dumpster. Taking a one year dive into a dumpster is a lifestyle that has to be eased into. Three years ago, he moved from a 3,000 sq. ft. home into an apartment. Mid-2012, Wilson held a garage sale and sold all of his worldly possessions for $1 per item. With a few changes of clothes and a shoebox of one-dollar bills, he loaded up one backpack and then (illegally) downsized to his 144 sq. ft. university office, where he lived undetected for almost eight months. In the summer of 2013, Wilson took a new position at Huston-Tillotson (HT) University, a historically black university in Austin, Texas. It was at HT that the project really began to take shape (that is—after he managed to convince the administration that he wasn’t crazy for wanting to install a residential dumpster behind the student dorms).
Since last summer, a world-class team of engineers, architects, educators, designers, filmmakers, scientists, artists, and students has gathered around the idea of transforming the dumpster into both a sustainable living space and a groundbreaking learning lab. We’ve got a crisp vision. We’ve got an incredible team. All we need now are the resources to pull it off.
This project is supported by partnerships with a whole collective of brilliant minds who have a burning passion for trashy design. We’ve got biologists sequencing the Dumpster biome, green planners assessing the dumpster carbon footprint, designers wrestling with space restrictions, architects planning the dumpster garden-scape, award-winning welders welding, green builders building, and community leaders getting the message out to Austin and beyond. Check out the Dumpster Project website for details on all of our kick-butt collaborations.
Professor Dumpster has a diagnosable obsession with gadgets, so you can be sure that the dumpster will be a showcase for the latest in sustainable technologies. We’re specifically interested in the areas of solar power, low-water use appliances (shower, toilet, washing machine), and innovative insulation materials. Whether we’re figuring out how to jam more shoes into a shoebox of a closet or how to efficiently deploy lightweight solar panels, the innovations developed in this project will have wide-ranging impact. We’re taking experimental technology from the dumpster lab and applying it to a real world challenge.
A lot of great ideas are being dumped into this.
We also want each step in the dumpster development to be interactive, collaborative, and open-source. From day one, Professor Dumpster has been querying the public for design and technology hacks. Right now the questions are basic (“What can I do to keep my dumpster from flooding?” or “How can I protect myself from being eaten by mosquitos?”), but as the dumpster increases in sophistication, so will the tech challenges.
In the spirit of technological collaboration, we’re thrilled to be building an online Dumpster Dashboard on the our home page that will allow anyone with an internet connection to view detailed, real-time stats on the dumpster (temperature, air quality, water levels, electricity usage or production, weather, live cams, etc.).
Emerging technology combined with a quirky professor and his dumpster make for a fantastic educational opportunity—especially when it comes to science, tech, engineering and math (better known as STEM in the education community). The dumpster is a hands-on learning lab where STEM-related skills have obvious, real-world applications. For example, Professor Dumpster’s health is at serious risk if too much carbon dioxide builds up in the dumpster. How do we measure the risk and help him find a safe solution? What materials make for the best insulation? Let’s measure the reflectivity and heat capacity of different insulation materials and talk about what he should use on his home.
A dumpster isn't safe without some tests.
The Dumpster Project is already teaming up with a local education non-profit to develop open-source K-12 lessons and curricula that interface with the project and the interactive Dumpster Dashboard. Professor Dumpster’s Bill Nye/Oscar the Grouch persona adds a fresh dimension of fun to the learning process and kids will eventually be able to watch him introduce various science and engineering challenges in a series of short films designed to complement the curricula.
Documentation and publication are critical elements of any experiment, which is why we've partnered with A!R Media. They not only shot and produced our Kickstarter video, but are a critical part of the Dumpster team. We want to share our experience and findings with the world in a thoughtful and engaging manner, and A!R has been working with us to make that happen since way back when the dumpster was just a twinkle in Professor Dumpster’s eye.
The A!R team is always capturing.
Seriously...always
We are very excited about this collaboration because A!R is a company that embodies our experimental spirit. While we’re pushing the limits of design, they are trading in traditional documentary filmmaking methods for a new type of storytelling—an ongoing, interactive story that couples the best of documentary filmmaking with the latest web technology. It's a perfect match.
We’re pretty excited that the Dumpster Project has already proven to be a powerful conversation starter, but we’re even more thrilled that new voices are joining the conversation. Discussions about green design and the sustainable use of resources often leave minority and other underserved communities out of the conversation. We’re changing that by conducting the experiment right in the middle of a historically black campus in East Austin, one of the most diverse and rapidly changing neighborhoods in the United States (we’ve even got Bushwick beat). The Dumpster Project is just one piece of a broader, student-supported campaign to make Huston-Tillotson University the most sustainable historically black university campus in the nation. It’s a big goal and we’re incredibly proud to be part of it.
We are extremely proud of our student leaders.
Green is the New Black, the student team driving the Dumpster Project on campus. Even though they’ve already won a national competition for the project concept, they’ve got tons of ambition to go around. Their vision is to leverage design to transform the sustainability conversation among young minority students and connect to the broader community.
A dumpster may be tiny, but the Dumpster Project’s vision is huge. Beyond the actual dumpster structure, we need the dumpster tech. An über dumpster with the latest photovoltaics, cutting-edge energy-producing toilets, and nanotech insulation requires more than we can make recycling aluminum cans. And then there are the minds that have the design expertise to put this all together—bringing our world-class team together also requires substantial funding.
The dumpster is a conversation box and we also need dollars to make sure this project not only kickstarts a conversation, but keeps it going for years. With our top-notch production company, A!R Media, we want the Dumpster Project website and dashboard to be freely available to educate and entertain for years to come and preserve the knowledge gained over the course of the experiment.
Our conversations and discoveries will go beyond the traditional news.
So go ahead, join us on the expedition and toss in some disposable income! The air is ripe for transforming the way we view happiness, health and home.
REWARDS. We've got dumpster loads of rewards for our sponsors!
Tees and Totes ($15 and up) |
Discover a place with more than 7 million bulbs from 800 varieties of tulips in bloom. Explore the magic of the Dutch spring in these exquisite flower displays at the Keukenhof Garden .
Amsterdam is one of the greatest small cities in the world. From Amsterdam canals to world-famous Amsterdam museums and historical Amsterdam sights, it is one of the most romantic and beautiful cities in Europe. Canal cruises are a popular way to see the city from the perspective of its canals.
Amsterdam is also a city of tolerance and diversity. It has all the advantages of a big city: rich culture, lively Amsterdam nightlife, international restaurants, good transport - but is quiet, and largely thanks to its extensive canals, has a little road traffic. In this city your destination is never far away, but get a bike for an authentic local experience.
And if you are staying for longer, consider a daytrip from Amsterdam to see also the surrounding towns and villages. They are full of attractions. If planning to settle in Amsterdam for some time, definitely try a Dutch language course to not be an outsider.
Amsterdam tourist attractions
Museums are the main tourist attraction in Amsterdam. Everyone knows the Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum and Stedelijk Museum, but there is much more. Amsterdam has over seventy museums which attract millions of visitors each year. See our suggested itineraries to explore these attractions.
To understand the basic knowledge about Amsterdam and The Netherlands read some interesting facts and information about this beautiful city and country.
One of the world's great museums the Rijksmuseum with its magnificent exhibit of more than 8000 works, including those of masters Rembrandt, Vermeer and Rubens is today one of Amsterdam must-see attractions. The Rijksmuseum collection is constantly enriched and this state owned museum was only couple of years ago thoroughly modernised. The Rijksmuseum bookshop and a small sculpture garden on the museum's sides are freely accessible. The Rijksmuseum terrace located at the back of the museum is a pleasant place to sit in warm seasons while the Museumplein while the square adjoining to the Amsterdam three most important museums becomes each winter a lively skating space.
Coffeeshops in Holland are allowed to sell small amounts of cannabis and are strictly regulated and taxed. Furthermore, coffeeshops must not sell to anyone under 18 and they must not sell more than 5g to any customer. Hard drugs are strictly prohibited. Pictures of coffee shops |
AL MAZYOUNA, Oman // Salam sits smiling as waiters carry trays of strong tea and Yemeni-style grilled fish to the lorry drivers, government officials and local businessmen who fill his new restaurant’s tables and private booths in this growing trade hub on the border with Yemen.
“Trade is increasing ... and I am quite happy about it,” says Salam, 27, who did not want to give his full name. “People from all the villages around here are trying to move to Mazyouna because if you open a business here it will definitely do well.”
The Al Mazyouna economic free zone that Oman set up in 1999 to facilitate and regulate commerce with Yemen is expanding steadily, in part due to the war economy that has emerged over the past 18 months of conflict across the border. With Yemen’s ports functioning only partially and the border with Saudi Arabia impassable due to the war, Oman is a major transit route for necessities such as petrol and food, as well as consumer goods like cars. On a recent afternoon, lorries carrying used cars purchased in Dubai idled in line as they waited to cross into Yemen.
The Omani government is adding infrastructure and services to the free zone to entice the tribal communities who live in nearby rural desert to move here. Blocks of new grey and white government-built houses are under construction, the completed homes uninhabited so far. A military base and police station are also being built, while a new bank, hotel, hospital and school sit nearby.
The development of Al Mazyouna is just one part of Oman’s response to what diplomats and other observers say is its most immediate security challenge – securing the long and porous border with Yemen and preventing any spillover of the war there, including, most crucially, infiltration by militants of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (Aqap), the Yemen-based branch of the terror network.
In addition to encouraging the resettlement of communities away from more remote and porous parts of the border region, the government is also constructing a fence along what until now was a mostly unmarked border between the provinces of Dhofar in Oman and Al Mahrah in Yemen. The presence of military and security forces has also increased markedly over the past two years, according to residents, and there are now multiple military checkpoints along roads that feed into the border regions.
As Oman works to increase its security presence here and regulate the flow of people and goods across the border, the key challenge is how to secure the border without disrupting the trade that supports poor populations on both sides or creating conditions that could give militant groups such as AQAP a foothold.
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READ: Family ties bind Oman and Yemen across border
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“It’s a very tricky balancing act that Oman has to engage in,” says Sigurd Neubauer, a non-resident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, DC.
Tribal and Sunni, Dhofar province is a very different place from northern Oman. A leftist rebellion in Dhofar against Muscat triggered a civil war for 14 years until it was finally put down by Omani troops backed by British, Iranian and Pakistani forces in 1976. Sultan Qaboos then personally oversaw successful efforts to integrate Dhofar. But there are pockets of rural areas that are still underdeveloped.
A sprawling desert slum only a couple of kilometres from Al Mazyouna, unconnected to the newly expanded road and electricity grid, hints at the challenge of the new infrastructure projects keeping pace with population growth, especially in a time of fiscal austerity in Oman.
Across the border, Al Mahrah province has remained peaceful and provides a buffer zone that insulates Oman from Yemen’s war. While Oman has taken in a few thousand wounded Yemenis for medical treatment, it prefers to send food and other aid to Yemeni refugees in Al Mahrah rather than allow them into Oman.
Some residents of Al Mahrah hold Omani citizenship, and many more have deep ties across the border, through marriage and tribe. Before the war Al Mahrah was administered by authorities based in Hadramawt province to its west who had little incentive to spend funds on its development. As such, Al Mahrah’s economy has subsisted almost solely on smuggling between Oman and Yemen, says Elisabeth Kendall, a senior research fellow at Oxford University’s Pembroke College who conducts research in Al Mahrah.
Maintaining Al Mahrah as an effective buffer against Yemen’s violence and chaos is crucial to Oman’s new border management strategy. Residents of Al Mazyouna say they see Omani government lorries filled with food aid crossing the border daily. But observers worry that Muscat’s fencing of the border and regulating of trade, while necessary, must be implemented in a way that does not hurt Al Mahrah’s economy.
The Yemeni region itself is changing rapidly. The United Nations estimates that the province’s population is increasing by 4.6 per cent annually, the fastest rate in Yemen outside of the capital, Sanaa. Official population estimates for Al Mahrah were kept artificially low by its Hadramawt administrators so that it would receive less funding, says Ms Kendall, whose own calculations put Al Mahrah’s population at around 350,000.
But as the province’s population grows, with little diversification of its smuggling-dependent economy, some say Oman has maintained particular tribal partners who do not necessarily distribute the aid and other benefits they receive. “These old patronage structures just don’t work in the same way anymore,” Ms Kendall said. “We have massive growth in the youth population, and so allowing things to [stay] in the hands of a few old sheikhs who were a big deal a few years ago isn’t really going to work.”
It is much more difficult now for Al Mahrah residents to visit relatives across the border or to graze their cattle in the mountainous border regions in Oman that become green and lush during the late-summer khareef (rainy) season. “More recently what they’ve been trying to do is transport the grass by car and they can’t even do that very easily now,” Ms Kendall says.
As the Saudi-led coalition, in coordination with US counter-terrorism forces, has turned its attention to fighting AQAP in its south-western strongholds in Yemen, Al Mahrah has seen an increasing, if still relatively small, threat from the terrorist group. After the port of Mukalla, not far from Al Mahrah’s border with Hadramawt, was cleared of AQAP by the Saudi-led coalition in April, Ms Kendall says that tribesmen in Al Mahrah told her that militants had sought refuge at four separate locations inside the province. There has also been unconfirmed talk amongst tribesmen that AQAP sent operatives into the region to look for potential targets, but that they found none and left, she adds.
While Al Mahrah has no native problems with militancy or sectarianism, Al Qaeda or ISIL could try to exploit grievances if they are not addressed, such as those of young people against a tribal elite that has not shared resources, Ms Kendall says.
For its part, Omani officials have “pressured very hard the [tribal] leadership in Al Mahrah not to integrate with any of the AQAP forces”, Mr Neubauer says. But despite this, the threat does appear to be closer to Oman’s border than before.
tkhan@thenational.ae |
Petition to Modify Pending Legislation to Protect Children By Protecting Parent's Rights
Doug Dante DougDante1@yahoo.com September 29, 2010 The following message was sent to all Michigan Senators, all Michigan Representatives, and Michigan's Governor (See details below if you would also like to send this message to them), both by myself and by some members of the FRC@yahoogroups.com and michdads@yahoogroups.com on line e-mail groups. SUBJECT: Modify HB 4118, HB 4169, and SB 1302 to Protect Children By Protecting Parent's Rights BODY: Senator/Representative/Governor, I urge you to modify HB 4118, HB 4169, SB 1302 to protect the rights of parents. As it is implemented now, the law appears to me to sometimes cause the state to take children from fit and willing parents, particularly fathers, and place those children in various other placement options. These laws may marginally help children and parents who lose their relationships to one another in this manner, but not directly. Just listen to what Shane Hinojosa, father of Naveah Buchanan, a five year old living with her grandmother along with a known sex offender "father figure", before she was later murdered, had to say about his experiences trying to get custody of his child while her mother was in jail:
"I went to court, and the judge looked at me and said well you have no rights to your daughter at all. ... I don't know why I didn't get custody. I guess in the State of Michigan, it's grandmother, after something went wrong."
http://www.scribd.com/doc/29563848/A-Review-of-Friend-of-the-Court-Legislative-Changes-Suffer- the-Little-Children Watch whistle blower and former FOC enforcement officer Carol Rhodes:
"I came to the 32nd circuit family court to make a difference, ... but early on I realized ...
it was all about money
... My director would say regularly, 'We aren't the friend of the family, we're the Friend of the Court!' ... In the years I worked for the system I witnessed
regular deception
to clients that was mandated by office policy. I saw
gender bias and discrimination
. I saw records destroyed. ... I saw hundreds of pleas for parenting time or enforcement get buried because there is no money in enforcing custody or visitation issues. ...
We were rated according to how much money we would bring in |
Fusion is not only possible on earth, it has been carried out many times. The most notable and well-documented deuterium-tritium (D/T) fusion reaction took place in the Joint European Torus (JET) reactor in the UK. The reaction took place, but the amount of energy needed was more than was generated by the fusion; the “gain” was about 0.7, while 1.0 means balance and more than 1 is needed for net energy output.
At the time of this trial - 20 years ago ! - the JET device was modern and the staff very positive. Since then we’ve come a long, long way. Smaller, spherical tokamaks, super-conducting magnets and lots of practical and theoretical calculations indicate that we are really close to net energy gain - continuously - in systems that have been studied and the physics pretty much under control.
One of the less-understandable problems for the general public to grasp is handling of tritium, one of the two isotopes used for fusion. Tritium is a gas, just like hydrogen, and is both a fuel and a product of the fusion reaction; but it happens to be radio-active. It is not at all, really, serious: the amounts around a fusion facility will be very small, it has a half-life of 12 years, the radiation emitted (beta radiation) cannot penetrate clothing, skin or indeed almost anything will shield it. But when regulatory bodies (and indeed the lay public) see “radiation” they imagine tons of radioactive waste building up. Yes, tritium is radioactive, and should be controlled, but it is not at all like uranium, plutonium and the other scary radioactive materials in the nuclear energy world. And this is one of the major reasons experiments on D/T fusion are limited (another is the extremely high price of tritium!).
So, where is fusion now and what’s the future? At present, entrepreneurship and leadership in the fusion community, worldwide, is lacking. I am firmly convinced that net fusion energy can be achieved, now, using a number of today’s cutting-edge but proven technologies. A totally new pilot-scale facility will need to be built, which will require 8–10 years, and which will demonstrate the entire chain, from deuterium input to net electricity output. We have developed a reasonably detailed plan to achieve this, at a cost of some US$ 3 billion over the full 8–10 year period. I would be most pleased to discuss this whole idea further with anyone seriously interested in partnering with us. |
In previous article I explained importance of mocking microservices. Now let’s have a look how MounteBank can help us to mock a microservice without writing any code.
What is MounteBank?
Mountebank is the first open source tool to provide cross-platform, multi-protocol test doubles over the wire. Simply point your application under test to mountebank instead of the real dependency, and test like you would with traditional stubs and mocks.
Basically it provides a server that can be configured using a DSL to simulate requests and responses over variety of protocols (http, https, tcp and smtp).
How it works?
Installation
There are various ways to install MounteBank on different platforms. We recommend to use via npm.
Install npm Install MounteBank globally
$ npm mountebanck -g
Start MounteBank
$ mb –allowCORS –allowInjection –mock
By default it starts on the port 2525.
Now let’s learn some basic terminologies used by MounteBank DSL.
