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Last month developer Mohammad Abu-Garbeyyeh managed to get an Android Wear-based smartwatch to display notifications from an iPhone, even though Google’s wearable OS doesn’t support Apple’s mobile devices (at least, not yet).
A new video posted by the software dev today shows an Android Wear watch working with the iPhone’s calling function. In the video, an incoming call on the iPhone is answered using the Android watch. Abu-Garbeyyeh says he simulated the gesture to answer to phone call on the watch in software to avoid filling the video frame with his hand, but the functionality works perfectly just as it would with an Android device.
As with the previous pairing of Android Wear and iOS, this implementation doesn’t require a jailbroken device and works with native APIs included in Apple’s operating system. You can see the whole video demonstration below.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2pkyHp8HN0&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=MohammadAbu-Garbeyyeh] |
Then in August, Judge Dolly M. Gee of Federal District Court for the Central District of California ordered that migrant children could not be held in a locked detention center and had to be released, with their parents, “without unnecessary delay.” But the judge made an exception for an emergency due to an “influx,” for which she permitted children to be held for up to 20 days. Homeland Security officials seized on that exception, arguing that an influx existed even before the recent spike.
By doubling asylum officers and speeding legal procedures since late October, officials have been completing most initial asylum screenings in the two detention centers here in South Texas and releasing families within the 20-day limit.
Rather than shuttering the two centers, officials are adding 500 beds at the center in Karnes City, doubling its capacity. And they won their request for a federal appeals court to swiftly review Judge Gee’s order to release migrants quickly. The order, the Homeland Security secretary, Jeh Johnson, said this week, “significantly constrains our ability to respond to an increasing flow of illegal immigration to the United States.”
On Monday, officials sent many of the more than 120 mothers and children who were arrested over the weekend to be deported back to the center in Dilley — set up to screen asylum seekers entering the United States — for final steps before they are sent out of the country.
But in a new legal setback for the administration, officials on Thursday had to halt the deportations of three Salvadoran mothers and their children arrested in the raids, removing them from an airplane at the last minute, after lawyers at the Dilley center won stays from the immigration appeals court. One woman had presented a doctor’s statement saying she had epilepsy and had three seizures since her arrest. |
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Michael Vick has been back in the NFL for four seasons since the dog-fighting scandal that derailed his life and career.
Apparently, some people have not forgotten.
The Eagles quarterback was supposed to appear at an autograph signing at Buffalo Wild Wings in York, Pa., but it looks like the owner received death threats and was forced to cancel the event.
From the CBS 21 website:
Joe Bartolo told me this afternoon the signing was postponed after he claims death threats were made against him, his wife Jamie — the owners of JJ Cards N Toys — and their family for organizing Vick’s appearance in October at a local Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant.
Those making the threats were upset the Bartolos would bring Vick to the area. Vick served 18 months in federal prison for running an illegal dogfighting ring. Bartolo told me thousands of threats were coming in from all the country. He even had to shut down the store’s Facebook page.
This isn’t the first time Vick has been forced to cancel public appearances because of death threats. In March, he canceled a book signing in Atlanta (where he used to play) and Philadelphia (where he plays now).
Last October, Vick admitted to owning a dog, and got similar backlash about it. Here was his statement at the time:
"I understand the strong emotions by some people about our family’s decision to care for a pet. As a father, it is important to make sure my children develop a healthy relationship with animals. I want to ensure that my children establish a loving bond and treat all of God’s creatures with kindness and respect. Our pet is well cared for and loved as a member of our family. This is an opportunity to break the cycle. To that end, I will continue to honor my commitment to animal welfare and be an instrument of positive change." |
Harley Quinn has gone through a bit of an identity crisis throughout her years in DC. Since her animated debut, Harley has gone from the sidekick and girlfriend of Joker to her own full-on character, ranging from animated series to comics, video games, and a guest spot in the TV series Arrow–and now she’s on the big screen in Suicide Squad. With her transition from supporting cast member into a full character, I’ve come to the realization that Harley Quinn’s outfits have changed more and more in the past couple of years than anyone else. Even Poison Ivy keeps the same type of outfit, but Harley Quinn is different. The comic book and video game artists seem to give her either one less piece of clothing or one more weapon every time she debuts. What gives? I’ll rate the Harley outfits that have been the most popular so far from the comics to the video games.
12: Injustice: Gods Among Us (2013)
It’s almost hard to imagine that someone thought this was a good idea for a fighting game. Injustice: Gods Among Us is like Mortal Kombat, but with superheroes vs. villains. Sounds cool, right? The one aspect that bothered me was that Harley’s outfit leaves nothing to the imagination. The good thing about her outfit is that it suits well to her gymnastic training, allowing her to move freely and cartwheel whenever she gets the chance. The bad thing about this outfit, however, had me asking a question as I played and watched her. If this was real life… wouldn’t she be shot in the chest immediately? The answer is yes. I know this is just a game, but hear me out. In Injustice: Gods Among Us, Harley Quinn is a Gadget User, and those gadgets almost come out of nowhere in the game. For safety, there is no padding, no bulletproof vest, and no cushion to soften the fall. There is nothing holding Harley’s outfit together but those four straps in the middle. They put in DLC to give her another outfit after a while, but it doesn’t soften the blow of being given this outfit the first go around.
11: Suicide Squad
Girl, are you not cold?! It’s snowing! Suicide Squad Harley Quinn almost baffles me as much as Injustice Harley. The littler the clothes, the deadlier she becomes, I suppose? The New 52s introduced us to a new Harley Quinn that’s forcibly a part of the Suicide Squad, but also a stand alone character with her own series. Harley adopts pale skin and her hair is half black and half red–like her original jester cap. In Suicide Squad, she’s equipped with her signature hammer, which has the slimmer and sleeker design of a mallet instead of her larger hammer design. DC kept her core elements inside of the outfit, such as her bubbly, love starved, psychotic personality. But that’s only the psychological elements of Harley. DC has made Harley Quinn an even more sexualized character in the DC Universe, keeping pace with her increased popularity over the years. They kept her deadly as ever, but this outfit again doesn’t leave you much to the imagination.
10: Arkham Asylum
Even “unrealistic body image” doesn’t cut it with this one. Harley goes back to her doctor days in Arkham Asylum, yet the game depicts her as a nurse type warden, taking over Arkham with the Joker like the BAMF she is. Harley uses her deadly skills to serve the Joker’s needs and wants. This has got to be one of the best games in the Arkham series, in my opinion, but this outfit has got to go. The “skin-tight yet busty” image of Harley Quinn starts to become a routine after a while. We start to see Harley Quinn in tighter corsets and boobs lifted up to her chin. Previous game Arkham City sets out to destroy this image, but Arkham Knight builds this image right back up. This outfit also doesn’t help with her battles because it might be impossible to realistically use your gymnastic skills with those heavy boots. Look at that tiny waist though… Talk about corset training…
9: Margot Robbie in Suicide Squad
This outfit is a cross between the comic design of Suicide Squad (above) and the game design from Injustice Regime (below), which could be an awesome costume if DC really got it together! Margot Robbie seems like she’d be the perfect Harley Quinn. She has those drop dead gorgeous looks that you’ll swoon for. I want to like this outfit so much, but I just can’t. It fails at so many areas where it can be awesome. Harley Quinn is beautiful, we know this, but does she really need to look like an actual doll?
The pigtails are a great touch to already New 52s idea of Harley and she sports easily recognizable signature colors. The pale skin is matched to Margot Robbie’s already sharp features; she resembles a porcelain doll. The problem with this outfit is the oversexualization that’s happening within it. Daddy’s Little Monster? Really? It’s bad enough that her shorts are so short that they probably don’t give her space to breathe properly, but when you bring a Daddy t-shirt into the equation it almost shifts the dynamic of the character. She hardly looks like herself anymore. She’s probably going to be the most oversexualized person in the film, which is slightly upsetting. As much as I want to like it, I just can’t give it the approval it’s seeking. Harley Quinn has become this bubbly, oversexualized creation for the male gaze and it’s really sad to see because she’s so amazing.
8: Arkham Knight
Harley Quinn in a tutu! This is one of the better outfits that Harley has worn throughout the games. This is the outfit that she’s given after Arkham Asylum (1) and Arkham City (2) and she’s wearing a tutu. For all purposes, she does look adorable in the outfit, bringing a lighthearted nature to the game. It slightly makes you remember that she was a gymnast with the ballerina-esque illusion of the outfit, but that’s not enough. She’s equipped with a baseball bat in this round while wearing her corset–that kind of starts becoming a recurring “thing” around now. The one thing I’m very happy about with this outfit is her tights and boots look. They come in her signature diamonds with her colors intact. They also add a bedazzled nature to the style that’s DIY for the character, which brings a much-needed smile to my face.
7: Arkham City
Harley’s look in Arkham City was the best functional, smart and dope addition to the many outfits in her video game collection. This is very close to what Harley should be wearing within the video games, if not what she should be wearing. It’s highly functional with her gymnastic skills and she’s equipped with whatever is at her disposal. The outfit has been one that’s a favorite among cosplayers (although people seem to enjoy the Arkham Knight outfit these days). The outfit has another corset that has been popularized throughout the games and it leaves much to the imagination while being functional and badass at the same time. The hair definitely gets better after Arkham City and I hope we can all agree on that. It looks straw-like and damaged from the dye job at the ends. I am not an expert in hair, but I assume that is very very bad.
6: Injustice Regime
This outfit is kind of cool. Although the thong strap along her hip is a very distracting. You can see that this outfit is a lot more functional for her skills and the function of her gadgets little bit more as well. This outfit comes in the alternative for Injustice: Gods Among Us and I really liked it. There are some amazing touches to this outfit such as: her pigtails in black and red, her great pants which are also her colors and my favorite touch of all is her leather jacket. They bring in her gadget usage, which allows her outfit to actually have them attached to her, rather than them come from out of nowhere. The best touch to this outfit, however, is the t-shirt with a drawing of her puddin’ on it. It gives another bit of that DIY touch realizing that Harley probably did it herself to give a tribute to the Joker, the love of her life.
5: Arkham Origins
I didn’t know that this existed until I wrote this article and almost freaked out. I love seeing Harley Quinn in her early doctor days as Dr. Harleen Quinzel, before and right when she meets the Joker. This outfit is everything. In Arkham Origins, she has pinned up blonde hair, signature red shirt and black skirt and a white lab coat. It updates the original Dr. Quinzel outfit from the original animated television series with a sharper design. Her glasses are what got me excited, because I hardly ever see Harley Quinn in her doctor glasses anymore! She’s not only her doctor self, but fans get to see a little bit of the old Harley, before she falls in love with the Joker and steps into the jester outfit we know today.
4: Joker
Joker is a comic book that not a lot people know about, but very much should be read by those wanting to get behind a little bit about the myth of the Joker. Scripted by Brian Azzarello with art by Lee Bermejo, it’s told through the eyes of one of Joker’s henchman, but it’s a powerful behind-the-scenes look of the Joker as well. Harley Quinn is in it, in a silent role, but her presence is always there, and the art keeps you focused on her as soon as she appears in the panel. She’s the backbone of the Joker. You almost see the need Joker has for Harley, knowing she’ll always be there for him. She’s a dancer at first, but when she snatches on that mask you know shit’s about to go down. Harley’s outfit in this graphic novel goes back to the original outfit, but also has little moments like when Harley is sitting by the bar and her hair is in knots. It’s pretty fantastic. Check it out if you get the chance!
3: Mia Sara in Birds of Prey
I don’t know why this outfit works for me but it does. Birds of Prey was on the WB in 2002 and only lasted for one season, but dear god I loved that season. It was campy, but it was also pretty ahead of its time for featuring Huntress, Oracle, and Black Canary as the top billing female characters. Mia Sara’s portrayal of Harley Quinn was awesome, and her outfit reflected it. Harley’s outfit in this show in particular plays around with the business side of who Harley Quinn can be. The costume designers for Birds of Prey also play around with Harley’s main colors: black, white and red, with her suits and casual clothing. She wants to control New Gotham and it shows the sinister side of her instead of the bubbly side. If you look at the costume closely, the top of the shirt looks like her signature diamonds, but they also look like teeth. Ruthless!
2: Gotham City Sirens
I can go on and on about how much I love this design of Harley’s outfit in Gotham City Sirens, but I’ll keep it short and sweet. Guillem March does an amazing job sharpening Harley’s classic outfit and bringing it to the forefront. In this comic that centers around Catwoman, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn, herself, it’s almost impossible not to love everything about it. It sticks to the original outfit, but it is also slightly sexier than the original. It gives you the outfit full on, but as tight and right that it can possibly be without showing TOO much in return. March keeps Harley in the outfit that made her legendary in the first place. Gotham City Sirens doesn’t show her in a corset trying to gasp for air, and it’s not giving you Daddy’s Little Monster in Suicide Squad. It sticks to the original design and it’s a perfect redesign.
1: Batman: The Animated Series
How can you not love her original outfit? It’s not only perfectly expressive of her bubbly, jester self, but it’s the outfit that we recognize the most for Harley Quinn. Introduced in the animated series Batman, this is the first glimpse we see of Harley Quinn and, like many of us, I’ve been hooked on this outfit ever since. It’s simple, clean and leaves a lot to the imagination without showing anything in the process. It’s functional for her gymnastics training and it’s so funny to see her spin in with the jester hat attached. During Comic Con sessions, I’ve seen girls in this cosplay and they are absolutely GENIUS about it. Cosplayers update this version of her outfit by using everything from leather to velvet in order to get their perfect Harley Quinn cosplay down. The original outfit cannot be beat, and hands down has to be the greatest Harley Quinn outfit ever. |
Korean rapper PSY’s runaway smash-of-smashes “Gangnam Style” is set to reach a historic one billion YouTube views by Christmas. The continued American attention should buy the man a pretty sweet yacht, but at this point he’s actually flopping around a bit on the charts back in Korea, especially given that he’s been sitting at No. 1 in so many other countries (currently: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Netherlands, Finland, France, Germany, New Zealand, and Norway). In other words, apparently “Gangnam Style” has long since graduated to such a level of worldwide Internet saturation that Korean pop listeners have decided it’s time to move on.
Son Ga-In, a.k.a “Gain,” is by far Psy’s most exciting successor yet, a bleach-blonde singer who just turned 25 and was previously best known as a member of a popular pop quartet Brown Eyed Girls. These days, she’s currently focusing on a solo career; her eagerly awaited sophomore album Talk About S was released October 5. Billboard’s recent efforts toward tracking K-pop would put her recent peak at No. 2, but her addictive lead single “Bloom” has topped all the real-time ranking charts operated by a number of smaller Korean regional music sites, a phenomenon known as an “All Kill” among K-pop’s most enthusiastic followers. That’s exactly how “Gangnam Style” started, too.
“Bloom” is a very different animal, though — most notably, it takes itself a bit more seriously. GaIn clearly wants you to have fun, but there are no dances that frat boys will be doing on Halloween, and no shots of anyone rapping on the toilet. Instead, “Bloom” opens with in-your-face retro production that sounds a bit reminiscent of Like a Prayer-era Madonna with a tinge of New Jack Swing. At first, its mostly minor-key funk gears grind into position, then drum-machine rolls and jangly little triads slip around way up on the highest guitar strings. Those cards are played masterfully, and they wrap you up in the song’s sound so quickly, that it seems impossible they’d be able to pull off a typically exultant, major-key K-pop explosion, especially one where the lyrics switch to English. But there it is anyway, a dramatic and difficult change of pace where both sides of the tipping point seem like the better half, giving you a quick breather before you get back to dancing — the real deal, not just pantomiming a horsey ride. |
In a season with many low points, perhaps none hit the Green Bay Packers quite as hard as their 30-point drubbing at the hands of the Arizona Cardinals. That game turned out to be a disaster for several players, though none had a more demoralizing day than left tackle Don Barclay, who accounted for an astounding four sacks, four hurries and three penalties. One of his sacks even resulted in a forced fumble that the Cardinals returned for a touchdown. While other members of Green Bay's offensive line struggled as well, Barclay shouldered most of the blame for the team's shoddy performance.
Barclay's forgettable outing may reside in the past, but edge rusher Dwight Freeney shined some new light on it during the new documentary series All or Nothing: A Season with the Arizona Cardinals.
Freeney, who joined the Cardinals a month into the 2015 season, broke down Barclay's background and weaknesses for his teammates ahead of the team's Week 16 matchup with the Packers.
"If you're watching the film, I'm thinking, 'Okay look, [Barclay] was a right tackle and they moved him to left. That means he doesn't have a great set, he's probably scared to death of speed,'" Freeney said of Barclay's deficiencies. "So for me as I come around here, I'm letting him know I'm coming with speed on the outside all day. So he's going to have to come out and kick to get me. Now, I may not get the sack, guys, but I am setting him up. He doesn't even know it yet. That is the game within the game. Because then later on, I start spinning on him. I have sold outside so much, now I got him floating guys, now I can beat him on the inside."
Freeney’s forecast proved prescient, as he beat Barclay multiple times racing outside as well as spinning back inward. Freeney even burned the Packers offensive lineman for a strip-sack late in the fourth quarter, resulting in a scoop and score to add insult to injury.
Furthermore, Freeney’s diagnosis of Barclay’s speed issues certainly doesn't seem hyperbolic in retrospect. Barclay couldn't handle athletic pass rushers coming off the edge at any point last season, his first after missing an entire year to a torn ACL. After the four-sack performance against the Cardinals, Mike McCarthy benched Barclay in favor of shifting Josh Sitton over from left guard, another suboptimal option. The Packers didn't curtail the onslaught until reserve lineman JC Tretter finally earned the nod against Washington during the wild-card round.
All of which highlights the problem with a glaring hole on the depth chart. While teams can cover up some weaknesses with scheme, colossal deficiencies such as Barclay's play provide an overwhelming advantage to opponents. Not only did the Cardinals expose Barclay on Sunday, but their advance knowledge of his shortcomings also allowed them to build a more effective game plan during the week.
Put another way, victory is difficult enough to attain with a full deck. It becomes a herculean task to win effectively playing 10 on 11. |
Cincinnati-based grocer The Kroger Co. on Wednesday divulged more details of a wide-ranging plan to beef up its operations in central Indiana, including creating or remodeling dozens of stores, establishing a regional training center, and creating an estimated 3,440 jobs.
The supermarket firm expects to invest at least $464 million in its growth plan for the nine-county Indianapolis area, executives said.
“Kroger has remained very competitive in the marketplace because we recognize the critical importance of investing in stores with features appropriate to the 21st century marketplace and evolving customer expectations,” said Jeff Burt, president of Kroger’s central division in a prepared release.
The four-year plan actually kicked off quietly in 2014, and projects are expected to extend through 2017. A handful of the projects in the overall plan already have been completed or are under way, but the bulk will take place in the next three years, said John Elliott, spokesman for Kroger’s central division.
Here’s a rundown of the major projects:
— Kroger’s plan calls for building seven of its Kroger Marketplace stores, which are the chain's largest locations at about 125,000 square feet. The locations will include stores at 11700 Olio Road in Fishers; U.S. 31 and Mallory Parkway in Franklin; 8850 South Emerson Road and 5325 East Thompson Road in Indianapolis; and three others to be announced later. It would spend $141 million on the stores and create 1,530 jobs.
At least three of the Marketplace stores would replace existing Kroger stores, and one would be new location. The job numbers would be in addition to current employment at the existing stores to be replaced.
— Kroger would build four new stores at the following locations: State Road 135 and Smokey Row Road in Greenwood; 116th Street and Michigan Road in Zionsville; Southport and Franklin Roads in Indianapolis; and another location to be announced later. It would spend $75 million on the stores and create 710 jobs.
— Kroger would expand five stores: at 1217 South Range Line Road in Carmel; Independence Drive at U.S. 31 South in Greenwood; 150 W. 161st Street in Westfield; and two others to be announced later. It would spend $58.3 million on the expansions and create 580 new jobs. The Carmel and Westfield projects already are under way.
— Kroger would remodel 17 stores: at 530 S. Indiana St. in Mooresville; 1571 N. State St. in Greenfield; 1700 Northwood Plaza in Franklin; 2550 Lake Circle Drive, 5025 W. 71st St., 4202 S. East St. and 5911 S. Madison Ave., all in Indianapolis; as well as 10 additional expansions or remodels to be announced later. The total remodel investment would be $95.5 million, resulting in 480 jobs. Several of the remodelings already have been completed.
— Kroger’s plans also include remodeling 22 pharmacies and creating 16 fuel centers.
To help accommodate its increase in hiring, Kroger plans to establish a 7,000-square-foot regional training center in Indianapolis for salaried management and hourly workers. The cost and location of the center was not immediately clear.
Central Indiana grocery stores have faced growing competition in recent years from the arrival of numerous specialty stores such as Fresh Market, Fresh Thyme Farmers Market, Trader Joe’s and Earth Fare, as well as the addition of several Wal-Mart Neighborhood Markets.
Those players joined an already competitive market between Kroger, Meijer, Marsh and SuperTarget.
In early April, locally based Marsh announced that it would close four stores in Indiana, including three in the Indianapolis area.
Kroger executives expected its growth plan to act as a catalyst for the local construction industry and on its suppliers, including many Indiana-based firms. It also would help solidify its current operations.
"Strategically investing in our people and our stores will provide job security to thousands of current and new associates in central Indiana and give us the resources to continue generously supporting hundreds of local community organizations across Indiana,” Burt said. |
Congratulation - Hyorin Fancafe Post
The dream of Leader Kim
Hello everyone :-)
Even if we do not see each other often and we are far from each other
Thank you very much for having liked SISTAR during the past four years and have given importance to our 4th anniversary.
Um……. your choice of gifts were the bestㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
I was impressed that the babies needed X amount of handkerchiefs to wipe their tears ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
(Because I am already the mother of three babies…………..ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ)
STAR1 are my loves~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~♡
We will return soon as SISTAR
Be patient everyone, we do not forget you, we will not let you down , we cherish and hold you in our arms…
Like us and support us forever
We will reward you in return……….♡ Promise
SISTAR promises not to disappoint you
Let’s continue together forever bbuing bbuing <- Lee Guk-Ju eonni versionㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ Am I cute like that?
Finally, thank you for all your love!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Goodbye ppyong
P.S. no 1-on-1 conversation todayㅠ_ㅠ |
House and Senate negotiators have backed a 2.4 percent military pay raise for fiscal 2018, topping President Donald Trump's recommendation of 2.1 percent.
In a background briefing Wednesday, House staffers said the proposed Fiscal 2018 National Defense Authorization Act would also boost end strength by more than 20,000 troops and funding for a wide variety of weapon systems, from aircraft to ships to ground vehicles.
The differences between the congressional 2.4 percent pay raise proposal and the administration's 2.1 percent recommendation will have to be worked out before Dec. 8, when a Continuing Resolution to keep the government running at 2017 levels expires.
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, has argued that the 2.4 percent pay raise is in line with "statutory requirements" under federal law, which have often been ignored by presidents of both parties.
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The proposed pay raise, which would roughly match recent wage growth in the private sector, would be the largest for the military since 2010. Last year, then-President Barack Obama proposed a 1.6 percent pay raise for the military but Congress boosted that to 2.1 percent.
Thornberry and Sens. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, and Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, have cited the federal mandate that pay raises should be tied to the Employment Cost Index prepared by the Bureau of Labor Statistics "unless the president cites economic concerns or a national emergency."
BAH Preserved
Meanwhile, a Senate proposal that would have reduced the amount of cash dual military couples with children receive through the Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) was scrapped.
Currently, married military members each collect their own housing allowance. If the couple has kids, one of them collects BAH at the "with dependents" rate, while the other collects it at the "without dependents" rate.
The Senate proposal sought to knock both couples down to the "without dependents" rate. That would decrease the monthly paycheck of affected couples anywhere from about $100 to as much as $600 or more per month, depending on location and paygrade.
Instead, under the negotiated version of the defense bill, those couples will continue to receive that entitlement under the current system with one spouse receiving the "without dependents" BAH rate, while the higher-ranking spouse receives the "with dependents" rate.
20K More Troops
The proposed total increase of military end strength by 20,300 personnel includes 16,600 for active duty, 1,400 for the National Guard, and 2,300 for the Reserves. The active-duty increase would increase that component's end strength from about 1.34 million to 1.36 million, according to Defense Department figures as of Aug. 31.
The House and Senate end-strength increases included 7,500 active duty, 500 Guard and 500 Reserves for the Army; 4,000 active duty and 1,000 Reserves for the Navy; 4,100 active duty, 900 Guard and 800 Reserves for the Air Force; and 1,000 active duty for the Marine Corps.
At the background briefing, staffers speaking on grounds of anonymity said the overall proposed defense budget for fiscal 2018 would be $699.6 billion. The $699.6 billion includes $65.7 billion for Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO), the so-called "war budget" for operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere.
The proposed budget of $699.6 billion represents a major increase over Trump's request for a base budget of $603 billion and OCO funding of $65 billion.
Hurdles Ahead
However, the agreement worked out by House and Senate conferees faces several major hurdles.
The first is the figure of $549 billion, the current limit for base defense spending under the budget caps of the sequester process. Congress will have to lift the caps to enact a $699.6 budget, which will require 60 votes in the Senate.
The staffers suggested that there is strong bipartisan support for lifting the caps, pointing to the wide margins with which the $699.6 billion proposal was passed -- 344-81 in the House and 89-8 in the Senate.
The proposed budget provides funding for 90 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters -- 20 more than Trump requested, and 24 F/A-18 Super Hornet jet fighters -- 10 more than requested. The budget also calls for three new littoral combat ships -- two more than Trump requested.
The staffers said the proposed budget takes no position on Trump's proposal to exclude transgender people from military service.
Trump had ordered a reinstatement of the long-standing policy that barred transgender individuals from joining the military, and also ordered that transgender individuals currently serving could be subject to discharge. A federal judge last month blocked the Trump administration from proceeding with the plan.
The proposed defense budget approved by the conference committee will now go to a vote on the floors of the House and Senate, with a vote in the lower chamber potentially coming as early as next week. Afterward, Congress will have to hash out methods to pay for the budget while also working against the Continuing Resolution that will expire Dec. 8.
-- Amy Bushatz contributed to this report.
-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com. |
Most men can find a well-fitting shirt off the rack. The question is just how well fitting they want it. SpooPoker, a member at StyleForum, posted a photo of himself in his made-to-measure pink Charvet shirt some years ago. I think it’s a good example of what a truly well fitting shirt should look like. Let’s talk about each dimension of a shirt’s fit in turn:
Shoulders: How cleanly a shirt fits will be affected by whether your shoulders curve forward or backward, and whether they slope. More often than not, they do, and usually one will curve or slope more than the other. This will create wrinkling around the collar bone or, sometimes, the rib cage. To ameliorate this, a shirtmaker has to cut the shoulders and yoke correctly in order to account for your body’s nuances.
How cleanly a shirt fits will be affected by whether your shoulders curve forward or backward, and whether they slope. More often than not, they do, and usually one will curve or slope more than the other. This will create wrinkling around the collar bone or, sometimes, the rib cage. To ameliorate this, a shirtmaker has to cut the shoulders and yoke correctly in order to account for your body’s nuances. Chest: A shirt’s chest should fit cleanly, but it should also be somewhat full in order to allow movement. There shouldn’t be any pulling under the armholes or around the front’s buttons.
A shirt’s chest should fit cleanly, but it should also be somewhat full in order to allow movement. There shouldn’t be any pulling under the armholes or around the front’s buttons. Waist: Whether you have the waist taper in or not depends on your build. One thing is for certain, however – your shirt should flatter you when you’re standing up or sitting down. Many men opt for overly slim fitting shirts, only to realize that their shirts have unsightly pulls across the stomach when they’re seated. This should be avoided.
Whether you have the waist taper in or not depends on your build. One thing is for certain, however – your shirt should flatter you when you’re standing up or sitting down. Many men opt for overly slim fitting shirts, only to realize that their shirts have unsightly pulls across the stomach when they’re seated. This should be avoided. Sleeves: Correctly set sleeves should come down to the webbing between your thumb and index finger when the cuffs are unbuttoned. When the cuffs are buttoned, the sleeve should sit a little bit below your wrist. By having some extra material in the length, you’ll ensure that your sleeves won’t ride up your arm when you extend them. Above are two photos from Men’s Ex that illustrate this well.
Correctly set sleeves should come down to the webbing between your thumb and index finger when the cuffs are unbuttoned. When the cuffs are buttoned, the sleeve should sit a little bit below your wrist. By having some extra material in the length, you’ll ensure that your sleeves won’t ride up your arm when you extend them. Above are two photos from Men’s Ex that illustrate this well. Neck: If you button your shirt all the way up, you should be able to comfortably slip just your index finger between your neck and collar. Note that this is only after a few washes, however. Most shirts fit a bit looser in the neck when they’re new, so that they can account for shrinkage.
If you button your shirt all the way up, you should be able to comfortably slip just your index finger between your neck and collar. Note that this is only after a few washes, however. Most shirts fit a bit looser in the neck when they’re new, so that they can account for shrinkage. Collar: When your collar is buttoned up, the collar points should touch your chest. If it doesn’t, your collar is too short.
Now, as to whether you need to go custom in order to achieve a good fit depends on how well off-the-rack shirts currently flatter you and how demanding your standards are. Most men will be fine with off-the-rack, and they can get an alterations tailor to nip the waist, slim the sleeves, and tighten the cuffs if they need to. However, it’s also quite common for men to have curved or sloping shoulders, which in turn gives them a slightly less clean look. If you want to solve those issues, sometimes a custom shirtmaker is the only way to go.
Whichever you choose – custom or off-the-rack – it’s worth emphasizing that your shirt should allow movement. Most men wear shirts that are too baggy; many wear them too tight. Getting the right fit is about finding that delicate balance between flattery and function. Your shirt should look nice even if you extend your arms or sit down, so don’t judge its fit by just how well it looks in front of the mirror. Take Spoo’s shirt above as an example. It’s neither baggy nor tight, so there aren’t excessive folds of cloth or pulling in the waist or chest areas. It fits cleanly, just as a truly well-fitting shirt should.
Check back tomorrow, when we’ll talk about shirt fabrics. |
Donald J. Trump insisted on Thursday that he would not cede the right to contest the outcome of the presidential election, even as Democrats and Republicans expressed concern that his position threatened to upend America’s tradition of peaceful power transfers. But in a small gesture of civility, he suggested that he would not dispute the result if the outcome of the race was clear.
Mr. Trump’s reluctance to pledge absolutely that he would honor the election outcome follows a rocky performance in the third and last presidential debate and comes as the candidates set off for the frenzied final stretch of campaigning ahead of the Nov. 8 election. On Thursday, Mr. Trump continued to rally his supporters with conspiracy theories about how the race was rigged against him, but he did make clear that there was one result that he would not challenge under any circumstance.
“I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election — if I win,” Mr. Trump said to cheers at a rally in Delaware, Ohio.
Saying that George W. Bush might have lost the 2000 election to Al Gore if he had made a pre-election pledge not to challenge results, Mr. Trump said he would not take that option off the table. He did, however, try to ease concerns that he was planning to throw the country into postelection turmoil. |
I love me some real simple quinoa salad. It’s the perfect quick, yummy and nutritious weekday meal.
I’m lazy and so I need meals that are complete and packed with protein. Adopting mostly a plant-based lifestyle this isn’t always so easy and so I’m always on the look out for quick, delicious and complete meals. I’ve curated the best real simple quinoa salad recipes that are both vegan and are complete meals with protein.
See my roundup below for the the best real simple quinoa salad recipes.
All of the recipes are vegan but I have also indicated whether they are:
✓ Gluten free
✓ Soy free
✓ Nut free
✓ Sugar free
Real Simple Quinoa Salad with chickpeas and…
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Tomato
By HappyGut
Ingredients: 11
Main items:
chickpeas,
tomatoes, cucumber, cilantro
✓ Gluten free
✓ Soy free
✓ Nut free
✓ Sugar free
Why this makes the cut: Full disclaimer, this is my recipe. 🙂 If you like zesty loaded with garlic and lemon, you will like this one! It’s one of my go-to staple weekday meals.
Get recipe here.
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Cauliflower
By My Darling Lemon Thyme
Ingredients: 12
Main items:
chickpeas, cauliflower, almonds, jalapeno, lime
✓ Gluten free
✓ Soy free
✓ Sugar free
Why this makes the cut: the combination of almonds, jalapeno and lime sounds so delectable!
Get recipe here.
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Zucchini
By A Cedar Spoon
Ingredients: 10
Main items:
chickpeas,
zucchini, onion, parsley
✓ Gluten free
✓ Soy free
✓ Nut free
✓ Sugar free
Why this makes the cut: with turmeric, cumin, zucchini and chickpeas, this sounds like the perfect weekday hearty meal.
Get recipe here.
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Edamame
By The Girl Who Ate Everything
Ingredients: 13
Main items:
chickpeas, edamame, corn, cranberry, bell pepper, almonds
✓ Gluten free
✓ Soy free
✓ Sugar free
Why this makes the cut: An incredibly hearty and protein packed salad with beans and cranberries, a fabulous combination.
Get recipe here.
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Real Simple Quinoa Salad with black beans and…
[ezcol_1quarter]
Kale & Sweet Potato
By Cookie and Kate
Ingredients: 14
Main items:
black beans, sweet potato, avocado, jalapeno, pumpkin seeds
✓ Gluten free
✓ Soy free
✓ Nut free
✓ Sugar free
Why this makes the cut: This nut free version of this southwestern style quinoa salad sounds so appetizing.
Get recipe here.
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Kale & Red Onion
By The Glowing Fridge
Ingredients: 13
Main items:
black bean, kale, red onion, corn, cilantro, lime, hot sauce
✓ Gluten free
✓ Soy free
✓ Nut free
✓ Sugar free (*has maple syrup)
Why this makes the cut: no quinoa salad round-up would be complete without a spicy version. 😛 Plus, it has kale!
Get recipe here.
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Sweet Potato & Cashew
By Simply Quinoa
Ingredients: 16
Main items:
black beans, sweet potato, avocado, cashews, cilantro
✓ Gluten free
✓ Soy free
✓ Sugar free
Why this makes the cut: Sweet potatoes with chilli powder and avocado cashew dressing? Yes please!!!
Get recipe here.
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Orange & Bell Pepper
By Damn Delicious
Ingredients: 13
Main items:
black beans, orange, bell pepper, jalapeno, corn, onion
✓ Gluten free
✓ Soy free
✓ Nut free
Why this makes the cut: another zesty recipe with orange, orange juice and apple cider vinegar.
Get recipe here.
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Real Simple Quinoa Salad with…
[ezcol_1quarter]
White Bean
By Kelley & Cricket
Ingredients: 11
Main items:
white bean, tomato, red pepper, onion, basil
✓ Gluten free
✓ Soy free
✓ Nut free
✓ Sugar free
Why this makes the cut: I’m always looking for ways to use white beans – this one looks delicious!
Get recipe here.
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Kidney Beans
By Renee Clerkin
Ingredients: 12
Main items:
kidney beans, carrot, celery, corn, bell pepper
✓ Gluten free
✓ Soy free
✓ Nut free
✓ Sugar free
Why this makes the cut: A hearty quinoa salad packed with so many veggies!
Get recipe here.
[/ezcol_1quarter] [ezcol_1quarter]
Three Bean
By Domesticate Me
Ingredients: 12
Main items:
chickpeas, black beans, edamame, red onions, lemon, garlic
✓ Gluten free
✓ Soy free
✓ Nut free
✓ Sugar free
Why this makes the cut: An ultra simple and protein packed salad.
Get recipe here.
[/ezcol_1quarter] [ezcol_1quarter_end]
Tofu
By Craving Something Healthy
Ingredients: 20
Main items:
tofu, edamame, cabbage, carrots, tahini
✓ Gluten free
✓ Soy free
✓ Nut free
✓ Sugar free (*has maple syrup)
Why this makes the cut: A delicious sweet and spicy tofu quinoa salad recipe.
Get recipe here.
[/ezcol_1quarter_end] |
Among the many challenges book cover designers face is trying to represent a book’s premise or main character without getting so specific that readers are left with little to imagine. A few years ago, the headless woman was one of the most commonplace sights on bookstore shelves (if the lack of something can be considered a “sight”). By not showing the female character’s face, a publisher assumes that readers will be able to use their imaginations to fill in what she looks like.
But lately, another cover design trend has been popping up on this summer’s crop of beach reads: the flat woman. Inspired by the “flat design” that’s become standard on the Web, these covers take on a minimalist style characterized by bright colors, simple layouts, and lots of white space. Several different designers and publishers have used this approach on hardcovers and paperbacks alike, especially those aiming for the upmarket-but-still-commercial-fiction-for-ladies sweet spot. (The headless woman is also still going strong.)
The patient zero of flat women might be Bernadette, the heroine and cover star of Where’d You Go, Bernadette, by Maria Semple, from 2012. On that cover, a woman’s face floats over a turquoise backdrop. Her only facial features are two squiggles that represent nostrils and a two-tone mouth, plus some blunt, angular bangs. Bernadette’s eyes are covered by sunglasses or binoculars, and judging by the other ocular obstructions on many of these covers, flat design tends to avoid depicting eyes.
The fancy and pleasingly flat lady on the paperback cover of Kevin Kwan’s comic novel Crazy Rich Asians followed suit. She is silhouetted on a pretty salmon backdrop, and her flat hair, skin, features, and jewelry make the image pop; it’s cartoonish but not in an overly girly way. (Hear that, male readers?) Or consider the hardcover version of the The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan: In the same way the story is supposed to invoke the love story of England’s Prince William and Kate Middleton without actually being about them—it’s about a fictional royal couple inspired by the real-life royals—the cover plays on our memories of Will and Kate’s wedding but flattens the image into pretty shapes with plausible deniability, leaving something to the imagination.
Keith Hayes, who designed the Bernadette cover for publisher Little, Brown, told me via email that he didn’t have any intention of using the flat design style or starting a trend when he conceptualized this cover; he was just working “out of the inability to actually draw,” he said.
“Finding an appropriate enough photograph and placing some type on it just didn’t seem special enough,” he said. “It needed a lighthearted cover that would appeal to both women and men and also feel original.” Hayes says he wanted to do an illustrative approach but didn’t have specialty training in that area. “I like to try to solve my design problems on my own. I thought I could do this in a somewhat simplistic way using basic shapes,” he says.
Bernadette became a best-seller and is being made into a movie. Hayes speculates that the book’s hit status may be partly responsible for all the flat covers popping up these days. “It is not uncommon for publishers to try and ride the coat tails of the last great success,” he said. And hardcover versions of this year’s I Take You by Eliza Kennedy; A Window Opens by Elisabeth Egan; and Kwan’s newest novel, China Rich Girlfriend, seem to be following in the flat tradition: bright colors, cool shapes, vague features.
Economists and policy wonks say the world is getting flatter. It looks like that line of thinking also applies to book covers. |
Around 18,000 people have taken part in an anti-Islam rally in the German city of Dresden despite a plea by Chancellor Angela Merkel to reject the growing protests, which she has branded racist.
While the demonstration was the biggest so far, similar far-right rallies held in other German cities have been met by much bigger counter-protests.
Lights around the country were switched off in protest at the anti-immigrant demonstrations - monuments in Dresden were thrown into darkness along with Cologne Cathedral and Berlin's Brandenburg Gate.
The rapidly expanding grassroots movement Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West (PEGIDA) has unsettled the country's political establishment in recent months with its weekly rallies in Dresden.
The protests have continued to grow from an initial few hundred people in October.
On Monday, protesters waved the German flag and brandished posters bearing slogans such as "Respect and tolerance for our people too" and "Against religious fanaticism" while chanting, "We are the people", a saying originally adopted by anti-communist demonstrators in the run-up to the fall of the Berlin Wall.
In Berlin, about 300 protesters were met with 5,000 counter-demonstrators marching with flags from the main left-wing parties.
And in Cologne, there were around 10 times as many people protesting against the anti-Muslim demonstrators.
In her New Year address last week, Ms Merkel urged Germans to turn their backs on anti-Muslim protesters, calling them racists whose hearts are full of hatred.
Speaking in the eastern town of Neustrelitz on Monday, she said: "We need to ... say that right-wing extremism, hostility towards foreigners and anti-Semitism should not be allowed any place in our society."
Justice minister Heiko Maas said at the Berlin counter-demonstration: "Germany is a country where refugees are welcome and the silent majority must not remain silent but rather go out onto the streets and show itself."
Germany has some of the world's most liberal asylum rules, partly due to its Nazi past, and the number of asylum seekers arriving in the country leapt to around 200,000 last year - four times as many as in 2012. |
scorpion wrote RE: Do you trust women?
Once you understand how women think you’d have to be an absolute idiot to ever trust them. As the physically weaker sex, women evolved to rely on deception and manipulation as their weapons. It’s simply what they do. You can always count on a woman to lie to you under certain circumstances the same way you can count on a man to punch you in the face under certain circumstances.
A woman’s entire view of the world is seen through the lens of her emotions. This means that her perception of reality will shift based on her emotional swings. To be fair, this happens to men as well, but to a much smaller degree. With women, however, the shifts are extremely pronounced.
The result is that women have no firm grounding in reality. Everything in a woman’s life is built on a foundation of the shifting sands of her emotions. She can love you one minute and hate you the next. Women have no innate understanding of honor or justice, because to a woman these concepts do not exist independently of herself. In the female mind, “justice” is whatever is just to her. “Honor” is whatever makes her feel good about herself. Solipsism is inherent to their worldview.
This means that women have absolutely no moral qualms about lying, because to them lying is perfectly justified. Lying is a means of serving their feelings and emotions, which always take precedence. They honestly do not even view lying as being wrong, because they create justifications for it that excuse them. For example, a woman can rationalize cheating and lying to her boyfriend by telling herself that “he’s not meeting my emotional needs”. With this rationalization, she is able to self-justify and excuse the lying and cheating. In her mind, she has a RIGHT to lie and cheat if doing so makes her feel good.
You will also find that a woman is incapable of any sort of self-reflection or self-blame. Instead, women will invariably find some external cause (usually a man) to blame when anything goes wrong for them. By placing blame externally, the woman is also able to rationalize all sorts of anti-social behavior in order to help extricate her from the situation. So when a woman lies and cheats on her boyfriend, she literally does not see herself as doing anything wrong. She sees her boyfriend as the one who is wrong, and herself as the innocent victim.
Never treat anything with a woman as set in stone. Given their emotional instability, capacity for self-delusion and innate proclivity for dissimulation, truth and honor have no meaning to them. |
Over four days in January, armed with rice sacks and pruning shears, Dr. McDonald and several colleagues and students pored over two linked karsts, Phnom Kampong Trach and Phnom Domrei, climbing atop their jagged surfaces and passing all the way through them in a network of caves.
Dr. McDonald, 62, is a plain-spoken Texan with a mystical streak who spends his spare time working on a 1,000-page manuscript on the religious iconography of the lotus. He can clamber up and down the slippery, precipitous karsts like one of the mountain goats that live here (another anomaly in flat Cambodia).
“Fruits! Flowers! Fruits! Flowers! Eyes on the prize!” he chanted, trying to urge the group to collect specimens. Among the group was a pair of technophilic Vietnamese botanists lugging huge cameras who kept falling behind to take close-up shots of the foliage.
At first glance, Dr. McDonald was excited by a novel-looking parasitic Balanaflora with droopy, bulbous male flowers (“they latch onto this tree and have sex there”) and a huge, feathery white blossom at the edge of a grotto. It was an unusual variant of dogbane, a nocturnal plant with a dangling structure that dusts the underside of a visiting moth or bat with pollen. “I’ve never seen an Apocynaceae with an irregular flower like that!” he exclaimed, before gingerly tossing the specimens, one by one, across a huge fissure to the safe hands of a waiting colleague.
Ultimately, over the course of two botanical excursions, the group found more than 130 species of vascular plants native to this patch of limestone, a comparatively rich assortment, including some thought to be new to science: an Amorphophallus and another related flower, a new type of jasmine, and a member of the coffee family. |
Encrypted Virtual Private Network (VPN) systems have long been the surefire way to get around China's Great Firewall, but that may be changing. The Guardian reports that several VPN providers are saying a new government tool can "learn, discover and block" traffic going through VPNs, and that major ISP China Unicom is automatically terminating connections that are using one. Astrill, one VPN provider, has apparently sent an email warning its customers that common protocols are being blocked, though it says it believes that "this blockage will be removed and things will go back to normal."
This isn't the first time people have reported VPN blocking. Over the past few years, government efforts to police the internet have systematically targeted loopholes in the system, and The Guardian and others reported major crackdowns on VPN use in May of 2011. In many cases, companies simply find new tricks to get around the Great Firewall. But blocking VPNs does more than lock down access to sites like Facebook and YouTube: it also cuts off businesses who use VPNs for secure communication.
One executive complained to Global Times that "you can't block all VPNs without blocking businesses, including Chinese businesses," and that China's commerce-friendly environment was dependent on "modern business infrastructure" like the VPN. That doesn't necessarily mean those businesses will have enough clout to get access restored, but it does seem a particularly bitter pill for them and citizens alike. |
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Shownotes for LTB #120 - Tokens, Bets and Bitcoin Fees
On Todays episode: Adam and Stephanie are joined by Taariq Lewis, Robby (XNOVA) and Adam (PHANTOMPHREAK) - We talk Counterparty and get to nearly everything we missed in the first interview.
NOTE: We're pleased to announce the launch of the Let's Talk Bitcoin! iOS app, now available (for free of course!) in Apple's App store. It is designed specifically for iPhone 5s, but its compatible with the full range of apple mobile products. (Android app is next!)
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CREDITS
Thanks for listening to episode 120 of Let’s Talk Bitcoin!
Content for this episode was provided by Stephanie Murphy, Taariq Lewis Adam Krellenstein, Robby Dermody. and Adam B. Levine. This episode was edited by Adam Levine
Music for this episode was provided by Jared Rubens (@jaredarubens), Gurty Beats (@gurtybeats) and General Fuzz (generalfuzz.net/tunes.php)
Any questions or comments? Email [email protected] |
One of the biggest problems that stands between electric vehicles and becoming mainstream is limited battery life. But there has been some progress in that area lately: the Japan Electric Vehicle Club [JP], a civic group based in Tokyo, announced today a Mira EV customized by the group traveled exactly 1,003.184 kilometers without a recharge.
The club shattered its own record from last month when another electric vehicle drove 555.6km (345 miles) from Tokyo to Osaka on a single charge. The new record was made possible by driving the car at a driving course in Shimotsuma, Japan, which is apparently the world’s longest.
Powered by a Sanyo lithium-ion battery (built by assembling 8,320 cylindrical lithium-ion batteries), the car ran for 27 and a half hours at around 40km/h on average.
The club had a team of 17 people at the course who took turns at the wheel. It will ask the Guinness World Records to officially recognize the drive soon. |
A Discussion of Politics and Mass Organizations, Part 1 of 2
By Nate Hawthorne
Preface
This paper is as finished as I have the ability to make it, which is to say, not very finished. I wrote the discussion paper largely to think through some issues that have been on my mind. I would very much love feedback on it or responses to it. Feedback about improving the writing would be nice but even better would be input about the ideas – or better yet, writing stuff on your own ideas on any of this. You can reach me by email at crashcourse666@gmail.com.
Before you read the paper please think about these questions. These may seem really obvious but I for one sometimes struggle to answer them. Why does fighting bosses matter? Why does it matter to have a commitment to not only fighting bosses now but also someday ending capitalism? We talk a lot about direct action and about being a democratic organization, but why should anyone care about either of things?
Mottoes and Watchwords: A Discussion of Politics and Mass Organizations
The IWW Preamble declares that “Instead of the conservative motto, “A fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work,” we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, “Abolition of the wage system.” It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism.” In what follows, I use this as a jumping off point for discussion about the relationship between organizing and taking on openly revolutionary views.
In the section called “An Undemocratic Organization With Only Paper Radicalism” I discuss a hypothetical situation sometimes used rhetorically against the idea of radical unions and similar organizations. In the next section, “Should Unions Ever Carry Revolutionary Banners?” I answer, “Yes, at least sometimes.” I suggest that even if we answer “no,” there are similar problems that organizations face even if they do not decide to be radical. In the next section, “Militancy Is Not Radicalism,” I argue that whether something is militant or not tells us very little about whether or not something contributes to revolutionary transformation. I argue here that the old slogan “direct action gets the goods” can be misleading. In the next section, “Two Kinds of Struggles in One Messy World” I point out that apparently less radical struggles often do still have radical potentials. These pieces all fit together fairly closely. Together they form an argument in favor of radical mass organizations. The example I am most familiar with today is the contemporary IWW. I personally think that more people on the left should be involved in the IWW, especially if they want to do workplace organizing that doesn’t seek to win recognition and contracts from employers, but the point of this discussion paper is not to argue for involvement in the IWW. Rather, the point is to open up some discussion about the connections between a radical perspective that calls for long term change and organizing for short term change now.
The next few sections relate to each other and to the overall theme, but they do so more loosely. They are closer to independent articles. These form a sort of second half of the discussion paper. The piece, “Shared Interests And Mass Organizations Make And Remake Each Other,” defines what I mean by “mass organization” and tries to argue that mass organizations should not be understood simply and narrowly as bodies of economic self-defense. Instead, they should be understood as having their own internal value system or moral economy. I also draw on a distinction from the writer E.P. Thompson, between struggles to get more goods and struggles that express outrage at the ways capitalism limits human possibility. These are not mutually exclusive. In the next piece, “Where Do Radicals Come From?,” I argue that people with a commitment to fighting capitalism and other forms of injustice are not usually motivated by a desire for more stuff but rather are motivated by a moral outlook and/or emotional attachments. In the next piece, “What is a Fair Day’s Wage, Anyway?,” I present what many readers will find to be an obvious analysis of why “fair wage” is a contradiction in terms. I also discuss some passages from Karl Marx which influenced the early IWW. The discussion paper ends with a note on some changes in the IWW’s preamble during the organization’s first few years.
This paper also has an appendix which includes some additional material, lists some of the sources and influences that shaped this paper, and recommends some further reading. The appendix is online here.
An Undemocratic Organization With Only Paper Radicalism
The IWW Preamble rejects “the conservative motto, A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work,” and says instead that “we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, Abolition of the wage system.” Why must we inscribe this on our banner? And who are “we” anyway? This line from the IWW Preamble is a claim that unions and similar organizations can and should take on explicitly revolutionary perspectives at least some of the time.
There are some revolutionaries who reject the idea that unions and similar organizations should take on radical political perspectives. This means that they implicitly take a reverse of the IWW Preamble: they say “we must not inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, Abolition of the wage system; at most our banners should pose the common sense motto “a fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work.”
Some people like to use a hypothetical scenario to explain their rejection of radical unions. The hypothetical scenario goes something like this. “You inscribe on your banner the phrase, ‘abolish the wage system.’ Well, imagine that a lot of working class people suddenly join the organization. This will create a huge problem. An organization should be democratic. The organization can only be democratic if it reflects the consciousness of its members. Most of the working class currently do not want to abolish the wage system. At most, they want a fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work. That means if a lot of working class people join up, then either the organization will not really want to abolish the wage system – so the slogan will be just empty words – or else the organization will not be democratic – the people who want to abolish the wage system will control things and the rest of the people will not have any real input or participation.”
This hypothetical scenario is very compelling rhetorically, but let’s look at it more closely. If most of the working class today do not want to abolish the wage system and are not willing to join an organization that wants to do so, then we don’t really need to worry about how to keep the organization democratic if large numbers of workers join because it simply won’t happen. The problem dissolves.
If most of the working class today do not want to abolish the wage system and are not willing to join an organization that wants to do so, something will have to change before large numbers of workers join such an organization. One thing that could change is that the organization drops its commitment to abolishing the wage system. Another thing that could change is that the working class becomes radical in its consciousness. In that case too, the problem dissolves.
Another possibility is that the working class comes to see some benefit in membership in the organization and so pretends to want to abolish the wage system. This is possible. There is quite simply no way to prevent people from joining who are not sincere in there expression of agreement with radical views. People might lie. We can attempt to test for lies, but no tests are 100% accurate. The same problem occurs to some extent in any organization. Currently unions often face the problem of needing to make members active participants in the organization and its activity, and to build a culture of solidarity. Failure to do this can lead to members crossing picket lines and otherwise not standing with their fellow members.
The problem of people seeking membership and expressing an insincere commitment to “abolish the wage system” is not as pressing as the problem that people might express a shallow or temporary agreement with an organization’s radical principles. To put it another way, the hypothetical situation does not examine what joining is, as an activity, or what it means. There are real problems with recruitment, retention, and member education, but the hypothetical scenario doesn’t help with any of that. While there are no quick fixes, one key piece of the puzzle is to make joining into an interactive activity.
Joining a union can and should involve a frank discussion with a member of the organization about values. This is a conversation about why the organization exists, why the person is joining, why the current member is involved. There can and should be a conversation between two people about their understanding of the world and of the world they would like to see, at whatever small scale and in whatever general terms. That is, there can and should be a conversation about existing shared interests which is simultaneously a conversation that is a small step toward remaking shared interests or creating new ones. Furthermore, after joining, there can and should be educational components of membership in an organization, including written materials, discussions, various parts of the life and culture of the organization, and, above all, relationships with other members, all of which reinforce aspects of shared interests.
Part of the difficulty here for radical unions (to the very limited extent that they exist) is that people are dynamic. They heat up and cool down. Most people who are radicals and who have been for many years will admit that at certain moments they have contemplated, at least in a vague “what if…?” kind of way, the possibility of giving up on their radical commitments. Our lives would be so much easier if we could only accommodate to the system… our views make life under capitalism even harder to endure… and of course many of us have seen fellow radicals waver more strongly, and fall away. This problem happens in existing radical organizations.
There is no simple solution to this. We should have longer conversations about it, about how to reduce the frequency of people cooling off. Many of us who have stayed radical for a long time have managed to take the heat we have experienced — from our outrage at the world, from our passionate relationships with other radicals, from the collective struggles we have participated in – and combine it with other things – ideas, value systems, stories, and more – in order to create our own internal heat source. We need to figure out better how to deliberately replicate this in others, so that we can make more radicals. Beyond that, we must recognize and prepare for the fact that people will cool off, and we should prepare for the consequences this will have. Among other problems, we want to avoid having the situation where members have cooled off and become only paper members.
One mechanism for this is to make dues payments require face to face or recurrent interaction, rather than mechanisms like dues checkoff. This way to handle membership dues keeps organizations financially dependent on having real members, rather than paper members. There is much more to be said about all of this, but most of that is for a longer conversation for another time.
The hypothetical scenario has one additional flaw – about democracy. To be blunt, why should we care if organizations are democratic? Democracy is not an end in itself, democracy is a means. A bad decision made democratically is still a bad decision. There are two reasons to care about democracy. Democracy is good when it results in good decisions – when groups decide to do good things. And democracy is good when it has good effects on the participants – when it makes them better and more likely to do good things. This results in tensions. Participation in democratic decision-making can have important shaping roles on people’s shared interests. But sometimes people’s shared interests are narrow and conservative.
Say there are two mass organizations, both with a lot of conservative members. One is highly democratic and votes to exclude racial minorities or to oppose a program of member education around racial oppression within the organization and in society. The other is highly undemocratic, with a leadership to the left of its membership. In the second organization, the leadership undemocratically creates a program to educate members about race and changes the members’ attitudes. Clearly both of these situations are highly imperfect. Clearly the second is preferable.
Above all, we should strive to create the conditions wherein an organization can act democratically and make good decisions in a democratic fashion. Sometimes this means encouraging democratic processes even though this will result in worse decisions than if an enlightened leadership made them. Other times, however, certain issues are important enough that being less than fully democratic is worth it because it will avoid catastrophes or create conditions which change members’ consciousness over time.
Should Unions Ever Carry Revolutionary Banners?
The rejection of radical unions expresses important truths. For one thing, we should not overestimate what an organization says – what really matters is what an organization does. But words do matter. More to the point, it matters when organizations make explicit commitments to world-views and ideas. It matters when organizations deliberately try to spread these ideas – or rather, it matters when an organization’s official structures have created space and provided resources for one section of the organization (whether officers, staff, members, or some combination) to propagate ideas among the people that make up the organization and among other people beyond the organization. For example, whatever else there is to say, it had important effects when the UAW agreed to sign no-strike pledges and urged members to buy war bonds during World War Two, or when it showed opportunistic support for anti-Communist provisions in Taft-Hartley. Union support for racial discrimination similarly has had important effects in U.S. history.
The rejection of unions and similar organizations taking on radical perspectives also expresses the important point that taking radical positions really does limit who will be involved. All things being equal, a radical organization will face additional difficulties that other organizations will not face. Quite simply, it’s harder to be radical than it is to not be radical. An organization will have greater difficulties in society the more that it portrays itself as opposed to dominant values in society and even more so as it actually threatens dominant values.
These problems are not limited to slogans like “abolish the wage system.” Should organizations make internal efforts to overcome contradictions in the working class such as sexism, racism, homophobia, and others? If so, should these be official positions of organizations? The sad fact is that much of the working class holds racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, and other bad ideas. Organizations of the working class that do not take steps to address these forms of oppression implicitly support them. This is because organizations are a product of shared interests but they also create shared interests, including shared interests that segment off some sections of the working class from others or interests which seek for one section of the class to advance at the expense of another.
Taking strong stances means that individuals who oppose those stances will not join the organization unless we manage to change their minds, or they will join in ignorance of, or direct opposition to, those stances. Taking strong stances also provides reasons for other people to strongly oppose the organization and it gives the organization’s opponents resources for attacking the organization in rhetorical and material ways.
Taking a stand has consequences. The United Electrical Workers were attacked with a combination of red-baiting and raids, which nearly destroyed the organization in the aftermath of Taft-Hartley. Some unions didn’t survive these attacks. The early IWW was attacked with violent state and vigilante repression which reduced the organization to a mere shadow for decades. Unions that practiced civil rights unionism in the Jim Crow South faced additional obstacles that other unions did not, because of their opposition to racist ideology.
If an organization officially opposes forms of oppression and divisions within the working class and takes steps to combat these problems among members and in the world, this places the organization to the left of much of the working class. This is how unions ought to be. And in reality, this is how many current unions already actually operate: they take stances to the left of much of their membership. Job advertisements for openings in the labor movement often describe the union as building social justice. The union officialdom also poses this in terms like ‘standing up for workers’ rights,’ and ‘battling for dignity and fairness and respect,’ and they sometimes contribute political funds for lobbying for gay rights and other issues that many workers have reservations about. Now, of course, being revolutionary is much to the left of all this. But the criticism that the organization is to the left of the class and therefore the class won’t get involved or therefore the organization is flawed, that applies to most actually existing organizations already, except for those which are truly reactionary.
The issue of whether or not an organization should be radical is on a continuum, and the arguments against organizations taking radical perspectives often imply positions that would fall on that continuum to the right of many actually existing unions.
“Okay, fine,” someone will say, “but surely sometimes we have to work with people who do not agree with some of our values. We have to work with people who do not want to abolish the wage system.” Yes, absolutely, and this is difficult. This is not something that can be fixed through theoretical maneuvering; we will have to do different things depending on the situation, and we would benefit from more discussion in detail about real examples when we have dealt with these problems in various ways.
At the same time, when we work with people who don’t want to abolish the wage system we can not simply say “we want to abolish the wage system and you do not, that’s okay, it’s just like how I like romantic comedies and you like action movies.” Our vision and values are not taste preferences. We must talk about what our vision and values are, and to the best of our ability we must talk in terms and appeal to values held by our fellow workers, and we should try to convince them of our values. This does not mean we should preach. And this does not mean that we should only associate with them if we manage to convince them. If we don’t convince them we should still associate with them, and over time perhaps our relationship with them might help us change their minds. What this does mean is that we should speak frankly about our vision and values, we should build relationships of trust and affection with people who disagree with us, and we should try to get them to hold our views.
Inscribing “abolish the wage system” on our organization’s banner provides a requirement for us to have these difficult conversations with our fellow workers. Often the hesitation about radical unions and similar organizations is a hesitation to speak frankly about, and try to convince people of, our values. It is much more comfortable to group with people who already agree with us, and to do our outreach to the unconvinced in passive ways via media rather than face-to-face, in real time. This effectively leaves it up to people to convince themselves before we talk to them about our vision and values.
Militancy Is Not Radicalism
What distinguishes radical from conservative organizing? Some people answer “militancy.” Militancy is always brave, but it is not always radical. The old slogan “Direct action gets the goods!” expresses one kind of commitment to militancy. This slogan is only sometimes true. Not all direct action gets the goods. That is, direct action is not a guarantee of success. And sometimes people get the goods without direct action. It’s undeniable, though, that in some settings direct action really is the best route to getting the goods.
But who cares? Who wants goods anyway? Imagine that the global economy recovers in a big way. Prosperity is the new order of the day. A rising tide begins to lift most boats. There are increasing opportunities for electoral politics and in the United States NLRB elections begin to genuinely improve many people’s lives under capitalism. In that case, we could “get the goods” in a variety of ways other than direct action. Would this change how we orient toward electoralism and recognition? If our main motivation is getting the goods, then the answer should be yes. But if our motivation is abolishing the wage system, then the answer should be no.
“Getting the goods” under capitalism is a matter of “a fair day’s wage” won through direct action. Of course it’s good if people have better lives, and changes under capitalism really do matter for individuals’ lives. But we can mislead ourselves if getting the goods is all we are about – that is, if the goals is what the struggle gets people in our lives under capitalism, as opposed to how the struggle contributes to the consciousness and ability of the working class. Engels expressed this misguided view once by calling the idea of a general strike “nonsense.” He said that “whenever we are in a position to try the universal strike,” – Engels’ terms for the general strike – “we shall be able to get what we want for the mere asking for it, without the roundabout way of the universal strike.” The mistake here is to limit the strike to what sort of goods it is about – “we shall be able to get what we want.”
A friend told me a story once about a group of workers who organized themselves independently against a big public facility. This was a relatively small group of workers compared to the size of the facility, no more than 300 people in relation to a facility that has employees numbering in the thousands, serving members of the public numbering in the tens of thousands, and dealing with millions of dollars. The workers had the power to shut the place down, and they used that power to bring the facility to a stop temporarily. They put forward a list of demands they wanted met. The bosses gave in on every one of them. The bosses then said “hey next time you have any problems, let us know and we’ll fix things right away so we don’t need to have any of these headaches.” In terms of “getting the goods,” this arrangement is a victory. The workers got what they wanted and they had an experience of collective action. Most of us would love to be in the position of these workers — more money! making the boss concede! — who wouldn’t want those things? At the same time, what happens next time? Management said “next time, come to us, we’ll give you what you want without all this trouble.” Will the workers do so? Should they? If we think in terms of simply “getting the goods” then the workers might as well get whatever they can without action – after all, nothing is too good for the working class, as Bill Haywood once said — so why not get as much as possible for as little work as possible? But “getting the goods” is not the point. Direct action simply to get goods is merely militancy. We should not care about militancy on its own. Militancy is not necessarily radical. There is no contradiction between militancy and the conservative slogan “a fair day’s wage.”
Our commitment to “abolish the wage system” means that we don’t just want more under capitalism – we want to abolish the wage system. That requires more people to want to abolish the wage system and to understand that an injury to one is an injury to all. Marx and Engels referred to the struggles of the working class as “the real movement which abolishes the present state of things.” We should care about direct action when it contributes to this “real movement” to abolish the wage system. This is about how direct action affects the people who carry out and witness the direct action.
We should orient toward making direct action into radical militancy. Radical militancy deepens and spreads class consciousness –“an injury to one is an injury to all” – and a commitment to having a new society – “abolish the wage system.” We should organize in ways that spread a correct and radical understanding of capitalism: there are structural forces which limit the ability for most people to have a good life under capitalism. As long as the wage system exists, even if some people get improvements these will often be threatened in the future.
Another part of having a radical perspective is understanding that an injury to one is an injury to all. That is: sometimes some groups of workers can get ahead at the expense of other workers, or sometimes capitalists will pay for improvements for one group of workers at the expense of another group of workers. This is unacceptable to us, and we need to make it unacceptable to others. Eugene Debs once said, “I want to rise with the ranks, not from the ranks.” The same could be said about groups of workers. Some groups of workers have benefited by rising above the rest of the working class, and by the costs of that rise being shifted onto others. We want all or at least very many of the working class to believe in Debs’s slogan, and to believe that an injury to one is an injury to all. “The ranks” means the global working class. When direct action spreads these qualities, it contributes to “the real movement which abolishes the present state of things.” Then and only then is direct action radical.
Two Kinds of Struggles in One Messy World
Despite what I’ve written so far, the distinction between “a fair day’s wages” and “abolish the wage system” is not a neat and clean one. In theory or ideology, it is. We can and should be able to articulate why there is no such thing as a fair wage. We can and should distinguish between struggles that explicitly call for an end to the wage system and struggles that explicitly aim for fair wages. This distinction is important. But in practice, the line between the two is blurry. For one thing, just saying “abolish the wage system” doesn’t mean we actually make a contribution to ending the wage system. We could put that on our banner but actually just end up fighting for better wages and never winning more than that, if we even manage to win better wages. Really, “a fair day’s wages” and “abolish the wage system” are points on a continuum, and particular struggles that swing quickly from one pole to the other and back.
Even though I wrote above that militancy is compatible with the conservative motto “a fair day’s wages,” militant struggles for a fair day’s wages are potentially transformative. Put simply, there are aspects of conflict with the boss that it is good for workers to experience. The collective organization involved, the relationships we build, the act of standing up for ourselves, all of this has the potential to help people start to understand the world differently. It can help make less politicized people start to understand that we have to abolish the wage system for the good of all (or almost all) humanity. This means that when the boss says “next time, come to us, we’ll give you what you want,” the boss is attempting to create a situation that makes for less conflict and so less moments that have the possibility to radicalize people.
When people collectively fight the powers over our lives, we do various things. For instance, in workplace struggles we discuss and make decisions about tactics and strategy, we march on the boss, we walk off the job, and so on. There are at least two elements of this – running our own affairs and standing up to people over us. These are related but not identical. There are various results that follow from these activities. Experiences of running our own lives can help people have more confidence, more skills, and more of a taste for running our own lives in a way that makes it more intolerable when we don’t run our own lives. Experiences of collective conflict with people in power over us can also help us get more confidence in ourselves and other members of our class, help us get more of a sense that collective action is the way to solve our problems, and it can deepen our sense of opposition to the powers over us.
Among the components these two things have in common in the most general sense is that both of them have the potential to radicalize or further radicalize the people who experience them, particularly if they haven’t experienced them much before. It’s not guaranteed that these experiences will radicalize people, though, and it’s not guaranteed what conclusions people will draw. This is part of why it’s particularly important for revolutionaries to be involved in struggles in ways that place us in relation to people who are having these experiences, particularly if they haven’t had these experiences before or haven’t had them much. That is: revolutionaries should strive to be organizers. If revolutionaries are placed in ways that put us in relation with people having these experiences, then we can shape the ways that these transformative experiences play out. We can potentially make them more transformative and try to make it more likely that folks will eventually become revolutionaries in response to these experiences.
There is another way that some fights that are explicitly for fair wages can have elements that go much beyond this conservative motto. To understand this we have to ask the question, why do people fight? People in struggle often take big risks that can have huge effects on them as individuals and on their loved ones. Most people will not fight for a dollar, or for the right to put a piece of paper in a box on voting day, or to sit in the front rather than the back of a bus. You might say to yourself, “this isn’t true – there have been important fights over wages, voting rights, segregation and many other issues.” My point is that people tend to fight over issues that they see as tied to values and relationships. “It’s not about the money, it’s about respect,” many people will say. “It’s the principle of the matter.” I personally want more money and more stable health insurance. This is a desire for economic gains that any liberal could agree with – “you should have a fair day’s pay, including better insurance!” The reason I want these is not as an end in itself, I want these because I worry about the future for my daughter. My desire for my child to have as good a life as I can provide her is not economic but it requires economic inputs. I don’t want it for economic reasons but it requires economic means.
Because struggles are about values, people in struggle can overflow their boundaries and transform themselves. Most of the time when workers fight together for a better life, this fight takes place on terms that the capitalist class has set. Most of the time this fight is thought of in terms that still assume capitalism will continue. That is, usually people imagine victory to mean victory under capitalism – a better capitalism, “fair wages.” And most of the time the understanding that people have of their self-interest is narrow: “the ranks” sometimes means just “my union” or “my job class” or “people of my nationality” and so on. Even so, the collective power and intelligence and outrage of workers gathered together is a powerful and volatile thing, especially when it combines with experiences of collective action. Indeed, the formation of the IWW came out of decades of struggles and numerous attempts to form organizations (such as the Western Labor Union and the American Labor Union), attempts which radicalized people and taught them practical lessons.
At the founding convention of the IWW in 1905, one of the delegates attending, Pat O’Neil, made a short speech from the floor. He said:
I want to ask you just a plain, practical question. You have got a big strike on right here in this city. The teamsters’ portion of your transportation department are out on strike. About two months ago a large shipment of machinery was made from this city down to Spadra, about thirty-five miles from where I live. Now, mark you, I want to show you that these fellows recognize that an injury to one is an injury to all, in spite of the evidence of John Mitchell to the contrary. When that machinery got there at Spadra our men refused to unload it. Then they went over to Russellville and got a few men, mostly negroes and a few white men, and when they came over there the men had a talk to them, and they too refused to unload it. Now, mark you, the proposition. The president of our district went down there; Peter Handy, the president of the U. M. M. A., District No. 21, went down to Spadra and ordered the union men of Spadra to unload that machinery under threat of losing their charter. They still refused to do it, and on the day when I left for Chicago twenty-five of them were in the United States jail.
O’Neil’s short speech makes an important point. The reality is that different organizations and struggles exist within the working class. They have a dynamic relationship to each other. They have different explicit ideologies – revolutionary watchwords and conservative mottoes – and different implicit principles in action.
Organizations and workers in struggle are internally dynamic as well. O’Neil made the important point that workers who started off fighting for what they thought was a fair day’s wages came to a class consciousness understanding that “an injury to one is an injury to all,” at least to some limited extent. These workers rejected racial divisions and took risks for other workers. A fight has potential to move people. Workers acting together in struggle can develop a sense of their own individual and collective potential and a greater sense of class consciousness. That is, workers can become more aware of and, opposed to, the constraints that the capitalist system puts on us. The struggle can begin to move beyond terms set by the capitalist class and can provoke people to begin imagining an end to capitalism. In the terms I’ve used here, sometimes the struggle for a fair day’s wages can teach workers that we need to abolish the wage system. When the struggle doesn’t go beyond fair wages, it doesn’t really challenge the system and might even help it. When the struggle begins to move toward a vision and a practice of ending the system, well, obviously this is a very different thing.
We want to identify and amplify the tendencies toward our potentials for revolutionary perspectives within fights for a fair day’s wages. We want to move people toward a systematic understanding of capitalism – of how the wage system works – toward a view where it’s not enough to just get by as an individual or as a member of a group who has it okay – that is, we want people to come to the view that capitalism must be abolished for what it does to many people, even if we as individuals may be managing to ‘get by’. If these changes in people’s consciousness never take place, then no matter how militant a struggle is, it will only ever be reformist. Militancy is not radicalism. Moving people from “a fair day’s wage” to “abolish the wage system” means having good relationships with people who currently do not want to want abolish the wage system, struggling alongside them. This also means having an organization of people who *do* want to abolish the wage system. One key piece of this is having unions and similar fighting organizations that aim to spread the awareness of the need to abolish the wage system and to deepen the understanding of people who current see this need.
Part 2 will be posted next week |
Frustrated by the cost of seed starting supplies? Do you wish you could start seedlings for free, and enjoy a bountiful garden without the cost of peat pots and seed-starting mix? Try these tips to start seedlings for free, year after year!
Having a vegetable garden is very much a money-saving proposition, so it’s really not too hard to justify the expense of seeds, soil, and a few tidy seed-starting flats. All in all, it might cost what? Maybe $30 every spring, for everything you need to start a garden’s-worth of young seedlings. And that garden can easily save hundreds, if not thousands, on the yearly food budget. It’s really quite the bargain.
But let’s be brutally honest, here. Some years, that $30 for seeds and supplies is hard to come by. I’m sure I’m not the only homesteading Mama who has carefully planned that little buffer into the January or February budget – only to have unforseen circumstances, like a car repair or doctor’s bill, make it challenging to pull the trigger on those items anyway. And for those looking to live a self-sufficient lifestyle, spending as little as possible for off-farm expenses is a big part of making that dream a reality. What if we could just cut out that yearly “seed starting” line item entirely?
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The great news is, it is absolutely possible to have a fantastic garden year after year – and never spend a cent on starting seedlings. Let’s break it down. When it comes to seed-starting, you really just need three things: seeds, containers, and soil. With a little ingenuity, all three can be had without spending a thing.
SEEDS
It’s hard to beat the joy of poring over a wonderful heirloom seed catalog – especially if it’s during a January blizzard and you’re cozy by a good fire. But if you’re an heirloom seed junkie like me, it can be a little shocking to add up the total of all the varieties you’ve circled, by the time you get to the end! Thankfully, with a little work, there are some creative ways to put your hands on quality seeds, without the sticker-shock.
Save your own. The simplest way of having free seeds every year, is to save your own. The International Seed Saving Institute is a wonderful resource, with all the information you need to get started with saving seeds.
Find a seed swap or garden club. “But”, you say, “I don’t want to save some of every kind of plant each year. That’s overwhelming!” Or perhaps you want to try new varieties each year. A great way to accomplish this is through a local seed swap. Say you save a boatload of your favorite heirloom corn and cucumber seeds. You bring plenty with you to trade, and come home with a bounty of tomato, pumpkin, melon, and all manner of other seeds for your garden.
Host a seed swap. Don’t have a seed swap near you? Southern Exposure has an excellent guide to starting your own seed swap. Libraries are usually very happy to work with people looking to host a community event like this!
Join an online seed swap. Technically, this doesn’t qualify as entirely free, since postage is involved. But it’s pretty close to free, and certainly still worth a mention. There are quite a few seed swapping forums online, where people are happy to exchange seeds through the mail. The Garden Web Seed Exchange is one of the most well-established. There are also some Facebook seed swap groups – “The Great American Seed Swap” is a large country-wide group, and there are an increasing number of local groups, so it’s worth looking for a Facebook group for your area. It’s quite common for members of online seed swaps to offer free seeds, for only the cost of postage. These are generally called “SASE” (Self Addressed Stamped Envelope) offers, and by searching within the forum you’ll probably see many offers.
CONTAINERS
Containers may be the easiest way to save money on seed-starting. Once you start keeping your eyes open for free containers to start seeds in, you’ll notice them everywhere.
Repurposed food containers. So much of the packaging used for food, can work well for starting seeds. These are some of my favorite types to work with:
Rotisserie chicken containers, like the one filled with basil in the photo above.
Yogurt cups
Plastic egg cartons (these are WONDERFUL for starting really tiny seeds)
Small plastic produce tubs (like the ones mushrooms are packaged in)
Cherry tomato cartons
Paper recycleables. Try your hand at making your own pots out of newspaper, or the packing paper that’s sometimes used in shipping boxes. Jill, over at The Prairie Homestead has a great little tutorial here. You can also use empty toilet paper rolls, or cut paper towel tubes down into several small pots.
Discarded commercial seed flats and pots. Retired seed flats and pots are pretty commonly available at commercial nurseries, and they’ll often be happy to give them to you if you ask. Many dumps and transfer stations also have piles of seed flats and plastic pots available for gardeners. Thrift stores are another good place to check. People drop them off along with clothing and household donations, and (at least in my area) the stores generally just put them out free for taking.
When it comes to free containers, this is just a start. There are SO many ways to get creative when finding containers for starting seeds. For even more ideas, check out this excellent post from my friend Sarah, over at The Free Range Life. She’s got a huge list of container ideas!
SEED-STARTING MIX:
Honestly, getting a nice light soil mix might be the most challenging part of this. While one could use garden soil, it’s really not an ideal medium for seed starting. Seedlings are more prone to dampening off in the heavy mixture, and garden soil also generally contains weed seeds, which germinate and compete with the seedlings you’ve planted intentionally. The goal is to have a fine, light, seed-free medium with just enough nutrients to help those seedlings get a good start.
Leaf mold and compost. John Walker has a good “buy-nothing” recipe for seed starting mix, and he keeps it really simple. He sieves together a 50/50 mix of leaf mold and compost for his seed starting. I’ve used his method with absolutely excellent results, and did not find my seedlings prone to disease or dampening off.
British garden journalist Kim Stoddart’s free seed-starting recipe calls for equal parts leaf mold, compost, and garden soil.
Now, chances are, you’ve already got a compost pile. If you’ve got some good “ripe” compost, then you’ve got that part take care of. But you’ll notice that the other common ingredient in both of these formulas is a little less common – leaf mold. The value of good leaf mold seems a bit more recognized in Europe than it is here, but it’s catching on. For tips on getting your own batch of leaf mold going, check out this post from Grower’s Supply. It does take a couple of years to make, so in the meantime you can do what Kim Stoddart did (and what I’ve done), and just dig under the dead leaves in a wooded area, for that fine crumbly layer that’s above the soil, and below the leaves. It’s crumbly brown magic, and once you work with it, you’ll definitely want to get your own leaf mold pile going!
I hope that these suggestions are helpful in reducing or eliminating your seed-starting budget! Do you have other creative ways that you save money on starting your garden each year? I’d love to hear about them!
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Now he tells us? After raking ‘Clinton Cash’ author over the coals?
Remember how former Clinton advisor and now ABC News host George Stephanopoulos raked the “Clinton Cash” book author over the coals?
We smelled a rat at the time:
George Stephanopoulos worked in the Bill Clinton administration as a senior adviser. In what way is he qualified to question the author of a book which seeks to expose alleged corruption of the Clintons? Peter Schweizer holds his own in this interview despite the aggressive and skeptical questions hurled at him throughout the discussion. Stephanopoulos is not so much a journalist, he’s a member of the palace guard. It’s quite clear which side he’s on in this situation.
Rat confirmed, via Politico, George Stephanopoulos discloses $50,000 contribution to Clinton Foundation:
ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos has given $50,000 to the Clinton Foundation in recent years, charitable contributions that he did not publicly disclose while reporting on the Clintons or their non-profit organization, the On Media blog has learned. In both 2013 and 2014, Stephanopoulos made a $25,000 donation to the 501 nonprofit founded by former president Bill Clinton, the Foundation’s records show. Stephanopoulos never disclosed this information to viewers, even when interviewing author Peter Schweizer last month about his book “Clinton Cash,” which alleges that donations to the Foundation may have influenced some of Hillary Clinton’s actions as Secretary of State. In a statement to the On Media blog on Thursday, Stephanopoulos apologized and said that he should have disclosed the donations to ABC News and its viewers. “I made charitable donations to the Foundation in support of the work they’re doing on global AIDS prevention and deforestation, causes I care about deeply,” he said. “I thought that my contributions were a matter of public record. However, in hindsight, I should have taken the extra step of personally disclosing my donations to my employer and to the viewers on air during the recent news stories about the Foundation. I apologize.”
Stephanopoulos needs to be removed from any ABC News coverage of the election. But that’s unlikely to happen, as this ABC News statement to Politico seems to indicate:
“As George has said, he made charitable donations to the Foundation to support a cause he cares about deeply and believed his contributions were a matter of public record,” the network’s statement read. “He should have taken the extra step to notify us and our viewers during the recent news reports about the Foundation. He’s admitted to an honest mistake and apologized for that omission. We stand behind him.”
It’s media bias and corruption down the line for 2016.
Update: Make that $75,000, and George is dropping out of the Republican debates: |
Several years back--in the pre-Trump era--a friend attended a forum at the Brookings Institution on
the subject of US-Russian relations. During the question and answer portion of the event, she asked a question about American and European meddling in Ukraine, leading to the ouster of the Yanukovych government and the subsequent Russian re-annexation of the Crimea. She cited the open admission by then-Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Victoria Nuland, about the US having spent $5 billion to build the democracy movement in Ukraine, suggesting that the Russians may have had cause to view the Ukraine regime change events of 2013-2014 as a Western effort to drive a wedge between Moscow and Kiev, and possibly deprive Russia of its only Black Sea naval facility..
One of the speakers responded to the question by declaring that the questioner was clearly presenting a narrative that had been "written in Russia." The panelist went on to elaborate that the real issue is "which side controls the narrative." At no point did any of the panelists challenge any of the facts presented in the question. Those facts, or any other facts challenging the conclusion that the entire Ukraine crisis was strictly the work of imperial adventurers in Moscow, were simply to be dismissed as "their narrative."
Control over the narrative has more and more replaced truth seeking. It is the old Goebbels dictum: If you repeat the same lie over and over enough, it becomes the truth.
Recent examples abound, but the golden egg prize goes to the claim that Russia interfered in the 2016 Presidential elections to secure a victory for Donald Trump. This narrative was presented in January 2017, after the Trump victory but before his inauguration, in an intelligence community assessment. Go back and re-read that 25-page "narrative" today and you will be shocked. It contains no evidence, but relies on a pseudo-psychological profile of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was presumed to have been angry at Hillary Clinton since 2011 when she made some nasty personal comments about him. "Putin most likely wanted to discredit Secretary Clinton because he has publicly blamed her since 2011 for inciting mass protests against his regime in late 2011 and early 2012, and because he holds a grudge for comments he almost certainly saw as disparaging him."
The assessment accused Putin of--heaven forbid--seeking a partnership with the United States to defeat the Islamic State: "Moscow also saw the election of President-elect Trump as a way to achieve an international counter-terrorism coalition against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)."
Originally, the document was presented as an all-intelligence community consensus document, prepared by representatives of the 17 organizations that comprise the US Intelligence Community. Later it was acknowledged that the report was prepared by two analysts.
They cited the CIA and the FBI, headed at the time by John Brennan and James Comey, as having "high confidence" in the judgment that the Russians attempted to interfere in the 2016 election. The NSA, the agency with the greatest technical capacity to "read Moscow's mail," gave only "moderate confidence" to the judgment of Russian interference.
In a methodological annex to the report, the authors acknowledged that they had no facts to back up their conclusions:
"Estimative language consists of two elements: judgments about the likelihood of developments or events occurring and levels of confidence in the sources and analytic reasoning supporting the judgments. Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary, as well as logic, argumentation, and precedents..."
The authors of the assessment claimed that there was much more evidence in the classified version of the report, but that intelligence had to be withheld from the public.
Last month, at the behest of President Trump, CIA Director Mike Pompeo met with a former NSA official, William Binney, who had conducted his own investigation of the allegations that Russian hackers had obtained Democratic National Committee emails, showing a systematic campaign by the DNC to secure Hillary Clinton the nomination over Senator Bernie Sanders. Binney concluded that the emails had been obtained by someone working at the DNC headquarters and were "leaked, not hacked." Now, former acting DNC Chair Donna Brazile has come out with a detailed, fact-filled book-length account, confirming that Hillary had, indeed, rigged the primary outcome to secure the nomination by buying off the DNC in 2015.
Binney's report got marginal coverage in some left-of-center and right-of-center publications, but no one in the Mainstream Media (MSM) touched the story--because it contradicted the narrative.
If someone in the USIC had a sense of humor, they would have probably named this "narrative control program" "Operation Gossamer Shield." Gossamer is defined as: "a fine, filmy substance, consisting of cobwebs spun by small spiders... Used to refer to something very light, thin, insubstantial or delicate." |
Some artists just are not cool – your mom likes ABBA, so there’s no way you are going to listen to them, even if you think Mamma Mia is rather catchy. Likewise you may think High School Musical’s ‘Bop to the top’ is mucho gusto, but you don’t want anyone to know it. Coolness is hard to quantify, ephemeral and transient (and of course, very subjective); some artists like Miles Davis and the Velvet Underground will always be totally cool – while some fade in and out of coolness (Elvis, Stevie Wonder, Neil Diamond, Sting), and some artists – well, it is hard to tell if they were ever cool (Miley Cyrus, Creed, and Nickeback come to mind).
Imagine if there was an objective measure for coolness – a number that could be attached to each artist that indicated how ‘cool’ the artist was. We’d be able to do all sorts of interesting things with such a ‘coolness index’. We could make a ‘music makeover’ playlist that would take you from Miley to Miles in 12 songs (consider it a 12-step taste recovery program) or we could create a music rehab playlist that takes you from Amy Winehouse to Kate Nash. But of course, the concept of cool is too hard to nail down. Is Johnny Cash cool? Michael Jackson? Prince? Context, demographics, locale all play a role.
It may be too hard to tell whether an artist is cool, but we have all sorts of ways to tell that an artist is definitely not cool. For instance, if lots of listeners really don’t want people to know that they are listening to a particular artist, then that artist is probably not too cool. Luckily, there’s an interesting source for just this kind of data. Recently, the researchers at Last.fm published a list of the ‘most unwanted scrobbles‘. This is a list of tracks that were most frequently deleted by the Last.fm community from their scrobbles in the last month. These are the tracks that Last.fm listeners didn’t want people to know that the listened to. Here’s the first page of the most unwanted scrobbles:
Kudos to Last.fm for publishing this data. It’s a great source for the uncool. Collecting all the artists from the pages we can build a list of artists that have frequently had their scrobbles deleted:
Lady GaGa
Britney Spears
Katy Perry
Rihanna
Paramore
Coldplay
Taylor Swift
Beyoncé
Avril Lavigne
Marc Seales, composer. New Stories. Ernie Watts, saxophone
Alexander Rybak
Black Eyed Peas
Kings of Leon
Muse
My Chemical Romance
Linkin Park
Korn
Miley Cyrus
Jason Mraz
Metro Station
Leona Lewis
Green Day
Evanescence
Amy Whinehouse
Oasis
Nelly Furtado
This list rings true as set of ‘uncool’ artists (with the exception Marc Seales, who happens to have a piece of music, called ‘Highway Blues’, that can be found in most ‘Sample Music’ folders on most Windows XP computers, and is likely frequently scrobbled because of this). Ideally this list should be normalized for popularity – naturally artists that have more listeners will be scrobbled more and consequently be deleted more too. but there’s not enough data in this list to normalize properly so we’ll make do with an unnormalize list. I find it interesting how many female acts are on the list. Is it not cool to listen to female artists?
Another approach to find the uncool is to look for artists that have been tagged as ‘guilty pleasure’ on sites like Last.fm. For these artists, by applying the ‘guilty pleasure’ tag people are identifying artists that they are embarrassed to be listening to. Here’s a list of the top 100 popular artists that have been frequently tagged with ‘guilty pleasure’ – for this list I’m normalizing the data so popularity doesn’t factor into the list order:
Katy Perry
Ashlee Simpson
Spice Girls
Lindsay Lohan
Mandy Moore
Jessica Simpson
Backstreet Boys
Hilary Duff
Metro Station
Britney Spears
Justin Timberlake
Taylor Swift
Rihanna
The Pussycat Dolls
Kelly Clarkson
Christina Aguilera
Fall Out Boy
Take That
Avril Lavigne
Ricky Martin
Girls Aloud
Fergie
Neil Diamond
McFly
Robyn
The Veronicas
Ace of Base
ABBA
Cline Dion
Chris Brown
All Time Low
Kanye West
Gwen Stefani
Good Charlotte
P!nk
Usher
blink-182
R. Kelly
Nelly Furtado
The Get Up Kids
Madonna
Timbaland
Beyonce
New Found Glory
Natasha Bedingfield
Akon
Jem
Ciara
Robbie Williams
Paramore
The Wallflowers
Michelle Branch
Taking Back Sunday
Creed
Savage Garden
The All-American Rejects
Simple Plan
Shania Twain
Sugababes
Tegan and Sara
Everclear
Sugarcult
The Starting Line
Brand New
Destiny’s Child
Cyndi Lauper
Mariah Carey
Westlife
Maroon 5
Melanie C
Jennifer Lopez
Michael Jackson
Kelis
Tears for Fears
Alkaline Trio
Dashboard Confessional
Vanessa Carlton
Lily Allen
Bowling for Soup
Jet
50 Cent
Trivium
Cher
Eve 6
Sean Paul
Kylie Minogue
Howie Day
Sophie Ellis-Bextor
My Chemical Romance
Third Eye Blind
Saves the Day
Bryan Adams
Blondie
Boston
John Mellencamp
Simply Red
Whitney Houston
The Corrs
The Calling
Motion City Soundtrack
There’s overlap between the two lists: Avril, Britney, Katy, Nelly, Taylor, Rihanna, along with the Disney crowd. Again, there seems to be an anti-female coolness bias on the list. It is hard to be cool and female.
The ‘most unwanted scrobbles’ and the ‘guilty+pleasure’ approach to the coolness index only get us so far. They can help us identify music that people are embarrassed to admit that they enjoy. But they only give us one end of the coolness spectrum. We can find what is not cool, but we can’t find out what is cool. We have in effect an ‘Uncoolness Index’. Still, knowing which artists are uncool can be helpful for all sorts of things. If we are building a playlist for that party, we can turn on the uncool filter to make sure that Ricky Martin or Robbie Williams won’t sneak into the mix. Likewise, if we are building a recommender, we can use the Uncoolness index to decide how cool the user is and recommend music that’s slightly less uncool than what they are used to listening to.
Next steps are to figure out how to learn not just what is uncool, but also what is cool, so we can build the true ‘coolness index’ and be able to tell how cool any artist is. I think that is going to be a harder problem, but I have some ideas … |
Anonymous, the hard-to-define hacking group is doubted by many – though they often get things exactly right. Their ideas about Huma Abedin, Hillary’s top assistant, have enough merit to be worth a look, though what you see may frighten you.
If you think BillClinton’s perverted antics were bad, wait until you see this!
They have been together for decades, and while the truth has trickled out, technology has opened the floodgates.
Enter Anonymous.
Allegedly, Huma has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, as her mother is a member of the Brotherhood’s female counterpart. No question, she is tied to Saudi Arabia, as she was raised there.
Who is Human Abedin, in truth? The video below from Anonymous reveals more:
Huma, as anyone who follows politics knows, is 40-year-old Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s “shadow,” as Politico once described her. She began working for Hillary in 1996, when she was a 19-year-old intern fresh from George Washington University assigned to the First Lady’s office.
She was born in the United States, and at age two, her family moved to Saudi Arabia. Huma returned at age 18, then started her intern career with Hillary Clinton at the age of twenty. She worked for her mother’s magazine, a Jihadist publication that promotes Sharia law. The Muslim World League funds the Abedin family business, and they also funded al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.
Take a look at the video below, also from Anonymous, and consider how she and Huma Abedin have found themselves in their current set of controversial circumstances.
And if all that weren’t bad enough – now we find out that The State Department struck a deal with Hillary Clinton and her top aide Huma Abedin that allowed them to remove electronic and physical records they claimed were “personal” and “unclassified, non-record materials,” according to Judicial Watch.
Ed Henry reported on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
Abedin was allowed to take five boxes of “physical files” out of the State Department, including records described as “Muslim Engagement Documents,” Henry reported.
He said it is not known if the State Department kept copies of the electronic and physical records that were removed.
“We already know the Obama State Department let Hillary Clinton steal and then delete her government emails, which included classified information. But these new records show that was only part of the scandal,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. “These new documents show the Obama State Department had a deal with Hillary Clinton to hide her phone call logs and schedules, which would be contrary to FOIA and other laws.”
Democrat Alan Dershowitz said it’s “routine” for former State Department employees to take materials home that are deemed to be personal, and copies are typically made of those materials.
“It’s worth asking about, but I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions,” Dershowitz said.
He cautioned against leaping to accusations of criminality, pointing out that’s what many on the left are doing to President Trump in the Russia probe.
On the other hand, Dershowitz said, the government should be disclosing everything in the interest of transparency unless there is an overwhelming national security reason for keeping it temporarily sealed.
“Nothing should ever be permanently sealed,” he said. “And I think transparency trumps privacy when you’re a government official.”
Anthony Weiner
Huma Abedin was not standing by her man, Anthony Weiner – who infamously couldn’t stop sending pics of his junk to little girls, including a 15-year-old for which he was sentenced to 2 years in prison for.
There will be plenty of junk to look at in there big guy, but during sentencing there was no sign in Manhattan Federal Court of his soon-to-be ex-wife Huma. Prosecutors got what they’d requested as Weiner was sentenced to nearly two years behind bars for sending obscene messages to a North Carolina 15-year-old.
Weiner, 53, wore his wedding band to sentencing — though he and Abedin were in the midst of divorce.
And get this: You’re going to think this is a joke, but it’s not. You want to know who presided over their wedding? None other than horny redneck Bill Clinton himself. Kinda makes the whole marriage a joke does it not? Maybe Anthony learned all his moves from the King and Huma is just like Hillary – putting up with it until she could stand no more?
Weiner’s sext addiction played a key role in the election of President Trump.
Federal investigators examining Weiner’s laptop discovered emails on the computer appearing to pertain to a separate investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server while serving as secretary of state.
Then-FBI Director James Comey announced he was reopening the Clinton inquiry only 11 days before the election.
Hillary Clinton — who has said she thinks of Abedin as a second daughter — believes the Comey announcement was critical to her defeat.
“This man is going to be the death of me,” Abedin said, according to Clinton….
Yo – Huma – don’t say that too loud around Hillary. |
At the beginning of the month, I posted on an interesting article by Dr. William Jacobson, a Cornell Law professor who runs Legal Insurrection, asking how, given Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s numerous comments critical of President Trump, like speculating she and her husband might move to New Zealand if he were elected, could possibly rule on the Trump “travel ban” executive order. His reasoning is that if the 4th Circuit is permitted to use Trump’s campaign rhetoric to attack a facially legal policy, then the same standard must be used on Ginsburg:
In a case in which Trump’s campaign comments are front and center, how can Ginsburg hear a case in which she has complained publicly about Trump and Trump’s campaign? This is not a situation where a Justice merely is presumed to have political leanings (don’t they all?), or is affiliated with one political party more than another. Justice Ginsburg has publicly questioned Trump’s credibility, and that credibility is an issue in the case as it presents itself in the 4th Circuit decision from which review is sought.
Now 58 members of the House of Representatives have sent her a letter demanding that she recuse herself from hearing the travel ban case.
Signed this letter to Justice Ginsburg demanding her recusal from cases involving the Trump Admin due to her previous comments #SCOTUS pic.twitter.com/pXzYuv5gKi — Rep. Jeff Duncan (@RepJeffDuncan) June 26, 2017
Via the Daily Caller:
The letter argues that Ginsburg is bound by law to recuse herself in cases where she has a “personal bias or prejudice concerning a party” or from cases where her “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” The congressmen argue that the justice publicly evinced prejudice towards the president in a series of interviews given at the conclusion of the 2016 term, in which she called the president a “faker” and mused about moving to New Zealand if he prevailed in the general election. “You are bound by law to recuse yourself from participation in this case,” the congressmen write. “There is no doubt that your impartiality can be reasonably questioned; indeed, it would be unreasonable not to question your impartiality. Your participation in Trump v. International Refugee Assistance Project would violate the law and undermine the credibility of the Supreme Court of the United States.” What’s more, the congressmen argued that the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals placed the president’s credibility directly at issue in this case, as it concluded that the administration was not being forthright about its true motives with regard to the order. Relying on the president’s tweets and campaign statements, the court concluded that the travel ban’s national security rationale was little more that a pretext for implementing a discriminatory policy. As Ginsburg has already publicly impugned Trump’s credibility, they say she must recuse herself.
It is hard to disagree that Ginsburg goes into this case with a lot of baggage, so much, in fact, that it is doubtful she can render an impartial judgment and impossible for her to render a judgment that will appear objective. If she rules against it, no matter the merits as she sees them, she will be accused of being motivated by animus. If she rules in favor, she will be viewed as having gone along in order to prove she didn’t have a prejudice against the president. This is where John Roberts should show a bit of leadership and give her some definitive guidance on how important it is to the court that it not be perceived as acting politically. |
This is Charlie's mind with a new idea!
Hi, everyone. My name is Charlie, and I'm not a workaholic. Honest. I mean, I do tend to get up at 6AM and find myself sitting in bed at 10PM thinking I should be writing something more before I go to sleep, and I have been known to get stubborn about a programming problem and work 30 hours straight, but I can give it up anytime, really.
Okay, yes, I am being a little facetious and before anyone gets their drawers in a monkey's-fist with six inches of square chain sinnet, I'm not making fun of alcoholics or addicts or anyone else who's been helped by 12 Step programs; I'm making fun of myself. But with a point: I do tend to overwork.
What I am is a creative. I am continually assailed by ideas, things I want to write, build, paint, or create. My observation of creatives is that they live in one of two states: they are either driven, or they're blocked. Being blocked is horrible (and a topic for another time, but let me say if you are blocked, go out right now and read The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, and Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande.) Being driven is fun -- you're doing something you love and you're excited and you don't want to stop.
However...
A running complaint that Sarah and I share is that while it's great doing this, it also has its limits. Sarah knows she's hit her limit when she gets some horrible respiratory bug or sinus infection. I know it when I get depressed, irascible (yes, even more irascible) and end up spending two days in bed, sleeping or playing computer solitaire.
I have a second issue with this. I tend to be what Barbara Sher calls a scanner -- not my favorite word for it, since I'm a Cordwainer Smith fan, so maybe you could say "hummingbird" or "butterfly". (Where does a 6' 3" 265 pound butterfly land? Anywhere he damn wants.) In any case, in a lot of ways I'm motivated by learning new things and rewarded by that first skin-prickling hit of a cool new idea, but tend to go "lookit, a squirrel" off after the next idea when it hits.
So Sarah and I have decided to collaborate on a new 13 week experiment in managing two competing desires:
being optimally productive
without sacrificing health and sanity. Or at least health.
We'll be writing about this weekly (he said, typing carefully) in the form of a colloquy or conversation.