Response - Defines status code, headers and body
- Defines status code, headers and body Predicate - Conditions to check request to match some criteria based on which response will be returned
- Conditions to check request to match some criteria based on which response will be returned Stub - Also called Imposter is a Collection of predicates and responses for simulating an API
The DSL is very rich and we cannot cover everything here. For more details visit the API contract.
Now let us mock Get All Posts and Get a Specific Post API.
Get All Post
Here is a sample JSON to mock a RESTful service to get all posts,
This JSON is easy to understand. It defines an impostor (stub) for GET /posts API (using a predicate) listening at 9999 port to return a JSON (response) having two posts details.
Use this JSON and send it to MounteBank Server already running on your local machine.
Create an Impostor for Get All Posts
It should create an impostor successfully and return same JSON as you sent in request.
Now go and hit http://localhost:9999/posts in REST Client or Browser and you should receive JSON having two posts data.
Response from GET /posts
Get a Post
Similarly you can prepare impostor to get a single post.
Now hit http://localhost:9999/posts/1 in REST Client or Browser and you should receive JSON of the post.
Create Post
Submit this JSON to MounteBank Server running locally. Then try sending mentioned JSON in above snippet to mapped URL.
Response from POST /posts
Now it’s your turn. Create impostors for rest of the RESTful APIs and get hands on it.
There is a beautiful UI available to easily generate impostor JSONs. Thank you Donaby Helton!
At BoTree Technologies we strive to offer the best to our clients. Be it the quality of code, the processes and practices we follow or adoption of the latest productivity tools and services.
Drop us a line for any kind of help with your requirements in software development. We do not charge for any consultations. |
Is this broad asking for a little bit too much here? Not morbidly obese, yet well hung? These chubby chicks think they can just have it all these days. What’s wrong with a skinny dude, not well hung who wants to chubby chase during the ALCS? Don’t get picky, honey.
Also, how desperate is a Royals fan who would take a chubby bandwagon fan to the ALCS? The guy could just announce on Facebook that he’s looking for a date and have 10 choices within seconds from his friends list. I can’t picture a moron out there who would go hoggin’ and let a Red Sox fan have the seat. This broad isn’t even mentioning that she’ll blow you after the game. Sounds like this chubby just wants everything her way and isn’t willing to give back.
Be careful during negotiations. |
We previewed a Richard Pryor “dramedy”, Some Kind Of Hero, in 1982 in Atlanta Georgia. Typically, you preview pictures early on, before the release, to gauge what is working and what isn’t. Before you lock the picture and send it out in the world, you still have time to fix it.
In Atlanta, the audience tore out 11 seats from the theatre while watching the movie — literally, they pulled the chairs out from the floor.
This was only thirty years ago.
Was it because they didn’t like the movie? Specifically, this audience did not like one specific thing: a black man kissing a white woman.
“It’s called some kind of hero, not some kind of heroes!” said the head of Production at Paramount Pictures, Don Simpson,. He was justifying changes to me.
“Cut the scene and cut the ending. Richard needs to go off into the sunset alone!”
Since we worked for a public company and needed to protect shareholder value, we made the changes and cut Margot Kidder largely from the picture. The movie ended up being a moderate success in America.
In 1986 at Paramount, I was so nervous about the romantic scene with Eddie Murphy in The Golden Child, I ran around like an insane man.
Is there a girl out there who could kiss Eddie?
Insane.
I understand the absurdity of this today; but it was still a tender subject at the time and I was still smarting from the incident in Atlanta.
We tested and screened a hundred actresses for the female lead opposite Eddie. We cast Charlotte Lewis in the role. She was a lovely British actress with a dark complexion; in fact she was Irish, Chilean, and Iranian. There was a kiss, and no one ripped up the seats. We had found the right girl to kiss the black star!
Now, I am seeing racial reconciliation everywhere in pop culture and it doesn’t seem to be a big deal.
Just last night, the new Bond movie, Skyfall, has an inter-racial subplot. Meanwhile, Bradley Cooper and Saldana Zoe appear to be celebrating their racial difference.
Their bed scene serves as the poster.
Have we come to the point where it doesn’t matter anymore? |
Hillary’s Sweet Lemon Mint Mentha 'Hillary’s Sweet Lemon'
Uses: Culinary/Beverage Duration: Perennial (hardy in zones 6-11) A fresh new twist to the available palette of mint flavours. Developed from apple and lime mint, it has the sweet, fruity, spearmint-like aroma of apple mint lined with a citrus edge from its lime parent. Has tremendous culinary potential according to Jim Westerfield, who tested this mint extensively in the kitchen of his award-winning bed-and-breakfast inn. An aggressive female mint with lavender flower spikes. Named after Hillary Clinton, First Lady of the United States and herb enthusiast. RICHTERS EXCLUSIVE CANADIAN INTRODUCTION. Protected by U.S. patent. Richters holds exclusive propagation rights in Canada.
P4019 Plants $4.75/ea, $11.40/3 plants, $36.00/12 plants P4019 Plug pack 12 $15.00/ea P4019 Plug tray 90 $70.00/ea Currency: United States Dollar Order in Confidence with Richters SafeSecure™ Online Shopping System! |
The pundit class and the GOP establishment currently are engaged in massive “concern trolling” over the possibility that Republican voters will elect conservatives in party primaries. Karl Rove, the US Chamber of Commerce and other special interests have vowed to spend whatever it takes to prevent citizens from nominating the “wrong” candidates. Setting aside the conceit that these interests know better than voters who should represent them, are these concerns even valid?
The establishment’s argument is based on three things: 1) Rep. Todd Akin (MO), 2) Sharron Angle (NV), and 3) Christine O’Donnell (DE). Granted, these campaigns were train wrecks, but it isn’t as simple a narrative as the Tea Party ousting more electable candidates. In Missouri and Nevada, the Tea Party was largely divided among two other candidates, allowing Akin and Angle to sneak through. Grass roots activists across the country did rally behind O’Donnell in the final days of the campaign, but she was only successful because Rep. Mike Castle, the GOP frontrunner, had arrogantly not really campaigned for the nomination.
That said, let’s tally these races as arguments for the GOP establishment against conservatives. If these races had flipped, or stayed, Republican, the party would have 48 seats, very close to a majority.
But, what is the GOP establishment track-record?
In 2012, the GOP got its pick of candidates in several states. The party was able to fend off primary challenges and rally behind the “most electable” candidate. These included: Linda McMahon (CT), Denny Rehberg (MT), Tommy Thompson (WI), George Allen (VA), Connie Mack (FL), Heather Wilson (NM), Josh Mandell (OH), Pete Hoekstra (MI) and Linda Lingle (HI). These nine candidates had the “moderate” records that voters purportedly prefer. They each had enormous resources to wage successful campaigns. Had these “electable candidates” won, the GOP would be in the majority now with 54 seats.
In 2010, the GOP establishment lost winnable seats in California, with Carly Fiorina, and Washington, with Dino Rossi. If the GOP establishment truly knew the “special sauce” to win campaigns, the party would have 56 seats in the Senate now, even allowing for the seats where the “tea party” supported “flawed” candidates.
So, even accepting the tenuous argument that the “tea party” cost the Republicans 3-5 seats, the GOP establishment lost 11. One could easily argue that the Tea Party needs to step-up its involvement in primaries to prevent the Republican party from continuing to nominate “moderate” candidates who can’t win. The last two GOP presidential nominees have been “electable moderates” who so failed to inspire actual voters that they lost very winnable races.
Also, keep in mind that the GOP establishment lost a House majority in 2006. Only on the strength of the Tea Party and conservative grass roots was it able to win it back in 2010.
One needs look no further than the recent Virginia Governor’s race to understand the complete failure of the GOP establishment and consultant class. Fearing he was “too conservative” for the Commonwealth, Ken Cuccinelli’s advisors, fresh off the Romney campaign, spent weeks running ads about Ken’s work on mental health issues and homelessness. He also spent precious time rebutting bogus charges about the GOP “war on women.” At first a few points behind Democrat Terry McAuliffe, he soon faced a double-digit deficit. McAuliffe looked to be on the cusp of a landslide victory.
They, Cuccinelli remembered ObamaCare. In the final two weeks of the campaign, Cuccinelli stressed his early opposition to ObamaCare. He ended his campaign with a very conservative message. On election night, he surprised the political world with an extremely narrow loss. Had he seized on the conservative message against ObamaCare a week earlier, who knows how the election would have been decided.
The entire argument against the “Tea Party” from the GOP establishment is an attempt to excuse their unbelievable failure in 2012. The Republicans squandered more than $1 billion on the most winnable Presidential race in modern history. They had a deep slate of “electable” Senate candidates who all went down to defeat. Rather than accepting responsibility for their failure, GOP consultants are pointing fingers at conservatives, trying to distract the attention of their donors. Malpractice is too mild a word for their performance in 2012.
Personal responsibility used to be a plank of the Republican philosophy. For the pundit and consultant class, that value clearly applies only to other people. |
Protection. Magnums. Rubbers. Whatever you call them, when you use a condom correctly and consistently, you lower your chances of contracting or transmitting STDs. And who doesn’t want to worry less?
But we know that condoms can be expensive. That’s why we’ll give them to you for free and even deliver them to your house! (Don’t worry, they’ll come in an unmarked envelope.) And if you prefer internal condoms (AKA “female condoms”), we’ve got those, too. All you have to do is fill out the form below!
Enter Your DC Zip Code *
Your Name * First Name Last Name
Address Line 1 *
Address Line 2
Washington, DC
Phone Number *
Email *
Acknowledgement * I acknowledge that I am a resident of Washington, DC and that by submitting this form, I am permitting DC Health to mail me a package of free condoms and lubricant to my home address in an unmarked envelope.
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This iframe contains the logic required to handle Ajax powered Gravity Forms. |
AN EIGHT-YEAR-OLD girl who was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer three years ago has become the first person in the world to beat the illness.
Claudia Burkill, of Mount Rasen in England, was told she had metastatic pineoblastoma, a malignant brain tumour, at the age of five.
On a number of times the family was told Claudia had just weeks to live and had planned her funeral.
Then on the weekend, three years to the day since Claudia’s mum Andrea Burkill first called a hospital about her daughter’s health, the family’s prayers were answered.
“Claudia is cancer-free and no longer classed as terminally ill,” Mrs Burkill wrote on her daughter’s Facebook page. “A miracle has happened, it really has. I just can’t stop shaking.”
Only about four cases of metastatic pineoblastoma are diagnosed every year and there is a survival rate of less than five per cent worldwide.
In June 2011 the Burkill family arrived home from a holiday when Claudia started vomiting.
Andrea and David Burkill were not satisfied when doctors diagnosed her with a virus after doing a series of tests including a CAT scan, a lumbar puncture and an MRI.
After taking her to the Queens Medical Centre Nottingham doctors found the tumour in the centre of her brain.
The family agreed for Claudia to undergo an experimental Italian treatment which involving 44 sessions of radiotherapy.
While she has some residual brain damage as a result of the treatment the Burkill family, including Claudia’s siblings Abigail, Esme and Zachery, believe they can get through anything.
“We had lived with a terminal diagnosis with death believed to be imminent for a crazy 694 days,” Mrs Burkill wrote. “Today is the very first day in a very long time that I can look into the eyes of our four stunning children and “know” that I don’t have to plan the funeral of one of them in the very near future.”
“The mere joy of being alive today far surpasses any other single day in my life so far,” she wrote. “There are no signs of any tumour, any leptomeningeal spread or any recurrent disease, anywhere.
Mrs Burkill said news of Claudia’s recovery had spread across the world.
“Monday, it was the local news, Tuesday, it was the national news and yes, you guessed it, today it is international news with newspapers in Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Poland, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Peru and a hundred more all covering Claudia’s amazing news! I guess the exciting news for us today, as a family is, is that Claudia’s new wheelchair is ready tomorrow and so she will have a brand new set of sporty wheels to get around in,” she said. “On top of that, her hair.....a brand new blonde hairstyle, which actually made me cry because she looks, just like she did before cancer, is ready to collect next week.”
“We are the luckiest people in this world — Claudia is believed to be the very first little girl in the world ever to survive metastatic pineoblastoma,” she wrote. “She has paid a high price, we all have, however, she does have her life and we are dedicated to making the very best that it can be for her. A life where she can experience love, joy and happiness in abundance and be cherished always.” |
Transcript of interview with Donald Trump (excerpt re Russia)
Q: Do you think that what’s happened in Syria now with Putin intervening is a good thing or a bad thing?
Nah, I think it’s a very rough thing. It’s a very bad thing, we had a chance to do something when we had the line in the sand and it wasn’t – nothing happened. That was the only time – and now, it’s sort of very late. It’s too late. Now everything is over – at some point it will come to an end – but Aleppo was nasty. I mean when you see them shooting old ladies walking out of town – they can’t even walk and they’re shooting ’em – it almost looks like they’re shooting ’em for sport – ah no, that’s a terrible – that’s been a terrible situation. Aleppo has been such a terrible humanitarian situation.
Q: Talking about Russia, you know that Angela Merkel understands Putin very well because he is fluent in German, she is fluent in Russian, and they have known each other for a long time – but who would you trust more, Angela Merkel or Vladimir Putin?
Well, I start off trusting both – but let’s see how long that lasts. It may not last long at all.
Q: Can you understand why eastern Europeans fear Putin and Russia?
Sure. Oh sure, I know that. I mean, I understand what’s going on, I said a long time ago – that Nato had problems. Number one it was obsolete, because it was, you know, designed many, many years ago. Number two – the countries aren’t paying what they’re supposed to pay. I took such heat, when I said Nato was obsolete. It’s obsolete because it wasn’t taking care of terror. I took a lot of heat for two days. And then they started saying Trump is right – and now – it was on the front page of The Wall Street Journal, they have a whole division devoted now to terror, which is good.
And the other thing is the countries aren’t paying their fair share so we’re supposed to protect countries but a lot of these countries aren’t paying what they’re supposed to be paying, which I think is very unfair to the United States. With that being said, Nato is very important to me.
Q: Britain is paying.
Britain is paying. There’s five countries that are paying what they’re supposed to. Five. It’s not much, from 22.
Q: For decades now, Europe has depended on America for its defence. Will that guarantee be there in the future as well?
Yeah, I feel very strongly toward Europe – very strongly toward Europe, yes.
Q: Do you support European sanctions against Russia?
Well, I think you know – people have to get together and people have to do what they have to do in terms of being fair. OK? They have sanctions on Russia – let’s see if we can make some good deals with Russia. For one thing, I think nuclear weapons should be way down and reduced very substantially, that’s part of it. But you do have sanctions and Russia’s hurting very badly right now because of sanctions, but I think something can happen that a lot of people are gonna benefit….
Q: Given what’s been reported this week, what does that say about your relations with the intelligence community?
Well, we have to have, ya have to have the right people and as you know Pompeo – who’s really been received, did a good job yesterday, head of the CIA – might I think we have some very great people going in – I think we have some great people – ya know I have a lot of respect for the intelligence but a lot of leaks, a lot of fake news coming out, a lot of fake news.
Q: It’s been reported that a British former diplomat was involved in this whole thing – do you think that we, in Britain, need to look at our intelligence services?
Well, that guy is somebody that you should look at, because whatever he made up about me it was false – he was supposedly hired by the Republicans and Democrats working together – even that I don’t believe because they don’t work together, they work separately – and they don’t hire the same guy – what they got together? See the whole thing is fake news because it said the, whoever it was, intelligence, the so-called intelligence, said he’s an operative of Republicans and Democrats – they don’t work together, they don’t work together.
Q: Who do you think, then, is behind it all?
I think probably could be intelligence or it could be, it could be, the Democrats.
When I just heard it – I ripped up the mat . . . if I did that in a hotel it’d be the biggest thing – they’d have me on the front page of The New York Post, right? And the other thing, I can’t even, I don’t even want to shake hands with people now I hear about this stuff – ugh.
It’s fake news, it was totally made up and I just got a letter from people that went to Russia with me – did you see that letter – very rich people, they went with me, they said you were with us, I was with them, I wasn’t even here when they said such false stuff.
I left, I wasn’t even there . . . I was there for the Miss Universe contest, got up, got my stuff and I left – I wasn’t even there – it’s all . . . so if this guy is a British guy you got a lot of problems…. |
The voters of Massachusetts spoke clearly Nov. 4 on the topic of marijuana: They want simple possession treated as a civil infraction, more like a parking ticket than a serious crime, with a maximum fine of $100. Other laws involving marijuana stay in place, and those under 18 caught with less than an ounce of pot are required to attend a drug education course as well as pay the fine.
The voters of Massachusetts spoke clearly Nov. 4 on the topic of marijuana: They want simple possession treated as a civil infraction, more like a parking ticket than a serious crime, with a maximum fine of $100. Other laws involving marijuana stay in place, and those under 18 caught with less than an ounce of pot are required to attend a drug-education course as well as pay the fine.
The only ones unclear about what Question 2 intends are law enforcement officials who act like a civil violation is some radical idea no one ever heard of. District attorneys and police chiefs have been acting like it was all a big misunderstanding. Question 2 proponents "sold the public a pig in a poke, and the public bought it," Cape and Islands DA Michael O'Keefe said last week.
The district attorneys, who opposed the ballot initiative, have asked the Legislature to postpone implementation, which takes effect Jan. 2. They cite a long list of problems, all of which sound easily surmountable. Who'll print up the tickets? Who will design the drug education course? What if a young violator doesn't show up for the course and doesn't pay the $1,000 fine?
Some of the questions are just silly. Berkshire County DA David Capeless asked if chiefs can discipline officers who light up a joint on their way out the door. Of course: with a $100 fine and whatever punishment department policies establish.
Police have raised the issue of extra training, which presumably entails how to use a scale to tell if the seized marijuana weighs over an ounce. They have raised the issue of whether this means the state's two crime labs won't do tests on seized marijuana less than an ounce. To the layperson, this sounds easy enough: If the police have reason to believe the marijuana seized has been treated with another illegal product, have it tested. After all, it's evidence that a more serious crime may have been committed.
But there's no need to test every sample of regular marijuana. Besides, if they are testing every bag of pot seized, whether suspicious or not, that may be one reason the crime labs are constantly backed up - and the first sign that Question 2 can save the taxpayers money.
This reefer madness is spreading. The Framingham Board of Health is worried because its ban on smoking in bars and restaurants only applies to tobacco. What's to stop someone from firing up a joint in a restaurant? Well, how about the prospect of getting kicked out of the restaurant and fined $100?