Let's look at the issue again. I have, at last count, about 27 bazillion projects I'd like to do -- fiction, nonfiction, computer programs, spec scripts for TV and movies, and I'm tied into a startup company -- plus I'd like to make time for painting and drawing and I'm intent on getting a little more exercise and at least occasionally actually leaving the house.
I've experimented with David Allen's Getting Things Done method, and while I see a lot of appeal in it, it's directed more toward people who want to get things done in a limited time. When I do GTD, I end up with unlimited things. The GTD books seem mostly directed to people with limited time to want to do more; I see my problem as seeing things through to "done" and limiting my time.
Just when everything was going so well, the wild squirrel of an idea comes along!
Well, that and those damn squirrels. I just took a shower and had paragraphs of prose for a TV idea run through my head.
So here are the changes I want:
I want to capture these ideas so they don't hang around and plague me asking for attention
I want to see them getting finished, preferably in ways that I find rewarding. (Hint: Money is always an option.)
I want to set limits, so I know when I've done "a day's work" and can stop without feeling I should do One More Thing.
Here are some methods I'm considering:
Continuing with GTD. Like cocaine, a good servant but a harsh master.
Devising and following a process.
Using kanban. I'll write more about this, but the gist is to have a limited number of projects in process concurrently, and have a signboard -- that's what 'kanban' actually means -- on which progress on those projects is visible.
Using the Pomodoro Technique, but again using it somewhat backwards from the usual, because I'll be using it to measure how much I've done and when to stop.
This is an accurate representation of Sarah's mind, and she's not even on drugs.
Hi, this is Sarah, and I don't know when to stop. Part of this, to be honest is that I don't have logical stopping points in my activities. When I was a translator, I knew when I was done (all the words in one language were in the other language.) When I taught, I had a set time, then set office hours to meet with students.
Being a writer is sort of ... intrinsic to me. I can't simply walk away and say "I'm done with being a writer now, I'll go watch a movie or play with the cats." As it was, there was some sense of delineation to it when all my writing was limited to "What you can publish" or "what a NY publishing house will think is a good idea for you to do." Well, to an extent. I fought very hard against agents' and editors trying to give my career some defined direction, because I get bored easily (though I refuse to call myself a butterfly or a humming bird, Charlie, really! At my weight!) and attempts to hem me into things like "literary fantasy" made me so depressed I got terminal block. (I second Charlie's recommendations for the books to get you out of the block, btw.) But even so there was a limit. I might send out proposals for everything from YA to hard SF, but let's face it, the publishers -- and often my agent -- rejected everything they thought went too far "off path."
Then came indie. Have I told you I love indie publishing? It allows me to write for the only company that didn't annoy me (Baen books) but not to be limited by what they'd be willing to accept. Which is great. it was like coming alive again. Unfortunately, this is what my thoughts/inspirations look like now:
And not all of it is just "I want to write more of x or y" -- though a lot of it is. For instance, I want to continue my musketeers' mysteries, I want to write more historical novels. I want to write odd fantasy. I want to try my hand at romance, I want to -- but a lot of it is stuff I have to do. For instance, last year I got back the rights to my traditionally published books with companies-other-than-Baen. This means I can put them up. And frankly, it means I should put them up, because it's some money in the bank for work already done. But while the writing is already done, I'm learning to do other things, like... editing, like, typesetting for both ebook and print (that second is still very backward), like making covers. All of these are suddenly part of my job, due to the tech changes. (Yes, I could pay for this stuff. Beyond the fact that indie pays very slowly, I TRIED to pay for this stuff, but the people I found weren't any better at it than I was. I mean, some of them -- particularly cover design -- were spectacular from an artistic point of view, but failed at "things even I know" such as signaling genre which are essential for selling books.)
Now, add on top of this all the other things I have to do -- beyond writing and publishing. I am still the household manager, chief cleaner and cook, and probably chief bottle washer as well. (The only bottles we have are Vinho Verde about once a week, and we just toss those, but in the metaphorical sense, I mean.) I also do about half the handyman stuff around here. (My husband does anything involving water or electricity, and we call experts for the really tough stuff, but most of the time we do it.) I also follow industry blogs, and I have this ... uh... politics thing that forces me to read three or four different sources of news everyday.
Then there is my art, which at this point is so neglected I'm not sure it's any good anymore. I'd like to take classes/practice more (it's another source of income) but... And my sewing (look, I like sewing!) falls in around the edges, five minutes here, ten minutes there.
Sarah would like to explore this new world where sometimes we can do something just because...
So what ends up happening is that I roll out of my bed at six am to do my blog, and roll into bed sometime at ten or eleven, after I finish writing something else, and in between never take a breath. It's a red letter day if I actually take two hours off to watch a movie with my husband. (Double red letter because it means he got to take time off too, from his projects.)
Like Charlie I tried Getting Things Done, and it works by focusing my time so I don't get to the end of the day having done ten thousand pieces of a hundred different projects. I get more done, and finish things but...
But I still work fourteen to sixteen hour days and after a few days of this get sick and lose weeks, which I can't afford to do.
I agree with all of Charlie's "Changes I want" but I also need to do something else. Because a lot of the things that take my time and attention must be done, I need to figure out how to shift them, delegate them, or learn to do them faster. Part of this is going to involve:
Organize house so cleaning and maintenance is easier
Batch cook once a week, so all we have to do is warm dinner
Get friends to help with blog and other "non essential Sarah" duties (this is already under way.)
What I'm considering:
I've got a planner, to keep track of goals, which I'll do by the week -- and try not to guilt myself into finishing them all.
I'll continue using the Pomodoro technique, but maybe use the "breaks" to do something fun.
I'm going to try to block out two hours in the evening to just read or sew or do something other than writing (this is going to be tough and take some time. Because I always have stuff to do.)
I would like to take an art course (what has stopped it in the past is that the spring semester extends to con-season and the fall semester starts during con-season, and I'm usually missing too many classes. But since I'm not taking it for credit, that might be okay.
Take at least a day every other week and leave it unscheduled (I don't know if I can force myself to do this.
Try to plan things in the future instead of doing them all at once.
Wish us luck. I suspect we're going to need it. (Oh and Charlie, my friend, trying to save the sanity of either of us is like locking the barn door after the horse has left.) |
Image copyright EPA
David Bowie has reached number one in the American album charts for the first time with Blackstar, released two days before his death on 10 January.
It sold the equivalent of 181,000 albums knocking Adele's 25 off the top spot.
His highest-charting US album previously had been The Next Day, which peaked at number two in 2013.
Nineteen of his albums entered the UK album charts last week, after fans sought out his classic hits.
Blackstar is the first posthumous number one album in the US since Michael Jackson's This Is It soundtrack topped the chart in November 2009.
Nine other Bowie albums also made the Billboard 200 this week with the Best of Bowie reaching number four and The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars at number 21.
Bowie: Every tour and studio album
His life in pictures
Image copyright AFP / Getty Images
His first hit on the US singles chart was in 1972 with Changes. The record did not initially find major success, only reaching number 66 that year.
However the song returned to the chart in 1974, following Bowie's subsequent breakthrough on the American music scene with Space Oddity - his first top 40 hit which peaked at number 15.
His biggest selling single in the US was Let's Dance, which reached the top of chart in 1983. He also achieved seven top 10 albums.
Tributes and memorials
The iconic singer died earlier this month following an 18-month battle with cancer.
Fans around the world have been paying homage to the 69-year-old at tribute concerts and memorial sites linked to musician.
Hundreds of fans in London packed out Islington's Grade I-listed Union Chapel on Sunday, while fellow music icon Bruce Springsteen covered Bowie's hit Rebel Rebel during the opening night of his new US tour.
In Belgium, astronomers have paid tribute to Bowie by dedicating a constellation to the self-proclaimed Starman. The constellation is made up of seven stars that, when connected, form the iconic lightning bolt seen on the cover of Bowie's Aladdin Sane album.
David Bowie's touring history, 1972-2004
Sources: Google maps; tour dates from Wikipedia
Watch a special tribute programme David Bowie: Sound and Vision on the BBC iPlayer |
The build took copious amounts of foam, paint, and additional odds and ends, but after four weeks of extensive labor and craftsmanship, a Reaper model was born. Best we can tell, no colonies were harvested during its construction.
Meet Daniel and Justina of Denmark, creators of this awesome Reaper. Together, they are Roses and Boltshells, a prop-and-costume-building duo performing all manner of miracles in their home workshop. Their creations, showcased in their [online portfolio], are fueled by a mutual love of video games, movies, and art.
Can you tell us about yourself and what you do?
Daniel: My name is Daniel and I primarily work as a welfare and education assistant. In this role, I often get to work with roleplaying and arts and crafts. In my spare time, I like to think of myself as a prop builder, though sometimes I would even classify myself as a freelance artist. My passion is to create and build costumes and props from video games, movies, and known franchises. I often visit expos and conventions in our country with my fiancée Justina, with whom I share Roses and Boltshells, our creative outlet and possible future hobby business.
Justina: My name is Justina, and I am interested in all sorts of geeky things, but mostly video games, sci-fi literature, and cosplay/costuming, which I have been into for five years and counting. I am also an eager convention-goer, whenever I can afford it.
We are a couple, who met each other precisely through these lovely hobbies and then decided to create a page where both of us could share our artistic expression.
How many are you and how often do you work together? Is it a hobby or a business?
Daniel: RnB consists of Justina and I. We live together and use much of our spare time creating new things. While it is primarily a hobby, it can often feel like a full-time job. In the future, it would be nice if we could make a profit off some of our work.
Justina: We almost always work together, even when we are busy with different projects. I have learned a lot from Daniel. He has been into the whole costuming thing for longer than I have. What we do is a hobby; it is done for our own enjoyment. As delightful as it might be to think that Roses and Boltshells would one day be producing props for movies or games, I think only a very select few ever get that privilege.
Recently you finished your Mass Effect Reaper project. What started the whole thing?
Daniel: For a long period of time, Justina insisted that I play the Mass Effect games. I had never played any of the games before, but after some Renegade persuasion, I finally played the first game. Naturally, I had to complete the whole trilogy and play many hours of multiplayer afterwards, not to mention study up on the universe, read the comics, books, etc. It didn’t take long for me to fall in love with many great aspects of the universe. As I’ve always been a sucker for merchandise, it’s only natural that I went searching for a mini Reaper! Sadly, the only thing I found was both too pricey and too small. So I thought to myself: why not just build one? Four weeks later, I had a model that, size-wise, fit most popular tabletop war games.
Justina: I am a longtime fan of Mass Effect. Problem was, Daniel didn’t find the game attractive! It took a fair bit of convincing and some multiplayer, but he came around. On an occasional visit to a geek store, he suddenly came up to me with The Art of Mass Effect Universe book. He particularly admired the Reaper design, and he wanted a nice, small, creative project. That’s how the Reaper Destroyer model project was born.
How long did it take to plan, build, and assemble the Reaper?
Daniel: I started by researching the drawings and artwork as shown in the book The Art of the Mass Effect Universe. It’s a fantastic book with plenty of inspiration for model constructors, prop builders, and costume creators. After that, I made a few, rough sketches in order to segment the various parts of the model. The research and planning probably took a few days, while the building itself took close to four weeks.
Justina: …and some painting still was literally done the night before its debut. But that’s what happens with artistic projects on deadline. You’re always sitting up late the night before.
Can you go into detail about how the Reaper was built and what materials you used?
Daniel: When I work with costumes and props, I usually work with various kinds of foam. There was no need to change that with the Reaper. I went and bought a few supplies from our local crafts stores. I used EVA foam, cold foam, and thin yet dense craft foam. I also used a few bits and pieces I had laying around, such as paint canisters, tubing, mesh, etc. I started with the head shield, as it’s a very iconic part, and I usually need something iconic to keep my motivation going. After that, it was the more laborious task of getting the body right, with inner structures made from cold foam, outer shell made from EVA, and all the details made in craft foam. The legs are still in need of some love, but as with many costumes and props, usage means wear and tear, which in turn means further repairs. Overall, construction, paint, electronics, and effects took roughly four weeks.
Will you be adding a Normandy to keep your Reaper company?
Daniel: It would be a very nice challenge at some point, but there are already several near-perfect Normandy scale-models out there with both lights and interior detailing. It would be hard to try and outshine such awesome work, but as always, we’re up for the challenge. Though if it needs to fit scale-wise with the Reaper, I’m not quite sure our workshop (a.k.a. our living room) is big enough!
What are your favorite characters from BioWare games and why?
Daniel: Renegade Shepard from the Mass Effect trilogy, because despite his simple methods and brutish cruelty, he often symbolizes what the oppressed, weak, and frail wish they could do. He’s a powerhouse and the ultimate badass, which is also represented by Mark Meer’s wonderful voice acting. I was also a keen fan of MDK2 back in the day. That whole trio of characters just made me smile.
Justina: Though I am planning to soon investigate Dragon Age, Mass Effect is so far the only BioWare game I have played. My favorite single player team is usually Liara and Garrus. My favorite multiplayer race is Turians—Sentinels and Infiltrators in particular.
My favorite characters in Mass Effect are Garrus and Tali, with Thane being a close third. Out of all the girls, Tali is my favorite because I can relate to her a lot. I also love the quarian suit design, which was one of the reasons Tali was my cosplay choice.
How does the future look for Roses and Boltshells? What projects do you plan to begin or finish in 2014?
Daniel: We’re currently planning Mass Effect costumes and props. We’re also making sure to plan ahead for expos and cons. If we’re lucky with local competitions, and only if, then we could win a chance to go to London MCM Expo. It never hurts to dream big 😉
Justina: I will certainly complete my Tali costume in 2014. I want to make this costume as accurate and neat as possible. I would also love to visit a few conventions as I really miss the cheerful con surroundings and meeting new, likeminded people.
If any of our fans would like to talk about cosplay, props, or any of the other fascinating things you’ve worked with, where might they reach you?
Daniel: You can always find us online! Sadly we don’t have a real location for a workshop that you can visit, but we try to inform our friends and followers about any and all events we’re participating in. If you do spot us at a convention, never be afraid to come up and say hi. We love to meet new people and chances are we’ll talk long about some common interest. We usually visit anime expos, as those are the most frequent in Denmark. But we have plans for other events too, including the Scandinavian Sci-fi, Game & Film Convention. We’re also always open to suggestions and invitations, as long as they’re somewhat realistically priced or sponsored.
Justina: What Daniel said. Please, if you see Roses and Boltshells somewhere: don’t be shy, come say hi! I know personally that costumers sometimes seem unapproachable, but we are a crazy fun bunch and we love likeminded people and our followers.
This interview has been translated from Danish. Special thanks to the BioWare Nordics community team, Tomas Hartvig and Lion Martinez.
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1. The Karate Kid Game – Developed by Atlus, published by LJN, enjoyed by few, 1987’s The Karate Kid NES game was a staple in most game collections. It was an obvious move, to create a game based on the mega-popular Karate Kid and moderately popular Karate Kid II movies, but the execution was a little lazy.
The game loosely follows the events of Karate Kid I and II, starting during the match at the end of the first film and taking you on Daniel-san’s journey to Japan, through a typhoon and on to a final showdown with Chozen.
It’s mostly a side-scrolling beat-em-up,with the difficulty dialed wau up. There are a few ‘karate master’ interludes where you do typical sideshow karate tricks like break ice blocks.
Once you’ve defeated Chozen and save the day, you get what may be the lamest NES ending out there – and that’s saying alot. Maybe it’s the lamest because we’ve all come to expect more out of Mr. Miyagi, but it really punctuates how little Atlus and LJN cared about soiling the Karate Kid‘s (then) good name.
The mystical ending music and the Miyagi wink soften the blow a bit, but not much.
2. Adventures in Toyland – This 1983 JC Penney toy catalog is pretty fabulous for its feaux-comic-slash-coloring-book-style. That’s a lot of dashes, so you know I feel a specific way about it! Plaid Stallion has the full set – here are a couple of my favorites:
3. Nintendo Power Commercials – I’ve been on a Nintendo Power kick lately, and for good reason: pretty much everything about this magazine worked for the era and market in which it existed. To illustrate that point, here are a couple of commercials for Nintendo Power that are oh-so-nineties.
I’m impressed that they were able to secure 1-800-123-4567!Here’s a wonderful video of the Sun Ra Arkestra performing Shadow World in Berlin. There’s something that gets me about this video in particular: the enthusiastic crowd gathered to hear this in such a formal setting, the casual way the band takes the stage and falls into the song, the lo-fi recording, and (most of all) Ra’s solid riffing which stays intact as the stage gets crazier and crazier.
5. Archie Ad – We’ll finish off with a classic ad for Archie comics.
THERE MUST BE A REASON
-ds |
An intense debate between millennial media members and the cast and producers of a new CBS comedy series, The Great Indoors, occurred during the Television Critics Association press tour in Beverly Hills.
The Great Indoors is about an “adventure reporter [who] must adapt to the times when he becomes the boss to a group of millennials in the digital department of a famous outdoor magazine.”
Actor Joel McHale and CBS executive producer Mike Gibbons were previewing the new CBS series to reporters, and tensions ran high after Gibbons told a story about a CBS focus group.
Gibbons explained that a millennial focus group member, viewing the show’s pilot episode, was turned off by the portrayal of millennials as needing to be treated with kid gloves because of their thin skin.
Gibbons said the woman running the focus group responded to the criticism by saying, “So, you were offended by millennials being portrayed as too sensitive?”
Then, according to Deadline, a “Millennial Media Member” interrupted the focus group and grilled the panel of actors and creators, asking why the majority of the jokes maligned millennials.
“I’m a millennial myself. How are we so coddled, and what about our overly politically correct workplace bothers you?” the young reporter purportedly said.
Then, Stephen Fry, who plays the charismatic founder of The Great Outdoors magazine, said there is “an element of coddling” and “an element in which you have it tougher than the generation before.”
“Yeah, no sh*t,” the Millennial Media Member reportedly said in response to Fry.
The Millennial Media Member apparently wanted an answer from Gibbons, not Fry.
“A great example is how you interrupted my answer,” Gibbons fired back.
Promotional footage for The Great Indoors was released in May:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIGqzXhqsqc
Gibbons informed the Millennial Media Member that when the focus group finished watching the show’s first episode, the millennial group member said he would watch the second episode.
“That’s because it’s about them,” Gibbons told the upset Millennial Media Member. “Millennials are very smart, and we have that in the show in spades, and they have a voice and that’s great. They will come back if it’s about them.”
Another older reporter asked Gibbons if he was “worried” that the show would be viewed as a “middle-aged white guy complaining about his lot in life and having to deal with millennials.”
“Our show is going to make America great again,” Gibbons responded.
“So you are the Trump show?” the reporter asked. “I’m just seeking clarification.”
“Irony comes through in print, right?” Gibbons joked.
“Do you want millennials to watch your show?” another Millennial reporter asked. “Cause you come out here and, ‘Ha, ha, ha, millennials are so sensitive and PC.'”
The show’s co-star Joel McHale chimed in and said if the show offends millennials, then it’s “the best strategy ever.”
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @jeromeehudson. |
Image copyright Highwaystarz-Photography Image caption The aim is to add an hour of extracurricular activity to the school day
Chancellor George Osborne has used his Budget speech to say all schools in England will become academies and extend the school day.
Schools must become academies by 2020 or have official plans to do so by 2022, he told MPs.
The proceeds of a sugar tax on fizzy drinks will boost sport in primary schools, while secondaries will get funds for after-school activities.
There will also be a new focus on school performance in northern England.
Mr Osborne said a review, carried out by Professor Adrian Smith, would consider whether maths should be compulsory until the age of 18.
And an extra £500m would be made available to ensure a "fair funding formula" for schools - aimed at addressing imbalances in the system - is up and running by the end of the Parliament.
Mr Osborne said: "Providing schooling is the single most important thing we can do to help children from a disadvantaged background to succeed."
It was also the single most important thing that could be done to boost the long term success of the country, he added.
Therefore, he pledged to "set schools free" from local bureaucracy, so by 2020 all schools must have converted or be in the process of converting to academy status.
Academy status
Any that failed to do so would be forced under radical new powers to be adopted by the government.
Academy status, introduced by a Labour government, was originally reserved for schools in urgent need of improvement, but since 2010 schools have been encouraged to convert and have been given extra funding for doing so.
Currently, 2,075 out of 3,381 secondary schools are academies, while 2,440 of 16,766 primary schools have academy status.
Chair of the Education Committee Neil Carmichael said: "Some academies are delivering great results for their pupils, but in progressing to a fully academised system we must ensure all schools are properly held to account for their performance.
"Multi-academy trusts currently receive little scrutiny and in our inquiry we are determined to examine their performance, accountability, and governance. The government will face significant challenges in implementing these proposals."
Malcolm Trobe, interim general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: "Whatever the type of school, two of the essential ingredients for success are sufficient funding and teacher supply.
"Unfortunately, schools currently face real-terms cuts and a recruitment crisis. The government must ensure its vision for full academisation is backed up by the resources that schools and young people need."
Mr Trobe also said there were a number of issues around the idea of a longer school day that made it "complicated".
"Lots of schools do a lot of high-quality after-hours activity, including revision classes sometimes in the school holidays," he said.
"It's going to be quite complex to define the difference between those activities that schools are already laying on for pupils and any additional activities which come out of the Chancellor's Budget statement.
"We also believe it's highly divisive to have these funded activities available in 25% of schools - potentially youngsters in some schools would be in an advantageous position over others."
Image caption Heads say schools already offer more than standard academic lessons
Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said the focus should be on school to school collaboration.
"The shift to universal academisation will probably not produce the benefits that the Chancellor hopes for and the price paid for the change will be high. We do not yet have a positive vision for the future of smaller schools in the absence of local authority support."
The National Children's Bureau said there was evidence that local authorities were often as effective as academy chains in providing high quality education.
"There are also serious concerns that removing local authorities from the planning of education across an area could further disadvantage children who are already vulnerable because they have special educational needs, mental health problems or are at risk of missing education," it said.
But Mr Osborne said Wednesday's Budget would "put the next generation first", with a "bold plan to make sure that every child gets the best start in life".
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Mr Osborne says he wants to "help the next generation"
Shadow Education Secretary Lucy Powell said: "There is nothing more important to our global competitiveness than mathematics which will drive success in digital skills, automation and other important jobs of the future.
"Labour called for English and maths to 18 at the last election precisely because we want to ensure young people have the skills they need to succeed."
Mark Lever, chief executive of the National Autistic Society, said: "The government must explain how its plan to make all schools in England become academies will affect children with special educational needs, including autism.
"Local councils will continue to be responsible for making sure the most vulnerable children in their area get the education they deserve but they'll have to do this without having any control over local schools."
Chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group Alison Garnham said: "This Budget puts the next generation last and set to be the poorest generation for decades.
"The Chancellor ignored both the 3.7m children in poverty now and the fact that according to Institute for Fiscal Studies projections we face the biggest increase in child poverty in a generation."
The announcements relate only to England.
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - where education is a devolved matter - each have their own systems. |
Gwent Closed Beta Impressions: Superior to Hearthstone
SHOGUN Blocked Unblock Follow Following Nov 16, 2016
One of the highlights of The Witcher 3 for me was the completely optional, PvE card minigame Gwent. I would spend hours travelling around, searching for AI opponents to challenge and building up my card collection, which turned out to be so addictive it nearly took up more time than the main story quests.
As someone who was looking for their next Gwent fix, I was overjoyed to hear that CDProjekt was working on a standalone version of Gwent. While I had my reservations about whether Gwent could hold up as a PvP online CCG, having played the closed beta I am pleased to report that Gwent: The Witcher Card Game is everything I could have hoped for and then some, even in its current unfinished state.
After a few matches, I could tell the game had moved forward in leaps and bounds from the original version. Each faction has been given a ton of depth in the form of cards with distinctive effects, that encourage various play styles even within a single faction. This is further underlined by the choice of three leaders per faction that can be unlocked, each with unique abilities that combine well with different cards.
The developers have done a fine job balancing cards and mechanics that were once overpowered in The Witcher 3, largely by restricting the effectiveness of high quality cards. Spies now have some downside to their drawing abilities, and there is a limit on how many silver and gold cards you can have in a deck — so no more spamming decoys and spies for an easy win. Since they are silver, powerful special cards like Commander’s Horn and Scorch are limited to one copy per deck, meaning players have to make the most of the bronze cards which make up the majority of their decks.
Gwent has retained the compelling dynamics at its core, requiring a healthy dose of strategy and shrewdness from the player for them to excel. Unlike in Hearthstone, the power does not only lie in the strength of the individual cards that comprise a deck but the player who holds them, in their ability to outwit and manipulate their opponent with said cards. There is far less reliance on RNG than in Hearthstone, so even if you get a bad draw or mulligan, you can still steal victory through smart play. Rounds in Gwent — which take a ‘best of three’ format — are structured so that any one card can be played at any time on your turn, with each player alternating turns. The key here is maximising the value of your cards with combos, so that you can rack up the higher score at the end of the round.
This is where the mind games come into play, and I’m not talking about the Hearthstone card. Gwent is at its most intense when it becomes a battle of wits, each player feeling out the other, trying to anticipate their moves and baiting them into playing cards inefficiently. It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence to find myself playing Chicken with my opponent, waiting to see who would blink first and pass the round (meaning they can’t play any more cards), only to find that I - or my opponent — had overextended and left themselves wide open in the following rounds.
Knowing when to pass (thus ending your involvement in the round) is an art in itself. Do I pass now and preserve the slightest card advantage (having more cards in your hand than the opponent), or push on and try to take this round? Do I surrender the battle, in the hope of winning the war? These are the questions players will constantly have to ask themselves, while considering the many factors that can decide the fate of a match. That is why a player’s foresight is so crucial in this game.
This may sound like an uphill struggle for newcomers to get to grips with, and in truth it is. While there is a tutorial that provides a broad introduction, from there players are left at the mercy of a perfunctory matchmaking system that can pit you against seasoned veterans. Newbies are done no favours by the F2P model Gwent has adopted, either: this is understandable for a CCG but it leaves beginners and their starter decks at a severe disadvantage. As such, the first few hours of Gwent can be an extremely frustrating experience as players suffer loss after loss, meaning they earn less rewards and take longer to craft a competitive deck.
An easy solution I can think of is that for the first few levels, players are only matched with other beginners, and they could earn double rewards for each win. It wouldn’t hurt if there were more strong cards available from the start either, and a higher chance of getting rare cards from kegs (booster packs) wouldn’t go amiss.
If and when these issues are dealt with, and after some needed balance tweaks (Northern Realms and Monsters are the strongest factions and see much more play than Scoia’tael and Skellige), there will be nothing preventing players from enjoying Gwent’s chess-like strategy and poker-like deception. I have been hooked on the closed beta since I got my code and expect it to get better and better with further development. |
The Most Pointless Cryptocurrency Tokens Ever Invented
Just as Satoshi’s vision wasn’t 1,000 bitcoin forks, the vision of ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin wasn’t to decentralize the parenting industry. This year, an avalanche of ridiculous ERC20 tokens have been issued that take vaporware to the next level. From bananas on the blockchain to smart contract-based tombstones, these are the most pointless cryptocurrency tokens ever issued.
Also read: The World’s Worst Named Cryptocurrencies
Yo Dawg I Heard You Like Tokens
ICO Alert is a goldmine of ridiculous token-based projects, and by “goldmine” read “excruciating well of despair”. There aren’t enough facepalms to include all of the inane and insane tokenized offerings to be found on its pages. To save you from plummeting down that rabbit hole never to return, we’ve done the dirty work for you and rounded up a small selection from Token Hell.
Speaking of dirty work, the first entry on our list is Dirty Coin, a “fast and discreet way to pleasure”. Its white paper (oh yes, it has a white paper) begins, without a trace of irony:
In an atmosphere of increasing belief in quick profits, currencies that rely on gimmicks for their success are then abandoned. Dirty Coin will be the first cryptocurrency used for the Adult Industry, the Escort Industry and for means of pleasure.
As an antidote to all that filth, have Prayer Token, “sent to god and stored on the blockchain”. It’s an ERC23 token that’s backed by real prayer. “I don’t know if prayer works, but if it does, then you’re getting much more value out of a Prayer Token than almost every other token in existence,” its creator implores. “This is not a joke, scam, or grift. I will pray for you as honestly and sincerely as possible. Most other tokens on the market just want your money – I want to save your soul!”
Tokenize All The Things
Imigize is the “first online 3D shoe fitting service in the world”, a claim which comes as a complete surprise. In comparison, Useless Ethereum Token looks positively useful. It’s “a standard ERC20 token, so you can hold it and transfer it. Other than that… nothing. Absolutely nothing.” That didn’t stop UET from raising $40,000 in its ICO.
Operating under the slogan “Someone’s Garbage is Someone’s Treasure!” comes Trash Cash. It’s “the ultimate cryptocurrency to exchange all the garbage dumped in your wallet into a single token which can be traded in exchanges…now you can keep all the trash in one place”.
Then we have Sand Coin, a token for ordering high quality sand. Funds will be used to develop a sand quarry near Moscow. There’s also Milk Coin, another Russian token designed to raise funds for a milk production complex. Dentacoin is the world’s first blockchain project for the dentistry industry, Kevin (KVT) is “an innovative online banking service” and Cooocoin (count those o’s) is so bad it unironically uses comic sans on its website.
Maxitube is a robotized transport system for goods delivery. Apparently an “electric locomotive” will deliver goods to your address. Dopameme is a dank decentralized website where you’re rewarded for posting memes and The Memessenger is “the world’s first no-bullshit messenger with memes instead of words”. Sometimes there really are no words.
Choking On Tokens and Drowning in Decentralization
Satoshi Brewery is issuing a token to set up the largest regional craft brewery in north-west Russia and Florio is “the first blockchain based health platform that actually enables everybody to live healthy”, although how is never made clear. Exotown, meanwhile, is a reptile breeding program that specializes in selective breeding of pet reptiles and saving endangered species. Proof that the ICO game really is full of snakes.
Rexpax lets you “lend, borrow and share items with your neighbors”, but at the last check had sold just 220,000 of its 190 million Rexx tokens. More like Rekt, amirite? Without a blockchain-based lending service, how’s anyone meant to borrow a cup of sugar from their neighbor now?
Family Points is a token designed “to disrupt the parenting industry in order to make it safer, more convenient, and more transparent for everyone involved. The Family Points platform will make parenting cheaper.”
“Disrupt the parenting industry”?
Finally, we have Tombcare:
Today different applications have appeared for many spheres of life…taxi, food ordering, hotels booking, housing rent, etc. But the sphere of ceremonial services is still left in the basket. Perhaps this is due to the fact that it is often associated with sad circumstances, but the fact is that it is the billions of dollars market and its Uberisation is inevitable.
Uber for tombstones? That sound you just heard was your ancestors turning in their graves.
Most of the aforementioned ICOs are still running, incidentally, so if you hate money, you should probably invest in them.
And that’s enough internet for today.
What’s the worst token-based project you’ve heard of? Let us know in the comments section below.
Images courtesy of Shutterstock.
Need to know the price of bitcoin? Check this chart. |
Miami offensive coordinator Bill Lazor seems to be finding his way as a first-time coordinator, but is he losing some of his players in the process?
According to NFL Media's Jeff Darlington, who spoke to several Dolphins players, Lazor's "abrasive" tenor with several starters has worn thin and has led to a growing rift in the locker room. Meanwhile, "An inconsistent identity on offense is internally magnifying the issue."
The frustration is understandable. Mike Wallace is being underutilized, and Ryan Tannehill isn't given any freedom to audible at the line. Some weeks, the team is able to air it out and put up almost 40 points, and some weeks they revert to a run-first philosophy that, on four different occasions, has seen the Dolphins come in under 200 passing yards in a game.
For now, the unhappiness seems to be self-contained. The Dolphins are 5-4 and despite the inconsistency, they know they possess the ability to blow out some quality teams.
Can they hone it for a five-week stretch where they face three divisional opponents in a month long span that will define their season? Or will they hear some of the same complaints with plenty of quality defenses -- Buffalo (whom the Dolphins face Thursday, exclusively on NFL Network), Denver, New England, Baltimore -- coming down the pike?
It could very well come to personify Lazor's first year in Miami.
The latest Around The NFL Podcast discusses Dez Bryant's contract situation and eliminates more teams from playoff contention during "Stick a Fork in 'Em." Find more Around The NFL content on NFL NOW. |
After a second straight blowout loss to Oklahoma last October, a large number of Texas fans seemed to turn on Mack Brown in a way never seen in his previous 15 years in Austin. Brown appeared to be on his way to winning some of those fans back after reeling off four straight victories following that 63–21 loss to OU. But then came a loss at home to TCU on Thanksgiving followed by a 42–24 defeat at Kansas State.
A come-from-behind victory over Oregon State in the Alamo Bowl gave Texas a hint of momentum going into 2013. But the big picture is not pretty: Texas is 22–16 overall in the past three seasons, including an unfathomable 11–15 in the Big 12.
Texas football is broken. Here are five ways to fix the Longhorns.
HOLDâMACKâBROWNâACCOUNTABLE
This appears to be a make-or-break year for Mack Brown at Texas in the eyes of most Texas fans. The faithful won’t tolerate another four- or five-loss season or another blowout loss to Oklahoma.
Not when Texas A&M is writing storybooks in College Station as a member of the SEC. Not when Will Muschamp, former defensive coordinator at Texas, is going 11–1 in the regular season and playing in a BCS bowl in Year 2 at Florida.
Texas has the most returning starters (18) and the most experienced quarterback (David Ash) of any team in the Big 12. Yet few are picking Texas to win the 2013 race, instead going with the likes of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State or TCU.
Brown vowed two years ago that Texas would play for a national title in either 2013 or 2014. Texas has a talented junior class, and Brown is counting on this group to lead the Longhorns to big things this season. But last year’s defense was the worst in school history statistically and just lost NFL Draft picks Kenny Vaccaro (safety) and Alex Okafor (end).
Ash got off to a great start last year but then was benched in the blowout loss to OU and again against Kansas, TCU and Kansas State. Quarterback is not a position of strength at Texas.
The schedule is also tricky in 2013, with non-conference games at BYU and at home against a much-improved Ole Miss team.
With DeLoss Dodds’ contract as athletic director expiring in August 2014, this could be the last season in which Brown would have Dodds’ undying support. A new athletic director could mean big changes, especially for the football coach.
DEVELOP TOPâRECRUITSâINTOâTOPâDRAFTâPICKS
Texas hasn’t had a single offensive lineman drafted since 2008. That’s five years and counting since tackle Tony Hills was selected by Pittsburgh in the fourth round. Texas also didn’t have a single offensive player taken in the 2011 or 2012 NFL Drafts.
Brown believes that current offensive line coach Stacy Searels is recruiting and developing the next wave of NFL talent. But it’s hard to look at the current starters and see any difference-makers who will be playing on Sundays at this point.
Texas has recruited plenty of 4- and 5-star prospects on the offensive line in recent years. But they have failed to be developed into pro-level players, and Texas has constantly struggled to run between the tackles. Considering that some of the best offensive linemen in college football are from Texas — including Luke Joeckel and Jake Matthews, both of whom went to Texas A&M — the Longhorns have to do better.
Texas signed 20 players in the 2009 class. Only five ended up contributing — six if you count Garrett Gilbert, who transferred to SMU after the 2011 season. This speaks to both Texas’ poor job evaluating prospects and its poor job developing them.
MODERNIZEâPLAYER EVALUATION
When Mack Brown announced the hiring of new player personnel director Patrick Suddes, a former football operations assistant at Alabama, Texas finally added a position to its staff that Stanford’s Jim Harbaugh added in 2007 and Nick Saban added in 2009.
The hope is that Suddes can bring some of the savvy from Saban’s well-oiled football office that numbers 40 people and more closely resembles an NFL front office. Texas expects to end up with about 15 people in its new personnel department, including a handful of new quality control coaches.
All of this is aimed at tightening up some of the player evaluation mistakes of the past. In 2007, there were camps in which quarterbacks Andrew Luck, Landry Jones and Garrett Gilbert were competing head to head. Coaches from Alabama and Michigan walked away clearly giving the edge to Andrew Luck.
But Texas wasn’t in attendance. The Longhorns had already made up their mind to go with Gilbert, the local product who had won 30 straight games and two state titles at nearby Lake Travis. Luck, of Houston Stratford, attended a junior day at Texas. Not only did Luck not get a scholarship offer, but the Texas coaches basically ignored the future No. 1 overall NFL pick. There is no rule that states you can’t recruit more than one quarterback in the same class.
And it’s well documented that Texas didn’t believe Robert Griffin III or Johnny Manziel (above) — the past two Heisman Trophy winners — could play quarterback for the Longhorns.
Mack Brown knows all too well the importance of the right quarterback. He won his only two conference titles in 28 years as a head coach with quarterbacks named Vince Young and Colt McCoy.
OUT-RECRUIT THEâIN-STATE RIVALS
When Brown took over at Texas, Texas A&M was two years into a 15-year period of mediocrity under R.C. Slocum, Dennis Franchione and Mike Sherman. Texas won most of the head-to-head recruiting battles between the two schools and dominated the series on the field.
Now, A&M is in the SEC and fresh off a 10–2 season that featured the first freshman, Manziel, to win the Heisman Trophy. The Aggies’ coach, Kevin Sumlin, has been dominant on the recruiting trail. Two players in the Class of 2013 who had been committed to Texas ended up signing with A&M, including highly regarded receiver Ricky Seals-Jones.
Brown didn’t have to worry about Baylor and TCU in recruiting or on the field during most of his time at Texas. That has changed. Baylor’s Art Briles and TCU’s Gary Patterson have elevated the profiles of their respective programs and have claimed victories both on the field and in recruiting.
Brown has always seen himself as the pied piper of the Texas high school coaches, always showering them with praise in hopes they’ll help encourage recruits to pick the Longhorns. But Briles, a former Texas high school coach, has equally strong ties at the high school level. And Patterson has won big with Texas talent.
Brown used to watch the fish jump into the boat. Not anymore. He has been out on the road recruiting more than ever, and it will take that kind of effort for Texas to re-establish itself as the top destination in the Lone Star State.
LIVE A CHAMPIONSHIP MENTALITY
The championship drive of a team has to be established from the top down. And an increasing number of Texas fans are doubting that Brown has what it takes to compete with the likes of Saban at Alabama and Urban Meyer at Ohio State any longer.
Brown was either confused or deliberately trying to deceive when he made it sound like the player personnel director position that Texas created in early 2013 was the result of new recruiting rules.
That position has been around for five years. Texas just this year got around to creating it. And based on Texas’ high number of misses in recruiting recently, it’s a position Brown could have benefited from if it was filled in 2007, when Harbaugh did the same at Stanford.
The NCAA also doesn’t currently have a limit on the number of quality control coaches you can hire. Saban has at least nine. Brown had three in 2012.
And while Brown has always been credited with having a great family atmosphere that is attractive to recruits, no one uses words like “physical” to describe the Longhorns. That has to start at the top and be an everyday way of life.
While coaches such as Saban, Meyer and Muschamp are notorious for breathing fire during practices to get players on edge, Brown is often standing at practice with the boosters he courts very carefully while leaving the coaching to his assistants.
And the question has to be asked: Does Brown still have enough competitive fire to compete on the field and on the recruiting trail with the likes of Bob Stoops? The Longhorns’ Red River rivals have won three in a row against the Horns, the last two by an average of 40 points — with OU teams that weren’t close to the best Stoops has had. That’s alarming.
Written by Chip Brown for Athlon Sports. This article appeared in Athlon Sports' 2013 Big 12 Preview Edition. Visit our online store to order your copy to get more in-depth analysis on the 2013 Big 12 season.
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College Football's All-Freshman Team for 2013 |
Jason Meads has spent the last 11 years in jail for Whittington's murder.
PROMINENT members of the gay community are outraged at the parole of a man who kicked a schoolboy to death in an apparent gay hate-crime, despite authorities assessing him as "posing a high risk of reoffending".
Jason Morris Meads, 36, was freed from prison on March 7 – 11 years after being jailed for life for the 1999 murder of 14-year-old Jeff Whittington.
The crime was so shocking, a play – Corner of 4am and Cuba – was written about it.
Victim Jeff Whittington.
Jeff was found lying battered in a puddle at 4.40am in central Wellington on May 8, 1999. Shoe or boot marks could be seen on his skin. He had sustained severe brain damage and a ruptured bowel. He died in hospital the next day.
Meads, then 25, and Stephen James Smith, 27, both unemployed, were found guilty of Jeff's murder. The pair had met Jeff – who had dyed purple hair, wore purple nail polish and had pierced ears – at about 4am on an inner-city street.
A witness at the Wellington High Court trial said the pair had later boasted they had beaten a "faggot" and left him for dead.
"They said they had never seen anyone bleed from the places he bled from. They were laughing about it," the witness told the court.
The court heard Jeff had a diary which outlined homosexual encounters.
American-born playwright Ronald Nelson, who wrote Corner of 4am and Cuba, was outraged by Meads' release.
"He [Jeff] was a 14-year-old kid ... to kick a kid and let him lie in his own guts and sh*t in a puddle, in an alley, in Wellington, New Zealand, is pretty horrific," said Nelson, a high-profile member of the capital's gay community.
"If he [Meads] is a danger of reoffending, why did they let him out?"
The Parole Board decided to free Meads after a hearing on February 18.
A written report of the hearing, obtained by Sunday News earlier this week, said Meads was regarded "as posing a high risk of reoffending". It said that status was "unlikely to change while in custody".
But the board was "satisfied" that "with the very strong support that he has in the community both from family members and friends, his clear view of the future, his commitment to change and mature outlook, that risk can be appropriately managed in the community".
In September 2007, Meads pleaded guilty to defrauding the IRD of $17,000 while in prison. He was given a two years and two months' sentence, to be served concurrently with his life term. His latest Parole Board hearing was also told he had breached work conditions by returning to his cell with chewing gum and batteries.
He was charged with misconduct in January after a cellphone was found in a locker he shared with three other inmates.
At a disciplinary hearing, Meads admitted to having texted from the cellphone and pleaded guilty to using it. But he denied the phone was his.
Green MP Kevin Hague, who is gay, also hit out at Meads' release.
"Jeff Whittington deserved better," he said. "Meads' crime was a brutal hate-murder that sickened the nation.
"During his time in prison he has committed both major [tax fraud] and minor breaches of rules, including in the very recent past during work release, so it's hard to see how the Parole Board can possibly have any confidence that this will stop now that he has been released."
Both Meads and Smith unsuccessfully appealed against their murder convictions.
The Parole Board's last report said Meads' murder conviction "followed a versatile and increasingly serious offending which started when he was 16".
It said he had taken "positive steps" while in prison to address the causes of his offending. He had "matured during the course of his incarceration", he was a "good worker" and he was aware alcohol abuse had played a part in his offending.
"[Meads] is determined not to consume alcohol in the forseeable future ... he is also resolved to abstain from illicit drugs," the report said.
Sunday News was unable to contact Jeff's family for comment. |
Image copyright PA Image caption The family were reported to be away skiing when the break-in happened
Burglars are believed to have broken into the Surrey mansion owned by former England captain John Terry while he was on a family skiing holiday.
Surrey Police confirmed a property in Oxshott was burgled last weekend.
John Terry is reported to live in a seven-bedroom property in a half-acre country estate in the county.
A spokesman for Surrey Police said: "We can confirm that a burglary took place at a property in Moles Hill, Oxshott, overnight 25/26 February."
Thieves are said to have forced their way into the house and escaped with valuables while the 36-year-old Chelsea player was away with relatives, including his wife Toni, according to reports in the Sun. |
This is an overview of how to use Makeblock's Arduino-based boards, sensors, and Scratch-based graphical programming environment. This article features miniature projects on how to measure distance ultrasonically and how to build an XY plotter.
Getting Started with Makeblock ME Orion
To follow along with this tutorial, you'll need to purchase a Makeblock Me Orion (based on an Arduino Uno) or the Me Uno Shield which will plug into the headers of an Arduino Uno board that you supply. Additionally, you will need compatible sensors and a way to program the boards. Makeblock ME is unique among Arduino clones and accessories due to its easy-to-use plug and RJ25 jack connection system.
Makeblock also makes MegaPi, a shield for the Raspberry Pi that allows users to control four stepper motors to create their own 4-axis CNC machinery. Take a look at some of the creations made with the MegaPi here.
The Makeblock Orion (left) and the Me UNO Shield. Image courtesy of Makeblock.
Both the Makeblock Orion board and the Makeblock Orion Shield are populated with RJ25 jacks. The colors of the stickers on top of each jack indicate which electronics modules can be connected to the board at that location. An electronic module with a yellow sticker can connect to the board at a port with a yellow sticker (for example, port 4 on both boards) and a motor module with a red sticker can connect to the board at a port with a red sticker (for example, port 2 on both boards).
The hardware's intuitive connection system, combined with a custom Scratch programming environment, makes it a wonderful system to introduce children and novices to the fields of robotics and computer science.
Item Price Information Makeblock Orion $30 User Guide Electronic Modules Varied
Software Installations
The Makeblock Orion can be programmed through iOS apps, mBlock, or the Arduino IDE (with or without the customized ArduBlock Scratch add-in). For this example, intended to minimize download size, install Arduino IDE 1.0.6, Arduino Drivers if necessary, and ArduBlock.
Scratch is a visual programming language that allows inexperienced programmers to create functional programs out of building blocks that are combined with snap action. ArduBlock is a Scratch-based GUI that functions as an extension of the Arduino IDE; it is not a separate program.
Each block in ArduBlock creates an Arduino compatible code-snippet. Once the program in Scratch is complete, the Arduino IDE is populated with those code snippets to form a complete Arduino program that is equivalent to the diagram created in ArduBlock.
Creating a working program begins by connecting electronic modules with the Makeblock Orion via RJ25 jacks and cables. Then programs are created using ArduBlock and uploaded to the Makeblock Orion.
Getting Started with mBlock
Image courtesy of Makeblock.
Example Project — Ultrasonic Distance Measurement in 5 Minutes
Part Required Cost More Information Makeblock Orion $30 Datasheet Me 7-Segment Display $8 Datasheet Ultrasonic Distance Monitor $20 Datasheet
Here's how you can use a Makeblock Orion and an ultrasonic distance monitor to measure distance with ultrasonic sound waves.
Begin by connecting the Me 7-Segment Display to port 4 and the Ultrasonic Sensor to port 3. Then follow these steps:
Open Arduino 1.0.6
Open ArduBlock in Arduino 1.0.6 by clicking "Tools" >> "ArduBlock"
In ArduBlock At the bottom, click "Check Update" On the left, click "Control" Click and drag "Program" into the main workspace On the left, click "Makeblock" Click and drag "7-Segment Display" next to "Loop" of "Program" Click and drag the default number "123.4" created by the "7-Segment Display" to the far left to delete it Click and drag "Ultrasonic Sensor" to the right of "7-Segment Display" and connect it to the "Number" portion On the left, click "Control" Click and drag "delay MILLIS milliseconds" below 7-Segment Display Click the "Port_#" drop-down for "7-Segment Display" and change it to "Port 3" Click the "Port #" drop-down for "Ultrasonic Sensor" and change it to "Port 4" Click the number to the right of "delay MILLIS milliseconds" and change it to 250 At the top, click "Upload to Arduino"
In Arduino At the top, click the right arrow or "File" >> "Upload" to send the code to the Arduino
Ultrasonic distance measurement with display using a Makeblock Orion ME, a 7-segment display module, and an ultrasonic module.
Example Project — Create an XY Platform
In addition to the ArduBlock add-in for the Arduino IDE, Makeblock has created proprietary software (available on GitHub) that allows you to create your own XY drawbot, laser engraver, or egg bot (i.e., a spherical object plotter).
Makeblock sells an XY Plotter that provides everything you need in one kit. However, the XY plotter is a bit spendier and a bit smaller than I'd like.
My plan was to make my own out of rack and pinion or ball screw drive using linear bearings (see example 1 here and example 2 here). However, months of waiting for overseas shipments along with receiving damaged parts from eBay sellers has delayed the project long enough. So I decided to create an XY gantry out of MakerBeam parts I had stumbled upon at a local scrap-metal yard.
I combined these parts with a few laser-cut pieces that I've provided plans for in the files below (in .cdr and .dxf format).
However, I do not recommend that you re-create the XY gantry on the scale that I have for various reasons: the cost of MakerBeam parts and hardware if purchased new, the deflection of the horizontal 1-cm extruded aluminum channel, and the backlash and slop inherent in the design (which admittedly could be solved with better mechanical design).
Custom parts used with MakerBeam hardware.
Connection diagram from inside the mDrawBot program.
A pen lifter created with a servo, two ball-end linkages, and two pairs of round bearings arranged to create a linear roller guide.
Makeblock XY Plotter
Conclusion
Makeblock offers additional functionality through Arduino and iOS apps that was not explored here. The wide assortment of sensors, interfaces, and hardware makes Makeblock a good option for novice builders in particular, but it can also help projects be quick and successful for experienced builders, as well.
Image collage of sensors and modules, courtesy of Makeblock. |
Not much that’s laudatory, apparently. Cruz is the love that chokes on its own words.
It’s a surprise-every-second love. On Friday, Cruz made public reference to — and furiously denied — a National Enquirer story that accused him of affairs.
It’s also a love that makes no promises of its endurance. In fact, many of the Republicans in a faux swoon for the far-right loon don’t really want to see him fly all the way to the White House — or, for that matter, to the nomination.
There’s a tangle of mind-sets at work and strategies in play. They all involve thwarting Trump, but with different outcomes in the end. Bear with me. This requires a bit of explanation.
Few of the Cruz converts actually think he can amass a majority of delegates and win the nomination before the convention. For that to happen, their endorsements of Cruz would have to scare off John Kasich and turn the contest into a two-man race, and Kasich doesn’t seem to be scaring.
The real goal is to buck up Cruz to a point where he prevents Trump from getting that majority and either passes him in the delegate count or draws close. Abracadabra: a contested convention.
Some of the new Cruz devotees indeed hope that he would be the beneficiary of that and the ultimate victor. They expect Cruz to lose the presidency. But then they also expect Trump to lose it — and to lose it in an uglier, more divisive fashion that drags down Republicans running for the House and Senate too. This lose-with-Cruz faction figures that a reset of the party after a Cruz defeat would be possible, whereas Trump might not leave them with much of party to reset.
Others who have crawled into bed with Cruz are also after a contested convention, but would use it to crawl out of that bed and into the arms of some Republican Romeo waiting in the wings. Maybe Paul Ryan, though he’s playing Hamlet: to be drafted or not to be drafted? Maybe Mitt Romney, who seems readier to commit. |
In recent years, the Philippines has emerged as one of the fastest growing economies in the world, impressively rivalling the dizzying growth rates of fellow Asian countries such as China. Under the stewardship of the Aquino administration, the Philippines has presided over an unprecedented period of macro-economic buoyancy and political stability, which has, in turn, revived domestic and international business confidence in the Southeast Asian nation.
For the first time in its history, the Philippines managed to garner an "investment grade" status from the world's leading credit rating agencies in 2013. And most recently, the Standard & Poor's Ratings Services upgraded the country's credit rating to a notch above investment grade. In theory, this should allow the Philippines to attract greater foreign investment and gain affordable access to international capital for domestic development projects. The Philippines has significantly improved its rankings in all major economic competitiveness and opening indices.
In a country known for its chaotic political scene and hyper-critical media landscape, President Benigno Aquino III has astonishingly maintained high approval-ratings among the citizens, who have come to credit him for the Philippines' newfound confidence and dynamism in recent years. The Philippines hosted (21-23 May) the prestigious World Economic Forum on East Asia, which brought together leading policy-makers, businessmen, and journalists from across the world.
The event served as a platform for Filipino leaders to highlight their country's resilience amid continued economic stagnation in the West and declining growth rates among leading emerging markets such as Brazil, Russia, Turkey, and India. The Aquino administration triumphantly showcased its recent achievements - ranging from the country's huge foreign currency reserves and declining debt, to moderate inflation and interest rates, which underpin the recent economic boom - to attract greater Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into the Philippines.
A more careful look at the Philippines' economic profile, however, suggests a less impressive picture, whereby few major conglomerates and influential families have been swallowing much of the recently-created wealth, while poverty and underemployment figures have hardly improved. As for the Philippines government, there is also a significant absence of effective regulation, which explains, among other things, why the country has an underdeveloped infrastructure and one of the most expensive utility rates in the world - the two leading impediments to FDI.
The auspicious convergence
Conventionally, the Aquino administration's "good governance" initiatives are credited for sparking the Philippines' recent economic revival. Unlike any of his predecessors in recent memory, President Aquino has painstakingly campaigned for an end to the Philippines' age-old problem of corruption, which eroded public confidence in state institutions and undermined the country's public services.
Intent on eradicating corruption, the Aquino administration opted for the risky decision to take on one of the most powerful elements in the country, including leading senators in the Philippine legislature. So far, however, the government is yet to convict any major political figure on charges of corruption and abuse of public trust. And the ongoing investigations - increasingly scattered and unfocused - have snowballed into corruption-related allegations against Aquino's leading allies. In short, the government is grappling with a political quagmire.
There are other ways to explain the Philippines' recent economic boom. As far back as the mid-2000s, the Arroyo administration (2001-2010) undertooka series of macroeconomic reforms to stabilise state finances, moderate interest rates, and tame inflation. The reforms were partly a result of increasing pressure from external actors, particularly Washington, which were worried about the Philippines' fragile economic conditions. Given the Arroyo administration's lack of political legitimacy, which inspired growing protests by opposition forces and ordinary citizens, Washington feared the prospect of a political meltdown in the Philippines - a key Western ally in the (then) intensifying global "war on terror".
The 2007-08 recession, however, undermined the Philippines' ability to sustain above-average growth rates. Thanks to the steady influx of hard-earned remittances by millions of Filipino workers abroad and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) investments, the Philippines was able to withstand external economic shocks better than most of its neighbours. And this created a virtuous cycle of robust domestic consumption, which allowed for the sustained expansion of the services sector. The Aquino administration's sincere and relatively steady leadership progressively enhanced business confidence in the country.
Then, an upsurge of Quantitative Easing (QE) in the West encouraged a massive inflow of foreign capital into emerging markets such as the Philippines, which offered increasingly attractive prospects amid the slowdown among leading developing countries such as India, Brazil, and Russia. In short, the Philippines' economic boom was a product of a synergistic dynamic among varying domestic and external factors.
The development deficit
The problem, however, is that the Philippines' economic boom is far from inclusive. The newfound wealth in the country is hardly trickling down to those, who need it the most. This is by no means unique to the Philippines, since most emerging markets have been suffering from a similar dynamic.
In the last decade, poverty and underemployment rates have remained inelastic. The Aquino administration has tried to address this issue by reviewing labour market conditions as well as expanding Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) schemes, which provide financial support to indigent communities in exchange for regular schooling and better health monitoring for their children.
But the reason behind the Philippines' inability to create inclusive growth is largely structural. The common mistake among many (agricultural) developing countries is the (erroneous) belief that they can create sustainable development without going through a period of robust industrialisation and genuine land reform.
Asia's leading industrialised countries - namely Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, which were previously known as "tiger economies" - were able to sustain decades of breakneck economic growth, precisely because they had pro-active industrial policies, which provided large-scale, well-paying jobs to the majority of the population in the booming manufacturing sectors. Effective land reform schemes, meanwhile, created a dynamic agricultural sector, which ensured more egalitarian income distribution and provided support mechanisms for urban centres. The product was a huge domestic middle class, which served as the foundation of successful industrialised democracies.
In the case of the Philippines, low- and medium-end services dominate the economy, benefiting speculative and/or consumption-driven real estate and retail conglomerates. Meanwhile, the manufacturing and agricultural sectors have suffered from lack of effective land reform and absence of any discernible industrial policy.
The product is one of the Asia's most unequal societies, where about 40 families control up to 76 percent of the national economy. Weak regulatory agencies coupled with the aggressive privatisationof strategic sectors such as electricity have created prohibitive utility costs, which has discouraged greenfield investments from major multinational companies. Corruption scandals and legal-regulatory uncertainty, meanwhile, have undermined the Aquino administration's efforts to finalise even a single big-ticket infrastructure project to this date.
Overall, what is increasingly clear is that the Philippines has managed to become a rapidly-growing economy. But to achieve sustainable development, it will need a political administration, which is focused on effective governance and the enhancement of the regulatory capacities and developmental policies of the state, especially with respect to manufacturing and land reform.
Richard Javad Heydarian is a specialist on Asian geopolitical/economic affairs and author of "How Capitalism Failed the Arab World: The Economic Roots and Precarious Future of the Middle East Uprisings". |
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Most major manufacturers say their wearables are “unisex.” What they really mean is “made for men.”
Take the LG G Watch R or the Moto 360 for instance. Put either on a man’s wrist and you’ll say, “Wow, what an attractive smartwatch!” Place it on a woman’s wrist though, and presto: It’s ugly as homemade sin. Companies need to stop pretending that wearables built by men, for men, can also work for women. They can’t.
Women are the ideal customer base for wearables.
These projects, typically led by women, focus their attention exclusively on smart jewelry and attractive wearables that are specifically made for women. Ringly, Cuff, Plumora, MEMI, Mota Smartring, Ear-o-Smart, and many other projects like them all got their start on crowd-funding sites, and most of them focus on making smart devices that disguise themselves as pieces of attractive jewelry. More often than not, these projects exceed their funding goals and receive tons of attention from the media.
Why, you may ask? Well, it’s simple. Women want attractive wearables. Sure, ladies aren’t typically early adopters of high-tech devices, but they most certainly are the first in line for cute, functional accessories and often wear several pieces of jewelry and watches every day. We are the ideal customer base for wearables.
Apple is going after women more than it’s going after men.
Manufacturers need to make attractive, useful wearables with women in mind, and offer variety. A one-size-fits-all mentality doesn’t work — especially for women. If you’re going to make a smart necklace, bracelet, or ring, you better make it in gold AND silver, with both shiny and matte finishes. If you’re going to add a gem, offer different colors and a variety of stones.
So far, no company has grasped this concept better than Apple. Although the Apple Watch isn’t available yet, Cupertino has made it clear that it is targeting the fashion-forward crowd. The Apple Watch has graced the cover of Vogue and made the rounds at Paris Fashion Week. If anything, Apple is going after women more than it’s going after men. The company has yet to grant a tech publication an interview, but Jony Ive and other Apple executives are happy to talk to Vogue and Marie Claire about design.
But more important, Apple is offering the Watch in multiple sizes. The smaller size will look sleeker on women’s smaller wrists, and the watch casing comes in real gold and other color options too. Better still, Apple has an entire selection of colorful, premium bands, all with different clasps. The Watch may be square, but it has a lot more style than most other smartwatches. In the end, you can personalize the Apple Watch to suit your style. This alone will make it more appealing to women.
If Apple’s first wearable becomes a hit with both men and women, it will have achieved something no other smartwatch has managed yet: mainstream popularity. To hit the mainstream, you need women. Apple’s rivals are starting to take notice. Samsung introduced the Gear S smartwatch at IFA 2014, which is essentially a bangle with a screen on it. Once the company popped Swarovski crystals on it, the Gear S was positively feminine. Yes, it’s flashy, absurdly big, and bulky, but feminine at least.
Intel has gone the same route with MICA. The large bangle is made of snakeskin and precious gems, but it has a touchscreen nestled on the back where only the wearer can see it. However, that’s the only thing about MICA that’s discrete. The device has shiny gold accents and looks much larger than something most women would wear – especially in a boardroom. Nonetheless, it’s a step in the right direction.
Fitbit also partnered with Tory Burch to create high-end jewelry cases for its fitness-tracking sensor, and Rebecca Minkoff created her own line of smart jewelry for women.
It’s a good start, but more big-name companies need to get in the game. Samsung, LG, Motorola, Apple, and Intel have the money to run ad campaigns in fashion magazines, on TV, and elsewhere to let women know that beautiful wearables are out there. Many of these companies also have the advantage of brick-and-mortar storefronts where they can put their bangles and bracelets on display.
If the Apple Watch manages to convince both men and women that wearables are cool, and gorgeous Kickstarter projects keep pushing the bar higher, the doors are wide open for a wearable tech boom in 2015.
I look forward to the day when I can strap a smartwatch on my wrist, say, “It’s really nice. I’d totally wear it” — and actually mean it.
The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not reflect the beliefs of Digital Trends. |
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Amputees may one day regain actual feeling thanks to Darpa and researchers at Case Western University who have created what we thought was once only possible in science fiction. As a part of DARPA's Reliable Neural-Interface Technology (RE-NET) program, CWRU's flat interface nerve electrode (FINE) system has demonstrated that it can provide enough sensation to each individual finger to give amputees the ability to feel their way around, just like Luke Skywalker.
DARPA's RE-NET program studies the longevity and viability of brain interfaces and their accompanying peripherals. What Case Western's FINE system does is provide direct sensory feedback by intertwining itself with what nerves are left intact. So instead of relying on visual feedback to make a prosthetic work or do what the amputee wants, FINE allows them to feel and touch their way around.
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Alternatively, researchers at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago have built and demonstrated a different type of interface that's visually driven. Called targeted muscle re-innervation (TMR), the nerves from amputated limbs are rewired to work with existing muscles, like the below video.
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If this sounds familiar to you, you're not alone. This is basically what happened when Luke lost his hand at the end of Episode V and was fitted with a bionic hand. Amazing! DARPA says it will continue to evaluate the existing programs under RE-NET through 2016. Let's hope they find a long-term solution before then. [Darpa] |
Got A Superbug? Bring In The Robots
Drug-resistant bacteria are a growing problem at hospitals across the country. The bacteria, such as Staphylococcus and Clostridium difficile, are difficult to prevent and impossible to treat.
Enlarge this image toggle caption Rebecca Hersher/NPR Rebecca Hersher/NPR
"The problem is expanding, and it's going up and up and up," explains Dr. Trish Perl of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. "We're running out of antibiotics to treat, and so the challenge is can we prevent?"
At Johns Hopkins, doctors have turned to a new technology to prevent the so-called superbugs: robots. The machines spray toxic doses of hydrogen peroxide into sealed hospital rooms, killing any bacteria.
Germ-killing Robots
Before the robots can be switched on, the rooms are made ready by a technician. Michael Duclos showed host Laura Sullivan, host of weekends on All Things Considered, how he prepares a room by closing off air vents and opening up drawers.
"We want to get the hydrogen peroxide on all the surfaces," he said.
The last step in the process is to tape the door to the room shut to keep the toxic hydrogen peroxide mist from getting out. For 30 minutes, the robots spray a colorless, odorless vapor. If a person walked in, he wouldn't be able to breath or open his eyes.
Saving Lives
When the robots are done infecting, the room looks the same, but is clean and safe for patients. Since Johns Hopkins started using the machines, it has seen the number of untreatable infections fall by a stunning 64 percent.
Doctors there say they hope other hospitals will follow suit. |
10. Notre Dame 29, PIttsburgh 26 (3OT) (November 3). No, a national title contender shouldn't have struggled this much with Pittsburgh, even if the Panthers were much better in November than September. Yes, Notre Dame suffered a bit of a hangover the week after winning at Oklahoma. Yes, there was a little bit of luck involved along the way. And yes, this game was incredible regardless.
9. MAC Championship: Northern Illinois 44, Kent State 37 (2OT) (November 30). Toledo's win over Eastern Michigan was the most MACtion-worthy game of the season. But with the unlikeliest of BCS bowl bids on the line, the game between 11-1 Kent State and 11-1 Northern Illinois had the most drama. Kent State raced to a 10-0 lead, but NIU went on a 27-3 run to take complete control of the game. Having completely stalled out, however, the KSU offense responded. Quarterback Spencer Keith found star running back Dri Archer for a 60-yard pass, and a five-yard Keith run completed a shocking, 96-yard touchdown drive to get the Golden Flashes to within seven points...
...and 15 seconds later, the game was tied when Zack Hitchens took a fumble 22 yards for a score. But we were just getting started. NIU needed only 90 seconds to score and take a 34-27 lead, but Kent State responded again. Keith found Matthew Hurdle for 11 yards on third-and-10, Chris Humphrey for seven yards on third-and-3 and, with 44 seconds left, Tim Erjeavec for a 19-yard touchdown on third-and-7. In overtime, Kent State nearly lost a fumble on its opening possession following an ill-advised trick play from the NIU 7, both teams exchanged field goals, and the game finally ended when, down a touchdown, Keith threw an interception to Demetrius Stone on fourth-and-8 in the second OT. A day later, NIU found out it was going to the Orange Bowl.
8. Stanford 17, Oregon 14 (OT) (November 17). November likes to clean up messes. We entered the regular season's final month with four undefeated, name-brand teams fighting for two spots in the BCS title game. Alabama went down to Texas A&M (we'll get to that one), leaving just three undefeateds. And then November 17 happened. Not only did Kansas State get whipped by Baylor, but Oregon also fell. The Ducks came into their game versus Stanford averaging 563 yards and 55 points per game, but the Cardinal defense played its best game of the season, holding the Ducks to 14 points, limiting star back Kenjon Barner to 66 yards on 21 carries, and somehow overcoming a serious turnovers disadvantage to claim victory in Eugene.
Oregon turned the ball over on downs at the Stanford 7 in the first quarter and missed a 42-yard field goal in the third, and with just over 90 seconds remaining, redshirt freshman Kevin Hogan, in just his second start, found Zach Ertz for a 10-yard score to tie the game at 14-14. In overtime, Oregon kicker Alejandro Maldonado, who in 2011 missed a field goal that eventually prevented Oregon from a spot in the national title game, did it again; he hit the crossbar with a 41-yard field goal attempt. However, Jordan Williamson, the Stanford kicker whose misses cost the Cardinal dearly in the 2012 Fiesta Bowl against Oklahoma State, found redemption. His 37-yard field goal gave Stanford an unlikely win and eventually pushed the Cardinal into the Rose Bowl.
Steve Dykes, Getty Images
7. Alabama 21, LSU 17 (November 3). No, the LSU defense did not go into a prevent defense at the end. Yes, Alabama quarterback A.J. McCarron came up with some amazing, late-game heroics (after being dramatically outplayed by LSU's Zach Mettenberger) anyway. But the drama was only beginning for Alabama on its way to the 2012 national title.
6. North Carolina 43, N.C. State 35 (October 27). Through the first 59:45, this game was already a best-of-the-year candidate. North Carolina had already erupted for 25 points in the first quarter to take a 25-7 lead. N.C. State had already charged back to take a 35-25 lead behind a series of highlight-reel passes from Mike Glennon, who threw touchdown passes of 32, 30, 20, 83 and 55 yards. North Carolina had already responded with 10 fourth-quarter points to tie the game at 35-35, including a 34-yard Casey Barth field goal with 1:24 remaining. Glennon had already thrown for 467 yards. North Carolina's Giovani Bernard had already rushed 23 times for 135 yards and two scores and caught eight passes for 95 yards. But with N.C. State forced to punt with under 30 seconds left before inevitable overtime, Bernard also did this.
The only thing better than the return is the series of reaction shots afterward. And the fact that UNC accidentally got a two-point conversion after the touchdown as well.
5. West Virginia 70, Baylor 63 (September 29). Honestly, WVU-TCU was more dramatic and probably more interesting. But this game ranks above all other Big 12 shootouts in 2012 for the sheer statistical obscenity. Nineteen touchdowns, 10 scores that either gave one team the lead or tied the game, 700 yards for the losing team, 807 yards for the winner. WVU's Geno Smith seized complete (and brief) control of the Heisman race by completing 45 of 51 passes (a cool 88 percent completion rate) for 656 yards and eight scores. WVU's Tavon Austin caught 14 passes for 215 yards and two scores and was the third-best receiver in the game behind WVU's Stedman Bailey (13 for 303 and five touchdowns and Baylor's Terrance Williams (17 for 314 and two). The teams passed for 41 combined first downs, then rushed for another 22. Baylor converted 11 of 16 third downs, and WVU converted 12 of 15.
Et cetera. Make no mistake: These teams had bad, bad defenses for most of the season. But these offensive accomplishments would have been impressive versus a high school team. This was more an endurance test than a display of balanced, high-quality football. It was also one of the most memorable, enjoyable-for-what-it-was games of 2012.
4. New Mexico Bowl: Arizona 49, Nevada 48 (December 15). WVU-Baylor does not, however, win Shootout Of The Year. Instead, that goes to a game that took place in front of 24,000 people in Albuquerque. The statistics of this one were impressive (and absurd) enough -- Nevada gained 659 yards, Arizona gained 578, there were 60 first downs and 17 trips inside the 40-yard line, Nevada's Cody Fajardo passed for 256 yards and rushed for 140, star backs Stefphon Jefferson (Nevada) and Ka'Deem Carey (Arizona) combined for 352 rushing yards and five scores, and Arizona's Austin Hill caught eight of 11 passes for 175 yards and two scores.
But this game beats BU-WVU because of the ending.
Nevada had built an early 21-0 lead but relinquished it quickly, and the Wolf Pack led just 31-28 at halftime. They reopened a hefty lead, however, going up 45-28 late in the third quarter. When UNR's Allen Hardison kicked a 25-yard field goal with 1:48 left, that was the ball game. Nevada led, 48-35, and Arizona would have to score twice to win. No way. But Matt Scott completed passes of 14, 15 and nine yards, Nevada committed two pass interference penalties, and Hill scored on a two-yard strike to cut Nevada's lead to 48-42 with 46 seconds left. And then Arizona recovered the onside kick. And then Scott completed passes of 28 and 21 yards to the Nevada 2. When Scott completed another two-yard scoring pass to Tyler Slavin, it finished up the most improbable, and enjoyable, comeback of the bowl season, and probably of the season as a whole.
3. Outback Bowl: South Carolina 33, Michigan 28 (January 1). The hit is still reverberating.
But the fact that the hit meant something to the game itself, that it came amid four lead changes in the game's final 15:02, and that this happened eight minutes later...
...makes this one of the best games you'll ever see.
2. Texas A&M 29, Alabama 24 (November 10). I'm not sure if Alabama slipped a bit in 2012, or if the SEC caught up to the Crimson Tide, or if the law of averages just asserted itself and decided Bama had been winning too many games, too easily. But whatever it was, Alabama played in three of the season's seven best games in a single month's span this fall. They went 2-1 in such games, and it allowed them to win the national title. But after they dropped this one, they needed help from Kansas State and Oregon to get back into position to even qualify for the title game.
This one had everything. It saw Johnny Football turn into Johnny Heisman (Johnny Manziel completed 24 of 31 passes for 253 yards and two scores and rushed for 107 non-sack yards against possibly the best defense he had faced all season). It saw Alabama overcome one large deficit (20-0 after 14 minutes) and almost overcome another. It saw too many momentum shifts to count, and it saw Texas A&M simply outexecute and outplay Bama in the final minutes. Bama's comeback felt inevitable, especially as they drove for the winning score with under two minutes remaining. But DeShazor Everett and the Aggies had other ideas.
Watch the full game here.
1. SEC Championship: Alabama 32, Georgia 28 (December 1). The game was already guaranteed a spot in the top three or four of this list before the final minute. Bama's Eddie Lacy and T.J. Yeldon had rushed for 334 yards and three touchdowns, Georgia had already put up an incredible fight, and Alabama's Amari Cooper had already scored what felt like the SEC title clinching 45-yard touchdown with 3:15 remaining. But Georgia got the ball with 1:08 left, and we witnessed one of the most dramatic minutes in college football's history.
And for the record, I still think it was the right call to run up and attempt another play instead of spiking the ball as expected. Georgia had gained 64 yards in three snaps, and Alabama's head was spinning. It didn't work, but that doesn't mean it was wrong. And it adds to the mystique of this already-amazing game.
Watch the full game here.
2012 was really fun, you guys.
Look through SB Nation's many excellent college football blogs to find your team's community.
Follow @SBNationCFB |
MADISON -- Governor Scott Walker recently approved an emergency rule submitted by the Department of Workforce Development which requires some receiving unemployment benefits to submit to drug tests.
“This new rule brings us one step closer to moving Wisconsinites from government dependence to true independence,” Governor Walker said. “We frequently hear from employers that they have good paying jobs, but they need their workers to be drug-free. This rule is a common-sense reform which strengthens our workforce by helping people find and keep a family supporting job.”
Under the new rule, if someone is on unemployment insurance and fails a drug test, or refuses to take one from an employer who's offering it as part of an offer of employment, he or she can now be denied benefits.
Those who fail the tests must sign up for substance abuse treatment and a job skills test to remain eligible for the benefits. The rule is expected to take effect later this week.
Similar rules that would allow drug testing for food stamps have been enacted in several states and proposed in the U.S. House , but have not been implemented in Wisconsin. |
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC's political editor Laura Kuenssberg asked the two leaders what they thought of each other during the press conference
Theresa May has said the UK will not begin official negotiations on leaving the EU this year as she held talks with Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Speaking in Berlin, the PM said securing a "sensible and orderly departure" from the EU would take time.
But she insisted the UK would not "walk away" from Europe and wanted to retain the "closest economic links".
Mrs Merkel said the two sides desired to get the "best result for Britain" but urged more clarity on timing.
Earlier, a military guard of honour greeted Mrs May, who succeeded David Cameron a week ago.
At a joint press conference, Mrs May said the UK was in no rush to trigger the two-year process of leaving the EU - telling reporters that although "this would not please everyone" it was right to hold off until the UK's "objectives were clear".
'Special friend'
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The British and German leaders are pressed for details about migration levels and the timescale for Brexit in Berlin
The process of preparing the UK for Brexit would require "serious and detailed work" but, irrespective of this, she said the UK was determined to maintain strong trading, economic and security links with Germany, which she described as "a vital partner and special friend".
"Of course, the nature of our relationship is going to change as the UK leaves the EU, but we both want to maintain the closest possible economic relationship between our countries and I believe that is what German and British businesses want too," she said.
"So it's good that we start from such a strong foundation and a position where both our countries believe in liberal markets and free trade and these should be the principles that guide us in the discussions ahead."
Asked how they had got on at their first meeting, Mrs May said they were two women who want to "get on with the job and deliver the best possible results for the people of the UK and Germany".
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Upon her arrival in Berlin, Mrs May was greeted by a guard of honour and a military band played God Save the Queen
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The two had a working dinner before Mrs May heads to France on Thursday
Mrs Merkel said she did not expect there to be any formal negotiations at this stage and it was "understandable" the UK needed a period of time to prepare.
But she said there was a need for a "certain timeline" with regard to Britain's exit and hoped the UK would begin to "define its principles" with regard to the process of activating Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, the official, legal mechanism for leaving.
"We have to listen to what Britain wants and find what the right answer is," she said. "Britain does not want an impasse, Germany does not want an impasse and the EU does not want an impasse".
Birthday gifts
The German chancellor said the two countries had "similar convictions and values" and she was determined to proceed in the "spirit of unity and friendship" that characterised Anglo-German relations.
BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg said it was hard to believe that it was the first time that the two women had properly met as they seemed immediately at ease in each other's company and determined to build a personal relationship based on mutual trust.
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Donald Tusk welcomed the UK's swift decision on the EC presidency, Number 10 said
But she said it was clear that Germany would hold the "balance of power" in the negotiations to come and although Mrs Merkel did want to make the UK's departure work, the UK's "leverage had really faded" following the decision to leave.
A Downing Street source said the government was "encouraged" by the tone of the talks and the subsequent working dinner in the German chancellery.
"There was a free flowing conversation in the bilateral talks and the dinner," the source said. "The two established a personal connection and relationship and the 'communication channels are now open'.
It has emerged that the UK prime minister presented two books on the British outdoors to her German counterpart as a birthday present, reflecting their shared interest in hiking.
The gifts for Mrs Merkel, who turned 62 on Sunday, were a new edition of Coast To Coast With Wainwright - a pictorial guide to illustrate Alfred Wainwright's walking route between northern England's west and east coasts - and a copy of Great Mountain Days In Snowdonia, which includes a guide to walks in the National Park.
Mrs Merkel often holidays in the South Tyrol region of northern Italy, while Mrs May is reported to enjoy hiking holidays in the Alps.
EU presidency
Mrs May is due to have talks with France's Francois Hollande on Thursday. Ahead of the visits - Mrs May's first overseas trips as prime minister - Downing Street announced the UK was to relinquish its upcoming six-month presidency of the Council of the EU.
The UK had been scheduled to take up the presidency of the Council of the EU - which rotates on a six-monthly basis between the 28 EU countries, giving each the opportunity to shape the agenda - in the second half of 2017.
But Mrs May has decided that Britain should skip its turn in the light of the Brexit vote in June's referendum.
Mrs May told European Council President Donald Tusk - in her first conversation with him as PM - it was "the right thing to do given we will be very busy with negotiations to leave the EU", a Downing Street spokesman said.
While the German and French leaders have said the UK's vote to leave must be respected, both are facing re-election next year and under domestic political pressure to drive a hard bargain.
They have suggested no special exceptions can be made for Britain in terms of continued access to the EU's single market if, as Mrs May has insisted, the UK seeks controls on freedom of movement rules.
The first time that Mrs May will face all 27 other EU leaders at the same time will be at October's European Council meeting. |
CLOSE The swastika, Hitler's symbol, spreads in the land where many died fighting to stop him
A giant Swastika-shaped foundation sits on a construction site in Hamburg, Germany, on Nov. 21, 2017. (Photo: Christian Charisius, AP)
Sometimes a routine construction job can turn into a rare discovery. Excavators in the German city of Hamburg thought they were digging to just make way to build changes for a local sports club, when they suddenly hit a huge concrete swastika buried below the ground.
The swastika, which measures 13-by-13 feet, was buried nearly 16 inches beneath the Hein-Kling sports field in Hamburg's Billstedt district.
According to members of the Billstedt-Horn sports club, the structure once served as the foundation for a Nazi-era monument that once stood at the site of the sports field. The monument had been torn down and destroyed decades ago, they added.
Hamburg's cultural heritage management was informed of the discovery and ordered the structure to be removed as soon as possible. However, because it is too heavy for the excavator to lift it out of the ground, officials will instead break it up with jackhammers and remove the smaller pieces.
This article originally appeared on DW.com. Its content is published separately from USA TODAY.
Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2AY9yT9 |
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I’m really excited that many people have told me that they want to commit to journaling for 40 days with us! I know God will bless the time we commit to being with Him.
We’ve decided to allow as much flexibility as possible. We encourage you to find a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed then:
Pray – Ask God to quiet your mind of any worries or tasks that have to be done. Ask Him to be with you and to speak with you. “Come into His presence” Scripture – God often talks through His scripture and He never talks contrary to it! You may want to follow a Bible plan or read the scripture for the coming Sunday. We have some recommendations below but this is entirely up to you. Meditate / Journal – You may find yourself stopping midway through your Bible reading because a phrase or image struck you. Write it down; why did it resonate with you? Is there something going on in your life or a desire of your heart that you want to share with God?
Resources:
Divine Hours – This is my favorite resource because almost every word is scripture with a few hymns mixed it. Compiled by Phyllis Tickle and it can be found on-line for free here: http://www.explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/hours.php
– This is my favorite resource because almost every word is scripture with a few hymns mixed it. Compiled by Phyllis Tickle and it can be found on-line for free here: http://www.explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/hours.php Daily Office Lectionary – From the ESV: http://www.esvbible.org/devotions/bcp/2012-11-11/
One final thing to remember, our goal isn’t to finish a book, or read a lot of scripture in these 40 days although we may do some of both. It is to hear God and to ‘chase after Him’. To become more in tune with His voice and respond to His prompting.
Another Example:
We hope to have a few people share a little of their journaling over these 40 days. As, I’ve been doing through Twitter and this blog, I thought I would share another good example. Pastor Ronnie in this blog shows that it doesn’t have to be complex. He simply writes a thought, a scripture, and a prayer. Take a look here: http://blog.sdrock.com/pastors/2012/06/11/listening-to-his-voice-a-journal-63-69/
Chasing After You
Someone shared this video with me recently and I think it is perfect for us, as we embark on ‘chasing after God’.
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Special Note for Community Bible Church members:
In Sunday’s Sermon, we saw from Psalm 55 some healthy ways of dealing with our negative emotions such as anger, fear, anxiety, sadness, depression. If you missed the sermon, you can watch it here: http://cbcnw.sermon.tv/
You can find scripture readings for each day of the week in the bulletin. Here are some questions for you to consider as you journal this week:
What stood out to you? Have you experienced any negative emotions lately? How did you deal with them? Did you pay attention to them? Can you pay attention to them now? What might God be trying to teach you about yourself or Him through them?
God Bless!
40 Day Journey Begins by Westchester Men’s Ministry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at https://nymensministry.com/2012/11/09/40-day-journey-begins/. |
A while back the blogosphere was ablaze with debates on the nature of the demons that are often called upon by magicians and sorcerers. These debates tended to revolve around the Goetia and the spirits within and included a variety of points of view. Some claimed that these spirits were flat-out evil and corrosive. Other claimed they were benign while still others argued that these spirits’ nature was actually going to be a direct result of how we dealt with them--approaching them in hostility would breed hostility, while respect would breed respect.I tend to agree with the latter approach; however, there was one rather nuanced point-of-view that was entirely neglected. This involves the very cultural origin of the spirits in question.What many occultists tend to forget is that the spirits of the Goetia and many of the spirits commonly called upon in today’s Western Magical Traditions have their source in two places: Graeco-Egyptian Magical traditions and the spirit traditions of the ancient Near East.The Graceo-Egyptian magical traditions provide the syncretic system by which these spirits are often contacted; so we find that such texts like the Greek Magical Papyri and the Corpus Hermetica became foundational to how later generations would approach spirits and where they fit in scheme of things. Evidence of this can be found in the combination of ceremonial and folk magic approaches found within Goetic works. Further evidence can be seen in the use of intermediaries to call the spirits to you and help grant you authority (Holy Guardian Angel, Anubis in Graeco-Egyptian rites, and Scirlin in GV).While the Graceo-Egyptian magical traditions show us the methods by which we approach spirit work and indeed forms the basis of a great deal of Western magic, it is the Near Eastern traditions that provide us with the spirits, entities, and their natures.To understand this let us examine the archetypal figure of the Western Mage, King Solomon himself. According to legend, King Solomon was the mighty and wise king of Israel and son of King David. In biblical accounts, the Lord favored him with wisdom while other accounts go on to say that he was granted a magical ring from the Archangel Michael that helped him tame “demons.” He then employed these entities to help build the Temple (cf. Testament of Solomon).Now the word used here is “demon” which comes from the Greek word “daimon” and translates to “spirit.” This word has no connotation of good or bad, but merely refers to a spiritual entity. To denote an evil spirit a “κακός” would have to be added to the word.Etymology aside, in order to understand the entities of Solomon we’d have to look at the context that they arise from. King Solomon is a Near Eastern king who ruled in Israel. Like the surrounding regions, early Israelite religion held a belief in a spirit-world inhabited by entities that were created by the Lord just like man was. In this worldview, these spirits were not generalized as “evil” or “good” but rather were seen as complex entities that interacted with the mortal realms. Each of these entities had a personality all their own and so you’d run across those that hung about your house, or those that wanted to do you harm. Depending on the spirit’s nature you’d either attempt to placate or ward off its influence, or you’d want to cultivate and include that spirit in your life. Magicians would approach these spirits by means of offerings, pacts, and alliances. As life itself dictates the magicians would cultivate an alliance with both chaotic entities and the more benign classes.This view of the spirits as being an integral aspect of Deity’s creation, was often overlooked by Medieval and Renaissance mages who took these Near Eastern entities and filtered them through a Christian dualistic paradigm where everything was either from God or the Devil. Hence you have the transformation of these entities into beings that are either “angelic,” or “demonic.”It is my belief that this transformation fails to take into consideration the history and origin of these entities while also giving us a rather fragmented and confused way of approaching them. Basically you have Near Eastern spirits being approached in a non-Near Eastern way. What results is a system that treats these entities as slaves and demons that are meant to be tamed and constrained. This approach is extremely limited and fails to take into consideration the very nature of the spirits involved.To better understand these spirits we need to return to their source, as hinted at by the legend of King Solomon. We need to look at how the magicians and peoples of the Near East view these entities. To do this, we turn to the people of Near East where such traditions are preserved in the folk magical traditions and the traditions of their magicians (North Africa, Arabia, Israel, the Levant, and Mesopotamia).In these regions we have a class of entities that inhabit a place in between the world of the divine and the world of mortals. To these people of the Mediterranean and the desert they are the djinn. A race of beings created by God (or gods) and who represent an invisible world of primal forces. Some of these beings are chaotic while others were rather docile and helpful. What is important is that they are not classed into good or evil, but rather viewed like humans as having the capacity for both. They can be tricksters, or they can be helpers.These djinn lived in a world that intermingled with ours with a tendency to be drawn into the human household where they lived as house spirits, or in places of power like the desert. The term “djinn” comes from the word, “ijtinaan” meaning “concealed from sight.”According to the Qur’an they were created from a pure flame that has no smoke. (Qur’an 55:15). This view is actually reflective of an older folk tradition that indicates that by being of pure flame and air, they are creatures of intensity, passion, and power. In other words they represent the primal powers of nature and psyche.These beings have the power to take on any shape they please (Hadith related by Abu Hurayrah), have knowledge of the arts (Qur’an 34: 12-13), and are associated with magic.So how do the people of the region treat these spirits? The answer is with respect. Djinn were believed to live in one’s house and so the people of North Africa often leave little offerings for the spirit of the home to have that spirit protect them. In Arabia if the djinn appeared as a serpent in one’s home it is asked to kindly leave, and never killed. The snake is captured and put outside. In early Israelite religion, talismans were placed up around the house to ensure that only benevolent spirits could enter the abode.Magicians on the other hand would make contracts with several spirits of a variety of natures that would be approached with respect, but confidence. It is for this very reason that there is a higher rate of magicians in these regions with palpable powers of thaumaturgy than here in the West. I know magicians who could write a persons name on a piece of paper, draw a pair of eyes, sprinkle some heated sand into the paper, fold it up and burn it in a spirit-pot and within the hour the target would be blind. I have seen magi who have dolls and statues inhabited by these spirits and these effigies actually become animated and walk and talk and these are but two examples of some of the effects this magicians can accomplish. All because these spirits were approached in a way that made them willing to help the magi. Even the most chaotic of djinn are approached with respect in the spirit of alliance. For it is believed that if one knows the proper etiquette that these djinn will turn their chaos from afflicting people randomly, or afflicting the life of the magician, to instead working with the magician to afflict his or her enemies.In other words, these entities aren’t treated as abhorrent monsters that would ruin one’s life, but rather necessary and important aspects of Creation. That isn’t to say that when an entity steps over a line, or becomes destructive that they aren’t dealt with sternly. Just as the magicians of the Near East learn how to create alliances with these spirits, so too are they as versed in exorcising them. After all, Iblis (Satan) is of the rank of djinn. This approach to spirits is also seen in the African magical practices which inform the ATRs, where both “hot” and “cool” spirits have their place and are accorded respect.But what is the point of all this? The point is to illustrate that in order to properly work with the entities cataloged by the grimoires, we need to understand their nature. These spirit are djinn. They have the capacity to be benevolent or chaotic. Both are treated with respect and both are approached by means of creating a symbiotic relationship. By offering the respect and acknowledgement that they are due, these entities are transformed from unwilling servants to powerful allies. What results from this symbiotic and mutually respectful relationship is that you have at your side an entity who’s hands are untied to work the wonders spoken about in the grimoires. But to do this, we need to approach them in a manner that is more copasetic with the spirits themselves.This approach is not new, it is merely neglected. Jason Miller , a highly respected sorcerer and teacher of the Strategic Sorcery class, mentions that after meditation, offerings are the second practice he values most--something he learned from his time studying another tradition known for its effectiveness and profound connection with the spirits, Tibetan spirituality. Jake Stratton-Kent also puts forth this approach in his edition of the Grimoire Verum where he highlights the nature of the pacts mentioned within and their implications to the relationship between magician and spirit--something that was influenced by the ATRs. Franz Bardon also alludes to working in more copasetic way in his Practice of Magical Evocation. In hoodoo and conjure this alliance system can be seen in the way graveyard spirits are paid for the work they do.In this case, I am not saying that we need to be informed by the Near Eastern Practices, or the ATRs, but rather we need to return these spirits to where they originated from and work with them in a fashion more align with the culture that gave birth to them. The reason that these other traditions seem to have such wonderful success is two-fold:. One is the respectful nature of the contract that they develop with these spirit, or in other words the workings of an alliance. And the second is that they keep to the roots and principles of their traditions without muddying the waters.In summation of this rather lengthy discourse, it is my contention that in order to properly work with the spirits of the grimoires and to truly tap into their potential power we must approach them from a position of authority, but with an offering of respect and develop a relationship where both spirit and magicians benefits. Ultimately, the proof of this approach lies with its results, something that can readily be seen when comparing the wonderful results that the ATRs, Middle Eastern Mages, and Tibetan Sorcerers receive against the rather lack luster ones of the Western Ceremonial Magicians. |
Suvi Salmimies (6-4-1) battled Vanessa Melo at CAGE 37 last November for three rounds, and it has come to light that the Brazilian opponent Vanessa Melo was pregnant at the time.
“My girlfriend is pregnant,” says UFC fighter and boyfriend/coach Johnny Eduardo to MMAFighting.com. “It happened, we weren’t expecting it. She’s also an athlete, a MMA fighter, and we went to Finland to compete. She fought while pregnant.”
“She had no idea she was pregnant. If I knew it, I wouldn’t never let her do it.”
“I am relieved that she didn’t have any difficulties because of the fight” says Salmimies to MMAViking.com upon learning about the situation in Helsinki.
Melo just became pregnant lost the split decision, but more importantly she and the baby are fine and healthy.
Suvi is expected to fight this Saturday at NFC 2. |
Plain sugar cookies are very easy to prepare. They are usually made from sugar, flour, butter, eggs, vanilla and baking powder. But they are not as delicious as the frosted ones popular during the Holidays. Those only look tedious to make because of their shapes and decorations which require extra effort in rolling, cutting and piping of frosting to make them look fancy.
Below is a simple and easy dessert recipe that eliminates the need to roll, cut, frost each individual cookie, very convenient especially if you are not good with the piping bag! And the best thing about these Sugar Cookie Bars is you can serve them all year round!
Ingredients:
Cookies
2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1-1/2 Tbsp. sour cream
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Frosting
1/2 cup butter, softened
4 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup half and half
1 tsp. vanilla
Pinch of salt
Several drops of food coloring (optional)
Candy sprinkles (optional)
Procedures:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a 9x13 inch baking dish.
Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Set aside.
In a separate bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the egg, sour cream and vanilla and mix well.
Gradualy add the flour mixture and stir until well combined.
Using your clean hands, gently press and spread the batter into the greased baking dish. A little butter in your hands will help prevent the batter fro sticking.
Bake for 17-20 minutes or until edges become lightly golden. Set aside to cool completely. Remove from baking dish and place in a rack.
To prepare the frosting, cream together butter, powdered sugar, and half and half until light and fluffy. Stir in vanilla and salt, combine well. Add food coloring and mix until desired hue is achieved.
Spread frosting evenly on top of the cookie bar and sprinkle with sprinkles if desired. Cut into squares and serve.
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Applications for the prestigious and lucrative Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Don and Gee Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting are now open for 2014.
This international screenwriting competition awards up to five fellowships of US$35,000 each year. Since 1986, 133 fellowships totalling $3,600,000 have been awarded.
Who Can Enter
This international screenwriting competition is open to writers based anywhere in the world, regardless of citizenship. All entrants must be aged over 18.
In order to be eligible for these fellowships, an entrant’s total earnings for motion picture and television writing may not exceed US$25,000 before the end of the competition.
It is a requirement that all fellowship winners complete a new script in the year of their fellowship.
The Prizes
Up to five $35,000 fellowships are awarded each year to promising new screenwriters.
In addition to the cash prize, winners of the Nicholl Fellowships will be invited to participate in awards week ceremonies and seminars in November. The successful applications are also expected to receive many networking opportunities to help complete their next script.
How to Enter
Applicants must submit an original feature film screenplay, approximately 90 to 120 pages in length. The shortest script to earn its writer an Academy Nicholl Fellowship was 80 pages long; the longest was 153 pages.
If the script is based on a true story/events, historical or contemporary, the ‘based on true story’ button should be selected within the online application form.
Click here to set up your Academy Nicholl Fellowships Online Application Account
Nicholl Fellowships 2014 Timeline
28 February – early bird entry deadline ($35 entry fee)
10 April – regular entry deadline ($50 entry fee)
1 May – late entry deadline ($65 late entry fee)
Late July / Early August – quarter-finalists notified
Late August – semi-finalists notified
Late September / Early October – finalists notified and asked to submit supporting materials.
Late October – fellowship winners notified and announced
Early November – fellows honoured at the Nicholl Awards Dinner.
A record 7,251 entries were received in 2013. All scripts are read at least twice in the competition. About 15 percent are read a third time. About 5 percent of entries advance to the competition quarter-finals, about 2 per cent advance to the semi-finals and about 10 entries reach the final round.
Important Note
Make sure you read the detailed FAQs section of the Academy Nicholl Fellowship website as there are very specific requirements about formatting and entering your script. Non-US entrants be warned: your script must be formatted to American 8.5″ x 11″ sized paper.
Contact Information
Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting
1313 Vine Street
Hollywood California 90028
United States of America
Ph: +1 310 247 3010
nicholl@oscars.org
For more writing competitions, fellowships and resources follow Aerogramme Writers’ Studio on Facebook and Twitter. |
Main thread
Of those steps, loading the profile and rendering the layout have to be done in the main thread. Web workers have no access to the various file upload APIs, and, until OffscreenCanvas finds more stable footing, have no way of interacting with a canvas either.
Loading
The profile loading is non-blocking by default because a FileReader is always asynchronous. One interesting fact about FileReaders is that they can be used in a WebWorker context. This might seem like a promising way to more efficiently parse File objects, but it’s a bit of a red herring — File objects are not Transferable, so they need to be passed to and from workers by value. This means that we end up keeping two copies of the file in memory if we pass it to a worker this way — for 140MB heap profiles, it will not do!
The better solution is to just use FileReader.readAsArrayBuffer which spits out an ArrayBuffer, which is Transferable, so we can pass it by reference. We only keep a single copy of the file in memory, and as the transfer is almost instantaneous.
Rendering
To keep the rendering non-blocking, I just needed to make sure that I only do as much work as I can fit in a single frame. The goal for a jank-free UI is to render at 60 frames per second, which gives you a new frame every 16ms. Conventional wisdom is to keep a frame’s worth of work to 10ms to allow for browser housekeeping.
This allows for the cleanest user experience while costing the least amount of render time — ideal! |
New Delhi: As many as 12 public sector banks including PNB, Bank of India and Indian Bank have lined up plans for raising funds from markets to shore up their capital base to meet global risk norm, Basel III.
About 6-7 lenders including Andhra Bank expect to close their capital raising plan by the end of the current fiscal, officials said.
The remaining would raise funds through follow-on-public offer (FPO) or qualified institutional placement (QIP) from the market during course of the next fiscal, they added.
Lenders including Allahabad Bank, Andhra Bank, Bank of India, Central Bank of India, Dena Bank, IDBI Bank, Indian Bank and Punjab National Bank (PNB) have already got permission from the government to raise capital from the market through QIP or FPO or preferential allotment.
Similarly, Syndicate Bank, UCO Bank, United Bank of India, Vijaya Bank also got approval from the government and some of them have already started the process.
For example, Allahabad Bank has already obtained shareholders’ nod in order to raise equity capital aggregating up to Rs2,000 crore through different modes like QIP, FPO or a rights issue. Board of PNB has given its approval for raising equity capital to the tune of Rs3,000 crore through FPO, QIP or rights issue.
At the same time, Dena Bank also obtained shareholders’ nod to offer equity shares aggregating up to Rs1,800 crore to QIP at such issue prices including premium with face value of Rs10 each.
As per the Indradhanush roadmap, public sector banks need to raise Rs1.10 triillion from markets, including follow-on public offer, to meet Basel III requirements, which kick in from March 2019. This will be over and above the Rs70,000 crore that banks will get as capital support from the government.
Of this, the government has already infused Rs50,000 crore in the past two fiscals and the remaining will be pumped in by the end of 2018-19.
In June, SBI raised Rs15,000 crore by selling 52.2 crore shares through QIP, the largest share sale in the secondary market by a bank.
SBI said the total proceeds of the issue will be used to augment its capital adequacy ratio and for general corporate purposes. |
Nevada Wolf Pack. (Photo: Nevada athletics)
Nevada's Jay Norvell has added the first defensive coach to his staff as Matt Kirk has agreed to coach the team's safeties.
Kirk was the defensive coordinator at Long Beach City College last season and previously held the same role at El Camino College.
Long Beach City College is typically one of the more talent-rich junior colleges in Southern California. Kirk's group allowed 24.8 points per game last season en route to an 11-2 campaign.
Kirk's move to Nevada was first tweeted by Long Beach City College coach Brett Peabody. FootballScoop.com reported Kirk would join the Wolf Pack as the safeties coach.
Kirk will inherit one of the most talented positions on the Nevada roster. The Wolf Pack returns junior starters Asauni Rufus, an All-Mountain West honorable mention in 2016, and Dameon Baber, an All-MW second-team selection in 2015.
In two seasons, Rufus has 200 tackles, four forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries, two interceptions and a blocked kick. Baber has recorded 139 tackles, six interceptions, two forced fumbles and three fumble recoveries in his two seasons.
Kirk joins Matt Mumme on the staff. Mumme has agreed to become Nevada's offensive coordinator. |
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is characterized by symptoms that include the inability to keep one’s attention focused on a task, trouble organizing tasks, avoiding things that take effort, and follow-through. ADHD may also include problems with hyperactivity (fidgeting, excessive talking, restlessness) and impulsivity (difficulty waiting one’s turn or with patience, interrupting others). It is typically treated with stimulant medications, such as Ritalin, and psychotherapy.