School officials have raised objections as well, wondering if the new law prevents them from suspending students caught with marijuana. But there's no mention of schools in Question 2, which amends the criminal statute, not the school handbook.
The public's response to the educators, police and prosecutors should be simple: You're the professionals; work it out.
That's what's happening. Last week, the chief justice of the state district courts, issued an 8-page memorandum addressing the questions raised by the new law. The state Department of Public Safety will issue a set of guidelines thiss week.
That should settle most matters, and if Massachusetts officials have more questions, they should consult with officials of a dozen other states where marijuana has been a civil offense for a long time. Beyond that, we've got a large system of courts designed for the expressed purpose of interpreting laws.
Take the next adult caught with a thimble-full of pot to court if necessary. But don't take this issue back to a Legislature which has ducked all questions of drug policy for decades. The campaign is over and the voters have spoken.
The MetroWest Daily News |
BANGLADESH'S top university has ordered an investigation into a doctoral thesis by a political science teacher who claimed to have interviewed 1.3 million people in three years -- more than 1,000 a day.
Dhaka University's Mohammad Noor Uddin was awarded a PhD last year for his research, "The Practices of Marxism and Their Impact on Modern World: The case of Objectivisation."
He said he interviewed 1.275 million people for the research carried out between June 2008 and May 2011, meaning he interviewed about 1,200 people every day, Dhaka University vice-chancellor Arefin Siddique said.
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"We ordered an inquiry into the thesis work after the dean of the political science faculty and five fellow teachers made complaints. A five-man committee led by university's pro-vice chancellor will investigate the matter," he said.
"We have included an internet expert into the inquiry team as he [Uddin] has claimed that he interviewed all these people through online," Siddique added.
Uddin could not be contacted, but one of his thesis supervisors and chief of the university's political science department, Professor Shawkat Ara Hossain, defended the work, saying she believed him.
"The thesis was good," Hossain said.
State-run Dhaka University is Bangladesh's most famous higher educational institute and produces some of the country's best-known students and academics every year. |
My eyes on twitter, yesterday, pinged me with an interesting retweet from one of the usual suspects. You know, those people in science fiction who have been so oppressed and downtrodden and kept at arms length because we don’t like their ancestors or their color or their orientation or yes, that they’ve been living hand-to-mouth existences, oppressed by white male privilege and barely able to scrape up a few crumbs of stale bread for their dinner.
This was retweeted in fact by one of those people who continuously try to stop discussion with “Check your privilege.”
I’m just going to quote this magnificent retweet and let you stand back, take a deep breath and admire it splendid madness.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the point of education wasn’t to make a more useful workforce, but to make happy, imaginative and empathetic humans?
Stop – drop and roll – and take a deep breath.
Does anyone here remember why education was instituted among humans? I mean, I know some of you are that ancient, old enough to have fallen from the trees back in the glory days when we went from shrew to ape.
No?
Me neither, but I’ve observed training and education among all mammal species for most of my life. I was raised on what could not be considered a farm except by fiat, but we did grow most of our own food, and what we didn’t grow the neighbors did. And at least some mammals (and birds) I paid attention to because they were cute. I’ve seen mother cats train kittens to hunt, I’ve seen mother rabbits teach bunnies what is best to eat. I’ve seen chickens keep watch on their broods.
“Education” at that level has two basic functions: how to survive as an adult animal and how not to get killed (which is also survival, of course, but less proactive.)
If you go back as far as we can go on first hand accounts, human education had the same purpose, be it learning to hunt, or keep animals, or even pull your forelock to the lord, depending on where you were in the time and place.
For humans it was a little more complex, of course. One of the funniest things is to hear modern people deplore the fact that even most medieval noblemen were illiterate. But the fact is in their own complex world they had much to learn: How to manage places with almost no extra income so you could have enough to support you and not inspire assassination, for instance. Also hunting. Also a complex set of social cues that would make modern heads explode. Writing was no part of their métier. They didn’t need it to survive.
It wasn’t, in fact, until noblemen became a little richer and there was a little more disposable capital in their domains that they felt a need to read and write so they could keep an eye on the churchmen doing the accounting for them.
Nowadays reading is considered an important skill for everyone, not because we’re more enlightened or brighter or better, but simply because navigating the modern world is often a function of being able to quickly read and absorb information.
Note this might be easily superseded in the future by virtual targeted spoken messages, something that in fact already happens at some levels and probably why people at that level in society (mostly supported) have very little interest in learning to read.
The learning to read might have brought with it the ability to read for fun and happiness and to improve your morals, but that (unless you were studying to be a churchmen the later) was not the purpose.
So mostly the purpose of education in humans is to make useful and well adjusted adult humans.
It is, of course, failing at both across a vast spectrum. In the later especially, the part of the quote that goes on about:
to make happy, imaginative and empathetic humans?
The progressive comrades of the lady retweeting this piece of cluelessness have stopped us doing that. Because we can’t teach any type of morals, not even “do onto others” which is what creates empathetic humans. And we certainly can’t teach humans to be happy. “Happy” by definition is “fits well within the structures of society and follows accepted modes and morals.” Or at least that’s as close as a public institution can come to making anyone happy. (To make you INTERNALLY happy would involve a lot of soma, if you’re not disposed that way. We’re trying to do that too, of course, but apparently the chemical happy is not the same as happy-happy.) As for making humans more imaginative, we have no idea if that can be done at all, but if it could it would probably counter the “happy” and it would certainly counter most politically correct strictures on our schools. Imaginative humans can think of anything. Even the unthinkable. They might not do it, but they can think it.
The person who originated this quote (who I presume was not our SJW) seems to think of imaginative in the childish sense of “imagination is a wonderful and sunny place” but an imaginative person can think of anything. When it’s Kate’s turn maybe she’ll grace us with a post on how sometimes your imagination definitely goes where you don’t want it, and how to cope with it.
But let’s leave aside for a moment the internal contradictions in that quote. It’s difficult to do, because there are rifts between its well-meaning prescriptions that are broad enough to let entire civilizations slip through unnoticed.
Let’s instead concentrate on the beginning:
Wouldn’t it be nice if the point of education wasn’t to make a more useful workforce
Oh, yes, of course. Other things that would be nice: if ice cream grew on trees. If designer dresses grew on wild bushes. If we all had a perfect body. If there were no disease and suffering and we studied war no more.
I mean, what exactly is the point of wishing for something like that?
People, in this work-a-day (eh) world still have to make a living, right? Last I checked, just looking around, this desk I’m sitting at did not sprout fully formed from a particularly blessed acorn. The computer I’m typing at was not only designed, not only ideated but built by human beings who devoted considerable time to bringing it into existence and were paid for it, enough money to live in turn.
My fridge is full of food I did not grow, but I’m not under the impression it is created by blessed pixies. I know there’s a lot of unrelenting, unpleasant, often uninteresting work behind that food. Trust me, I know this: I grew up in a rural village.
The world and all it contains is not a sort of fairy bauble where the things we want and need just appear and where even making us pay for them is an injustice, much less making us work for them.
The world is REAL – an unforgiving place that doesn’t care anymore about your imagination and empathy and happiness than it cares about whether that storm just destroyed your crops; that hurricane just leveled your house; or that sparrow just fell.
Those of us who are religious believe there is someone behind the scenes who does care, but even He does not violate the rules of the reality He created just to be mawkish at you, much less to spoil you. (At least the He I believe in doesn’t. I realize some religious people believe in a sort of rub-the-lamp G-d which is a survival from primitive religious mentality (if you sacrifice to the tree spirit, she’ll give you oranges) and which is epitomized in an episode of my childhood which my son describes as “the miracle of the socks.” A friend I was vacationing with, who was a ah vending machine religious person was trying to go to church of a Sunday and couldn’t find her socks. She immediately became convinced the devil had hidden them. So she said the requisite prayer and the socks showed up. Perhaps, for all I know, the world really works like that. I doubt it though. And it would distract me from thinking about real cause and effect trying to figure out which lamp to rub.)
It is a characteristic of reality that it tends to smack you in the face like a three-day-old dead fish whether you want it to or not, and whether you’ve told yourself some just-so story about how it would be so much better if it didn’t.
This is why the left’s just-so story that once you stop capitalism or patriarchy or whatever their bugaboo is, humans will be perfect and loving and innocent never comes about. And also why they thereby deduce we’re still steeped in unfettered capitalism (I wish!) and patriarchy and racism and sexism and the heartbreak of psoriasis. (Okay, okay, I made up the last one. It’s actually psoriasitism.) They do this because their black and white view of the world requires they believe in a pseudo-secular version of the miracle of the socks.
Reality doesn’t care any more for their delusions than it did for my friend’s (who, should the miracle of the socks have failed to materialize would then have come up with some reason, like that she’d forgotten to say the requisite prayer before sleep or for all I knew had forgotten to bless her shoes.)
So for an adult human being (my friend, in her defense wasn’t) to believe that it would not just be lovely, but that it’s somehow possible and DESIRABLE if the point of education wasn’t to make a more useful workforce betrays where this human being stands.
This person is so unimaginably comfortable and cossetted that she believes that work is an icky necessity and that learning the skills of workaday laboring is not just unnecessary but somehow undesirable. She believes it would be best instead if schools tried to fix all sorts of metaphysical things that as far as I can tell have always been wrong with humans.
She believes, in fact, that paradise has arrived – whatever she says – and that we no longer need to spin nor sow.
She’s so far removed from every day necessities, that she thinks that learning a profession is a strange twisting of the purpose of education.
The mind boggles. There are legends of mandarins in towers, long ago, who were as insulated as this. I always assumed they were just legends, but perhaps I was wrong.
No wonder this person goes around worrying obsessively about what happened to ancestors with whom she has almost no genetic and certainly no cultural connection. (Sorry, the idea that you understand your ancestors even a century ago, even without conquest by an alien culture, is … well, an indication you haven’t read many autobiographies more than fifty years old. The idea you understand cultures that were rightly or wrongly subsumed is… a fairy dream.) No wonder she sees all sorts of micro-aggressions due to her skin tone and the fact she possesses a vagina.
Humans must, after all, worry about something. It’s an evolutionary necessity built into us. And in her mandarin-tower there is nothing else to worry about.
Downtrodden? Oppressed? Mistreated?
Is this the statement of a person who is any of those?
Wouldn’t it be nice if the point of education wasn’t to make a more useful workforce, but to make happy, imaginative and empathetic humans?
Oh, honey, check your privilege.
UPDATE: WELCOME INSTAPUNDIT READERS! And thank you to Glenn Reynolds for the link! |
Epidemics of America
Diseases have ravaged human populations for thousands of years, bringing down kings and kingdoms. How have epidemics affected life in the United States?
Smallpox
The biggest killer introduced to the Americas by Europeans after the 1500’s
dropped the population of Native Americans from 100 million to just 5-10 million
Caused by the variola virus
Symptoms: high fevers, body aches and a rash
The rash evolves from fluid-filled bumps, to scabs, to pitted scars
Most commonly spread through direct contact with an infected person’s skin or body fluids
Can be airborne
In 1796, a vaccine for smallpox was created, but the disease continued to spread
In 1967, the virus killed 2 million people globally
1967 – The World Health Organization led a campaign to eliminate smallpox through mass vaccinations
1977 – The last case of naturally-occurring smallpox
Spanish Influenza
AKA “Great Influenza” or “Flu of 1918”
An estimated 675,000 Americans died in a matter of months
The flu reached pandemic proportions
Globally, it is estimated that between 50 million and 100 million people died
Caused by the H1N1 avian influenza A virus
Scientists believe that the disease jumped from birds to humans in the American Midwest
Symptoms: fever, nausea, aches, diarrhea and black spots on the cheeks
Patient lungs would fill with liquid.
Those who died effectively drowned in their own mucus
Today, as many as 59% of people may have immunity to H1N1
passed from those who survived the pandemic
Typhoid Fever
Caused by Rickettsia prowazekii, a microbe that lives in the intestine
Symptoms: headache, loss of appetite, malaise and sudden increase in temperature
Develops into fever, chills and nausea
Can result in gangrene, pneumonia, kidney failure and eventually cardiac failure
Typhoid was common before the public sewage system
100 out of every 100,000 people contracted typhoid in 1920
Dropped to 33.8/100,000 in 1950 with improved sanitation
Typhoid Mary:
The most famous outbreak of typhoid occurred in New York City in the early 1900’s
A chef named Mary Mallon was infected with typhoid but showed no symptoms
She is presumed to have infected dozens of people
Public health forced her into isolation twice
She died after 30 years on New York’s North Brother Island
Malaria
Records of malaria date back more than 4,000 years
Caused when infected mosquitoes pass Plasmodium microbes to humans
Microbes grow inside red blood cells, destroying them in the process
Symptoms: fever, chills, sweating, headache and muscle pains
During the American Civil War, 1,316,000 soldiers reportedly contracted malaria
10,000 died
During WWI, malaria immobilized British, German and French forces for 3 years
Almost 60,000 US soldiers died of malaria in Africa and the South Pacific during WWII
After WWII, the US attempted to put an end to malaria
The pesticide DDT, now banned, was introduced to lower mosquito population
Malaria has been eradicated in the United States
Polio
Reached a peak in 1952
over 58,000 cases were reported
3,145 deaths
Caused by poliovirus poliomyelitis, which attacks the nervous system
Symptoms: fever, fatigue, headache, vomiting, stiffness and limb pain
Roughly 1 in 200 cases lead to paralysis
There is no cure for polio
The vaccine was perfected in the 1950’s
The U.S. has been polio-free since 1979
Famous people who survived polio: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, actor Alan Alda, singer Joni Mitchell, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
Tuberculosis
Evidence of tuberculosis has been found in Egyptian mummies
Caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis
TB is airborne
Symptoms: chest pain, weakness, weight loss, fever, night sweats and fits of coughing blood
TB was a constant problem in Colonial America
At the end of the 19th century, 10% of all US deaths were attributed to TB
1944 – an antibiotic was developed for TB
TB continues to globally infect an estimated 8 million people, annually
Kills 2 million annually
Callout: Patients with HIV/AIDS have weakened immune systems, making them more susceptible to tuberculosis
As HIV has spread, TB has had a resurgence
HIV/AIDS
HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus
AIDS stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome
HIV/AIDS was first documented in 1981
First appeared as a rare lung infection and weakened immune system
HIV is passed through bodily fluids, including: blood transfusions, use of needles, sexual contact or from a pregnant woman to her child
HIV opens the body to opportunistic infections that would normally not cause problems
AIDS is the final stage of HIV
Sixth leading cause of death in the U.S. among people 25-44
HIV has no official cure
There have been 14 cases of people being effectively cured through rigorous treatment, bone marrow transplants or other methods
Callout: Globally, almost 70 million people have been infected with HIV and almost 35 million have died
Sources:
http://www.executivehm.com/news/the-worst-us-epidemics-in-modern-history/
http://www.healthline.com/health-slideshow/10-worst-disease-outbreaks
http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/curiosity/topics/10-worst-epidemics.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/osels/scientific_edu/ss1978/lesson1/section11.html
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23276-more-hiv-cured-first-a-baby-now-14-adults.html#.UieGzBahA7c
http://www.who.int/gho/hiv/en/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/typhoid-mary-villain-or-victim.html
http://vaccinenewsdaily.com/news/216287-fifty-nine-percent-of-americans-may-be-immune-to-h1n1/ |
The world is preparing to build 2,440 coal-fired power stations, which may seem odd given that world leaders recently launched high-profile talks in Paris to come up with a global agreement to limit global warming.
According to Climate Action Tracker, an environmental NGO, the pollution from that many coal plants—which have either been announced, are in pre-permit phase, are permitted, or are under construction—would ruin any chance for limiting global warming to less than 2°C, a commonly held goal (pdf). In fact, the coal plants alone would mean overshooting emissions goals by 400%.
Climate Action Tracker, a research consortium that recommends that all the planned plants (mapped here) be scrapped, notes that these plans are regularly altered and, indeed, canceled. But why are countries still planning to build so many coal plants?
The first answer is history. China, in particular, has made a big shift in its climate policy recently, and some of its planned power stations may have been in the works since before the change. In 2014, a bilateral agreement between China and the US saw the former pledge to cap its absolute carbon emissions by 2030.
Historically, China pegged its greenhouse gas emissions to GDP, meaning that reductions in emissions per unit of production would still result in higher pollution overall as its economy grew. Now, “that peak in emissions is an important goal,” says Kyung-Ah Park, head of the environmental markets group at Goldman Sachs. China has recently overtaken other countries to become the biggest installer of renewable technologies.
Another reason why so much coal-fired electricity capacity is planned when it’s incompatible with climate goals is the thorny matter of equality. India still pegs its emissions-reduction goals to GDP growth, giving itself room to develop its economy. Poorer countries argue that they should be able to emit more carbon now than richer countries, which made economic gains from emissions in the past.
A third reason is technology. Coal is a big polluter, but it’s still one of the most reliable ways to generate constant “baseload” electricity. Fossil-fuel stations will be required for years to come, many believe, given the intermittent nature of renewable technologies. Finding a reliable way to store electricity when the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shining would would see the industry “revolutionized” Dorothy Thompson, CEO of Drax, Europe’s biggest coal-fired power station, recently told Quartz.
Carbon capture and storage, or CCS, has also long been discussed as a way to continue burning fossil fuels, but prevent the harmful emissions entering the atmosphere and instead capture and sequester them, probably underground. Despite the excitement, the costs have proved prohibitive and no large-scale CCS installations are yet in operation, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
And finally, coal is cheap. Put simply, if the cost of burning it is low, it will get burned.
A lack of clear and consistent charges for emitting carbon—via trading programs, taxes, or other levies—keeps the price of high-emitting coal lower than it might otherwise be. Coal is also actively supported financially by many governments: fossil fuel subsidies are worth some $490 billion per year, outstripping support for renewable-energy sources by more than three times, according to the IEA. |
Folk art, Outsider art, Art Brut — no matter what you call it, the work of self-taught artists has been fascinating doctors, curators, and other artists for the past hundred years. Inspired by a vision, these artists are often driven by obsession to realize their ideas on found materials using makeshift methods that might seem illogical but end up leading to profound works of art. From the former slave Bill Traylor and orphaned Adolf Wölfli to the gifted savant George Widener and Baptist reverend Howard Finster, we’ve assembled the best of the bunch. Click through our gallery of images and let us know if there is anyone you would add to the mix.