Have you ever had trouble concentrating, found it hard to sit still, interrupted others during a conversation, or acted impulsively without thinking things through? Can you recall times when you daydreamed or had difficulty focusing on the task at hand?
Most of us can picture acting this way from time to time. But for some people, these and other exasperating behaviors are uncontrollable, persistently plaguing their day-to-day existence. These behaviors will interfere with a person’s ability to form lasting friendships or succeed in school, at home, or with their career.
Learn more: Frequently Asked Questions about ADHD
Learn more: ADHD Fact Sheet
Symptoms of ADHD
Take our ADHD quiz now
It’s free, no registration required, and provides instant feedback. Wondering if you might have ADHD?
Unlike a broken bone or cancer, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD, also sometimes referred to as just plain attention deficit disorder or ADD) does not show physical signs that can be detected by a blood or other lab test*. The typical ADHD symptoms often overlap with those of other physical and psychological disorders.
ADD is characterized by a pattern of inattentive behavior, often combined with impulsivity and in some, hyperactivity. In adults, this pattern of behavior makes it difficult to focus on details, sustain attention, listen to others, and follow through on instructions or duties. Organizing an activity or task can be next to impossible, and the person is readily distracted by things going on around them. They may seem forgetful, misplacing or losing things needed in order to just get through their day, or to complete a task needing to be done.
ADHD usually appears first in childhood, but can also be diagnosed in adults (as long as some symptoms were present in the individual’s childhood, but simply never diagnosed).
Learn more: Symptoms of ADHD
Causes & Diagnosis of ADHD
The causes remain unknown, but ADHD can be diagnosed and effectively treated. Many resources are available to support families in managing ADHD behaviors when they occur. Exactly what causes ADHD has not been pinpointed, though many professionals believe neurobiological and genetic elements play a role. In addition, numerous social factors such as family conflict and poor child-rearing practices, while not causing the condition, may complicate the course of ADHD and its treatment.
Attention deficit disorder, known in Europe and some parts of the world as hyperkinetic disorder, has been around a lot longer than most people realize. In fact, a condition that appears to be similar to the modern one was described by Hippocrates, who lived from 460 to 370 BC. The name attention deficit disorder was first introduced in 1980 in the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. In 1994 the definition was altered to include three groups within ADHD: the predominantly hyperactive-impulsive type; the predominantly inattentive type; and the combined type (in the DSM-5, these are now referred to as “presentations”).
Learn more: Causes of ADD and ADHD
ADHD Treatment
The symptoms of ADHD do not always go away — up to 60 percent of child patients retain their symptoms into adulthood. Many adults with ADHD have never been diagnosed, so they may not be aware they have the disorder. They may have been wrongly diagnosed with depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder or a learning disability.
ADD is readily treatable, although finding the right treatment that works for you can sometimes take time. The most common treatments for this condition include certain types of medications (called stimulants) and, for some, psychotherapy. Psychotherapy alone can also be an effective treatment, but many adults feel more comfortable simply taking a daily medication. You should explore all your treatment options, however, before you make a final decision.
Living With & Managing ADHD
ADHD is difficult to deal with for everyone involved. There is not only the difficulty of coping with symptoms, but also facing the challenges within society. Some experts have linked ADHD with an increased risk of accidents, drug abuse, failure at school, antisocial behavior, and criminal activity. But others view ADHD in a positive light, arguing that it is simply a different method of learning involving greater risk-taking and creativity.
ADHD may be accompanied by additional diagnoses or disorders, including anxiety, OCD, or speech or hearing problems. While no two people experience ADHD in exactly the same way, it helps to know that you are not alone.
Learn more: Living with ADHD
Need more help with understanding how to live well with this condition, and manage it more successfully? These articles help people who are living with ADHD in their lives. Remember, for most people with this diagnosis, this can be a life-long condition — one that needs attention, coping skills, and treatment in order to live your happiest and best life.
Getting Help / Helping Someone
Getting help for this condition isn’t always easy, as a person may not want to acknowledge that there’s something wrong with their ability to concentrate and focus. Some people may see it as a weakness, and taking a medication as a “crutch.” None of this is true. ADD is simply a mental disorder, and one that is readily treated.
There are many ways to get started in treatment. Many people start by seeing their physician or family doctor to see if they really might suffer from this disorder. While that’s a good start, you’re encouraged to also consult a mental health specialist right away too. Specialists — like psychologists and psychiatrists — can more reliably diagnose a mental disorder than a family doctor can.
Some people may feel more comfortable reading more about the condition first. While we have a great library of resources here, we also have a set of recommended ADD/ADHD books and a peer-led, online ADD support group just for this condition.
Take action: Find a local treatment provider
More Resources: ADHD on The Mighty
* – Note: Some practitioners claim there are brain scan tests like SPECT that can “diagnose” ADHD; however these tests are experimental and used for research purposes only. No insurance company reimburses for such brain scan tests, and no research has demonstrated they are any more accurate or reliable than traditional diagnostic measures for ADHD.
References
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.
Barkley, R.A., Murphy, K.R. & Fischer, M. (2010). ADHD in Adults: What the Science Says. New York: Guilford Press.
Hallowell, E.M. & Ratey, J.J. (2011). Driven to Distraction (Revised): Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder. Anchor Press.
Millichap, J.G. (2011). Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Handbook: A Physician’s Guide to ADHD (2nd ed.). New York: Springer.
National Institute of Mental Health. (2018). Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Retrieved from https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder-adhd/index.shtml on February 27, 2018.
Nigg, J.T. (2017). Getting Ahead of ADHD: What Next-Generation Science Says about Treatments That Work—and How You Can Make Them Work for Your Child. New York: Guilford. |
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Reality Repressed Men and Boys Are Forgotten Victims of Wartime Sexual Violence, Says ICTJ Report New York In times of conflict or repression, sexual violence against men and boys is shockingly common. Yet, their experiences tend to remain in the shadows and even be discounted, including in societies taking deliberate steps to uncover wrongdoing and address a painful past. This leaves thousands of male victims with little chance of justice or specialized support. A new 40-page report from the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), When No One Calls it Rape: Addressing Sexual Violence Against Men and Boys in Transitional Contexts, looks at how sexual violence against men and boys has been handled by different official efforts to acknowledge human rights abuses of the past and pursue accountability around the world including by truth commissions, courts and victim reparation programs. The report is intended to help policy makers and practitioners recognize male victims of sexual violence and respond more effectively to their needs and rights through transitional justice initiatives. “Sexual violence against men and boys is such a taboo subject that it is rarely reported to authorities or even seen as abuse,” explains Kelli Muddell, director of ICTJ’s Gender Justice Program and co-author of the report. “Even when it is reported, it is often misclassified as physical harm or abuse, negating its sexual dimension.” According to the report, the majority of official efforts to examine and address massive human rights violations have failed to properly identify male victims of sexual violence as a population requiring special attention. For example, in Sierra Leone, the truth commission tasked with examining nearly 10 years of a brutal armed conflict only reported on sexual slavery and sexual torture committed against women and girls. This meant that male victims, who were left out of findings, later became ineligible for reparations from a government program for those violations. More recently, the International Criminal Court considered a case involving young Kikuyu men who were forcibly circumcised by members of another ethnic group during Kenya’s 2007-2008 post-election crisis. The court found that not all acts targeting sexual organs are necessarily sexual in nature, obscuring the very basis for the crime: using a sexual act to dominate victims. “As we see in the Kenya case and elsewhere, at the root of all sexual violence is the exertion of power and the manipulation of gender roles,” says Muddell. “With male victims this can play out differently. When masculinity is linked with dominance, authority and power, castrating or raping a man is seen as a way of disempowering him and by extension his family, community and ethnic group.” Discriminatory definitions in rape laws can be another obstacle to male victims receiving justice. For example, in Chile, rape was defined as a crime against females until 1999, barring men who had been subjected to sexual violence during the Pinochet dictatorship, which lasted from 1973 to 1990, from being recognized. Worse, in Uganda, which is slowly making efforts to deal with its violent past, rape is still defined exclusively as a crime against a woman or girl. Although gaps remain, some criminal prosecutions, including at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, have identified a broader range of acts as sexual crimes. And the Khmer Rouge court in Cambodia has used gender-neutral language in its description of “forced marriage,” a crime in which government authorities under the Khmer Rouge forced single people in their twenties or early thirties to wed and consummate their marriage. This has allowed both men and women to be recognized as victims. “There are some clear lessons from past experiences that need to be applied if male victims of sexual violence are to be recognized and rehabilitated,” said Amrita Kapur, co-author of the report. “It starts with the basic recognition that it is possible for males to be victims of sexual violence and that the impact on them is no less serious than for women and girls.” “It’s an issue that requires us to listen more closely to men’s voices, and to their silences, too.” The report includes a set of recommendations for truth commissions, criminal courts and national governments on how to improve the identification and response to male victims of sexual violence. |
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Jeremy Bowen reports on army attempts to reclaim Cairo's Tahrir Square
Egyptian security forces are removing the final protesters from Cairo's Tahrir Square after the new military rulers vowed to dissolve parliament and suspend the constitution.
Thousands had already left the square, hailing the army's announcements as a clean break from the old regime.
The military said it would stay in power for six months or until elections could be held.
Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak quit on Friday after 18 days of mass rallies.
'Sincere desire'
For a second morning running, military police had pressed the few dozen remaining protesters in Tahrir Square to leave.
At the scene This country, in the best-case scenario, seems set for quite a while of instability. It's not so much the protests, though small protests will continue and a big one is planned for Friday. A lot of people are going on strikes - there are a lot of old grievances being aired now that restrictions have been lifted - even some of the police went on strike on Sunday, complaining they had been made to carry out the repression against the protesters and they clashed with the army outside the interior ministry. There is even one report on Monday that the army may also be about to ban strikes, which would cause more unrest and trouble. It's going to be a difficult few months for Egypt.
The BBC's Jon Leyne in Cairo says the military cajoled and pressured the demonstrators and there were a few arrests.
He says some people had been questioning why the protesters were still there after having achieved their aims.
Our correspondent also says that the bigger challenge facing the military rulers may be a possible wave of strikes.
The military is urging people to return to work to try to get the country back to normal but it instructed banks to remain closed on Monday following the strike threats. Tuesday is a public holiday.
There are also reports the military may prevent meetings by labour unions or professional organisations, effectively banning the strikes.
Correspondents say some employees have been emboldened by the success of protesters and are now seeking the removal of the bosses they blame for what they consider to be huge earnings gaps in their companies.
One key activist, Wael Ghonim, said there had been an encouraging meeting between the military and youth representatives on Sunday.
"[The military] said they will go after corrupt people no matter what their position current or previous," Mr Ghonim reported.
He added: "We felt a sincere desire to protect the gains of the revolution and an unprecedented respect for the right of young Egyptians to express their opinions."
'Victory for the revolution'
On Sunday, a statement was read out on state TV from the higher military council, saying it would suspend the constitution and set up a committee to draft a new one, which would then be put to a popular referendum.
Military statement Constitution suspended
Council to hold power for six months or until elections
Both houses of parliament dissolved
Council to issue laws during interim period
Committee set up to reform constitution and set rules for referendum
Caretaker PM Ahmed Shafiq's cabinet to continue work until new cabinet formed
Council to hold presidential and parliamentary elections
All international treaties to be honoured In pictures: Square cleared
The country's constitution has prevented many parties and groups from standing in elections, leaving Egypt with a parliament packed with supporters of the National Democratic Party, loyal to Mr Mubarak.
During the transition, the cabinet appointed by Mr Mubarak last month will go on governing, submitting legislation to the army chiefs for approval.
The opposition's Ayman Nour, who challenged Mr Mubarak for the presidency in 2005, described the military leadership's steps as a "victory for the revolution".
Caretaker Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq said his main priority was to restore the country's security.
"Our main concern now as a cabinet is security - we need to bring back a sense of security to the Egyptian citizen.
"Parallel to that we also want to ensure that the daily life of all Egyptians goes back to normal and that basic needs like bread and healthcare are available."
He said that the country had enough reserves to weather the economic crisis, but that if instability continued there could be "obstacles".
Earlier, Mr Obama welcomed the new military leadership's statement aired on state TV on Saturday, which implicitly confirms that the country's 1979 peace treaty with Israel will remain intact.
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu also welcomed the announcement, saying the treaty was a cornerstone of Middle East stability.
He will meet the visiting chairman of the US military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm Mike Mullen, on Monday to discuss the Egyptian situation.
Adm Mullen arrived in Israel from a meeting with King Abdullah of Jordan, which has also been hit by protests in the wave of Middle Eastern unrest. |
(CNN) They have been killed, recruited to fight, used as human shields, forced into marriage and enslaved. 2017 has been a "nightmare year" for children caught in the crosshairs of conflict, the UN's agency for children has said.
In northeastern Nigeria and Cameroon, the militant Islamist group Boko Haram forced at least 135 children to participate in suicide bombings, almost five times the number in 2016.
In other contexts, children are suffering from diseases that are inevitably associated with conflict, when basic needs -- such as food, clean water and medical care -- are not readily available.
In Yemen -- where at least 5,000 children have died in the civil war that has raged for almost three years -- more than 11 million children are now in need of humanitarian assistance. More than 1.8 million are suffering from malnutrition , around 385,000 of them so severely that they risk death if they are not urgently treated.
A student stands in the ruins of one of his bombed-out classrooms in Saada, Yemen, on April 24.
"Children in conflict zones around the world have come under attack at a shocking scale throughout the year," UNICEF said in a statement, adding that parties to conflicts were "blatantly disregarding international laws designed to protect the most vulnerable."
Children were being targeted in places where they should feel safe, including their homes, schools and playgrounds, UNICEF said.
"As these attacks continue year after year, we cannot become numb. Such brutality cannot be the new normal," UNICEF Director of Emergency Programs Manuel Fontaine said.
The UNICEF report highlights several other conflicts that have had a significant impact on children:
• Violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Kasai region has driven 850,000 children from their homes. More than 400 schools were attacked, and an estimated 350,000 children have suffered from severe acute malnutrition.
A child is measured at a clinic treating severe malnutrition on October 26, in Kasai, Democratic Republic of Congo.
• In Iraq and Syria, children have reportedly been used as human shields, trapped under siege, targeted by snipers and lived through intense bombardment and violence. Critically ill children are currently part of a people-swap deal between armed rebels and the Syrian government.
• In Myanmar, ethnic-minority Rohingya children are among those attacked and driven from their homes in Rakhine state, in ongoing violence between government forces and Rohingya fighters.
Rohingya children beg for food after arriving on a boat from Myanmar to Shah Porir Dip, Bangladesh, on September 14.
In Afghanistan, almost 700 children were killed in the first nine months of the year.
In Somalia, 1,740 cases of child recruitment were reported in the first 10 months of 2017.
In eastern Ukraine, 220,000 children lived under constant threat of mines and other explosive remnants of war. A particular strip of land there has become one of the most mine-contaminated places on earth.
First-grade students, including 6-year-old Sasha, center, participate in a school drill to respond to shelling in eastern Ukraine.
In South Sudan, thousands of children continue to be recruited by armed groups, many of whom are killed in fighting.
A South Sudanese child on a bus to a refugee settlement in Uganda.
• In the Central African Republic, where there has been a dramatic increase in violence, children have been killed, raped, abducted and recruited by armed groups. |
Welcome to the third annual edition of the ten most popular web fonts of the year as featured on Typewolf. Based on font usage data from 365 websites featured over 2015, these are the ten fonts that were used the most often.
While reviewing the data for this year, I noticed something a little disconcerting: this year’s top ten list is almost identical to the top ten list from 2014. Other than swapping out Franklin Gothic with Brown, these are exactly the same ten fonts that were featured the most on Typewolf last year.
I curate all the sites featured on Typewolf—so I may be partially to blame for this—however, the sites I feature tend to be a solid representation of what is popular in the design community. About one-third of the sites featured are submissions that people send to me while the remaining two-thirds are sites that I find featured on other popular design gallery sites, Designer News, Twitter, etc. Overall, I think this list generally shows what fonts are most popular with designers at the moment.
So in the spirit of hopefully making type a little more diverse on the web, I decided to list four alternatives for each of the ten fonts featured here. The alternatives all fit a similar aesthetic yet aren’t used quite as much. They may be worth looking into if you want to stand out a little from the crowd.
As always, this is an independent source of data that includes all fonts regardless of where the fonts can be purchased (including indie foundries that don’t make their fonts available on popular services such as MyFonts and Adobe Fonts (Typekit)).
Ok, on to the top ten!
Spotify rebranded in 2015 and started using Lineto’s Circular throughout their website. Although their new shade of green garnered quite a bit more attention than their new typeface, I feel like this was a huge moment for Circular, where it finally went from being an underground favorite to a mainstream hit. Mint and Airbnb had previously rebranded with Circular but the use on Spotify felt like the tipping point. I imagine we will see it used much more in 2016. Similar to Circular, the alternatives below have geometric skeletons combined with more grotesque-like characteristics. They each feature a double-story a and a single-story g.
Fonts You Can Try Instead of Circular
Fashionable London-based art and design mag, It’s Nice That, rebranded using GT Walsheim in 2015 which is a testament to its popularity with designers. Many other designer portfolio sites and agencies jumped on the GT Walsheim bandwagon as well. The typeface feels like a more friendly version of Futura, so if that is your thing, check out these other four alternatives below.
Fonts You Can Try Instead of GT Walsheim
Brandon Grotesque was #1 on last year’s list but this year it has fallen to #8. I think maybe it is finally starting to feel a little played out. It seems ubiquitous on the web—everyone from web hosting companies to tech magazines to schools to fashion brands have been using it these last few years, so it really doesn’t feel as unique as it once did. Some of the alternatives below are worth looking into if you are looking for something more distinctive.
Fonts You Can Try Instead of Brandon Grotesque
As the lone serif typeface on this list, Caslon feels a little out of place. There are many other classic serifs that everyone loves, such as Garamond and Minion, but for some reason it is Caslon that keeps making an appearance over and over again on Typewolf. I honestly can’t tell you why. Maybe designers are following When in doubt, use Caslon a little too religiously.
Fonts You Can Try Instead of Caslon
Avenir is almost universally mentioned as a favorite amongst designers so I’m really not surprised that it made the top ten list again this year. Adrian Frutiger sadly passed away in 2015 but Avenir will live on forever.
Fonts You Can Try Instead of Avenir
Brown is another typeface that fits the “friendly Futura” description, although it feels quite a bit different than GT Walsheim above. There really weren’t any big brands that I’m aware of that started using Brown on their sites in 2015, however, it continues to be popular with the more artsy crowd.
Fonts You Can Try Instead of Brown
Gotham was #8 last year and this year it moved up to #4. It’s one of the most iconic typefaces of the last decade and continues to be popular on the web. Other typefaces from Hoefler & Co. like Sentinel and Whitney have been popular as well, however, I’m surprised by the relative absence of Archer on the web. I didn’t feature a single site using Archer in 2015 which is shocking as Archer is seemingly everywhere in the offline world.
Fonts You Can Try Instead of Gotham
It’s no surprise that Proxima Nova made the list again this year. It just edged out Gotham to take the #3 position. I keep thinking that Proxima Nova will fall out of favor, yet every year designers continue using it.
Fonts You Can Try Instead of Proxima Nova
Aperçu is a really unique typeface that bounces between genres. Colophon describes it as a mix of ITC Johnston, Gill Sans, Neuzeit and Franklin Gothic. It’s the one sans-serif on this list that deviates the most from the geometric sans genre. Norwegian Air rebranded using Aperçu in late 2015 so it feels like it’s starting to hit the mainstream.
Fonts You Can Try Instead of Aperçu
The mother of all the geometric sans-serifs featured above, Futura was the most popular font featured on Typewolf by a landslide. There were almost twice as many sites using it as second place. Futura is readily available on Typekit which I’m sure has a little to do with its popularity. I think it’s neat that a typeface from 1927 dominates the web in 2015. Over the years there have been many typeface releases touted as “improvements” to Futura, with more contemporary proportions and larger x-heights, yet designers continue to reach for the original. There are many, many alternatives to Futura, however, the four typefaces below are a good place to start.
Fonts You Can Try Instead of Futura
The Year of the Geometric Sans-Serif
I’m going to make the understatement of the century: geometric sans-serifs are popular at the moment. Out of the ten fonts on this list there was only one serif featured, with the rest being sans-serifs. Although some of the typefaces such as Aperçu and Avenir deviate slightly into humanist territories, pretty much all of these sans-serifs could be described as geometric.
Why Are Geometric Sans-Serifs So Popular Right Now?
It’s difficult to explain broad cultural trends so I’m not going to even attempt to do that. However, a more mundane theory that could at least apply to type on the web, is that geometric sans-serifs feel more “exclusive” and therefore more “cool.”
For whatever reason there aren’t many geometric sans-serifs available on Google Fonts. Most of the popular ones fall into the humanist genre, such as Open Sans and Lato. There aren’t really any standard system fonts that are geometric either (although that is now changing with San Francisco and Roboto).
So if you are using a geometric sans-serif on your site, there is a good chance you had to pay money to use it. Having to pay money for something makes it more exclusive and unique. Brands that have a lot of resources to invest into design don’t mind paying money for nice type—especially if it will make them stand apart from “cheaper” competitors. This exclusivity could be one theory as to why geometric sans-serifs are so popular right now.
People are just sick of Helvetica could be another perfectly valid theory as well.
Predictions for 2016
I imagine geometric sans-serifs will remain popular for the next several years at least. The one thing I’ve learned about trends in type is that it takes years to notice any major cultural shifts. It’s not like neo-grotesques are all of a sudden hot one year and then become uncool the next. Type trends move slowly.
I think we’ll continue to see more serifs used in 2016. Serifs such as GT Sectra, Lust, Quarto, Portrait, Freight Text and Tiempos Text seem to be gaining in popularity but didn’t quite make the top ten this year. Sans-serifs have traditionally rendered better than serifs on computer screens due to their simpler structure, however, with higher density displays becoming more common, I think serifs are due for a big comeback on the web in the coming years.
I also would like to think that we’ll see a more diverse use of type on the web in 2016. There are thousands and thousands of quality typefaces out there so I’m hoping designers will dig a little deeper during the type selection process. The alternatives listed above are a good place to start and for the more adventurous, browsing Typewolf’s Site of the Day section may be a good way to discover some hidden gems.
Keep Up With the Latest in Web Typography for 2016
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Thanks for reading and have a wonderful 2016. |
One of the best first person shooter series is getting remastered.
DeepSilver and 4A Games have announced that Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light will be remastered and will release on the PS4, Xbox One and PC this summer. Players can pick either of them for $24.99 or a bundled edition simply titled as Metro: Redux which can be picked up for $49.99.
The PS4 and Xbox One version will run at sixty frames per second, however the former will run at 1080p resolution. We have no updates regarding the resolution of the Xbox One version but we have reached out to DeepSilver for a clarification. We will update this story when we hear from them.
The Redux versions include “re-mastered visuals: advanced lighting, dynamic weather, more detailed characters with improved animation, more dynamic destruction and improved smoke, fire and particle effects,” according to the press release that GamingBolt received.
The remastered version will also include gameplay enhancements like better melee animations, and Check Watch and Check Inventory features.
We also have new screens from the game which you can check below. |
Nearly a third of software developers feel that artificial intelligence will eventually take their jobs, according to a new survey from Evans Data Corp.
Some 29.1 percent of the 550 respondents said they feared A.I. would replace their “development efforts.” That eclipsed developers’ other fears, including the eventual obsolescence of their targeted platforms (23 percent) or that their latest platform won’t see widespread adoption (14 percent).
“Another dimension to this finding is that over three-quarters of the developers thought that robots and artificial intelligence would be a great benefit to mankind, but a little over 60 [percent] thought it could be a disaster,” Janel Garvin, CEO of Evans Data, wrote in a statement accompanying the data. “Overlap between two groups was clear which shows the ambivalence that developers feel about the dawn of intelligent machines. There will be wonderful benefits, but there will also be some cataclysmic changes culturally and economically.”
In January, a report released in conjunction with the World Economic Forum in Switzerland suggested that machine learning, robotics, 3D printing, genetics, and other cutting-edge technologies would lead to the loss of roughly 5 million jobs within the next five years.
While industries such as heavy manufacturing have already seen job losses due to automation, tech professions such as datacenter administration have also been impacted by software.
But not everybody feels that A.I. will prove a job-killer. “This is not about replacing people,” CEO Virginia Rometty told an audience at the Gartner Symposium late last year. “It’s about augmenting what man does.”
If you believe that the survey from Evans Data is representative of the software-development industry as a whole, though, it’s clear that a substantial portion of developers are worried about what the future might bring. |
It takes a certain energy to fully appreciate a good five-color manabase.
Once upon a time, this little card was legal:
is like a much better , since you can use the charge counter to give you one mana of any color the turn you play the land or save it for a future turn.
Nevertheless, showed up here and there, primarily as a source of colorless mana for casting , , and . Of course, with painlands like and rotating out, there is potentially even more need for colorless lands that can also fix your mana.
, on the other hand, has seen quite a bit of play in a variety of formats. It was used as a five-color enabler in Kamigawa block, helping make splashes possible while ensuring that you always had a source of green early to cast your other fixers.
It was also used as a fixer for two-color aggro decks, like R/W Aggro, that just wanted more ways to fix their mana without having tapped lands. They did get a little extra utility out of the ability to bounce it with , but at that point, your mana was usually all set anyway.
has been used in a variety of combo decks that have two or three primary colors but want to be able to splash a fourth. It works particularly well with decks that have extra ability to fix their mana on turn 3 or 4. When your deck contains cards like or Coalition Relic, works great. It gives you untapped, pain-free fixing of every color. If you only need a specific color from it early and can then count on having perfect mana later from an expensive fixer, it's the perfect card for the job.
If today's preview card were merely a reprint, that would already be a meaningful card. Today's preview is actually strictly better, but that's just scratching the surface. Today's preview card is , which is everything was and much more.
If you don't interact with Energy at all, is already functionally better than a . You can use the Energy just like using the counter that was on ; however, you can also use the Energy of any other . For instance, if you sacrifice , the counter is gone, whereas if you sacrifice without using its Energy, the next you play functionally has two charges. While bouncing a with some sort of a bounceland would reset the counter, bouncing an would actually store up an extra Energy.
While we've only seen a small fraction of the Kaladesh spoiler so far, we already have a number of cards that give us extra options for how to put the Energy produced by to good use. For instance:
Voltaic Brawler is priced to move! This two-color beatdown machine really appreciates extra fixing that enters the battlefield untapped. makes it easier to cast Voltaic Brawler on turn 2 reliably. Then the Energy produced by Voltaic Brawler can help ensure we cast our spells early if we are counting on the for one of our colors.
Of course, it also goes the other way. If we draw an later in the game, we can actually use its Energy to pump the Voltaic Brawler. An extra +1/+1 and trample until end of turn is great upside from our land that is very unlike what would have given us.
At its base, Harnessed Lightning is a two-mana instant that deals three damage to a creature. However, an can let you deal four damage instead. Being able to customize the damage on a card like this is a big deal. Likewise, you can kill a two-toughness creature with Harnessed Lightning and use the leftover Energy as an extra source of fixing with your .
Some creatures give you a bunch of Energy when they enter the battlefield. This can lead to producing colored mana every turn, turn after turn. Additionally, every is halfway to an extra attack from , if you are so inclined. It's a third of the way towards an extra pump. All this Energy adds up.
Heck, if you want, you can use something like Architect of the Untamed to give you extra Energy every turn. The more ways you have to produce Energy, the more valuable cards that use Energy efficiently are. The more ways you have to use Energy efficiently, the more valuable ways to produce it are.
While some cards will be more about the Energy they produce, and other cards more about their ability to efficiently spend Energy, some will help smooth out both sides. is one such card. It's so good at producing Energy, we might see Mono-Red decks use it. It's so reliable without other Energy synergies, we might see decks with zero other Energy cards use it.
In addition to enabling Energy synergies, by serving as an untapped multicolor land for aggressive decks and helping splash colors in strange decks with expensive fixing, is also an important new tool for Eldrazi Aggro decks. With , , and the like rotating out, provides some much-needed colorless mana for or that can also help ensure we can cast our on time, or our , or whatever.
In addition to many color Eldrazi decks, this could also take the form of a two-color deck that splashes off-color Eldrazi with Corrupted Crossroads, , and maybe one basic to find with an . It could also take the form of a two-color deck that just uses as a colorless source that can help ensure we hit our colors early.
However it ends up best being used, is a strong enough card that it will certainly find some homes, regardless of synergies. That said, I've got a feeling at least one of those homes will be a dedicated Energy deck (and probably three). |
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele on Tuesday urged the president to delay healthcare reform until the job market considerably improved.
In a letter to the White House this morning, Steele predicted "Democrats and Republicans would stand with [President Barack Obama] and proudly so" if he announced he no longer wanted to pass healthcare reform by the year's end.
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"You wouldn't advise any American to bet the rent check now if they didn't know whether they would have a job next spring. You certainly wouldn't advise them to borrow money to put at risk, if they had no clue if they would be employed," the chairman wrote.
"Much the same, Congress can't afford to throw the American people further in debt now and splurge on a risky health care bill when we may need all the resources at our disposal next year to rebuild a sagging economy," Steele added.
Ultimately, it may not require the president's intervention to keep healthcare reform from passing this year. Senate Democrats are still squabbling over a number of contentions issues in their own bill -- from the shape and scope of the public option, to whether the proposal should include tough abortion language, to many of the taxes included to offset the bill's costs.
The majority party has stressed since Monday that it is beginning to make progress on those fronts, especially with the public option debate. But those compromises are not guaranteed to satisfy all Democrats, further complicating Senate Majority Leader (D-Nev.) Harry Reid's already daunting task of cobbling together 60 votes to avoid a filibuster.
But as that debate raged on at the Capitol this morning, Steele stressed Obama should steer his party away from healthcare reform, for now, and towards labor market reforms and deficit reduction. Only then, the chairman wrote, could the country embark on true economic recovery.
"Until we are sure job creation has begun in earnest, we should put aside our differences on health care," Steele said. "We should watch our spending. We've got an economy to rebuild and restore." |
In the wake of the massive earthquakes in Haiti and most recently Chile, it is a good time to review crush syndrome and the basic treatment that EMS providers need to know. While it is a relatively rare occurrence, crush syndrome is something that you may one day encounter. It can be expected following any event where patients are trapped for a length of time, especially following a natural or man-made disaster.
Providing care in a timely manner, and before extrication or removal of the compressing force, can be the difference between life and death. Regardless of whether you're a provider in an urban or rural setting, caring for a patient with crush syndrome could well be your next call.
If these patients do not receive aggressive medical treatment during the extrication, they may suffer the three killers of crush syndrome: hypovolemia, life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias, and/or renal failure.
AP Photo/Francois MoriFirefighters pull an earthquake survivor to safety in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in January.
Crush syndrome can present with any patient that is trapped under a crushing weight for a significant length of time, especially if the time exceeds four hours. These patients may be trapped from earthquakes, tornadoes, building collapse, or entrapment in storage facilities. It can occur in a wide variety of settings, requiring EMS providers in both the rural and urban organizations to be ready to provide care for these patients.
This article will cover four areas: basic pathophysiology, patient assessment, management and treatment, and ECG changes.
Basic Pathophysiology
When a force or compression is applied to the body for an extended period of time, generally over four to six hours, the patient can be susceptible to crush syndrome. The amount of body compressed can vary, but crush syndrome should be expected if any of the patient’s lower extremities, buttocks, or upper thoracic region/arms are compressed.
When these areas are compressed, several things happen at the cellular level.
1. As the compression occurs, cells in the immediate area are quickly damaged.
2. Within the next hour, the pressure continues to decrease circulation to the area. When this happens, the decrease in oxygen requires the cells needing to switch how they are able to function. This altered process is called anaerobic metabolism — metabolism without oxygen — and generates large amounts of lactic acid. With the decrease in oxygen, the cell walls have a harder time containing cell contents, which begin to leak through the walls because of the increasing wall permeability.
3. Cells continue to leak, and other cells begin to die. As this happens, their contents — which can include potassium, myoglobin, purines and other toxic substances — are dumped from the cells into the surrounding tissues. These contents cause major problems and can kill the patient.
4. These effects are normally isolated to the area involved; it may be a type of survival factor that allows the patient to remain stable and survive long periods of time. Rescuers often do not realize that the patient needs treatment before rescue.
5. Once freed and the weight is released, blood flow is returned and all the cell contents are now spread throughout the body. Without proper treatment, the effects of these contents are:
Potassium — Potassium is normally kept in balance within the body. However, excess potassium leaking from the cells will disrupt the conductivity of the heart, causing arrhythmias or even cardiac arrest.
Myoglobin — Myoglobin can be toxic to the renal tubular cells. Myoglobin can precipitate in the renal system (kidneys) and obstruct renal flow leading to failure or rhabdomyolysis.[1]
Purines and other toxic substances — Can lead to respiratory distress and liver damage.
6. Depending on the amounts of toxins and chemicals that are released and spread throughout the body, an alert and conscious patient may rapidly deteriorate. Depending on the areas impacted, they may suffer cardiac arrhythmias or cardiac arrest, renal failure, and a number of other body system failures.
Patient Assessment
Assessment of the patient requires the provider to look at the cause of injury and determine the potential for crush syndrome. Remember, it will require more than just a foot or a hand to be compressed to cause crush syndrome. Involvement of a large body portion and a prolonged timeframe are important considerations for the provider.
The patient may present in a variety of ways. They may be relatively stable, conscious and alert. It may be difficult to determine the extent of injury because of the crushing object involved (rubble, soil, grain, etc.). The patient may have palpable distal pulses; however, that can be difficult to assess depending on the situation. They may experience paresthesia — or numbness — that can actually mask their true level of pain.
Management and Treatment
The management of these patients in the field environment is similar to most trauma patients, but with some exceptions.
1. Establish A, B, C's
2. Provide high concentration oxygen. Use caution if cutting torches are in close proximity to the patient.
3. Assess the patient for crush injury, noting entrapment time.
4. Establish IV/IO access.
a. Especially before removal or extrication of the object causing the compression
b. Use normal saline fluid infusion as delays may increase risks of renal (kidney) failure.[2]
c. Potassium-containing fluids should be avoided due to the risk of rhabdomyolysis-associated hyperkalemia.[3] This would include lactated Ringers as it contains 4 mEq/L of potassium and calcium. This may worsen the patient's condition as there are already higher levels of potassium in the bloodstream.
5. Run a baseline ECG strip and subsequent strips. If possible these should be transmitted to the receiving trauma department. The ECG stripes can be beneficial to help determine the level and changes in hyperkalemia.
6. Depending on medical control, consider calcium chloride 500 mg IV over 2 minutes for life-threatening suspected hyperkalemia. (a reasonable source would be the CDC instructions at: http://www.bt.cdc.gov/disasters/earthquakes/crush.asp).
7. Depending on medical direction, treat the patient for pain.
8. Depending on medical direction, aerosolized albuterol may be administered. This promotes the movement of potassium into cells to help treat the hyperkalemia[2], [10].
9. Depending on medical direction, the use of bicarbonate and mannitol to prevent kidney failure has been called into question. Some studies have shown little or no improvement between the group of patients that received mannitol and bicarbonate versus the group that only received saline hydration.[4], [5]
10. Loop diuretics, like furosemide, may acidify the urine and are not recommended in a prehospital environment as the administration requires close monitoring that is not available in prehospital settings.[6]
11. Assess patient for other injuries.
12. Treat patient for either hypothermia or hyperthermia depending on the exposure.
ECG Changes
Because there is a significant potential for hyperkalemia (elevated potassium levels), providers should attempt to capture multiple 12-lead electrocardiograms (ECG). This will depend on the situation and ability of the providers. Multiple ECGs, especially if these can be transmitted to the receiving hospital, will allow physicians an estimation of the patient's level of hyperkalemia.[7] Potassium levels can rise during the rescue and transport, and these levels can be viewed from ECG changes. Progressive hyperkalemia can result in identifiable changes in the ECG. These include peaking of the T wave, flattening of the P wave, prolongation of the PR interval, ST segment depression, prolongation of the QRS complex, and, eventually, progression to a sine wave pattern.[8], [9] Ventricular fibrillation may occur at any time during this progression. These offer the physician providing medical control a more complete assessment of the patient when determining care, both in the field and hospital.
The ECG changes related to hyperkalemia, according to Feehally[8], are:
Mild hyperkalemia (6-7 mmol/l) – peaked T waves.
Moderate hyperkalemia (7 – 8 mmol/l) – flattened P wave, prolonged PR interval, depression of ST segment, peaked T wave.
Severe hyperkalemia (8 – 9 mmol/l) – atrial standstill, prolonged QRS duration, further peaking T waves.
Life-threatening hyperkalemia (>9 mmol/l) – sine wave pattern.
References
1. Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary, 29th ed. Philadelphia, WB Saunders, 2000.
2. Rosen's Emergency Medicine, 7th ed. St. Louis, Mosby, 2009.
3. Malinoski DJ, Slater MS, Mullins RJ: Crush injury and rhabdomyolysis. Crit Care Clin 2004; 20:171.
4. Brown C, Rhee P, Chan L, et al: Preventing renal failure in patients with rhabdomyolysis: Do bicarbonate and mannitol make a difference?. J Trauma 2004; 56:1191.
5. Homsi E, Barreiro MF, Orlando JM, Higa EM: Prophylaxis of acute renal failure in patients with rhabdomyolysis. Ren Fail 1997; 19:283.
6. Slater MS, Mullins RJ: Rhabdomyolysis and myoglobinuric renal failure in trauma and surgical patients: A review. J Am Coll Surg 1998; 186:693.
7. Mattu A, Brady WJ, Robinson DA: Electrocardiographic manifestations of hyperkalemia. Am J Emerg Med 2000;18:721-729.
8. Feehally J, Floege J, Johnson RJ: Comprehensive clinical nephrology, ed 3, St Louis, Mosby, 2007.
9. Goldberger, A: Clinical Electrocardiography: A simplified approach, 7th ed. St. Louis, Mosby, 2006.
10. Allon M, Dunlay R, Copkney C: Nebulized albuterol for acute hyperkalemia in patients on hemodialysis. Ann Intern Med 1989; 110:426. |
The Kansas City Chiefs desperately need someone to step up across from star wide receiver Dwayne Bowe and be a solid No. 2 guy.
Jon Baldwin was supposed to fill that role for the Chiefs when he was drafted in the first round of the 2011 NFL Draft. Two seasons later, he’s only caught 41 balls for 579 yards and two touchdowns.
Baldwin has been underwhelming to say the least, but at 6’4”, 230 pounds, it’s hard to deny the potential that he still does have.
With that said, according to a “Camp Confidential” report from Bill Williamson of ESPN.com (h/t Josh Sanchez/FanSided), the Chiefs may have found their new No. 2 wideout in new Chief via free agency, Donnie Avery:
There aren’t a lot of issues with this roster, but finding a solid No. 2 receiver behind star Dwayne Bowe is a focal point of this camp. Free-agent pickup Donnie Avery will likely be the guy, and he has shown he can be a capable NFL player. He can get open. The team would like to see 2011 first-round pick Jon Baldwin finally develop. He has big ability but has failed to show the consistency to be a top-of-the rotation player. The Chiefs have a varied offense, so this will not be a huge problem, but it would be beneficial if Bowe had some legitimate help opposite of him.
Avery is in his fifth NFL season after being drafted by St. Louis in the second round of the 2008 NFL draft. He spent two years with the Rams, went to Tennessee in 2011 and played for the Colts in 2012.
He had a pretty good season with the Colts, notching 781 yards and three touchdowns.
Those aren’t star numbers, but if the Chiefs believe Avery can step up and play a complimentary role to Bowe, perhaps that production will increase. Either way, having someone across from Bowe to at least garner the attention of a safety every now and then could really open up this offense.
It’s worth noting that Williamson’s report did use the word “likely” so don’t etch this in stone on that depth chart hanging on your fridge. |
Speaker Paul Ryan Paul Davis RyanBrexit and exit: A transatlantic comparison Five takeaways from McCabe’s allegations against Trump The Hill's 12:30 Report: Sanders set to shake up 2020 race MORE (R-Wis.) distanced himself on Thursday from Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump Donald John TrumpREAD: Cohen testimony alleges Trump knew Stone talked with WikiLeaks about DNC emails Trump urges North Korea to denuclearize ahead of summit Venezuela's Maduro says he fears 'bad' people around Trump MORE’s praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The night before, Trump contrasted Putin favorably to President Obama during NBC News’s “Commander-in-Chief Forum.”
“He’s been a leader, far more than our president has been a leader,” Trump said of Putin on Wednesday night, adding that he thinks he would have a “very, very good relationship” with Russia and its leader.
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Trump’s embrace of Putin stands in contrast to longstanding positions of the Democratic and Republican foreign policy establishments.
Ryan adhered to a position of viewing Putin as adversarial to the United States, citing the recent hacks of Democratic Party organizations that are suspected to be the work of Russian intelligence.
“Let me say this about Vladimir Putin: Vladimir Putin is an aggressor that does not share our interests. Vladimir Putin is violating the sovereignty of neighboring countries. It certainly appears that he is conducting state-sponsored cyberattacks on what appears to be our political system. That is not acting in our interests,” Ryan said during a Capitol Hill news conference.
When pressed if he was concerned about Trump’s praise of Putin, Ryan dodged: “I made my points about Putin clear. I’ll just leave it at that.”
Earlier Thursday, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) pushed back against Trump’s stance on Putin.
“I think I would urge caution,” McCaul said at an event hosted by The Atlantic. “The idea that Russia is somehow a friend of ours, or that Putin is a friend, is a false narrative.”
Trump insisted that he wouldn’t be influenced by compliments from Putin when asked by NBC’s Matt Lauer if he felt comfortable being praised by a former KGB officer.
“Well, I think when he calls me brilliant, I’ll take the compliment, OK?” Trump said. “If he says great things about me, I’m going to say great things about him.” |
First published Tue Jul 22, 2014
This entry will briefly discuss Arnauld's connection to the Port-Royal Abbey and the Jansenist movement. Then follows an overview of the work, including a discussion of the Cartesian background and a summary of the main topics treated. The remainder of the discussion will focus on some aspects of the theory of most interest to current logicians and philosophers of language, in particular, the theory of judgment, the semantics of general terms, and the theory of distribution and truth conditions of propositions.
La Logique ou l'art de penser, better known as the Port-Royal Logic (hereinafter Logic), was the most influential logic text from Aristotle to the end of the nineteenth century. The authors were Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole, philosophers and theologians associated with the Port-Royal Abbey, a center of the heretical Catholic Jansenist movement in seventeenth-century France. The first edition appeared in 1662; during the authors' lifetimes four major revisions were published, the last and most important in 1683. The 1981 critical edition by Pierre Clair and François Girbal lists 63 French editions and 10 English editions (the 1818 English edition served as a text at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford). The work treats topics in logic, grammar, philosophy of language, theory of knowledge, and metaphysics. The Logic is a companion to General and Rational Grammar: The Port-Royal Grammar, written primarily by Arnauld and “edited” by Claude Lancelot, which appeared in 1660. In general the semantics of the Logic are situated in the context of the Cartesian theory of ideas. Its value to us today resides in its combination of deep insights and confusions.
Antoine Arnauld, the primary author of the Port-Royal Logic, was born in Paris on February 8, 1612, to Antoine and Catherine Arnauld. His father was one of the most famous lawyers of his time. The son Antoine, the youngest of their 20 children, originally wanted to study law, but because his father had died in 1619, he decided to honor his mother's wish that he study theology. He entered the Sorbonne, becoming a disciple of Lescot, the confessor of Cardinal Richelieu. In addition to the Port-Royal Grammar and the Port-Royal Logic, Arnauld is best known as the author of the Fourth Objections to Descartes' Meditations. He also engaged in lengthy correspondence with Leibniz, carried on a polemic against Malebranche in the Treatise on True and False Ideas, and wrote several theological essays, including The Perpetuity of the Faith. Pierre Nicole, the secondary author, was born at Chartres in 1625. His father was also a prominent lawyer, with ties to literary circles in Paris. Nicole studied theology at the Sorbonne, where he came into contact with teachers inclined towards Jansenism. When Jansenism came under attack at the Sorbonne, he withdrew and went to the abbey at Port-Royal-des-Champs. He eventually became one of the most prominent Jansenist writers of the seventeenth century; his Moral Essays (1671–7) was his most famous work.
Jansenism was a radical reform movement within French Catholicism based on Augustine's views of the relation between free will and the efficacy of grace. The movement was named after Cornelis Jansen (or Cornelius Jansenius), a Dutch theologian born in 1585 who studied at the Sorbonne. He became the Bishop of Ypres in the Spanish Netherlands in 1636 and died two years later. His major work Augustinus was published posthumously in 1640. A second figure in Jansenism was the Abbot of Saint-Cyran, born Jean Duvergier de Hauranne in 1581. He received his M.A. in theology at the Sorbonne in 1600, where he met Jansen. The two worked together from 1611–1617 on scriptural questions. The issues bringing Jansenism into conflict with Catholic orthodoxy concerned the efficacy of grace, the role of free will in salvation, and the nature of penitence. The attack on Jansen began with Isaac Habert's sermons and writings during 1643–44. By 1653 Pope Innocent X issued an encyclical, Cum occasione, declaring five propositions in Augustinus to be heretical. They expressed the views that a just person who wishes to obey God's commandments cannot do so without the necessary grace to carry them out; that in the state of corrupt nature one can never resist interior grace; and that meritorious actions require only a liberty exempt from constraint rather than one exempt from necessity.
Although he did not agree with all of Jansen's views on grace and free will, Arnauld devoted several major works to defending aspects of Jansenism, including On Frequent Communion, the Defense of Monsieur Jansenius and a Second Defense. These writings resulted in a trial and his expulsion from the Sorbonne in 1656. From 1669 to the late 1670's there was a truce between the Catholic Church and the Jansenists. But in 1679, after attacks had resumed, Arnauld went into exile in the Netherlands; he died at Brussels on August 8, 1694. Pierre Nicole, the coauthor of the Port-Royal Logic, had joined Arnauld in exile. But he returned to Paris in 1683 where he reconciled with the authorities. He died in Paris in 1695.
The Port-Royal Abbey was the center of Jansenist thought in the seventeenth century, thanks largely to the Arnauld family. Two of Arnauld's sisters, Angélique (born Jacqueline) and Agnès (born Jeanne) were nuns at the convent of Port-Royal (later known as Port-Royal-des-Champs), a Cistercian abbey founded in the thirteenth century near Versailles. Angélique had become the abbess of the convent in 1602, at the age of thirteen. Because of unhealthy conditions, in 1626 the nuns relocated to the Faubourg-Saint-Jacques in Paris. The following year the Vatican removed Port-Royal from the Cistercian order and placed it under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Paris. In 1636 Saint-Cyran became the spiritual director of the convent, and became associated with a group of men later known as the solitaires of Port-Royal. They eventually included, besides Arnauld, Nicole, and Lancelot, Arnauld's brother Robert and brother-in-law Antoine Le Maistre. Their most important project was founding the Little Schools of Port-Royal, whose most famous pupil was Jean Racine. By that time Saint-Cyran had come into conflict with the Jesuits and Cardinal Richelieu over several theological issues. In 1638 Richelieu had Saint-Cyran arrested and imprisoned at Vincennes on charges of heresy. He was released from prison in 1643 but died a year later.
In April 1661 the Council of State decreed that all churchmen must sign a formulary drawn up in 1657, condemning the heretical propositions in Jansen's work Augustinus. Arnauld and Nicole had taken the position that the propositions were heretical but did not appear in the Augustinus. In June 1664 the Archbishop of Paris interrogated the nuns at Port-Royal-de-Paris; he removed those who refused to sign to other convents and put those remaining at Port-Royal under supervision of another order. In 1665 the nuns who had been dispersed were permitted to go to Port-Royal-des-Champs. During the 1670s Port-Royal-des-Champs experienced a few years of tranquility, but by 1679 Port-Royal was under siege by King Louis XIV, and all confessors, postulants and pensioners were expelled. In 1709 Louis dispersed the nuns and had the buildings leveled. Despite the end of Port-Royal, Jansenism survived until the Revolution of 1789.
Although St. Augustine shaped the theology of Jansenism, René Descartes was the true philosophical father of the Port-Royal Logic. Unlike the Jansenists, who suspected the efficacy of reason, Arnauld and Nicole wholeheartedly embraced Descartes' rationalism. In fact, their theory of knowledge is taken almost verbatim from Descartes. But since Cartesian rationalism is in its broad outlines compatible with Augustinian views, Arnauld and Nicole often cite both philosophers. Furthermore, because Descartes' theory of knowledge is inextricably linked with his metaphysics, Arnauld and Nicole endorse Cartesian dualism as well as the principles of Descartes' mechanistic physics.
Descartes' influence is evident in two basic features of the semantics of the Port-Royal Logic. First is the view that thought is prior to language, that words are merely external, conventional signs of independent, private mental states. Although the association between words and ideas is conventional and thus arbitrary, language can signify thought insofar as the structure of a linguistic expression mirrors the structure of the ideas it expresses. The second feature is the framework of the Cartesian theory of ideas. This includes the traditional view that there are four mental operations required for scientific knowledge: conceiving, judging, reasoning, and ordering. These operations must occur in this order, since each operation takes for its elements the product of the preceding operation. Conceiving consists in the apprehension of ideas by the understanding, whereas judging is an action of the will. One can operate on ideas without making judgments, as in forming complex ideas out of simpler ones, and analyzing complex ideas into their parts. The Logic differs from Descartes in identifying forming a proposition with making a judgment. Descartes himself sharply distinguished the voluntary act of judging from apprehending a proposition, since in mere apprehension the mind is passive, and Descartes thought an idea could take propositional form. Port-Royal has difficulty with this issue in their treatment of assertion. Reasoning takes place when one produces judgments from other judgments. By ordering the authors mean putting knowledge into a methodical system.
The text of the Logic is organized around the four mental operations described above. Introductory material to the final (1683) edition includes a Preface (added 1683), a Foreword and First Discourse (1662), and a Second Discourse (added 1664). The First Discourse lays out the plan of the Logic, explaining that its main purpose is to educate judgment to make it more precise, in order to make the speculative sciences more useful. Thus the Logic contains not only rules for correct reasoning but also examples of how reasoning can go wrong. The Second Discourse offers a reply to objections to the first edition. The main point is to justify their critical treatment of Aristotle, on the ground that knowing how a great mind can err can help others avoid making the same mistakes. But they also take pains to point out how much the Logic owes to Aristotle's Analytics and other works. The main text that follows consists of parts devoted to the four mental operations.
Part I contains “reflections on ideas, or the first action of the mind, which is called conceiving”. It consists of 15 chapters devoted to five topics: the nature and origin of ideas (chapter 1); the objects ideas represent (chapters 2–4); simple vs. compound ideas (chapter 5); the extension and restriction of ideas, including a logical analysis of universal, particular, and singular ideas and the extension and comprehension of terms (chapters 6–8); and clear and distinct vs. obscure and confused ideas, including a discussion of types of definition (chapters 9–15).
Part II consists of 20 chapters treating “reflections people have made about their judgments”. Recognizing that the mind closely links ideas with the words that express them, their discussion begins with an analysis of parts of speech in chapters 1 and 2. Chapters 3 and 4 present a version of the Aristotelian theory of categorical proposition and the square of opposition. Chapters 5–14 treat the properties of simple, compound, and complex propositions, including how to identify and classify them. This section contains the famous distinction between restrictive (“determinative”) and non-restrictive (“explicative”) subordinate clauses (chapter 6), as well as a discussion of logical connectives and non-truth-functional propositions (chapter 9). The theory of definition is the subject of chapters 15 and 16. Finally, chapters 17–20 on the conversion of propositions contain part of the Port-Royal version of the medieval doctrine of distribution.
Part III focuses on the rules of reasoning, and is divided into 20 chapters. Although the authors admit that most erroneous reasoning is based on false premises rather than incorrect inferences, they believe the study of syllogistic forms is helpful to exercise the mind. The authors classify syllogisms into simple and conjunctive, and simple syllogisms into complex and noncomplex. After defining terms in chapters 1 and 2, they present general rules for simple, noncomplex syllogisms in chapter 3. This chapter completes their theory of the distribution of terms, begun in the last four chapters of Part II. Chapters 4 through 8 explain in tedious detail the figures and moods of simple syllogisms, again reproducing traditional Aristotelian views. In chapters 9 through 12 the authors treat in a less formal way principles for recognizing validity in complex syllogisms. Chapters 14, 15, and 16 discuss respectively enthymemes, sorites (syllogisms with more than three propositions) and dilemmas. Despite their view of the uselessness of the theory of topics (the method for finding arguments), the authors treat it in chapters 17 and 18. Here they criticize Aristotle, Ramus and the Scholastics. Finally, chapters 19 and 20 discuss sophisms and fallacies.
The Logic ends in Part IV with a theory of scientific knowledge. Chapter 1 lays the groundwork in Descartes' and Augustine's rationalism, criticizing the role of the senses in providing knowledge, as well as the claims of Academic and Pyrrhonian skeptics. After spelling out the methods of analysis and synthesis in chapter 2, the authors spend chapters 3 through 10 on the methods of geometry, including rules of definitions, axioms, and demonstrations. Chapter 11 then offers eight rules of scientific method. Finally, chapters 12 through 16 contrast the nature of knowledge with faith or belief.
As mentioned above, the semantics of the Logic is an interesting amalgam of medieval and seventeenth-century theories. Arnauld and Nicole attempt to force a Cartesian view of judgment onto the traditional theory of categorical propositions and a medieval term logic. This attempt to graft a new theory of knowledge onto an existing logical framework inevitably raises problems. This section will focus on three major aspects of the theory, namely their account of the proposition and judgment, the semantics of general terms, and the theory of distribution and truth conditions of propositions. It will highlight two major contributions to semantics -- the analysis of subordinate clauses and the distinction between the comprehension and extension of terms -- as well as some problematic views of the structure of judgment, the nature of assertion, and their treatment of predication.
The Port-Royal theory of judgment (or proposition) is an example of what Geach and others have called the ‘two-name’ view. Every simple judgment is composed of the same three elements: a subject, a predicate, and a copula connecting the two. These elements are expressed linguistically in the simplest case by a proper or substantive noun, a common noun or adjective, and a verb, as in the sentences ‘Socrates is mortal’ and ‘All men are mortal’. The authors use the terms ‘subject’ and ‘predicate’ to refer indifferently to the ideas making up the judgment as well as to their linguistic expressions. As indicated above, Port-Royal is wedded to the theory of categorical propositions, classifying them in terms of quantity as universal, particular, or singular, and in terms of quality as affirmative or negative. The authors take the traditional stand that singular propositions function logically like universals, and so all simple propositions have one of the following four forms, labeled A, E, I, and O: ‘All S is P’, ‘No S is P’, ‘Some S is P’, and ‘Some S is not P’. Also following the tradition, Port-Royal treats the quantifiers ‘all’ and ‘some’ as part of the subject, so that ‘all men’ and ‘some men’ are logically significant units. In explaining the rules of conversion, in Part II, chapter 17, they argue that predicates are implicitly quantified: when one says ‘All lions are animals’, one does not mean that all lions are all the animals, but only some of the animals. So ‘All S is P’ in general means ‘All S is (some) P’ (Logic II.17: 130).
Most propositions, however, are more complex than this classification suggests, for subjects and predicates need not be simple. In the proposition ‘God who is invisible created the world which is visible’, both the subject and predicate include subordinate clauses that appear to contain propositions (Logic II.5–8). But because of the overall subject-predicate structure of all propositions, embedded propositions must be located in the subject or predicate. This becomes problematic when Arnauld and Nicole discuss rules of inference, since they have to force all propositions, including conditionals and disjunctives, into standard categorical forms. Their treatment of the proposition, then, requires that subjects and predicates have unlimited complexity. Thus the Port-Royal theory provides no basic inventory of simple parts permitting a recursive analysis, as in the modern classification of variables, function or predicate symbols, and logical symbols. On the classical view the proposition has a simple organic unity from the outside and a reiterable complexity from the inside.
When it comes to making judgments, the part of a proposition that represents the act of willing distinguishing a judgment from a mere conception is the copula, expressed linguistically by the verb. The copula has two functions in a judgment: it relates the subject and the predicate, and it signifies affirmation or denial. Arnauld and Nicole criticize Aristotle and other philosophers who combine the copula with features of the predicate (time) and subject (person); in a well-formed language there would be only one substantive verb, namely to be. In fact, natural languages often combine the predicate with the verb, as in ‘Peter lives’, and Latin verbs sometimes express all three elements of judgment in one word, as in cogito and sum. Descartes thought that in judging one holds a complex idea or proposition before the mind and then affirms or denies that it corresponds to reality. But the Port-Royal treatment of the copula raises serious problems for the accounts of negation and assertive force.
Negative judgments are those expressed by sentences containing a negative word or syllable attached to the verb, and are understood as denials, or judgments having an effect opposite to affirmations. Since in affirming one unites two ideas, in denying one separates the subject from the predicate:
If I say God is not unjust, the word is when joined to the particle not signifies the action contrary to affirming, namely denying, in which I view these ideas as repugnant to one another, because the idea unjust contains something contrary to what is contained in the idea God. (Logic II.3: 82–3)
Since the ‘not’ is attached to the verb, negation extends to the entire judgment. As Frege points out in his essay ‘Negation’ (1918, for English version see Frege 1966), this account makes it impossible to recognize a false thought or grasp true thoughts that have false thoughts as their components, such as true conditionals with false antecedents or consequents. For example, to recognize that ‘3 is greater than 5’ is false requires having a complete thought, and not merely fragments of a thought. In addition, this account makes it impossible to understand the force of double negation: if denying dissolves the thought into its parts, then double negation would function as a sword that magically unites the parts it had sundered. (Frege 1966: 122–29) The root problem in treating negation as denial is the failure to distinguish the thought or proposition that is grasped from the act of judging it.
This same problem surfaces in the Port-Royal view that the copula has assertive force, which makes it impossible to distinguish making a judgment from merely thinking a proposition. According to the Logic, every time one connects a subject and a predicate one is ipso facto judging. Thus there is no room for thinking propositions while suspending judgment, as Descartes advocates in his method of doubt. This view of the copula also creates a problem for embedded generality. Because of the ‘two-name’ view, Port-Royal must locate subordinate clauses in either the subject or the predicate. But some embedded clauses make assertions and some do not. Despite the two verbs in the complex proposition ‘Men who are pious are charitable’, for example, it is clear that one is not asserting of all men or even some men that they are pious. On the other hand, ‘God who is invisible created the world which is visible’ permits three assertions: ‘God is invisible’, ‘The world is visible’, and ‘God created the world’ (II.5: 87). Port-Royal explains the difference between these two kinds of embedding in terms of ‘determinative’ and ‘explicative’ subordinate clauses (or, as they say, relative pronouns) (see II.6–8). Determinative subordinate clauses restrict the signification of the antecedent of the relative pronoun (e.g., ‘men who are pious’) whereas explicative clauses do not (e.g., ‘God who is invisible’). In fact both determinations and explications can be carried out as well without embedded or subordinate clauses, as in the sentences ‘Pious men are charitable’ and ‘The invisible God created the visible world’. So this view of the copula again fails to distinguish complex ideas containing assertions from those that do not, showing how far Port-Royal was from a satisfactory treatment of assertion and embedded generality (see Buroker 1994).
In a recent article Van der Schaar amends the account given above, pointing out that although Port-Royal generally assumes the proposition has assertive force, the authors recognize deviant contexts in which this is not true. She draws attention to their treatment of modality (Logic II.8) where modal terms such as ‘possible’ and ‘necessary’ function to modify the act of judging rather than the content of the proposition (see Van der Scharr 2008: 334–5). The authors label such acts ‘tacit’ or ‘virtual’ affirmations (II.7: 93). She concludes that although for Port-Royal the notion of asserted proposition is prior in the order of explanation, the authors in fact analyze some complex propositions as lacking assertive force.
The Port-Royal semantics is based on a theory of the relations between words, ideas, and things. Like Descartes, Arnauld and Nicole hold that the representative relation between ideas and things is both objective and natural. They specify that when they speak of ideas, they mean “anything in the mind when we can truthfully say that we are conceiving something, however we conceive it” (Logic I.1: 26). Thus the idea viewed as the element of logic and knowledge is the objective content of thought. And since ideas represent things, the structure of ideas is isomorphic to the structure of the real: one cannot change the content of the idea of a right triangle. By contrast, the relation between words and ideas is not natural, for words are conventional signs of thoughts (I.4: 37). Humans assign words their meaning through acts of institution. So the expressive relation between words and ideas differs in important ways from the representative relation between ideas and things. First, the relation between the linguistic sign and its idea is causal-psychological. That is, words, like natural signs, signify by prompting an idea in the perceiver's mind. In practice, however, Port-Royal tends to assimilate words to ideas, calling both ‘terms’, and treats significance as transitive, claiming the words used to express ideas also signify the things signified by ideas. There is a second difference between linguistic and eidetic significance, namely that the correspondence between words and ideas is imperfect. Port-Royal assumes that if language coincided exactly with thought, each word would express one simple idea, and the structure of the sentence would mirror the structure of ideas. But humans use single words like ‘triangle’ to express complex ideas, and are sometimes confused as to which ideas are connected with which words. Consequently there is no guarantee that the structure of linguistic discourse accurately reflects the structure of ideas. As this overview suggests, the semantic theory in Port-Royal is carried out on two levels, first with respect to ideas, and second with respect to language.
Port-Royal first classifies ideas with respect to their objects. According to Cartesian metaphysics, there are three sorts of things: substances, attributes or primary essential properties of substances, and modes or accidental properties. Port-Royal condenses this framework into the simpler distinction between things or substances and manners of things. A thing is “conceived as subsisting by itself and as the subject of everything conceived about it”; examples of nouns signifying things are ‘earth’, ‘sun’, ‘mind’, and ‘God’. A manner is “conceived as in the thing and not able to subsist without it, determines it to be in a certain way and causes it to be so named”. Manners are expressed by abstract nouns such as ‘hardness’ and ‘justice’, as well as by adjectives such as ‘hard’ and ‘just’ (I.2: 30–31). As will become apparent below, adjectives have a more complex form of signification than nouns. But at this first level the theory depends on a distinction between things, that is, complete or independent entities, and manners of things, incomplete or dependent entities. The table below gives a general sketch of the theory so far:
Simple Port-Royal
\[ \begin{array}{rcccl} \text{Language} & \xrightarrow[\text{expresses}]{} & \text{Idea} & \xrightarrow[\text{represents}]{} & \text{World} \\ \begin{matrix} \text{Name of} \\ \text{Substance} \end{matrix} & \xrightarrow[\substack{ \text{‘earth’, ’sun’,} \\ \text{‘mind’, ‘God’} }]{} & \begin{matrix} \text{Idea of} \\ \text{Substance} \end{matrix} & \xrightarrow[\text{represents}]{} & \text{Substance} \\ \begin{matrix} \text{Name of} \\ \text{Attribute} \end{matrix} & \xrightarrow[\substack{ \text{‘hardness’, ’hard’,} \\ \text{‘justice’, ‘just’} }]{} & \begin{matrix} \text{Idea of} \\ \text{Attribute} \\ \text{or Manner} \end{matrix} & \xrightarrow[\text{represents}]{} & \begin{matrix} \text{Attribute or} \\ \text{Manner of a Thing} \end{matrix} \end{array} \]
This treatment in some ways resembles a modern analysis of predication: ideas of substances would function as subjects of judgment; ideas of attributes or manners would be predicates. The analysis also looks Fregean given the emphasis on the distinction between complete and incomplete objects of thought. Thus Cartesian metaphysics has the resources to analyze an atomic proposition as composed of an expression for an attribute and a name of an object. But because of the subject-predicate analysis of all judgment and their semantics of general terms, the final theory is more complex. What results is a systematic confusion between names and predicates. (This discussion is based on Buroker 1993.)
The first complication occurs in Chapter 6 of Part I, where the authors distinguish singular from general or universal ideas. Although everything that exists is singular, ideas can represent more than one thing, such as the general idea of a triangle. They then distinguish proper nouns which indicate single individuals, such as ‘Socrates’, ‘Rome’, ‘Bucephalus’, from common or appellative nouns such as ‘man’, ‘city’, ‘horse’, which can indicate more than one thing. Throughout the text, the authors call both universal ideas and common nouns ‘general terms’. The question that arises is the relation between these two ways of classifying ideas, the first in terms of complete or incomplete objects, the second into singular or general ideas. It is tempting to identify the two, but this is not easy for Port-Royal. The best way to appreciate the complexity in the theory is to use Frege's simpler theory as a point of reference.
For Frege, meaning takes place in a three-fold structure, comprised of linguistic expressions, the entities they designate or refer to, and the sense of the expression, which is a mode of presenting the entity. In ‘The Thought’ (1918, for English version see Frege 1966) Frege carefully distinguishes the subjective nature of ideas considered as mental states from the objective nature of thoughts expressed in judgments (Frege 1966: 302). Despite the difference in terminology, Fregean senses function very much like ideas in Port-Royal: they are the objective contents of thoughts and utterances. Frege maintains that connected to every linguistic sign there is a reference and a sense. The sense is the mode of presentation of that to which the sign refers. Frege divides linguistic signs into three groups: proper names (singular terms), function expressions (including concept-expressions), and sentences. Proper names and sentences are complete names; function-expressions are incomplete names. In ‘On Sense and Reference’ Frege specifies that proper names such as ‘Socrates’ and ‘the teacher of Plato’ express individual or complete senses, which refer to individual complete entities. Declarative sentences also express senses—the thought contained in the sentence—and designate or refer to complete objects, namely the truth value of the sentence. In ‘Comments on Sense and Meaning’ Frege makes clear that the reference of a function-expression is a function, an incomplete entity. Function-expressions contain one or more gaps corresponding to the ‘unsaturated’ or incomplete nature of the sense they express and the entities they designate. For example, the expression ‘is a man’ names a concept under which all humans fall. Here is a sketch of Frege's theory:
Frege
\[ \begin{array}{rcccl} \text{Language} & \xrightarrow[\text{expresses}]{} & \text{Sense} & \xrightarrow[\text{refers to}]{} & \text{World} \\ \\ \text{Proper Name} & \xrightarrow[\substack{ \text{(complete) singular} \\ \text{term ‘Socrates’} }]{} & \begin{matrix} \text{Individual Sense} \\ \text{(saturated)} \end{matrix} & \xrightarrow[]{} & \text{Object} \\ \\ \begin{matrix} \text{Function} \\ \text{Expression} \end{matrix} & \xrightarrow[\substack{ \text{(incomplete, gappy) concept} \\ \text{expression ‘is mortal’} }]{} & \begin{matrix} \text{Incomplete Sense} \\ \text{(unsaturated)} \end{matrix} & \xrightarrow[]{} & \begin{matrix} \text{Function} \\ \text{(Concept)} \end{matrix} \\ \\ \begin{matrix} \text{Declarative} \\ \text{Sentence} \end{matrix} & \xrightarrow[\substack{ \text{(complete) ‘Socrates} \\ \text{is mortal’} }]{} & \begin{matrix} \text{Complete Thought} \\ \text{(saturated)} \end{matrix} & \xrightarrow[]{} & \begin{matrix} \text{Truth} \\ \text{Value} \end{matrix} \end{array} \]
So far there is an overlap between this view and Port-Royal's theory of ideas. For Arnauld and Nicole meaning has a three-fold structure, with ideas taking the place of Fregean senses. Linguistic signs express ideas, which represent or refer to entities, either things or their attributes. Names of entities are either proper or common, depending on whether they express singular or general ideas. If the distinction between ideas of things and ideas of attributes coincided with the distinction between singular and general ideas, the parallel with Frege would be complete. But Port-Royal actually says that general ideas represent or refer to more than one individual. On this view the reference of a general term is not an attribute, but the collection of individuals possessing the attribute. This is one way Port-Royal assimilates the relation of a name to its bearer with the relation of a predicate or concept-expression to the objects falling under it. Had the authors stopped here, the picture would be fairly simple. But they develop the theory in two ways. First, they contribute to the history of semantics by distinguishing the comprehension (or intension) of a general term from its extension (denotation). And second, they are led astray by grammatical considerations into blurring their own distinction between expressions for complete and incomplete entities.
Medieval philosophers explained the significance of general terms by a complex theory of supposition (see Spade 1982). Port-Royal condenses this framework so that the significance of general ideas has two aspects: the comprehension and the extension. The comprehension consists in the set of attributes essential to the idea. For example, the comprehension of the idea ‘triangle’ includes the attributes extension, shape, three lines, and three angles. The extension of the idea consists in the inferiors or subjects to which the term applies, which for Port-Royal includes “all the different species of triangles” (I.6: 39–40). Here the authors confuse the species with the individual, or the relation of set inclusion with set membership. Usually, however, they take the extension of a general idea to be the individuals possessing the attributes in its comprehension. There are three key features of this theory of signification. First, the comprehension rather than the extension is essential to the function of a general idea: one cannot remove an attribute without destroying the idea, whereas one can restrict its extension by applying it to only some of the subjects that fall under it. Second, the comprehension governs the extension: the set of attributes determines the individuals (and species) in its extension. Finally, comprehensions and extensions are inversely related. In adding attributes to the comprehension of an idea one restricts its extension (assuming attributes are independent and instantiated). For example, if the comprehension of the idea ‘mammal’ includes that of the idea ‘animal’, the extension of ‘animal’ includes that of ‘mammal’. Port-Royal implicitly assumes this principle throughout the text. In recognizing these two modes of signification—the comprehension and the extension—Port-Royal imports the distinction between incomplete and complete entities into the signification of general terms.
Completing the theory of signification of terms is the noun system, taken largely from Part II of the Grammar. As explained in Part II of the Logic, nouns are names of entities, that is, substances and attributes. Substantive nouns such as ‘earth’ and ‘sun’ signify substances, and adjectival nouns such as ‘good’ and ‘just’ signify attributes, “indicating at the same time the subject to which they apply…”. Just as substances are ontologically prior to their manners or modes, nouns preceded adjectives in the genesis of language. From the adjective one then creates a secondary substantive, an abstract noun:
after having formed the adjective human from the substantive word man, we form the substantive humanity from the adjective human. (Logic II.1: 74)
Thus there are three kinds of nouns: concrete substantives, adjectives, and abstract substantives. The Logic says that adjectives have two significations: a distinct signification of the mode or manner, and a confused signification of the subject. Although the signification of the mode is more distinct, it is indirect; by contrast the confused signification of the subject is direct (II.1: 74–75). So on their account every noun picks out or distinctly signifies one thing, either an individual, a collection of individuals, or an attribute. Concrete substantives distinctly signify complete objects, that is, individual substances: ‘man’ distinctly signifies human beings. The adjective ‘human’ distinctly signifies the incomplete object, the attribute of being human. And abstract substantives such as ‘humanity’ also pick out this attribute distinctly. But the adjective ‘human’, unlike the concrete substantive ‘man’, is linguistically incomplete, since it means ‘a human [being]’. Linguistically adjectives are gappy and require completion by a substantive to refer. Port-Royal identifies this incomplete signification as the connotation or confused (but direct) signification of an adjective. So adjectives signify substances directly and confusedly, and attributes indirectly and distinctly. Because substantive nouns of both kinds are linguistically complete, they lack connotation altogether, and have only distinct and direct signification to the individual substances or attributes they name. The following chart represents these signification relations:
\[ \begin{array}{rl} \begin{array}{rc} \text{Concrete Substantives} & \xrightarrow[]{\text{‘man’}} \\ \text{Adjectives} & \left\{\begin{array}{c} \xrightarrow[\text{‘human’}]{} \\ \xrightarrow[]{} \end{array} \right. \\ \text{Abstract Substantives} & \xrightarrow[\text{‘humanity’}]{} \end{array} & \begin{array}{cl} \left. \begin{array}{c} \substack{\text{distinct and} \\ \text{direct}} \\ \substack{\text{confused and} \\ \text{direct}} \end{array} \right\} & \text{Substances} \\ \left. \begin{array}{c} \substack{\text{distinct and}\,\, \\ \text{indirect}} \\ \substack{\text{distinct and} \\ \text{direct}} \end{array} \right\} & \text{Attributes} \\ \end{array} \end{array} \]
It looks as though Port-Royal is led to this notion of the double signification of adjectives only because they transfer metaphysical categories to language. Originally, concrete nouns were words naming substances or complete entities, and adjectives were names of attributes or incomplete entities. But Arnauld and Nicole blur this distinction by taking signification to depend on whether the word is capable of referring alone in discourse. Incorporating this last analysis into the overall semantics yields this final result:
Revised Port-Royal
\[ \begin{array}{rcccc} \substack{ \textbf{Language} } & \xrightarrow[\text{expresses}]{} & \substack{ \textbf{Idea} } & \xrightarrow[\text{represents}]{} & \substack{ \textbf{World} } \\ \\ \substack{ \textbf{Proper} \\ \textbf{Name} } & \xrightarrow[\substack{ \text{singular term} \\ \text{‘Socrates’}}]{} & \substack{ \textbf{Singular} \\ \textbf{Idea} } & \xrightarrow{} & \substack{ \textbf{Single} \\ \textbf{Substance} } \\ \\ \substack{ \textbf{Common} \\ \textbf{Noun} } & \left\{ \begin{array}{c} \substack{ \text{Concrete} \\ \text{Substantive} \\ \text{‘man’} } \\ \substack{ \text{Adjective} \\ \text{‘human’} } \\ \substack{ \text{Abstact} \\ \text{Substantive} \\ \text{‘humanity’} } \end{array} \right\} & \substack{ \textbf{General or} \\ \textbf{Universal Idea} \\ \text{(comprehension,} \\ \text{extension)} } & \left\{ \begin{array}{c} \left. \begin{array}{cc} \xrightarrow{} & \substack{\text{distinct and} \\ \text{direct}} \\ \xrightarrow{} & \substack{\text{confused and} \\ \text{indirect}} \end{array} \right\} \\ \left. \begin{array}{cc} \xrightarrow{} & \substack{\text{distinct and}\,\, \\ \text{indirect}} \\ \xrightarrow{} & \substack{\text{distinct and} \\ \text{direct}} \end{array} \right\} \end{array} \right. & \begin{array}{l} \substack { \textbf{More Than} \\ \textbf{One Substance} \\ \text{(Extension of Idea)} } \\ \\ \substack{ \textbf{Attribute or} \\ \textbf{Manner of a Thing} \\ \text{(Comprehension)} } \end{array} \end{array} \]
In spite of the complexity a few observations are possible. First, both concrete nouns and adjectives directly signify the objects in the extension of the term. This makes it look as if Arnauld and Nicole are equating ‘direct signification’ with ‘being predicable of’ (or denotation), except that this does not apply in the case of the abstract noun. On the other hand, the distinct but indirect signification of the adjective looks equivalent to Frege's view of the reference of concept-expressions, except that Frege treats the distinction between complete and incomplete reference as invariant across grammatical form. On his view both common nouns and adjectives are incomplete expressions. Their predicative nature is more easily seen when they are correctly formulated, as in ‘is a man’ and ‘is human’.
It is not so clear whether Port Royal wants to apply the distinction between the comprehension and extension of an idea to singular terms. In fact, they treat singular terms, including definite descriptions, as afterthoughts. One passage does, however, address the nature of definite descriptions. In chapter 8 of Part I the authors elaborate on the “error of equivocation” that can occur when people interpret a complex singular term differently. For example, adherents to different faiths can disagree over the referent of the complex singular term ‘the true religion’. Stoianovici argues that in their explanation Arnauld and Nicole come close to recognizing Donnellan's distinction between attributive and referential uses of definite descriptions. According to the account of general terms, adjectives or ‘connotative terms’ signify substances (the extension) confusedly and directly, but attributes (the comprehension) distinctly but indirectly. The authors treat definite descriptions such as ‘the true religion’ as connotative (general) terms rather than singular terms, claiming they refer confusedly to a distinct individual. The error occurs when different thinkers substitute different individuals for this reference. As Stoianovici notes, their analysis explicitly recognizes only the referential use, although it implies the possibility of the attributive use of definite descriptions.
Very little has been written on the Port Royal views of truth conditions of propositions, and the rules of valid syllogisms, including their account of the distribution of terms. Recently Parsons addresses their views in his article on the history of the theory of distribution. Parsons' main concern is to respond to criticisms of the doctrine of distribution raised by Geach, who maintains both that the doctrine originated in the medieval theory of the ‘distributed supposition’ (reference) of terms and that it is incoherent. Parsons argues to the contrary that it appeared much earlier, in connection with the test for validity of syllogisms in the theory of inference. Although Aristotle did not have a term for distribution, he did express the concept of a term's being taken universally in On Interpretation. In his defense of the doctrine, Parsons argues that the Port Royal theory of truth conditions of propositions, although incomplete and idiosyncratic, can be extended to provide a coherent account of distribution. This section will briefly treat the Port Royal theory of distribution and some aspects of the related account of truth conditions of judgments.
As explained in 3.1 above, the Logic classifies simple categorical propositions into four forms: universal affirmatives (All S is P), universal negatives (No S is P), particular affirmatives (Some S is P) and particular negatives (Some S is not P). Simple categorical syllogisms are arguments with two premises and a conclusion, each statement taking one of these four forms. Port Royal gives this example of a categorical syllogism:
Every good prince is loved by his subjects.
Every pious king is a good prince.
Therefore every pious king is loved by his subjects. (Logic III.2: 137)
In this syllogism the term “good prince” is the middle term, because it appears in both premises but not in the conclusion. In chapter 3 of Part III, Port Royal gives six rules or “axioms” for valid simple categorical syllogisms, rules conforming to standard medieval logic. The first two concern the distribution of terms, where a distributed term is expressed as one ‘taken universally’:
Rule 1: The middle term cannot be taken particularly twice, but must be taken universally at least once.
Rule 2: The terms of the conclusion cannot be taken more universally in the conclusion than in the premises. (Logic III.3: 139–40)
The remaining four rules express the standard views that at least one premise must be affirmative, the conclusion must be affirmative if both premises are affirmative, if one premise is negative the conclusion must be negative, and nothing follows from two particular premises (III.3: 141–42).
In general, a term is distributed if it is ‘taken universally’ or refers to all the individuals it denotes; otherwise it is undistributed. As Parsons explains, the denotation of a term is its extension on its own, whereas its reference is its extension in a proposition (Parsons 2006: 61). Thus the term ‘prince’ denotes (i.e., is predicable of) all princes, but in the proposition ‘Some princes are just’, the quantifier ‘Some’ restricts its extension in the proposition (its reference) to a subset of its extension on its own (denotation). According to the rules for distribution stated by medieval logicians, the subject terms of universal propositions and the predicates of negative propositions are distributed or taken universally throughout their extension; all other terms are undistributed. Port Royal accepts these rules in chapters 17–20 of Part II, in explaining the conversion of propositions, accounting for them in terms of the truth conditions of propositions. The First Axiom of affirmative propositions states that the subjects of universal affirmatives are distributed (taken universally) and the subjects of particular affirmatives are not (II.17: 130). According to the Fourth Axiom of affirmative propositions,
The extension of the attribute is restricted by that of the subject, such that it signifies no more than the part of its extension which applies to the subject. For example, when we say that humans are animals, the word ‘animal’ no longer signifies all animals, but only those animals that are humans. (Logic II.17: 130–31)
The rules for conversion of affirmative propositions follow from these truth conditions, namely that universal affirmatives can be converted “by adding a mark of particularity to the attribute which becomes the subject”, and particular affirmatives can be simply converted (II.18: 132). Chapters 19 and 20 of Part II similarly treat the truth conditions of negative propositions and their respective rules of conversion. The nature of a negative proposition “is to conceive that one thing is not another”, that is, the subject is not the attribute. Thus the Sixth Axiom states that “The attribute of a negative proposition is always taken generally” or is distributed. Parsons notes that as stated the theory of truth conditions is in fact incomplete because the authors do not explicitly discuss the extensions in the proposition of the subject terms of particular negatives, but one can presume that the rules for extensions of subject terms in affirmative propositions apply (Parsons 2006: 70). When completed to preserve the logical relations in Aristotle's square of opposition (which Port Royal clearly intends), the theory fits both with the traditional doctrine of distribution and more modern views of the truth conditions of categorical propositions. Thus Parsons takes the Port Royal account of truth conditions to give a coherent basis for the traditional theory of distribution.
More recently Martin offers a more detailed interpretation of the Port-Royal theory of truth-conditions for categorical propositions. Like Parsons, he discusses the relation between the truth-conditions of propositions and the theory of distribution. Martin disagrees with Parsons' view that the doctrine of distribution developed independently of the medieval theory of distributive supposition. According to his analysis, the Port Royal theory of truth-conditions depends on the idea of a universal (distributive) term, as well as the notion of a conservative quantifier and the distinction between affirmative and negative propositions (see Martin 2013).
As is clear, the Port-Royal Logic is full of confusions as well as insights. This discussion has emphasized their confusions between complex idea and proposition, proposition and judgment, and especially name and predicate. Other topics that deserve more attention include singular terms and definite descriptions, logical operators and quantifiers, the theory of truth conditions, and the theory of inference. It may be more profitable to regard the work as incorporating several logics, and to view the confusions as the inevitable results of the tensions among these different views. |
Bradley Johnson scored three Premier League goals last season
Neil Adams claimed his first win as Norwich City boss seven games into his tenure with a resounding win over 10-man Watford.
Hornets defender Joel Ekstrand saw red after just two minutes for a collision with Nathan Redmond.
Norwich pinned back the visitors and Bradley Johnson's superb 20-yard finish had them in front before half-time.
And two goals in as many minutes from Lewis Grabban and Alexander Tettey finished off Beppe Sannino's side.
Canaries in focus Norwich's last win prior to beating Watford was 2-0 against Sunderland at home in the Premier League on 22 March.
Adams had failed to keep the Canaries in the Premier League during his five games in charge last season and suffered an opening-day loss to Wolves last week, but his first win as a manager owed much to Ekstrand's sending off in the opening minutes.
The Swede seemed to catch Redmond with his arm when the pair were chasing a ball over the top and, after advice from his assistant, referee Paul Tierney produced a red card as the Norwich winger received treatment for a bloodied nose.
A reshuffled Hornets side who, like Norwich, have designs on promotion this season, survived heavy Canaries pressure for half an hour until Johnson clipped a clever effort over the head of Heurelho Gomes and into the net.
Watford had showed their quality last week with a 3-0 defeat of Bolton and, while this loss at Carrow Road revealed little more about their promotion prospects, they did show resolve after the break and found an outlet through substitute Lloyd Dyer, who worked a save from John Ruddy.
But Kyle Lafferty, a bustling and imposing presence up front for the Canaries, could have twice extended Norwich's lead before Grabban, a summer signing from Bournemouth, claimed his first goal for the club with an effort that spun off the back of Gabriele Angella and looped over Gomes.
Norwich displayed a ruthlessness rarely seen last season as Tettey rifled in a third from the edge of the area moments later to finally hand Adams a much-needed win.
Norwich City boss Neil Adams:
Media playback is not supported on this device Adams on Norwich v Watford
"I was very pleased with how we applied ourselves. Of course the sending off is a massive turning point.
"When you've got that numerical advantage for such a long time you've got to be patient. You have to keep the ball and you have to keep it with quality. I thought we did that throughout the game.
"I've not seen the sending off incident. I saw Nathan on the floor and straight away you're looking at the officials.
"Obviously they've seen enough to give a red card. Nathan said he didn't know what had hit him. He said he felt a bang and went down."
Watford boss Beppe Sannino:
"The referee for me has made a big decision. The situation is not clear.
"I will have to speak to Ekstrand, but for now I will think about the next match.
"Norwich played well. We should have been more compact with 10 men.
"Eleven against 11 this could have been a different match.
"Appealing against the red card is an option. We will watch it back." |
Transportation
High Without a private guide, my high-end stand-in would have to suffer the indignity of London’s black cabs and their famously proper and well-informed drivers. Ms. Calon’s estimate for six rides was £64, which at $1.57 to the pound (the rate when I was there in late August) is the equivalent of just over $100.
Low That sum, of course, would end my day before it started, so taxis were out. And even London’s subway is pricey — starting at £2.30 for a ride or £12 for a daily pass. So instead, I bought a £2 24-hour pass for London’s bike share program, and, when necessary, took the bus (£1.50 and, from the upper level, a great view). As it turned out, only one Tube ride was required; total expenditure about £9.
Hygiene and Headwear
High As a way to start my day, Ms. Calon suggested a hot towel wet shave, which included a shoeshine, at one of the classic shops in the hotel’s opulent environs: Truefitt and Hill (truefittandhill.co.uk), barbers since 1805 and holders of a royal warrant, meaning someone from Buckingham Palace is a client. “It’s where you’d see Prince Charles getting his haircut,” she said. (No promises, obviously.) £42.
Low The free shoeshine sounded appealing. But I’ve been bearded for over a year now, so I rejected the shave. Instead, I set out to experience some of the other centuries-old London merchants of the St James’s neighborhood. My walk included a stop at Lock & Co. Hatters (lockhatters.co.uk), another royal warrant holder established in 1676. I couldn’t afford to buy anything, but Lock & Co. also features a newly opened heritage room that serves as a mini hat museum; I gawked at the conformateur, a gizmo used for recording the precise outline of a client’s head, and Winston Churchill’s yellowed page in the store’s ancient ledger, which records four velvet hats purchased in 1911. Nearby, I also found William Evans (williamevans.com) (“Country Clothing — Gun & Rifle Makers”) and James J. Fox Cigar Merchants (jjfox.co.uk), which features its own Winston Churchill memorabilia. No sign of Charles, however.
Breakfast
High Ms. Calon’s agenda included a full English breakfast (including juice and pastries) at Aqua Shard (aquashard.co.uk) for £33. That includes a view of the city from the 31st floor of the Shard, the tallest building in Europe outside Moscow. |
Sydney could become the permanent home of the A-League grand final as part of a NSW government plan to bid for the hosting rights for the competition's decider, regardless of the teams competing.
Fairfax Media understands discussions have taken place within the state government to table a bid to Football Federation Australia to secure the long-term hosting rights for the event, commencing as early as 2019. While still in an early stage, the proposal includes ANZ Stadium, Allianz Stadium and a newly renovated 30,000-seat Parramatta Stadium as candidates to stage the annual decider, operating on a sliding scale pending the stature of the teams competing.
No more turf wars: Allianz Stadium is one of three contenders to host grand finals as part of the bid. Credit:Narelle Spangher/Lumapixel
The initial proposal in discussion is in response to the $1billion investment in stadia from the NSW government, which is eager to consolidate a series of major events to ensure traffic, tenancy and an influx of tourism with the new venues.
It is understood the NSW government was impressed by this year's grand final between Sydney FC and Melbourne Victory, which attracted approximately 10,000 interstate attendees. That prompted talks about whether Sydney could become the home of the decider, as it is for the NRL final, and as Melbourne is for the AFL grand final. |
For several thousands of years, ancient Egypt dominated the Mediterranean world -- and scholars across the globe have spent more than a century trying to document the reigns of the various rulers of Egypt's Old, Middle and New Kingdoms. Now, a detailed radiocarbon analysis of short-lived plant remains from the region is providing scientists with a long and accurate chronology of ancient Egyptian dynasties that agrees with most previous estimates but also imposes some historic revisions.
Although previous chronologies have been precise in relative ways, assigning absolute dates to specific events in ancient Egyptian history has been an extremely contentious undertaking. This new study tightly constrains those previous predictions, especially for the Old Kingdom, which was determined to be slightly older than some scholars had believed. The study will also allow for more accurate historical comparisons to surrounding areas, like Libya and Sudan, which have been subject to many radiocarbon dating techniques in the past.
Christopher Bronk Ramsey and colleagues from the Universities of Oxford and Cranfield in England, along with a team of researchers from France, Austria and Israel, collected radiocarbon measurements from 211 various plants -- obtained from museum collections in the form of seeds, baskets, textiles, plant stems and fruits -- that were directly associated with particular reigns of ancient Egyptian kings. They then combined their radiocarbon data with historical information about the order and length of each king's reign to make a complete chronology of ancient Egyptian dynasties.
Their research is published in the June 18 issue of Science.
"My colleague, Joanne Rowland, went to a lot of museums, explaining what we were doing and asking for their participation," Bronk Ramsey said. "The museums were all very helpful in providing material we were interested in -- especially important since export of samples from Egypt is currently prohibited. Fortunately, we only needed samples that were about the same size as a grain of wheat."
The researchers' new chronology does indicate that a few events occurred earlier than previously predicted. It suggests, for example, that the reign of Djoser in the Old Kingdom actually started between 2691 and 2625 B.C. and that the New Kingdom began between 1570 and 1544 B.C.
Bronk Ramsey and his colleagues also found some discrepancies in the radiocarbon levels of the Nile Valley, but they suggest that these are due to ancient Egypt's unusual growing season, which is concentrated in the winter months.
For the most part, the new chronology simply narrows down the various historical scenarios that researchers have been considering for ancient Egypt.
"For the first time, radiocarbon dating has become precise enough to constrain the history of ancient Egypt to very specific dates," said Bronk Ramsey. "I think scholars and scientists will be glad to hear that our small team of researchers has independently corroborated a century of scholarship in just three years."
This report by Bronk Ramsey et al. was funded by the Leverhulme Trust with additional financial support from the German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development, NERC, CNRS, CEA, IRSN, IRD, and Ministère de La Culture. |
Image caption Nelson Mandela was in hospital for nearly three months
Increased activity has been seen around the Johannesburg home of Nelson Mandela, South Africa's first black president, who has been very ill.
Family members have gathered two days after Mr Mandela's eldest daughter said he was putting up a courageous fight from what she called his "deathbed".
He spent nearly three months in hospital with a lung infection.
Mr Mandela, 95, led South Africa's transition from white-minority rule in the 1990s, after 27 years in prison.
The BBC's Mike Wooldridge, who is outside Mr Mandela's home in the Johannesburg suburb of Houghton, says it appears to have been an unusually large family gathering on this occasion.
Among those attending was family elder Bantu Holomisa,
A number of government vehicles were there during the evening as well, our correspondent says.
The South African presidency has repeatedly described Mr Mandela's condition as critical but stable.
He has been receiving intensive home-based care since he was released from hospital in September.
He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 and was elected South Africa's first black president in 1994. He stepped down after five years in office. |
In March of 2012, for the first time in her life, Teresa MacBain told the assembled crowd at the American Atheists convention that she didn’t believe in God… and this is what happened:
I didn’t know anything at all about you [atheists]. I had never seen your faces. You were just “those people.” And I was the one on the right track. And you were the ones that were gonna burn in hell… and I’m happy to say as I stand before you right now, I’m gonna burn with you!
Teresa joined the Clergy Project (for pastors who were questioning faith or had secretly become atheists) and later worked with a couple of different atheist organizations.
It was quite a run for an ex-pastor.
There were a lot of articles written about her journey over the years, and I spoke to her as recently as this past April about her work helping other atheists.
It now appears she’s found God again.
According to her website:
For several years she lived in the public eye as a prominent atheist, until she rediscovered God’s grace through music and the compassion of loved ones. This unique journey led to her life’s mission: helping people struggling with their own faith.
She has a video on her site where she describes that journey back to God. The relevant portion begins around the 16:00 mark.
I won’t pretend to understand whatever logic helped her “rediscover” God, but I would point out that her statements don’t exactly resemble a “born again” moment where Jesus speaks to her. It’s not like she has some litany of logical arguments for God’s existence.
Instead, it appears to be an emotion-driven decision that’s intensely personal, not the sort of thing that would ever convince other atheists to “find” God.
I wish her all the best in this new phase of her life. Given what she’s been through, I have no doubt she’ll be able to help people struggling with their own beliefs.
***Update***: The Clergy Project has issued this statement about MacBain:
After not hearing much from Teresa over the last few months, The Clergy Project discovered yesterday [October 15, 2016] that she has now returned to the Christian faith and is again active in Christian church ministry. Upon reaching out to her and participating in a friendly yet detailed conversation, Teresa made it clear that she has, in fact, returned to belief in the existence of the supernatural. Subsequently resigning her Clergy Project membership, Teresa’s access into our private online community has been deactivated. Due to security of information concerns, it may also be worth noting that Teresa had not logged into the online forum since January of this year. Some of our membership and of the larger freethought community may feel frustration over this turn of events. But we remind ourselves that such is the nature of freethought itself. Life is a long and winding journey, and our personal experiences and perceptions of the world around us are ever-evolving. Just as we are free to leave supernaturalism for atheism, so we are free to shift our embrace the other way as well. We at The Clergy Project may be disappointed to see Teresa leave our ranks, but we nonetheless wish her well and thank her for her years of friendship.
Linda LaScola, whose blog Rational Doubt features voices from The Clergy Project, added in a message directed at Clergy Project members:
Changing one’s religious beliefs is a phenomenon I understand well. I know how financially difficult and emotional wrenching it is for clergy to leave behind their long-held religious beliefs, their lifelong community and their source of family income once they realize that their once precious religious beliefs have changed. I have difficulty understanding why people changing in the other direction would not take the simple step of informing their non-believing colleagues and leaving their private on-line organization.
I agree that she should have informed The Clergy Project (because it’s a private forum where secrecy is paramount). But she may have been hesitant about letting people know because she lost a lot of her close friends when she came out as an atheist. I could understand if she feared losing her atheist friends this time around. (I would hope atheists wouldn’t abandon her over this.)
(Image via Facebook. Portions of this article were published earlier. The post has been edited since going up.) |
The Black Ops 2 Create-A-Class has been completely revamped and updated. The multiplayer Create-A-Class features a new 10 point system, also referred to as "Pick 10", which gives you 10 allocation points to use on weapons, equipment and perks. This system is extended with the specialist classes in black ops 3 by giving you even more freedom.
Each weapon, weapon attachment, perk, and equipment uses 1 allocation point, but you can only spend 10 allocation points per class - you, of course, get to choose what you take on the battlefield. If you don't use perks, that saves you 3 points, which can then be used to equip more weapon attachments or grenades. You could also carry only a secondary weapon with 2 attachments, have 4 perks, and one grenade.
The choice is yours.
Wildcards
You can also optionally choose up to 3 Wildcards for your class, which in turn give various options to customize your class even further. For example, by default your primary weapon can be equipped with 2 attachments, but with Primary Gunfighter the weapon can be equipped with up to 3 attachments.
Each selected Wildcard uses 1 allocation point. All Wildcards work exactly the same way on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U and PC versions.
NOTE: Some Wildcards, like the perk greed, "require" you to select an additional perk, which also uses 1 extra point. If you want to have 6 perks, the first 3 perks require 3 points, after that each additional one requires 2 points (1 for the Wildcard + 1 for the perk), for a total of 9 allocation points - this of course leaves you only with 1 point to spend on a weapon. The Wildcards in Black Ops 3 are pretty much the same as in BO2; you can create similar setups with the wildcards in black ops 3 by making use of the Specialists system.
Primary Gunfighter
Allows you to equip a 3rd attachment to your primary weapon.
Secondary Gunfighter
Allows you to equip a 2nd attachment to your secondary weapon.
Overkill
Allows you to use your primary weapon as a secondary weapon.
Perk 1 Greed
Allows you to choose 1 extra perk to the Perk 1 slot.
Perk 2 Greed
Allows you to choose 1 extra perk to the Perk 2 slot.
Perk 3 Greed
Allows you to choose 1 extra perk to the Perk 3 slot.
Danger Close
Allows you to take a second Lethal equipment.
Tactician
Allows you to choose a Tactical grenade in place of your Lethal grenade. This Wildcard doesn't allow you to carry any Lethal equipment. |
WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah writes today that President Obama is not a Christian but “an enemy of believers – a tormenter of Christians, a persecutor,” who believes that “God is truly the enemy because He is the author of liberty.”
Obama is steering America to an “ungodly destination” by using “abortion and homosexuality as battering rams against the Christian faith,” Farah warns, leading to “disaster, catastrophe, death, destruction, misery [and] hopelessness.”
I can’t tell you how many times I was instructed and admonished about Jesus’ words from Matthew 7, “Judge not, that ye be not judged.”
But, as a Christian, scripture informs me that we will know people by their fruits. Obama’s fruits were well-known and well-documented by the time he first ran for president. Any true believer in the One True God would have had the discernment to view what he had sown and reaped.
Today it’s growing increasingly clear that far from being a believer, as Obama claimed in 2008, he is an enemy of believers – a tormenter of Christians, a persecutor.
…
I believe Obama and the agenda he personifies have used abortion and homosexuality as battering rams against the Christian faith.
For the proponent of unlimited government, God is truly the enemy because He is the author of liberty. He is the enemy because no one must serve a higher god than government. Men have been placing themselves in God’s place, divining right from wrong, since the Garden of Eden. There’s nothing new under the sun. It always leads to one end – disaster, catastrophe, death, destruction, misery, hopelessness.
Obama can scarcely take all the blame for our arrival at this ungodly destination. Believers are more responsible. They let it happen. They continue to allow it to happen. They have the power to direct the nation in a reverse course – just as the children of ancient Israel had the power. |
By PoliceOne Staff
PHOENIX — A video capturing a violent struggle between police and a man who died has been released.
According to AZ Family, Phoenix police officers were involved in the deadly struggle at a restaurant on Sunday. The incident began when a male restaurant employee reported a man, 38-year-old Edward Michael Caruth, acting strangely and mumbling to himself
As seen in the video, two police officers attempted to subdue Caruth after he resisted being placed in handcuffs and fought the officers. A TASER was deployed, but did not stop the suspect. The struggle eventually spilled into the restaurant’s parking lot.