A self-taught artist who was born into slavery in 1854, Bill Traylor was discovered making drawings of people on the street and memories of plantation life in Montgomery, Alabama in the 1940s. |
This past weekend, Mitt Romney named Republican congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate, leading everyone to wonder: how will this asshole screw me, personally, if he is elected vice-president in November? Luckily for you, we have answers.
No one knows how much power Paul Ryan would actually have as vice-president in a Romney administration. But let's assume for a second that Mitt Romney is only interested in choosing the music for his wife's horse dances, and as president lets Ryan run the show — in particular, signing off on Ryan's proposed budget, a supposedly Serious Piece of Legislation that is more or less the only reason he's on the ticket in the first place.
So, here's how Paul Ryan will screw you if you're...
... poor.
Under Ryan's budget, you'll likely pay more in taxes — people who make less than $30,000 a year will see their effective tax rates go up as tax breaks like the Earned Income Tax Credit are reduced — while receiving even less in services.
See, while you, as a member of the bottom 20% of wage earners, will be paying an average of $159 more in taxes, your boss' boss, a member of the top 20%, will probably be paying something like $13,907 less — meaning there's not nearly as much money for income-security programs like unemployment and food stamps (which will receive a 16% cut). Or for Medicaid, which Ryan would cut by a third (potentially kicking out 14 to 27 million people).
... a government worker.
Ryan's budget would extend the current freeze on federal worker pay rates, meaning you wouldn't get a raise until 2015 at the earliest. You'll also be asked to put more money into your retirement plan. Oh, also: one in ten of you will get laid off over the next three years.
... a veteran.
Hope you don't need much in the way of services! The Ryan budget cuts spending on veterans by $11 billion. Maybe you can get a job on Stars Earn Stripes?
... a woman.
Ryan voted against the Lily Ledbetter fair pay act, co-sponsored legislation declaring that "human life shall be deemed to begin with fertilization" and has voted to defund Planned Parenthood several times.
... a student.
If you're on a Pell Grant, you might lose it — eligibility will be tightened — and even if you don't, it'll be worth less: the Ryan budget wouldn't let the grants keep pace with inflation. And if you're on student loans, Ryan would double the interest rate you're paying, from 3.4 percent to 6.8.
... an old person.
Actually, if you're old right this minute, you're not necessarily screwed: the Ryan Budget's big Medicare overhaul doesn't affect current old people, just future old people. (In a weird coincidence, current old people vote at much higher rates than future old people.)
But if you're planning on being an old person? Instead of being enrolled in Medicare automatically, you'll be given a voucher that will likely cover some, but not all, of your health-care costs, and you'll end up paying about $6,000 more a year than you would have under the current system. The idea is that you'll be taking personal responsibility for your health, and make smarter choices, like dying early.
... Mitt Romney.
On the one hand, you're now tied to a budget plan that's deeply unpopular among moderates and seniors and your supporters like your running mate more than they like you.
On the other hand, under Ryan's plan your effective tax rate will be about one percent.
... Joe Biden.
You will probably have to try in this debate, at least a little bit.
... actor Zach Woods.
People will be telling you that you look just like Paul Ryan for at least the next three months, and possibly for the next eight-plus years.
... a single mom paying her way through college with wages from her low-income job, assisted by student loans and Pell Grants.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Hahahaha. Hahaha. Sorry.
...rich.
He won't! You're set. Have fun.
Photo: Getty. |
Latest Did You Know Gaming? blows my mind
The common refrain these days is that Nintendo doesn't know how to market the Wii U. But I know the creativity is still there, waiting to be tapped. Case in point...
The latest episode of Did You Know Gaming? arrives just in time to celebrate today's release of Pikmin 3. Narrated by JonTron (Jon's back! Yay!), this Pikmin-themed special runs through some of the more familiar nuggets of Pikmin lore, such as how it was based upon the Super Mario 128 Spaceworld demo.
One bit of trivia that I was totally unaware of was that Nintendo bred a new flower called "Bacoba Cabana" that resembled the flower on the yellow Pikmin's head and sold it to the public five months after the launch of the original Pikmin. When you are literally creating life just to promote a videogame, you've officially entered the realm megalomania. Stop playing God, Nintendo!
Pikmin - Did You Know Gaming? Feat. JonTron [YouTube]
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In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt faced an excruciatingly delicate task. Although he had promised—and campaigned on—a policy of American neutrality in World War II the year before, Roosevelt ached to help the Allies stem the increasingly ravenous Nazi threat sweeping across Europe. The question was: How, exactly, could he about-face and sell the war to his people?
In October of that year, he masterfully managed the feat. In his nationally-broadcast Navy Day address, Roosevelt made an extraordinary claim. "I have in my possession a secret map made in Germany by Hitler's government," he said. "It is a map of South America and a part of Central America, as Hitler proposes to reorganize it… This map makes clear the Nazi design not only against South America but against the United States itself."
Click to enlarge
The map—presented as clear evidence of the Nazis' hostile aspirations in what was (under the century old Monroe doctrine) still considered "America’s backyard"—had its intended effect. Although the Germans vehemently denied the map’s existence, the American people largely rallied behind what could now be pitched as a preemptive war of self-defense. And two months later, when Nazi Germany formally declared war on the United States, Roosevelt’s October speech was specifically mentioned as proof of American provocation.
The Counterfeit Plot
Decades after the war, Roosevelt’s Nazi map was discovered in his private documents, and released. But according to Nick Cull, a historian at the University of Southern California who has studied the map, it is not at all what it appears to be. As Cull told mental_floss, the map is actually a carefully prepared counterfeit—curiously, one made by neither the Germans nor the Americans.
“In truth, the map was a fiction forged by the British intelligence service,” Cull explains. By 1941, as the Nazis reached the French coast, the British had all the reason in the world to try to push the Americans out of their neutral stance. “It was well known that maps are incredibly powerful and effective tools in propaganda—they can lend a threat a certain level of tangibility,” Cull says. “The British had not forgotten that their leak of the Zimmerman telegram, in which the Germans promised Mexico Texas if they invaded, had pushed America to embark into World War I.”
Indeed, historical documents show that the map was the brainchild of William Stephenson, a former Canadian air ace and personal friend of Winston Churchill, who by 1941 “was basically running British intelligence in North America, doing various operations to annoy the Germans to wear down American isolationism,” says Cull.
Stephenson—who had collected a rag-tag team of intelligence operatives, including a prominent ad-man, the philosopher Alfred Ayer, a British song-writer, one of the co-writers of the Wizard of Oz screenplay, and, at one point, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’s own Roald Dahl—had the map loosely based on several actual Nazi-made South American maps, but “redrew the boundaries in a quite carefully selected way to maximally upset everybody,” Cull says.
According to a memoir of one of Stephenson’s eclectic team’s members, the original plan was to plant the map in Cuba somewhere that the FBI would come across it on their own. But it is believed that, instead, the British just handed the map over themselves, claiming it was discovered in a Nazi safe-house raid.
A Complicit President?
One of the biggest remaining mysteries of Roosevelt’s counterfeit Nazi map is whether or not the president himself was aware of the ruse. After all—real or fake—the secret, unseen map worked entirely in Roosevelt’s interest.
Cull believes Roosevelt may have known, or at least suspected, that the map was a fraud. “What convinced me,” he says, “was that if you look at Roosevelt’s own handwritten edits in the first few drafts of his Navy Day speech, you can see that he crosses out a line that says ‘I have in my possession a map of undoubted authenticity’ and eventually revises it to ‘I have in my possession a secret map.’ It’s almost like he’s trying to distance himself from the smoking gun in those revisions.” |
Some angry Pittsburgh Penguins fans are calling for a boycott of JetBlue after a pilot on a flight to Boston made a crack over the intercom equating Penguins star Sidney Crosby with a crying baby.
CBS Boston reports that, while the plane was boarding, the sound of a crying baby could be heard throughout the cabin, leading the pilot to joke over the loudspeaker, “Is that Sidney Crosby in back of our plane?”
The plane happened to have several members of the Boston sports media who were returning home following a Bruins victory over Pittsburgh that put the Boston team up 2-0 in the NHL semifinals, so it went over reasonably well with the captive audience.
JetBlue even played it up on their Twitter account, writing “Gotta love Boston based pilots!… (your pilots) have some great blue lines of their own.”
But it’s not playing so great on JetBlue’s Facebook page, where some Pens fans are calling for JetBlue blood.
“It nice to see how professional a man who controls your aircraft can be joking about sports on the intercom,” writes one fan. “its ridiculous and shows you have a child at the helm of your COCKpit. I will from here on out NEVER fly with JetBlue Airways again.”
“I guess Jet Blue pilots are just like school in the summer time… No class,” says another. “Pretty bad representation of your company’s professionalism. Bad form indeed.”
In response to one fan who demanded an apology, JetBlue wrote:
“[F]un is a core value at JetBlue, and we love when our pilots get to address customers and show off their passion. Our Boston-based pilot was clearly as excited by the game as many of our Boston customers. As the largest carrier in Boston, and the official airline of Boston’s TD Garden, you’re bound to find some passionate Boston fans within our crews. If the pilot had been a PIT fan, we’d expect some fun on that PIT-BOS flight from them as well.”
Of course, you may remember that a bar in Pittsburgh recently stopped selling Samuel Adams beer to show its distaste for all-things-Boston.
What do you think? Did the pilot cross a line or are Penguins fans overreacting? |
Johnny Rotten’s racism does not represent the core vaules of punk rock. Ed Vill Wikipedia Commons
“If Elvis-fucking-Costello wants to pull out of a gig in Israel because he’s suddenly got this compassion for Palestinians then good on him. But I have absolutely one rule, right? Until I see an Arab country, a Muslim country, with a democracy, I won’t understand how anyone can have a problem with how they’re treated.”
These words weren’t spoken by Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. They didn’t crawl from the bile of AIPAC, Newt Gingrich or some hardened, right-wing ideologue from the heart of the Israel’s illegal settlements. They came from the mouth of John Lydon, a.k.a. Johnny Rotten of The Sex Pistols.
Most devotees of punk rock stopped taking Lydon seriously well before he started shilling for Country Life butter. To be sure, any and all credibility he once had from his work with the Pistols, or, for that matter, later on with Public Image Ltd (PiL), flew out the window years ago.
It’s also true that the Pistols idiotically paraded around in swastikas during their early years. Still, even taken with that grain of salt, Lydon’s words are profoundly troubling. Like it or not, the former Rotten is considered a granddaddy of punk rock. It’s not far fetched to imagine someone reading his words and thinking his flagrant racism, his willful defense of an apartheid state, are somehow the punk norm. It’s for this reason that Punks Against Apartheid exists.
In the summer of 2011, Punks Against Apartheid came together as an ad hoc formation of BDS activists and punk fans (a formation that, in the interest of full-disclosure, includes this writer). The goal was initially modest: draft a letter and petition urging Jello Biafra, formerly of The Dead Kennedys, to cancel his gig in Tel Aviv with his band The Guantanamo School of Medicine.
The response was overwhelming: within four days, Punks Against Apartheid’s petition had more than 500 signatures (“Sign the petition: Tell Jello Biafra to cancel the gig in Tel Aviv,” 16 June 2011).
As pressure built and Biafra publicly reaffirmed his commitment to the show, he specifically called out Punks Against Apartheid. However, a few days after that, with the petition bearing more than a thousand signatories, Biafra canceled the gig (“Jello Biafra cancels Tel Aviv gig,” 29 June 2011).
Furthermore, many of those who had supported us were urging Punks Against Apartheid to continue as a formal network.
Now, Punks Against Apartheid has finally launched its official website: www.punksagainstapartheid.com. Of course, the group doesn’t exist in isolation. The global movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions is at a crucial international turning point. With the Arab revolutions and the anti-capitalist Occupy movement in close to 100 countries inspiring a new generation of rebel musicians, there may be no better time for Punks Against Apartheid to announce its formal presence.
“Racism Ain’t Punk”
Punks Against Apartheid follows a firm tradition of anti-racism within the punk movement. This encompasses punk rockers’ early embrace of reggae, the formation of Rock Against Racism and the Two Tone movement, the music of the Clash and Bad Brains, X-Ray Spex and MDC, Subhumans and The Specials.
There’s more than a little romance to the idea that all of this came out fully formed somehow. On the contrary, it had to be fought for both in the concert halls and on the streets. In both the US and the UK, open white supremacists vied for support within the punk movement during these early years. In a climate of economic crisis and harsh anti-immigrant scapegoating, the angry wail of punk was initially just as liable to trail into some dangerously dark territory. (Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?)
And just like today, there was an international dimension that was difficult to ignore. Punk groups like National Wake from Johannesburg, South Africa were shut down and prevented from playing just like Black Flag in Los Angeles — though in the former’s case it was usually due to it being an integrated band in an apartheid state. The pleas from Nazi boneheads like the UK’s National Front or the American National Socialist Party to “support white South Africa” obviously had the effect of dividing the global punk community rather than uniting it.
No surprise then that the anti-racist side also embraced the worldwide movement against South African apartheid. David Widgery, one of the founders of Rock Against Racism, recalled in his book Beating Time that South Africa was a key part of Rock Against Racism’s message. Its publication, Temporary Hoarding, featured pictures of the Soweto uprisings on its cover. The same issue made a case that, as Widgery put it “our little Hitlers had their big brothers in power in South Africa.” The Specials, with their infectious blend of ska and punk energy, were particularly moved to support the anti-apartheid movement — most famously and obviously in “Free Nelson Mandela.”
When Steven Van Zandt, a guitarist in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, formed Artists United Against Apartheid and declared “I ain’t gonna play Sun City,” Joey Ramone and The Dead Boys’ Stiv Bators were among those who recorded the single. Countless other punk acts heeded that same call and pointedly refused invitations to perform in South Africa — including The Dead Kennedys and Public Image Ltd.
The parallels between apartheid South Africa and modern-day Israel have been laid out again and again. Areas designated “off limits” to Arabs and Palestinians, systematic denial of basic rights. Forced removals, refugee camps and checkpoints. Random raids of homes and violent repression of anything smacking of resistance. Though it’s been almost twenty years since white rule was abolished in South Africa, its ancestor is alive and well in a similar colonial settler state.
Of course, punk rock hasn’t gone anywhere either. For every sugary corporate Green Day ripoff willing to cross the Palestinian people’s international picket line (I’m looking in your direction, Simple Plan), there are untold numbers of young folks forming their own bands, their own labels and own fanzines because they believe punk stands for something. It’s these people that Punks Against Apartheid seeks to reach.
And believe it or not, despite the stubbornly persistent notion that punk remains a white boy thing, many of these punks are those most under the gun of American racism, a racism that has become more pronounced since 11 September 2001.
“Being a punk and being a Muslim-American to me go hand in hand,” says activist and writer Tanzila Ahmed. “They are both about standing up to the man. They are about believing what you believe with your whole gut and soul … It’s about being marginalized and fighting to reclaim your voice.”
Ahmed, or “Taz,” as she is known, is one of many participants in the burgeoning Taqwacore scene: Muslim punks. It’s a sub-culture that is currently taking its rightful place next to riot grrl and Afro-punk in the ever expanding horizons of a diverse punk scene.
In an interview with The Electronic Intifada, Taz also insisted that her identity as a Muslim punk is a big reason she supports BDS: “The US government is largely why Israel feels empowered to bully the way it has … It’s all about political power, and at this point of history hate speech against Muslims is the tactic and Muslim-Americans are the pawns. I absolutely believe that the lack of support for Palestine is the sacrifice politicians are making to stay in power and to win votes.”
Bigger than Jello
Thirty years ago it was open fascists emboldened by a political establishment who turned the other cheek. Now it’s white nationalists milling around the ranks of the Tea Party and the “Stop Islamization” crowd. Back then they pointed at jobs and services “stolen” by black people and higher crime rates in the inner-city. Today they shriek about Arabs and Muslims conspiring to impose sharia law via downtown mosques.
Back then, both gutter racists and establishment politicians alike looked to South Africa as a bulwark against the invading brown hordes. Today, it’s Israel. Global empire doesn’t care about apartheid. On the contrary, without divide-and-conquer, it probably wouldn’t survive.
As always, the fight is international. Amplifying the shouts of those shoved to society’s margins doesn’t end at national borders. Perhaps that’s why the original Punks Against Apartheid petition included signatories from all over the world — London, Beirut, Chicago, Istanbul, Paris and beyond.
It’s also perhaps why a glimpse of those who have signed on to Punks Against Apartheid’s “points of unity” so far will reveal a diverse swathe: “Spirit of ‘77” originators The Angelic Upstarts, anarcho-punk architects Oi Polloi and the Oppressed, riot-folk singer Mark Gunnery, radical torch-bearers Propagandhi and more.
Of course, Punks Against Apartheid is tapping into something much bigger than any list or artists, bigger than Jello Biafra, John Lydon, or even “Elvis-fucking-Costello.” Punk rock’s legacy, twisted and contradictory though it may be, had to be fought for and can still mean something to a new generation. Ultimately, it’s about solidarity. If the world’s most marginalized are ever going to take back what’s theirs, then this is one value that has to remain at our very core. Time to show the world that punk is a lot more powerful than any divisions — real or imagined — ever could be.
Alexander Billet, a music journalist based in Chicago, runs the website Rebel Frequencies and has contributed to The Electronic Intifada, TheNation.com, Z Magazine, International Socialist Review and SOCIARTS.com. He is a founding member of Punks Against Apartheid and has been active in various anti-war, anti-racist and economic justice movements. He can be reached at rebelfrequencies [at] gmail [dot] com. |
When SoftBank announced the first close of its Vision Fund this weekend — securing an initial commitment of $93 billion from investors including Apple, Qualcomm and Foxconn — it also quietly disclosed it had taken a stake in Nvidia.
Bloomberg is today reporting the size of that stake is $4 billion, for 4.9 percent of the company, which it says would make SoftBank the fourth largest investor in the chip maker.
Albeit, not necessarily for much longer: A line in the PR for the Vision Fund close on Saturday notes that the Vision Fund will have the right to acquire “certain investments already acquired (or agreed to be acquired)” by the SoftBank Group — with Nvidia being listed as one of those investments, along with a 24.99 percent stake in chip designer Arm (which SoftBank acquired last year for ~$31 billion). Although SoftBank of course retains its own ties to the Vision Fund and the fund’s investments.
A SoftBank spokesman declined to confirm the amount of its investment in Nvidia or to comment on Bloomberg’s report.