"He (the employee) indicated to 911 that this suspect had been in the business for quite a while, was scaring the employees," said Officer James Holmes of the Phoenix Police Department. "He had gone into a restroom, barricaded himself in the restroom and then turned on the water faucets causing the restrooms to flood."
The suspect also damaged the restaurant’s counter area, and tried to access the back kitchen, but was stopped by an employee wielding a knife.
The suspect was TASERed at least four times by the two officers. Two additional officers responded to the incident and struggled with the suspect.
Two officers were injured in the struggle. Caruth was treated for injuries at the scene, and later died after being transported to a hospital.
Caruth’s cause of death has not been determined. |
Trump Takes on Corrupt FBI — and the Drive-Bys Can’t Stand It
RUSH: This is so hilarious. I decided to watch CNN during the break. Trump went to the FBI today. We have the sound bites coming up in the monologue segment of the next hour. Trump went to the FBI today, and he hammered the FBI and he hammered the news media again. He did what he does. He’s consistent in hammering who he hammers. It was the graduating class at Quantico, and he promised them to clean up the FBI, to fix it, that it’s in tatters. He talked about the fake investigation into him with the media before getting on the helicopter to fly down to Quantico.
CNN is beside themselves. They can’t believe this. So you had Wolf Blitzer, you had A.B. Stoddard, you had Dana Bash, and they’re wringing their hands over this is horrible. This president, he is attacking institutions that are delineated in the Constitution. He’s attacking the FBI. He’s attacking the Department of Justice. He’s attacking the news media. Hardworking reporters. He points at their faces when he says fake news. And they’re just beside themselves that the Republicans will not respond and tell Trump to shut up.
A.B. Stoddard says: when you talk to Republicans in private they tell you how they hate it and they don’t like what Trump does but they won’t say anything public about it. And I’m watching this, and I’m thinking, you people think you’ve got a license, because you’re mentioning in the First Amendment, to lie? You have a license to destroy people who are your political opponents? You have a license to lie, to use fake information like the Trump dossier? You have the right to promote what you know to be fraudulent stuff as news, and then when somebody calls you out on it, they are the bad guy?
What, you are supposed to be left alone? You can lie and destroy and promote whatever you want and nobody but nobody, and especially the targets, nobody can respond to you? They’re supposed to just stand aside and let you destroy them? They’re supposed to just stand aside and let you lie about them? They’re just supposed to stand aside while you whittle them down to nothing? And that’s the attitude they all seem to convey here. “You can’t attack us. We’re journalists! You can’t criticize us. And he’s criticizing all of these institutions.”
They’re corrupt, for crying out loud. It’s why he’s elected. The left has corrupted everything they’ve touched.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Yeah, we’re learning that Comey — remember that July 5th press conference where he told everybody that what she did, Hillary, didn’t rise to being prosecutable. And it turns out that his original draft on this used exact language from the statutes that detail prosecution, and that Strzok went in there and modified it and softened the language describing what Hillary had done. They were clearly trying to protect her.
Now, it may have been because they didn’t think they really had the goods on her if they did prosecute, but I don’t think that’s it. I don’t think they had any intention of prosecuting. A, she was their gal, number one. Number two, I just don’t believe these people wanted to be responsible for taking out a presidential candidate. I mean, they didn’t want to be seen as the entity that did that.
They were trying to take Trump out, don’t misunderstand me. But they were structuring that so that it looked like Trump took himself out ’cause he was, you know, a dirt bag. They were clearly protecting Hillary. But I don’t think any of these people wanted to have it blamed on them.
They didn’t want the responsibility for having denied a particular party its nominee that resulted from millions of votes cast during primaries. But now they’re trying to do just that. They’re trying to nullify the presidential election. And remember, they never thought Trump was gonna win. But I’m getting a little bit ahead of myself. We’ll get there eventually.
We’re gonna start with the Trumpster. The Trumpster left the White House today on his way to Quantico, Virginia, and the FBI Academy. It’s the FBI National Academy graduation. New agents were graduating today, and he stopped on the way to the helicopter, Marine One, and he talked to the press, and he launched again. He told ’em that he thinks this Russia thing, there’s nothing there. The collusion was between the Democrats and the Russians.
And he fired both barrels at the media. The one thing they can’t say is that Trump doesn’t meet the press. I mean, he talks to the press more than any president we can remember in our lifetimes. So, anyway, he sets the table by just launching with the White House press corps outside on the way to the helicopter, then gets down to Quantico. And we have three sound bites from his speech at the FBI graduating ceremony.
THE PRESIDENT: Both terrorists came to our country through the dysfunctional immigration system that we are correcting, and rapidly. And one came through chain migration, chain migration. The other, visa lottery. You think the country’s given us their best people? No. What kind of a system is that? They give us their worst people, they put ’em in a bin. But in his hand when he’s picking ’em is really the worst of the worst. Congratulations. You’re going to the United States. Okay. What a system, lottery system. We’re calling for Congress to end chain migration and to end the visa lottery system and replace it with a merit-based system of immigration. (applause)
RUSH: Whoa! Whoa! You hear that? The FBI graduates are applauding. You should have seen — by the way, I misspoke. That’s the one sound bite we have from the speech to the graduates the FBI Academy. The others are actually from the press gaggle on the White House lawn before he gets on the her report. But you hear this, these agents applauded this.
Trump’s remarks there are why he got elected. That’s right out of his campaign. The reasons he was elected and he needs to remain focused on those things. Because they work every time they’re tried. Now, this is on the White House lawn. Trump making his way to the helicopter on his way to the FBI commencement ceremony.
THE PRESIDENT: It’s a shame what’s happened with the FBI, but we’re gonna rebuild the FBI. It will be bigger and better than ever. But it is very sad when you look at those documents and how they’ve done that is really, really disgraceful. And you have a lot of very angry people that are seeing it. It’s a very sad thing to watch, I will tell you that. And I’m going today on behalf of the FBI, their new building, and, you know, when everybody, not me, when everybody, the level of anger at what they’ve been witnessing with respect to the FBI is certainly very sad.
RUSH: Now, I could be mistaken, because his speech was on here during the prep period before the program. I could swear he said some of this in his FBI speech. Maybe not. But I’m pretty sure he did. And it was remarked on, I mean, the CNN people gone and blown a gasket over here over what on Trump said today, and I’m sure some of it was at the graduation ceremony, but certainly there. So he’s got a little press gaggle outside the White House on the way to the helicopter and he’s just unloading. Here’s the next sound bite.
THE PRESIDENT: There is absolutely no collusion. That has been proven. When you look at the committees, whether it’s the Senate or the House, my worst enemies, they walk out, they say there is no collusion but we’ll continue to look. They’re spending millions and millions of dollars. There is absolutely no collusion. I didn’t make a phone call to Russia. I had nothing to do with Russia. Everybody knows it.
That was a Democrat hoax. It was an excuse for losing the election, and it should have never been this way where they spent all these millions of dollars. That was a rigged system, folks. That was a rigged system. When you look at what they did with respect to the Hillary Clinton investigation, it was rigged. And there’s never been anything like it in this country that we’ve ever found before. It’s very, very sad.
RUSH: You know, it sounds like he was listening to this program yesterday! I mean, even from calling this thing a hoax, which I’ve been doing all week. No, don’t misunderstand. I’m just saying, it sounds familiar. Regardless, he is fired up, as he should be! This is so illegitimate. Look, I’m not gonna waste any more time characterizing this. I’ve done it all week.
But I am livid over this that didn’t happen which is still dominating and shaping 90% of the news every day! Something that did not happen. And what did happen is being ignored! Hillary and the FBI and the DOJ colluding with the Russians to help her win the presidency! Here’s one more Trump on the White House lawn before getting on board Marine One to go down to the FBI Academy.
THE PRESIDENT: I don’t want to talk about pardons for Michael Flynn yet. We’ll see what happens. I can say this. When you look at what’s gone on with the FBI and with the Justice Department, people are very, very angry.
RUSH: He was asked if he would consider a pardon for Flynn. He said, “I don’t want to talk about pardons for Michael Flynn yet. We’ll see what happens.” Jim Kallstrom is the former director of the New York office of the FBI. He is a founding member of the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, which is the a charity that we here at the EIB Network and the Rush Revere Time-Travel Adventures with Exceptional Americans completely support.
We donate money, we raise money for them. They provide college scholarships for the children of Marines killed in action and other branches during national emergencies. Kallstrom is a former Marine. He is a dyed-in-the-wool, acknowledged patriot. He’s a former FBI director, and he is worried about what is happening to the FBI.
The people I knew in the FBI were Vietnam War vets, many of them, and they came back, they got in law enforcement, some of them went to the FBI as agents. Kallstrom did, rose up the ranks to the top executive in the New York office. Many of them at the FBI, the people I knew and know, are a different breed. I mean, you would not read about this kind of stuff with them. You wouldn’t read about people like Jim Kallstrom or people that work for him discussing how to undermine a political candidate in the office of the deputy attorney general and the deputy director of the FBI. You just wouldn’t. These guys didn’t go there.
But they’re plenty political. I mean, they’re plenty partisan. They have their political opinions, but they held the FBI in the greatest, highest esteem. To them it was impenetrable, the integrity and its reputation. They would do nothing to sully it. And they’re dismayed by what is happening. Kallstrom last night was on Risk & Reward on the Fox Business Network with Elizabeth McDonald. She said, “What can an FBI agent do to stop a president from getting elected?”
KALLSTROM: He can do what this guy tried to do. He can fabricate things. He can make up stuff. He can lie. He can be a total moron. He can recruit others. You know, he belongs in Leavenworth, this guy. He belongs behind bars, this guy. These things cannot happen in a democracy, particularly in the FBI. But it’s not the FBI. I beg the American people, don’t condemn the FBI. Condemn these people that have went way, way off the rails here and, you know, need to be dealt with severely, in my view.
RUSH: He’s talking about Peter Strzok there. Strzok, who we now know edited Comey’s comments on Hillary and was exchanging text messages with his mistress and devising plans to screw Trump and to have an insurance policy in case Trump won. And you heard him there, this guy belongs in Leavenworth. And it’s not the FBI, beg the American people, don’t condemn the FBI. Condemn these people.
‘Cause I’m telling you, this kind of stuff never, never — you would never have seen the FBI colluding with a political operative and then helping create the idea that it was genuine intelligence. You would have never had Jim Kallstrom presiding over such a thing. It would never have been allowed. Which is what I mean. The left, Democrats, whatever you want to call these people, have just corrupted everything they’ve touched, by virtue of politicizing it with their own personal political beliefs and dreams.
Now, here’s a setup for the story on Comey’s remarks being edited. This is last night on The Five at the Fox News Channel. Chief intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge reported the changes made to Comey’s statement exonerating Hillary in the use of her private email server.
HERRIDGE: They made a change about the likelihood that a hostile actor was able to penetrate Hillary Clinton’s email server. And the original draft said that “given the combination of factors,” that was talking about the lack of security with the server and the fact that it was a target, “we assess it is reasonably likely that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s private email account.” And in the public statement by Director Comey, that was downgraded to the term “possible” that they accessed the Clinton email server and the hundreds of classified messages that it contained.
RUSH: So let’s go through this because this appears to be proof of how Strzok watered down Comey’s statement exonerating Hillary, and if it’s true, it should be the blockbuster news of the day. But since it’s more bad news for the Mueller witch hunt, the Drive-Bys will ignore it. So this is Fox, this is Catherine Herridge. The headline: “Comey Edits Revealed: Remarks on Clinton Probe Were Watered Down, Documents Show — Newly released documents obtained by Fox News reveal that then-FBI Director James Comey’s draft statement on the Hillary Clinton email probe was edited numerous times before his public announcement,” that July 5th press conference, “in ways that seemed to water down the bureau’s findings considerably.
“Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, sent a letter to the FBI on Thursday that shows the multiple edits to Comey’s highly scrutinized statement.” For example: “In an early draft, Comey said it was ‘reasonably likely’ that ‘hostile actors’ gained access to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email account. That was changed later to say the scenario was merely ‘possible.'” “Reasonably likely” changed to “possible.” Now, this is significant for two reasons. We’ve pointed out that by using a completely unsecured private server that did not even require a password, Hillary exposed compartmentalized national security secrets.
Even the Obama team of Comey-Brennan-Clapper are on record saying it’s very likely her server was breached by foreign interests. “Another edit showed language was changed to describe the actions of Clinton and her colleagues as ‘extremely careless’ as opposed to ‘grossly negligent.'” Now, the reason that’s important is “gross negligence” is in the statute. “Gross negligence” triggers charges, despite what Comey said about there being no “intent.” They edited it. They think it was Strzok that did this. They edited “grossly negligent” out and replaced it with “extremely careless,” and that’s what Comey said.
(impression) She was just careless! It’s extremely careless. She didn’t really know! She wasn’t paying close enough attention! She had no intent!
As opposed to “grossly negligent,” which is a huge difference, a major indictment of her behavior. That, as I say, it’s “a key legal distinction.” Strzok’s edits turned the FBI’s original list of Hillary’s many crimes and the need for her to be prosecuted into a call for her to be exonerated! They had the goods! The editing of the statement turned this from a case needing to be prosecuted to a situation where: “Hey, you know what? We can exonerate her.
“She really didn’t have any intent,” because they downplayed what she really did. And it was Strzok (who had the mistress and was texting back and forth) that did the edits. Everybody also seems to be forgetting that Loretta Lynch could have overruled all of this. She could have overruled Comey’s decision not to prosecute, but she chose not to.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Okay. Grab sound bite number 23. This is Wolf Blitzer and A.B. Stoddard just worried as hell over what Trump said on the White House lawn before getting on helicopter to go down to the FBI Academy at Quantico.
BLITZER: When he goes after the FBI, when he goes after the U.S. intelligence community, uh, when he goes after the news media, these are basically, you know, pillars!
STODDARD: I think the most astounding thing has been to watch the Republicans turn away from the opportunity to push back when he tries to undermine our institutions. They took an oath in Congress to the Constitution, not to a president. And when you talk to them privately, they moan and groan about exactly what we’re talking about. Where were they when he said the FBI was “in tatters”? Did anyone stick up for the FBI?
RUSH: Well, why should they! The thing that amazes me about this is these people really think that they are immune from any criticism, and any criticism of them is a criticism of a pillar of our foundation, and it is not permitted! You’re supposed to shut up and take it like George W. Bush did. You’re not supposed to push back against them — and when you do, now you’re the problem! You’re undermining institutions, instead of these people attempting to undermine the will of the people. |
I don’t play trombone, but
If I were to play trombone in a Bruckner symphony, I would…
Bathe in yak’s blood for a month
Shave with an axe
Tattoo a picture of Thor’s hammer on my forehead
If I were to play trombone in a Bruckner symphony, I would…
Practice starting a lonnnnnnng note REALLY fucking pianissimo, then make a lonnnnnnnnnnnnng diminuendo to nothing
And practice the silence that follows that note, and the breath that precedes it.
If I were to play trombone in a Bruckner symphony, I would
Practice Ride of the Valkyries on the prow of a Viking attack ship
Use the severed head of a conquered Gaul for a mute
Clean my horn with the swaddling clothes of a new-born prince
If I were to play trombone in a Bruckner symphony, I would…
Take a lesson from James Brown
And another lesson from James Bond
If I were to play trombone in a Bruckner symphony, I would…
Imagine that when I play the last quarter note of the piece, the entire room would be engulfed in white fire, then go totally black on the cutoff
Imagine the first soft chord of “that” chorale is so in tune that the entire universe hums and the mountains sink contentedly, just a little, into the earth beneath them every time my section plays it.
Find a sound made of stone, and another made of glass, and another made of water, and one more, made of blood
If I were to play trombone in a Bruckner symphony, I would…
Spend a month watching the loneliest man in the world, and trying to imagine my sound was his voice when at last God chose to listen to him
And I would also imagine my sound was the voice of God when he answered the loneliest man in the world with an implacable “No.”
And I would imagine my sound was the disinterested emptiness of Nature, when God had again left that man alone again
If I were to play trombone in a Bruckner symphony, I would…
Shine my shoes with Donald Trump’s hairpiece
Brush my teeth with steel wool
Wear a suit that would make Armani himself weep with jealousy, and a pocket silk of royal blue
Fill my handmade alligator-skin shoes with tiny, sharp stones, so I never feel too comfortable
And, underneath, I would wear a loin cloth made from the hide of the fallen king of the Wyoming buffalo, who I would have killed with my bare hands and skinned with my embouchure |
"One of the employees, Ms. Gallegos, is a union steward," said Antonia Roybal-Macks, the attorney representing Gallegos and Sanchez. "She applied for this position, and the main supervisor did not necessarily want her to have this position despite the fact that she was qualified and entitled to the position."
An APS invoice shows that the school paid $1,007.28 to Robert Caswell Investigations to conduct surveillance on employee Bobbie Gallegos. Over the phone, the private investigations company would not comment on the allegations.
"This doesn't advance education," Roybal-Mack said. "These aren't employees who were interacting with children necessarily. If there was a reason to terminate them, they [APS] should've brought that forward but following employees doesn't seem appropriate."
APS emails reveal that the district testing supervisor said, "Bobbie was on the ladder looking under ceiling tiles ... something to look out for when you review the tapes," and "I was told Bobbie was on the phone quite a bit yesterday. Can you look for that?"
In an email, Albuquerque Public Schools told KOB that the district does not comment on litigation. |
The Pioneer League, the league that brought you “Caucasian Heritage Night,” is back at it again with another blatantly offensive ballpark promotion.
The Ogden Raptors, a short-season A ball affiliate of the Dodgers in Utah, recently announced plans for “Hourglass Appreciation Night” to be held on August 11. Here is a screenshot of the press release, in the likely event the team deletes the webpage. (UPDATE: The press release was pulled offline about an hour after this post went up.)
The alleged intention of the promotion is to celebrate the fact that baseball is played without a clock (by introducing a timekeeping device?). The third paragraph of the press release, though, lays bare the real focus of the night.
“The home team hosts the Billings Mustangs, but the real thoroughbreds will join Raptors broadcaster A.P. Harreld in the booth. Since August is the eighth month of the calendar year, and an 8 looks tantalizingly similar to an hourglass, be there a better way to remind the world that baseball needs no clock than to feature 18 hourglass-shaped color commentators?”
Each of the women will spend a half-inning in the commentary booth and the team will stream the goings on in the booth—“well, at least the better-looking half of it!”
“Fans will have the opportunity to pose for pictures with the lovely ladies as we showcase seriously splendid visual appeal: Utah's legendary mountains, Dodgers and Reds farmhands - and gorgeous women whose curves rival those of any stud pitching prospect!” the press release concludes.
“Guys... get your tickets now!” the subheadline on the team’s homepage proclaims. The header image is a cartoon of three women in bikinis.
Not surprisingly, the promotion was harshly criticized on social media. |
(Via Occupy Wall Street)
After Mayor Bloomberg briefly visited (and check out the video) the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Zuccotti Park last night, his office released a statement formally ordering the protesters to cooperate with sanitation workers who will be dispatched to clean the park on Friday. "The cleaning will be done in stages," the announcement reads, "and the protesters will be able to return to the areas that have been cleaned, provided they abide by the rules that Brookfield has established for the park." But the demonstrators, who have been occupying the park for almost four weeks, aren't buying it. Instead, they're going to clean the park themselves. Their declaration reads:
On Wednesday/Thursday, all campers/supporters should reach out to friends/family/anyone to donate or purchase brooms, mops, squeegees, dust pans, garbage bags, power washers and any other cleaning supplies to be collected at sanitation. The sanitation committee should move full-speed ahead on purchase of bins allocated by consensus at GA. After General Assembly on Thursday, we'll have a full-camp cleanup session. Sanitation can coordinate, and anyone who is available will help with the massive community effort! Then, Friday morning, we'll awake and position ourselves with our brooms and mops in a human chain around the park, linked at the arms. If NYPD attempts to enter, we'll peacefully/non-violently stand our ground and those who are willing will get arrested. Afterwards, we'll march with brooms and mops to Wall Street to do a massive #wallstcleanup march, where the real mess is!
It seems unlikely the city will go along with this compromise. Brookfield Properties, which owns the park, recently sent a letter to the NYPD explaining, "Brookfield protocol and practice is to clean the park on a daily basis, power-washing it each weeknight, and to perform necessary inspection, maintenance, and repairs on a regular, as-needed basis. Since the occupation began, we have not been able to perform basic cleaning and maintenance activity, let alone perform more basic repairs. For example, if the lenses to the underground lighting have become cracked, water could infiltrate the electrical system, putting occupants of the Park at risk of an electrical hazard or causing short-circuiting which result in repairs requiring the Park to be be torn apart for rewiring."
The letter goes on to add that any such repairs would require the park to be closed for "indeterminate periods of time." Brookfield wants the NYPD to facilitate clearing the park for cleaning, and, tellingly, to "assist Brookfield in an ongoing basis to ensure the safety of all those using and enjoying the Park." This could mean that when the demonstrators are allowed back in the park after the cleaning, the NYPD could start enforcing the park rules which Brookfield disseminated among protesters two weeks ago.
These rules explicitly prohibit tarps, sleeping bags, storage of personal property on the ground, lying down on the ground, and lying down on benches. It's conceivable that the NYPD could prohibit protesters from returning to the park with such items, which are necessary to sustain any long term encampment. It's unclear if this is the unstated intention behind this official cleaning, but naturally the protesters have little trust in the NYPD and city government, and they're bracing for a confrontation. |
On a December day about 15 miles east of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, a hunter fired a shot heard around the world—he legally killed a female wolf wearing a GPS research collar. It’s not known whether the hunter was hunting wolves or looking for other game and opportunistically shot her. It’s not known if he chose to shoot the wolf wearing the radio collar. Not much is known because the hunter has chosen not to reveal himself publicly (though he was given the opportunity to for this article). He is, in all likelihood, concerned about the reaction from wolf advocates, because the wolf he shot was the most famous wolf—perhaps the most famous single wild animal—on earth.
She was also one of the most beloved by the community of wolf-watchers that has emerged with the re-introduction of wolves to Yellowstone in 1995. When word of her death hit Facebook, Twitter, and wolf-watching blogs, people all over the world were devastated. The news was picked up by the New York Times (which ran three stories about the killing), ABC News, NPR, the Los Angeles Times, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Guardian in Britain, and London’s Daily Mail.
The wolf’s collar identified her as 832F, but she was better known to tens of thousands of people internationally as the “06 Female,” the unusually big, barrel-chested alpha female of the Lamar Canyon Pack. She was not the first Yellowstone wolf killed during Wyoming’s inaugural open season on wolves (Montana and Idaho have already had two years of wolf-hunting). A few weeks earlier, her packmate, a beta male she sometimes bred with, was shot and killed in Wyoming as well.
But the killing of the ’06 Female set off a firestorm of controversy about the collision between wildlife management, science, and hunting that occurs at the boundaries of Yellowstone National Park. Part of the issue was the collar she wore and what it represented. Yellowstone Wolf Project biologists had fitted the ’06 Female with a $4,000 GPS that recorded her exact location sometimes as often as every 30 minutes, providing fine-scale data points about her movements and invaluable information to the Wolf Project’s 17-year study. Her packmate that was shot, a male called 754M, had also worn a collar, though his was a simpler VHF radio telemetry model used by researchers to locate wolves and packs. In fact, four of the 11 wolves that wore collars on Yellowstone’s Northern Range were shot—legally—by hunters during the Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming wolf hunting seasons. And of the total 10 Yellowstone wolves killed outside the park, five wore research collars.
The high percentage of collared wolves harvested touched off a wave of speculation by conservationists and wolf advocates that hunters were, at a minimum, targeting wolves wearing collars. In fact, commenters on at least one pro-hunting website, Trapperman.com, admitted that they would go after collared wolves.
Laurie Lyman, one of the park’s most dedicated wolf-watchers—she retired as a schoolteacher in California to move to Silver Gate and volunteer with the Wolf Project—thinks there’s a sinister element to the deaths of some specific wolves.
“They’ve been waiting 17 years in Wyoming to kill wolves. They wanted to get those wolves because it hurts the people who watch them. They did it to stick it to us,” Lyman says. “I’ve been standing on the side of the road watching wolves and had people pull up and say to me, ‘Lady, you better take a picture of those wolves because they’re the last you’re ever going to see.’”
Lyman and Kirsty Peake—who, with her husband, purchased a home in the Gallatin Valley to spend months watching Yellowstone wolves far from their native England, where she lectures on wolf behavior—fear that making the ’06 Female famous may also have killed her.
“I think it was absolutely targeted,” Peake says. “I think they targeted the collared wolves and I think they targeted the ’06 Female. Sometimes I feel badly because I think her fame maybe contributed to her death. But her story brought way more people into the story of wolves and why they need to be protected. Because we told her story, her life was not in vain.”
Lyman and Peake represent another part of the controversy, outside of hunting, research, and management—the cadre of wolf-watchers that has become as much a part of Yellowstone as the wolves themselves. Hundreds of thousands of people see wolves in Yellowstone, but these are not the casual passersby. Many wolf watchers schedule their lives so they can spend weeks and sometimes months every year observing the park’s wolves and learning the backstories of the packs and their members.
Some, like Lyman, have turned their lives over to watching wolves, and teaching visitors to Yellowstone about them. They are fierce advocates for wolf preservation. Many of the radio telemetry collars Yellowstone wolves wear are purchased with directed donations, badges of pride among wolf watchers who earn, in effect, their own wolf to follow. Some wolf watchers are given radios by Park Service Biological Technician Rick McIntyre so they can spread out, cover more ground, and coordinate with McIntyre when wolves are spotted.
Some of the fiercest wolf advocates believe that, beyond basic targeting, unscrupulous hunters with easily-acquired telemetry sets illegally used radio frequencies to pick up and track wolf collars’ signals. Wolf-collar frequencies are classified, but biologists say it’s possible to find them with some experimentation. In 2010, a post (long since taken down) on the website www.huntwolves.com offered this piece of advice:
My suggestions - Drive the roads from Lower Stanley to the Thompson Creek Road as late at night as you are willing to be up ... If you have the capability to scan collars - search from 218.000 - 219.000 Mhz step at .005 Mhz. Sit on each step 3 seconds. Receive on USB. If you get one with a collar. Record the frequency before you turn it in or dispose of it. It is on the inside facing the wolfs [sic] fur. If you want to turn the collar off, place a strong magnet on the outside face. A frequency counter or any receiver held close will confirm it is off.
The combined loss of eight collared wolves proved a significant setback to the Yellowstone Wolf Project’s ongoing research. “Collared individuals are key to our studies,” says Doug Smith, who has been part of the Yellowstone Wolf Project since re-introduction and has been its leader since 1996. “They’re how we connect ourselves to the wolves. Losing them hinders our ability to do science.”
Losing the data from the GPS collars, Smith says, is a big hit. “Those are very high value because they give us fine-grain knowledge of the wolves’ predatory patterns and their movement and behavior.”
When the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service re-introduced gray wolves to Yellowstone in 1995 and 1996, park officials thought visitors would rarely see them. Hearing them howl, it was believed, would be the closest most visitors would come to experiencing a wild wolf.
They could not have been more wrong. Shortly after the re-introduction, in the elk-stuffed Lamar Valley, the Druid Peak pack set up shop, denning within a few hundred yards of the road and carrying on their daily lives—the raising and training of pups, breeding rituals, play behavior, hunting forays—within plain sight of the road. It’s estimated that over 300,000 people saw the Druid pack and its alpha males and females.
Their arch-rivals, the Slough Creek pack, denned just a few miles away, within reach of telescopic spotting scopes. The interaction between the two packs—pitched battles were witnessed and caught on film—and the Shakespearean maneuverings—daughters killing mothers, Lotharios stealing mates, a siege of a denned female by a powerful but unknown pack—captured the attention and imagination of people around the world.
What emerged were stories. Individual wolves, some wearing the Wolf Project’s radio collars, began to be recognized. Wolf-watching became a burgeoning niche industry, and spawned wolf supporters so enthusiastic they quit jobs in other states to move to Montana and Wyoming.
A 2005 study by a University of Montana professor stated wolf-watching brought $30 million annually to the towns around Yellowstone. The rise of blogs and social media allowed individual wolves to be followed daily, worldwide, long after park visitors returned home, building an even bigger constituency.
The ’06 Female emerged at a time when good wolf stories were badly needed. Outside the park, hunters and outfitters were decrying the wolves’ destruction of big game animals—notably elk. They weren’t wrong. Elk numbers in Yellowstone’s Northern Herd, the animals living along the park’s northern tier, where most of the wolves live, plummeted from somewhere near 20,000 pre-re-introduction to about 5,000 this year.
It’s somewhat difficult to compare numbers, says Smith, because in the 1980s, at the height of elk populations, biologists developed a “sightability index.” Elk are counted from the air on overflights. Knowing that they were not seeing every individual on the ground due to elk bedding in heavy tree cover or poor visibility conditions during some counts, biologists developed a model to estimate how many elk they weren’t seeing. They found that on average they were seeing 70 percent of the elk actually on the ground.
“But,” says Smith, “sightability ranged from 50 percent to 90 percent. In other words, you might be missing only 10 percent of the elk, or you might be missing 50 percent of them.”
Sightability is no longer part of the winter elk counts, which now entails only recording elk actually seen.
Before wolves, outfitters counted on elk migrating away from Yellowstone’s harsh winters to fill their clients’ tags. A “late season hunt”—technically a damage hunt allowed by Montana’s Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP) because they felt there were far too many elk in the Northern Herd—outside of Gardiner brought hunters and dollars in early winter, when tourists were sparse.
Only a few years after the wolves began feeding on elk, the great outpouring dried to a trickle. Towns around the park like Gardiner, West Yellowstone, and Cody “dried on the vine” says Rob Arnaud, who owns the Montana Hunting Company, an outfitting business.
Arnaud challenges the 2005 economic study—with credible research and revenue figures—by suggesting that the hunting economy pre-wolf poured far more money into the areas around the park than wolf-watching has.
“I like wolves,” Arnaud says. “I want them to be here. I just want them in balance. I’m not anti-wolf. I advocated for them in 1995. Now I’m advocating that we’ve got to get rid of some and tie management to predator-prey ratios and carrying capacities.”
Montana hunters were furious when FWP ended the late-season hunt and felt lied to, claiming they had been told before the re-introduction that wolves would not have such a severe impact on elk numbers.
Robert Fanning, who founded Friends of the Northern Yellowstone Elk Herd, a pro-hunting, adamantly anti-wolf organization, told me that Doug Smith made false or misleading comments “every time his lips are moving.” “Smith will share eternity with Dr. Joseph Mengele ... barking with the hounds of Hell,” Fanning wrote in an email.
Still, wildlife managers consider damage hunts expendable, a management tool to reduce a herd population to meet the range carrying capacity. Once herd population objectives are reached, there’s no need for a damage hunt.
“There still is a general season hunt around Gardiner,” Smith says. “Before re-introduction the best models predicted a decline in elk populations of 30 to 40 percent. That turned out to be wrong. It was an estimate, and the model was wrong. All models are wrong. Some are instructive. But that was before my time. I came with the wolves. There’s no doubt hunting has been impacted. Elk numbers are down. There’s less hunter opportunity. Part of that is wolves. Part of it is other predators. Yellowstone policy is to restore natural conditions. We’ve done that. Yellowstone today is as predator-rich as it has been for 100 years—wolves, cougars, grizzly bear, black bears, coyotes, and humans. When you have a suite of predators that are as complete as they have been in 100 years, you should expect impact on elk.”
While this is no doubt true, it’s a bitter pill for hunters used to showing up in Gardiner, waiting for some elk to step across the park boundary, and bringing home a truckload of meat for the winter.
As the ’06 Female rose to alpha status, inside the park the wolf stories were grim, too. In 2008, attacks by other wolves and sarcoptic mange—a parasite stockmen in the early 20th century used in a fervent attempt to eradicate wolves—decimated both the charismatic Druid and Slough Creek wolves. The remnant individuals scattered and, after 13 years, the world’s most famous packs ceased to exist. Tourists who drove to the Lamar Valley, the most reliable place to see a wild wolf in America, glimpsed only the rare wanderers-through.
Onto this empty stage stepped the ‘06 Female, and the two goofy mates she had chosen. Rare in the wolf world, the ’06 Female had settled on two brothers, sort of co-alpha males. In the winter of 2010 she bred with both males, and, because canids can, likely bore the offspring of both in a mixed litter. She chose the former Slough Creek pack’s den site, affording thankful wolf watchers the opportunity to observe as she raised her first pups.
What observers saw worried them at first. With the female stuck in the den feeding pups, the two fathers seemed more interested in play-wrestling, chewing on sticks, and chasing ravens than hunting the meat needed to feed their family. People worried the pups would not survive, an event which would likely disintegrate the nascent pack.
But the brothers gathered just enough meat so that the ’06 Female could eventually emerge from her den, leave the males to stand guard, and hunt to feed herself, her pups, and her mates. She became a lethal vector, a ruthlessly efficient hunter. According to park biologists, on average it takes four wolves to bring down an elk. The ’06 Female learned to do it by herself—running alongside until she sensed the elk was tiring, then sprinting in front, whirling, and seizing the animal by the throat, an incredibly dangerous undertaking wherein flailing hooves can crack femurs or scapulas and effectively down a wolf.
But the ’06 Female survived and ran her pack with cool efficiency. She eventually coerced her mates—755M emerged as the alpha male and 754 a very privileged bet—to help out more with the hunting, too. Though she led by example rather than aggression, as the pups grew to adults and a second litter filled in behind them, it was apparent they all did exactly what she wanted them to do. She led with a clear intelligence, successfully defending her territory from other packs in part by knowing when to fight and when to slink away if outnumbered.
“Her rise to the top came at a time when wolves weren’t doing well in Yellowstone,” says Nathan Varley, who has been involved with wolves since the re-introduction and now runs the eco-tourism company Yellowstone Wolf Tracker. “But she was able to feed her pack when other wolves around her were dying. She was able to survive where other wolves didn’t. And people were able to follow her story.”
She also fed businesses like Varley’s—and the Yellowstone Association, Yellowstone Safari, Outdoor Adventures, and Bearman’s guided tours, to name but a few of the eco-tourism guided trips that focus heavily on wolf watching. Although not the biggest of the bunch, Varley says he grossed about $500,000 last year and saw his business grow 10 to 20 percent annually even through the recession. But his business depends on collared wolves like the ’06 Female. “Collared wolves are so important because we can find them and we can tell their stories,” Varley says.
That, many hunters and outfitters say, is exactly the problem. “I understand that one of the ploys of the wolf advocates is to personify wolves,” says Montana Shooting Sports Association President Gary Marbut. “[Wolf advocates] do that by giving them names and making them look like cute and fuzzy creatures. They generate acceptance of wolves by people who don’t have to live with wolves. I see that as the chief motive for making them famous. People used to come to Yellowstone to see all the other wildlife, too, but a great deal of it is gone now because of wolves. What else does Yellowstone have to advertise except come see the wolves? And the geysers, of course.”
Within hours of the news of the ’06 Female’s death, Internet message boards lit up with vitriol and public accusations flew, illustrating the feverish emotions people in the Northern Rockies—and particularly around Yellowstone—feel about wolves. Everybody knew a storm would break. As soon as he was informed that the ‘06 Female had been killed, Wyoming Game and Fish Director Scott Talbott personally delivered the news to the director of Yellowstone‘s Center for Resources, who called Smith—he was in Reno, delivering a presentation—to relay the news.
Wolf enthusiasts and biologists immediately clamored for some sort of “buffer zone” around Yellowstone, only to further enrage hunters and hard-core conservatives who accused them of trying to effectively extend the park’s boundaries.
“One issue is hunting districts are so large,” Smith says. “They don’t allow for fine-tuned management. What we’re trying to do is get reduced quotas right next to the park. ’06 was unique because she was shot 15 miles outside the park. And 754M was shot 16 miles outside the park. In the history of wolves using the Lamar Valley, all packs have left the park, but none of them have gone that far. We’re trying to reduce the probability of wolves being killed that live in Yellowstone. We’re never going to protect a wolf that goes 15 miles outside the park. We have no expectation of that. The future of wolves depends on public hunting. Public tolerance is enhanced by hunting. We’re looking for the middle of the road on this.”
Smith says the park is formally on record requesting subquotas in Montana, and met face to face with Wyoming officials to ask for reduced harvest in strategic locations, but spokespeople for both Montana FWP and Wyoming Game and Fish deny knowing anything about those requests.
Still, within days after the death of the ’06 Female, Montana’s FWP Commission, the agency’s rulemaking body, suspended hunting and the upcoming trapping season in some wolf management units adjacent to the park, effectively creating a buffer zone in that state.
Dan Vermillion was the sole commissioner to vote against the suspension. “I really didn’t think there should be a closure,” Vermillion told me. “The attention was much more focused on the harvest of collared wolves and much less focused on whether we’re overharvesting. I spoke with the regional wolf biologist and my feeling was that the wolf population along the Yellowstone border is just fine.”
But Vermillion was also anticipating politics in the Northern Rockies. “I was concerned that we’d be setting a precedent. You have to be careful in Montana, where you have legislators eager to strip biologists of authority and eager to manage wildlife from their political perspective.”
In mid-January, a judge ruled the Commission did not provide enough time for public comment and struck down the closures. The Commission decided not to take up the matter again. Hunting season in Montana closes at the end of February, but even then wolves trotting beyond park boundaries may be stepping into the steel teeth of leg-hold traps.
And Vermillion was prescient in his concerns about the legislature. A bill sailed through the Montana state House of Representatives on a 100-0 vote that forbids the creation of buffer zones for wolf hunting, mandating that the FWP Commission must set a quota for each Wolf Management Unit, and cannot close that unit until the quota is met.
“Until we get rid of the hatred toward wolves, it’s going to be a constant battle,” Vermillion says. “I look forward to the day people look at wolves not as the enemy, but see them as part of the landscape. How we get there, I don’t know. But I doubt elevating wolves almost to the point of pets is going to help. When a wild wolf leaves the park and comes into Montana, just like an elk or a deer, it’s a wild animal, and we have to manage it like one.”
Smith agrees with most of that, but makes one counterpoint. “Wolves that come out of that park are naïve to humans. They’re going to be more vulnerable to hunting. In the Lamar Valley, people watch them from a distance of a few hundred yards every day,” he says. “That distance is going to get them killed outside the park. I think that should be acknowledged in regulations. Nobody is arguing for no hunting, we’re arguing for reduced hunting.”
Wyoming and Idaho’s wildlife management agencies never considered any kind of buffer—in fact, both states are considering more aggressive quotas for next year. Mike Keckler, communications bureau chief at Idaho Fish and Game, says: “I am not aware of any discussion about creating a buffer around the park in Idaho. We do have harvest limits in some places, including the Island Park wolf zone, which is directly adjacent to Yellowstone.” But that quota is 30—a bit more than a third of the approximately 80 wolves still surviving in Yellowstone, the lowest number since 1999.
“As wildlife professionals we focus on wildlife populations as a whole and not individual animals,” says Wyoming Game and Fish Public Information Officer Eric Keszler. “I understand some people had emotional or special attachment to this one wolf, but creating management policies around individual animals doesn’t make sense from a wildlife management or ecosystem perspective.”
Like Montana, Idaho and Wyoming will keep their trapping seasons open for most of the winter.
On a 17-degree day two days before New Year’s, I stood in the Lamar Valley with a few other wolf watchers. The remnants of the Lamar Canyon pack were on a bison carcass—likely winterkill—just out of sight over a small rise. Only three wolves remained—alpha male 755M and two of his daughters. As we waited for a glimpse, an eerie howl rose from behind the hill, a quavering moan of sorts. It was nothing like the full-throated harmonics a complete pack can pour into the sky. Eight other subordinate Lamar Canyon wolves were somewhere else—nobody knew where. They had split off and disappeared for weeks.
Rhonda Gamble, a 59-year-old college professor from Desoto, Missouri, listened and started talking about the ’06 Female. “She was like a hero in the wolf world. They called her the ‘Rock Star,’” Gamble, who has come to the park 10 times since the re-introduction to see wolves, said. When she read about ‘06’s death on a wolf blog, she said, “it was a sinking feeling. It felt horrible, like, ‘I can’t believe this happened,’ though I knew it could once hunting seasons opened. People form this connection to something that will never be theirs but that’s part of your life.”
The wolves howled more, still low and moaning, and Gamble talked about all the people she’s met wolf watching. “You meet these people from all over the world,” she said. “Years on end, you’re all in this little place. It feels like a community.”
Then the wolves started moving. We could see them just over the low rise. They trotted west, 755M rangy and black, his daughters following. They headed toward where a park ranger had halted traffic, backing up several cars. 755M sprinted across the road then across the open snow toward the Lamar River. A daughter followed. But the third wolf lingered, pacing up and down the road, moving closer and closer to the ranger and the cars.
The ranger reached into his vehicle and pulled out a shotgun. He pointed it at the wolf and pulled the trigger. A cracker shell—designed to make noise and scare animals that became acclimated to people—exploded the morning silence. The wolf took off like a shot.
END NOTE: As of the end of January, the Lamar Canyon pack has reunited, all 11 remaining members running together. But they’ve left Yellowstone. Smith says they haven’t been back to the park for weeks and he thinks they may stay outside and become a Wyoming pack, leaving them wide open to foothold traps and lead-core bullets.
Also in early February, the Montana Legislature passed a bill giving the state's FWP commission permission to extend the wolf hunting season beyond its scheduled closing on February 28. The bill included a provision outlawing buffer zones. As press time, the FWP commission had not decided whether they would extend the season or not. |
Bill Russell presents Kevin Durant with the Finals MVP award named in his honor. (AP)
If you’re the NBA, and your new Awards Show features the league’s first-ever Lifetime Achievement Award, there is only one possible recipient for such an honor. His name is William Felton Russell.
So, the NBA will do just that.
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The league announced on Thursday that Bill Russell will receive the inaugural award on June 26, when the MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, Sixth Man Award, Rookie of the Year, Most Improved Player and Coach of the Year, among other new honors, will also be unveiled during a 9 p.m. ET broadcast on TNT.
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No basketball player has achieved more in his life than Russell. He is an Olympic gold medalist, two-time NCAA champion and 11-time NBA titlist. He is the greatest winner in major American professional sports history, carrying a handful of MVP awards and a dozen All-Star Game appearances in tow. There is a reason why the Finals MVP award Kevin Durant just took home is named in Russell’s honor.
Not only that, but Russell is a civil rights pioneer, participating in the March on Washington in Washington, D.C., in 1963 and the Ali Summit in Cleveland four years later. On the Boston Celtics, he was a member of the NBA’s first all-black starting five and became the first African-American to coach and win a championship for a major pro sports franchise. And that’s just the long and short of it.
In 2010, Russell received the Presidential Medal of Freedom — the nation’s highest civilian honor. And when the City of Boston finally got around to honoring Russell with a statue in 2013, he would not consent to the project if it did not also honor the mentorship program, for which he’s raised millions.
Story continues
The man has achieved more in this lifetime than few who have come before him, and certainly more than any other player in basketball history, so nobody is more deserving of being recognized for it.
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Ben Rohrbach is a contributor for Ball Don’t Lie and Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at rohrbach_ben@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
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Dear Mr. President,
In my opinion, in the future, what will be of major importance is how, in principle, we carry out scientific inquiries—not in which fields we conduct that research.
Let me use a simile to illustrate my point of view. The question as to which fields to concentrate future research on reminds me a bit of the question "What shall we have for lunch?" Everybody must eat—just as every industrial nation needs a research plan. So, why not pick something from the menu: Missions to Mars, the human genome, larger accelerators—there are countless options.
However, when considering what to eat, the customer employs a certain perspective, looking down the aisles past the waiter to the delights behind the kitchen door—the latter being the equivalent of the chest holding the nation's research funds. Let us now reverse the perspective. Looking from the kitchen door down the aisles past the waiter, we see the guest—and it turns out something has become fundamentally wrong with him. The customer is an immensely huge freak, almost immovable due to the large amounts of fat he has already accumulated. The last thing this person needs is yet another meal. Instead, a complete change in attitude towards eating seems imperative, including a new perspective of life and its numerous opportunities, more physical exercise and much less but smarter food intake.
How did the customer grow so fat and cumbersome?
Over the past few decades, research focus was determined by big science projects, beginning with the "Manhattan Project" and continuing with the mission to the moon and the peaceful exploitation of nuclear energy. As a consequence of the apparent success of these big science projects, politicians consider focused research to be the best way to achieve clearly defined scientific goals. To continue the restaurant metaphor, uniting a few thousand scientists to strive for a common goal to be reached at a certain time is like asking several outstanding chefs to produce one certain dish—it is almost guaranteed that they will be able to deliver a decent meal. But this is precisely the reason why our patient has become so fat.
For politicians, big science projects can lead to immortality. John F. Kennedy promised a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s and consequently, on July 10, 1969, the nation got what the president had asked for. Administrators also prefer big science projects, because instead of having to split budgets amongst thousands of candidates, they only have to pass the money on to a few large governmental institutions.
Even scientists themselves prefer big science projects. Such projects may bring tremendous power and fame to their leaders; at the same time, they yield a structure that reduces insecurity among followers. For taxpayers, however, big science is often useless at best, and potentially harmful at worst. The "Manhattan Project" led to the biggest single incident of manslaughter in human history, the production of nuclear energy including the disposal of waste and obsolete plants is economically futile, and the moon landing is regarded by many as a cold war propaganda mission with questionable scientific merit. Considering recent big science projects such as super colliders, space stations and Mars missions, the effort and costs to launch them appear to be inversely related to the significance of potential results for the general public. Once again, big science projects made our customer fat and immovable.
What is needed now to get scientific research back on a fast and efficient track again can be termed "lean science". Lean science is slender, quick, efficient and inexpensive. It has the potential of leading to numerous unexpected insights and discoveries. Yet, lean science also holds a number of potential weaknesses. It is more difficult to administrate, the outcome cannot be determined beforehand, and it requires education, patience and tolerance.
Lean science is built upon the concept that all scientific achievements sprang up in the minds of individual people. Thus, providing individual scientists with a hospitable environment in which they can flourish and excel is bound to lead to new discoveries. Some private universities in the United States have already realized this and improved the environment in terms of academic freedom, qualification of staff and quality of physical surroundings.
In the past, great thinkers and artists appear to have come in groups. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle were not only contemporaries, they also lived in the same city—Athens in Greece. The coincidence of great thinkers continued in history—artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were contemporaries just like painters such as Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Edouard Manet and Paul Cezanne or poets like Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller and Heinrich von Kleist.
How come there was such an abundance of great thinkers in certain places at certain times, while there seems to be little if any of such excellence around today? I, for one, am utterly convinced that such great minds are indeed around today—they always have been—but those periods in Greece, France and Germany were rare times when the environmental conditions were right for great thinkers to emerge and become visible, speak up and meet each other, exchange ideas and then take them further.
Thus, in my opinion, the first thing to consider when thinking about pressing scientific issues would be to provide the right environmental conditions for scientists to flourish in. That does not mean loads of money. On the contrary, it means respect, freedom of thought, a platform for the exchange of ideas, and a path forward even for the non conformist—since by definition, all great thinkers were non-conformists.
How can we obtain such an environment? We would probably have to overhaul the medieval university system, in particular the obsolete idea of uniting research and teaching, and the mad concept of peer review, in which established authorities judge the merit of competing ideas.
Getting rid of the old-fashioned universities would make room for a new system that could operate similar to Montesquieu's scheme of divided powers in politics (Executive, Legislative, Judicial) to prevent misuse of power. A tri-partite control of powers in academia could consist of research in think tank-equivalent institutions, education in colleges, and administration of quality, funds, jobs, permits, awards and the like in separate institutions. Scientists would only work in one of these units at a time. Early on in their careers, they would be researchers, then teachers and finally administrators—instead of being all at the same time, as it is often the case today. Funding would be provided individually, mainly on the basis of track record and persuasiveness of ideas.
Hence, a long-term strategy is required—much like what is needed to get a fat person thin and healthy. Your country was among the first to fully adopt Montesquieu's scheme of a separation of powers, and today it is the closest working model to the academic system I have introduced here. Thus, you are in an ideal position to make a fat system slender, beautiful, athletic and primed for success!
Eberhard Zangger
Geoarchaeologist
Discoverer of the lost continent of Atlantis
Author of The Future of the Past |
Sacha Fenstraz converted pole into victory in a short but entertaining inaugural Eurocup Formula Renault race in Monaco in wet conditions.
The race was delayed by barrier damage in the earlier Porsche Supercup race, and started with two laps behind the safety car due to the wet conditions.
At the start proper, polesitter Fenestraz ran a little deep into Ste Devote and had Max Defourny right on his tail up to Massenet.
It was the Belgian however that would be passed at the top of the hill, thanks to an opportunistic move from Ferdinand Habsburg.
Habsburg, who topped the qualifying classification but carried over a two-place grid penalty following a collision at Motorland Aragon, was in confident mood and even had a look at Fenestraz at Tabac later on the opening tour.
He briefly got ahead when he cut Ste Devote on the following lap, before the race was then neutralised after Bruno Baptista hit Jehan Daruvala at the chicane as they fought over sixth.
That safety car period was extended when David Porcelli – trying to catch the pack after a spin at the hairpin on the first lap – lost control on the painted pit exit line approaching Ste Devote and slammed into the barriers.
The race restarted after only three laps however, with Fenestraz managing to maintain a lead over Habsburg.
Behind, Defourny got wide at the Rascasse, allowing Dorian Boccolacci to put his nose down the inside. The former Formula 3 racer would complete a move for third into Ste Devote.
A lap later, a similar move happened at Rascasse with Gabriel Aubry attacking Harrison Scott over seventh. He attempted to replicate Tech 1 team-mate Boccolacci’s pass into Ste Devote but only had a slight overlap, and Scott tried to take the apex as usual, causing a collision that put both into the barriers.
With Will Palmer and Julien Falchero behind them running over Scott’s front wing and diving down the escape road respectively, the red flags were brought out.
This appeared to be a little premature, since Scott was able to move his car behind the barriers and Aubry got going up the hill.
There were six minutes left on the clock but, with proceedings starting into the time allocated for the Formula 1 pit lane walk, the decision was taken not to restart.
Fenestraz therefore secured victory, having finished no higher than seventh in his previous six Formula Renault starts across Eurocup and NEC.
The Franco-Argentine, who won twice on the streets of Pau in French Formula 4 last year, achieved what his sister’s fiancee (and two-time World Touring Car champion) Jose Maria Lopez couldn’t in his title-winning Formula Renault V6 Eurocup campaign in 2003 by winning the Monaco race.
Results were taken at the end of lap six, allowing Defourny to hold onto third place over Boccolacci.
Nikita Mazepin started and finished fifth on his Formula Renault return. He was under pressure from AVF team-mate Henrique Chaves before the red flag, but Chaves ends up classified seventh behind another AVF driver Scott. Falchero, Aubry and Palmer complete the top 10.
Banished to the back of the grid after a technical infringement robbed him of pole position, Lando Norris climbed from 22nd to 18th. Defourny getting third rather than fourth is enough for the R-ace GP driver to take the points lead away from Norris. |
What the hell is Crystal Dynamics thinking? After one of the most successful video game franchise reboots in history that played across multiple platforms they decide to sign with Microsoft and make Rise of the Tomb Raider not a timed exclusive but 100% exclusive to the Xbox One console. Does it make any sense financially to restrict this burgeoning super franchise to the console that, by the numbers, has sold significantly less? How about the fact that millions of people who played Tomb Raider on PS3 or the Definitive Edition on PS4 are now just left out in the cold?
When the term ‘console war’ first came to light at the beginning of this generation I laughed but in recent events and in actions from both sides of the Microsoft vs Sony fences it seems that’s exactly what is happening. The problem here is that while they fight amongst themselves the consumers are left as the unwilling participants. It’s as if consumers are the children in an ugly divorce and forced to play the game and pick sides even if they don’t really want to.
The sad reality is that while they fight there’s really nothing that can be done. One comment I saw regarding Tomb Raider this morning said ‘vote with your wallet’ and I had to laugh. If I have an Xbox One I’m buying the damn game. If I have a PS4 I DON’T HAVE A CHOICE. How am I going to vote with my wallet?
In the new generation of consoles Sony made the first power move by locking up content on Destiny for over an entire year. Now Microsoft ups the ante by locking up an entire franchise. As the stakes get higher the fighting will get nastier and unless you open your wallets to buy both consoles you’ll eventually be left out in the cold with something. As a gamer I love competition because it forces each company to push the limits of what they can do to bring better products to the table. Competition breeds excellence! What I don’t like is consumers being played as pawns in greedy corporation’s bids for our dollar in low brow ways. In my humble opinion taking away the Tomb Raider franchise from the PS4 faithful is a bad move and flat out unfair. You don’t just take a multi-platform franchise and lock it up to a single platform like that. I mean sure it’s been done before but I still don’t like it.
That being said I’m still going to be purchasing it for my Xbox One because I want to play great games and I think that Crystal Dynamics is going to bring another awesome Tomb Raider experience. Perhaps now I’ll just put out the open invite to any of my spurned PS4 friends to come on over for a good old fashioned game night. Through all of this I can’t help but wonder what will happen next though? What’s the next power move and which set of console faithful will suffer? Only time will tell but it’s going to be an interesting next few years if what we’re seeing now is only the beginning.
What are your thoughts on the Tomb Raider deal? What do you think is in store for gamers as this ‘console war’ trudges on? |
Good Touch, Bad Touch
Rebecca wrote about parents, consent and touch here. It was well-written and moving. I see this from the parenting end of the spectrum. It is my job to make sure that my children can can access a sense of boundaries. Bodily autonomy is rationed, the most to the cis-het-white able adult men, and everyone else’s body is less private than that. In various ways, our culture puts everyone else’s bodies up for debate, examination, and nonconsensual touching. Kids more than adults, folks with disabilities more than folks without, folks with trans histories more than folks whose current identities match their assignment at birth, and women more than men. So I worry about all my kids; I worry most about my daughter, but I can’t know when and how they will encounter people who think they can’t or shouldn’t have boundaries, and I have to prepare them without knowing.
[UPDATE: I didn’t have it in mind when I was writing this, but my excellent coblogger and cocontributor Cedar Troost covered precisely this issue in zir Yes Means Yes essay, which I don’t have handy to properly reference. I found Cedar’s writing on this very influenial in my thinking at the time, and so I am indebted to Cedar for this piece.]
What Rebecca describes is a fight that cannot be won in a single engagement. It is a constant. Grandparents and aunts and uncles press in with their sense of entitlement to smooch and pat and kiss. If we teach our children to go along to get along, how is that differentiable from the gym teacher or the school nurse?
Many parents teach about “good touch and bad touch”, but what’s the point of alerting children to how they feel about inappropriate touch if we also teach them that there is nothing they can do about it? If the answer is, “if it makes you feel bad, suck it up,” they’ll learn it. They will learn to remain silent about the aunt’s intrusive kiss, the friend’s father’s inappropriate touch, and the thing that happened with that boy that they won’t call rape for months or years after.
The Shapely Prose link above links to this at Fugitivus. Harriet Jacobs wrote there:
If women are raised being told by parents, teachers, media, peers, and all surrounding social strata that: it is not okay to set solid and distinct boundaries and reinforce them immediately and dramatically when crossed (“mean bitch”)
it is not okay to appear distraught or emotional (“crazy bitch”)
it is not okay to make personal decisions that the adults or other peers in your life do not agree with, and it is not okay to refuse to explain those decisions to others (“stuck-up bitch”)
it is not okay to refuse to agree with somebody, over and over and over again (“angry bitch”)
it is not okay to have (or express) conflicted, fluid, or experimental feelings about yourself, your body, your sexuality, your desires, and your needs (“bitch got daddy issues”)
it is not okay to use your physical strength (if you have it) to set physical boundaries (“dyke bitch”)
it is not okay to raise your voice (“shrill bitch”)
it is not okay to completely and utterly shut down somebody who obviously likes you (“mean dyke/frigid bitch”) If we teach women that there are only certain ways they may acceptably behave, we should not be surprised when they behave in those ways. And we should not be surprised when they behave these ways during attempted or completed rapes. Women who are taught not to speak up too loudly or too forcefully or too adamantly or too demandingly are not going to shout “NO” at the top of their goddamn lungs just because some guy is getting uncomfortably close. Women who are taught not to keep arguing are not going to keep saying “NO.” Women who are taught that their needs and desires are not to be trusted, are fickle and wrong and are not to be interpreted by the woman herself, are not going to know how to argue with “but you liked kissing, I just thought…” Women who are taught that physical confrontations make them look crazy will not start hitting, kicking, and screaming until it’s too late, if they do at all. Women who are taught that a display of their emotional state will have them labeled hysterical and crazy (which is how their perception of events will be discounted) will not be willing to run from a room disheveled and screaming and crying. Women who are taught that certain established boundaries are frowned upon as too rigid and unnecessary are going to find themselves in situations that move further faster before they realize that their first impression was right, and they are in a dangerous room with a dangerous person.
[Emphasis supplied.]
The ones who are going along to get along are us, the parents. Let’s be honest: we don’t want to have to explain to our parents and siblings that their sense of entitlement is wrong. We don’t want to have to say the things that Rebecca says in her letter.
I’m tempted to say this is men’s job, but that’s oversimplified, and a product of my experiences, which are not everyone’s. Family structures are not all the same, and neither are family dynamics. But I’m a cis man raising children with a cis woman, and her relationship with family is more delicate than mine. I’m the one who can be an asshole. I’m the one who can say, “I’m their dad, and I told them they don’t have to kiss anyone they don’t want to.” I can’t say in every family who can do this job. I know in mine, it is me. And so I will do it.
The first person who must recognize and respect the right to say “no” is the self. Internalizing the ethos of going along to get along kills autonomy before it is ever communicated. If we teach the next generation that they can’t really say “no,” and mean it, they won’t even try. They’ll stifle that “no,” and swallow it, and it will rot there. And then our children with pay the price for our timidity.
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One of America’s favorite liberal phrases has been sent through the political spin machine and polished into a Frankenstein of sorts, thus rendering it inaccurate and far from its original intention. You might have heard that American founding father Benjamin Franklin said something like “Those who give up liberty for security deserve neither.”
The quote has been the siren song of anti-war protesters and, most recently, the banner for mass online protests against the NSA’s surveillance program. For instance, here was Reddit’s front page two days ago, when it officially joined the fight against Internet and phone spying.
As the Brookings Institute’s Benjamin Wittes observes, “Very few people who quote these words, however, have any idea where they come from or what Franklin was really saying when he wrote them.”
Despite its many (many) variations, this is the actual quote:
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
According to Wittes, the words appear in a letter widely presumed to be written by Franklin in 1755 on behalf of the Pennsylvania Assembly to the colonial governor. “The letter was a salvo in a power struggle between the governor and the assembly over funding for security on the frontier, one in which the assembly wished to tax the lands of the Penn family,” he explains.
The letter wasn’t about liberty but about taxes and the ability to “raise money for defense against French and Indian attacks. The governor kept vetoing the assembly’s efforts at the behest of the family, which had appointed him.”
Indeed, if you look at the text surrounding the famous quote, it’s pretty clearly about money: “Our assemblies have of late had so many supply bill, and of such different kinds, rejected, on various pretences,” wrote Franklin.
There’s not much on liberty, as we understand the concept, in the entire letter.
How Did It Get Butchered? To Google Ngram!
Thanks to the magic of Google’s Ngram viewer, we can get a historical peek at how it got molded for PR purposes. Google’s Ngram scans historical texts and lets users see how words change over time.
As we can see from the two chart above, Franklin’s quote didn’t mean much for 150 years after it was uttered, then had a solid and steady uptick around the later half of the 20th century, when fear of big brother began to mount (the top chart represents the frequency of the quote in books from 1750-present, the bottom from 1950-present).
In the few 19th-century books the quote does appear in, it doesn’t appear to be taken out of context, such as in the 1865 epic retelling of “The Life Of Joseph Warren,” where it is quoted in full with delicious servings of context.
But 19th-century authors weren’t always so committed to fidelity of the quote itself. In 1851, in a History of All Nations, the author wrote it in more of the modern form, “they who can give up liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
It wasn’t until the turn of the century did the butchering for ideological purposes begin. For instance, it was taken out of context in a book that is one of the closest things libertarians have to a bible, Frederick Hyak’s Road To Serfdom (1944), where Franklin’s quote concludes a chapter on the magnificence of the free market.
The banner anti-security quotes continue throughout the century in government reports on limited government and early apocalyptic warnings about the security state.
Misquoting folks isn’t new. It arises from the need to push an idea rather than investigate truth; it’s no shocker, then, that campaigns and ideological works have been the culprits of butchering Franklin’s words.
There’s even an academic term for the strategy, explains Matthew McGlone of the University of Texas at Austin — “contextomy.”
“‘Contextomy’ refers to the selective excerpting of words from their original linguistic context in a way that distorts the source’s intended meaning, a practice commonly referred to as ‘quoting out of context’. Contextomy is employed in contemporary mass media to promote products, defame public figures and misappropriate rhetoric. A contextomized quotation not only prompts audiences to form a false impression of the source’s intentions, but can contaminate subsequent interpretation of the quote when it is restored to its original context. …”
That’s about right. |
One of two jailed members of the Russian feminist punk group has discussed the harsh conditions of where she is serving her prison sentence
One of the two jailed members of Russian political opposition group Pussy Riot has said she is in solitary confinement after receiving death threats from other prisoners.
Maria Alyokhina, who with Nadezhda Tolokonnikova was imprisoned for performing a pro-gay, anti-Vladimir Putin song in a Moscow cathedral for two years, has revealed the harsh conditions where she is serving her sentence.
A third member of the group was also sentenced but released on appeal.
Speaking to an opposition newspaper, she said ‘the essence’ of the threats was ‘if you remain in this unit you are dead’, Yahoo.com reported.
Imprisoned at Corrective Labour Colony No 28 in the Perm Region, Alyokhina said she was ‘the only one who went to rights activists, representatives of [Russia’s] Public Monitoring Commissions’ watchdogs.
The feminist attempted to stand up for prisoners’ rights, revealing their boots and head scarves were not warm enough to withstand Russia’s minus 30 degrees celsius temperatures.
But other prisoners were offended by this and threatened Alyokhina, causing her to be moved into solitary confinement.
Fellow prisoner Nonna Ivanova said: ‘There’s a lot of people here, and everyone’s against her, everyone.’ She added: ‘They can do something to her.’
The Pussy Riot protester also railed against the ‘slave mentality’ developed by prisoners.
‘Rudeness, cowardice, treachery and denunciations, this is the norm’, she said, adding ‘people fall into line’.
Alyokhina remained defiant, saying the violent threats would not defeat her or keep her quiet.
‘I will overcome everything, nothing will happen to me. If they put pressure on me, I will declare a hunger strike and will be thrown into a punishment cell’, she said.
When the three members of Pussy Riot were arrested last year for being the masked singers in the video, it caused an international outrage.
Stars such as Madonna voiced their support for the band, while Amnesty International condemned the trial as being ‘politically motivated’. |
Donald Trump returned Saturday to the heart of his presidential campaign -- promising to stop problems that illegal immigration has created for Americans, after a freewheeling few days in which he flung accusations and attacks at Democratic rival Hillary Clinton over gun control and the President Obama’s citizenship.
Trump delivered his law-and-order message to a gathering in Houston of Remembrance Project families, dedicated to helping themselves and others after killings at the hands of illegal immigrants.
“Your stories are not featured in the news. You have no demonstrators taking to the streets on your behalf. You have no special interests taking up your cause, and politicians ignore your cries for help. But I never will,” Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, said amid more recent polls showing him essentially deadlocked with Clinton in the White House race.
A Fox News poll released Thursday shows Clinton ahead of Trump by just 1 percentage point among likely voters in a four-way ballot. Clinton receives 41 percent and Trump 40 percent, with Libertarian Gary Johnson at 8 percent and Green Party candidate Jill Stein at 3 percent.
In the head-to-head matchup with Clinton, Trump leads by 1 percentage point.
Clinton, whose single-digit lead has slipped since mid-August, spoke Saturday evening in Washington, D.C., at a Black Caucus Foundation’s awards dinner, her third day on the campaign trail after taking off a few days to recover from pneumonia.
Trump, a first-time candidate, nabbed the GOP nomination from a field of experience politicians in large part with a tough immigration stance that included a vow to “build a wall” along the southern border to keep out dangerous illegal immigrants and to deport the estimated 11 million people now living illegally in the U.S.
After struggling in recent weeks to find an immigration policy that would appeal to voters in the general election, Trump has essentially returned to his hardline positions, while trying to portray Clinton, a former secretary of state, as soft on illegal immigration.
“The matter of this country refusing to take back their deported citizens came before Hillary Clinton’s (State Department) desk,” Trump said Saturday. “But she failed to take forceful action and ignored the federal law requiring her to suspend visas to countries that don’t take back their citizens.”
He also said she has declined Remembrance Project’s offers to meet and argued Clinton, if elected, would extend President Obama’s “open border” polices and attempts to delay deportation through executive action.
“She will only meet with the donors and the special interests and the open border advocates,” Trump said. “Her plan calls for total amnesty in the first 100 days. … Sanctuary Cities, ignoring visa overstays, closing detention centers and a virtual end to immigration enforcement in the United States.”
His comments follow a wild past few days in which the Clinton and Trump camps exchanged attacks -- with Trump again using innuendo to go after Clinton and attract free publicity.
On Wednesday, Trump declined to say definitively that President Obama was born in the United States -- roughly eight years after stoking controversy about his citizenship, then dropping the issue in 2011 when the president made public his birth certificate documents.
Trump on Friday declared the issue over, but not before suggesting that the Clinton campaign, in its hard-fought 2008 Democratic presidential primary against Obama, was pushing the rumor that he was born in Kenya.
Clinton said on Twitter that Trump pushing the birther issue was “deplorable.” And on Saturday, the campaign told Fox News that neither Clinton nor the 2008 campaign suggested Obama was born outside of the U.S.
Trump also made the statement at the end of a campaign event at his new luxury hotel in Washington, D.C. -- after suggesting beforehand to expect a “major announcement.”
And he mused aloud about what might happen if Clinton’s Secret Service detail no longer carried weapons, an apparent effort to further suggest Clinton, if elected, would further take away Americans’ rights to own guns.
"I think her bodyguards should drop all weapons. Disarm immediately," Trump said. "Take their guns away, let's see what happens to her."
Trump made a similar suggestion in May about her Secret Service detail.
The Clinton campaign denounced the most recent remarks.
“This kind of talk should be out of bounds for a presidential candidate,” said campaign manager Robby Mook. “He is unfit to be president, and it is time Republican leaders stand up to denounce this disturbing behavior in their nominee." |
Story highlights The women posted from Tahiti, Bermuda and Chile, among other places
Drug haul has a street value of around AUD$30 million, reports say
(CNN) Two Canadian women who documented a lavish cruise trip to Australia on Instagram could face life in prison after police say they seized 95 kilograms of cocaine from their ship docked in Sydney Harbour.
Coconut water detox 💧🔅 A photo posted by @melinar___ on Aug 18, 2016 at 7:33pm PDT
Melina Roberge, 23, and Isabelle Lagacé, 28 -- as well as a third Canadian, 63-year-old Andre Tamine, who could also face a life sentence -- were refused bail this week, a source close to the case told CNN.
The three have been charged with importing drugs of a commercial volume into the country, Australian Federal Police said in a statement.
🌵🏁✔️ #peru2k16 A photo posted by @melinar___ on Aug 5, 2016 at 1:15pm PDT
The haul reportedly has a street value of around AUD$30 million ($23 million), and police told CNN affiliate Channel 7 that the seizure was Australia's biggest-ever drug bust through a "passenger stream."
The roles of the three arrested were yet to be determined, police said, and further arrests have not been ruled out.
Read More |
The 6th knight of Goddess Celestia's Sanctuary.Both the pony folk and the forest creatures know Virgo Fluttershy as the kindest pony that has ever lived. Her soft and warm voice brings peace of mind and some sort of comfort to any creature who listens to it.She's extremely shy, though, and fighting is the last thing she wants to do. She preffers peace, and gives her all to befriend even her foes. But if the circumtstances are dire, and there's no option left, she fights, and possess a power beyond imagination. If she opens her eyes and stares directly at her enemies, there would be no traces left of them, after her powerful attacks: Heavenly Treasure, Stare of Lotus, Angel's Blessing and Supreme Invocation of Spirits.So yeah, this is a cross-over between My Little Pony Friendship is Magic and Saint Seiya, the greatest anime ever made.Here are the rest of the Zodiac Mares zidanemina.deviantart.com/gall… |
Less than a month ago an unfinished version of Jeff Minter's Attack of the Mutant Camels for the unreleased Konix Multisystem was found and preserved. Since then fans of the fabled system have been hard at work to create an emulator for the long lost system - one which has been completed and made available to download for free.
Although the Konix Multisystem was due for release in 1990, it has taken twenty two years before anyone was able to actually sample what the console could do. To think we finally have everything we need to play on an unreleased console is nothing short of mind boggling. All we need now is the fan creation of the various bundled accessories and controllers that were set to be part of the console to play the emulator with.
The new emulator titled Slipstream, a codename for the console whilst in development, is currently compatible with the ROM of Jeff Minter's Attack of the Mutant Camels. Several other ROMs are included within a downloadable pack alongside Attack of the Mutant Camels, however, these are purely technical demos to showcase the power behind the system. All we need now are other developers like Jeff Minter to step forward with their unfinished Konix Multisystem titles to bring more of a selection over to the Slipstream emulator.
So should you feel like you missed out all those years ago, head on over to the Konix Multisystem fan page and get downloading. Full instructions on everything you need to do to get gaming can be found there.
Link: Download Konix Multisystem Emulator & Game ROMs |
By Jonathan Amos
BBC News science reporter
It may also have been used to knap, or split, flints
More details
The 20cm-long, 3cm-wide stone object, which is dated to be about 28,000 years old, was buried in the famous Hohle Fels Cave near Ulm in the Swabian Jura.
The prehistoric "tool" was reassembled from 14 fragments of siltstone.
Its life size suggests it may well have been used as a sex aid by its Ice Age makers, scientists report.
"In addition to being a symbolic representation of male genitalia, it was also at times used for knapping flints," explained Professor Nicholas Conard, from the department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology, at Tübingen University.
"There are some areas where it has some very typical scars from that," he told the BBC News website.
Researchers believe the object's distinctive form and etched rings around one end mean there can be little doubt as to its symbolic nature.
The Hohle Fels bird
Enlarge Image
The Tübingen team working Hohle Fels already had 13 fractured parts of the phallus in storage, but it was only with the discovery of a 14th fragment last year that the team was able finally to put the "jigsaw" together.
The different stone sections were all recovered from a well-dated ash layer in the cave complex associated with the activities of modern humans (not their pre-historic "cousins", the Neanderthals).
The dig site is one of the most remarkable in central Europe. Hohle Fels stands more than 500m above sea level in the Ach River Valley and has produced thousands of Upper Palaeolithic items.
Female forms, such as the 30,000-year-old Venus of Willendorf are more common
There are other stone objects known to science that are obviously phallic symbols and are slightly older - from France and Morocco, of particular note. But to have any representation of male genitalia from this time period is highly unusual.
"Female representations with highly accentuated sexual attributes are very well documented at many sites, but male representations are very, very rare," explained Professor Conard.
Current evidence indicates that the Swabian Jura of southwestern Germany was one of the central regions of cultural innovation after the arrival of modern humans in Europe some 40,000 years ago.
The Hohle Fels phallus will go on show at Blaubeuren prehistoric museum in an exhibition called Ice Art - Clearly Male. |
Six Flags took a dive on Monday and not in a fun roller coaster kind of way.
The theme park's shares plunged as much as 9% after the company disclosed an attendance drop.
Only 8.2 million people went to one of Six Flags (SIX)' 18 parks in April, May or June. That was an 8% drop from the prior year.
The company blamed the shrinking crowds on "lingering effects of the long, harsh winter" that extended school calendars and shortened many spring breaks.
But Wall Street isn't buying that argument, sending the stock on a Kingda Ka-sized sell-off.
"The path to recovery hit a little bit of a snag here. The growth trajectory has stumbled over the last couple of quarters," said James Hardiman, a senior research analyst at Longbow Research who covers Six Flags.
Related: Ukraine and Gaza fears hit stocks again
The slumping Six Flag attendance figures surprised Hardiman, who had been banking on a 6% jump thanks in part to the later Easter holiday.
The weather comments are also a head scratcher considering rival theme park operator Cedar Fair (FUN) says it has been seeing pent-up demand from thrill seekers who were stuck indoors all winter.
"We are seeing first-hand the excitement our guests are experiencing as they leave this winter's snowy, cold weather behind," Cedar Fair CEO Matt Ouimet said in the company's earnings release in May.
Cedar Fair recently reiterated a solid outlook for 2014 revenue, although the company did acknowledge some decrease in attendance.
While Six Flags posted stronger-than-expected earnings, its revenue of $377 million trailed projections from Wall Street for $396 million.
The theme park also said total guest spending per visitor jumped 11% in the second quarter to $44 a person as visitors spent more on tickets and goodies while roaming the parks. That's perhaps another indicator of the economic recovery.
Related: Wall Street reform law only half done
Investors may be wondering if the turnaround ride is over. Shares of Six Flags closed at $39.31, down 4.1% on the day. Fellow theme park SeaWorld Entertainment (SEAS) shed nearly 2% on Monday.
Slammed by the Great Recession and heavy debt, Six Flags filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009. The theme park raced out of bankruptcy court, with its stock surging around 50% in 2011 and then again in 2012.
But recently the ride for investors has more closely resembled the Enchanted Teacups than the record-setting Zumanjaro. Six Flags trailed the broader markets by rising only 20% in 2013 and less than 5% this year.
"These guys had done a great job over the past few years as the company emerged from bankruptcy. But I think a lot of the low-hanging fruit has been picked," said Hardiman, who has a "hold" rating on the stock. |
The behaviour of semipalmated sandpipers (Calidris pusilla) feeding during low tide in the Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick, surprised Guy Beauchamp, an ornithologist and research officer at the University of Montreal's Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. While individuals on the periphery remained alert and used short pecks to feed on the mudflats, birds in the middle of the group relaxed their vigilance and fed on a different resource. The more peripheral group members were effectively used as sentinels for the others.
Two observation seasons were needed to confirm this never-before-documented behaviour. The phenomenon attracted the attention of Britain's Royal Society, which has just published the results of Beauchamp's research in the most recent edition of its Biology Letters. "Both foraging modes are easy to distinguish," Beauchamp explained. "In the first case, the birds keep their heads upright while pecking at their food rapidly; they are on the lookout for predators. In the second case, their heads are kept low while they scrape the mud in search of tiny organisms."
Scientists know that living in groups provides individuals with added protection and increases their chances of survival. Beauchamp's discovery provides further information about the precise mechanisms that lead to this advantage. Peripheral birds must be on the lookout for predators (in this case mainly the silhouettes of falcons, which can strike the sandpipers at any moment), allowing the central birds to use different resources. "During their stopover in eastern Canada, sandpipers must optimize their strength to continue their migration. Any advantage helps," Beauchamp said.
It took two sessions of three weeks in the field, in 2011 and 2012, for the biologist to confirm these observations. He observed 466 birds in 43 flocks before drawing his conclusions. They feed on biofilm, which requires a dangerous relaxing of vigilance that is really only possible in the safest part of the group. Biofilm refers to the smorgasbord of diatoms and phytoplankton that sandpipers filter in their beaks in a back-and-forth movement. Their other form of diet consists of amphipods, which the wading birds capture after spotting them visually.
In Beauchamp's field site, north of the Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick, thousands stop over to feed on the tidal mudflats. "This finding provides a novel benefit of living in groups, which may have a broad relevance given that social foraging species often exploit a large array of resources," he explained. Semipalmated sandpipers are a relatively abundant species whose survival does not appear threatened in the short term. This is not the case for all species of shorebirds, some of which suffer greatly from the ecological imbalances caused by global warming.
### |
(Travis County Sheriff''s Office)
Texas Governor Rick Perry turned himself in to authorities in Austin Tuesday evening, posing for a mug shot just days after an indictment was issued against him for two felony charges.
Perry stood in front of a light blue background at the Travis County courthouse as he had his mugshot taken, removing his glasses and smiling ever so slightly, with no teeth showing. Afterwards, the Texas governor didn't seem all that bothered by the booking, deciding to treat himself to an ice cream cone.
. @GovernorPerry grabbing a cone at Sandy's on Barton Springs Road just now. pic.twitter.com/01oA42Kqx7 — felix (@Felix_Browne) August 19, 2014
Perry's booking comes just four days after he was first indicted on two felony counts - abuse of official capacity and coercion of a public official. The charges originate from Perry threatening to veto $7.5 million in funding for the state's public integrity unit unless District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg resigned following a DWI conviction in 2013.
Mobbed by cameras and supporters chanting "Perry, Perry, Perry," Texas Gov. Rick Perry sidled up to a podium outside the courthouse before turning himself in late Tuesday.
"I'm here today because I believe in the rule of law and I'm here today because I did the right thing. I'm going to enter this courthouse with my head held high, knowing that the actions that I took were not only lawful and legal but right," Perry said to cheers outside the Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center in downtown Austin, Texas. "And if I had to do so, I would veto funding for the public integrity unit again."
"I'm going to fight this injustice with every fiber of my being. And we will prevail. And we'll prevail because we're standing for the rule of law," he added.
Perry spoke to reporters again after his booking, calling the indictment a "political act."
"This indictment is fundamentally a political act that seeks to achieve in a courthouse what could not be achieved at the ballot box," he said.
Perry's arraignment is currently scheduled for 9:00 a.m. on Friday, the same day he's scheduled to appear in New Hampshire.
Michael Czin, national press secretary for the Democratic National Committee, said the booking was a "sideshow" for Perry and that he would be held responsible for his actions when he appears in court.
"This may be a sideshow to Rick Perry but no amount of spin can cover up two felony charges. When Rick Perry has his day in court, his case will be decided by the facts, not theatrics," Czin said. "We look forward to the evidence being presented in court that convinced a jury of the Governor's peers to indict." |
Locke & Key is an American comic book series written by Joe Hill, illustrated by Gabriel Rodríguez and published by IDW Publishing.
Plot summary [ edit ]
This plot is presented in non-chronological order. During the American Revolution, a group of Rebels, hiding beneath the future Keyhouse, discover a portal to another dimension, the plains of Leng filled with demons which can mesmerize any who see them and possess through touch. However, when the demons attempt to enter the real world, they collapse into lumps of "whispering iron", which young smith Benjamin Locke forges into a variety of magical keys, including the Omega Key, which seals the entrance to the dimension. The magic of the Keyhouse gradually evolves over the years, including a spell which causes occupants to forget about the keys and the magic of the house when they pass their 18th birthday. In 1988, a group of teenagers, having used the keys extensively in their high school years to their great delight, decide to open the black door with the Omega Key, hoping to trick a demon into entering the real world in order to provide more metal with which to make more keys. However, Rendell Locke's younger brother follows the group and is mesmerized by the door. Attempting to walk through it, he is stopped by Dodge, who accidentally puts his hand through the door, becoming possessed. After plotting to kill his friends and enslave the others at the behest of the Child of Leng possessing him, Rendell kills Dodge, trapping his possessed soul in the well.
Many years later, Dodge's spirit reaches out to a young abused prodigy, Sam Lesser, and convinces him to attack the Lockes and kill Rendell, looking for the Omega Key, as well as the Anywhere Key, which is capable of freeing Dodge from the well. After the gruesome murder of their father, the Locke kids, Tyler, Kinsey and Bode move with their mother Nina across the country to Keyhouse and begin discovering its secrets. Sam escapes prison and follows the Lockes to Massachusetts. He attacks the family again at Keyhouse, at which time Dodge tricks Bode into bringing him the Anywhere Key. Dodge escapes from the well, kills Sam and returns to Lovecraft in the same body as he had thirty years before.
Dodge re-enters high school under the guise of a new student, intimidating his way into the home of one of Kinsey's teachers and Dodge's former friends. Over the next year, Dodge secretly tries to recover the various keys - in particular the Omega Key - from the children, collecting many though hindered by Tyler and Kinsey. Dodge is eventually discovered but manages to switch bodies and possess Bode before they can kill him. Now free to explore the house as Bode, Dodge finally finds the Omega Key and plans his takeover after-prom party in the caves. Releasing several demons, many of the students are killed. Dodge is ultimately undone by Tyler and Dodge's spirit is forced back into the well, though Bode's empty body is cremated before Bode's soul has a chance to return to it. In the epilogue, Tyler returns to the well to finally free Dodge's spirit from the demon, having used a sliver of whispering iron inherited from his father to forge an "Alpha Key" capable of undoing possession. Tyler is able to speak with his father one last time, and restore Bode's physical form.
Publication history [ edit ]
The narrative of Locke & Key is structured in three acts. Each arc consisting of two storylines of monthly six issues apiece. Act One's first story arc, Welcome to Lovecraft, was a six-issue limited series published by IDW Publishing. The first issue of Welcome to Lovecraft was released on February 20, 2008 and sold out in a single day, requiring a second printing to be done immediately.[1] The second arc of Act One, entitled Head Games, commenced with the release of the first issue on January 22, 2009.[2] The actual Head Games story was printed in four issues, with a standalone prologue ("Intermission" or "The Joe Ridgeway Story") and a standalone conclusion ("Army Of One").[3]
Act Two of the Locke & Key story consists of two limited, six-issue miniseries; the first storyline of Act Two, Crown of Shadows, began in late 2009.[4] The second storyline, Keys to the Kingdom, began in August 2010.
The first storyline of Act Three was announced as Time & Tide,[5] but was retitled Clockworks.[6] The second, and concluding, storyline is entitledAlpha & Omega.
The first five story arcs were to have been released in a monthly format with the sixth published as an original graphic novel. The plan changed and the concluding story arc appeared in monthly installments. [7][8][9]
Story arcs [ edit ]
"Welcome to Lovecraft" [ edit ]
Issue Release Summary #1 February 20, 2008 After the murder of their father, Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode Locke relocate with their mother to the family estate of Keyhouse, located in Lovecraft, Massachusetts. Sam Lesser, one of the teens who murdered Mr. Locke, is in a juvenile detention center and, by gazing in water, communicates with a supernatural force that promises to free him. Bode Locke, the youngest of the family, uncovers The Ghost Door, which separates his spirit from his body. #2 March 26, 2008 Bode continues to experiment with The Ghost Door and, in his incorporeal form, spies on his brother, sister, and mother. During his journeys, Bode discovers a well that houses a creature who appears as a girl, the supernatural force previously communicating with Sam Lesser. #3 April 30, 2008 Sam Lesser uses the tools the girl gave him to escape from the detention center. #4 May 28, 2008 Sam Lesser travels across America, making his way towards Keyhouse. His cross-country journey is mirrored by a series of flashbacks into his memories. #5 June 25, 2008 The Locke family is taken hostage by Sam Lesser who is seeking the Anywhere Key for his Master, the girl in the well. #6 July 30, 2008 Bode uncovers the Anywhere Key and trades it with the girl in the well for a promise that she'll stop Sam Lesser. Freed from her prison, she keeps her promise by throwing Sam through the Ghost Door with no chance to return.
Issue Release Chapter Title Summary #1 January 28, 2009 Intermission[3] Professor Joe Ridgeway recognizes Zack Wells as Lucas Caravaggio, a teenager who disappeared over twenty years before, along with several other students, and who has long been presumed dead. Joe soon sets out to dig up the truth on Wells, but Zack proves ruthless in his desire for secrecy. #2 February 25, 2009 Chapter One A shocking death throws Kinsey and Tyler Locke into choppy emotional waters. They turn to Zack Wells for support, not knowing him to be the murderer. Meanwhile, six-year-old Bode Locke tries to puzzle out the secret of the head key, and Uncle Duncan is jarred into the past by a disturbingly familiar face. #3 March 4, 2009 Chapter Two Kinsey, Tyler, and Bode discover the head key allows them to open up people's minds and play with their memories. #4 April 8, 2009 Chapter Three Duncan Locke finds himself faced with a dizzying, impossible revelation; Tyler makes the ill-considered decision to share with others the unlikely powers of the head key; and Kinsey opts to remove troubling emotions from her mind. #5 May 20, 2009 Chapter Four Dodge uses the head key on Duncan Locke, sparing his life but inadvertently leading to the injury of Locke's live-in-boyfriend. #6 July 1, 2009 Army of One[3] We learn how Dodge maintains control of Ellie even without the use of a head key in a flashback sequence.
"Crown of Shadows" [ edit ]
Issue Release Chapter Title Summary #1 November 11, 2009 The Haunting of Keyhouse[10] Sam Lesser may be dead and gone, but Dodge still has uses for him, and in the first chill days of October, will make contact with him again. The dead know things the living may not, and Sam's restless spirit has had time to discover the thing Dodge wants to know most of all... where to find the key to the black door. #2 December 16, 2009 In the Cave Far below Keyhouse lies the Drowning Cave, a place where shadows obscure ancient secrets, and the stones are stained with ancient blood. Kinsey Locke descends into the cavern, looking for answers to her family's troubled past, only to discover that it's easier to get in than it is to get out... #3 February 17, 2010 Last Light[11] Dodge takes possession of the crown of shadows, and darkness falls upon Keyhouse... with a vengeance. #4 March 17, 2010 Shadow Play[12] Kinsey and Bode find themselves in a desperate, seemingly unwinnable battle against a rising army of living shadows, while Tyler faces down Dodge in a terrifying duel of wits and wills. #5 April 28, 2010 Light of Day[13] The owners of the Giant Key and the Shadow Key go head to head. #6 July 14, 2010 Beyond Repair[14] In a terrible night of grief and rage, Nina Locke discovers a new key, one which opens a cabinet capable of mending smashed objects; but some things, she will learn, are beyond repair...
"Keys to the Kingdom" [ edit ]
Issue Release Chapter Title Summary #1 August 11, 2010 Sparrow[15] As the new arc begins, Bode Locke discovers a key that unlocks the world of tooth, fang, claw, and feather, in a story that leaves hundreds dead! Hundreds of birds, that is. #2 October 20, 2010[16] White[17] On a bitter winter day, Kinsey Locke encounters a madwoman who just might be able to unlock the darkest secrets of Keyhouse. But forcing the truth out of her won't be easy, and besides... Dodge has no intention of ever giving Erin Voss a chance to tell what she knows. #3 November 24, 2010 February Dodge and the Locke children do battle via their keys over 29 days. The cover image shows a February 2012 calendar page (the final 2 in 2012 is obscured by a bloody hand print, but only 2012 fits, being a leap year February beginning on a Wednesday). #4 January 26, 2011[18] Casualties When Squadron Strange accept a mission from a ghost, they find themselves on their most perilous raid ever... straight into the heart of a haunted mansion. Sgt. Rufus Whedon and Corporal Bode Locke have a terrifying lesson to learn: if you're dealing with a dead man, you better think fast and fight hard, if you don't want to wind up one yourself. #5 March 2, 2011[19] Detectives, Part 1 Tyler Locke begins, finally, to consider what he knows about the terrifying but mysterious enemy that has harrowed the Locke family for months—only to find that all the evidence points to a single suspect: Zack Wells. #6 April 27, 2011 Detectives, Part 2 'Keys to the Kingdom' comes to a close as Dodge and Tyler Locke confront one another at last. Tyler came armed with the truth; Dodge prefers sharper instruments, and shows his willingness to use them.
Issue Release Chapter Title Summary #1 July 20, 2011[20] The Locksmith's Son Colonel Adam Crais's minutemen are literally trapped between a rock and a hard place; in the first days of the Revolutionary War, they find themselves hiding beneath 120 feet of New England stone, with a full regiment of redcoats waiting for them in the daylight... and a door into hell in the cavern below. The black door is open, and it's up to a 16-year-old smith named Ben Locke to find a way to close it. The biggest mysteries of the Locke & Key series are resolved as Clockworks opens, not with a bang, but with the thunderous crash of English cannons. #2 August 31, 2011[21] SMASH! Terror runs wild, and the Locke family comes to grief in the smash-ingest story of the series yet! #3 December 14, 2011[22] The Tamers of the Tempest The Omega Key to The Black Door has been found by the one, who calls himself The Legion. #4 February 1, 2012[23] The Whispering Iron The tamers of The Tempest—Rendell Locke, Dodge Caravaggio, and their friends—descend into the Drowning Cave to open the Black Door, hoping to get their hands on some of the fabled whispering iron, the material from which all of the keys are forged. And everything goes according to plan! Not. #5 March 14, 2012[24] Grown-Ups Lucas "Dodge" Caravaggio returns from the Drowning Cave, infected by a parasite of the soul; the good and loving friend has been left behind, and replaced by something free of all human feeling. Searching for a way to control him, the Keepers of the Keys make a dreadful choice... and set off a chain of events that will end in an unimaginable slaughter. #6 May 16, 2012[25] Curtain As a storm thunders up the coast to Lovecraft, Massachusetts, the Keepers of the Keys face Dodge a final time, under three hundred feet of stone, in the darkness before the Black Door. Here, water will mix with blood and The Drowning Cave will become a colossal grave, in the final issue of the CLOCKWORKS storyline.
The final hardcover is titled Locke & Key: Alpha & Omega, and collects Omega #1–5, and Alpha 1 and 2.[26]
Issue Release Chapter Title Summary Omega #1 November 14, 2012 Our Regrets The beginning of the end starts here. Dodge has the Omega key, and nothing can stop him from using it... Omega #2 December 19, 2012 The Soldier A ghost haunts the long halls of Keyhouse—the spirit of Bode Locke, cast out of his body by the Demon named Dodge—and only one person can hear his voice: Bode's old playmate, Rufus Whedon.[27] Omega #3 February 20, 2013 Last Dance As Kinsey Locke and the other students head to a dance at Lovecraft Academy, the demonic Dodge gathers shadowy forces of his own and enacts his evil endgame. The “Last Dance” begins here.[28] Omega #4 April 3, 2013 Human Sacrifices The bottomless pit of the Drowning Cave threatens to become a mass grave, as Dodge springs a fatal trap on the senior class of Lovecraft Academy. Hope is as fragile as a candle-flame wavering in the night. . . and as easy to extinguish. Omega #5 June 5, 2013 The Fall In the Drowning Cave, the black door is open at last, and for the kids trapped down there, the choice is simple: resist and die, or pass through the door and be lost forever. In the hole beneath Keyhouse the stones run with blood, the living shadows run riot, and time runs out... as Locke & Key enters its final chapters. Alpha #1[29] September 11, 2013[30] Alpha In the second-to-the-last issue of Locke & Key, the damned and the saved alike will make their final stand in the Drowning Cave, in a clash of blood and fire. The shadows have never been darker and the end has never been closer. Turn the key and open the last door; it's time to say goodbye.[31] Alpha #2 December 18, 2013[32] The Last Door "The End." A door claps softly shut. A key scrapes in a last rusted lock. It ends here: the story of the Locke children and their desperate, tragic battle with the monster set on destroying them... the past.[33]
"The Golden Age" [ edit ]
A series of six one-shot stories set in the past.[34]
Issue Release Chapter Title Summary #1 November 23, 2011 Open the Moon (Guide to the Known Keys) This special standalone issue features an expanded Guide to the Known Keys, an all-new Guide to Failed Keys, and a story of summer night magic titled "Open the Moon", set in Keyhouse's unlikely past. #2 August 29, 2012 Grindhouse Set in the glare of a Depression-era summer, in which three Canuck gangsters carry out a heist and hide out at the Keyhouse. Locke & Key: Grindhouse includes an expanded "Guide to Keyhouse" describing the mansion. #3 December 21, 2016 Small World An impossible birthday gift for two little girls unexpectedly throws open a door to a monster on eight legs. Joe Hill has said that the title is a shout out to the horror novel of the same name by his mother Tabitha King.[35]
Collected editions [ edit ]
Standard editions [ edit ]
Hardcover Release Title Summary ISBN Vol. 1 October 8, 2008 Welcome to Lovecraft Collects Welcome to Lovecraft #1–6 978-1600102370 (Hardcover)
978-1600103841 (Paperback) Vol. 2 September 30, 2009 Head Games Collects Head Games #1–6 978-1600048311 (Hardcover)
978-1600107610 (Paperback) Vol. 3 July 29, 2010 Crown of Shadows Collects Crown of Shadows #1–6 978-1600106958 (Hardcover)
978-1600109539 (Paperback) Vol. 4 July 19, 2011 Keys to the Kingdom Collects Keys to the Kingdom #1–6 978-1600108860 (Hardcover)
978-1613772072 (Paperback) Vol. 5 July 24, 2012 Clockworks Collects Clockworks #1–6 978-1613772270 (Hardcover)
978-1613776995 (Paperback) Vol. 6 February 4, 2014 Alpha & Omega Collects Omega #1–5 and Alpha #1–2 978-1613778531 (Hardcover)
978-1631401442 (Paperback) — January 4, 2017 Small World[36] Collects "Golden Age" stand-alone issue Small World. 978-1631408465 (Hardcover)
TBA (Paperback) — August 15, 2017 Heaven and Earth[37] Collects "Golden Age" stand-alone issues: Open the Moon (Guide to Known Keys), 'Grindhouse, and "In the Can", a rare Locke and Key short that was published in IDW:10 Year Anniversary Comic Book in 2009) 978-1684051816 (Hardcover)
TBA (Paperback)
Signed limited editions [ edit ]
On November 11, 2007, Subterranean Press announced a pre-order for a hand-numbered, signed, limited edition of the six-issue run of Welcome To Lovecraft. This edition consisted of 250 numbered copies and 26 lettered copies, both of which sold out within 24 hours of being announced.[38][39] This edition was a hardcover release in a specially designed and illustrated slipcase, and featured exclusive dust jacket art by Vincent Chong and reprinted all 250 pages of Joe Hill's script in addition to the actual comic work.[40]
This was followed by the publication of Head Games, which was also limited to 250 hand-numbered and signed copies as well as 26 lettered copies.[41] The third volume, Crown of Shadows, is available for preorder, and like the previous editions is signed and numbered with the same limitations and also comes with an illustrated slipcase.[42] Cloth-bound trade editions limited to 1000 copies (unsigned, unnumbered, and without the slipcase) were also released. Trade editions for the first two volumes are sold out.
Awards and nominations [ edit ]
At the 2009 Eisner Awards, Locke & Key was nominated for "Best Limited Series" and Joe Hill was nominated for "Best Writer".[citation needed]
It won the 2009 British Fantasy Award for Best Comic or Graphic Novel.[citation needed]
It won the 2011 Eisner Award for Best Writer (Joe Hill), and was nominated for Best Single Issue, Best Continuing Series, and Best Penciller.
It won the 2012 British Fantasy Award for Best Comic or Graphic Novel.[43]
Adaptations [ edit ]
Film [ edit ]
A film trilogy was officially announced at the 2014 Comic Con. Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Bobby Cohen and Ted Adams would produce the film with Universal Pictures and Kurtzman and Orci's production company K/O Paper Products.[44]
In October 2015, Joe Hill confirmed that the films are no longer happening. However, he stated that TV series is still possible.[45] In May 2016, Joe Hill announced he will write a TV pilot, serve as executive producer and pitch the show to various networks and streaming companies.[46]
Television [ edit ]
Fox pilot (2010-2011) [ edit ]
Dimension Films acquired the film and television rights for Welcome to Lovecraft from IDW Publishing with the intent of developing the property as a feature with John Davis producing.[47] In February 2010, it was announced that Dimension had lost the adaptation rights to Dreamworks[48] with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci signed on to develop and produce the project.[49] In August 2010 Steven Spielberg also joined as a producer, and the production became a TV series rather than a movie adaptation, with Josh Friedman writing episodes for the show and acting as show-runner.[50]
Mark Romanek directed the pilot episode,[58] which was filmed at the mansion in Hartwood Acres and in Ellwood City, Pennsylvania, in February 2011. The pilot was also shot throughout Pittsburgh that same month.[59] In May 2011, Fox announced that the project would not be picked up to the series.[60] The studio attempted to sell the project to other networks but eventually ceased efforts due to rising costs. The pilot was screened at the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con International, where it was well received.[61]
Hulu pilot (2017-2018) [ edit ]
On April 20, 2017, Hulu ordered a pilot based on the comic with Carlton Cuse, Scott Derrickson, and Lindsey Springer as producers.[62] In July 2017, Derrickson was replaced by Andy Muschietti as the pilot's director.[63] In August 2017, Frances O'Connor was cast as Nina in the show.[64] In a March 2018 interview, Samantha Mathis revealed that Hulu had passed on the show,[65] which is currently now being shopped around to other networks.
Netflix series (2019-) [ edit ]
On May 30, 2018, after Hulu had passed on Locke & Key, it was announced that Netflix was nearing a series order for a re-developed version of the show with Cuse and Hill involved once again, and Muschietti as executive producer. The show will find a new director for the pilot and a new cast.[66]
Audio drama [ edit ]
All six books of Locke & Key were adapted as a 13-hour audio drama released on 5 October 2015. Produced by the AudioComics Company for Audible Studios and directed by William Dufris, the work features the voices of Tatiana Maslany, Haley Joel Osment, Kate Mulgrew, with appearances by Hill, Rodríguez, and Stephen King in addition to almost 50 voice-over actors[67] and an original score by Peter Van Riet. The work received critical praise, and in 2016 was nominated for four Audie Awards from the Audiobook Publisher's Association of America, including "Best Original Work" and "Excellence in Production."
Card game [ edit ]
In 2012, Cryptozoic Entertainment released a card game based on the series.[68]
References [ edit ] |
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