As we wrote recently, Nvidia’s GPUs have arguably become the bedrock underlying the current AI market explosion. And AI is one of the core areas of focus for SoftBank’s Vision Fund. Indeed, CEO Masayoshi Son set out his personal conviction earlier this year that the next 30 years will see the rise of superintelligent AI — saying this underpins his “hurry” to raise the ~$100 billion fund. So a chunky Nvidia investment meshes with his view of tomorrow’s world.
Even so, SoftBank has been spreading a lot of cash around lately. Other recent confirmed investments include $1.4 billion in Indian fintech unicorn Paytm; lead investor in virtual reality Improbable Worlds‘ $502 million raise; $5 billion in China’s Uber-killer Didi Chuxing; and a fresh $1.7 billion in global connectivity company OneWeb, after also investing $1 billion last year.
Some of these stakes may well move into the Vision Fund imminently, as the Nvidia stake and a chunk of ARM reportedly have. The fund has also been linked to a potential investment in WeWork, among others.
Son has previously said the mammoth Vision Fund won’t be a “typical fund” — and indeed, in size it’s unprecedented. But its modus operandi is intended to be hard to ignore too. “Most of our investments will range between 20 and 40 percent, making us the largest shareholder and board member, in a position to discuss strategy with the founders,” he told Bloomberg earlier this year.
So if money can buy superintelligent AI, it looks like Son is going to be the one to try and prove it. |
Editor's Note: Jack Cafferty is the author of the best-seller "It's Getting Ugly Out There: The Frauds, Bunglers, Liars, and Losers Who Are Hurting America." He provides commentary on CNN's "The Situation Room" daily from 4 p.m.-7 p.m. You can also visit Jack's Cafferty File blog.
Jack Cafferty says the Republican party has lost track of what it stands for and is losing its hold on voters.
NEW YORK (CNN) -- This week the Republicans gather for their convention. For four days, they will labor under the illusion their party is still relevant. It's not.
It is entirely fitting that the headliner for this masquerade is a feeble looking 72-year-old white guy who doesn't know how many homes he owns.
It's more than symbolic that when a million Americans are losing their homes to foreclosure, the Republican candidate for president has lost track of his holdings.
McCain surrounds himself with people like former Republican Sen. Phil Gramm who called America a "nation of whiners" and said we are only suffering a "mental recession."
That's the same problem the Republican Party has. It has lost track of what it used to stand for: small government, a disciplined fiscal policy, integrity.
In a way, the perfect storm of a rapidly changing population -- old white people aren't going to be in the majority very much longer (and isn't that who most of the Republicans are?) -- has combined with the total abdication of principles, Republican or otherwise, of arguably the worst president in the nation's history to mark the beginning of the end of the Republican Party as we know it.
Republican Congressman Tom Davis of Virginia said it best: "The Republican brand is in the trash can. If we were dog food, they would take us off the shelf."
It is so bad that more than 10 percent of the Republican members of the United States Senate aren't even bothering to attend their own party's convention. They recognize dog food when they see it.
And it almost doesn't matter who the next president is. We are witnessing the beginnings of a sea change in this country.
A wakeup call has sounded for young people who are suddenly interested enough in politics to make a difference. New voter registrations across the country are making a mockery of the old polling models.
Voter turnout in the primaries was staggering. Blacks and Hispanics feel they have a real stake in things -- and as their numbers continue to grow as a percentage of the population, their voice will only get louder. The march of the next generation is underway and the older generation has no choice but to eventually get out of the way.
Watch for the signs this November. Republicans stand to be turned out of office at every level -- from the U.S. Congress to governors' mansions and state legislatures. Republicans who remain in office will be rendered impotent by their shrinking numbers.
Republicans under George W. Bush have done a lot of damage to this country in the last eight years -- but they have done more damage to themselves. It will take a good long while and a great deal of soul searching before their brand returns to the shelves in good standing.
Don't look for it to happen in St. Paul, Minnesota. This week, Republicans will be happy in the land of make believe.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer.
All About Republican Party • John McCain • Elections and Voting |
CEBU – Authorities on Tuesday arrested 71 individuals involved in various crimes in an operation dubbed as “Oplan Pokemon” in Cebu City.
According to the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO), all 11 police stations participated in the operation in line with the Philippine National Police’s Oplan Project Double Barrel Reloaded.
Majority of those arrested were involved in illegal drugs while the rest were apprehended for illegal gambling, illegal possession of firearms and serving of warrant of arrest.
Among those arrested was Gedion Estimber, 23, a security guard. Estimber was arrested after he fired his company-issued shotgun for no reason while on duty. He said he was drunk when it happened.
Meanwhile, 13 other individuals were also arrested by the National Bureau of Investigation-7 for illegal numbers game, Swertres.
The operation happened simultaneously in Lapu Lapu City, Mandaue City and Cebu City. NBI-7 Special Investigator Arnel Pura said they conducted the operation against illegal swertres stalls in Cebu, after the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) sought help from their office.
In a certificate issued by the PCSO, Global Tech Mobile Online Corporation's permit to operate swertres has already expired. Global Tech Mobile Online Corporation is said to be the operator of the stalls.
"This company is only allowed to operate, Lucky 3 and not Swertres,” Pura said.
Obtained during NBI's operation were several Swertres stubs and money in different denomination. |
Edward Festus Mukuka Nkoloso was a member of the Zambian resistance movement and the founder of the Zambia National Academy of Science, Space Research and Philosophy.
Life [ edit ]
Nkoloso was born Edward Festus Mukuka Nkoloso in 1919, in the northern part of Northern Rhodesia.[1]
He was drafted into the Northern Rhodesian Regiment forces in World War II, ultimately serving as a sergeant in the signal corp.[1] After the war, he became translator for the Northern Rhodesian government. He was also a grade school teacher, and opened a new school, which was purportedly shut down by British authorities. He then joined the resistance movement.[2][3][4][5] He was arrested and imprisoned in 1956 and 1957.[2] Following his release, he was appointed as security official of United National Independence Party.[2][6] In 1960, he founded the Zambia National Academy of Science, Space Research and Philosophy.[2][5][6][7][8] In 1964, he participated in the Constitutional Convention.[4]
Space program [ edit ]
From 1960 until sometime after 1969, this program sought to accomplish the launching of a rocket that would send one girl, 17-year-old Matha Mwambwa, and two cats to the moon. There were also plans for a trip to Mars.[2] Nkoloso hoped to beat the United States and Soviet Union's respective space programs at the height of the Space Race.[9]
To train the astronauts, Nkoloso set up a makeshift facility on an abandoned farm 11 kilometres (7 mi) from Lusaka where the trainees would be rolled down a rough hill in a 200-litre (44 imp gal) oil drum.[2] This, according to Nkoloso, would train the men in the feeling of weightlessness in both space travel and re-entry.[5][7][8] In addition, they used a tire-swing to simulate weightlessness.[2][5][8]
Nkoloso stated goals of the program were to establish a Christian ministry to "primitive" Martians, and the hope of Zambia becoming the "controllers of the Seventh Heaven of Interstellar space". However, he reportedly instructed the missionary in the space program not to force Christianity onto the native Martian inhabitants.[1]
The rocket, named D-Kalu 1, was a 3-metre by 2-metre (10x6 ft) drum-shaped vessel.[2][10] Named after the first president, Kenneth David Kaunda, he claimed it was made of aluminium and copper, and space worthy. The planned launch date was on 24 October 1964, Independence Day, and would take place from the Independence Stadium,[7] but was purportedly denied permission due to being inappropriate.[2]
It is said that he then asked UNESCO for a grant of £7,000,000 in Zambian pounds to support his space program.[2] It is also said he requested $1.9 billion from "private foreign sources". However, the Ministry of Power, Transport and Communication is reported as stating those requests had not been made on the behalf of Zambia.[8][11]
The term "Afronauts", coined by Nkoloso, refers to the participants of this program.[2]
Interviewed in 2016, former Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda said of the space program that "It wasn’t a real thing ... It was more for fun than anything else.”[1]
Aftermath [ edit ]
Nkoloso stated the program failed due to lack of funds, the pregnancy of astronaut Matha Mwambwa and her subsequently leaving the program to return to her parents, and problems with morale due to media attention.[2] The rocket was claimed to have been sabotaged "by foreign elements". The Zambian government distanced itself from Nkoloso's endeavour.[8][11]
A photograph book Afronauts commemorating the events was self-published by Cristina De Middel in 2012.[10] The short independent documentary film titled Afronauts directed by Frances Bodomo is slated to be premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2014.[12][needs update]
Later life [ edit ]
He unsuccessfully ran for mayor of Lusaka, Zambia, emphasising scientific advancement. He was appointed by President Kaunda to the Liberation Center,[13] a movement for regional freedom. He championed government support for witch doctors on at least one occasion. He claimed that they should have a place beside physicians, and that they are an antidote for Christianity which had hurt Africa's medical skills, but states that he did not practice witchcraft himself.[13] He retired in 1972.[6]
He received a law degree from the University of Zambia in 1983.[1] He was awarded the Russian Jubilee Medal "Forty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945".[2] He also served as president of the Ndola Ex-servicemen's Association and was made an honorary army colonel.[3] He died on 4 March 1989, and was buried with presidential honours.[2]
Popular culture [ edit ]
In 2014 Nkoloso was depicted in a film "Nkoloso the Afronaut" that was nominated at 2014 Uganda Film Festival.[14]
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]
Patrick Moore, (1972), Can you speak Venusian?: A guide to independent thinkers. David and Charles |
9to5Mac has been saying for a while that Apple’s Hey Siri event today will be a product blitz of announcements, with at least three major new products set to be shown off: the new iPhone 6S, the new larger iPad Pro and a revamped Apple TV with a new remote. There’s also likely to be a new iPad mini and some updates for Apple Watch — you can read it all in our roundup.
Some people were confused about why Apple is stuffing so many announcements into one event. Having called a single event “not logical” earlier in the day, Daring Fireball’s John Gruber now agrees with our prior reports: breaking tradition, there won’t be an October event this year.
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After claiming a single event would be “inexplicable” earlier in the day, Gruber followed up with a small piece on his blog last night, saying that sources (“birdies”) claim Apple will only be holding one event in the fall this year, the event today.
Lot of little birdies out tonight in San Francisco. The consensus is that there’s only going to be one Apple event this fall, and it’s tomorrow. So if there’s an iPad Pro, it’s coming tomorrow, no matter how much or how little sense that makes.
This means that Apple will break tradition of the last several years and not have another event in 2015 after today. Although it isn’t clear why Apple has made this decision to cram everything into one event, especially when some product announcements are not set to be released until October, it does give some justification.
There’s another implication: usually the October event shows off iPads and Macs. With iPads featuring today, it seems like new Macs may not have an event at all. Instead, these products will likely appear on Apple’s online store one day accompanied by a press release announcing the new items.
The same applies for the software side — the new release of Mac OS X is typically announced at the October event. Whilst we still believe El Capitan will be released next month, Gruber’s sources indicate it will happen with a lot less fanfare than previous years.
Catch full coverage of Apple’s September event here live on 9to5Mac from 10 AM PT. |
Oceana is a long piece of ‘utopian’ political fiction writing, which does not really work as an exercise in literary fiction as far as I can see and barely keeps up the pretence. Oceana refers to a thinly disguised version of Britain and a lightly fictionalised account of its history, as a means for expounding Harrington’s thoughts about the best political system. A System of Politics is a more concise and economical account of Harrington’s thought than Oceana though its list form tells you something about Harrington’s limits as a writer.
Harrington is in a friendly dialogue with a major sixteenth century writer, the Florentine republican Niccoló Machiavelli and sometimes in the earlier part of Oceana in a critical dialogue with a major English writer, Thomas Hobbes, from his own time. The idea that sometimes still circulates of a liberal England/Britain versus an absolutist continental Europe is rather challenged by this. One of the most influential advocates of liberty in British history was inspired by an Italian against an English writer. Though Harrington does refer favourably to Hobbes’ own mentor, Francis Bacon, philosopher, chief minister to the monarchy, jurist, and writer of utopian political fiction. Harrington does not mention the Hobbes-Bacon relation, and his his use of Bacon’s thought suggests a fascination with the kind of monarchism advocated by Bacon which mixes legalism with the application of scientific method to the prudential art of government. Harrington, it appears, wanted republicanism to incorporate such aspects, creating some distance from ancient republicanism in which law comes from tradition and wise individuals rather than the kind of centralised accumulation of new laws and a judicial apparatus to apply them which is what Bacon was dealing with and which also influenced Hobbes. Harrington’s interest in what well run monarchies with some respect for law can teach republics also expresses itself in remarks on the Ottoman Empire and on the famous chief minister of the French monarchy, Cardinal Richelieu, one of the key figures in the development of the modern state and modern statecraft. Harrington regrets lack of knowledge of the principles underlying Richelieu’s formidable achievements in promoting peace within France and taking France above Spain as the leading European power of the time.
When Harrington is focused on republics strictly speaking, he has two main concerns: land distribution, formation of the right kind of aristocracy. These concerns overlap as questions of concentration of land are also questions of what kind of aristocracy might exist. Harrington resists what he regards as the too extreme devotion of the Ancient Athenians to democracy, which did not allow an effective aristocracy to form. As with early modern attitudes to Plato, his preference for Sparta is rather against modern sensibility. However, that preference ran up to the American Revolution and the Constitution of the United States which was deliberately designed to prevent the ‘excesses’ of Athenian democracy and promote a ‘balanced’ republic like those of Rome or Sparta which had a long life based on reserving some powers for the aristocratic parts of the political system.
Harrington’s thoughts about aristocracy are directed towards forming a changing open class of people who provide political leadership and resist the wilder extremes and instability of popular opinion. This is more or less a project for the formation of an effective version of what is now generally referred to as a political class or a political elite. Harrington’s belief that the aristocracy should change in composition and exist in balance with the preferences of the common people lead him to oppose land distribution of a kind which created a rigid permanent oligarchy aristocracy of the richest landowners. Laws to prevent this are referred to by Harrington as ‘the agrarian’, with consideration of examples from antiquity and from his own time. He argues against primogeniture (land going to the eldest son) and in favour of equal division of land between the children of landowners which he suggests as well as having political benefits will reduce loveless marriages designed to get propertyless daughters of the aristocracy married to a major landowner. In a rather more general way, he seems sympathetic to schemes to prevent concentrations of landed property. Such apparent interference with property rights may look at odds with how ideas of liberty develop in the classical liberal and libertarian tradition, but Harrington was living at a time when it was very difficult to disassociate land ownership and political power, and more generally difficult to disassociate economic status and political rights.
It takes the continuous greater development of commercial society which Locke reacts to at the end of the seventeenth century to see that property ownership should be seen in terms of transferable rights and the public benefits of land owned by whoever being part of a commercial system in which its products are traded to everyone’s benefit. The other side of Harrington’s assumption, highly normal for the time, that political power comes from land ownership, is that servants and the economically dependent cannot have full political rights and are not part of the democratic political system. The democratic system that elects an open changing aristocracy in some form of senate along with a a very complex series of other elections of public officials advocated by Harrington. This was enough to make Harrington seem like a fanatic for extreme democracy until democracy did begin to appear in the British political system, with the extension of the franchise in the late nineteenth century following on (but not immediately at all) from earlier agitation on the part of the new industrial working class. His writing is bit frustrating and can seem a bit remote from current ideas of liberty, but in historical context he made a major contribution to the growth of law and liberty in Britain. He deserves to be read by anyone who wishes for a really deep understanding of the development of ideas of government constrained by law and liberty. |
Blackshield, Constitutionalism and Comstockery , 14 U.
According to Hendrick, Jones' editors, Maxwell Perkins (who died before the novel was completed) and Burroughs Mitchell had no objections to the potentially controversial language in early drafts sent to them, but Jones was then "blindsided by Scribners' censorship based on its fear of Comstockery and of possible action by the post office" referring to the legacy of US Postal Inspector and anti-pornography crusader Anthony Comstock, who died in 1915 but whose influence persisted well into the twentieth century.
Comstock, autoerigido como guardian y custodio de las buenas conciencias estadunidenses, intento prohibir la representacion de La profesion de la senora Warren por su contenido sobre la prostitucion, ante lo cual el autor, George Bernard Shaw, distinguio a su censor con la palabra comstockery (mojigateria).
Haney, Comstockery in America: Patterns of Censorship and Control (Boston: Beacon Hill, 1960); Jay A.
The disfigurement of so much Renaissance painting and sculpture cannot be blamed simply on recent Comstockery , or on Victorianism, or on eighteenth-century etiquette, or Calvinist Puritanism, or the bigotry that prevailed after the Concil of Trent.
Landers tells the story of a man who wrote in the same manner that he talked, with words pouring out of him like water, a man who could write books the way other people chewed gum, a man who spent his literary career dodging hundreds of slings and arrows from outrageous critics, religious fanatics, and--on more than one occasion--municipal Comstockery .
Indeed, given the incredible freedom of expression we enjoy today, it's tempting to laugh off this latest instance of Comstockery . |
New Canaan police: Shooting at estate was suicide
Police say a person died of gunshot wound on the grounds of this North Wilton Road home Tuesday afternoon. Police say a person died of gunshot wound on the grounds of this North Wilton Road home Tuesday afternoon. Photo: Thane Grauel / Hearst Connecticut Media Photo: Thane Grauel / Hearst Connecticut Media Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close New Canaan police: Shooting at estate was suicide 1 / 1 Back to Gallery
NEW CANAAN — Police on Wednesday morning identified the person who apparently committed suicide on one of the most expensive estates in town as a Briarwood, N.Y., woman.
Police said she was Heather Sturtz, 41.
Police were called to 721 North Wilton Road about 1:30 p.m. Tuesday on a report someone had a handgun and was threatening suicide.
Officers found Sturtz with a single gunshot wound. She was treated but did not survive.
“Further investigation determined that this incident is a suicide,” a police statement said. “However, this finding is contingent on receiving a report from the Connecticut Chief Medical Examiner’s Office.”
The estate is owned by Michael Kramer, a partner at Ducera Partners, a New York restructuring firm.
Heather’s father, Ken Sturtz told the New Canaan News his daughter was best friends with Kramer’s wife, Tina, since childhood.
“She was a good kid, she had a good job,” he said. “My daughter didn’t do anything wrong, she just got too confused with things. She didn’t ask for help, she tried to do everything herself and things got out of hand.”
Sturtz also said his daughter left behind a young son.
Kramer’s property is one of the most highly assessed in New Canaan, at $14.5 million. It has 7.76 acres and a 41,000-square-foot house. |
As more cities try to improve walkability–from car-free “superblocks” in Barcelona to heat-protected walkways in Dubai–a new report outlines the reasons behind the shift, the actions that cities can take to move away from a car-centric world, and why walkability matters.
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If someone shifts from a long commute to a walk, their happiness increases as much as if they’d fallen in love. “The benefits of walkability are all interconnected,” says James Francisco, an urban designer and planner at Arup, the global engineering firm that created the report. “Maybe you want your local business to be enhanced by more foot traffic. But by having that benefit, other benefits are integrated. Not only do you get the economic vitality, but you get the social benefits–so people are out and having conversations and connecting–and then you get the health benefits.” A single intervention can also lead to environmental and political benefits. The report sifted through dozens of studies to quantify 50 benefits of walkability in cities. [Photo: Bernard Osei via Unsplash 1. It helps people live longer
Inactivity is the fourth leading cause of mortality around the world; physical activity dropped 32% in the last four decades in the U.S., and 45% in less than two decades in China. For people over 60, walking just 15 minutes a day can reduce the risk of dying by 22%. 2. It helps people lose weight
A 30-minute walk can burn 100 calories; for every 12 blocks or so walked a day, your risk of obesity drops 4.8%. 3. It reduces the risk of chronic disease
Regular walking may reduce the risk of diseases such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and colon cancer. Inactivity is a primary cause of most chronic diseases. 4. It makes people happier
Someone with a one-hour commute in a car needs to earn 40% more to be as happy as someone with a short walk to work. On the other hand, researchers found that if someone shifts from a long commute to a walk, their happiness increases as much as if they’d fallen in love. People who walk 8.6 minutes a day are 33% more likely to report better mental health.
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People who walk 8.6 minutes a day are 33% more likely to report better mental health. 5. It improves traffic safety
More than 270,000 pedestrians are killed around the world every year; better street design, and policies that reduce speed, can obviously help reduce the risk of crashes. Just shortening a long crosswalk can reduce the risk of pedestrian deaths 6%. 6. It brings back “eyes on the street”
While some countries invest in security cameras for streets–like the U.K., with 5.9 million cameras in public spaces–encouraging more people to walk is a cheaper way of increasing surveillance and making streets feel safer. 7. It reduces crime in other ways
Making streets more pleasant for walking–reducing trash, for example, or enforcing the speed limit–also has the added benefit of reducing crime. In one Kansas City neighborhood, crime dropped 74% after some streets went car-free on weekends. 8. It makes neighborhoods more vibrant
The same features that make streets more walkable, like a safer and more attractive design, make people want to spend more time in them generally, bringing vibrancy back to neighborhoods. 9. It enhances the “sense of place”
Spending time walking through a neighborhood, rather than driving, helps people have a better sense of what makes it unique–and more likely to want to help take care of it. [Photo: Flickr user Loren Kerns 10. It’s a driver for creativity
If a neighborhood is walkable, it’s more likely to become home to public street art and open-air events; conversely, public art and cultural events can help draw people to streets where they might not have walked before.
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In one Kansas City neighborhood, crime dropped 74% after some streets went car-free on weekends. 11. It’s universally accessible
While not everyone can afford a car or knows how to drive, walking is universally accessible, and even those who take the subway or drive also walk at some points during the day. The report makes the point that designing pedestrian infrastructure for those who are less mobile also helps make the experience of walking better for everyone. 12. It fosters social interaction
Walkable streets bring people together who might not otherwise meet. In a classic 1960s study, people who lived on streets with more car traffic were less likely to know their neighbors. 13. It strengthens community identity
As people interact more on streets, that also builds a sense of community. In Ireland, one study found that people in walkable neighborhoods had 80% more “social capital” than those living in car-dependant areas. 14. It connects people across generations
In the U.S., millennials prefer walking to driving by a 12% margin. In some areas, the elderly are also more likely to walk or take public transit. Making streets more walkable helps bring people of all ages–including children–together. 15. It builds inclusiveness
Traffic infrastructure, such as highways, can physically separate and segregate neighborhoods; better design for walkability makes the whole city more accessible to everyone. For the lowest-income people, who might lose a job if their car breaks down, it can help build a social safety net. Biking and walking provide an estimated return on investment of $11.80 for every $1 invested. 16. It boosts the economy
Making neighborhoods more walkable increases the number of people who shop there. Pedestrians may spend as much as 65% more than drivers. It also boosts employment; in Dublin, a redesigned pedestrian-friendly neighborhood led to a 300% increase in employment. Overall, biking and walking provide an estimated return on investment of $11.80 for every $1 invested.
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17. It helps local businesses
In Brooklyn, redesigning a parking lot into a pedestrian plaza boosted retail sales 172%. People who visit street markets in a city are also more likely to shop at stores nearby. The less that people drive, the more money they also have available to spend locally; an economist estimates that because people in Portland, Oregon, drive 20% less than the rest of the country, they save more than $1 billion, and much of that goes back to local businesses. 18. It helps make people more creative and productive
Research suggests that walking boosts creative output an average of 60%. You’re also more likely to be productive, improve memory, and make better decisions after exercise. Walking during work also helps: One internal study at a company found that people felt more energetic, focused, and engaged after walking meetings. 19. It improves a city’s brand and identity
Making a city more walkable and liveable can also give it a stronger identity, and make people want to visit. Barcelona, which has worked on improving public spaces and walkability since the 1980s, has seen its number of annual visitors grow 335% over the last two decades. [Photo: Flickr user Michel Curi 20. It increases tourism
For tourists, walking is one of the best ways to experience a city, and improving walkability makes more people interested in visiting. In London, Trafalgar Square saw a 300% increase in visitors after pedestrianizing. 21. It encourages more investment
After cities invest in walkable public space, it can encourage more investment in the same area. The High Line in New York led to $2 billion in private investment in the neighborhood around the park. 22. It attracts the creative class
Skilled professionals tend to migrate to walkable areas; the most walkable neighborhoods have much higher GDPs per capita, and more college graduates.
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Pedestrianizing a street can make home values go up $82 a square foot. 23. It increases land and property values
When neighborhoods become safer, more accessible, and more liveable, property values rise. Pedestrianizing a street can make home values go up $82 a square foot. It’s also good for landlords, if not tenants: Rents can rise $300 per month. 24. It activates the street facade
Walkable neighborhoods are less likely to have a lot of vacant storefronts. In New York City, expanding the pedestrian space in Union Square reduced commercial vacancies 49%. 25. It shrinks the cost of traffic congestion
The more people walk and the fewer people are stuck in traffic on roads, the more that benefits the economy. In the Bay Area, for example, businesses lose $2 billion a year because employees are stuck in gridlock. 26. It saves money on construction and maintenance
While building and maintaining roads is expensive–the U.S. needs an estimated $3.6 trillion by 2020 to repair existing infrastructure–sidewalks are more affordable. Investing in sidewalks also brings health and air quality benefits worth twice as much as the cost of construction. 27. It reduces health care costs
Inactivity leads to huge health care costs. The U.S. spends $190 billion on obesity-related illnesses alone. 28. It decreases dependency on nonrenewable resources
Experts estimate that the world may only have 56 years worth of oil left; cars waste most of the gas they use. Walking, by contrast, can actually generate energy if cities install energy-harvesting sidewalk tiles.
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29. It minimizes land use
Sidewalks and bike paths are more compact than roads; they also enable people to easily live in denser neighborhoods, unlike traditional car-dependant suburbs. [Photo: via Unsplash 30. It reduces air pollution
On a single car-free day in 2015, Paris cut smog by 40% in parts of the city. Over the long term, pedestrianization can improve health as the air grows cleaner, and can help cut a city’s carbon footprint. 31. It cuts ambient noise
With fewer people driving, cities get quieter. On Paris’s first car-free day, sound levels on main roads dropped three decibels. Plants and trees–which make streets more walkable–also reduce ambient noise. 32. It helps improve urban microclimates
While paved roads contribute to the urban heat island effect, making cities hotter, shaded, plant-lined sidewalks can help cool neighborhoods down from 9 to 35 degrees. Plant-lined sidewalks can help cool neighborhoods down from 9 to 35 degrees. 33. It can improve water management
Sidewalks designed with permeable surfaces can help suck up water during heavy rain, reducing flooding. 34. It makes cities more beautiful
Roads and sidewalks typically make up the majority of public space in cities; in Chicago, for example, they make up 70%. Making public space more walkable–with landscaping, public art, and other interventions–also makes it more attractive than a typical road.
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35. It increases active use of space
In walkable neighborhoods, people are also more likely to make use of parks and public squares, and other outdoor spaces. In Copenhagen, as the city became more pedestrian-friendly over the last few decades, the number of people sitting in squares and otherwise making use of city space tripled. 36. It makes better use of space
Streets that are redesigned to become more walkable also tend to incorporate underutilized space next to roads. In New York, one study found 700 miles of underused public space under elevated structures. 37. It encourages people to drive less
When Copenhagen pedestrianized its main street, foot traffic increased 35% in the first year. In many cities, a large number of trips are only a short distance, and better design makes it more likely that people will prefer to walk or bike. 38. It also promotes public transit
People using a subway or bus to commute to work have to get there from their home–and a better walk makes it more likely that they’ll want to use public transit instead of driving. 39. It increases permeability
Walkability can also make cities more “permeable,” or easier to move around, creating a walking network that may even be easier to use than driving. [Photo: Flickr user Tripp 40. It bridges barriers
Pedestrian infrastructure can reconnect parts of the city that may have been disconnected by older infrastructure. In Rotterdam, a crowdfunded pedestrian bridge stretches over a busy road and old train tracks.
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41. It makes cities more competitive
Walkability is directly connected to liveability. When Melbourne redesigned its center for pedestrians, it saw an 830% increase in residents, and it was recognized as The Economist‘s “world’s most liveable city” five years in a row. 42. It builds political support
After the mayor of the Spanish city of Pontevedra decided to go car-free in 1999, the public loved him: He’s now in his fifth term. Every added 10 minutes of commuting cuts community involvement 10%. 43. It builds engagement
As people spend more time outside in their neighborhoods, they’re more likely to feel attached, and to engage in improving the city in general. Crowdfunded public projects are growing in many cities. 44. It encourages more stakeholders to participate
Every added 10 minutes of commuting cuts community involvement 10%. In L.A., where commuters waste 64 hours a year in traffic, the city is building more participation by helping neighbors transform underused roads into pedestrian spaces. 45. It inspires civic responsibility
Walkability brings people together with other community members, which increases a sense of responsibility. Mexico City’s self-appointed pedestrian “superhero,” who defends pedestrians on city streets, helped build political support for the city’s new commitment to zero traffic deaths. 46. It promotes sustainable behaviors
In Canada, a study found that if people drove one less day a week, it could reduce 3.8 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions a year. As cities become more walkable, it can enable a cultural shift away from driving. Though the report doesn’t mention it, taking one sustainable action can also lead people to take others.
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If people drove one less day a week, it could reduce 3.8 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions a year. 47. It helps make cities more resilient
If people can easily walk, a breakdown in mass transit, or a gas shortage, is less of a problem. Walkability makes cities more resilient in disasters. 48. It’s a tool for urban regeneration
Making neighborhoods more walkable can spark urban regeneration. In Madrid, a walkable park along the river led to investment in new sports areas, plazas, cafes, and the renovation of historic landmarks. 49. It allows for flexible micro-solutions
A car-free or walkable street is more likely to support pop-up interventions and other cheap, simple, DIY solutions. 50. It supports cultural heritage
Pedestrianization around a cultural landmark can increase the number of people who visit, and help support efforts for preservation. As Beijing quickly modernized, the city decided to pedestrianize several ancient, narrow streets–bringing new visitors and saving part of the city that otherwise might have disappeared. Download the full report here. Have something to say about this article? You can email us and let us know. If it’s interesting and thoughtful, we may publish your response. |
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In Pokéland, toy Pocket Monsters duke it out on various in-game islands. Think Pokémon Rumble, but for smartphones.
Slated for iOS and Android, this app requires an internet connection and uses your Nintendo Account (meaning that your Mii can appear in Pokéland).
The app is going into an Android-only alpha test in Japan. The test features six islands, 52 different stages, and 134 types of Pocket Monsters. During the alpha, players will be able to progress to the 15th floor of the Champion Tower.
Note that those who participate in the alpha will not be able to transfer their data once the app is officially released because said data will be deleted. The alpha runs until June 9 in Japan.
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No word yet on an international release. |
Migrants, most of them from Eritrea, jumped into the Mediterranean to be rescued on Tuesday. (Emilio Morenatti/AP)
NAIROBI — Just as the European Union appeared to be stemming the flood of Syrian refugees last year, it realized that it had another, even more complicated problem on its hands: Migration from Africa was continuing to surge.
Now, Europeans are frantically trying to deal with another front in the migrant crisis, culminating in a meeting this week among the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Niger and Chad and a senior Libyan official — and a round of proposals that many migration experts consider to be flawed or incomplete.
Since the collapse of Moammar Gaddafi's regime in Libya, the number of migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea has soared, as people have taken advantage of a vacuum of authority to set sail from the country's northern coast. A network of human smugglers who facilitate the traffic has expanded from the tip of North Africa down to countries such as Niger and Sudan. Contacts for smugglers circulate on Facebook and WhatsApp in major cities across Africa. Since 2014, more than 400,000 migrants and refugees have crossed the Mediterranean from Libya to Italy.
Men stood on the deck of a rescue vessel after being rescued by a Spanish NGO on the Mediterranean Sea in June. (Emilio Morenatti/AP)
“In many ways, the height of the Syrian migration exodus is behind us, but when you look at the youth bulge and demographic vitality of Africa, you say, 'Oh damn,'” said Demetrios Papademetriou, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington-based research organization.
Europe was able to reduce the flow of Syrian refugees by making a deal with Turkey, a major jumping-off point for many of those fleeing the war in the Middle East. The agreement allowed Greece to return migrants to Turkey, while the Europeans boosted financial support for Turkey's refugee population and provided greater visa liberalization for Turks. No such solution has emerged to handle the African influx. as European nations face a complicated mission to curb the flow of migrants and refugees.
Much of that quest involves money. The E.U. is rolling out a $1.9 billion plan to “address the root causes of migration” in what many see a quid pro quo for African nations to improve border security and accept deportees.
Mali, for example, was offered $150 million in a deal that would “enable the return from Europe of Malian migrants,” according to an E.U. statement. But when the agreement became public in Bamako, the capital, there was a public uproar, prompting a motion of censure from parliament. The Malian government eventually pulled out of the deal in December.
Migrants sleep on the deck of the Golfo Azzurro vessel after being rescued from the Mediterranean Sea, about 20 miles north of Libya, in January. (Olmo Calvo/AP)
Like many African countries, Mali receives millions of dollars in remittances from workers abroad, a lifeline for many families.
“The Malian leadership miscalculated the outcry,” Papademetriou said.
During previous surges in migration, European leaders have discussed what it calls a “Marshall Plan for Africa” — a development package so big that it would create jobs at home for would-be migrants, making them less likely to leave. Such a project never happened. This time around, African leaders are skeptical of such ideas.
“The needs of the continent are enormous, and unfortunately 1 or 2 billion euros will not change the situation,” Hissein Brahim Taha, Chad’s foreign minister, said in an interview published this week in Jeune Afrique, a French-language magazine.
Many cities along Africa’s main migrant routes also have benefited financially from the flow of people to Europe. In countries such as Niger, the organizations theoretically responsible for policing migration have grown accustomed to accepting bribes from smugglers. In Libya, militias often hold migrants hostage until they receive ransom payments from their families.
A group of migrants rest at the Tajora detention center on May 23 in Tripoli, Libya. (Photo by Lorenzo Tugnoli/ For The Washington Post)
Europe has committed to training and empowering the key border security agencies in Africa, including those in Libya, but that has raised alarm about whether they will inadvertently support forces linked to human rights abuses. In Sudan, some watchdog groups have expressed concern that border security funds could end up in the hands of the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group associated with the Janjaweed, known for mass killings in Sudan’s Darfur region.
“Funding that should be used for development and security is instead used for migration control,” said Catherine Woollard, secretary general of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles, a network of advocacy groups.
In past months, French President Emmanuel Macron has discussed setting up “hot spots” in places such as Chad and Niger where vulnerable refugees could apply for asylum without risking a dangerous sea crossing. Some of the countries that would host such hot spots have bristled at the idea, arguing that the areas could draw even more migrants to their countries. Chad, for example, already hosts about a half-million refugees, many of whom are from Darfur.
“We were against the establishment of screening centers in our country,” Taha told Jeune Afrique, referring to the hot spots. “This would have contributed to creating a migration vortex, which would soon become uncontrollable for Chad.”
Chadian President Idriss Déby, from left, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy attended a joint news conference at the Elysee Palace in Paris on Monday. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
Macron and other European leaders are now speaking about resettling a small number of refugees already in Chad and Niger. Many experts say that proposal is far from a comprehensive solution.
“If France, Germany, Italy and Spain want to show genuine leadership, they should act to create and expand other safe and legal ways for people to reach Europe, like granting humanitarian visas and facilitating family reunification,” said Judith Sunderland, associate director for the Europe and Central Asia division at Human Rights Watch.
Unlike Syrians, most of whom have viable claims to refugee status because of the war in their country, a large portion of Africans moving to Europe are economic migrants seeking better jobs. Even under an improved system for screening refugees, tens of thousands of people who probably wouldn't qualify for asylum might continue the journey through the Sahara desert and then across the Mediterranean Sea.
That leaves one other European proposal on the table: using the Libyan coast guard and militias to crack down on the flow of migrants. There are some signs that this approach — the most controversial one — appears to be working.
Since mid-July, about 4,000 migrants have crossed the Mediterranean, about an 80 percent drop compared with the same period last year. Italy has taken a number of steps to discourage the migration, including deploying naval ships to help Libyan officials intercept migrant boats off the coast.
Migrants and refugees stood on the deck of a rescue vessel in June. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Quoting Libyan militia and security officials, the Associated Press recently reported that the Italian government was also working with Libyan authorities to pay militias to prevent migrants from crossing the Mediterranean. (The Italian government denied reaching such an agreement).
Some see a repeat of Italy’s 2008 deal in which then-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi pledged to provide Libya with $200 million a year in investments over 25 years as reparations for his nation's colonial abuses in the country. In return, Gaddafi cracked down on migration.
At the time, Human Rights Watch said the deal “resulted in joint naval patrols that run roughshod over refugee and migrant rights.”
Stanley-Becker reported from Berlin. |
Trump Tower in New York. (Michael Nagle/Bloomberg News)
Morning Consult reports that its poll found that 67 percent of American voters — and indeed, 60 percent of Republicans — “think presidential candidates should have to disclose their returns. Just one in five voters (21 percent) said they don’t think the financial documents should have to be released.” Perhaps not coincidentally, 27 percent of the electorate said they would support Libertarian Gary Johnson or don’t know whom they will back. Could it be that the tax issue is Trump’s Achilles’ heel? (“Unlike every Republican nominee since Ronald Reagan, Trump has refused to release his tax returns, prompting Democrats — including Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton — to question what he is ‘hiding.'”) It surely does stick in voters’ craw and reinforce worries about his actual business skill, his penchant for ludicrous puffery and the actual level of his charitable giving.
Donald Trump's stance on presidential candidates has changed significantly over the years. Here's how. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)
Despite the overwhelming importance of the issue to voters, most media interviewers still give Trump a pass. They either don’t ask him about the tax returns, or they don’t press him to produce an official audit letter from the Internal Revenue Service or explain why he cannot release his returns to the public despite the audit. Interviewers also avoid asking pesky questions, such as:
How much in charitable donations did you claim in the past year? Past five years? More than $1 million? $10 million? What percentage of your income comes from foreign-based companies? From companies that moved jobs overseas? On average, what percentage of tax did you pay over the past few years? To the nearest million dollars, how much in tax did you pay? If you have been audited “every year,” have you been assessed for any back taxes, penalties or fines? What tax laws did you fail to follow that led to the assessments?
Even if one believes he is under an actual audit and that there is some reason he cannot release the returns themselves (by the way, his refusal to release his returns provides more evidence that he puts his own finances ahead of the interests of voters), he surely can answer some basic questions like these.
Candidly, too many interviewers are wary of simply getting a “None of your business!” response. They should not be, for their job is not to make Trump feel comfortable, although clearly that is the mission of many at Fox Non-News). They should follow up with: Isn’t it the American people’s business? It is, of course, their business and a justifiable concern since, until the race, he has never had to publicly disclose verifiable documents about his finances, the sources of his finances and the tax he has paid on his billions.
Trump is quite skillful in putting out a steady stream of outrageous comments (about Vince Foster, Bill Clinton, the JFK assassination) to distract the media. It is not clear why it is in the public’s interest to have him queried as to where his information comes from (the National Enquirer!) on these claims, but not to ask him about information entirely within Trump’s control.
As for Clinton, as soon as she picks one, her VP can be dispensed to respond to all of Trump’s nuttiness, alleviating Clinton of the need to respond to every conspiracy theory Trump raises or re-raises. (He must be short on material if he is going back to Vince Foster’s suicide in the 1990s, an event that younger voters likely have no firsthand recognition of and that only fever-swamp right-wingers — presumably in his camp already — think is attributable to Clinton or her husband.) Clinton would be wise, however, personally to keep pounding on the tax returns in speeches and interviews. It’s a topic on which Trump has to play defense — and has no compelling defense. And it is a topic that cuts across party and on which the vast majority of voters agree with her.
There is one group of people who represent the millions of Republicans, 60 percent of whom want to see Trump’s tax returns. That’s the GOP convention delegates, of course. The Republican voters, Trumpkins always like to say, “have spoken.” Yes, and they want to see Trump’s taxes. This should not be hard, since with or without a convention rule requiring such disclosure, any delegate can abstain from voting for Trump until his or her concerns are satisfied. It’s a measure of Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus’s spinelessness that he seems more attuned to catering to the whims of Trump than attending to the concerns of his members and the very real possibility that he could be helping to set his party up for a horrific October surprise. |
In spite of producers saying recently that it's unlikely we'll see Ray Palmer -- known to DC Comics fans as The Atom -- use his trademark shrinking powers on Arrow, actor Brandon Routh has posted a photo to social media that suggests, if nothing else, he'll be wearing a mask.
The series started filming their eleventh episode of the season today, titled "Midnight City," and apparently part of what's "all in a day's work" for that episode is getting a plaster mold made of his face.
Which, as we noted back when Katie Cassidy did it recently, is generally associated with fitting the actor for a mask. In the background of the room where both of the actors in question were molded, you can see other face molds on the shelf -- and in Cassidy's, the shot was wide enough that you could see them marked with words like "Canary" and "Arsenal." Back in September, Routh admitted that he'd seen concept art for the suit -- which was not long before executive producers cautioned fans not to expect him to do anything too...super...on Arrow.
"It's a totally different suit and I haven't been in it yet, I've only seen drawings," Routh said when asked to compare the role to his time as Superman. "It's a very different character and I really can't say too much about what the suit's going to look like -- just that it's very different and I don't believe it has a cape, which doesn't really surprise anybody if you've seen The Atom in the comics." “I think anything is possible. My instinct is that if Ray Palmer’s going to shrink, he’ll probably shrink on another show,” Marc Guggenheim told reporters at a screening and Q&A when the season began last month. “With The Flash in existence, there’s no real compelling reason for us to do super powers on Arrow. We can bring characters to Flash to have super powers. We have plans for Ray that don’t involve shrinking, but our plans for Ray are actually really cool.” |
Brooklyn Nets center Jason Collins will be a part of Marriott Hotel's newest ad campaign that targets LGBT individuals, known as "#LoveTravels." Collins, who was the first openly gay NBA player, spending some of this past season with the Nets, will be featured in ads for Marriott to help promote the campaign.
From USA Today:
Marriott's campaign is the latest example of the hotel industry stepping up its efforts to lure LGBT travelers. While the company says it is targeting the community to make LGBT travelers feel more welcome, there's also a business incentive. According to Out Now Global, an LGBT marketing specialist group, the potential value of the LGBT travel market was set to reach $181 billion last year.
On the campaign, Collins called it "important not only to the LGBT community but to society in general."
Here is the latest video from the Marriott #LoveTravels campaign which includes Jason Collins.
For more on the campaign: #LoveTravels |
The current gas crisis is a prime example of how energy policy has been mishandled in this country. But it should not be an excuse for continuing the bad policy. Using talk of a gas shortage to increase fracking and coal seam gas exploration would be a bad solution to a problem of our own making.
The latest statement by the Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo) on the gas industry seems to makes it pretty clear that we are about to suffer a gas shortage.
It notes at the top of its executive summary that “declining gas production may result in insufficient gas to meet projected demand by GPG for supply of electricity from summer 2018-19”.
The statement includes estimates of which states will suffer shortages out to 2036:
That would make it seem like a pretty open and shut case for needing to increase gas exploration and remove the moratorium on fracking that exists in Victoria and the Northern Territory. Surely a gas shortage means we need to increase the gas supply.
But the shortage figures hide the fact that Australia is not suffering from a lack of gas at all. It’s one of the more odd things that, while Aemo is predicting a gas shortage in 2019, Aemo also notes that demand for gas in Australia has actually fallen since 2012.
It also seems weird to talk of a shortage of supply when we are also hearing about the massive boom in the gas industry in Queensland. And it is here that we get to the crux of the problem. We are producing more gas than ever before but it is not for Australian consumers, it is for exports:
By 2020, 73% of gas production in Australia will head overseas.
The problem is that when the Gladstone LNG plants and port opened, for the first time the eastern gas market was linked with the world market. At the time, the price of selling LNG to Japan was much higher than gas prices here, even accounting for the cost of conversion and transportation. It meant that the prices of gas in the south-eastern states rose but also that selling gas overseas became a more attractive option than selling it to domestic users.
But since the Gladstone port and LNG plants came online, due to the massive increase in supply and demand not growing as fast as expected, the price has crashed and there is now a glut of LNG:
And when the cost of coal seam gas turned out to be more than expected – due to, as Aemo notes, “geological challenges” – it meant that in order to achieve a profit for these large and long-term export contracts for LNG, rather than use expensive gas, suppliers sought to use gas that previously went to domestic supply.
It saw big export contracts that effectively sucked up as much of Australia’s gas as possible. But, as Aemo notes, the lower prices in Japan have not led to lower prices here.
In 2016 – coinciding with the first winter where LNG supply was in full swing – Aemo notes that spot prices increased from an average of around $5 a gigajoule (GJ) across gas markets in April 2016 to an average of $12/GJ in July 2016.
None of this is a surprise.
I first wrote of the looming gas price hike in March 2014 and about calls for a reservation of gas for local use in October that year. That three years later I could pretty much rewrite the same article says a bit about how energy policy in the country has been handled.
We need the government to fix this unconscionable energy mess – they owe us that much | Katharine Murphy Read more
The issue of cost and supply remains – although it is somewhat changed.
Back in 2014 the view was that Japanese LNG prices would pull up our gas prices, so that we were in effect paying the world price. Except now we have the absurd case where Japan prices have fallen so low that there is talk of importing Australian LNG for domestic use.
So do we need to unlock the gate – and allow fracking? Not particularly.
We already have enough gas production to meet Australia’s demands three times over and developing more fracking sites may not actually do much to lower prices. As Aemo notes: “The increased cost of sourcing new gas supply means additional gas in the market may not translate to lower prices.”
Arguing for new fracking exploration and production is effectively suggesting that the way to meet Australia’s demand for gas and lower prices is to develop more costly sites and allow the low-cost production to be exported.
That’s a pretty odd policy to follow.
Back in 2014, I was against moves to reserve gas supply because while doing so might guarantee electricity generation it is not a guarantee that prices will remain low. Western Australia has a gas reserve policy and, over the past 10 and 20 years, consumers in Perth have seen their gas prices increase faster than those living on the east coast:
But my main issue against reserving gas for domestic use is doing so is a perverse incentive against the use of renewable energy. I was in 2014, however, perhaps rather too naive about how bad our energy policy would be handled and how strongly the government would be against renewable energy.
Aemo argues that to remove all gas shortfalls from 2019 to 2024 all that is needed is to reserve “5% of supply currently earmarked for LNG export”.
There is, however, some suggestion that the Aemo projections of shortage might be overstated. A report in 2015 by the Melbourne Energy Institute notes that Aemo has consistently overstated projections of demand for gas. Even since 2013 the amount of gas Aemo expects Australians to use has fallen:
Better efficiency and consumers reducing use due to increased gas prices has seen gas demand fall by more than expected.
Ironically, a gas reservation would likely reverse that trend and move consumers away from more energy efficient methods for heating and cooking.
The issue of gas supply is not about a lack of gas in Australia but where that gas is going. A reserve of gas might now be a least worst policy but we certainly should not be using the current situation to move towards more costly – and environmentally dubious – methods of gas production. |
(The views expressed are the author’s own and not those of Reuters.)
Italy's Prime Minister Mario Monti gestures during a news conference at the Moncloa Palace in Madrid August 2, 2012. REUTERS/Juan Medina
The great Italian caricaturist Altan had a cartoon on the front of La Repubblica last week, in which an Italian is sinking below the waves, shouting: “I’m drowning!” On the beach, a fat man whose swimsuit sports the German national colors, says: “Zat is how you learn, zpendthrift!”
This in a left-of-center daily that is supportive of the crisis plan of Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti and has set its face against anti-German populism. The press of the right has been less restrained: A recent front-page photo of German Chancellor Angela Merkel showed her with a hand upraised, perhaps to wave — but vaguely reminiscent of Adolf Hitler’s minimalist Nazi salute, with the headline “Fourth Reich.” The article claimed that two world wars and millions of corpses were “not enough to quiet German egomania”. This in Il Giornale, a Milan daily owned by the Berlusconi family.
I smiled at the Altan cartoon on an Italian beach, where I was last week, looking about for signs of desperation. They were not dramatic, but observable. Simply, fewer people came. The soaring cost of petrol, which went over the 2-euro mark for a liter, was generally held to be the main culprit for the reduction in the annual hunt for the sun. It was little problem to hire a beach umbrella, to book a table for dinner, even to park. While most summers the political news is absent or silly, this year the Italian papers chronicled, daily, the fever chart of the Italian and European economy, and it was febrile indeed — now a spurt of optimism, now a stab of doom.
The technocratic government led by Mario Monti, distinguished economist and former European commissioner, has seen little of the beach. The elected politicians, free from the usual business of government or opposition, were active, too: The political scene is as boiling hot as the climate. The left remains fractured and struggles for alliances and unity. The new populists, led by the comedian Beppe Grillo’s Five Stars movement, remain attractive to many because of Grillo’s attacks on a partly corrupt political class. Yet he calls for an end to parliamentary politics, having run a blog column with a picture of Benito Mussolini, the prewar dictator, that evoked with approval his description of parliament (which he dissolved) as “deaf and gray.”
In the center, a loose coalition of Christian Democrats and secular liberals invoke the spirit and memory of Alcide de Gasperi, Italy’s long-serving postwar premier — who presided over the rapid recovery of the economy in the fifties and positioned Italy as a founding member of what became the European Union. It seeks to tempt Monti into heading the Christian Democrats and running for elected office after his temporary mandate ends next April.
On the right, the immortal Silvio Berlusconi again dominates attention. The near-universal assumption, one that I shared, that his resignation last November, amid jeers and a collapse in the support for his Forza Italia party, meant his political end underestimated his will for power. Or, say the many cynics, it didn’t take into account his fear that if he does not retain some measure of political power he will finally enter the maw of the justice system, which has tried to nail him for a quarter of a century. He has been addressing the still-faithful around the country, secure (he says) in the love of the people and in his country’s need of him. He is on trial in Milan for encouraging underage prostitution, and this past weekend a German model, Sabina Began, told the daily Il Fatto Quotidiano that he had impregnated her, and that she lost the child in a miscarriage (he denies it). But this is still a country for old men, and at 75, this old man has the money and the media and evidently the stomach for another fight.
For the moment, though, Italy is Monti’s charge and care, and though he cuts and cuts, warns of hardships to come, and has no charisma in any conventional sense, he remains popular among an electorate desperate for him to succeed. And not just with the people: Both Moody’s and Fitch rating agencies lauded him last week, the latter saying he was “credible” and that if and when he leaves the scene, greater risks return. No hint of a scandal has attended him, and nothing serious of the kind in his cabinet, composed mainly of high-end academics. The political circus around him can look tawdry.
But the beasts in the political circus were chosen by the people. Pierluigi Bersani, leader of the main center-left party, Partito Democratico, said in an interview with Repubblica last week that Monti had done a fine job but must stand aside in the spring — for “if the idea catches on that politics is not able to take us out of the crisis, we will put ourselves on the margins of the democracies.” Bersani sometimes struggles to present himself as a credible premier if the left were to win the next elections, but he spoke well here. For Italy to continue under the tutelage of the professors would both further weaken the party system and raise deeper doubts than ever that it could produce an elected, efficient, clean ruling class.
But suppose the political class of any color really is incapable of taking the country out of the crisis? In a speech last week in Rimini to a Catholic youth group, Monti spoke about the need to restore Italians’ faith in the state — a faith that can be regained only if the many Italians who now cheat the taxman cease to do so, and others, including the public broadcaster RAI, stop regarding the avoiders as merely crafty, even admirable, for being so. The country, he said — in a rare flash of drama, even melodrama — was “at war” with the tax cheats. “We can’t broadcast, even subliminally, the degraded values which are destroying our society”
The belief that he seeks to invoke is less in the state and more in a citizenship where everyone exercises mutual responsibilities. This unelected, precise, rather lofty man presents the nature and obligations of democracy better than any elected Italian politician I have heard. Many of these will, indeed, share this thought, but the daily battle for power and attention in a political system as complex and fragmented as the Italian, which gives so many privileges to the elected, leaves too little time and will for the observance of democratic ideals.
Italy has put in place a dictator-expert to make politics safe for elected politicians once more. The paradox is that he is better at articulating democratic necessities than the latter have been. The capacity for these politicians to rise to his level and to make politics serve the electorate, through the bad times which will roll on after Monti, is the test of tests before this country — even, given its size and importance, before Europe. The signs that they will are, as yet, fragile: The shadows of doubts about the future fell across the scorching beaches this summer, and are likely to remain. |
Story highlights Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee are in stained-glass windows in the National Cathedral
The windows were installed in 1953 at the request of the United Daughters of the Confederacy
Washington (CNN) The nationwide backlash against Confederate symbols continued as the dean of the Washington National Cathedral called for the venerable church remove imagery related to the secessionist states.
The Confederate flag is featured prominently in pictures apparently posted by Dylann Roof in online writings laced with racial hatred. Roof has been charged with murdering nine people at a Bible study in Charleston, South Carolina, on June 17.
The image on the left includes Stonewall Jackson, a Confederate general. On the right is Robert E. Lee.
In his sermon on Sunday , the Very Rev. Gary Hall, dean of the National Cathedral, announced that he would call on the church's governing body to remove two stained-glass windows put in place to honor "the lives and legacies of Confederate Generals Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee."
The windows were installed in 1953 at the request of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and are two of many stained-glass bays on the cathedral's main level.
Hall said the National Cathedral had installed these windows to "foster reconciliation" between the North and the South. But they did did more than simply seek to repair a divided nation, he said.
Read More |
Ensconced in a handsome Hans Wegner Papa Bear armchair, Anthony Bourdain, the beloved idol of globe-trotting foodies, held court at Brooklyn’s Wythe Hotel. Bourdain was in the hipster enclave this week serving as the lead judge of the American Craft Council’s Rare Craft Fellowship Awards, a role he’s taken on for the last three years.
Andrew Ranallo/American Craft Counci Bourdain with 2017 fellowship winner Amara Hark-Weber
Bourdain’s turn as the de facto patron saint of American artisanal craft came by accident. As an endorser of the Scottish whiskey brand Balvenie, the 6o-year-old TV personality has been filming vignettes about blacksmiths, bookmakers, cobblers, and furniture makers for a worth-watching web series called Raw Craft.
Quartz pulled up a Danish chair and sat down with Bourdain to talk about his aversion to Philippe Starck perfection, the design vision for his Manhattan food market, his obsession with the legendary Los Angeles hotel Chateau Marmont, and his affection for American craftsmen. Here’s our chat.
How has your design sensibility evolved since meeting the designers and artisans you interview on Raw Craft?
Having featured tailors, bookmakers, blacksmiths, boot-makers, I pay more attention to those things now. I appreciate them in a way that I didn’t before.
If you could apprentice for one of them, who would it be?
I wish I could work with wood. I wish I could make something as tangible and lasting, like a chest of drawers or shelves. I’m hopelessly inept at those things. In another life.
Did you see yourself as the champion for American craft when you started Raw Craft?
No. I was just responding to the opportunity to tell stories, in this case about people I really admire.
Balvenie / Raw Crat Bourdain with furniture-maker Mats Christeen.
In all your travels, what’s the best hotel room you’ve stayed at?
I live in a very modern building that threatens to look like a glass box, and I wanted to feel comfortable there. My favorite hotel in the world is the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles. I made every effort to furnish my apartment like that—mid-century, mismatched, very comfortable and old-looking stuff. I even got the candles so it smells like the Chateau.
I paid a lot of attention to how designers design their room as if they haven’t designed their rooms… It doesn’t feel over-designed. You don’t feel like you’re in a Philippe Starck [bubble]. Some people like that, but I feel that it’s oppressively designed —with untz, utntz, untz in the background. I like that sense of controlled chaos, or teetering on the edge of discord, that just somehow works.
You now show these hotel rooms on your Instagram video, with some cryptic music in the background.
Someone described it as “compellingly banal.” I love films. I like atmospheric soundtracks. [I choose them] depending on my mood. Or maybe I’m sending secret messages.
Tell us about the design brief for the food market, Bourdain Market, you’re opening in New York City in 2019.
I work with [interior designers] Roman & Williams, who have a very cinematic approach to their projects. My original concept for them to work with: Imagine Grand Central Station—sort of an old New York space if it was post-apocalyptic times and it had been taken over by Chinese hawker vendors. I used Blade Runner as an extreme example. The bones would be old-school municipal New York architecture but with a very modern, very Eastern sensibility. A sense of chaos, rather than a unifying design theory.
I’m looking for a chaotic feel of a wet market in Hong Kong or a hawker center in Singapore—but for real, not a Disneyland version. It’s going to be a working public market. There will be forklifts, produce markets, and butchers. It’s not a food hall or a food court.
Bourdain Market’s interior designers, Stephen Alesch and Robin Standefer of Roman & Williams, invented hipster design and then later publicly denounced it. Are you fond of the Brooklyn hipster aesthetic?
That’s the very essence of hipster aesthetic, isn’t it? Create something awesome, and then everybody jumps on board, and quickly try to separate yourself as quickly and as far as you can. Any creative person should try to run far away from what they did last week. |
It sounds like you lost a good bet. Actually, I think you won.
How do you explain what we were doing to the server? Natalie is a sweet girl who really believes that the food at Olive Garden is good. I can’t fault her for that. Actually, I commend her as she is representing her brand admirably. When it was time to order, we told Natalie that I lost a bet and that my friend Brian would be picking my dinner tonight. She thought it was funny and told me that I was really the winner in this situation.
***
The Chain Challenge dinner commences pic.twitter.com/77vSgC7Ahp — Jared Paventi (@jaredpaventi) November 22, 2014
The Chain Challenge was my gimmick to fundraise for Walk To End Alzheimer’s. It was actually my friend Brian’s idea. He thought that if I could raise a certain amount of money, in this case $1,500, that I should endure a meal at one of the mediocre chain restaurants that attract flocks of people for their mediocre fare and mediocre service. I raised $1,800. Now, we weren’t talking about Bonefish Grill, Carrabba’s, The Cheesecake Factory or P.F. Chang’s. No, I was looking for the mid-range chain: Olive Garden, Outback, or Red Lobster. The restaurant that regular families choose to spend money at over perfectly good private establishments in their city. I don’t mean to demonize chains, as they do provide dining options and jobs to an area. And, let’s face it, not everyone cherishes the dining experience in the same was I do. Some people want to just eat and leave. And more power to them. It’s just not my thing.
***
The @olivegarden house wine (Sangiovese) is the vino equiv of Bud Light. — Jared Paventi (@jaredpaventi) November 22, 2014
As per Olive Garden tradition, Natalie arrived at our table for introductions with a bottle of wine in hand. Prior to her arrival, I was offered a deal. The arrangement had me eating a four-course meal — appetizer, soup/salad, entree, dessert — but Brian and his wife Jen said that I could swap dessert out if I drank the house wine. The Rocca delle Macie SaSyr is a 60/40 blend of Sangiovese and Syrah. It had all the character of Bud Light. No nose, a thin body, no sweetness, no acidity, no fruit, and no legs. Upon tasting it, I made a cringe face. Natalie was surprised when, after sampling and retching, I ordered a 9 oz. pour. The Wife and Jen each ordered a glass of riesling. Brian ordered a short Blue Moon draught, the best option of the non-bottled beers. When Natalie returned with a tall glass, she realized that the bar had screwed up. Rather than leave the glass and letting the error wash, she took it back to the bar for a new drink. Brian was left in the arid wasteland of being drinkless.
***
Should @olivegarden breadsticks clank when they hit the plate? #chainchallenge — Jared Paventi (@jaredpaventi) November 22, 2014
There has been much ado about nothing with the Olive Garden breadsticks. These soft, chewy, butter-slathered sticks are served in their plastic faux-wicker basket as an all-you-can-eat courtesy and guilty pleasure. Earlier in 2014, an investor report admonished Olive Garden for giving away too many breadsticks to diners, deeming them as a needless expense to the restaurant and demanding that the restaurant cutback on the offerings. We went through three baskets of breadsticks, though not necessarily because of their typically addictive nature. It seemed as half of every order was overcooked, leaving three of every five-piece order rock hard. Jen, as she attempted to set her breadstick down, actually made it clank against the green-rimmed stoneware plate. The noise drew a laugh, and then we realized that nearly every breadstick in the order was more stick than bread.
Our opening salvo was the soup and salad course. Each entree at the restaurant comes with the promise of unlimited servings of each. Brian and I each ordered the pasta e fagioli, a muddled blend of tomato and beef stock, mixed with pasta, beans and ground beef. Previously, this soup had been without meat, so the presence of beef confused me. Pasta e fagioli is a largely meatless dish, save for pancetta or bacon that may be used to start the base. Natalie delivered a massive bowl of salad for the women, which would have been fine had the wives planned to both eat salad. The Wife was going for the famously bottomless salad bowl, while Jen had ordered the chicken and gnocchi soup. Natalie went in search of the missing soup. It turned out that the kitchen, apparently unable to keep up with the demand from the nearly full restaurant, was unable to put ladle to bowl. Jen’s soup came out nearly 10 minutes after my appetizer arrived.
***
Angotti’s, Asti Caffe, Francesca’s Cucina, Frankie’s Piccolo Bistro, Pascale’s, Pastabilities, Joey’s, Attilio’s, Basil Leaf, Nestico’s, Rico’s, and Santangelo’s. There, I’ve named 12 Italian restaurants in Syracuse that are owned by individuals or families and each offer their own take on Italian cuisine. A couple of them are good, a couple of them are great, and all of them makeup the fabric of city with a strong Italian-American heritage.
***
And while we’re at it, you can get a really good Italian meal at the Pomodoro and Benucci’s restaurants in the Rochester area. And, if you’re in Buffalo, you have Chef’s. There are probably other, maybe even better, spots in Western New York. What I’m saying is that people have options.
***
Oh, and there’s Lombardo’s in Albany.
***
The lasagna fritta was described by Brian and Jen as the most offensive thing they could think to order for me that wasn’t seafood related. Prepared like fried mozzarella, two pasta squares were stuffed with mozzarella and ricotta, breaded and fried. They were presented with a light coating of marinara sauce over a layer of alfredo sauce. They were rich and flavorless. I’m not sure how one can put so many flavors together on one plate and forget to add flavor, yet here we were. The Wife and Brian planned to share an order of bruschetta. When the fritta arrived, the food server brought out a bowl of steaming hot mozzarella. It turns out we were delivered the smoked mozzarella fonduta. Natalie took this away and went on another journey, searching for the bruschetta.
***
The service is horrendous tonite at the @olivegarden and we think it’s so apropos. #chainchallenge #wheresthatappetizer — Jared Paventi (@jaredpaventi) November 22, 2014
A minute or two after Natalie walked away, another food server arrived with entrees. As Natalie came by, we told her to call off the search party on the bruschetta. Natalie returned about 10 minutes after the entrees were served, bruschetta in hand. She apologized and offered the appetizer for free, courtesy of her manager. It languished on the table.
***
First official heavy sigh from @jaredpaventi and he hasn’t even touched his lasagna yet. #chainchallenge — Brian Moritz (@bpmoritz) November 22, 2014
The current Olive Garden promotion revolves around its Tours of Italy. Each is a trio of Italian dishes inspired by Northern and Southern Italian cuisine. Brian chose the classic tour for me. The presentation of fettuccine alfredo, chicken parmigiana and lasagna filled my platter in the way that I remember from my high school and college days, when we were broke enough to consider the Olive Garden an attainable, nice evening out. I just don’t remember the Tour of Italy being so below average. For instance, I did not realize that one could burn fettuccine, but there were brown, crunchy spots in one region of the fettuccine. The rest of pasta was limp leading me to believe that my platter took a lengthy vacation under a heat lamp and maybe my pasta was too close to the heating element. This also explains the cheese situation on the chicken parmigiana and lasagna. The mozzarella looked lifeless and dry, as if it had been cooked hours ago and held for too long in a heated area. Cheese had pulled away from the edges and the sauce underneath the cheese rendered the chicken cutlet breading soggy.
While the chicken was average at best, the lasagna was barely edible. It is pictured on the Olive Garden website as proud and standing tall, and described as “prepared fresh daily with layers of pasta, Italian cheeses and our homemade meat sauce.” It was depressing; structurally flat and ripe with a phony flavor. An overpowering Italian sausage flavor of oregano and fennel drowned everything else out. I took two bites and decided that I couldn’t finish it. It just wasn’t any good.
“I’m going to leave the lasagna. Yes I’m sure.” #chainchallenge — Jared Paventi (@jaredpaventi) November 22, 2014
***
(For those who don’t know what Pittsburgh style is.) It appeared as if Brian had the only tolerable entree at the table. While we joked about the parmesan drizzle, he described his primavera lasagna as average. Jen ordered the steak gorgonzola alfredo. In theory, four steak medallion were to be presented with gorgonzola cheese over fettuccine alfredo. In practice, Jen received four pieces of undercooked beef — she requested medium well — over a bowl of pasta with a scant serving of creamy alfredo sauce. And, even though she asked that sun-dried tomatoes be withheld, she spent part of the time picking out the offenders that snuck in.
The Wife wanted a bowl of pasta with marinara and the best she could get her hands on was the Cucina Mia section of the menu where you could choose your pasta and sauce. She opted for the giant ravioli with five-cheese marinara. We gave up on guessing what cheeses were involved — I guessed asiago, parmesan, and romano before giving up; turns out it is mozzarella, parmesan, romano, ricotta and fontina — because staring too long at the sauce made us think about our daughters. During their infant days, we would spoonfeed them squash or carrots, only to have them spit it back up on their bib. The Wife’s pasta sauce had the same shade and consistency. Missy ate about one-third of her entree before forfeiting.
***
So, here’s the ultimate problem with the Olive Garden: there’s no value. It would be one thing if the food was good, or if the food was reasonably priced. I could give it a pass if the recipe developers made even the slightest attempt at serving a nutritionally-rich meal (my Tour of Italy had 1,500 calories, 93 grams of fat, 47 grams of saturated fat, 3 grams of trans fat, and 3,210 mg of sodium).
They do none of that. Our pre-tip bill was $113. Our average entree cost was $15. Sure, I had a big plate of whatever, but even Missy’s bowl of vomit pasta was $11.99, on par with a bowl of penne vodka from Asti Caffe.
The Tour of Italy weighed in at $17.99. For $17.90, I could have sat at Angotti’s and ordered a full-size chicken parmigiana with a side of pasta and a full-sized lasagna. And, there would have been so much food that I would have brought at least one whole entree’s worth home.
So, what’s my problem with restaurants like Olive Garden? They are a reflection of who we are as a people. We should want more for our money. We should demand higher quality food. We should expect our $113 plus tip gets us consistent service and better quality from the kitchen. But, we don’t. We settle. We settle for warmed over chicken parmigiana made days before. We sit there and take undercooked steak. We watch as the server discards a 20 oz. beer and orders a 16 oz. because of a mistake.
We settle because driving downtown to a quality family-owned restaurant is too hard or because we believe the neighborhood is unsafe. Instead, we go to the suburban outpost with plentiful parking and burned pasta.
We have been deluded into the belief that mediocre is not only good, but it’s the best we can do.
That is the crime of Olive Garden.
***
Natalie did nothing (or very little) wrong, and there was nothing she could do to make the evening better. She was the perfect ambassador of the Olive Garden in every way that I teach my staff to represent our brand. We tipped 20 percent because how could we do lower? The only person to get hurt in that instance is Natalie because, at the end of the night, she takes our table’s $22 tip and tips out the hostesses, bar staff, runners, and bus team. Our 20 percent shrinks to about 15 percent (her taxable rate) by the time she ends the night. It’s not her fault that the kitchen was inept. She was not the one who was incapable of reading the call slip for Brian’s beer. Tipping her at 20 percent is the only thing that I would do over again in that scenario.
Because it’s the frontline person, the Natalie’s of the restaurant industry, who get hurt in these instances. She makes $3 an hour before gratuities and I could not justifiably punish her for the sins of her employer. So, when I think about what she said to me as we ordered — “It sounds like you lost a good bet. Actually, I think you won.” — I have to disagree.
No Natalie, we all lose.
Olive Garden is located at 3147 Erie Blvd. E. in Syracuse between Thompson Road and Bridge Street. Dinner for four, pre-tip, was $113. |
The company behind gaming platform Steam, Valve, is recruiting gamers to crack down on fake or bad games.
YouTuber John Bain, or TotalBiscuit, says the firm wants to try to prove that the Steam store "isn't infested with terrible titles".
A new Explorer programme will then highlight games which "probably deserve more exposure than they're getting".
TotalBiscuit uploaded an hour-long video after being invited to the Valve Corporation headquarters in America.
Warning: Third party content might contain ads
If a bad game starts to get a lot of attention in the Steam store, and a user questions why they're being shown that game, Valve says it wants to be able to deal with it by showing the data it's collected.
This includes showing how many visits the game has had and where the visits come from, like video reviews and Reddit posts.
TotalBiscuit calls it a "bit of a crowdsourcing system".
But Valve also wants to discover hidden gems that get buried by allowing users to become explorers.
Users that opt in will be shown a list of games that failed to reach a level of exposure after being released.
They'll then test them and assess their game play.
TotalBiscuit said that Valve "haven't determined exactly what to do with the assessments" but are hoping that it can use them to kill off bad games.
Valve is also taking measures to stop the profitability of "fake games".
It's launched Steam Direct, which is "intended to decrease the noise in the submission pipeline" by making the process similar to that of a bank account, using a structure that includes tax forms, making it harder for anyone to submit a game to the store.
The previous system saw developers courting users to make their game popular.
Valve and Steam haven't released any information about the updates on the site.
Find us on Instagram at BBCNewsbeat and follow us on Snapchat, search for bbc_newsbeat |
Tomorrow is Bellator's PPV debut, and this post covers today's weigh-ins, which take place at Landers Center in Southaven, Mississippi. Headlining the show is a light heavyweight tournament final between Quinton Jackson and Muhammed Lawal, who were bumped to the top after Eddie Alvarez pulled out of the Michael Chandler trilogy with an injury. Chandler now fights Will Brooks in the co-main for the interim lightweight belt.
There are 14 (!) fights on this card so buckle up for a long night of Bellator action.
Main Card (PPV, 10 PM ET)
Quinton Jackson (205.9) vs. Muhammed Lawal (205.6)
Michael Chandler (154.9) vs. Will Brooks (154.2)
Tito Ortiz (205.5) vs. Alexander Shlemenko (201.9)
Alexander Volkov (236.1) vs. Blagoi Ivanov (249.5)
Michael Page (170.5) vs. Ricky Rainey (170.1)
Preliminary Card (Spike, 8 PM ET)
Cheick Kongo (235) vs. Eric Smith (253.8)
Shahbulat Shamhalaev (145.1) vs. Fabricio Guerreiro (147.9)
Mike Richman (145.5) vs. Goiti Yamauchi (145.5)
Marcin Held (158) vs. Nate Jolly (158)* catchweight 158 pounds
Preliminary Card (Spike.com stream, 6 PM ET)
Zach Underwood (152.3) vs. Austin Lyons (152.4)
Justin Frazier (264.5) vs. Mike Wessel (257.9)
Ben Brewer (170.2) vs. Andy Uhrich (170.5)
Anthony Lemon (170) vs. Codie Shuffield (170)
Cortez Phelia (125.7) vs. Brian Hall (125.6) |
The ministry added that it had submitted all the information requested by the commission, and that it was cooperating fully with the investigation. “Luxembourg is confident that the allegations of state aid in this case are unsubstantiated,” it said.
The publication of the letter reflects heightened scrutiny of how low-tax nations in the European Union have helped large multinationals reduce their tax bills by billions of dollars, at a time when the budgets of larger countries, like France and Italy, are squeezed. The European Commission is already investigating the tax arrangements of Starbucks in the Netherlands, of Apple in Ireland and of a unit of Fiat in Luxembourg.
It is not illegal in the European Union to try to lure businesses with low tax rates. But offering special deals to companies that are not available to their competitors can amount to what is known as illegal state aid.
The Amazon tax investigation — made public last year — focuses on a deal the company struck with Luxembourg in 2003 to cap the amount of tax it paid through so-called transfer pricing, according to the commission. Luxembourg’s tax authorities took a mere 11 days to approve Amazon’s tax structure in the country, the commission noted.
Under the arrangements, most of the company’s European revenue was sent from one unit in Luxembourg to a separate subsidiary that was not liable to pay corporate tax in the country. That reduced the profit that the company generated from its European operations and cut its tax bill, the commission said.
Europe’s competition authorities have asked Luxembourg for more details on why it was “deviating” from international standards when handling this complex structure between Amazon’s two units.
They also called for more details of how royalty payments made between the units were structured, as the unit that received these payments was not subject to taxation in Luxembourg, according to the European Commission’s documents. |
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